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138 - Live at the Red Rock Ballroom in Las Vegas

September 13, 2018 /

This episode covers the live podcast recording featuring hosts Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark, along with discussions about their experiences in Las Vegas, the murder of Jerry Soles, and the story of Ted Binion. Key topics include their hotel stay, humorous anecdotes, and true crime stories.

Karen and Georgia share their excitement about performing in Las Vegas, highlighting their luxurious hotel experience, complete with heated toilet seats and a butler. They recount funny moments from their stay, including a chaotic live audience and their interactions with fans.

The episode transitions into the murder of Jerry Soles, a trapeze artist found dead in Las Vegas. The hosts detail the investigation, including the involvement of Fred Sties, who was wrongfully convicted for the crime, and the eventual exoneration after evidence was revealed.

Following this, they discuss the convoluted story of Ted Binion, a casino owner whose death was ruled a homicide. The hosts cover the details of his relationship with Sandy Murphy and Rick Tabish, the subsequent investigation, and the trial that led to their convictions.

Throughout the episode, the hosts maintain a comedic tone while addressing serious topics, making for an entertaining and informative live recording.

TLDR

Hosts Karen and Georgia share Las Vegas experiences and true crime stories, including the murders of Jerry Soles and Ted Binion.

Episode

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What's up, Las Vegas? What the fuck? Yes! Hi! Shit! Oh my God. When was the last time this conference room had this many screaming people in it?
00:02:18
Yeah, I'll tell you what. Last night. I'm much louder than Georgia. Much louder.
00:02:24
Am I? Yes. Okay. What? Yes. I thought I was way louder than you. I just thought you meant in life are you louder than me.
00:02:31
No, that's a yes. Okay. I was going to say, it was super loud in here last night.
00:02:39
They were selling timeshares, and it was fucking nuts. It was like, they were the good ones.
00:02:45
We bought them. Yeah. A couple of them. We bought a couple timeshares. Oh, my God.
00:02:51
You guys, how's it going? This is so exciting. This is our first show of 2018. And nothing will live up to it.
00:03:07
The screaming was incredible. And it's in a fully carpeted conference room. So it's more of an accomplishment.
00:03:16
What you guys are doing. Making sound come out of basically a large, one of those big cat apartment buildings.
00:03:25
Yeah. But for people. Those people in the hallway are so confused as to what's going on in here.
00:03:30
They're like, is this a Mormon thing? What's happening? You guys, this is the best buffet.
00:03:37
It's $1.99. It's all waffles. I think someone told the Red Rock Casino that Beyonce was coming because we accidentally got the...
00:03:51
It's not even a hotel room. It's the nice I've never in my life. I think we own this casino now.
00:04:00
The rooms that we're in. What the fuck? We're walking down the hallway. We check in.
00:04:04
And then Karen is the first one to go to her room. And Vincent are walking still.
00:04:09
And then she picks her head out and goes, what the fuck? I thought it was mirrors.
00:04:16
When I looked, I swear to God. I looked and I'm like, cute mirrors. And I was like, oh my God, it's a whole room.
00:04:23
It's like marble, mirrors. It'd be like an Egyptian pharaoh's dream come true. It's nutso.
00:04:33
Can we talk about the important thing? Sure. The bathrooms. Let me tell you about it.
00:04:38
Oh. The bathrooms. Yes. It's one suite, two bedrooms. Four bathrooms. Four bathrooms.
00:04:48
Two bathtubs. Per. Purr. Heated toilet seats in every bathroom. Hot. Hot toilet seats.
00:04:57
Hot toilet seats. Hot ones. Yes, I am easily impressed. Well, and I mean, I'm telling you, America needs to catch up on bidets.
00:05:07
Yeah. Yeah. Sorry, hold on. The girls in the front row are all saying hi. You're like fucking five minutes late and screaming hi to each other, not to us.
00:05:20
it's like what the fuck is happening anyhow bidets you guys are insane what the fuck and then uh it's like a robot washing your ass okay
00:05:35
and then so i i call i facetimed with my seven-year-old nephew to be like he'll be interested
00:05:42
in this because he thinks i'm boring maybe he'll think i'm cool and so i showed him around the place
00:05:47
and all the incredible things. Oh, and the toilet, when you walk up to it, it opens on its own.
00:05:52
This is like a fucking robot. This is so cool. I actually pulled it open and it shut its I not kidding It scared the shit out of me I was like the toilet won let me have it It like when you try to pump your own gas in certain places
00:06:07
and you get like fined for it. Yeah. Like, but I want to take care of myself like I always have.
00:06:11
Oregon says no. No. Can't do it. My nephew said, that's nice. Look at my house. And then he showed
00:06:19
me the Minecraft game he was playing. He could not have given less of shit. That little asshole.
00:06:25
Yeah. Well, I showed my sister. I sent her a bunch of pictures because that's her favorite thing.
00:06:32
She likes it when we're in one normal hotel room with a nice bed and maybe a chair, a plant or
00:06:38
something. That's exciting enough for her. And I just took this like five minute video where I was
00:06:43
like in your face. You'll never see art like this again. A pool table, you stupid
00:06:49
shit. It got really violent. But fun. But then then the doorbell rings and it's the butler. I'm not
00:07:01
joking. Wait, what? Are you guys mad? You don't get a butler? I don't get a butler.
00:07:06
I got a butler. His name is John and he'll bring me anything I want. Yeah. And he's here tonight. Get up here, you motherfucker.
00:07:20
No, um... No, he's working for all the other high rollers and better gamblers that are in this building right now.
00:07:27
I don't think he works for the hotel. What? I think he just answered the door to us. I didn't get a butler.
00:07:33
That's so sexy! If you're gonna try to creep into my room, please pretend to be a butler.
00:07:40
It will work. Is he in your room right now? Is he waiting for you? Yeah, he just sits there.
00:07:45
No. Can we get security? He basically showed me how to turn on the TVs. What? Yeah.
00:07:53
Dude. Yeah. Someone's getting fired, and it's Vince for not fucking getting the butler to come.
00:07:59
And then here's Vince on the phone. I'm telling you, if they both don't get butlers, they will cancel the show.
00:08:05
A podcast. A live podcast. I know. You've never heard of it. Listen. There's two ladies.
00:08:11
People like it. Wow. Podcast divas. That's who we are. Oh, God. I forgot. There's giant pictures of us.
00:08:26
What? On the side there. Look. No. That's a bummer, huh? No. Can I tell you, the special guest tonight is the biggest zit I've ever had in my fucking life.
00:08:39
But you're hometown murder. I'm going to hold the mic right here the entire night.
00:08:47
That's how you do it. If there was a close-up, it would look like Eileen Wuornos in that crazy fucking photo.
00:08:54
Like that's my fucking zit. What's your problem? What do you have going on? Are you the house photographer or are you someone's mom?
00:09:05
Yay! She's just cute. she's just a sweet person that could have been a camera knife of course the late people did
00:09:14
nothing to help us um tell them about your foot oh i sprained my ankle everybody oh
00:09:24
regular people like stuff like that that made me sick to my stomach thank you i just you know what i'm not wearing a brace normally i have like a little bit of a
00:09:37
you know, just from CVS, a brace. And I kind of just walk like I'm considering things, you know?
00:09:42
Just kind of like, mm-hmm. Yeah, I see. I see. I saw when you got here. It's actually perfect for me because, like, this week in therapy,
00:09:53
we talked about me calming down with my impatience and need to go everywhere all the time immediately
00:09:58
and freak the fuck out over everything, including in the airport, especially in the airport.
00:10:03
So, like, I have to slow down. Otherwise, I'm an asshole. just like, and like fucking speed walking away.
00:10:10
And I'm back there, go ahead, that's fine. It's perfect timing. Oh, get my butler to pick me up.
00:10:15
No big deal. No big deal. Oh, she got me on that one. Steven's not here. Oh, yeah, sorry.
00:10:25
You don't even really like him that much. Don't fucking make it up. Now that sound I like.
00:10:30
Can't explain it. He can't come on the road all the time. Yeah, he has my cats to watch.
00:10:37
Yes. He has like 17 jobs. I mean, do you know how many emails you people send him?
00:10:44
It's crazy. It's crazy. You know what I was wondering? Do you think he, like when he goes to my house, when we're gone, puts his mustache on every single thing?
00:10:55
Like touches the remote control of his mustache. Touches all the doorknob with his mustache.
00:10:59
Just be like, my mustache is here. Just a peek inside George's mind. It sounds like what you need to do is set up a mustache nanny cam and catch that motherfucker in the act.
00:11:11
I think you're right. I mean, that's fine. His DNA is all over my house then. That's right.
00:11:16
Mustache DNA? What if it's a fake mustache? I know it's a fake mustache. He's doing it for attention.
00:11:24
Even that mustache. Now I have to stand like a horse because I have a sprained ankle.
00:11:30
Did anyone else notice this? Oh, it looks casual. I'm a little Clydesdale-y anyway, so I'm fine with it.
00:11:38
Don't look at these screens, okay? Just look over here. Pretend those don't exist.
00:11:43
I lived through the 90s. Look at me. I lived. I lived. I don't like it. I lived.
00:11:55
Well this is my favorite Murder the podcast Oh yeah That Karen Kilgara Hi. And that's your friend Georgia Hardstark right there.
00:12:12
Thanks. And I have pockets. Oh, my God. Walk them around. Yes, yes, yes, yes. This really sweet girl who makes dresses in L.A.
00:12:23
named April just keeps fucking giving me her dresses. Yeah, she's smart. Uh-huh.
00:12:29
That's how you do business in LA. You just put the thing in the person's hand and then you're like
00:12:33
put this on sometime. Oh, thank you. Yes. Mine's from Target. Thank you. $29.99.
00:12:49
And if any dress in the world should have pockets. It's this one because it's practically a jumper.
00:12:55
It's very childlike. It has the 70s zip pull. Oh, that goes all the way to your belly button, doesn't it? I can do what I want
00:13:03
right now. We could go a total after hours club style in here. I feel like... Right, Vegas? You're up for that
00:13:11
all the time. All the time. Then it starts raining from the ceiling. What the fuck?
00:13:17
Vegas doesn't have rules, right? No. That's the whole thing. Yeah. No rules. When was the last time you were here?
00:13:24
You were here when you saw Magic Mike. Oh, yeah, girl. I won't talk about the other casino that shows that, but oh, man.
00:13:34
If you get a chance to watch it, it's the most romantic strip show you will ever see.
00:13:40
So much talent. What if we had told Steven he could come, but he had to learn a Magic Mike, like choreograph
00:13:46
thing? And then he just went like this for half an hour? With his hat. They can't.
00:13:54
No, we love him. We love him. My cats tolerate him. I swear, he put like a, what do the kids call them, Insta story?
00:14:04
Insta story, for sure. Of him yelling, Elvis, Elvis, Elvis, and my cat, well, I swear to God, my cat, Elvis is just like walking by him.
00:14:12
Like, disdain in a cat's walk. Have you ever seen that? It's magical. Fuck you, dad.
00:14:22
Oh, I would like to quickly apologize for my hair. What's happening can't be explained except for that.
00:14:31
I think you guys had a weather system come in while I was trying to straighten it real nice.
00:14:38
And then other things started happening and it was just like, it just kept kind of like getting, going out.
00:14:43
It was like a Tesla coil. The ecstasy just hit, and he was like, I'm going to say this in a normal voice.
00:14:59
It won't be that loud at all. It won't be jarring at all. It'll be smooth and cool.
00:15:06
It's what she wants to hear while she's talking. Thank you. Thank you for your compliment.
00:15:18
This is a true crime comedy and hair tutorial podcast. It doesn't look great. It looks like the first time I used a curling iron when I was 13,
00:15:31
and my sister wouldn't show me how to use it. So I kept turning it the wrong direction.
00:15:37
It would do, like, the kink and then fall. And I kept, but see, I brought a travel straightener.
00:15:44
Oh, no. So the actual, like, ironing, like, the face of the straightening iron is the size of, like, a coffee stirrer.
00:15:54
So I'm, like, trying to, I'm, like, just bending my hair to the left and right is what I did.
00:16:00
I just, like, went in. It's very good. No, it's going to get good. I went in. Anyway, when I opened the door, Georgia went, hi!
00:16:09
And that's when you know you have that hair is when your friends greet you in a way that they never have before
00:16:18
I'm so glad to see your hair. I Have I have no comment. No, I love it That's good. It's very like you look like Sigourney Weaver and Ghostbusters. Yeah
00:16:32
But like in the Zool part. Yeah. Which is the good part. Yeah, not when she was some dumb working lady.
00:16:41
Boring. No. There is no Karen, only Zool. Only Zool. I'm the gatekeeper. You're the key master.
00:16:51
I'm the key master. You're the key master. Got it. Before we sit down and tell you about murder,
00:16:57
we have a photo to show you guys. Oh, yeah. There's something exciting that happened today.
00:17:01
You may have seen it on your TVs, but we had Steven put together. Can you put that first picture up?
00:17:06
I have it. Look. Oh, are you in charge? Yes! You truly are the gatekeeper. Yay! Did you see what happened today?
00:17:24
You guys. It's all about us. And always. insane you know the best i mean steven steven pulled pictures where people were holding up
00:17:35
signs of shit that we've said which is very self-serving but there were tons of amazing
00:17:41
ones yeah my favorite is just this lady that was holding a sign that said tick tock motherfucker
00:17:46
come on i take a moment to say and i think this is important to be clarified that there is a world of difference between masculinity and toxic masculinity And I don want you know when people see that sign I had a friend of mine who let me know that he was very upset about toxic masculinity
00:18:15
And he was kind of going on about it, how accused he felt and all that. And I was like, you do realize I used that to describe John Wayne Gacy's dad, right?
00:18:28
It was a very specific reference. You're not talking about fucking comedians who are graphic artists during the day, whatever he was.
00:18:38
You're talking about John Wayne Gacy's dad. Yes, exactly. This isn't just like someone who's rude to you in the cafe.
00:18:45
He made a serial killer with his fucking hands and beer. But we're really stoked.
00:18:53
We couldn't be marching today because we had to fly here, which is awesome. So it was really cool to see all that.
00:18:58
And yay, ladies. Yes, it was very exciting. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile.
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Go to madison-reed.com slash Tori and use code Tori20. Hey, everyone. It's Cal Penn, host of Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club.
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This week on the podcast, I'm sitting down with divergent author Veronica Roth to talk
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about her sprawling new novel, Seek the Traitor's Son. It's a sci-fi fantasy epic about two protagonists on opposite sides of a war and a prophecy neither of them wanted.
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My first book was Divergent. And when that came out, like, because it was so popular, I think it attracted like mostly positivity.
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But the negativity I sucked in like a sponge. And I think it was like critiques of things I liked when I was like, you know, I was 23 and I wrote this book and it had all my like dorky little cheesy or maybe unrealistic loves in it.
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And I started to feel a lot of shame about those things. And so for the rest of my career, I steered away from those little things that like make you feel pleasure when you read.
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But I also was like saying no to these parts of myself that I then was like, screw it.
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So that's this book. Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:21:36
Should we sit down and talk about murder? Do you want to? I'd love to. Look at these.
00:21:44
Vegas. Nice. Horrible things have happened on this chain. Oh, no. You can't see the stains I can see.
00:21:53
Oh, no. Stop us. Well, after tonight, they're going to burn them. After we get through it.
00:22:00
Is this you? Yes. Yeah, that's mine. These are yours. Mm-hmm. Oh, do you want to put a piece of tape down the center of the table?
00:22:09
This is mine. Get your fucking thing away from me. Well, then that's mine. Someone, a really sweet girl saw us on the plane when we were boarding,
00:22:19
and she goes, oh, you guys travel together. What if we fucking hated each other?
00:22:24
We're like, we don't travel together. Right as we come around the corner, I'm like, well, you can just shut your fucking mouth.
00:22:30
Oh, hi. Hi, sisterhood. She made me walk three paces, like three people ahead of her.
00:22:39
Wouldn't speak to me. When we arrived at the hotel, there was somebody that was going to come to this show that was also outside.
00:22:46
She was the girl on the plane. Same girl? Same girl. Doubled up. Just got weird.
00:22:51
Sorry. No. Well, you were talking on the phone because... I just wanted to explain to her.
00:22:57
Yeah. I would have said hi, but I was on the horn like a Hollywood big shot, except for I was talking to my neighbor.
00:23:04
You can't yell at me. Why didn't you learn from this man? I mean, her, right? I know.
00:23:17
My dog, George, when I leave my house, when I take my suitcase with me, she knows I'm leaving for several days.
00:23:25
And that's when she decides to climb the fence. Like she's in a Tough Mudder competition.
00:23:33
I'm not kidding. My side fence is eight feet tall. She's a fucking, what, elaborate?
00:23:40
She's a lab hound. She's like a combo. So she's not like a little dog climbing up the fence.
00:23:44
She's like fucking arm over, arm up the fence. She had a big backpack on. Yeah. Threw that over the fence.
00:23:51
Threw her skateboard over the fence. Fucking jumped the fence. Carabiners. Yeah.
00:23:56
Out of here. But the reason I knew, because, I rebuilt, this is kind of interesting, I rebuilt the other fence on the other side of my house
00:24:05
because I thought she was getting out of that fence, had the whole thing rebuilt.
00:24:09
Turns out she's going on the other fence that's eight feet tall. And I was like, there's no way it's this fence.
00:24:16
And my neighbor Rick, thank God, is a contractor. And he and I, I was like, do I need to fix this fence or that fence?
00:24:22
He goes, it's got to be the other fence. Well, then he's standing in his driveway.
00:24:25
No. And he sees George come up over the fence, flip herself into the hedge, roll down and walk away.
00:24:32
He witnessed it himself. What the fuck? He witnessed it. So then... I couldn't do that.
00:24:40
I couldn't either. I've been locked out of my house. I just leave. I can't get in.
00:24:46
No, and that's like an extra, what, three inches or three feet for us? Yes. Right?
00:24:52
We're much taller than her. Yeah. but so when rick saw her do that he came over and he goes i've got a thing i'm gonna i'll fix it for
00:25:00
you don't have to rebuild a second fence so he came over and leaned this piece of taller fence
00:25:06
but it was like from a work site or whatever he leaned it up and then he put some cement on it
00:25:11
well today while i was on the phone it was my other neighbor she got out again she fucking
00:25:16
double climbed like she's trying to get into the fucking fbi she double climbed and got out amazing
00:25:24
Amazing. And it's supposed to be a service dog, I think. Either that or my dog sitter is beating her with a chain while I'm gone.
00:25:33
I feel so bad. No, it's funny. She would never do that. She likes dogs more than people.
00:25:39
I feel bad for Frank, your other dog, who's left behind because she's, like, tiny.
00:25:45
She's just like, well, fuck. Yep. Frank couldn't get over anything because his legs are this tall.
00:25:53
You know, he was like scrabbling after trying to be like, I'll come next. George is like, come on after me.
00:26:00
And Frank's like, I got it. Can you open the side gate for me? Wait, sorry. I just had a recovered memory.
00:26:11
It's one of my favorite things I've ever witnessed. I was at a party in San Francisco in the 90s.
00:26:18
Represent. And it was this big weird house party. We didn't know the people whose house it was,
00:26:25
so we were just like in the backyard. Crazy? No. Okay. I just saw a look passed through your eyes.
00:26:32
I was looking to think, I was just wondering how close up that fucking camera was right now.
00:26:36
I was trying to look past her head to be like, how horrible. I'm like Charlie Brown's teacher right now.
00:26:41
You're just not hearing a word, I'm saying. So we're standing in the backyard of this huge Victorian house, this huge house party with kegs everywhere, right?
00:26:51
And we're standing right next to the fence. And this is like a 12-foot fence, wooden fence.
00:26:58
And at one point, like, we're all just standing around like, this is a weird party.
00:27:02
We don't know anyone. Should we leave? And then someone runs out onto the back porch and goes, the cops are here!
00:27:08
And a bunch of people, like, run. and these two girls that were standing right next to us
00:27:12
throw their drinks and jump and fucking throw themselves up over this fence. They jump, they grab it, they pull themselves
00:27:22
and they scribble-scrabble with their legs and their feet and they push themselves over.
00:27:27
You hear one land. It's like sidewalk on the other side. You hear the other one land
00:27:32
and then this dude, of course, classically walks up, baked out of his mind, and he walks up and there's a fucking latch.
00:27:39
he just opens. Oh, classic. That guy is still talking about that story. That was his, like, best moment of his life,
00:27:51
which is fair. If you're that guy and you can hear me right now, please call me.
00:27:55
I would love to laugh about that again. I've told people that story so many times
00:27:59
that people are always like, oh, that's nice. And I'm like, you don't understand how hilarious it is.
00:28:03
You're dressed up for a party, me like this, like, yeah, so anyway, and you're, like, trying to be cute at a party.
00:28:09
and then you just fucking throw yourself over a fence. Like, did they have warrants out for their arrest or something?
00:28:16
It would have been great if then he opened the fence and on the other side they're getting arrested.
00:28:19
The girl's getting arrested by the cops too, like hauled away. And there's just pounds of cocaine at their feet.
00:28:26
Why would you bring that much cocaine? Just a little bit. Well, then it would be even more impressive
00:28:30
that they hauled the cocaine over the fence along with their entire bodies. Anyways, listen, we could keep doing this for fucking all of a day.
00:28:35
I would love to. I want to. Just speculate about these two girls. Are you first?
00:28:39
I am first. Okay. Yeah. Thank you so much. Wait, hold on. Don't take that photo yet.
00:28:50
I'm blowing my nose. No, no, not yet. Okay. Same lady? Yeah. Same? Yeah. Because it's the same spot.
00:29:01
We're like, nothing's changed. Giving the thumbs up doesn't matter. But did you see fucking our awesome security guard over here?
00:29:12
Don't be afraid to tackle her next time. Oh, yeah. Being like, come at me. She wants you to.
00:29:16
She fucking moseyed over like, I got this no matter what happens. That was awesome.
00:29:21
What if my butler came and attacked you? I would definitely come back here. There is no butler.
00:29:29
You guys, how do we tell her there's no butler? Well, there hasn't been a butler around here for 25 years.
00:29:37
I don't know what that accent is anymore. Thank you. What's the best about that is 25 years ago
00:29:44
it would have been like 1990. Why are they talking like that? In the great Butler murder rampage of 1990,
00:29:51
I don't know, what was it, three? Okay go So here the thing that I think both of us have started doing Especially when we on the road because we have to write It like book report race where we have to write like six murders
00:30:06
The Great Book Report is our new TV show that we're pitching, and nobody likes it.
00:30:11
Nobody wants to watch it. Everyone's super stressed out about it. It's just us in our hotel rooms in our fucking robes, typing, and Vince going,
00:30:19
are you done with your story yet? I need your story. Yeah, and meanwhile in the background, for some reason, the beginning of 60 Minutes is playing.
00:30:24
that's how I always knew that my book I had to finish that book report Sunday night 7.30
00:30:29
you better finish your fucking homework so in the middle of the murder I had I was like wait a second
00:30:37
I want to do Sig Feed and Roy oh they weren't murder that's why I was like oh are you changing the rules of this podcast
00:30:48
I seriously thought I was such a fucking genius for like four minutes I was like
00:30:53
I can't imagine when I say I'm doing Siegfried and Roy what they're going to say.
00:30:59
It was, hold on, it was Roy. No, I didn't. I just wrote down a couple factoids. Okay.
00:31:10
Roy was bitten on the neck by Montecore, the white tiger. Monty. And as he was being pulled away and taken to the University Medical Center, right?
00:31:23
Local references. Get some every time. I think they all work there. The whole hospital's empty right now?
00:31:32
Let's go rob the hospital. Rob a hospital. Just pills and then those weird water pitchers with the matching cup.
00:31:41
I'd take like four of those. I don't know why. Okay. As Roy was getting loaded into the emergency room, the tiger bit his neck.
00:31:51
No. Wait. Again? No, I'm saying. Oh. Got it. I was like, why didn't they get the tiger away from him?
00:32:02
Get his neck. Roy said, down, down, tiger. Okay. Oh, he did? What is wrong with me?
00:32:09
Oh, I fall for everything because I stand for everything. Isn't that how it goes?
00:32:16
I think that's the saying, yeah. Okay. I just wanted to get this great quote out that I found on Wikipedia.
00:32:22
Okay. because Roy said to everybody as he was being wheeled away, Montecore is a great cat.
00:32:29
Make sure no harm comes to Montecore. He bit him in the fucking neck. I think Roy was like,
00:32:38
yeah, we've been waiting for this. It's not the fucking cat's fault. Okay. Everybody lived and they retired seven years later.
00:32:47
It was not that big of a deal. Including the tiger? The tiger lived too. Oh, good. Okay.
00:32:52
No harm came to Montague. It's pretty amazing. Those are going to be my last words.
00:32:59
I hope I remember. It's going to be so funny. You better be there so I can be like,
00:33:06
what was that thing I was going to say? Something about Montagues. Noah. And that's how I die.
00:33:13
No, Georgia. And then I'll think, that's what she really wanted. I know what she wants.
00:33:20
I knew how she really wanted to go. I knew her better than she knew herself. Sadly true.
00:33:29
So actually, I'm going to do, for real, the murder of Gerard Soles, the Poodle King.
00:33:35
What? There's a Poodle King? There is a Poodle King. And he worked right here in this great city of Las Vegas
00:33:43
at the gorgeous and historic Circus to Circus Casino. Wow. Yeah. Been there. Have you been there? I have been on mushrooms there.
00:33:58
That sounds like a fucking nightmare. Don't do it. It was a bad idea. It was a bad
00:34:05
90s idea. We were all wearing chokers. We're like, this will be funny. Oh, I was positive for so long that I was going to remain for the rest of my days
00:34:17
in front of that carousel. Oh, yeah. It felt like we were there for nine hours. I was like, God, I want to leave the carousel area.
00:34:26
But everyone else seemed to like it. But I was like, I'm having a nervous breakdown.
00:34:30
Oh, my God. And then just went from there, every single place you turned, it was just like, oh, no, someone's flying.
00:34:38
Oh, no, they're smoking. Like, it just... I went there when I was nine on mushrooms.
00:34:45
Oh. And I had the same freak out. I was there when I was a kid. Why did my dad take us there?
00:34:51
That's not fun for children. I don't understand. Was it Halloween? No. He wasn't trying to scare you?
00:34:56
No. Oh, okay. I just remember there were so many of us, and we had no money, so there was like eight of us sleeping in a room with two beds.
00:35:07
And I slept on the floor. Oh, no. Red shag carpeting. Oh. Circus, circus. Ew. What'd you pick up from there?
00:35:17
Closing time. Time for me to go home. Okay. The entire source of the story I'm about to tell you
00:35:28
is from one Vanity Fair article written by a woman named Megan Rose. And actually, she wrote this article so good
00:35:36
that it ended up changing the verdict. What? Let's get into it, shall we? It's very, very fun.
00:35:48
I was going to read you the title of this article, but it is a complete spoiler title.
00:35:54
It basically tells you all the good stuff Don do it So okay so on June 4th 1992 when Gerard Jerry Soles doesn show up at Circus Circus Casino for work which is very unlike him his boss goes to the RV park where he lives to investigate
00:36:18
Don't judge. Yeah. They're really nice inside. I know. I'm not kidding. My cousin lives in one, and you would never know that you were in a double wide.
00:36:27
It's kind of my dream home. They're pretty cool. And then very manageable. Not like this gorgeous palatial apartment I have upstairs tonight.
00:36:39
That was too many messages in one. Okay. So when he knocks on the door, he can hear Jerry's poodles barking like crazy,
00:36:49
and he knows something's wrong because they're normally very well-behaved dogs. They don't bark.
00:36:52
so he calls the park security guard and they call the cops and inside the trailer
00:37:00
they find Jerry's soul's belongings scattered everywhere the window shade's been pulled off the window
00:37:07
TV VCR cabinet's empty there's a blood soaked mattress and a trail of blood leading back
00:37:13
toward the bathroom and in the bathroom there's blood splattered everywhere it's just insane
00:37:19
and Jerry Souls is laying naked with his throat slashed. He's been stabbed so many times that the coroner stopped counting at 35.
00:37:29
What? But they believe it's over 100. Oh, my God. And somebody put an orange towel on his face.
00:37:37
He was 55 years old. So we'll tell you a little bit about Jerry Souls. So he was born 1935 in Canada, but he moved to Michigan in his childhood,
00:37:47
and he grew up outside Detroit. And when he was a teenager, he grew up in a very devout Catholic family, but he still came out to his mom when he was a teenager and his family totally supported him.
00:38:02
Yeah. I thought in 1955, holy fucking shit. So, but it was his lifelong dream since he was like 12 years old, he wanted to be in the circus.
00:38:18
so he wanted to be on the trapeze so when he was 16 he left home to join the circus
00:38:27
and so basically I found as Stephen found his obituary it was insanely long this is the abridged version
00:38:37
it was written by a woman named Helene Weaver and she says Gerard Soles who has been murdered at Las Vegas, Nevada
00:38:45
was one of America's leading circus performers, first as a trapeze artist, and she spelled it artiste,
00:38:52
and later with his celebrated dog troupe, Poodles D. Perry. Wait, were they all on a trapeze together?
00:39:00
No, no, no, no. Oh, fuck. I got so excited. You know, do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do. They let you do that shit, like, up until the, like, 90s, right?
00:39:11
No, I think, yeah, they do. But that's the high wire. Oh. The trapeze would be you lock a dog's legs onto him.
00:39:19
No. Now grab this one. That's worse. That'd be amazing. He throws the dog to the...
00:39:25
It'd be fucking incredible. Only cats could do that. I am a poodle. I am a poodle.
00:39:40
I just can't stop picturing. I know. It's a pretty good visual. Okay. Oh, I think we do have some pictures.
00:39:47
Oh, am I in charge? Yeah. Check this shit out. Yeah. Yes. Wow. So he got famous because he could do this trick where he would,
00:39:57
he would go off the, like he would launch off the trapeze. I don't know the terminology.
00:40:02
And then he would do a forward somersault and catch himself by his, by his like ankles on the trapeze.
00:40:11
Like, and then be fine. That's amazing. Wearing like a cape. He looks incredible.
00:40:19
Look at him. Living his best life. He was fucking doing it. So his heel-catching work as an aerialist was sensational,
00:40:27
and together with his cool arrogance and electrifying personality, more than justified his billing as the star of stars on the high trapeze.
00:40:36
So I guess he was like the fucking... I don't know why I was going to say the Tom Cruise of the trapeze.
00:40:45
Uh-huh. I get it. I get it. My favorite star. So in his life, he had a number of falls, usually only in rehearsal.
00:40:57
But in Belgium in early 1964, after a near-fatal accident in front of a paying audience, he retired from the trapeze.
00:41:06
Great. He was next seen in the Clyde Beattie-Colex Brothers Circus in America. You know your favorite circus.
00:41:13
The famous one. Clyde Beatty Colex. It was helped by the nuclear power plant. For that circus, he did a plate spinning act.
00:41:27
His career spanned four decades. He worked in everything from small shows to the Barnum and Bailey Circus,
00:41:35
the greatest show on earth. By 1956, he was a center ring attraction with Clyde Beatty's Big Tenting Circus.
00:41:41
And four years later, he joined Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey, in which he was a featured attraction until 1963, when he was sent to Moscow to appear in an American circus.
00:41:54
He was an admirer of a British dog trainer named Victor Julian and that how he got his idea when he was doing the plate spinning He was like this sucks So he remembered this dog trainer that he loved this British dog trainer
00:42:08
so then he decided he was going to have a dog act. And so that's when he came up with Poodles de Perry,
00:42:17
and he made all the costumes for himself and for the dogs. Oh, no. Tell me. Is it happening?
00:42:29
It is happening. Look at this little guy right here. Look at his outfit. Look at their outfit.
00:42:40
Can you believe you've never heard of Jerry Souls? I mean, and the Poodles de Paris.
00:42:46
I love that Steven wrote, with poodles. With poodles. Thanks, Steven. Look at them.
00:42:54
With poodles and feathers. So basically, he gets a job at Circus Circus in 1992.
00:43:02
The height of Circus Circus is great. Something. Hold it. No, that would be too early for me on my drug trip.
00:43:10
I'd be amazing. I'm like, wait a second, I saw this. But basically, on the second floor at Circus Circus,
00:43:17
there's a stage, and all day long until midnight, they have circus acts performing for free.
00:43:23
So they just have act after act. And Jerry was like the hit of the show. And people would, you know, on their way to,
00:43:34
in this article she says, as they move along past to the $2.99 buffet. That's what she is.
00:43:42
It's kind of, you know, it's a little elitist. so his show featured 14 peat poodles
00:43:50
hopping on their hind legs across the stage one would wear a poncho and a sombrero
00:43:56
another had her dress attached to her front paws so that when she stood up she did the Moulin Rouge can-can
00:44:02
oh you're sexualizing a poodle I hope it was a girl there was ones wearing three foot tall hats
00:44:14
giant hoop skirts. And then Jerry himself wore sequined tails, matching bow tie, and all hand
00:44:22
stitched himself, as we said. So the problem was in his personal life, Jerry was having a really
00:44:28
hard time. He was 55. His partner of decades had died a couple years before. And all the other
00:44:37
performers, most of them lived in the casino's own RV park. That's kind of a common thing,
00:44:44
I guess here, but they wouldn't let him stay in their RV park, the circus, circus RV park
00:44:49
with the poodles. So he got banished to the silver nugget camper land, which we all know
00:44:57
less desirable. Yeah. Um, this, um, is coming off. Oh, what's happening? I don't know.
00:45:07
This, so is this my part of the table now? Yeah. And that's your part. That's all you get.
00:45:12
gravity. Watch me. I'm going to yank it really fast. Okay. There we go. Everyone's good. Magic. Okay. So, so the thing that Jerry started doing was he
00:45:26
was, uh, to make himself feel better, he would help other people. So if he saw people panhandling,
00:45:32
um, and usually it was men cause he want, you know, he was lonely for male company. So
00:45:36
So he would give them money, ask them if they wanted to go to dinner, basically kind of try to help out.
00:45:44
And that's how he met a man named Fred Sties. So basically he saw Fred was holding a Will Work For Food sign.
00:45:52
He was driving by in his truck. He said, I'll take you to dinner if you want to go to dinner with me.
00:45:57
Fred's like, sounds great. At dinner, Jerry said, I'm a gay man. I'm interested in hanging out.
00:46:05
Fred's like, sounds good to me. I like to hang out too. And then Fred was like, well, here's an interesting thing.
00:46:13
If you really do need work, I just fired my assistant. Apparently he had an assistant that couldn't do the job.
00:46:22
It wasn't in the article, so I don't know. There's a lot of dog poop picking up in said job.
00:46:27
Poodle poop. Poodle poop. Diva poop. Yeah. so Jerry offered him the job and he was like that would be amazing
00:46:36
it would help me so much so they start working together and then they actually start to have a relationship
00:46:42
so he trains him to be his assistant and learns the whole dog act but then when they're ready to work
00:46:48
at Circus Circus the HR department came and was like you need a work permit to be able to work here and be Jerry's assistant
00:46:55
well Fred tells Jerry I'm actually living under an assumed name because I'm on the run.
00:47:03
I'm in parole violation in Florida for what they called a hapless bank robbery, which I'd love to know.
00:47:11
There's no details about it in the article. That's embarrassing. You know, you're just kind of a shitty bank robber.
00:47:18
Like he walked in with a bag with dollar signs on it and then tripped and chipped his tooth.
00:47:23
Started crying. so so basically he says he says to Jerry I'm not going to be able to get a work permit
00:47:35
and this isn't going to work out thanks for everything see you later and then in the article it says
00:47:41
then he panhandled enough money for liquor and a speedball and hopped on a train
00:47:45
how do they have that detail? it's just a fucking dream vacation So Fred Steeves had a really hard life himself.
00:47:56
He was abandoned by his mother when he was 10. He was in 30. seven different foster homes.
00:48:02
As a teen, he wandered into a hobo camp outside Phoenix where an old-timer introduced him to riding the rails.
00:48:11
So then he started doing that. Oh, we have a picture. This is... Oh, that's everybody that's on the second floor.
00:48:21
Look at them. That would do the second floor show at Circus Circus. Look at child labor.
00:48:25
See those kids? Tap dance. Janine. Do it. Again. Again. And then those girls on the top, that's all they did is put one hand up.
00:48:38
But they were really good. Man. Look at those flat. Okay. Oh, sorry. No, I don't even.
00:48:42
I could just stare at that forever. I'm on mushrooms. I just want to stare at that.
00:48:46
What? Yeah. You should have told me. Oh, no. So that's the hapless bank robber, Fred Steeves.
00:48:56
Okay. Okay. This is stressful to me. Okay. Do you want me to do it? Sure. Do you want to?
00:49:02
Yeah. Okay, I'm going to yell photo when the photo. Okay. Now you're going to be stressed out.
00:49:06
Okay. Okay. Okay. So then six days later, after Fred jumped the train, it was six days later that Jerry did show up for work at Circus Circus,
00:49:19
and his boss came, and they found his body. How many days? Six? Six days. Oh, that's not a lot.
00:49:24
It's not a lot. and when the detectives are investigating the crime scene they find a letter that's from
00:49:32
it's sent to Fred Steece but it's at Jerry's address and it's from the last guy that Fred had hitchhiked with
00:49:41
and then eventually started a relationship with and so that's how they started to pinpoint that he was there
00:49:50
they called this guy and that guy told the police that Fred had told them that the guy he lived with
00:49:59
had been stabbed like a hundred times. And so the second the police heard that he knew that bit of information,
00:50:06
they were like, he did it. We just have to go get him. So they call Fred's deets.
00:50:14
They tell him he has to come back to Vegas. So Fred's way of coming back to Vegas,
00:50:19
he's super drunk. He jumps on a train going the wrong direction. He ends up in Wisconsin.
00:50:25
Oh, that's not Vegas. So when he gets there, he realizes what he did, so he steals a semi-truck,
00:50:31
and he drives 30 hours straight through back to Vegas. Shit. And when he hits town, he immediately gets pulled over and arrested.
00:50:40
Hmm. I mean, you know, he got from point A to point B. Well, point A to point D.
00:50:46
Right. But then... Vis-a-vis B and C. Okay, so he tells them he has nothing to do with Jerry Sol's murder,
00:50:56
that he would have never hurt him, that he really liked him, he considered him a close friend,
00:51:00
and that he had been in New Plymouth, Idaho the whole time. But Fred basically, he would deny it just outright,
00:51:12
and then the cops were getting angrier and yelling at him. The interrogation lasted five hours,
00:51:18
and he changed his story. At first he said he had nothing to do with it. Then he claimed that Fred sexually attempted to tie him up
00:51:26
and sexually assault him with a plunger. The police are like, they showed him the layout of the trailer
00:51:36
and they're like, it's physically impossible what you're saying he did. There's no room for that.
00:51:40
Then he changed his story again. Literally, it was aerodynamically impossible. So he changes the story again.
00:51:49
He ends up changing it six times. But in the end, he just says he decided to rob Jerry last minute,
00:51:58
and then Jerry woke up, and so he killed him. And that's the story he gives the cops.
00:52:03
And so Fred Sties is arrested for the murder of Jerry Soles. So two years later, by the time the case gets to trial,
00:52:12
Fred Sties' defense team, they've put together an extensive alibi. There's 14 witnesses, 10 items of documentary evidence,
00:52:22
proving that Sties was nowhere near Sol's trailer at the time of the murder. But at the time, an ambitious young prosecution lawyer named William Kephart was assigned to the case,
00:52:36
and he knows that Sties did it, so he wants to pull that alibi apart. So he goes to Idaho and he finds witnesses who say that Sties used to use the alias Robert and that they heard him talking about having a brother.
00:52:50
So they find out that Fred Sties has a lookalike brother named Robert who lives in Texas.
00:52:57
Yes, it's real. What the fuck? So they put it together. They come up with this theory.
00:53:07
So here's the theory. Sties, it wasn't Fred Sties in Idaho, it was Robert and it was all a plan to create this alibi
00:53:16
and the witnesses who thought they met Fred in Wyoming and Idaho the two places he was seen, actually met his brother Robert
00:53:24
and the real Fred ran to Idaho after the murder and then met his brother there the only problem with this theory is that there was no evidence that proves
00:53:34
that Robert Sties had been in Idaho and it directly conflicted with the actual established timeline.
00:53:42
And most importantly, it contradicted Sties' signed confession that it was this last-minute drunken decision to rob and then murder Jerry Souls.
00:53:53
So since it could be proved that Fred Sties was in Wyoming on May 31st that would mean that Sties would have had to set the alibi plan into motion three full days before that spur attack
00:54:08
But this theory presented to the court plus the signed confession was enough to get him convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison
00:54:20
without the possibility of parole. You might want to hold that. He spends 20 years in jail.
00:54:28
That's a long time. And this whole time, his original defense attorney, a woman named Nancy Lemke, is fighting to get his case reviewed.
00:54:37
She's sending it everywhere she can, like somebody has to do something. This guy didn't do it.
00:54:41
And when they finally do get the case reviewed, they find evidence in the files that Fred Sties' name had been run through the system by Texas authorities on May 25th, June 1st, and June 4th.
00:54:57
which that means it's usually when people are stopped by the police is when your name gets run
00:55:03
which would mean that Robert Steece was in Texas at the time of the prosecution at the time the prosecution argued he was impersonating his brother in Idaho.
00:55:15
I'm sorry, they find evidence Robert Steece's name. It's shit. It's confusing enough.
00:55:22
But essentially the lookalike brother is proven to be in Texas at the time that he's supposedly being seen in Idaho and Wyoming.
00:55:31
So they find this piece of information and the fact that it was suppressed by the prosecution.
00:55:38
So they didn't tell anybody. So then they go talk to Robert, Fred's brother, and he tells the court under oath
00:55:47
he hadn't seen Fred since he was nine years old, he had never been to Idaho or Wyoming,
00:55:52
and he didn't even know what Fred's birthday was or if he was still alive. So he had no contact or connection with his brother whatsoever.
00:55:59
That's weird. So in October of 2012, after 20 years in prison, a judge declares that Stice was innocent.
00:56:10
They go back through all of the everything, and there was nothing that put him in that mobile home
00:56:18
at the time of the murder. Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah. So, but they wouldn't be, because he had already been found guilty and gone to jail, they wouldn't retry him.
00:56:32
I mean, they wouldn't just say that he was innocent. They wouldn't just let him go.
00:56:38
They made him sign the Alfred plea, which is the thing that says that you're convicted, but you say you're innocent and then you can get out of jail.
00:56:46
And that way, you're not allowed to sue, and none of the people who withheld evidence or were tricky in any way get in trouble.
00:56:55
That's fucked up. So, I think I'm drinking your water. Anyways. Well, I guess I quit.
00:57:11
Sorry, I was good. Okay, so basically, but Fred Sties is in jail. He's like, I'll sign the fucking Alfred plea.
00:57:22
Get me out of here. I'm good with it. So he does it. He gets out of jail. But of course, he can't get a job everywhere he goes.
00:57:29
He's a convicted felon. So that's when our friend Megan Rose wrote this article for Vanity Fair.
00:57:37
And then in November of 2017, the Nevada Board of Pardons and Commissions granted Fred a full pardon, delivering a clear rebuke to the Las Vegas prosecutors who refused to recognize his innocence.
00:57:52
And Nevada Supreme Court Justice Lydia Stiglitz said, let there be no residual stain on his record.
00:57:59
but a sad footnote to this Jerry's soul sister Kathy Nasri who was so angry at Fred Sties
00:58:12
during the entire court case went to him and wept and asked for his forgiveness and said she was so sorry
00:58:19
she has a whole shrine in her house because she still lives back in Detroit of all of her brother's
00:58:26
amazing accomplishments in the circus and being this insane, amazing trapeze artist and dog trainer
00:58:32
and incredible entertainer for years and years. And she also still has his silver ring.
00:58:40
And in this article it says, it's stained with blood, and she wonders if the killer's DNA is on it and if anyone cares.
00:58:47
Oh, man. And that's the unsolved, supposedly murder of Jared Souls. Yeah. Wow. It's kind of fun, kind of depressing.
00:59:01
Fuck, that's crazy. How have we never heard of that? Okay, I'm going to listen. Okay.
00:59:08
Okay, now I'm going to get comfortable. You get comfortable. You take the tablecloth.
00:59:13
I don't think that. Oh, that's him. That's Fred's teaser. We got out of jail. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile.
00:59:20
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00:59:34
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00:59:48
Hello, beautiful. I'm Amy Erick, founder of Madison Reed, a hair color company I named after my daughter.
00:59:54
forget everything you know about hair color the mess the smell the hassle the damage We female founded and female led We transformed the hair color experience
01:00:05
with ingredients that care for your hair and award-winning color on your terms at home or at our hair color bars.
01:00:13
The future of hair color is here at Madison Reed. Hey everyone, it's Cal Penn, host of Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club.
01:00:26
This week on the podcast, I'm sitting down with Will Wheaton, who played Gordy Lachance in Stand By Me 40 years ago,
01:00:33
and now narrates Stephen King's The Body, the novella that inspired it all. We talk about what it's like to return to a story that shaped his life,
01:00:42
channeling his memories of River Phoenix and the recording booth, and why the friendships you have at 12 might be the most important ones you'll ever have.
01:00:50
I know Gordy Lachance. I am Gordy Lachance. Like, I mean, even when I was a little kid, I was Gordy Lachance when I didn't know it.
01:00:59
Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
01:01:08
Okay, take the ceremonial tablecloth. Okay. I am going to tell you about a murder.
01:01:18
Okay. You know? Sounds good. Yeah. We love true crime. This is The Murder of Ted Binion.
01:01:27
Oh. So Stephen will send us like, here's a list of ideas of murders you can do. And send us each separate ones.
01:01:39
And I had already found this one that I wanted to do. And I was like, can I do this one? He's like, I sent it to Karen.
01:01:45
What do I do? And I'm like, tell her she can't fucking have it. Did he email you?
01:01:50
Soon we're only going to be talking through Steven. Well, tell her I said, maybe I want it.
01:01:56
No, I still hadn't even looked at his email when he texted me. He's like, um, so Binions is out, okay?
01:02:03
I was like, I don't know what you're talking about. Please don't bother me at home, Steven.
01:02:11
He climbs your gate and he's like, hey, I just want to let you know. He climbs the gate from the outside, George climbs from the inside.
01:02:18
They Snapchat each other's faces. Is Snapchat still a thing? I don't think so. I don't think so either.
01:02:25
I think it imploded. Oh. Okay, so. Where was I? So this story is so convoluted and insane and weird that I, like, I, my brain doesn't wrap around it.
01:02:40
And to me, I'm like, I don't really know exactly what happened. So you'll have to tell me what you think.
01:02:45
Oh, I'll tell you. At the end. I'll tell you. Okay. I'm counting on it. Okay. All right.
01:02:50
So Benny Binion was a gambling icon and kind of a mob dude who lived in Dallas. And he fled from the Texas government to Las Vegas to open the Horseshoe Casino in downtown Las Vegas in 1951.
01:03:04
Yeah. I have lost a lot of money at that exact casino. I would love to steal an ashtray from the Horseshoe Casino.
01:03:15
I bet they have a horseshoe on them. Yeah. Do you like horseshoes? I just like old ashtrays.
01:03:23
Is it because you're at Clydesdale? And a smoker? A lot of Clydesdales are really bad smokers.
01:03:33
All of us. So many of us. It is like when we stay downtown, that's where we go to gamble.
01:03:40
They have a fucking Buffalo machine. If you guys see one here, go play it. Buffalo.
01:03:47
It's my favorite. Georgia loves buffalo. I'm a real sucker for Willy Wonka. Yeah.
01:03:54
I just want to watch a movie and give my money away. And Willy Wonka helps me do that.
01:04:02
Yeah. Okay. So here's what Benny Binion looks like. Fucking what's up? Yes! Buffalo!
01:04:10
Yes! Benny Binion. What is that? A buffalo on his neck? He is a fucking old timer.
01:04:18
You know you wanted to drink with him, right? I just, my heart is singing right now.
01:04:24
He parties. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally parties. He's the guy, he does cigarette and drink in one hand.
01:04:31
Oh, that's good. It's all this. This. He can do it. It's all individually. He chews on a cigar, makes it all wet and gross.
01:04:42
Toothpits. Okay. Maybe just keeps a tiny, like a smaller than normal piece of gum right in the front.
01:04:47
Counts money. He counts money while looking around and smiling at people. Yeah. He licks his finger while he's counting money, but he doesn't get sick.
01:04:55
Yeah. That's like magic to me. No money can make Benny Binion sick. No. Never has.
01:05:03
Proven fact. Okay. I love you. Okay. So he comes here to escape from those guys in Dallas.
01:05:11
he it's like one of the most profitable casinos, he totally changes the way casinos work, he's like a total badass
01:05:19
baller, everyone loves him, he's like the dude, right but he wears feather boas apparently
01:05:26
so fuck yes but he was eventually convicted of tax evasion long history, it's actually really interesting
01:05:32
he's a fucking fascinating dude you love tax law no I mean he's interesting this tax evasion
01:05:40
court case is amazing. Oh, I read every piece of paper about it. Get the transcripts. So his sons
01:05:46
take over the business of the horseshoe. His son, Ted, who's only 21 at the time, and his son,
01:05:53
Jack take over Jack becomes president of the horseshoe I guess he kind of like a boring dude in the back you know counting money without licking his finger Yes he has the green visor
01:06:07
He's got the garter on his sleeve. Yes. He's from the 1850s. Right. Right. So they don't let him out on the floor.
01:06:15
But Ted is like super cool. He becomes the casino manager. He's the face of the horseshoe.
01:06:22
Ted's the 21-year-old? Ted's the 21-year-old. Sorry, it's like this late 50s, early 60s?
01:06:27
You know, I couldn't tell. I kept looking for dates, but none of them seemed right.
01:06:33
We're eventually going to get to the late 90s. So just strike that question. Bear with me.
01:06:39
It's a valid fucking question that I had, too. I'm just saying, if you think about your YouTube stars of today,
01:06:45
imagine if one of them had their own casino. It would be bad. That would be an asshole child.
01:06:51
Right. Just picture it. No, this guy. Okay, so let me tell you about him. You like him.
01:06:54
Yeah. He's a good guy. Okay. Would I like him? Yes. So, he's basically a younger version of his fucking pimp-ass dad.
01:07:05
Oh. Can I say pimp? You did. I know. That's really not you. I know. I didn't know what to say.
01:07:11
That's Vegas, baby. Yeah. Let it out. Okay. Younger version. Or at least he tried to be.
01:07:18
He basically grew up in the casino. He learned the trade as a preteen from his father.
01:07:23
and casino players, he learned it all. By the time he was 18, he had been in the casino business his whole life.
01:07:31
Someone said that Benny told me that Ted was the best in the business. So he's like a businessman.
01:07:35
He dresses like his dad in boots and cowboy hat, tucks a pistol in his jeans, and he drove a pickup truck with his dog,
01:07:42
Princess, riding shotgun. Aww. Yeah. He drove it right into the casino. He was always ready for fun.
01:07:51
He was super likable. Also a junkie. A junkie? Yeah. A gambling junkie? No. Aw. A drug addict.
01:08:00
The word junkie is also problematic. Okay. He had moved from pot to opium to LSD, and finally black tar heroin was his drug of choice.
01:08:09
Same. But somehow he fucking ran this huge, crazy business. Well, yeah. I think he probably built up a tolerance.
01:08:17
Yeah. So it all got real normal to him that he was like... It's crazy. I mean...
01:08:23
Black tar. Sorry. I've had two cups of coffee and I can barely fucking read. For real?
01:08:30
I had two cups of coffee. I'm sweating like a lunatic. It's the... Okay, good. I thought it was...
01:08:35
It's the lights. Okay. So for the next 30 years, Ted's the face of the horseshoe becomes well-known as the host
01:08:43
of their famous poker tournaments. He loved living the high life, partying, schmoozing with high-profile guests, and flirting
01:08:50
with hot ladies. One such lady, I can't remember what photo I put up next. I don't remember.
01:08:59
Roll those dice. Yeah. What if it's just a funny meme? One such woman was Sandy Murphy, a.k.a. the Irish Venus.
01:09:10
Oh, hello. So they had met in 1995 while she was working at Cheetah's. Yes. The exotic dancing place.
01:09:20
So wait, is cheetahs like a chain like Bennegan's? I guess so. Because there's one in LA too.
01:09:25
Yeah, I didn't realize. And it's topless, right? I believe topless, yes. At the very least.
01:09:34
It's all tank tops and tube tops. It's old-fashioned. That's where Ted liked to hang out and do his business and take his meetings and stuff.
01:09:42
Sure. You know. It's easier to concentrate there. Right. You do that too, right?
01:09:46
Yep. So Sandy is beautiful. She's 28 years younger than Ted. She had come to Las Vegas from Bellflower in Los Angeles.
01:09:56
You know, that hub of sin. Oh, the city Bellflower? Oh, I thought Bellflower was another strip club that I was supposed to know about.
01:10:05
Is that a good one? Are they all awesome? Bellflower is all, it's goth and mod. Oh, yeah.
01:10:14
Stripping. It's hard to tell. Well, so like you can read stories about her that, you know, they make her to be this sexy sex queen.
01:10:24
It's like looking for money. And then some and then like in her thing, she's like, I lost all my money and I needed money.
01:10:30
So I'm hot and I went and worked at Cheetah's. It's like, you know, you can't tell.
01:10:34
I mean, look, listen, listen, but I like when they list things like that, like they were after money.
01:10:41
Aren't we all fucking after money on the daily? Yeah. Yeah. Please. They make her, you know, it's like one of those things where like in the 48 hours on ID, they show like probably like a pole dancing person from like the knees down.
01:10:55
Yeah. You know, just to show you what the gritty seedy underly, underbelly. And like two weird dudes that are like.
01:11:01
Yeah. Oh. Yeah. Like they've never seen legs before. And it's like, ooh. Legs. This was, she was bad.
01:11:10
But it's like, we should have seen it too many. We all, okay. This might be the photo I think it is, which will make you laugh.
01:11:15
No, that's not it. Okay. That's Ted Binion. That's the fucking black tar heroin addict?
01:11:21
Uh-huh. Oh, my God. I love him. Apparently, he was like a really, everyone loved him.
01:11:29
He was, you know. Gregarious? Gregarious. Friends. You gave up halfway through on gregarious?
01:11:35
I was like, don't know if that's what that means. He just doesn't look like anyone I ever did heroin with.
01:11:43
That's what's freaking me out. Does he look like someone who would wear a fucking feather boa and a hat like his dad?
01:11:51
Well, that's who he was. Okay. Oh, sorry. Gotta take him away from you. Okay. Sandy, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba.
01:12:00
Okay, so shortly after they met, right after Ted's wife and kid move out of his house or their house, Sandy moves in with Ted.
01:12:08
And she starts racking up credit card bills, averaging 5,100 is the number I saw.
01:12:17
Expensive jewelry, plastic surgery, European vacations, all paid for by Ted. Which is like, well, he's got the money. Let him pay for her shit.
01:12:24
If he wants. Isn't that what casinos are all about? Yeah. Okay. Just like spending and wasting and stuff.
01:12:33
Smoking. Heroin. That's funny. They both love to party all night, sleep all day, which who fucking doesn't?
01:12:43
And, okay, here's the photo that I think you're going to enjoy. This is from their made-for-TV movie.
01:12:49
Oh. Are you ready? Who do you think played her? Well, if she's the Irish Venus. You're already on the wrong track.
01:12:56
Okay. Because it's so Diane Carroll or what? Oh! Mina Savari. Matthew Modine. Who is also totally addicted to black tar heroin.
01:13:14
Let's spread that rumor. Yeah, I'm going to. I'll tweet it out tonight. So this is the kind of idea.
01:13:19
Let me tell you about this movie real quick. This movie is called Sex and Lies in Sin City.
01:13:26
Let me read you a quick blurb from it. I'm sorry, that title is easily the laziest piece of writing I've ever heard.
01:13:35
No, no, no, the movie seems like the laziest piece of writing. Someone wrote about it,
01:13:39
Shot in New Mexico for what looks like jackpots off penny slots, the fact-based story as depicted isn't trashy enough to qualify as a guilty pleasure.
01:13:49
Oh, that's the worst, when they're not bad enough to be fun. Yeah, yeah. Sorry, guys.
01:13:57
That's them. Look. Listen. Everybody's got to. You've got to make those made-for-TV movies sometime.
01:14:03
Okay. Modine's laughing now with the Stranger Things cash stacking up. Yeah. According to Texas Monthly, our favorite news magazine in the world,
01:14:15
the story by Gary Cartwright, according to all this shit, she was famous for her big mouth,
01:14:22
and she called Ted old and ugly and told people openly that she was sticking around just for the money.
01:14:27
But other friends of the couple attested to seeing Sandy with bruises on her face
01:14:32
and a clump of hair missing once. And that she told a friend that Binion had beaten her.
01:14:38
Binion's gardener said she took a lot of crap from him. Oh. Man, on the gardener nose.
01:14:43
That guy's outside the house. Yeah. Not inside. No. After one particularly big fight, Ted bought her a Mercedes worth $97,000.
01:14:57
What? That's almost $100,000. What kind of... What the fuck? Does it have a CD player?
01:15:06
Or something? I don't know. What if it looks like our hotel room upstairs? That's just the car that you drive?
01:15:15
In March 1998, finally we have a date. Okay, here we are. We're in 1998. Karen's living the high life.
01:15:22
Loving it. I'm graduating high school. 28. On speed. Freaking out. Can't sleep. Can't stop drinking.
01:15:29
Panicking, but pretending like I'm having a great time. Plaid mini skirt. Black combat boots.
01:15:36
Red. I have a photo of it, right? What have I did? I know, I want to see it too.
01:15:43
Don't be mad. If you did, it would be me with the tiniest eyebrows, like Clara Bow eyebrows.
01:15:49
Me too. Right? You pluck them all out when you're on speed? And then, like, my eyelids never touched my irises.
01:15:57
It was always like, hi, what's up? I was always really angry about nothing. 98, she took us there.
01:16:08
After the Nevada Gaming Commission finds out that Ted is associating with Chicago mobster,
01:16:16
his name's Fat Herbie Blitzstein. What? Say it again. I'm sure I got that. Fat Herbie. Herbie. Herbie.
01:16:24
Herbie with a K? Herbie. Herbie. Herbie with a K. Like the love bug. Yeah. Got it.
01:16:30
Blitzstein. Fat Herbie Blitzstein? Which I'm like, oh, jeez. Yeah. Yeah. Fat Herbie Blitzstein
01:16:38
Yeah I thought he was fun I hope he was super skinny One of those ones They find out that Ted's hanging out with him
01:16:47
So they vote The Nevada Gaming Commission is like Your older sister that tells on you
01:16:54
And it's like a super big bummer And you're like what That they voted unanimously to provoke
01:16:58
Permanently revoke Ted's gaming license He's the first He's the first person to lose his license
01:17:05
from violating a Nevada regulation that bans gaming license holders from associating with known criminals.
01:17:11
Oh. I mean, who amongst us is not a criminal? She likes it. Yeah. Fucking finally.
01:17:22
Had it. Sick of it. Commission these games for fuck's sake. Sorry. Can we get some regulation?
01:17:39
I know. Right? Yep. I'll do it for you because you're telling your story. Oh, you don't have to do that.
01:17:46
I will. It'll be fun. Thank you. That's very nice. But due to license, okay. His ties are now...
01:17:52
Right Uh I get a little too Oh okay On the back end It making your hair do this amazing thing Okay
01:18:05
Ties are severed from the family business. They're like, pack up all your shit in the basement of the horseshoe.
01:18:09
Get the fuck out of here. You can't be in here. So he takes all his crazy fucking silver collection,
01:18:17
estimated to be worth anywhere from 7 to 14 million fucking dollars. He collects silver.
01:18:23
Yeah. Okay. My dad's like, do it. That's my dad's apocalypse plan. Invest in silver?
01:18:29
Yes. Yeah. It's a good idea. Copper wire is also a great thing to strip. If you ever see it anywhere, just pull it down and put it in your car.
01:18:38
I've heard that. For later, for after the bomb hits. You'll know. You'll find someone to sell it to.
01:18:45
At this point, Sandy and Ted's relationship is starting to sour. Ted had lost his gaming license, and after that, his drug addiction got fucking worse.
01:18:53
He's probably as bored as fuck at home, right? We've all been there. We just didn't do...
01:18:58
Just can't stop. Yeah. So he, needing to find a new place to store his silver, since he had a GTFO out of there,
01:19:06
he enlisted the help of a dude named Rick Tavish, who owned a trucking company who Sandy had met recently.
01:19:13
And there's just, like, so much information about this dude, and, like, it's so hard to find the exact fucking details of him.
01:19:19
Sounds like he was a bad guy. Okay. He's described as a ruggedly handsome financially troubled
01:19:27
contractor from Montana with a criminal record that included convictions for abogated assault and cocaine
01:19:33
dealing. Like the dating show. Your eyes turn into hearts. Contestant number one
01:19:39
is perfectly terrible for me. I think there's a photo of him. Yes. That's them. So that's Sandy
01:19:45
and that's Rick. That's fucking Will Ferrell if I've ever seen it. Do not Do not try to tell me.
01:19:57
Ba-ba-ba owned a trucking company. Okay. So, okay. He's soon confiding to friends that he was, quote,
01:20:07
here's this fucking romantic. He's clearly a romantic. Laying the pipe to Binion's girlfriend.
01:20:13
Oh. Okay. I have another recovered memory. Great. There was a stand-up comedian that I knew when I first started stand-up in Sacramento.
01:20:28
Please tell me who it is. No, I can't even remember his name. Okay, good. He's a nobody.
01:20:32
I don't think he ever, I don't think he flourished. You don't think he succeeded?
01:20:37
I don't know. But he had a map, and he had pins in the map, and then next to the pin it would say LP.
01:20:46
No. And that's everywhere in the United States he had laid pipes. No! Yes. Yes. You do.
01:20:53
Yes. Yes. This is my world. I've been in it since I was 20. It's so upsetting. I never got better.
01:21:02
Are we sure he didn't mean take a shit? That's what I thought it meant. Yeah. The first time I saw the map, I thought he had put a pin everywhere he had taken a shit across the United States.
01:21:11
And I was like, that's weird and not something to brag about. And then I think it was someone like Blink Patch or somebody who was like, Karen, laying pipe means making love with a woman.
01:21:22
And I was like, oh, I've got to get out of this business. I've got to go lay some pipe.
01:21:26
I'll be right back. That's like an obvious one. You're going to the bathroom. I'm seeing this girl.
01:21:31
We've started to lay pipe. I just think there's something there. I think it's real.
01:21:36
The pipe laying is so, there's miles of it. It's all copper. It's amazing. There's a wire everywhere.
01:21:46
So he's clearly sucks. And then also telling his friends he's using her to advance his plan to steal the bulk of Ted's fortune, including the silver, etc.
01:21:57
So when Ted has to get a new place to hide his shit, he hires Rick to help construct a new vault.
01:22:06
It's a concrete bunker 12 feet deep, built on the desert floor on a piece of property he owned in Parup.
01:22:15
Parup. Parup? I don't know. I'm just saying what I think they're saying. Parup. Got it.
01:22:24
Only need to scream it at me four times. Parup! But I do know it's 60 miles west of Las Vegas.
01:22:33
Can you imagine? What's the after parties there? We're going to have a rave? We drive out there to Perup,
01:22:39
lay some pipes. I had to say it. I had no choice. It's the thing we were talking about two minutes ago.
01:22:46
It's called a callback. I'm stuck. I'm stuck in this. Okay. So the bunker, which sounds awesome,
01:22:55
contains tons of silver bullion, horseshoe casino chips, paper currency, and more than 100,000 rare coins,
01:23:02
including Carson City silver dollars, many in mint condition. I don't know what that means.
01:23:08
Really nice. Not mint, but Carson City. I know what mint means. Oh, oh. I mean, I understand that you wouldn't think I did
01:23:16
based on my track record. It was just the sentence construction, that's all. Came at the end.
01:23:22
Estimated to be worth up to $14 million in this fucking vault. And so the only people who had the combination
01:23:27
are Ted and this fucking bad guy, Rick. Bad Will Ferrell. Bad Will Ferrell. So, Bad Will Ferrell becomes a regular visitor at the Binion household.
01:23:37
He said he fell in love with Sandy. Days after the treasure is sealed in this underground bunker,
01:23:44
Ted revises his will. The bulk of his estate is $30 million worth it. Worth that.
01:23:54
He going to go to his daughter delete the names of a bunch of people and bequeath Sandy Oh that a slap in the face Because she already has a car That a lot of fucking money though
01:24:05
No, it is a lot of money. It's not enough. Well, I think what she wants, she wants to be living that silver bullion life, right?
01:24:14
Right. Oh, but also his home and all of its contents. Oh. That's weird. You think his daughter would want a fucking keepsake?
01:24:21
Maybe it was all like a daffodil yellow or something she could handle. She remade the whole thing.
01:24:27
It's like marble flooring and stuff. I don't know. What's nice? Marble countertops?
01:24:32
Yeah. Marble's nice. To make sure. Okay. Sandy. What are we talking about? I don't know.
01:24:39
I'm really. I feel like my brain is okay. And then. So by this time though, and maybe this is why, the relationship had started to go real shitty.
01:24:48
Sandy and Ted slept in separate rooms, and Sandy barely hit her affair with Rick.
01:24:54
So on September 17, 1998, six months after losing his gaming license, Sandy calls the police saying, my husband has stopped breathing.
01:25:04
And then the connection was lost. Paramedics found Ted Binion in his den, lying on a yoga mat,
01:25:10
empty bottle of Xanax besides him, dead. The autopsy and toxicology reports show that he had died of a lethal dosage
01:25:17
combination of Xanax and heroin with traces of Valium. Yay. Wow. That's so many drugs.
01:25:26
Someone just went, woo! Keep an eye on her, security. Just a little one? Yeah. Come on!
01:25:37
The day before, Binion had himself purchased 12 pieces of tar heroin from a street drug dealer
01:25:43
and had earlier gotten a prescription from his next-door neighbor, a doctor for Xanax, and had gotten it himself.
01:25:49
So he had purchased all those drugs on his own. So they thought that maybe it was an accidental overdose or on purpose.
01:25:57
But Las Vegas homicide detectives thought that the scene looked staged. His body didn't show typical signs of a drug overdose.
01:26:03
Also, his stomach contained heroin, and the police thought that an addict nor suicide would take heroin.
01:26:10
You don't eat heroin, right? You do not eat heroin. It's not like pot. You can't make heroin brownies?
01:26:16
Someone in the audience is like, actually, you can. I mean, I didn't know that. I mean, I wouldn't have tried it, but.
01:26:25
I just feel like, I mean, eating it isn't the ideal way to take heroin. If you want to shoot it into your eye, that's good, but.
01:26:33
No. But eating it won't work. Okay. So then, yeah, like, that's really suspicious, right?
01:26:38
I think so. Okay. So what prosecutors ended up believing is that Rick restrained Ted with handcuffs or thumb cuffs while Sandy mixed...
01:26:48
Is that real? It was in the article. I didn't make it up. I think we need to get a pair of thumb cuffs and see if they really work.
01:27:05
I can't even picture it. It seems like a dumb party game that if it happened at a party I was at, I would get really mad.
01:27:14
I don't think they would have picked you for the jury after this. They're like, how do you feel about thumb coughs?
01:27:21
Is that that fucking game that people keep playing? Ma'am, we're going to need you to.
01:27:26
Ma'am, you're dismissed from society. so then they said that sandy mixed up the heroin and stuff in a glass and forced him to drink it
01:27:37
and then that he was smothered so this is the fucking weirdest thing i've ever seen the wine
01:27:42
glass disappeared they could never find that wine glass but prosecutors have a videotape
01:27:46
filmed the following day of the crime scene you know and i guess it shows sandy removing a wine
01:27:51
glass from the kitchen counter and dropping it into her handbag on the police tape yes and i was
01:27:57
Like, is this real? Because I only saw it in one article, and I couldn't find the video.
01:28:01
And it's just like, well, then clearly. And she did, like, do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do.
01:28:06
She did that with her mouth as she took the wire glass away. She has, like, a mask on.
01:28:12
A black and white striped shirt. It's all tiptoes. Plink, plink, plink, plink, plink, plink, plink, plink, plink, plink.
01:28:21
Yeah. Like, honey, wait until the camera's pointed elsewhere. But also, wouldn't videotape cop be like, pardon me, you're not allowed to do that.
01:28:30
I'm pretty sure. Yeah. Lots of questions on that. Okay. It might not be even real, but I had to include it.
01:28:36
Okay. I love it. Great visual. Just kind of like. Also like smash immediately in your purse.
01:28:44
You'd have to get like a very specific purse. But okay. So I guess a large amount of cash and jewelry we were missing from the house.
01:28:54
A $300,000 collection of rare coins and currency that Ted had kept in his den were gone.
01:29:00
And two days after Ted Binion was found dead, Sheriff's deputies found Rick Tabish, fucking Will Ferrell,
01:29:07
and two other men unearthing the silver from the vault, like also with eye masks and fucking tiptoes.
01:29:16
Two days later? Two days. Just hold on the vault for fucking six months. and they were like
01:29:24
no he told us to do it but he was arrested and then he was bailed out by Sandy with a Mercedes Benz 500SL convertible
01:29:31
and five pieces of jewelry as collateral that are probably worth more than something
01:29:37
yeah a lot the Binion estate hired a private investigator because nobody believed that he had done it on purpose
01:29:45
or even on accident and so he turned up a trail of cellular phone conversations and secret meetings between Rick and Sandy
01:29:54
as well as evidence that they had told people about the plot to kill Ted So they were like blibbity all over town Oh guys Yeah But it wasn until about 10 months later in June of 1999
01:30:05
when I turned 19, after it was a special day. Just describe one outfit. I did it.
01:30:13
I wore, like, low-rise, like, old man pants. Okay. That, like, went down to the hip real low,
01:30:22
with one of those belts that has the buckle that you like, you know, like a buckly belt.
01:30:27
Yeah, yeah. Crop top. Okay. Real tiny, just like super skinny. I wore a cat collar with rhinestones, barrettes.
01:30:36
Very like... Homeless? No, like emo girl. Wait, I've seen that picture. Is that that picture where it's like from below
01:30:47
and it's like really long? That's her. You look pretty cool. Thank you. 99 I had stopped drinking
01:30:53
And I was just mad all the time But then 10 months The coroner changes Ted's cause of death
01:31:02
From suicide to homicide Sandy and Rick are arrested and charged with murder and conspiracy
01:31:06
To commit murder and or robbery The prosecution was purely circumstantial Relying heavily on the testimony
01:31:13
Of pathologist Michael M. Baden He testified That two small red lesions on Ted's chest
01:31:21
indicated, are you ready for this? That he had died as a result of birking. Do you know what birking is?
01:31:27
Oh no. I did not need to know what this was. It's a technique in which one person obstructs
01:31:35
the victim's nose and mouth while the other person sits on their chest to suffocate them.
01:31:40
My sister did that to me every day after school. What's it called when they dangle spit
01:31:47
over your face and you turn away and then it goes into your fucking ear. Sorry, it's not about me.
01:31:55
But isn't it? Birking owes its name to William Burke, who along with the partner used the method.
01:32:04
The partner was like, why couldn't it be called fucking Thomasing or whatever his last name was?
01:32:10
Smithing. Why didn't I get it? Yeah. They used the method to kill women in the 19th century Scotland
01:32:16
so the corpses could be sold for dissection. Oh, Birkin hair. Yeah. What? Yeah, yeah.
01:32:21
You're so smart. Herring. That doesn't have the same ring. I agree with him. I've heard of those people.
01:32:28
Shit. Okay, so he's killed in a really kind of weird, like they think it's going to be,
01:32:34
no one's going to catch on to it. That's what the prosecutors are saying. Yeah. Another key witness, attorney James Brown,
01:32:40
I know, testified that Binion called him the day before his death to change the terms of his will, he said that, quote, he said,
01:32:48
quote, take Sandy out of the will if she doesn't kill me tonight. If I'm dead, you'll know what happened.
01:32:55
Wow. Right. So clearly the jury found Murphy and Tabish, Sandy and Rick, guilty of first-degree murder
01:33:04
and of conspiring to silver bullion. Jesus. Conspiring? Conspiring. You know. They're making it spicy.
01:33:13
They were spicing it up. You make a plan while you're listening to the Spice Girls.
01:33:16
Exactly. Ba-ba-ba-ba. Okay. So, at 28 years old, Sandy was sentenced to at least 22 years in prison on 12 counts.
01:33:27
The judge said she had committed, quote, the ultimate betrayal. Which they should have called the made-for-TV movie that.
01:33:32
That you're exactly right. The ultimate betrayal is an amazing title. Yeah. I'm sure it's taken.
01:33:40
But you know what? So is sex and lies and fucking videotape. Wasn't Matthew Modine in that?
01:33:49
Sex, lies, and videotape? Yeah. James Spader. James, thank you, James Spader. Jean Shalit's here, everybody.
01:33:58
Oh, shit. Rick was sentenced to 25 years to life, but in 2003, so more than three years after her conviction,
01:34:07
the Nevada Supreme Court ruled that the trial was unfair because Judge Bonaventure, cool name, had made two errors.
01:34:14
First, he had included an unrelated charge in the trial. Okay, so basically Rick Tabish had tortured a businessman
01:34:21
to get him to work in his business, which is fun. That's one way to do it. And he allowed, so basically they were tried together,
01:34:31
but he was being tried for other stuff at the same time, so they shouldn't have been tried together is what they were arguing.
01:34:37
And then also that our friend James Brown's statement about the will, they couldn't say that because the jury should have been considered as an offering insight and opinion state of mind and not evidence as Sandy wanting him dead.
01:34:53
Something like that. It's not, yeah, him saying it doesn't mean it's going to happen.
01:34:56
Right. So, and then as for the Birking testimony, several experts are called to testify that the marks on his chest
01:35:03
were probably just dermatitis or even skin cancer or even a burn from a cigarette
01:35:08
rather than buttons being pressed into the skin. So then on November 23, 2004, the jury acquitted Sandy and Rick of the murder.
01:35:17
Wow. Rick stayed in prison on extortion charges until 2010, where he remained looking like our friend Will Ferrell.
01:35:27
And he's here tonight, ladies and gentlemen. My goodness. Okay. So, they're out.
01:35:36
So, Ted Binion hid millions in and around his Las Vegas home. All of which went...
01:35:42
Hid? Hid. He hid fucking money everywhere. Treasure? Treasure. All of which went missing after his death.
01:35:50
It's rumored to be buried on the property under odd mounds in the front and backyards.
01:35:57
And that's it. That's the story of the murderer. Oh my God. Great. There are so many things to love in that story.
01:36:10
But the fact that he went out having buried money makes me love him more than I've ever loved anyone in my family.
01:36:19
That's the best. He's like, enjoy yourself for the next 50 years. Yeah. Trying to find my doubloons.
01:36:26
Yeah. Have fun with it. Fucking love it. Yeah. have fun with your murder do we have time for a
01:36:33
I think we do I think you're it's still you I think we should start 2018 fresh are you sure?
01:36:43
too much pressure? yeah way too much pressure okay well we're going to just tell you a couple
01:36:47
and I know a lot of you know this already yelling won't help here's a couple rules
01:36:52
you can't be so drunk that you can't tell your own story buzzed is fine but you have to be able to deliver
01:36:59
It's good when it's local. People want to hear about stuff that's happened here.
01:37:03
Nevada. We don't care. God, your voice, I hope you're in the theater, because your voice was clear as a bell.
01:37:16
It was amazing. Are there any other roles? No. It's fucking killer. Can we have the lights come up just a tiny bit, if that's possible?
01:37:27
Karen's picking. So I have nothing to do with this Blue in the blue shirt Yes Blue, yeah, yeah, yeah
01:37:35
Thank you, that's good with the lights Oh my god, look how big this room is Hi What?
01:37:43
Why don't you put it over here? It's crazy Who is it? Where? That way, to Vince Don't bring a bunch of fucking people
01:37:49
Just get up here No, no, no, that way Jesus, do you see this? Come on You guys What did you see?
01:37:56
I didn't see the person She's over there. Hi. I'm not sure. Oh, here we go. Hi. Oh, there we go.
01:38:05
Sorry, what's your name? What's your name? Sarah. Sarah and? Brenda. Brenda. Brenda.
01:38:10
Yes. Oh, my God. Then go. Okay. Okay. What's your story? Oh, my God. Where are you from?
01:38:18
We are from. Sorry. We're from the state of Jefferson, if anyone knows where that is.
01:38:27
In Northern California. In a small town called Wairica. Oh, yeah. And our hometown murder is none other than your favorite Jodi Airs.
01:38:40
Who? Jodi. Oh, shit. Yeah, oh, shit is right. Because she, we're from a kind of large family.
01:38:51
We have four brothers, three of which have had sexual relations with one or more of the, oh, two, two, two.
01:38:59
We've got a four. Of the Ariases? Two of the four. Oh, my God. So, anyway, so. I'll let you tell the story because you actually wrote the hometown.
01:39:09
The email. The email. Okay. You know more than I do. I can't believe it. I cannot believe this is happening right now.
01:39:17
This is so surreal So stand up and tell everybody your name My name is Brenda And yes I did write an email about Jody
01:39:30
Okay. Our brother, Buzz, dated Jody his sophomore year of high school. They were together less than a year.
01:39:43
and if you watch the trial of Jodi, she talked about how she wanted Travis to come back to Wairika
01:39:55
and they were going to go up to this area in Wairika called Greenhorn. Well, we lived right next to Greenhorn
01:40:02
and she actually did that shit with our brother. Wow. Yes. Like obsessive, like stalking and all that.
01:40:13
Teenage, just teenage. They were dating. They were teenagers. They would take a blanket, camera, go up.
01:40:22
Oh, we're going to go hiking up on the trails of Greenhorn. They would go up there and do that.
01:40:28
Do what specifically? Sexual stuff, probably fingering. I don't know. Right? Uh-huh.
01:40:39
And? And? Uh-huh. I don't think my brother ever tied her up to a tree like she wanted Travis to do, but...
01:40:48
So that was her pattern, was doing that thing. And then after they broke up, she was still very much infatuated with our brother.
01:40:57
She would go out of her way to see him, talk to him, whatever. Okay, our brother Buzz is now married to her cousin.
01:41:09
They've been married for 10 years. they have four beautiful children together. Yes.
01:41:15
It's a small town. Go to younger brother. Meanwhile. Oh, that's a later story. Tony is two years older than Buzz.
01:41:28
He's kind of a dirtbag. Cool. And being a small town, there were several girls that both Buzz and Tony slept with.
01:41:40
Throughout high school, and I think that was part of the reason Jodi connected with Tony,
01:41:48
because she wanted to make Buzz jealous, that kind of thing. Bad, bad, bad stuff.
01:41:54
After high school, after teenage years. 2008. 2008. Jodi moved away from Wairika.
01:42:03
she was doing the whole she had met actually she met Travis here in Las Vegas in 2006
01:42:13
so it kind of comes full circle but 2008 she's moving from Las Vegas you know Mesa, Arizona, she's kind of going all over
01:42:25
but she always comes back to Wairika to see her family and our brother Joel So, he's a tattoo artist.
01:42:40
He has a tattoo shop right next to a restaurant that Jody parents have there in Wairica And they become acquaintances talk to each other
01:42:52
Jody's very drawn to Joel because of the history with our family and because he's artistic, but Joel never screwed Jody ever.
01:43:01
I swear, he didn't. But she did start dating his roommate. And this was literally during the time where she was coming back and forth.
01:43:15
And actually the roommate was asked to testify or give a statement. All those pictures of Jodi where she's here in Wairika and da-da-da.
01:43:28
Like the roommate was on those. Oh, God. Yeah. Like that's how close it was. But anyway.
01:43:35
So Jodi. And my other brother. Jody is dating the roommate. Jody is dating the roommate.
01:43:46
She comes to Wairika. The roommate and Joel and Jody go. They're hanging out. They're going out.
01:43:55
They go to the one bar in Wairika. They go to the one bar in Wairika. And for some reason, Jody is very much gravitated towards our brother.
01:44:02
and she was going to stay the night at their apartment that they shared and Joel's like, okay, are you going to stay, blah, blah, blah.
01:44:15
And she's like, no, I have to go back to Arizona. I have to go to a funeral. Whoa.
01:44:23
Before? Yeah, well, she says, I have to go back to a funeral because my really good friend, he was just murdered.
01:44:31
Oh, my God. And, of course, Joel, he's like, whoa, wow, oh, my gosh, I'm so sorry.
01:44:38
Like, that's horrible, you know. And she's like, yeah, he was brutally murdered.
01:44:45
She gives graphic details of he was stabbed. They think it was somebody he knew, blah, blah, blah.
01:44:53
I had to give DNA. Like, the police questioned me. Like, I just got back from being interrogated.
01:44:59
And of course my brother, he's like, are you a suspect? And she's like, no, no, this is just protocol.
01:45:09
They're just talking to everybody, close friends, blah, blah, blah. And my brother, he's like, oh my gosh, I'm just so sorry.
01:45:20
And she's like, I don't want to talk about it anymore. And so she starts dancing.
01:45:28
and she's like, I want to sing karaoke. And he's like, okay. And so she gets up, Jodie fucking Arias,
01:45:39
just about to go to her funeral for her good friend, Travis, and she gets up and she sings Patsy Cline, Crazy.
01:45:50
Crazy. Crazy. That was amazing. Wow. Yeah. She fucking seems crazy. Two weeks later, she was arrested in Wairika, California.
01:46:02
My good friend She lives in that house My sister is her cousin It fucking small town Wairika Thank you very much
01:46:14
You guys. That was horrible. That was horrible. Great job, great job. I know you hate that girl.
01:46:25
That was amazing. You guys hate Jobe. You hate Jobe. Don't worry about it. She's a monster.
01:46:30
That was some high-level sister smack talk. talking. You don't want to be the ex-girlfriend at that Thanksgiving. Oh, shit. That was fun.
01:46:43
This was fun. The first show of our 2018 tour, we're so fucking lucky. Oh, my God.
01:46:50
And you guys, it's such a, we love doing this so much, but the idea that we put tickets on sale
01:46:59
and then they sell out so fast people get angry at us is the most exciting thing that's ever happened in our lives.
01:47:05
Thank you so much for getting the tickets, for waiting, for spending lots of money and everything.
01:47:13
We are so, so grateful that this podcast gets to bring us here with you guys. We love it.
01:47:21
The live shows are the most fun. So thanks for being a part of it tonight, you guys.
01:47:27
And thank you for screaming for the longest any audience has ever screamed for us at the beginning.
01:47:35
Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Nevada, stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Thanks, you guys.
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Badges

This episode stands out for the following:

  • 85
    Biggest crowd reaction
  • 80
    Most shocking
  • 80
    Most chaotic
  • 80
    Biggest twist

Episode Highlights

  • Luxurious Hotel Experience
    The hotel rooms are extravagant, featuring heated toilet seats and multiple bathrooms.
    “It's like marble, mirrors. It'd be like an Egyptian pharaoh's dream come true.”
    @ 04m 23s
    September 13, 2018
  • Butler Service Surprise
    One attendee reveals they have a butler, leading to humorous jealousy among friends.
    “I got a butler. His name is John and he'll bring me anything I want.”
    @ 07m 09s
    September 13, 2018
  • The Great Escape
    A neighbor's dog performs an impressive escape, leaving everyone amazed.
    “She's trying to get into the fucking FBI!”
    @ 25m 16s
    September 13, 2018
  • The Poodle King
    The tragic story of Gerard Soles, a circus performer found murdered.
    “What? There's a Poodle King?”
    @ 33m 36s
    September 13, 2018
  • The Case of Fred Sties
    Fred Sties is arrested for the murder of Jerry Soles, despite a lack of evidence.
    “He ends up changing his story six times.”
    @ 51m 52s
    September 13, 2018
  • Fred's Alibi
    Fred's defense team presents an extensive alibi, but the prosecution has other plans.
    “There's 14 witnesses, 10 items of documentary evidence.”
    @ 52m 12s
    September 13, 2018
  • Fred's Innocence Declared
    After 20 years, a judge declares Fred Sties innocent, but he can't be retried.
    “Oh, my God.”
    @ 56m 19s
    September 13, 2018
  • The Alfred Plea
    Fred signs an Alfred plea to get out of jail, admitting no guilt.
    “Get me out of here.”
    @ 57m 24s
    September 13, 2018
  • Ted Binion's Mysterious Death
    Ted Binion is found dead under suspicious circumstances, leading to a murder investigation.
    “Paramedics found Ted Binion in his den, lying on a yoga mat, empty bottle of Xanax beside him.”
    @ 01h 25m 10s
    September 13, 2018
  • The Plot Thickens
    Evidence suggests Sandy and Rick conspired to kill Ted for his fortune.
    “They were spicing it up.”
    @ 01h 33m 13s
    September 13, 2018
  • Nevada Supreme Court Ruling
    The Nevada Supreme Court ruled that Sandy's trial was unfair due to errors made by the judge.
    “the Nevada Supreme Court ruled that the trial was unfair”
    @ 01h 34m 03s
    September 13, 2018
  • Jodi's Karaoke Performance
    Jodi Arias sings karaoke just before her friend's funeral, showcasing her unsettling behavior.
    “she gets up and she sings Patsy Cline, Crazy.”
    @ 01h 45m 39s
    September 13, 2018

Episode Quotes

  • Oh, my God.
    138 - Live at the Red Rock Ballroom in Las Vegas
  • That guy is still talking about that story.
    138 - Live at the Red Rock Ballroom in Las Vegas
  • I could just stare at that forever.
    138 - Live at the Red Rock Ballroom in Las Vegas
  • Fuck, that's crazy.
    138 - Live at the Red Rock Ballroom in Las Vegas
  • Wow. That's so many drugs.
    138 - Live at the Red Rock Ballroom in Las Vegas
  • Oh, shit is right.
    138 - Live at the Red Rock Ballroom in Las Vegas

Key Moments

  • HomeServe Introduction00:43
  • Hair Color Revolution01:07
  • Sandy Moves In1:12:00
  • Murder Charges1:31:04
  • Hidden Treasure1:35:43
  • Jodi's Obsession1:40:15
  • Karaoke Before Arrest1:45:57
  • Live Show Gratitude1:47:21

Tension Over Time

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown