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n [Music] [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
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listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man who just informed me
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this morning that if just steel does not win the Kentucky Derby well the garage May shut down for good here is the
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slightly optimistic Captain I made some bad Bets with the book and now my knees are on trial it's good
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to be seen it's good to see you thanks for listening thanks for Tona friend today we are still sipping on
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some delightful Sierra Nevada Summerfest this is a smooth and refreshing summer logger that is back on the shelves and
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in the beer coolers and beer caves right now for your consumption enjoy ABV 5 5%
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garage grade four out of five bottle caps and here's some cheers to our friends who continue to help us out
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first up a big shout out to Nicole Thomas and prer Washington and a big shout out to my bookie sister Jen Von
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from Queens New York like your J next up we have a longdistance cheers to Stefon
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and warendorf Germany and last but certainly not least we have an even longer distance cheers to Ben woodam
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from Spring Farm new South Wales Australia an absolute dream destination for me who knows maybe someday Captain
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everyone we just mentioned contributed to the True Crime garage beer fund and for that we thank you yeah BW are you in
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beer run and a big thank you to all of our patreon and apple subscription subscribers on Sunday we released a
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great episode where me and Nick get into a little heated debate about the devil's not in the west
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Memphis 3K so check that out and that's enough of the business all right kiddos everybody gather around grab a chair
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grab a beer let's talk some true [Applause] [Music] crime we've already discussed operation
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fish we started to talk a little bit about operation Miranda remember in 1984 when Charles ing meets back up with his
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fugitive friend Leonard Lake we have this bunker that was built this survival shed it's it's difficult looking at this
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today captain and I've seen pictures of this structure over the years I don't think this is up to any type of nuclear
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Holocaust but again we have Leonard Lake who's living under the name of Charles Gunner at the time telling neighbors
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that this structure is built for end times it's a a just in case it's a survival bunker but we have this bunker
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that's built also as a holding cell that is the way or the purpose that was described to Charles ing when he
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meets back up with Leonard Lake a bunker built to keep a woman and hold her captive so Lake could fulfill his almost
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lifelong fantasy of having a slave a female slave for both work and sex and simply for Leonard's pleasure and if she
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didn't fall in line or do as he ordered she would be punished and she would learn the rules she would learn to obey
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and she would even someday Leonard believe on a long enough timeline learn to enjoy being his slave and enjoy
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pleasing him and if she didn't well he would kill her and try again with a new slave there was also operation Pink
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Palace Pink Palace was a rooming house located in San Francisco what we do know about this operation Pink Palace is that
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from the time period of August of 19 1984 through the month of October 1984 three persons who were living at
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this Pink Palace would leave and never return or simply vanish so there's Maurice Rock of San
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Francisco who disappeared from the Carl Street Pink Palace rooming house sometime in August there's also Cheryl
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okora who she too of San Francisco unfortunately Cheryl may have been the first operation Miranda victim and then
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there is Randy Jacobson aged 36 also staying for a while at the Pink Palace he's last seen on October 15th
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1984 there's a little bit of confusion on my end here Captain I I don't think all three of these individuals were
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living together we also know that not all three of these individuals went missing at the same time because at the
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very least Randy Jacobson is seen many times by many people for at least 45 50 days after Maurice Rock and Cheryl okor
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are last scen right I think what happened here and there's evidence to suggest this is that the three of them
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or or at least one or two of of them they didn't disappear necessarily from the Pink Palace they went out to the
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ranch where Lake and ing were living again under that same ruse of oh here's a job we need somebody to work the land
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or work on this pot farm we think that a similar fate befell Maurice Rock and Randy
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Jacobson detectives believe that Cheryl was probably most the first victim of this whole dream
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fantasy that Leonard Lake created that he called operation Miranda that takes us through October of
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1984 on November 2nd 1984 Paul Cosner age 40 he's last seen he's living in the General San Francisco California area
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this man he actually has ties to Ohio here Captain he he grew up in Reynoldsburg Ohio at some point he's
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offered a job to move out west and he takes that job some of his family move out there with him and this wasn't a
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wife and kids I believe it it was his mother and sister Paul Cosner owns a 1980 Honda preload he
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disappears and so does the vehicle this is a similar situation to what we've already discussed oer had advertised the
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vehicle for sale in a local newspaper so he tells family that he had been in contact with a potential buyer he
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describes this buyer as a weird guy now on the night that he's last seen or last
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known to be alive and well he's leaving his apartment this is between 7:30 and 8:00 p.m. and he's leaving to meet this
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potential buyer the one that he described as a weird guy he never returns he's never heard from again his
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family doesn't see him again they don't see the car again well just a few more details on that he was actually going
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out on a date and tells his date hey I'm going to be a little late because this guy that I was telling you about that
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wants to buy my car I got to go on a test drive with him and to see if he really wants to buy the car so I'm going
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to be a little late again last time anybody hears from him nobody ever sees him again that's like
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this story on some level starts becoming so monotonous because it's you cross path
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with Leonard and Charles nobody sees you again if they have something that you that they want if you have something
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that they want or that they need for their survival as they perceive it then like the captain and
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said they take control of the situation and you simply disappear there was some information that says that there were
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strange messages that were left on Paul Cosner's answering machine I don't have the details of that here Captain but if
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in fact if that's true that seems very similar to what we've seen with Charles Gunner you know he runs off with with
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some woman Donald Lake decides to not live with mom anymore we have Harvey dubs whose employer receives a phone
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call from a mystery man if you will stating that Harvey dubs had to go off on this family
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emergency so like you said it's it's repetitive but the thing here is these victims these people that are
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going missing there's no real connection to each other right other than you have
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the dubs family and other than you have these persons from the Pink Palace but there's no real connection from from
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Donald Lake to well I guess in that situation you would have Donald Lake and Charles Gunner at the the nucleus there
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would be Leonard Lake but the Pink Palace people the dubs family there's no connection to those there's no
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connection to Paul Cosner yeah so it's not like law enforcement has all these people missing and that and they're all
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there's a focus around Leonard lake or or Charles but uh no because this would all have been busted up much sooner
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right and unfortunately lives would have been saved what we do have too at this time we do have Charles in he is working
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uh he's working for some type of moving company he's kind of not fitting in with
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his fellow employees his co-workers and in fact a lot of the dudes there think he's rather weird
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because he's always he's always like practicing martial arts in front of them he's
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shouting out things and always bragging about his time in the Marines and shouting out things like no gun no fun
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no kill no thrill things that are you know off-putting to say the least you don't want to hear some dude at work
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shouting those things out and then buddy up with him but somehow he ends up befriending a couple of people at this
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moving company one of them is Jeffrey Gerald he vanishes this is in February of 85 this is after telling a few people
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that he was going to go help Charles for a side job he's never seen after that later what we know is that Gerald's car
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is listed for sale and it's being sold by a person named Charles gunar we also have Michael Caroll this story is one of
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the more strange portions of this overall story this whole story is strange it's it's bizarre and and I I
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mean I don't take any great relief in saying this but I I do want to point out I don't think that some of the crimes
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can happen today I don't think that someone could fly under the radar for so long with this level of risky Behavior
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today I just don't think that it could happen one of the things that popped into my head when researching these
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insane two individuals was Facebook Marketplace H because these guys would have had a
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field day with Facebook Marketplace if you have a item that's for sale that they want and that is a means to an end
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for them then they're going to come find you kidnap your family kill them or kill
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you and then also you know the The Collector the book The Collector it kind of reminded me of Silence of the Lambs a
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little bit the Buffalo Bill there's all these facets to the story and and once it once the full picture is painted
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it all makes sense well and one of the things that I will never forget because to me it was such a shocking a sad but
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true statement from Thomas Harris who pinned Silence of the Lambs and the the other great books both before and after
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when interviewed he said that that nothing that he wrote about was false everything that he wrote
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about was true now of course those characters don't exist and those exact scenarios did not exist right but what
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he is saying is he simply had to take situations and real life events that he had reviewed and read about over the
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years and then apply his own creativity and Imagination to them and so you're exactly right to to kind of pair this up
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with a work of literature back to something of Silence of the lamps and The Collector as said
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unfortunately it was a piece of inspiration for a an absolute monster like Leonard Lake but it is a rather
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brilliant book and the John FS who who wrote the book certainly didn't have any intention of it leading to something of
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this nature it's just meant to be literature to be art well yeah but that's what happens when you have
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fragile individuals they're looking for their identity they're looking for a path so then Leonard Lake reads this
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book and boom he finds his path he finds his identity through this this novel and
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he carries that with him and then at some point it looks like like you said fragel I'm glad you use that word
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because he strikes me as the type of individual that was looking for reason give me a
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reason to go off and just do whatever the hell that I want to to live this life of lawlessness and chaos and
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causing other people harm and and taking what I want when I want it and I mean we
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have these saying for a reason hurt people hurt people I I think these two individuals were they were so desperate
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to want to be somebody to have some kind of power over somebody and it's just so strange
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that these two IND individuals found each other and then decided hey you can help me live out my fantasies I can help
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you live out your fantasies and I think that what we have here with lake is I think this guy was
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probably a real [ __ ] to begin with and then he got shipped off to Vietnam and then that was the breaking point and
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when he came back at some point he decided H none of this is for me anymore I don't have to follow your rules I can
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do what I want the end times are upon [Music] [Applause] [Music] us it was almost The Perfect Crime
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00:21:14
mates cheers you Colonel yeah cheers to you Captain cheers to everybody out there in listener land if you're
00:21:22
drinking in your garage tall cans in the air I mentioned a little bit this Michael Carol
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situation he had actually served time with Charles ing when he was serving time for
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stealing from the government and they remained in contact with one another eventually Michael Carroll goes out to
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visit with Charles ing he's kind of lured out there the same way that some of the other persons were that we've
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already discussed he's missing for a few days and that's when Leonard Lake and in
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decide well we're going to get in contact with Michael's girlfriend Kathleen Allen she agrees to go with
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them because they tell her a story that Michael has been injured that he's been shot and she needs to go visit him you
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know this is before the days of cell phones and she needs to go out of town and visit her boyfriend so she goes with
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these two guys later she's going to find herself in a situation locked up at the
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lake and in house and in this bunker that's been constructed we do end up learning a lot about Leonard Lake a lot
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of that comes from journals that he kept he kept journals that he would make daily entries into Kathleen Allen is
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discussed in some of these entries well let's just stay on that for a second because one of the things I think is
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fascinated about his journal and then obviously we know that he gets this film equipment and he wants to film
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these pornographies but film other things I mean there he has it where he is being interviewed on some of these
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videos and it's that goes back to me looking at this crimes it goes back to this idea that Leonard Lake thought he
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was something way more important than he was and that it was up to to him to document all this stuff whether it's
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through journaling or through photographs or through interviews or through pornography that he is so special he
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needs to document all this stuff yeah it's very strange because it's you know it's not the same exact risky Behavior
00:23:47
as BTK reaching out to the media or zodiac reaching out to newspapers but in a way it's Crea more
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evidence against you very strange behavior and I I I don't think that we we may not ever fully understand this
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need that he seemed to have for cataloging or at least documenting some of this behavior
00:24:19
and some of the actions well I'm glad you brought up BTK because Leonard Lake to me if you if you never seen him he
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looks like a a chubby version of Dennis Raider we also have the bond family we got Lonnie Bond we have his
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common law wife uh and some sources refer to her as just living girlfriend her name is Brenda OK Conor they the two
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of them together have a son these persons have the unfortunate luck of living near Leonard Lake and Charles
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in and they they had regular communication or interactions with the one neighbor that they knew as Charles
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gunar Lonnie Bond and his son and then wife they they go missing they are no longer seen at
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their home it's believed that Lake was already stealing this was one of the neighbors that he had been stealing from
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they had some kind of I don't know if I want to call it a friendship but again they're neighbors and they had regular
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interaction with one another we're going to circle back to the the bonds here in
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a little bit this will be they go missing at some point in April of 1985 so let's fast forward to June 2nd
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of 1985 we have Charles Ing and Leonard Lake they are at a lumber yard slh hardware
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store Charles ing is spotted by the manager or the owner stealing from the store yeah the owner
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said that these two individuals came in from time to time so when they came in together they're like well those are
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those two guys that have been in the shop before this time was different though because Charles grabs some items
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and then takes off running yeah some of it was it's been reported as building equipment what's regularly reported is
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that it was a vice and probably some other items so the shop they phone it into police right
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police arrive on the scene well unfortunately the sirens are going to tip these two off Charles ing flees Left
00:26:51
Behind is Leonard Lake Leonard lake is then offering to pay for all of these items no it's just a
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misunderstanding he wasn't stealing anything it's not a big deal I can pay for everything and we can all be on our
00:27:08
merry way well like I said these owners knew these two individuals they've come into the store before so I think that
00:27:17
Leonard and Charles went into the store thinking that nobody knew that they were
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connected so when Charles takes off with the items and then Leonard realizes they know that I'm connected to them hey
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hey guys just a misunderstanding I can make this right lucky for us for whatever reason cuz most store owners
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would go okay yeah fine if you're going to pay for the stuff just pay for it and
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we'll call it a day lucky for us they said no we're not going to accept that we're going to call law
00:27:51
enforcement yeah and you have to wonder if you like you said Captain if they were familiar with these two was there
00:27:59
a routine of oh we got a couple items missing from our inventory and then after a while you
00:28:09
start to pick up oh you know this group of people that those persons were here yesterday or about that same time and oh
00:28:16
every time we seem to see this one guy we've never seen him steal anything he seems like a nice enough guy but there's
00:28:22
always something that comes up missing and so maybe they were keeping a good eye on these two and you say and I said
00:28:28
the same they knew the workers they knew these two because they regularly came into the store but at this point in our
00:28:39
timeline does anybody really know Leonard lake has he used his real name on any occasion at any time right
00:28:48
leading up to this so this this is what what we get here is we get a very observant police officer and
00:28:58
I'm I'm we're also thankful that this is the way that this went down because what
00:29:04
happens is Leonard lake is there as said he's saying I can pay for this no big deal it's a big
00:29:14
misunderstanding when the police officer looks at Leonard lak's identification oh by the way Leonard
00:29:25
lake is not using that name he's using the name of Robin Stapley so he looks at Robin stapley's
00:29:32
California driver's license and the officer's like wait a second this the guy in front of me and
00:29:41
the guy in the picture on this driver's license they don't look anything alike we're going to phone this in right call
00:29:47
it into the department I got a robin Stapley here he doesn't look anything like his driver's license well and then
00:29:54
he has to call in the the vehicle that this IND individual that he doesn't know who he is yet they got to call in the
00:30:01
vehicle Robin Stapley the officer learns is a man from San Diego who was reported missing by
00:30:09
his family well that's a red flag then now you're looking at the vehicle this air quotes Robin Stapley is driving a
00:30:20
Honda preload this Honda Prelude vehicle is registered to a one Paul Cosner so now
00:30:27
if you're the officer you're sitting here going is this Paul Cosner using Robin stapley's California driver's license
00:30:35
for some reason right oh you know what let's check the license plate on this Honda
00:30:41
Prelude the plate comes back registered to yet another person Lonnie Bond so you
00:30:48
have a driver's license that doesn't look like the man standing in front of you you have a vehicle that doesn't
00:30:54
belong to the driver's license name and you have a license plate that doesn't belong to the registered name on the
00:31:01
vehicle or the driver's license and what law enforcement's going to learn is all
00:31:06
three of these individuals have been reported missing have been reported missing
00:31:12
and we're looking in this vehicle and we find a gun with a silencer on it got him
00:31:21
well he's not allowed to have a silencer we've talked about suppressors and other
00:31:26
episodes and uh you will know that you have to have a license for those which this individual is not able to provide
00:31:34
the other thing too is you start looking at this Honda Prelude and you see a bullet hole in the car's roof along with
00:31:41
blood spatter a stun gun and several unspent bullets under the passenger seat they find a utility bill that was in the
00:31:50
name of Leonard lak's exwife Clarin blah which this is very helpful because this
00:31:57
provides an an address because think about this situation if you're law enforcement at this point you've picked
00:32:04
up this guy you have no clue who he is you've got a whole bunch of leads because he has items on his person that
00:32:14
connect him to three different missing males but in a sense you have no idea who this guy is yeah or where are these
00:32:25
three missing people and so when you get this when you see this bill and it gives
00:32:31
you this address to this this remote cabin you go okay well we need to go look into this remote cabin but first
00:32:40
we're going to take this guy back to headquarters to figure out who the hell he is well while there Leonard Lake the
00:32:47
man that we know to be Leonard Lake says that he's willing to talk willing to cooperate with police he asked for a
00:32:56
pencil and some paper he then pens a letter to someone which we will later find out is to this Clarin
00:33:08
baz while there's no one in the room with him he takes a cide capsule he's found unresponsive in the room and
00:33:16
rushed off to the nearby Kaiser Hospital it takes a couple of days but Leonard Lake passes away he dies at the hospital
00:33:25
he's pronounced dead on June six while he's out and while he's in the hospital unresponsive of course like the captain
00:33:35
said police are going to go out to this address that they find on this utility bill there they find what has been
00:33:42
referred to for many different sources as a quote sea of evidence of murder kidnapping and torture that took place
00:33:52
at this location in fact the newspapers a lot of the newspapers were calling this a death camp they have all these
00:34:00
missing people they've already tied this individual to this property and they have three missing persons tied to this
00:34:07
individual they're looking and sorting for evidence to figure out are these people still alive if they are where are
00:34:14
they and if they're not where are they well also like you said that that letter that he wrote before he committed
00:34:22
suicide basically was a suicide note but obviously that in that know it doesn't leave us a bunch of information or
00:34:31
evidence to to tell law enforcement what happened to these individuals but they're going to find so
00:34:38
much stuff on this property like you said before they're going to end up finding this journal and that journal is
00:34:44
going to basically read like a Playbook of the crimes that Leonard and Charles committed and as we said a sea of
00:34:53
evidence that sums it up nicely but back to the cyanide so of course they're going to
00:35:01
reach out this Clarin balaz and she tells law enforcement that she's not surprised that Leonard Lake took his own
00:35:11
life that he had told her on multiple occasions if he was ever in a situation with law enforcement that that he
00:35:19
couldn't get out of that he was going to be sent off the prison he would kill himself he had told her the same if
00:35:26
there were apocalyptic type event where he could not defend himself or didn't think he
00:35:32
had a chance of survival that he would take his own life he was going to go out on his terms well he told her I carry
00:35:40
around cide so if something happens I'm going to pop this pill and down I go and
00:35:46
the way that he did this at the police headquarters was he had this pill or pills sewn into the collar of his shirt
00:35:59
so you can Pat this guy down yeah it would be easy to miss a pill you could pull out his pockets empty his pockets
00:36:07
and still not find his plan B if you will let's go through some of the items of note more notable items that were
00:36:17
found at this property mind you Charles ing is still gone at this point yeah he's on the Run he's on the Run what
00:36:26
they find at the again the papers were calling it a death camp they found a bunch of evidence that that told them
00:36:34
that Leonard Lake stole his brother's identity he opened up a PO Box in his brother's name and Donald Lake's name
00:36:42
and he was cashing Donald lak's disability checks so there's one missing person and one
00:36:48
crime that we can go okay it looks like Leonard is responsible for this plus law
00:36:54
enforcement the the easy evidence is when they pull up to the property all these vehicles that belong to these
00:37:01
missing individuals they also found evidence that told them that Leonard Lake also stole Charles Gunner his best
00:37:08
friend his supposed best friend's identity and was cashing his government checks as well then we have the bunker
00:37:20
or the shed right behind the dwelling there this was referred to by both police and the news papers as the
00:37:29
dungeon and inside this structure detectives found posted on a wall a list of typewritten rules for female captives
00:37:37
to follow they also found pictures of 21 women some of them nude I do want to point out here that of the 21 women they
00:37:46
don't think that all of the 21 women were murder victims but they definitely believe that some if not many of them
00:37:54
were some of those women some of the pictures and the women in these pictures have
00:37:59
been identified as murder victims and if you look at photos you know there's actually quite a
00:38:07
bit of photos of this facility I don't even know what you want to call it I mean death bunker I think dungeon I
00:38:16
think the papers and the police nailed it when they were calling it The Dungeon yeah cuz there was you know there was a
00:38:22
room that was there was basically a hidden door to get to the room and it was basic basically a holding cell and
00:38:29
it and even had this uh little tiny mirror but is a oneway mirror so basically they could monitor whoever
00:38:38
they had in that room they could monitor them in multiple ways in that same room
00:38:45
there's a small mattress and a bucket that police believe was used as a toilet they you know obviously they're
00:38:54
seeing all the obvious signs that this was used to hold women in a cell type environment to keep to keep them like
00:39:04
prisoners well like you said there was a list of rules found in this room as well basically so hey got nothing else
00:39:14
to do you can you can either lay down or take a crap in the the bucket or you could read this list of rules they would
00:39:23
also find a handdrawn treasure map and this is what led police to finding two buried five gallon buckets one of
00:39:34
these buckets contained envelopes with names and victim's identifications and the other bucket is
00:39:41
where they found Leonard lak's handwritten journals for the years of 1983 and 1984 along with two videotapes
00:39:50
documenting the torture of two of the female victims and in those on those videotapes
00:39:58
you can hear and see both Charles Ing and Leonard Lake in those videos they also found
00:40:07
some burn sites on the property the treasure map of course is going to spearhead the
00:40:16
digging the Excavating of some of the land there but these Burns sites become part
00:40:23
of this as well because they're now collecting ashes that have bones and like teeth that didn't burn up and even
00:40:31
some fingernails and such that somebody had try to permanently destroy these bodies these
00:40:38
remains so that they would never be found but they're collecting all this evidence from the scene and they're
00:40:46
walking out of there and they're telling they're telling the media that we think
00:40:53
that there could be as many as the number most commonly reported is 25 murder victims unfortunately that
00:41:02
number's never been confirmed that's the number that's reported the most often but I saw several sources that were
00:41:09
saying 27 at the time that they were suspected of 27 murders and because a lot of this
00:41:18
stuff was destroyed and a lot of the remains destroyed that they they had a hard time figuring out exactly how many
00:41:25
people were killed and kidnapped by these two individuals one of the things that I
00:41:32
thought was fascinating is you have some of these law enforcement agents that are
00:41:38
going through this property looking for evidence but they but they were individuals that worked some of these
00:41:47
cases mhm so you're walking through and you see a bunch of camera equipment and you're going hey remember that family
00:41:55
that went missing and we think that it had something to do with this camera equipment well there's some camera
00:42:02
equipment here and they found paperwork with the Harvey Dub's name on it receipts and
00:42:11
stuff for that said camera equipment and then like I said these vehicles so once
00:42:17
you find out that well there's one vehicle stolen from this guy and he's never been seen again and here's another
00:42:24
V here's another vehicle from somebody and this were reported missing you start putting two and two together and going
00:42:31
well that that's another murder victim now we just got to try to find their remains somewhere on the property one of
00:42:39
the things that uh a question for you when I was looking at this is I wonder how many of these were planned victims I
00:42:48
think when they're stealing a car or taking a friend out to the middle of nowhere and
00:42:55
and stealing their identity I think those are all planned victims but I wonder how many people because they did
00:43:03
have land and they did have these rooms did they have a situation where it's like hey come out work for
00:43:13
us and did that person find things they're not supposed to find or did Leonard and Charles sit them down
00:43:24
and explain to them hey this is what we're doing do you want to be a part of it well we do know that detectives were
00:43:31
very concerned about a possible third suspect being involved they worked that angle for a long time in this case we do
00:43:39
know that in the end they are telling us that they do not believe that a third suspect was involved that it was just
00:43:47
these two guys working together and then we also know based off of the timeline that Charles
00:43:55
in while he was certainly a part of some of these kidnappings and homicides he was not involved in the Donald lake or
00:44:03
Charles gunar homicides no cuz he would have been in prison at the time yeah he was in at lenworth so Charles Gunner
00:44:12
strange you know they're they're they're looking and unfortunately sifting through the ashes if you will on this
00:44:19
property looking for victims Charles gunar is somebody that is immediately connected to monster Leonard Lake
00:44:26
however they can't find any trace of him other than that his identity was stolen and that Lake was
00:44:33
cashing Gunner checks they're searching this property in 1985 and the the the searches were
00:44:40
extensive they went on and on because of just the nature of the landscape you can
00:44:45
imagine how long they would have spent there and you're also not in a great Rush at the time because one of your
00:44:52
perpetrators is dead there's no trial for Leonard Lake right now in regards to Charles Gunner they're
00:45:01
searching the property in 1985 his body's not discovered his body's Unearthed his remains are
00:45:09
Unearthed in 1992 when somebody else had owned the property and was digging for other
00:45:16
purposes so I think that what we cannot hit home enough in this case is the undetermined number of
00:45:27
victims in this case they don't still to this day they do not know exactly how many people were murdered by Leonard
00:45:37
lake or by Leonard Lake in unison with with Charles in what we do know is Charles ing did he he is eventually
00:45:49
caught it's in July of 85 this guy and this was a regular Behavior of in before the two got busted in San
00:46:02
Francisco he he was a habitual shoplifter he had received warnings from stores he had been received a slap on
00:46:12
the wrist at least once before they got busted but he's he's attempting to steal
00:46:18
items while on the run up in Canada so he's arrested up in Canada that law enforcement they're in communication now
00:46:27
with the authorities in California who they're like look good thing you caught this shoplifter because he's also a
00:46:35
suspected serial murderer and we have a lot of evidence suggesting that he's killed multiple people there becomes
00:46:41
this battle and I don't want to go through I don't want to get into the weeds too much on this here Captain
00:46:48
because it's it's a long drawn out and even detailed it's a laborious process to go through this portion of the story
00:46:55
and frankly that's a nice word laborious it it wouldn't be it would not hold the
00:47:01
attention of the listeners because it certainly did not hold my attention we get this squabble over extradition here
00:47:09
where the United States and the authorities in California like you need to send this dude to us so we can try
00:47:14
him for murders and oh by the way that's capital punishment we are going to uh the death penalty is on the table
00:47:23
for this guy and rightfully so again this is not a or a pro or negative death penalty show
00:47:32
but if you have it in your state this guy and they did have it this guy is certainly deserving of it if he is in
00:47:40
fact guilty of all of these atrocities so Canada at the time is saying well we're not going to send him back to you
00:47:46
just so you can kill him we don't believe in that so there's this squabble for a period of time over whether they
00:47:53
would even send him back thanks Canada this is the way that I heard it like 20 years ago so I'm going to pull a uh
00:48:00
that's my story and I'm sticking to it so whether this is the truth or not this is how I'm going to report it because
00:48:07
this is the truth as I know it to be in the book Die For Me by Don Lasser basically what they say is the United
00:48:14
States at some point gets tired of fighting with Canada to get this guy back and they say you know what if you
00:48:21
really want him that bad and if you really want to spare this Monster's life cool you can have him and the charges
00:48:28
that you picked him up on there he will get out eventually and and since you want him so bad you'll have to let him
00:48:34
live there now you don't really want that do you with with here's the evidence that we have against this guy
00:48:40
as being a multiple murderer right do you really want him running around on your streets up there and So eventually
00:48:47
Canada says yeah I think you're right you can have him back you guys figure out what to do with him he ends up in
00:48:55
trial he doesn't go to trial until the 990s and in fact I believe it was something ridiculous like 12 or 14 years
00:49:03
later at one time Charles ing the prosecution of Charles ing was the most expensive prosecution in the history of
00:49:13
the state of California it was millions of dollars like something of upwards of $20
00:49:19
million to convict this guy one thing that everybody remains very angry about to this day and rightfully so Clarin
00:49:31
baz was given immunity for her cooperation in helping to prosecute Charles in her name and identity are all
00:49:44
over the place at that property in fact two of the guns that were used or believed used to murder
00:49:52
some of these victims were registered to clarland boss to this day captain and I
00:49:58
think the authorities felt like their hands their hand was forced a little bit here to Grant her immunity and to need
00:50:08
her to work with them I'm not convinced using hindsight I'm not convinced that they absolutely needed her or to Grant
00:50:15
her that sweetheart deal I'm also not convinced that she was fully aware of what was going on but there are some
00:50:23
there are some markers here right the the guns were registered in her name she already knew by her own admission to law
00:50:32
enforcement she was aware that Leonard Lake was committing crimes she claimed she was unaware that
00:50:39
he was committing murder and kidnapping but they also found her name endorsing some of those checks that were
00:50:49
coming in from identities that he stole Donald Lake's identity Charles Gunner's identity unfortunately we have a death
00:50:56
penalty case here Charles ing is finally convicted it takes over a decade It's 1999 before he's on trial these
00:51:08
guys their crime spree ended in 1985 14 years to put this man behind prison and then an immunity deal given
00:51:19
to clarland balaz here we sit today Charles in still incarcerated at San Quinton State Prison and we have
00:51:28
clarland balaz who nobody knows her level of involvement in a case where we could be talking about as many as 27
00:51:39
people murdered but some of the evidence we have as far as the journals go or as
00:51:45
far as the videos go we don't have any evidence that I'm aware of that directly connects her to any of these murders and
00:51:55
so to those tap I mean could you imagine being law enforcement and having to watch those
00:52:02
tapes to try to collect more evidence yeah the the tapes are are rather disturbing and I hesitate and and I
00:52:12
don't really want to go into describing What was seen on these videotapes right we do know that they
00:52:22
were used as evidence of course they would be used as evidence against Charles A as he's spotted in he's
00:52:29
seen in these videotapes and they are I'm trying to find a way to put this in its simplest form when the
00:52:39
public hears about these tapes I think that's what really Drew attention to this case I think the fascinating thing
00:52:48
about this case is the way in which they were living the way in which these two Criminal Minds were intertwined
00:52:56
and it seemed like they were enabling each other um and then I think it's also fascinating
00:53:05
that one of them had an addiction of you know just simple shoplifting and that was the
00:53:15
downfall and what got them to be ultimately caught for crimes way more heinous than shoplifting well and there
00:53:25
is some indicator that Charles in and Leonard Lake were not into the same things even though
00:53:33
that they committed a lot of the same crimes right like when we described the two of them at the beginning it's
00:53:40
Charles in was he was not above committing murder but his type of murder would have been more In the Heat of the
00:53:51
Moment Blaze of Glory type stuff where he's going in with a group of men in violently robbing a bank or maybe forced
00:54:01
to shoot his way out of a situation when he's attempting to steal weapons or a large amount of
00:54:08
weapons in fact we do know that they that these two were different when they first met and even when they joined back
00:54:17
up in 84 based off of Leonard Lakes journal entries he does State on more than one occasion in these
00:54:25
journals that Charles ing does not he again he's calling him Charlie in the right in the
00:54:32
notebooks but he does say that Charlie doesn't seem to be into my plan the these journal entries most of
00:54:43
them are not very descriptive in fact they're rather cryptic and vague and I think they were cryptic and vague for a
00:54:52
reason that's about the most that we get from Lake as far as whether Charles in was ready to do this out of the gate
00:55:04
or not was that Charlie seems to not like my plan or not want to go along with my plan yeah you wonder also
00:55:14
if ultimately would Leonard would Leonard Lake take out Charlie and and there's no doubt in my mind that he
00:55:22
would I don't wonder I actually don't wonder I think he he absolutely would have taken out but but also I think it's
00:55:28
very fascinating because Leonard Lake was living in a fantasy world of the novel The
00:55:35
Collector and Charles was almost living out any you know action movie Bad Guy role you know Die Hard that's what he
00:55:50
was living out in their mind they're both living in these fantasy worlds and I think again both because of these
00:55:57
tapes these horrible tapes that were found that's what drew the Public's attention because I think the
00:56:06
fascination for wanting to see these or to or when you when there's crimes that we have audio of that people want to
00:56:15
hear those or see those things it's because it's all a story all these crime cases are just a
00:56:25
story and there's there's nor normally no visual repres representation of the crime does that make any sense so I
00:56:34
think the fact that there is and that if if a Dark Twisted mind wanted to see these that they probably could find
00:56:46
them and and that makes these crimes even more real and not just a story well and I look I I don't want to
00:56:57
I don't want anybody to think that we're hiding the ball here that we're that we're sweeping any of this under the rug
00:57:05
yes those videotapes are a part of the story it's just a part of the story I'm not
00:57:10
comfortable reviewing um I I I mean reviewing audibly here for everybody to hear I have reviewed the information
00:57:20
that is readily available about those videotapes and what is readily available if one were to go looking hard enough
00:57:28
and they can find it are the transcripts they have transcribed all of the audio from those videotapes right
00:57:36
I've reviewed that multiple times I don't feel great talking about it here it doesn't do anything for our story for
00:57:43
the purpose of locking anybody up or finding the bad guy what it does if anybody is curious is confirms 100%
00:57:52
because Charles in's trial was more drawn out than I believe that it needed to be so when you have that type of
00:57:59
situation that is suggestive to me that there are persons out there that thought
00:58:04
maybe Charles ing was some kind of victim himself that he was just another Pawn in Leonard lak's
00:58:14
big chess game of murder and and sex slaves and kidnapping right but what those tapes
00:58:24
confirm is no he was willing he did go along he is speaking to the victim he too is threatening the victim is he
00:58:36
being subservient to Leonard Lake yeah yeah he is Leonard Lake was clearly the leader as far as those transcripts go in
00:58:47
the conversations that are had on those vide tapes but just like the presiding judge in Charles in's case
00:58:57
in at his trial mind you he is sentenced was sentenced to death the presiding judge at Charles in's trial said quote
00:59:05
Mr ing was not under any duress nor does the evidence support that he was under the domination of Leonard Lake meaning
00:59:13
that the judge after reviewing everything was 100% convinced that in the 11 homicides that Charles ing was
00:59:25
convicted of right that he did this [Music] willingly if you need more True Crime
00:59:42
garage for your earballs make sure you subscribe on Apple podcast or sign up on patreon Colonel do we have any
00:59:50
recommended reading for the beautiful listeners you know we rarely do this Captain but I am happy to do it today we
00:59:57
are recommending a fictional book titled a letter from Sherry by Cheryl Grant a letter from Sherry is a story inspired
01:00:06
by California serial killer murders executed by Charles in and Leonard Lake Cheryl Grant was adopted at a very young
01:00:15
age and she grew up believing that her biological mother was murdered by her biological father when she was a
01:00:22
teenager she began searching for answers as an adult her biological Aunt found her and
01:00:29
confirmed that her mother Sher Otoro had been a victim of the caleris County California Killers Charles Ing and
01:00:40
Leonard Lake back in 1985 she reached out to the retired detective on the case and he sent her an 11 page letter
01:00:49
written by her mother while she was being held against her will by Lake and in that 11-page letter addressed to no one
01:01:00
simply left there hoping that someone would find it found its way somehow to Cheryl that letter answered almost every
01:01:09
question that Cheryl had about who her mother was why Cheryl was put up for adoption and why her mother was no
01:01:17
longer around I just finished this book earlier this week and it's a great read it's powerful with a lot of emotion and
01:01:26
it was hard to put down so go and check out a letter from Sherry by Cheryl Grant
01:01:32
you can find that great recommendation and many more including podcast and documentaries on our recommended page on
01:01:41
our website true Crim garage.com yeah and while you're at truecrime garage.com sign up on the mailing list until next
01:01:49
week be good be kind and don't litter [Music]