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thank you [Music] [Music] thank you foreign garage wherever you are whatever you are
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doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man who
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has agreed to play out the rest of the season on the franchise tag here is the captain oh honey it's good to be seen
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and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a friend [Music] today we are still sipping on Pulp
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friction from the Motorworks Brewing if you like citrus grapefruit in a beautiful golden and orange Brew you're
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going to love pulp friction which took the gold medal at the 2017 best Florida beer Championship garage grade three and
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three quarter bottle caps out of five and here's some praise and thank you that goes out to our good friends that
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helped us with this week's beer run and those are first up a cheers to Melissa and Fort Myers Florida and a big shout
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out to Paramount and Hillsdale New Jersey and next we have hailing from the beautiful Parts Unknown we have Theresa
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Bauer everyone we mentioned helped us fill up the fridge for this week's shows and for that we thank you
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in beer run make sure you go to our website sign up on our mailing list if you need more True Crime garage for your
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earbuds check out our bonus show cut off the Record and also if you want to keep the lights
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on go the store Page get yourself some swag you'll be looking good in that swag that's enough of the business all right
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everybody gather round grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music]
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two south Florida counties in the mid 90s were rocked by the disturbing discovery of five disfigured and
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mutilated bodies in three different locations across the cities of Northport and Port Charlotte
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this between 1994 and 1996 five bodies were discovered but it was the last one which was the first to be identified all
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five cases were considered homicides two of the five victims at this point in our
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timeline are identified and along with autopsy reports it was believed that the killer was preying on
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vulnerable young male victims who were either transient or homeless now one victim that was identified was Richard
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Montgomery who was killed a short time before his body was discovered this would make his case quite a bit
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different from the others and the police were gearing up to try to track down the
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persons known to Mr Montgomery to find out what they could possibly know about his murder and what they find is some
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great Witnesses for the Montgomery case here's what they learned they find two witnesses that say that they had seen Mr
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Montgomery the day before his body was found in the woods according to these Witnesses these were people that knew Mr
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Montgomery to some degree they said that he told friends the night that he disappeared here that he had a gig he
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had a job that was going to pay him two hundred dollars and he was last seen by his friends standing by a rural road
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waiting for someone waiting to meet someone but it sounds more like he was waiting for someone to meet him and pick
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him up at that location then of course we know that Mr Montgomery was found dead the next day police also learned
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that Richard Montgomery lived with his sister and they could place the victim with some other individuals this is
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Bobby Whitaker and Gary Mason and some other friends the day before when he mentioned that he was going out to make
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a few hundred dollars and would be back shortly when asked by somebody in the group if whatever he was up to was
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illegal Mr Montgomery simply smiled Mr Montgomery also told his mother that someone had offered to pay him 200 to
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pose for nude pictures but he did not tell her who made the offer right in this same conversation with his mother
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Montgomery mentioned that he had recently met a man named Daniel connahan who lived in Punta Gorda Isles and was a
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nurse at a medical center the last time friends saw Montgomery alive was on April 16th between 4 pm and
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7 P.M Weeks Later in may of 1996 two witnesses came forward to point out that Dan conahan
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is likely to be the last person that they were aware of to be in contact with the now deceased Richard Montgomery
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again he was the fifth body found but this is huge because we can identify one of the victims and we have some people
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that knew the victim while still working to piece these alarming details together
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an unexpected call came into law enforcement this maybe from one of the strangest places that they would think
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to possibly get a break in their case this call came from an incarcerated individual
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who told the police he knew who had murdered Richard Montgomery well and if this guy is
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credible this could be a huge break for law enforcement the person who calls in is a one David a Payton so the next big
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break in this case came on May 8th 1996 that from a prison inmate located in moorhaven
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and this was David a Payton who had a story for the detectives David Payton told police that before he was locked up
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he said that he would Cruise the streets of Fort Myers Florida and hustle gay men for money
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he told detectives that in March of 1995 he was picked up by a person that he identified as Dan conahan he said Dan
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gave him drugs and alcohol and asked if they could drive to a remote area to take some photos of David Payton naked
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and tied to a tree this is an incredible detail and graphic account of this incident and
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this is all from a fantastic website called Twisted Florida it's a Blog about several different true crime stories
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from the Florida area yeah I recommend this blog which I love Florida Captain especially the beach communities there
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but Florida is as weird as any state when it comes to True Crimes well you love to go on vacation there and uh and
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because of you you have shined so much light on the the crimes in Ohio so basically the two places you go most of
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the time have some weird cases suspicious a little bit of a red flag so I'll tell
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this portion of our True Crime Story as it is told on the Twisted Florida blog go on kind sir David Payton might have
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thought he was in for a good time when a stranger in a car rolled up alongside him and asked him if he wanted to smoke
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some joints Peyton often spent his nights hanging out on the streets of Fort Myers hey bro
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you Wanna smoke some weed that late evening in 1995 he accepted a man's offer and hopped into his car what
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followed would not be a typical night in Southwest Florida as the two were coasting along U.S 41
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Peyton noticed that while The Quiet Man in the driver's seat was supplying him with marijuana Valium and beer
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the driver was not partaking himself little conversation was taking place between the two strangers until the man
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seemingly out of nowhere asked Peyton if he had ever had photographs taken of him
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specifically nude photos The Stranger said he wanted to drive to the woods and take photos of Peyton's naked body tied
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up reaching over he touched Peyton in a certain area and explained that the Rope
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would not be and explained that the Rope would be tied tightly but not bad enough to hurt
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him yeah right continuing on their Drive the two ended up on an out of the way Dirt Road in Charlotte County Florida
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they passed a couple of people and trucks with dogs and upon seeing them the Man became agitated and upset this
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is the driver the two moved along slowly until they hit a mud hole and the vehicle became stuck
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when Peyton offered to go ask the other people that they had just seen for help the man's demeanor darkened and he
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firmly said to not move from the car while he talked to them run for your life returning with another person to
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help push the car out of the hole he directed Payton to remain inside the vehicle alarmed Payton turned around and
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looking at his surroundings he noticed a few disturbing items in the back seat of
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the vehicle items with a potentially chilling purpose the these items that he says he saw their Captain were a camera
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a bag a tarp some rope and a hunting knife well the camera maybe that doesn't throw up any red flags but I don't like
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people having big trash bags in their car so run for your life or oh you got some ropes maybe run for your life or
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once you see a tarp run for your life get out of there this is not a good place to be I don't find myself in that
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vehicle at all so it's hard for me to think past that part one I'm not getting in the vehicle in the first place two
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once you touch my purple-headed yogurt Slinger I'm gone but also when you say hey I'd like to take some nude photos of
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you tied up to a tree well first of all nobody nobody wants to see the captain nude but second of all
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you do not want to see me tied up naked on a tree well this guy driving this car
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he does oh yeah he he send me a couple I've not asked him specifically this question but I'm here to tell you I
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would wager 100 Bill he does well on those on our 600 episode you just said the funniest thing
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that you've ever said so I guess the next 600 shows it's all up hill from here ladies and gentlemen but yeah I'm
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not getting into that car there's too many red flags and and if I get in that car there's so many red flags that I am
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jumping out of the window for my life this is what's going to push him over the edge I don't know how scared or
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frightened he was or how off put he was by any of the actions leading up to this
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I can simply simply uh regurgitating the story that's on Twisted Florida as they
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saw it so he says Peyton says that you know seeing these items he was already kind of
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getting frightened and he said driven by fear I had to make a split second decision and tell you what this Peyton
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guy now while I would not have gotten in the car this guy makes a great effort uh
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here this is a very smart move on Peyton's behalf so what he does is as soon as this man Dan conahan and this other
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person get the vehicle remember the the car is stuck in this mud hole right as soon as these guys push it out Payton he
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does as instructed by this this person that's been driving him around remember Dan conahan says don't get out of the
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car you say you are to remain in the vehicle well David Payton remains in the vehicle he just hops in
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the driver's seat and flees the area takes the vehicle with him he's driving off in this blue Mercury
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Capri and he's heading south on US-41 in the man's vehicle that you know the guy that
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picked them up but because of the drugs and the beer in his system he was already having a hard time staying awake
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at the wheel as he's trying to flee this area well and again so it could be a situation where they start moving the
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the car and he starts going man whatever this guy gave me is is doing something to me it's trying
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to pass me out right well I don't know if he's trying to pass him out I think he's just plying him with drugs and
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alcohol so that this guy becomes an easier victim even more vulnerable and I mean you're talking that combination
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as described by Peyton right is Valium marijuana and beer well party you want to stay awake and drive a vehicle you
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better get some toothpicks and and keep your eyes pried open your eyelid's pride
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open there but um he says that he drove off the drugs are in his system they're taking effect he was having a hard time
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staying awake of course this whole thing there's no real violence here what happens is you would think that
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maybe or as the good people at Twisted Florida wrote that Payton would contact the authorities after such a strange and
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frightening experience but the flip side of that coin is ironically it was not Payton who contacted the police but
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rather Dan conahan who was the owner of the rope and the knife and the tarp uh he lost very little time in contacting
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police and this is because he was driving his father's vehicle right so when he comes home
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without his father's vehicle because his this person that he picked up made off with the vehicle he contacts the police
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and says hey someone stole my father's car and here is a story or my version of the story as it goes
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unfortunately soon after David Payton reached Fort Myers Florida he's picked up and arrested
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for the stolen vehicle so now he's telling police what happened that night and they don't believe
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Peyton's story Dan conahan he reports his father's car is stolen on the on that same night and he his story was
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very different he said that the theft happened when he stopped on the side of the road and he went to relieve himself
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now an initial background check of Dan conahan revealed that he was an unemployed licensed practical nurse who
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had previously worked at Charlotte Regional Medical Center he had formally served in the military until being
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discharged he was currently living with his parents in Punta Gorda so they didn't believe David Payton's story
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Peyton's defense attorney at the time told him to take the plea or he was going to be risking more time in prison
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so with no support on his side David Payton pled guilty to vehicle theft and was sentenced to two years in prison so
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now we fast forward to may of 1996 David Payton still incarcerated tells authorities hey I know who committed the
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hog Trail murders it's the same person that picked me up a year before took me to a road not well traveled and told me
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that he wanted to take nude pictures of me tied up and of course he's not able to identify
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The Man by name I'm guessing maybe even on this phone call he's certainly not able to identify the person driving the
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vehicle that night as it happened but when you later plead guilty to stealing the car you know who filed the police
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report so of course police have that man's name from the police report of that stolen Mercury which
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ended up leading them to Daniel connahan Jr right and you have to remember where
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he jumped into the driver's seat and drove off to escape where they claimed that he
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stole the vehicle from was only a few miles from one of the dumping sites where they found all those bodies well
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let's just think for a second how bad that would suck you you get in the car you shouldn't have gotten the car but
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you got on the car you took some drugs they're doing some stuff to you this guy's acting strange he's talking to you
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about taking pictures of you nude tied to a tree he has this knife in his car that you get stuck you jump in the
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driver's seat you take off you get arrested the cops don't believe you and now you're sentenced to two years in
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jail I mean maybe you'd feel lucky at that point like look I could have been murdered
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and then you would think at some point that this person after the situation happens
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then kind of sees different things in the news that would make him believe that he escaped death yeah after all it
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was it was he the inmate that contacted police and said hey I know who I think did this and then
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you know let's go back to some of the other unique details of these cases you know we have police who are working
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these as they are in fact connected due to the unique nature of the homicides and the fact that they believe
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and have proof of the victims being tied to a tree tied naked to a tree and then
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strangled the police are reviewing similar assault reports from the recent past and we talk about this so many
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times when we cover cases like this and unsolved cases of Serial offenders you have to remember in the cases that are
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solved it's not something that happens in every single case but it happens often and
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sometimes it's not until the guy's already in handcuffs are already on trial or even after the fact that he
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gets locked up right but often we find the one who got away yeah Ryan Gosling there's usually somebody who got away
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the the managed to survive a serial killer and they're able to give us great insights into the other attacks that
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happened on victims that weren't so lucky so one such report if in fact police were looking for one that got
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away or similar types of crimes they come across this report that is from August 15 1994. so it falls into
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our general timeline right the 94 to 96 seems to be the span of concern here right and I have a very kind of basic
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version of this story but I'll go through what I have here Captain it says Stanley burden was a high school dropout
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who had difficulty keeping a steady job the assault report indicated that burden
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met Dan conahan who offered to pay him 100 to 150 dollars to pose for nude photographs Burton agreed and conahan
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drove him to a rocky Dirt Road in a secluded area where conahan pulled out a duffel bag with a tarp and a Polaroid
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camera the two men headed into the woods where codahan laid the tarp out and asked Burton to take off his shirt after
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taking numerous pictures of bird and connahan then took out a new package of clothesline so he could get some bondage
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pictures he asked burden to step close to a nearby tree and then clipped the clothesline in several pieces draping
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them over burden to make it look like bondage conahan moved behind burden snap the Rope tightly around him pulled his
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hands behind the tree place the ropes around his legs and chest and wrap the Rope twice around Burton's neck
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conahan then performed a sex act on burden and attempted to sodomize him after many unsuccessful attempts
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connahan snapped the Rope around Burton's neck placed his foot against the tree and pulled on the rope in an
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attempt to strangle burden who tried to slide around the tree to keep his windpipe open conahan hit burden in the
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head this dude is a absolute Savage I mean he is a sick SOB eventually he gives up on this attack
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conahan seems to get frustrated as the two are struggling back and forth in the woods
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and he gives up on this attack and he leaves the area but he left this man tied up to the tree
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right now who knows how long he would have been there the way that Burton describes it it sounds to me like he
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leaves conahan that is leaves mid-struggle who knows I wasn't there and again this is a brief
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description maybe conahan thought he had successfully choked the guy to death sure you want it using the Rope but
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regardless what we know ends up happening is this burden guy gets extremely lucky that
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conahan left something at the scene it was like a set of pliers or something that somehow in a struggle he was able
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to reach these pliers I don't know if he used his his foot to grab them off of the ground
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but he's able to use these pliers to help pry himself loose from the rope and from the tree and he he managed to
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escape with his life uh in that way now it's uncertain to me what what is unclear through all of this is they have
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this assault report that was filed by this individual by Stanley burden but I'm curious if that because we're
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reading it after the fact that they've retroactively applied Dan conahan's name to this report because it seems like
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conahan should have been arrested and charged with something knowing that he filed this police report but it doesn't
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seem like that ever happened so it's very likely that this victim Stanley burden didn't know the man who picked
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them up and who tried to kill him there in the woods yeah so even though he didn't know him so he couldn't say hey
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well it was John it was my buddy John they were able to have him identify who's able to identify Dan conahan
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through a police lineup [Music] everything anybody [Music] all right we are back
00:24:37
can't believe we made it this far it's all because of you but make sure you subscribe to the podcast and make sure
00:24:43
you tell a friend so we can reach another 600 episodes cheers to you Colonel cheers captain now remember our
00:24:52
inmate David Payton who called police says hey I know who killed Richard Montgomery
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they hear his story they are aware that well we charge you with stealing Dan conahan's father's vehicle so we do know
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that you know this individual or spent you know some deal of time with him even if you were in fact guilty of stealing
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the car or if you say what happened happened they can clearly connect the dots between
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Peyton and Dan conahan now what happens here is they're like you know what we better double check
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everything before we really start investigating this guy we have other people mentioning Dan conahan's name to
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law enforcement as well in regard to Richard Montgomery's murder they hook Peyton up to a lie detector test he
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passes the test and so with that they decide hey that's enough for investigators to put a tail on Dan
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conahan they want to start their investigation but they're going to surveil Dan conahan for some time before
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before they take the investigation any further well it's smart on law enforcements
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part to hey we don't know if we should believe him let's give them a polygraph at least they give us some kind of
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barometer of if we can trust him or not yeah and they're going to use that information to
00:26:18
start to tail Dan conahan and they start by going to the condo where he shared a living space with his father
00:26:28
and Punta Gorda and the detectives they discover very quickly that he has some erratic driving behaviors he's always
00:26:37
out driving he often pulled u-turns he stopped on side streets and parking lots they wondered if he was aware that they
00:26:47
were trailing him or if he just did these types of Maneuvers because he was worried that somebody
00:26:55
may be tailing him you see what I mean like not necessarily any awareness that somebody is in fact doing it right but
00:27:02
as a just in case so they decide very quickly that they're going to put a tracking device on this vehicle in fact
00:27:10
soon after they received David Payton's information police began monitoring Dan conahan
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and a mobile tracking device was placed on that vehicle they say every time he left his house we had six cars
00:27:25
bracketing him yeah one of the best tips I've ever heard from law enforcement is
00:27:29
if you think somebody's following you do four left turns or four right turns they
00:27:35
had Dan conahan's home under 24-hour surveillance with both human eyeballs on the team as well as
00:27:44
video cameras surveilling this condo where he lived at with his parents at all times they say that they surveilled
00:27:51
him for 50 days and they had two separate instances when they had undercover detectives who posed as
00:27:58
homeless men who stood on the side of U.S 41 and while they were wearing a wire Dan actually approached these two
00:28:08
men and asked them about going to have them pose for nude pictures in the woods aha haha
00:28:16
feels like a gaudy moment some more details about that is one detective said that he was asked if he was into
00:28:24
modeling and Dan told him that he liked to take photos with a theme of progressive bondage and then we have a
00:28:33
second undercover detective that put himself in conahan's path and he said he too was propositioned with cash if he
00:28:41
would pose naked for some pictures now they couldn't get these two undercover Detectives
00:28:48
they could never get him to take them to the actual to any place in the woods or
00:28:56
out in any of these locations they were hoping to have him do that the interesting thing here though too is if
00:29:03
you look at the situation and you have these five victims and I know we're talking about a span of of two years or
00:29:10
so in which we had these five victims but with the 50 days of surveillance they're really hoping to catch this dude
00:29:18
red-handed is what it tells me and unfortunately that means that based off of the crime scenes and how
00:29:26
decomposed some of their victims were they likely didn't have much in the way of physical evidence against Dan conahan
00:29:33
they were able to trace some of that fiber evidence that they had and some paint chip evidence that they had found
00:29:42
at the crime scene and on some of the murdered victims back to Dan conahan back to the vehicle that he was using
00:29:49
and back to the home that he shared with his parents right so that gives us some
00:29:54
kind of physical evidence the other troubling thing they were able to subpoena Dan conahan's credit card
00:30:01
records and they were able to see his purchases and his purchases are lining up with some of these stories of of what
00:30:10
people called in mainly Stanley burden's story then also David Payton's story where they got credit card statements
00:30:18
showing that Dan conahan purchased clothesline r rope Polaroid film pliers a utility knife this all in the area and
00:30:28
they also found that he was using ATM machines located close to the areas where he was propositioning these men
00:30:37
and picking them up yeah because he doesn't have to give them the money but he might need to show them the money
00:30:43
correct so not only does he have this kill kit but he has the tools of the trade to also document
00:30:49
the kill and then also like you said the the ATM to have the money on hand so he
00:30:56
could show these individuals hey I got two hundred dollars so armed with all of these statements of the witnesses that
00:31:02
led up to the Richard Montgomery murder and then the two statements of the individuals that survived Dan conahan
00:31:11
and that physical evidence and these credit card statements and ATM statements this is enough for them to make an
00:31:18
arrest they arrest him and they are going to charge him with the assault on Stanley burden and also the murder of
00:31:28
Richard Montgomery ultimately the Stanley burden case the the assault case they dropped the charges on that case
00:31:38
and I think it's a rather complicated matter and we we still have quite a bit to get to so I don't want to go through
00:31:45
the details of that people are certainly welcome to find those on their own now while they are awaiting trial for Dan
00:31:54
conahan another skeleton was found in Charlotte County 10 months later DNA identified the remains as a one William
00:32:02
Charles Patton who disappeared in 1993. so if in fact this William Charles Patton murder is connected to Dan
00:32:13
conahan this would be likely the earliest one to date in our timeline this man disappeared in 1993 at this
00:32:24
point in our timeline captain we're bringing up murder charges against this guy only for one murder that being
00:32:32
of Richard Montgomery right four other victims that we believe are connected to Dan conahan
00:32:39
but three of them still hadn't been identified at this point by the time they go to
00:32:44
trial against this guy that they believe is a serial killer and like what you're
00:32:49
stating the other day that some of these victims were put out there and then once they were discovered then
00:32:56
another victim was put out there so we didn't believe that the victims were just all out there at the same time and
00:33:02
law enforcement didn't find them they were finding the victims as he was dumping them but that does not mean
00:33:08
because we got miles of wooded area that doesn't mean that they've found all the
00:33:14
victims that could be connected to this like I said psychopath Psychopathic killer it would take a
00:33:21
couple years but in 1999 Dan conahan was found guilty he was found guilty on first degree premeditated murder charges
00:33:29
and kidnapping and in December of 99 he was sentenced to death he is currently still alive and he is being held at the
00:33:40
Union Correctional Institution and Rayford Florida and if you look him up online the the one of the first
00:33:49
sentences and first paragraphs that will come up is that he is convicted of one murder but suspected in six plus murders
00:33:58
now depending on who you talk to that number can vary to a great degree that's because several more bodies were
00:34:07
discovered in the Charlotte County area with similarities to the hog Trail killings there was one victim found in
00:34:15
2000 to victims found in 2001 and an additional one found in 2002 now that's going to lead us up to this horrific
00:34:25
discovery which took place on March 23rd 2007. this is when eight skulls and skeletal remains were found in a wooded
00:34:36
area in Fort Myers This is reported to be the largest such Discovery in the state of Florida's history and you would
00:34:45
reference this captain in episode one where this case has some things that reminds one of the West Mesa body pit or
00:34:56
the Long Island serial killer case right what happens in the discovery of all of
00:35:02
these bodies well we can get the details straight from an article that is titled
00:35:08
Fort Myers police seek clues in deaths the skeletal remains of eight people were found in a wooded area about 25
00:35:17
feet from an unpaved section of Arcadia Street and East Fort Myers so to give one some perspective of distance here
00:35:27
I don't have the exact locations of where the first five victims were found and then we have a sixth potential
00:35:37
victim that is found leading up to connahan's trial we have four other victims that are found in the early part
00:35:45
of the 2000s and then we have eight that are discovered together these eight are
00:35:50
are discovered in a relatively small space but it could be upwards of 20 to 30 miles from where some of the other
00:36:00
bodies were found and keep in mind these these eight bodies are being discovered
00:36:07
over 10 years after Dan conahan was arrested yeah so these deaths have been worked as a homicide all eight of them
00:36:24
and they believe police believe this to be a body dump location in fact it was somewhat obvious early on we have a
00:36:34
quote here from one of the officers involved that says it certainly sounds like a dump site but having said that
00:36:41
you would now have to determine whether they were murdered and dumped killed at that location and left there or just
00:36:49
bodies illegally disposed of one could make an argument that these are connected to the other victims I think
00:36:57
you make a strong argument that they're not and this is probably the working of a a
00:37:04
entirely different serial killer just in the same area well and that's where we kind of find ourselves left here in this
00:37:11
case because there are many people that argue that these eight skeletons that were found together these victims would
00:37:19
go on to be known as the Fort Myers eight that they are all just other victims of
00:37:25
Dan conahan right he's the easiest one to go well he was active in this area an active believed to be about the same
00:37:35
time that maybe some of these victims went missing yeah I wish we could put a time period on on the deaths because
00:37:43
that would give us a sense of if these were before or after the victims well that's interesting here Captain
00:37:51
because what we have here is um some kind of it's it's really sad information because in in the first set
00:38:01
of bodies that are found that we covered extensively there are still some of those victims
00:38:07
that are unidentified of this Fort Myers eight I've seen reports that three of them
00:38:13
have been identified I've seen reports that only two of them have been identified uh the the more concrete
00:38:20
information that I have in front of me is that two were later identified as men who disappeared in 1995 which would
00:38:29
certainly fall into the Dan conahan timeline that we were working with with his other suspected right victims which
00:38:40
we should say other suspected victims because Dan conahan of course was spoken to very quickly after the discovery of
00:38:48
these bodies it wasn't lost on police that hey we have a known serial killer that's locked up
00:38:56
that may be responsible for these additional murders and yeah and he has a life sentence so is it a possibility
00:39:03
that he's going to come forward and confess it's possible the problem with Dan conahan is he's he's only been
00:39:09
convicted of one murder he suspected of many more obviously he's never admitted to even the one that he's been convicted
00:39:16
for right he's admitted to killing zero people and with the amount of decomposition and evidence lost due to
00:39:25
time and weather and other items as well it doesn't appear that the police have any evidence to connect Dan conahan to
00:39:36
the Fort Myers eight my problem with the Fort Myers eight is that they're they're
00:39:42
buried in Shallow Graves they say what less than two feet no less than two inches oh sorry of dirt
00:39:51
yeah less than two inches of dirt so this doesn't go with the signatures of his other crimes the problem with the
00:40:00
signatures of his other crimes though is those signatures are are not there's no
00:40:07
way of knowing so the right the the bearing of the body necessarily isn't you can look at it as
00:40:15
a potential signature or as a potential Mo which are two very different things but it could fall into either one of
00:40:22
those categories based off of the psychology of the killer but because we don't know the Killer and can't say for
00:40:31
certain it's hard to really hone in on that psychology so the the problem with with looking at signatures and comparing
00:40:39
them from Richard Montgomery to the Fort Myers eight right is these are skeletal
00:40:46
remains his signatures Dan conahan's signatures as they were on victim Richard Montgomery are all based off of
00:40:54
they're still being skin very true on our victim yeah where we can see the ligature marks where we can see that
00:41:02
there was a portion of the body amputated or removed cut off right none of that is available for us to to view
00:41:11
or even speculate on in regard to the Fort Myers eight because they're all skeletal Remains the problem is I I
00:41:18
don't think we can look at this situation and say nope can't be Dan Cunningham because the signatures don't
00:41:24
match up the the issue being when we talk about burying somebody in two inches of dirt
00:41:32
one we don't know how long they've been there police have outwardly said that this
00:41:38
could simply be due to flooding in the area or changes in the area over time that maybe necessarily they were just
00:41:47
left on the ground and these changes occurred due to the passing of time right the other thing that they point
00:41:54
out the the officers that do believe that the Fort Myers eight were in fact buried in these shallow Graves if we
00:42:01
were to call it that that's how it's referred to in some of the news articles and Reporting on this case but I think
00:42:08
that paints a whole entirely different picture than what police say that they saw at the scene
00:42:14
at the scene of the Fort Myers eight they're saying that it they wouldn't even go as far to calling it burying
00:42:21
somebody more as somebody just took the time to throw some dirt leaves and sticks over top of the bodies before
00:42:29
leaving the area yeah but it's it's also different in the sense of the other victims or
00:42:36
not found in a cluster like like these victims are or as close of a cluster as these victims are yeah
00:42:46
with John Doe one four and five and obviously four and five were later identified I would call that a body
00:42:53
cluster I believe it was Gary Ridgeway the Green River Killer who referred to some of his kills and and where he left
00:43:01
remains as body clusters this to me with the Fort Myers eight that's that's eight
00:43:07
people all together in one location who's to say that he wasn't spreading out uh at some point the other thing too is
00:43:17
the he you could look at it as if he did all of these well maybe he was evolving or devolving
00:43:24
whichever way you want to look at it maybe his crimes evolved to something else or devolved that he was getting
00:43:30
lazier with how he was choosing to conceal the bodies right then on the flip side of that though you still have
00:43:36
the possibility because we don't know who these victims are because we don't know who is in fact responsible you
00:43:42
could have had two killers working at approximately the same time with similar similar victimology you
00:43:49
could have a copycat situation now it's been reported that with the Fort Myers eight again many of them still to this
00:43:56
day not identified uh but they put the possible span of murders from as early as 1987 and one or two maybe as late as
00:44:05
2001 which is super scary because we know that Dan conahan was locked up in 1996 so if if this again this is all
00:44:16
speculation they're not basing any of this off of scientific fact but let's say this speculation is
00:44:22
correct and one or two of these murders happened that late well Dan Cunningham was already locked up and incarcerated
00:44:29
at that time so he couldn't have been responsible for those later murders and therefore would make it even much more
00:44:37
difficult to believe him to be responsible for any of the Fort Myers eight where we stand is we have the
00:44:43
psychopath in jail for life convicted of one murder now if you put all the victims that they
00:44:51
found together that they don't have somebody in jail responsible for that's 18 victims and then and we've both said
00:44:59
I think he could make a strong argument uh that all of them are connected and whether you want to put the the eight of
00:45:08
the Fort Myers eight in your in there there's a strong argument I think either way well right and with one
00:45:16
situation I mean you look at John Doe number five who's identified as Richard Montgomery and John Doe number four
00:45:23
who is identified as Kenneth Smith well those two victims are found 50 yards apart from one another one was
00:45:32
killed the day before he was found and one was killed just weeks before he was found and that's very difficult to say
00:45:39
well whoever did the killing of Richard Montgomery didn't kill Kenneth Smith it's you you would have to go out of
00:45:48
your way to be able to prove that right I think what what to me that shows is the difference in the degree of what
00:45:58
they were able to work with in their investigation with Richard Montgomery he was killed so shortly before he was
00:46:04
found they were able to piece together a series of events that made a a a courtroom only deliberate for less than
00:46:13
30 minutes before sentencing this guy to death where the case that happened just
00:46:19
weeks before Richard Montgomery's death and murder that of Kenneth Smith there's so much evidence already lost to
00:46:27
time just weeks prior that one loses very little confidence in all these other murders that likely happen months
00:46:34
or maybe even a year or two before that of Richard Montgomery now one piece of good information or
00:46:42
good news anyway occurred last year when authorities tell us in July of 2021 that
00:46:51
using genetic genealogy they have in fact positively identified one more of the unidentified victims
00:47:01
here this is more than 27 years after his mutilated and decomposed body was found
00:47:07
in a wooded area of South Florida they say now that John Doe number one was 31 year old Gerald who went by Jerry
00:47:19
Anthony Lombard so now they've identified John Doe number one and now they are tasked with trying to connect
00:47:28
him to his alleged killer foreign [Music] you could be anywhere but you choose to
00:47:51
be right here and we thank you Colonel do we have any recommended reading for the beautiful listeners
00:47:56
today we will be recommending Boogeyman by Stephen Jackson boogie man he was every parent's nightmare this is the
00:48:04
true story of a detective that refused to let some cases go cold he tracked down a serial killer and put him behind
00:48:12
bars check out Stephen Jackson's great book Boogeyman you can find that great title and many other wonderful
00:48:19
recommendations on our recommended page at truecrimegarage.com yeah I'm going to
00:48:24
write a book called Boogerman it'll be out next year until then be good be kind and don't litter
00:48:40
foreign [Music]