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crime at True Crime garage.com and Colonel that's enough of the business all right everybody gather round grab a
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chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime thank you foreign [Music] the Browns Chicken Massacre is a rather
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Infamous case especially in the greater Chicago area first called the Palatine Massacre then
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later known throughout the nation as the Brown's Chicken Massacre was a mass murder that occurred in Palatine
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Illinois when seven people at a Brown's chicken and pasta fast food restaurant were killed there are three kinds of
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towns those where everybody knows everybody those where nobody knows anybody and those somewhere in between
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like Palatine the newspaper headline was horrific to say the least and reads seven massacred
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in Palatine police find bodies of two teenagers five adults and restaurant coolers
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the Chicago Tribune reported that seven people were fatally shot and their bodies found Saturday in walk-in coolers
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at a family-run chicken restaurant in Palatine nearly 24 hours after the grizzly Discovery police would not name
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a motive as police inside the Browns chicken and pasta searched for Clues some restaurant workers speculated that
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the visibility of the restaurants safe may have attracted the Killer Palatine Police refused to give details of the
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slangs but police sources said a local man was taken in for questioning in connection with the killings
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police said they found the bodies at about 2 30 a.m Saturday more than five and a half hours after closing
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authorities learned of trouble at the restaurant when parents of one employee called police concerned that their son
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had not returned home from work when officers arrived at the store they found a rear door unlocked inside they found
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the seven bodies some face down in a cooler and a walk-in freezer the slaying stunned other Brown's
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employees who rushed to the restaurant at Daybreak to learn which of their fellow workers had been killed
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this True Crime garage [Music] here in the garage we are forced to use a lot of jarring terms such as blood and
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murder but there are few words more disturbing than Massacre all of these True Crime cases that we cover we
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certainly understand and remind everyone that the victims in these cases and these stories are always many more than
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just the deceased unfortunately anytime we have multiple murders the Doom and Gloom factor is Multiplied of course but
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also keep in mind the magnitude of the shock wave of grief Terror and anger that spreads for miles into the
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neighboring communities and cities just like we all witnessed very recently with the Idaho University case
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unfortunately now your hometown is in the National Spotlight and only strictly for extremely undesirable reasons the
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best you can hope for is that in some very human way that possibly unification and strength of community can rise above
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tragedy and at the very least the person or persons responsible for such senseless violence can be brought into
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that light exposed and severe punishments carried out swiftly there are very few ways to deal with such loss
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and that is one that I offer up to you and that's what we have here today captain in the garage
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a massacre a tragedy of great magnitude that hit this community near Chicago now let's go back 30 years ago almost
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exactly 30 years ago to today's date we have such great tragedy that came with so many questions it was most
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certainly a massacre and unfortunately we are talking about the murder of seven innocent people as long as you didn't
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skip over looking at the title of today's show well then you know we are talking about the Browns Chicken
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Massacre you have heard us report in previous episodes quoting more than one detective when asked to describe the
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scene of a massacre more than once the same haunting and disturbing phrase is given
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wholesale Carnage the name to sum up such Carnage in this case first was labeled the Palatine
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Massacre that's because of where this case took place and the otherwise wonderful city of Palatine Illinois
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technically speaking it's the Village of Palatine motto a real Hometown and as you heard described in the trailer by at
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least one resident there are three kinds of towns those where everybody knows everybody those where nobody knows
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anybody and those somewhere in between like Palatine and that would certainly fit the bill
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for a town of over 42 000 back in 1993. this is a Northwestern residential suburb of the great City of Chicago
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Palatine is one of the largest communities in Illinois with the current population of about 68 000 people
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on January 9 1993 no one thought that they would wake up to such horrific news and we read just one of the
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headlines for you in the trailer seven Mass occurred in Palatine Police find bodies of two teenagers and five adults
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in restaurants coolers now because of the hour in which the murder scene was discovered by police the story did not
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hit the Chicago Tribune until the following morning's paper but the front page laid it all out there
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describing what little was known about the crimes at the time the bodies were discovered by police and walk-in coolers
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at the Brown's chicken and pasta restaurant at about 2 30 a.m on Saturday January 9th for those not familiar
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Brown's Chicken is a chain of fast food restaurants specializing in fried chicken for those who are not familiar
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with Brown's chicken and pasta its Origins go all the way back to 1949. and then Brown's Chicken expanded to
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many locations throughout the United States in the 1970s and to this very day Captain there are still a whole bunch of
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Brown's Chicken locations in and around the Chicago metropolitan area as the Chicago Tribune put it Palatine lost its
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innocence long ago somewhere after World War II but as of January 9 1993 Palatine
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joined the roster of shattered towns whose varied names echoed tragedy too enormous to place in any context
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that Saturday afternoon As word lit through Palatine the seven people had been found murdered at the local Brown's
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chicken and pasta many residents were too stunned and baffled by the lack of details to register any grief at all
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let's dive into the timeline of this massacre so the papers aren't offering much in the way of details about this
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case especially early on here Captain but of course we will be able to provide those details of this case the
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investigation and the evidence as well the seven people were found in the small hours of Saturday morning but let's back
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up to that Friday night the restaurant closes at nine PM now anyone who has ever worked in the
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restaurant business knows exactly what this means 9 p.m hits restaurant closes doors are locked no new customers no
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more orders no new sales now we've got to clean the place put everything away finish up any of the daily paperwork
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drop all monies in the safe lock up and leave just like most food industry businesses often the closing procedures
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and the staff closing duties of the restaurant if the restaurant is slow leading up to
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that closing time well a lot of those tasks can be completed before closing or at the very least you can at least start
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on those tasks it's been reported many times over that closing procedures at this Brown's
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Chicken location were usually completed by 10 pm so we have a situation you close at nine and roughly one hour after
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closing all the duties are done and now everyone is heading home or elsewhere unfortunately that would not be
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happening here on this night we have many eyewitnesses in this case and almost all of them report it was
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business as usual on a typical Friday at Brown's Chicken that's correct captain in fact all of them reported that it was
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business as usual that afternoon and that night leading up to closing and that will be a key factor in this case
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because remember we've talked about other cases where we have a shooting or and for unfortunately a massacre in a
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restaurant or store and the customers of that day and of that night they are all
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essentially Witnesses who can later come forward and they can start to fill in the gaps of time in your timeline to
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when everything was fine everything was known normal they might even be able to clue you in on a potential suspect or
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anything odd that they saw when they were present at the scene unfortunately here Captain all of our victims that we
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will be discussing they were all working at Browns that night none of the victims
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were customers the victims we have here we said there were seven we have husband
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and wife Richard and Lynn ellenfeld they were actually the owners of this restaurant
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Richard was 50 years of age and his wife Lynn was 49. also killed were two teenage male employees Rico Solace and
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Michael Castro we also have two employees in their 30s Thomas Menace and Marcus Nelson
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and then we have the seventh victim who was a cook this is a 46 year old Guadalupe Maldonado the slain workers
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may not have been discovered until several hours later in fact we know that they were discovered in at 2 30 a.m or
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roughly 2 30 a.m but had certain things not falling into place and certain people not taking certain actions that
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night it could have been hours later until the discovery this gruesome Discovery
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there at the Brown's Chicken restaurant yeah if it weren't for the parents of Michael Castro
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then these victims would have been found probably not until the next day when they had to open up the store Michael
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Castro he's 16 he was working to have extra money to spend on his prized possession which like most 16 year old
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males was his car Michael spoke with his parents early in the night I don't have a time for that Captain but
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I'm guessing it would it would have been after arriving for his shift because he
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spoke with them via phone now one key detail he tells his parents is hey we're closing at nine his parents know
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it takes about an hour so for the closing duties to take place he doesn't live very far from the
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restaurant at all so mom and dad would be expecting Michael Castro to come home about 10 15 ish on that Friday night he
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tells them on the phone right after work I'm coming straight home so they're expecting him
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well he's 16 so at some point it's Friday night Mom and Dad realize Michael's not home
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around midnight is when Mom and Dad start getting concerned what we have here is a gap of time where we know that
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the restaurant closed at nine and the bodies are not discovered until about 2 30 a.m so that puts us at about a five
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and a half hour window where we have a lot of questions what the hell happened in that five and a half hours where
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everything was fine when the restaurant closed at nine but then we have seven victims at 2 30 a.m five and a half
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hours later one like you said one of the protocols when you're closing up shop whether you're working in a restaurant
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or a bank or anything like that is all right business is closed lock the doors so we could assume that at nine o'clock
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the doors were locked yes and we can assume that and the other thing that we can later understand is that at some
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point the doors had to be locked because we get witnesses that will tell us that
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they found the doors in the locked position so sometime after midnight Mom and Dad Michael Castro's parents they're
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getting concerned they don't live far from the restaurant and they decide you know what we'll head over there we'll
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see what's going on they drive over to the restaurant Unfortunately they see their son's vehicle still parked in the
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parking lot the restaurant everything from the outside appears to be normal the doors that they checked were locked
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and now they're wondering okay what's going on they knock on the doors nothing happens nobody answers they return home
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they decide that they're going to call the police they notify the police that their son is missing they tell them of
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everything that they know the police are not really concerned they don't share the same concern as the parents but then
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the parents call back with uh with a follow-up call saying look this is really not like our son and
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regardless of what you're saying yes he's 16 he could be out partying with some friends however the case is this
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we went to his place of work where he was supposed to be and come directly home his vehicle's still there so unless
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he hopped into somebody else's vehicle there's something going on here yeah and not just Michael's vehicle but there's
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other employees vehicles that are still in the parking lot correct so they really kind of pushed the envelope here
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and please show up to the Brown's Chicken restaurant along with Castro's parents they checked the doors
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again same result restaurants closed restaurants locked we don't know what's going on everybody Parts ways right now
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after a little bit more of time expires this is when the Castro parents call back and say look
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I know you've already checked the restaurant once I'm insistent that the restaurant be checked again we got to be
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doing more here to find my son than just waiting one I bring up those other cars because if I'm
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law enforcement and we have a teenager's parents calling and saying hey our son's
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missing well he he worked that day it's possible he went out with some friends and they picked him up from work but
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what doesn't make any sense to me if I'm law enforcement is the multiple cars of
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multiple employees parked in the lot exactly and I will say this though in the defense of the
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Palatine Police here I've worked in the restaurant business I've worked at bars and one thing that I
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loved one of the key factors why I liked working in that business in that industry when I was younger was
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there was always somebody to hang out with after work if you worked the second shift or the closing shift there was
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almost always a party or a gathering afterwards that's because the colonel is a party animal so it's not crazy to
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think that maybe they all went somewhere together but as parents you got to push the envelope and
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that's what they did so now we're checking the restaurant again and this is when the police find a side door that
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was actually unlocked the officer tells Castro's parents and that very good by the officer says look you need to stay
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out here in the the parking lot you can't come in here with me I I will I need to go in and check out what's going
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on and I'll report back to you if you're this law enforcement officer once you find that unlocked door
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I think your nerves would shoot exactly the roof because that that is a red flag
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that is telling you there is something wrong and man God bless that guy though because he has to then tell the parents
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you need to stay back and it's my job and it's my duty to Serve and Protect and I gotta go in here well and this
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officer is a different officer than the one who responded the first time so he may know or may not know that the the
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building has been checked prior but if you did know that again like you said Captain all those cars in the
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parking lot nothing appears to be a Miss from outside you've got to be really concerned now that you're finding that
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unlocked door given the situation he goes in on his own the way that this goes down is he says that once he went
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in there he immediately felt like something wasn't right so he was probably seeing some kind of signs of a
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struggle but what we end up with is he stumbles upon these seven bodies and then of course all hell broke loose
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so at approximately 2 30 A.M the victims were all found in the back kitchen area and as reported some
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victims were located in the walk-in freezer and some in the walk-in cooler immediately the scene is sealed off what
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we have here that's interesting to me though for our investigation and for the knight in question is that the police
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arriving and checking the restaurant prior to 2 30 sometime after midnight the Castro's checking the restaurant
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prior to 2 30. this already to me is going to close up some of those gaps in our timeline so we know the restaurant
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closed at nine everybody should have been done with their closing duties around 10 and heading out of the the
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place of business and once we get shortly after midnight we know that the outside of the building appears to be in
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the parking lot everything outside is in the same state as it is found at 2 30. so now we're starting to go okay
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whatever happened here had to have gone down somewhere between closing time at 9
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00 pm and when the restaurant was first checked after midnight yeah we don't know how thorough that first check was
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because it's very possible they did a check but they didn't check all the doors a man to be that officer to come across
00:23:07
that scene I mean you're going to feel that in your gut your nuts your butt and your Pizza Hut a lot more to get to in
00:23:14
this case we're after this quick beer break [Music] [Music] oh this episode is sponsored by better help
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today [Music] all right Colonel we are back cheers to everybody for joining us here in the
00:25:52
garage and cheers to another year with the Cardinal cheers to you Captain let's get back into our timeline here so as we
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said after we have this gruesome Discovery immediately the scene is sealed off the Cook County medical
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examiner's office is notified of the situation and detectives and evidence technicians are requested to the scene
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evidence collection begins as soon as they arrive police will be busy to not disturb the bodies or the crime
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scene but also collecting evidence all the while they have to photograph the bodies from
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several different angles so police are busy photographing and videotaping the scene
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at 8 30 a.m We have the medical examiner this is Dr Robert Stein he arrives on the scene in this case
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the victim identification was delayed and this was on purpose it was delayed to preserve the crime scene
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after the medical examiner is finished with his initial investigation then we're going to have the technicians
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transport the bodies to the morgue this does not take place or start to take place until between 4 pm and 7 P.M this
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is when the bodies were removed from the restaurant the following day which will be Sunday
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January 10th is when the autopsies would be performed all these procedures I'm assuming are taking longer because we
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don't have just one victim we have multiple victims let's get into the layout of this restaurant as we are all
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familiar with oftentimes there are casual and fast food restaurants located in front of or very nearby shopping
00:27:49
malls and shopping plazas well that was the case here this store sat at an angle
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almost tilted diagonal in the Square shaped parking lot that surrounded the restaurant directly to the south of the
00:28:03
restaurant you have the Northwest Highway to the West is North Smith Street and to the North and the east of
00:28:12
the restaurant you have larger businesses Brown's Chicken was a stand-alone restaurant with its own
00:28:19
parking lot so surrounding the a parking lot for Brown's Chicken you have these two roads
00:28:25
that see a decent amount of traffic and then on the other two sides you have parking for the other larger surrounding
00:28:34
stores and businesses the front of the restaurant more so facing the highway is decorative
00:28:41
it has the words Brown's Chicken and large cursive lettering across the front roof side overhang
00:28:49
the restaurant is a square shaped building Windows line the front of the building with small bushes just
00:28:59
below looks very similar to me to uh McDonald's building because of this design the entrance and exit ways were
00:29:09
on both sides of the restaurant so we don't have any entrance in through the front
00:29:17
it's on the sides both sides there was a set of double doors on each side inside
00:29:23
we have the front of the house with entrances seating and room for lines in to form in front of the two registers
00:29:32
and then of course you have the back of the house with the cookers coolers prep table and office
00:29:39
you have the counter with two registers separating the front of the house from the back of the house
00:29:47
the victims were found in the back kitchen area and the walk-in freezer and walk-in cooler area two of the victims
00:29:54
Richard ellenfeld and Thomas Menace were found in the cooler this is on the west
00:30:02
side of the restaurant the other five victims were found in the freezer now when the first officer went
00:30:09
into the restaurant he went in through the unlocked door this is actually referred to by the employees people that
00:30:17
worked there as the back door but it's technically to the very back of one of the sides of the restaurant right this
00:30:26
leads directly into the kitchen area this is referred to as the back door because this is a door that was commonly
00:30:32
left unlocked for employees to come in and out for their shifts for trash removal and if they needed to bring in
00:30:41
supplies to the restaurant so even when it's working if the if the employees are
00:30:48
in there working this door is often left unlocked just because it makes things quicker more efficient for employees to
00:30:56
get in and out throughout their shifts now when that officer goes into that kitchen area immediately through the
00:31:03
door he enters the kitchen area as we said he says he knows right away that something is wrong he did see some signs
00:31:09
of a struggle but the site that took him immediately from concern to crisis mode
00:31:15
was when he spotted a hand and a foot sticking out of the partially open freezer door as it would turn out the
00:31:25
hand belonged to the lone female victim and the foot sticking out was one of the
00:31:31
teenagers that was found dead at the scene all seven victims were shot to death Lynn's throat was slit
00:31:39
but later it was stated that it was The Gunshot that had killed her blood had pulled up significantly in the walk-ins
00:31:49
by the time the officer found the bodies now there was a good deal of hold back information in this case and that was
00:31:57
for good reason one of course it's always good to have some hold back information
00:32:01
these would be intimate details of the crime that only the lead investigators and the killer or Killers would know
00:32:09
this is also to protect the investigation itself from a false confession I was just going to say the
00:32:16
more cases that we covered and we when we talk about this hold back information and and law enforcement having to keep
00:32:22
things close to the chest this show is a is a prime example that we live in a sick world with some sick people but
00:32:29
think about how sick it is that you have to hold back information because there's
00:32:33
some sickos out there that want to confess to these crimes yeah and you're going to have that on two different
00:32:41
levels you're going to have people that come out of the woodwork and they confess to a crime for whatever reason
00:32:46
usually they got some screws loose when they're doing that either they want to take
00:32:51
credit for something that they didn't do or they are mentally ill that's not terribly uncommon right the other thing
00:32:59
too that you want to protect with this hold back information is the in the Integrity of your investigation and the
00:33:06
Integrity of the officers in charge of the investigation right because you could have some pretty aggressive
00:33:13
detectives and officers that are able to get to pull out a false confession from
00:33:21
somebody who is confessing only because they feel pressured by the police very good point also in this case what we
00:33:27
will see is there will be reward money for information in this case leading to an arrest and a conviction that money
00:33:35
just like in Delphi it got to be a very significant amount and it grew over time so now we have
00:33:44
another situation where it's not terribly uncommon for someone to come forward and say things like you know so
00:33:50
and so told me that he did the Browns Chicken murders so why don't you go and arrest him and give me that money well
00:33:57
that's when investigators can go no well what else did he supposedly tell you do
00:34:02
you know where the murder weapon is and so on you need to give us something here
00:34:06
before we're just going to open up our pockets and and uh well more importantly go and arrest this man and then take him
00:34:13
to court now we'll get into the hold back information here in this case in a bit because this is to me a very
00:34:22
fascinating aspect of this case it's because things were done just a little differently here in the Browns Chicken
00:34:30
case some details that were not held back however and that were released to the public
00:34:38
through the media were we learned just like the captain had said that all of the victims had been shot to death the
00:34:46
one victim also had their throat cut we also learned very early on that some of the victims had multiple gunshot
00:34:54
wounds and also the a bloody broom was recovered at the scene and the locals put a lot of speculation into this
00:35:04
bloody broom and wondered what kind of killer would have stuck around in an attempt to clean up the scene or why the
00:35:13
the broom would have been bloodied at all we don't get any information from law enforcement as to why they believe
00:35:21
that the the broom was had a significant amount of blood on it I think any time that there's a crime that's committed at
00:35:28
a place of work it can blur the lines of what the motive is there could be a motive of Revenge there
00:35:37
could have been a motive of just simply we're going to rob this place and we're going to leave no eyewitnesses but there
00:35:45
are some times where we've seen in cases where the motive is Revenge or the motive his
00:35:52
murder and well we're we're here so we might as well just take some cash with us as we
00:35:58
go I want to stay at the crime scene here for a bit captain and discuss one what the detectives are looking for and
00:36:06
two a reminder every crime scene is unique every crime is unique it's not like playing a video game and once
00:36:13
you've conquered a few levels well you're just playing those levels again remember when we were kids after a while
00:36:20
you know everything you knew everything there was to know about let's say Mario World right you
00:36:27
play those boards once you've conquered them once you've defeated them you can forever go through those boards and
00:36:36
there is zero mystery left to you now you don't have that in real life or in these investigations you don't solve a
00:36:47
few murders and then get called to a scene and now with your experience a murder scene holds no secrets to you so
00:36:54
every crime scene is different every case is unique of course your experience can only help you going forward but
00:37:00
again you still have to unlock the secrets of the crime scene now one simple thing
00:37:06
here one simple fact that holds true of every crime scene investigation is that you are looking for anything that is
00:37:15
foreign to the scene itself that could be connected or traced back to the perpetrator it could be anything maybe
00:37:24
it's something obvious like in the Idaho case that one for foreign item was a sheath from a knife detectives knew the
00:37:33
the victims were attacked with a knife and we find no knife at the scene but oh what is this sheath doing here so that's
00:37:40
an example of something very obvious now we could also be talking about something
00:37:45
that is not obvious at all take for example the 1986 Jessica Gutierrez case where that one for an item
00:37:56
or your one clue all the evidence they had there was one single thumbprint that was found on a window frame so much
00:38:05
harder to find and by the way that episode we covered that episode in the garage it's Jessica
00:38:12
Gutierrez episode number 48 with a follow-up episode on off the Record episode number
00:38:19
147. now while the fingerprint Captain is obviously so much more difficult to find the great thing about
00:38:27
the fingerprint is that God bless it the fingerprint is so incredibly unique so that is very good evidence because
00:38:36
you're not only looking for that for an item at the scene left inadvertently or otherwise by the perpetrator but you
00:38:43
need to be able to connect that item or Trace that item back to your perp a fingerprint is great evidence because
00:38:53
you have fingerprint databases and because you can't take someone's fingerprint from one place and put it
00:38:59
somewhere else remember it's not just about learning who did what it's being able to prove it
00:39:05
a good detective is always thinking about the court and making sure his actions her actions hold up in court
00:39:13
and get the conviction the fingerprint then proves that that person that individual was at this location period
00:39:22
now one thing that was unique in this case was the location of the bodies so you're at an immediate disadvantage
00:39:32
because of the number of victims but here you have an advantage to the bodies to where the bodies were
00:39:42
found we have them found in a cooler and a freezer so in this case you have the luxury of taking much more time at the
00:39:52
crime scene because the bodies are secure and in the cooler or the freezer will help
00:39:59
with preservation on some level so you have two key factors that determine how quickly bodies should be
00:40:07
removed from a crime scene one is the security of the scene or the security of the body two is weather
00:40:16
you don't want weather to disturb your crime scene disturb the bodies here neither is a concern now do we have any
00:40:25
information on if these victims were killed where they were found or were these victims moved after they were
00:40:33
murdered there was a lot of evidence pointing to them being killed exactly where they were found
00:40:40
now think about this when you're thinking of crime scenes if if I could apply science fiction to real life here
00:40:45
for a second ideally you would want investigators would want to be able to freeze an entire crime
00:40:54
scene Forever Frozen in time undisturbed so it could be visited over and over again if necessary but of course we
00:41:01
can't do that so you have to get it right you have a ticking clock hanging over your heads counting down the
00:41:09
minutes remaining for you to do so for you to get it right and until that crime scene has to be disrupted by removing
00:41:15
the bodies and removing law enforcement and the technicians and investigators from the scene itself now in this case
00:41:25
1993 suburb of Chicago keep in mind blood evidence blood spatter evidence spatter investigative techniques
00:41:34
were very much in Vogue at this time these were techniques that were being used to better understand crime scenes
00:41:41
and trace evidence back to perpetrators they had been using this evidence for depending on the department depending on
00:41:50
the law enforcement agencies and their resources for about 10 years or so maybe longer in better
00:41:57
equipped agencies what they were learning and what they were doing with this information was this was helping
00:42:05
them to better understand the crime scene and track down the perpetrators but because of this
00:42:13
they also understood that there would be future advancements in technology they knew that crime scene detection
00:42:21
that things like blood saliva skin cells and other things will eventually lead to
00:42:27
DNA work being applied to investigations right they were already talking about it
00:42:33
specifically in this case and of course other cases as well but were unable to use DNA at that point but it's
00:42:42
absolutely brilliant that this was already on their minds already something that they were looking forward to in
00:42:50
this case and in other cases to solve homicides now do we have any information because we know all the victims were
00:42:59
shot where all the bullets of the same type this is something that was a little bit
00:43:06
tricky in the hold back information so one thing that was interesting here was that it was reported
00:43:18
that police believe that two guns were used in the commission of these crimes what
00:43:26
we ultimately learn is no that wasn't the case it was a it was one gun a 38 caliber what's tricky here is
00:43:38
I don't think that this was information that was fed to the media from law enforcement I think that this was
00:43:46
something that some reporter or somebody just kind of came up with ran the idea or suggested this theory
00:43:54
that two guns were used and police thought no need to correct them no need to sort that out and straighten that out
00:44:01
for them that now becomes hold back information for us that only we only believe that one gun was used so
00:44:08
obviously when you have seven victims and and this news is coming out to locals the fear level goes through the roof
00:44:17
because we don't know if it's a robbery that went bad or if like we said a Revenge killing or just
00:44:24
some psychopath or Psychopaths on the loose and a spree killing a lot of the locals started saying well
00:44:32
this is due to a lack of security to this business yeah and you're going to have this right people people want to
00:44:40
throw blame around this is a huge tragedy everybody's hurt everybody's heart broken we want answers why the
00:44:47
hell did this happen how can we prevent this going forward and of course the first thing that's pointed out as you
00:44:53
said Captain was this belief in a lot in a lack of security at the Brown's Chicken restaurant and you know what
00:45:02
they're they're right I can't say that that was the whole driving force behind whatever happened here but it is obvious
00:45:10
that you do have a lack of security and we know that because we talked about that quote-unquote back door technically
00:45:17
a side door but a door that is accessed by workers and in and out constantly now I will say this in
00:45:26
Brown's defense that's extremely common again I've worked at a bunch of restaurants I the majority of them had a
00:45:34
door that was always unlocked if there was somebody in the building that door was unlocked usually it is a back door
00:45:41
or a side door now some of the places that I've worked will have like a surrounding either fence or wall
00:45:50
brick wall where yes there's no cover from overhead right but you have to be let in through a locked
00:46:01
space and then you can access that door that remains unlocked well one of the first
00:46:07
things that I thought when examining this case was when I worked at a bank depending on where the branch was if we
00:46:15
had a bunch of employees that had their cars in the parking lot we were supposed
00:46:19
to keep those doors locked until all the procedures were done but if you're trying to be a good manager and this
00:46:27
isn't 1993 I don't think anybody had remote starts on their car so in January around the Chicago area it's going to be
00:46:36
pretty cold so is it possible that they let people out to go start their car and
00:46:41
then come back in that's one of the things I initially was interested in in this case yeah and you're right you want
00:46:49
to figure out when the perpetrators gain access to the restaurant was it before they closed and locked the front doors
00:46:57
let's say or was it after the closing time now again that back door what they're calling the back door remained
00:47:05
unlocked the other problems there were some other problems with security here at this particular restaurant one we
00:47:12
have owners leaving with money right now that's not terribly uncommon managers often leave with money as well but that
00:47:20
is something to consider when looking at the overall security of your business it's very easy to intercept somebody
00:47:28
with a large amount of cash when they are exiting the building before they get to their vehicle so here
00:47:35
the owners usually took the money home with them or would deposit it at the bank on their way home another problem
00:47:42
is the safe itself was visible to customers from the counters where customers would go up to order their
00:47:51
food and purchase their food and also the other thing look it's 1993. it's not it's not 1945. there were no security
00:48:01
cameras in this restaurant and I that's something I just do not understand and I
00:48:07
I get it it's 1993. it's significantly different than things are in 2023 but not having security cameras yes they
00:48:15
would have been rather expensive at the time but we do ads for and recommend things like SimpliSafe and ADT we're
00:48:24
very lucky to have had them as sponsors on our show and we are huge proponents here at the garage because look of all
00:48:33
these things that we talk about we are recommending to everybody secure your home secure your businesses get
00:48:40
security cameras put security protocols into place because here's the thing sometimes it's not about capturing what
00:48:51
happened or having a recording of what happened it's also a major deterrent to somebody to come in and do something
00:49:01
like this or attempt to rob a place [Music] I want to thank everybody for joining us
00:49:19
here in the garage make sure you subscribe to the show so many people listening that don't subscribe and it
00:49:28
really helps the channel grow it's such an intriguing case make sure you join us
00:49:33
back here for the conclusion tomorrow right here in the garage until then be good be kind and don't look
00:49:48
foreign [Music]