00:00:39
Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, thanks for listening. I'm your host Nick and
00:00:45
with me as always is a man that knows if he kills all the golfers, they're going
00:00:50
to lock him up and throw away the key. Here is the Captain. That's right. It's good to be seen and
00:00:55
it's good to see you. Thanks for listening. Thanks for telling a friend. Today we are drinking one of my
00:01:05
favorite, one of our favorite holiday beers. It's that time of year again. Available for a limited time in bottles
00:01:12
and cans. Just clap your hands, clap your hands. Or if you know a really good bar, they have it on tap. That's right,
00:01:18
we're talking about Holiday Cheer by the merry and bright folks over at Shiner Beers. Shiner Holiday Cheer is brewed
00:01:26
with Texas peaches and pecans. This is one of our favorites. Garage grade five out of five bottle caps. Now let's
00:01:34
spread some cheer to our merry and bright garage friends. First up, a big cheers to Nathan Weston from Sunshine
00:01:41
Coast, Australia. And a big shout out to Martin. He's a Brummy from Birmingham, England. Next Captain, we have a cheers
00:01:50
to Allison who says that we are both younger and hotter than she's pictured. Allison. Allison is in Jersey Village,
00:01:59
Texas. Allison, don't let the beer goggles fool you. We look like something that's been living in a garage for the
00:02:05
last six years. Yep, we're in our 40s but we look like we're going on 97. And a big shout out
00:02:11
to Janine in Billings, Montana. Next Captain, we have a cheers to Holly in Kennesaw, Georgia. And last but
00:02:18
certainly not least, we have a double fisted cheers to DJ and Ruby in the parts unknown. Everyone we just
00:02:25
mentioned went to truecrimegarage.com and helped us out with this week's beer run and for that, we thank you because
00:02:32
our beer fridge, our garage beer fridge is full again. Make sure you wash your parts unknown. Tis the season. B W E
00:02:39
double R U N beer run. Go get you some at the store page. And it's a great way to support the show. For everything True
00:02:49
Crime Garage, check out truecrimegarage.com and that is enough of the beers, man.
00:02:54
All right, everybody gather around, grab a chair, grab a beer. Let's talk some true crime.
00:03:23
All right, I got a guy on the phone who claims he's been killing prostitutes and
00:03:26
he's wondering why he's doing it. Oh god. So maybe I he he thinks I have an answer. Is this Ed?
00:03:31
Ed? No, this isn't Ed. Oh. You haven't killed any prostitutes? No, I never said my name was Ed. Oh.
00:03:40
Sorry. That's okay. What's your What name do you use? You can call me Clay. Clay?
00:03:45
Clay? Yes, Clay. Okay, Clay. So what happened? How many prostitutes have you killed?
00:03:51
12. And you're wondering why you do it? I have a pretty good idea. Why? Did your
00:03:58
mom beat you? Did your mom spank you? Did your Was your mom a prostitute? No. Actually, nothing like that. What is it
00:04:04
then? I think I just do it for a sense of the power. All right. Do you have sex with them first?
00:04:11
Yes, and And then what? You strangle them? Once. How else did you kill them? Well, a few times. Actually, most times
00:04:22
with a hammer. Hm. And where do you do this primarily? Uh I've done it twice in a parking garage.
00:04:31
And then the rest of the times on the side of the road. And uh you're from the New Orleans area?
00:04:37
Yes. Hm. Uh-huh. I mean, what do you You beat them to death with a hammer? Man. That usually only takes once and it's
00:04:44
Dude, you got to have a lot of anger in you. Yes. And that means you're heartless.
00:04:49
Did you used to kill small animals? No. I've killed a rat. Yeah. Dude, you're a serial killer.
00:04:57
Yeah. Yeah. Wow. And you get away with it, I guess, cuz they're hookers and so far nobody
00:05:03
What? Is this Howard? Yeah. Hello? Hello? I didn't know this was Howard. Yeah, it's Howard. Yeah.
00:05:16
Yeah. No, I've never killed a kitten. Hm. So how old were were you when you killed your first woman?
00:05:23
16. And uh you must be a powerful kind of guy, big guy. Uh it wasn't then. Right. And uh when
00:05:32
you killed your first one, did you go in there knowing you were going to kill her
00:05:35
or did it sort of happen? I I knew I had I had I really had it planned out. Hm. You know, I wanted to
00:05:43
do the whole sending clues. Right. Oh yeah, are you in the baffle people but it turned out no one noticed for a
00:05:48
long time. Right. Like what Like you killed her on the side of the road? Uh her, that was the parking garage.
00:05:55
Okay. And then what did you do with the body? You dump that somewhere? Um Yeah, actually. I think uh she's
00:06:02
probably one of the ones that they found. Yeah. But let me ask you so you were sending clues that you were going
00:06:06
to do this? No, I was He was going to like He was going to leave like a note for
00:06:10
the newspapers and you know Uh but you decided not to. Yeah, he didn't want to be famous or draw attention to himself.
00:06:15
But the problem is you No, that's that's what I wanted to do but Oh, but you did but no one noticed the
00:06:19
clues. I No, I never sent the clues. I never left anything. You know, I wanted to
00:06:24
have my own little signature. Right. I wanted to thumb paint. I wanted to thumb thumb. Oh, really? What do you want to
00:06:30
do? Thumb paint with their thumbs. Thumb paint what though? I don't know. Oh, anything. It It It was in a comic book a
00:06:37
couple years ago with a Just seemed like a good idea. Like you take the girl you
00:06:40
killed, you you dip her thumbs in paint and then you do like a thumb painting? Yes. On a piece of paper?
00:06:46
Yeah. Hm. Now when you after you kill somebody, do you play with the body? Um Actually, the closest I've ever done to
00:06:54
that is I always make sure I pay them and I make sure they keep their money. Oh, really? When they're still alive but
00:07:00
uh with one of them I did put the money in a compromising place. I see. But that
00:07:07
was this one You know, it it had a penis. Oh, really? It was a guy. Yeah. Yeah, I
00:07:14
didn't know at first. So do you Do you ever get Do you think the reason you're so angry is because you were abused or
00:07:20
something? No, I wasn't abused, Howard. Where's your family? You got a wife? you got a mom, a dad, a wife, children?
00:07:30
You got any of that? I've got a couple of kids but um I No wife? married to the mother. Mhm. You're a
00:07:38
white guy? Uh yeah, Howard. That's pretty funny because the only suspect they had when
00:07:43
they started finding the bodies was a black police officer. Turns out one of them uh
00:07:51
was associated with them. Oh, really? Yeah. Are you on drugs? Uh I've done acid a few times. Hm. So So
00:08:02
So if you killed if you killed the first 16-year-old, like you finish you you finish
00:08:06
16. Oh, that's right. I'm sorry. All right. So you finish with your uh sexual gratification
00:08:12
and then you Not always, no. Not always. You don't even want to get laid sometimes.
00:08:17
No, I just You just want to kill. Uh I'm just bored. Right. But does the killing sexually satisfy
00:08:23
you in some way? I can't believe that McMahon's not laughing. I I I've beaten off thinking about it later.
00:08:30
Yeah. What are you saying? He He's pleasured himself thinking about it later. Oh, he has. Okay. Now how far apart are
00:08:36
these murders? Like do you murder and then like you feel satisfied for a while? Um
00:08:42
I don't even understand why I do it, Howard. I don't know if if I ever get any satisfaction. Hm. But how how often
00:08:49
The closest to gather anywhere was the same night. Really? You killed two people in the same night? Yeah, but I
00:08:54
went to Mississippi for the second one. Hm. Hm. So there's no pattern to how many
00:09:02
weeks or days between murders? No. Are these mostly white chicks or black chicks?
00:09:08
Uh I had fair fair number of them have been black. The uh transvestite was black. Is there any some racial
00:09:14
motivation here? No, Howard. They were just uh Let's just say it's Jimmy Swaggertown.
00:09:20
Mhm. Jimmy Swaggertown? Don't know what that means. Me neither but Oh, that's that's pretty much the
00:09:26
area around here where the prostitutes all hang out. I see. And it's just whoever comes up to you.
00:09:32
You don't pick a certain type? I don't even approach them. I wait for them to approach me, Robin. Do you ever
00:09:37
That's like them asking for it. Do you ever like look into their eyes and go, you know, gee, these these
00:09:41
people were just children at one point and maybe they just had a tough life and I've let a couple go. You have? Like
00:09:47
what happened? You're in the middle of killing them and then they and then they What do they say? Why would you let one
00:09:50
go and kill the other? There was this one Go ahead. Uh I think she was probably really new to it. Yeah.
00:09:58
I There was just something about her. Or maybe she reminded me of my fiance, but
00:10:02
Right. You somehow relate More More of an innocent quality. I just You somehow felt bad for her.
00:10:08
Yeah. Hm. You So, okay. So, you killed your first woman. When was the last time you
00:10:14
killed? It It's been a few months. Actually, it's It's been going on a year. Hm. So,
00:10:21
what do you think you're going to do? Do you think you're going to kill yourself?
00:10:24
Do you think that you think you're going Are you going to kill again? Can you stop this? If I
00:10:28
killed myself, I'd miss the next Batman movie. Right. You don't want to do that.
00:10:31
No. No, but in all seriousness, I mean, do you think that you could control this?
00:10:36
Do you think you could stop? I think I have been. Oh, you have been for the last couple of months. A year he hasn't
00:10:41
killed. Yeah. Almost. So, why do you think you stopped killing all of a sudden? I really don't know, Howard. I just
00:10:51
Part of it had to do with my car broke down. Oh, no transportation. Seriously? That's the reason? Well, that
00:10:57
was the reason for a month, but after that, I guess it was all self-control. Wow. So, you don't want to do this
00:11:02
anymore? No, he wants to do it, but he's controlling himself. But you want to kill women, right?
00:11:08
Sure. Yeah. And what And do you like it Do you enjoy seeing them struggle as you kill them?
00:11:15
Uh actually, none of them really struggle. Hm. Do you hit them from behind or do they see it coming?
00:11:23
Uh I can't get inside their minds, but I must just say I hit them. But I mean, are you facing them?
00:11:29
Yeah. So, you can see their face and everything when you do it. Yeah. Yeah. The The worst I've ever gotten was um
00:11:35
one tried to grab my neck. I've never gotten any of the claw marks or anything that are uh
00:11:40
dead giveaways. Well, you must be very powerful. I wouldn't call myself powerful. Maybe
00:11:46
uh intimidating. Why did you use a hammer? Do you think you Uh cuz it was in a book I read. Oh. Oh,
00:11:53
everything has come from cartoons and Yeah. When's the last time you got laid? Uh last week, Howard. Oh, yeah. So, you
00:11:59
didn't kill that girl. No. Cuz she wasn't a hooker. No. Right. It's only hookers, though. A lot of serial killers
00:12:05
are only the hookers cuz they know A, Easy. probably won't get caught, and B, they have some kind of anger toward
00:12:09
hookers. So, there's no way I'm going to talk into giving yourself up or anything,
00:12:13
right? No. I shouldn't even waste my time. I know I'm going to get calls after this,
00:12:16
and people are going to go, "Howard, how come you didn't catch him?" I mean Have
00:12:18
Has anybody ever been close to catching you? No. No, actually, someone once with When
00:12:25
it was in the newspaper, someone joked to me, "I know it was you." But uh well, they were joking. Right. Do you
00:12:30
have a lot of tattoos? Uh I don't have any tattoos. I wouldn't do that to myself. Right. And do you get
00:12:35
high before you do this? Uh I've gotten pretty drunk before. Yeah. I'm the only guy you could Am I
00:12:40
the only guy you ever told about this? Yeah. Hm. Wow. I just That's sort of an honor. I told a
00:12:49
couple of women, Howard, but uh They're dead. Yeah. Do you tell them first and then
00:12:53
you kill them? Uh yeah. What do you say to them? Let me hit All right, let's see now, and then
00:12:57
you can play the running game if you're out in the middle of nowhere, and we got
00:12:59
a lot of the middle of nowhere down here. Right. So, in other words, let's say you're with a woman, right? A
00:13:07
hooker. Yeah, Howard. And you say to her, "Okay, honey, you know, you just had sex and
00:13:12
everything." What do you say to her to torment her? How do you break the news to her that
00:13:17
she's going to die? I It really depends on my uh mood. Just give us an example. Well, if I wanted to, I could just say
00:13:27
Baba Booey, but that would be pretty uh No, come on, be serious. What do you say
00:13:30
to them? I I can say you're going to die. And then what do they do? I said that I
00:13:37
like to articulate a little more than that. Mhm. Sometimes I ask them uh if they think it's dangerous
00:13:44
doing what they're doing, if they're worried about things, and they'll laugh it off, and that
00:13:48
just pisses me off. Right. And then you go ahead and you kill them. Yeah. Hm. All right. Well, there you go.
00:14:15
Well, you heard it there, folks. In November of 1997, a man calling himself Clay, saying he is the killer of sex
00:14:22
workers, a dozen at that, calling from the New Orleans area to speak with shock jock legendary DJ
00:14:31
Howard Stern. Calling up, telling Howard Stern that he believes that he got into killing women
00:14:38
for fame and notoriety, and later he now believes that he does it simply for power and control.
00:14:46
And this is a call that has been an interesting one. Obviously, this is an older call, but one that really sparked
00:14:53
a lot of renewed interest just earlier this year. In fact, in the fall of 2021. And I don't know why all of a sudden
00:15:05
here, Captain, this pops up on the radar as something that everybody's really interested in
00:15:11
all you know, all these years later, but one guess that I have is anybody that listens to Howard or is the proud
00:15:22
listener of SiriusXM knows that Howard has two whole channels devoted to him and the shenanigans of
00:15:30
his staff and crew. And the Howard Station 101, which is arguably one of my favorite stations on
00:15:40
SiriusXM, plays a lot of the best of or Sternthology or, you know, the older shows. Interestingly enough
00:15:51
here, Captain, I remember roughly around August or September of this year, they played this call again. They played
00:15:59
the entire segment, which I believe was multiple callers, and this Clay, killer of women, was only one of maybe three
00:16:07
callers during a maybe a 20-minute segment. And but it's by far the most intriguing
00:16:15
of those three calls, and absolutely one of the most intriguing calls that Howard
00:16:19
has received in his very lengthy career. Well, and just to get this right, because I'm I'm not an
00:16:26
avid Howard Stern listener. I think he does great interviews. I think he's obviously evolving throughout the years,
00:16:33
and this was 20-some years ago. I think you can tell from this interview uh Howard's kind of listening.
00:16:41
Like where I think Howard has become a better listener when he's doing interviews now than
00:16:47
Yeah, and obviously, it's just a caller calling in, but you can tell there's a couple times
00:16:53
where the he has the caller has to correct Howard cuz he's not really fully engaged
00:16:59
in the call. But so, what I'm guessing is that they'd have a call-in section, and that section would be normally about
00:17:05
20-some minutes long, and then if one call is kind of boring, you cut them off at a
00:17:11
couple minutes, but this one was pretty intriguing, so it lasts almost 11 minutes long. Yeah, and I think what you
00:17:17
have there and as someone who's listened to Howard for quite some time, this is actually
00:17:24
typical Howard to me. Like, and I think it's not because he's not trying to listen. I
00:17:31
think he's quarterbacking a lot of stuff that's going on that we don't see because all we're hearing is the audio.
00:17:37
And one thing that I know that he does from time to time cuz he spoke about it on the radio is he's like trying to
00:17:44
determine, trying to gauge in his own mind, is this an interesting call or not? Because if it's not, boom, I'm
00:17:50
dumping this call. I'm here to put out an interesting show, and we'll move on to the next caller.
00:17:56
This is one of those ones where I think he's trying to gauge that, but he he sounds like he's
00:18:02
very intrigued by what this guy's saying, and in a way, almost trying to figure out the guy. Maybe not to the
00:18:08
point of identifying him, but at least to the point of trying to gauge if this guy is legit or if he is
00:18:16
genuine in what he is claiming to be. Because it's not every day that some guy calls up a radio station saying, "Hey,
00:18:24
I've killed a dozen women, and I really just called to tell you about it." And I think I mentioned earlier to to
00:18:30
you this year when we're putting together a schedule list, you know, we'll take the cases and then
00:18:36
map out where we're going to put them on the schedule. My thought was this would
00:18:41
be interesting to hear you dissect this call. You being a Howard Stern listener,
00:18:47
and you being into true crime, what was your thoughts and opinions on this call?
00:18:53
Surprisingly, it seems like in the last couple months, other people got this same idea to
00:19:00
dissect this call, and there's a couple videos and stuff on YouTube where people
00:19:04
are doing that. Well, and what's really interesting behind the scenes here in the garage,
00:19:09
when you brought it up, I had it on my list, and I thought, "Oh, this is perfect. Thank God he brought it up."
00:19:14
Because it's always more exciting to cover something that your excited about, but to know that your your partner in
00:19:20
crime is excited to cover as well. So, you know that it's going to be a good, interesting conversation, even if nobody
00:19:27
else hears it, right? But So, I I had said it well, you know, I heard the call again. It's
00:19:34
one that I had heard over the years, and I was always very intrigued by the call,
00:19:38
and I thought, "You know what? This would be perfect for something for Off the Record." Cuz we're always kind of
00:19:43
looking for true crime, but also kind of off-the-wall topics for Off the Record.
00:19:48
Right. You said to me, you you "Well, I think it's interesting enough. Maybe maybe it goes on the regular show. And
00:19:56
then what kind of echoed that idea was we started getting emails from people that were saying, "Hey, have you ever
00:20:02
heard the Howard Stern serial killer phone call? We would love to hear a discussion about
00:20:08
that on the show." So, the listeners asked for it and here we are doing it. And this call to me is is incredibly
00:20:17
interesting because I find myself walking the high wire of whether I believe this guy or not, right? I It's a
00:20:24
It's a balancing act. And it's not that I want to believe him or it's not that I
00:20:28
don't want to believe him. It's a matter of, well, what side What side of this high wire do I fall off on? Do I fall on
00:20:35
the side that this guy's legit or do I fall on the side of, well, this is just somebody calling in and looking to hear
00:20:42
their voice on their on their favorite radio show. There's a lot of things that he says along the way that really make
00:20:48
me feel like there's There's some truths here on this call. I don't know that I would
00:20:54
ever fully believe 100% that this guy would of the things that he's saying. And I want to
00:21:03
make sure that I really kind of explain that thought. One, the thought being that I don't know that I would fully
00:21:11
100% ever believe a serial killer in their statements or their stories because we know that one very common
00:21:20
theme that is shared by these individuals is they are known liars. And they're known liars throughout the
00:21:26
entirety of their their lives and their criminal careers, if you want to call it
00:21:30
that. So, even if you were sitting down with somebody that you knew was legit, Ed Kemper
00:21:36
would be one that would come to mind. Somebody that is able to explain and articulate his crimes and some of his
00:21:44
very the devious type behaviors and things that he did throughout time. You know,
00:21:51
he's able to explain those to you and he's able to help you learn from him in ways, but I
00:21:59
also would suspect that I don't know that these guys possess the ability to be 100% truthful at any time.
00:22:07
And they tend to skew and mash the facts when it benefits them. You know, that's kind of a a common
00:22:17
theme with humanity in general, but they certainly do it more often than most. One thing that is super
00:22:25
interesting to me here is that another commonality amongst these types that we've learned over the years is that
00:22:31
they usually like to talk. They usually want to tell somebody some of the things
00:22:37
that they've done. It's almost a way of of bragging. I agree with that wholeheartedly. Normally, when you're
00:22:43
hanging out with your buddies and somebody's telling a story and it's like you might have heard the story before
00:22:49
and a couple years later the story has changed a little bit. It's They embellish little parts. It makes
00:22:55
the story better. But I agree with you. I I don't know how much you can trust if he is a serial killer
00:23:03
how much you could trust him anyways. That fish I caught, Captain, was 17 in and it weighed over 2 and 1/2 lb. Yeah.
00:23:13
And then a year later, that same fish, man, that thing was like 22 in. 17 ft. and 3.1 lb.
00:23:21
And now it's not the biggest fish that I've ever caught, even though it's grown since the time that I've caught it. It's
00:23:28
now the second or third largest fish that I've ever caught. So, yeah, I think I think those things happen. Now, in
00:23:34
analyzing this call, one thing's a few things that jump off the uh I was going to say jump off the page,
00:23:39
but maybe jump out the earbuds are first, he, when asked his name, Clay, he comes up with the name relatively
00:23:49
quickly. You know what I mean? Like it's He's not fishing for a name to present. So, that
00:23:55
To me, that's interesting. And then the number of victims. He says it very quick, very matter-of-factly, "I've
00:24:01
killed 12 women." Well, a couple of things there, I think. One, and we've talked about this before, some
00:24:08
people have when they go into bars with their buddies, they have a alias that they like to use.
00:24:15
Or in this case, I wondered if this individual or maybe other serial killers when they would meet their victim, well,
00:24:25
normally it's like, "Nice to meet you. I'm the Captain. What's your name?" So, they'd have that name. Maybe he's used
00:24:32
Clay in every single murder. That's what I wondered about as well because here's
00:24:38
the biggest problem for serial killers, and I I know that's a really strange sentence to say and hear,
00:24:45
is that often when they do it on a long enough timeline, there will be one or two victims or survivors that get away.
00:24:54
And usually that is their undoing. That is the unraveling and and what will lead
00:24:59
to their apprehension. Now, we know that serial killers, just like any other industry in life,
00:25:07
kids playing Little League baseball, they study the guys playing Major League baseball. And they try to learn from
00:25:14
what works and what from and from what doesn't work for the guys in the bigs so that maybe one day they can make it to
00:25:21
the bigs. So, some of these serial killers and some of the more organized ones at that will typically study
00:25:29
known serial offenders and known serial killers. And they want to know what worked for them and what didn't work for
00:25:36
them. And they might try to employ some of those techniques that did work and strongly avoid some of the things that
00:25:44
didn't work or led to their eventual apprehension. Now, with Ted Bundy, one thing that he did, and I think this
00:25:52
shows the arrogance of Bundy, was I don't think he ever thought that any of these women were going to get away
00:25:59
from him. I don't think Bundy ever thought that they would survive Ted Bundy. Once he set his plan into place,
00:26:06
once he made that determination that you were his, he believed it was going to work in his
00:26:12
favor. Right. And so, we know from the time at the the Lake Sammamish and and before that,
00:26:19
the task force was actually referring to, and this is during the Washington state portion of the investigation
00:26:26
looking for the known serial killer. They knew they had a serial killer operating in the area. They didn't know
00:26:32
who it was. But during that portion of the Ted Bundy case, behind the scenes, the task force and
00:26:39
the people working that that case were actually referring to the investigation as the Ted murders. Yet, they had not
00:26:46
identified the person that was committing those murders. Why were they calling the investigation the Ted
00:26:51
murders or the series of murders the Ted murders? Because on more than one occasion, there was a female that got
00:26:58
away or was approached and had some kind of conversation with Ted Bundy in which
00:27:03
he used his real name. You know, that's a common interaction when you first meet
00:27:08
somebody for the first time. Oh, what's your name? My name's Cindy. What's your name? My name is My name is Ted. It
00:27:13
worked for him for a while because a lot of the victims didn't get away. But when
00:27:16
they started looking for possible eyewitnesses and people that did get away, they're like, "Wait a second. This
00:27:22
This person is calling himself Ted." And so, they called it the Ted murders, but
00:27:28
I don't know that any of the investigators at the time believed that they thought that the guy would be dumb
00:27:32
enough to use his real name. So, I like the cut of your jib here, Captain. I think you might be spot-on where Clay
00:27:39
might be a name that he is using when he's picking up a sex worker. "Hey, what's your name, honey?" Oh, "My name's
00:27:46
Clay." "What do you want?" How much, you know, you got to negotiate price and and different
00:27:52
different things, you know, where where this is all going to go down. Those are all part of the negotiation process and
00:27:59
I would imagine that an exchange of names, and probably both of them fictitious,
00:28:06
is going down during the course of that conversation. And maybe that's why he's able to to kind of throw out this name,
00:28:12
Clay. Obviously, we wouldn't expect him to be giving his real name or providing his real name to Howard Stern and saying
00:28:19
that he's killed 12 women and they've not figured out that it's me yet. And so, maybe this is a name that he's
00:28:24
using to help get the eventual victim into his vehicle. If If your whole goal is to procure a victim and get a victim
00:28:35
or potential victim into your vehicle, and we know that his vehicle was a part of his his murder
00:28:43
technique. You know, part of of his scheme and what he was doing because he said, "Hey,
00:28:48
I've stopped for a while. And part of the reason why I stopped is my vehicle broke down. I didn't have, you know, I
00:28:55
That's his lab to work in. That's his That's his mobile lab to try to procure a victim and then take them where he
00:29:02
feels comfortable assaulting and killing them. And without that vehicle, he's he's lost
00:29:08
his playing field, so to speak. So, there has to be some kind of exchange and you can't have a woman lean into the
00:29:16
vehicle and say, "Hey, honey, what's your name?" And you go, "I don't want to tell you my name." Well, that might be
00:29:21
off-putting to her and she might not be wanting to get into your vehicle after that exchange. So, maybe this is a name
00:29:28
that he is using during the interaction with these victims. The number 12 is interesting, too, when
00:29:36
he's asked, you know, he says, "I don't know if I can't remember from the call if Howard asked
00:29:41
him how many people he's killed or if he just offers it up." But the number of 12
00:29:45
seems to come out real quick. Right. Like he doesn't have to to think about it so much and you know the
00:29:53
detectives will often say if something is true and something is factual, you don't have to remember it.
00:30:00
Right. You know, you don't have to spend a lot of time trying to remember it. You know
00:30:04
it. You know it to be true. So, that's kind of terrifying when he throws out the number 12 and does so rather
00:30:10
quickly. All right. Cheers to you. Cheers to the people in the back. Cheers to the people
00:30:43
in the front and happy holidays. Not so much to the people in the middle. Talk hands in the air.
00:30:49
You stink. Hey, we'll be able to cheers the people in the front and in the back live at a show at BrewDog February 19th,
00:30:59
2022. That's a Saturday for you people that like to get down on a Saturday. Uh tickets are available. We are doing
00:31:08
the show at BrewDog. We are excited to be partnering with BrewDog for this. This is
00:31:13
BrewDog in itself is a destination place. It's a it's a place that you want to go and
00:31:20
check out have if you have not before. So tell you it's one of the most beautiful
00:31:25
places in the world. That's right. And we're hoping to class up the joint a little bit ourselves
00:31:30
Stink it up. February 19th. Now, some people have asked us is this a live show? Will we be doing what you do here
00:31:37
in the garage? And the answer is well, kind of. Mhm. Um what we'll be doing mainly is a beer tasting and we'll be
00:31:44
doing a Q&A. We will not be featuring a a full-length case like we would here uh
00:31:50
for your eyeballs on the weekly. But join us for a wonderful beer tasting. The beer's included in your price of the
00:31:58
ticket. So, you don't have to pay anything extra for beer once you get there and we'll do a we'll do a
00:32:03
wonderful Q&A. We'll have some merchandise on hand. on that, when we're doing the beer
00:32:08
tasting, everybody will have the beer samples like we have. Exactly. It's not like all you can drink beer
00:32:15
with a It's an interactive beer tasting with Nick and the Captain and tickets are available on our website at
00:32:22
truecrimegarage.com. So, we hope to see each and every one of you there. Yeah, and right afterwards we'll be
00:32:29
hanging out at the bar doing a meet and greet. So, that's all included in the price.
00:32:34
But back to this call, one of the things that I thought was interesting about this Clay guy is
00:32:40
why I kind of find it humorous that he almost seemed annoyed. Ed. No. I never said Ed. Right. I'm Clay.
00:32:49
So, you could kind of almost see his temperament a little bit. Yeah, so you have that weird interaction there where
00:32:56
Howard asked is this Ed? And he says no. And Howard sounds bummed out and I think
00:33:01
that's because it's not uncommon for your you know, they're screening these calls behind the scenes before that any
00:33:08
of them make it onto the radio. So, it's not uncommon especially on a show like Howard Stern where you have hundreds of
00:33:14
people trying to call in all at the same time where they're screening calls and they're in Howard's one ear. We can't
00:33:22
hear it, but they're saying, "Hey, we got this guy uh Ed. He claims to be a serial killer. He's on line six." You
00:33:29
know, and then Howard picks up, "Is this Ed?" No, it's not Ed. Oh, he sounds bummed out because he thinks well, the
00:33:36
the wires got crossed and and now he's got some guy that he doesn't know if it's going to be an interesting call or
00:33:42
not. But very quickly, yeah, the the the caller straightens out the situation by
00:33:47
saying, "No, I Yes, I've killed women, but I never said my name was Ed." thing I thought was kind of humorous is
00:33:55
he doesn't understand that he's talking to Howard. So, the one that makes me think is he much of a Howard listener?
00:34:03
Because Howard's voice is very distinct. And so then he he's almost I I don't know.
00:34:11
30 seconds to a minute, maybe longer. I'd have to actually look. Where he's like, "Wait, is this Howard?"
00:34:18
And he's like, "Yeah, this is Howard. Who do you think it was?" And then you can hear his breathing almost change.
00:34:23
Like he becomes nervous. So, that makes me believe okay, well, why would you get
00:34:29
nervous that you're actually talking to Howard? Would you be nervous because now
00:34:32
you feel like you're on the air? Or if you were a big fan of Howard that maybe you would you know get nervous. At
00:34:38
at the last meet up I did this girl came up to me and we're taking a picture and
00:34:42
she was like, "I'm shaking. I don't know why I'm shaking." I'm like "Yeah, either do I." So, um
00:34:49
so I thought it was kind of humorous that he he gets mad about the mistaking of the name and then
00:34:55
gets nervous once he figures out it's Howard. Well, sometimes adrenaline kicks in and it's not really up to us when it
00:35:01
does kick in. I think it comes from that part of the brain that doesn't ask for permission. It just decides, "Boom,
00:35:07
Right. here you go. Now you're like, oh crap, I'm shaking and I if if I had a a choice in the matter, I would choose not
00:35:14
to be shaking. But you're right. And this is one thing that that always surprises me. Yes, one, the caller not
00:35:21
recognizing Howard's voice. Two, they are on the call with Howard and Robin at the same time and he doesn't he seems
00:35:32
to fail to recognize that. But this is in in the defense of the guy claiming to be
00:35:38
a serial killer, uh this is something that I've witnessed dozens and dozens of times on the Howard
00:35:44
Stern show where somebody somebody's talking for a couple minutes and then they're shocked that they're actually
00:35:50
talking to Howard. I don't know again, they're screening the calls and I don't know if the person screening the calls
00:35:56
ever tells the caller, "Hey, hold for Howard." or "Okay, you're on next." I think they just take down some
00:36:02
information, tell them they're putting them back on hold and if Howard picks up, he picks up because
00:36:07
the guy screening the calls or the woman screening the calls can never guarantee
00:36:11
that Howard's going to actually pick up on on any of these people. So, But you're right, there's a change
00:36:18
in his in his speech and in his breathing and it could be from both of those factors that you pointed out.
00:36:25
Maybe maybe kind of a double whammy of oh crap, I am on air. I am live. A little bit of stage fright and oh, I I
00:36:33
am talking to Howard and now I'm nervous. The other thing you have to wonder too is
00:36:39
this guy doesn't he's not calling in because he wants to get caught. There's other people he could call if he wanted
00:36:44
to turn himself in or to get caught. Yeah. If he is who he says he is, he's calling in to brag about what he's done,
00:36:51
receive some of that fame and notoriety that he is seeking. These are his own words. He
00:36:57
said originally I think that I got into it because I wanted to be famous or be or be known as a serial killer. And now
00:37:06
I'm coming to realize that I think that I do it, it being killing women, for a sense of power and control. And so he's
00:37:15
not calling in with the idea of oh, I want to give up every detail and every bit of information about myself so you
00:37:22
can catch me. So, part of me wonders too, is there an added factor to that nervousness that he's going, "Oh, wait a
00:37:28
second. Have I already said too much? I wasn't aware that we would be on the air." Right. Well, in the last 5 years
00:37:35
we've lived a strange life. We're going on a strange journey because we talked about these cases. Sometimes we bring up
00:37:42
individuals and those individuals might be suspects in a case that we brought up
00:37:47
and they make contact with the show and sometimes it's not even to clear up their name. Maybe they just want to have
00:37:54
a discussion with us. And obviously they're having a discussion with us to clear up their name, but they
00:38:00
they might they might not be upset about how it was reported because for years they've been a part of
00:38:08
the case's story. Mhm. And so every time somebody's reached out to me, I I always feel like the obligation one,
00:38:17
because we spoke about them and they have thoughts and opinions on the case and since they're close to the
00:38:25
case, I always feel obligated to to give them the time to talk with them. Mhm. But they're also
00:38:32
intriguing conversations because there's a part of you that goes this person is a
00:38:37
suspect, maybe not my favorite suspect in the case or or somebody that I lean too heavily in favor of being
00:38:46
the actual murderer or whoever's responsible for the crime. But in those conversations, there's a
00:38:53
part of you that's like, well, maybe they'll slip up. Mhm. Maybe they'll be talking to me
00:38:59
about the case and just go, "You know what? This is just too much and oh by the way, I did it."
00:39:05
So, I think that's probably playing through Howard's mind. Well, it's interesting that this
00:39:11
guy calls and he's going to tell me all these details. Maybe through the act of talking about the
00:39:20
crimes I could get him to just And I don't think he leans on that too heavy. Mhm. But I think he definitely I
00:39:29
I at one point he even says, you know, I have to ask. Because how how how crazy would of that call turned into
00:39:37
if he basically said, "Oh yeah, okay. Well, yeah. This feels good to be talking about.
00:39:43
And almost confessing to somebody. And if he was telling Howard the truth that you're the only person I ever told,
00:39:52
there is a chance that that individual then goes, well, this feels good to get off my chest. Oh, by the way, my real
00:39:58
name is the captain. Yeah, well, it's again, it it might be one of those situations where if this is
00:40:08
in fact real, if he is who he says he is, well, then he's calling in because he's wanted some fame and notoriety for
00:40:17
his acts, but he can't you can't he can't just run out into the streets and say, I'm the guy you're looking for. I'm
00:40:23
the guy that's responsible for all the news that's hitting the papers and the bodies that they're finding on the side
00:40:28
of the road. And because if so, he's going to they're going to shut him down. He's going to be locked up and he's
00:40:34
going to be forced to stop doing what it is that he seems to like and enjoy doing. And that's taking the
00:40:43
lives of of these women. 12 specifically is what he says. And of course, there's
00:40:48
a lot of other crimes and horrible things that go on leading up to the murders themselves.
00:40:55
And that's probably all of a all of it for him, too. A driving factor for him as well.
00:41:02
This is from a book that we've been talking about a little bit here in the garage as of late called a killer by
00:41:08
design. And this is by the great Ann Burgess. And one thing that she's talking about in throughout this book is
00:41:15
how much these types usually and we got to we got to make sure we we say that correctly. Usually like to talk and like
00:41:24
to explain what it is that they are guilty of. She's talking about a case where this is
00:41:31
the ski mask rapist. And after he was caught, she goes on to say his desire to take ownership of his crimes and his
00:41:39
habit of bragging about what he had done as a way of defining who he is. His desire to impress others by violent
00:41:48
means was deeply disturbing, of course, but it also came with an upside for our criminal personality study as a whole.
00:41:55
Simonis, that's the the man identified as the ski mask killer or sorry, ski mask rapist. Simonis wanted to talk. He
00:42:04
wanted others to step inside his head so he could relive his most violent episodes and share them with an
00:42:11
audience. Forcing others to witness the rawness of the details was a fundamental
00:42:16
part of how his mind worked. And so, that kind of backs up a lot of the idea, well, if this guy is in fact who he says
00:42:26
he is, why would he go out of his way if he doesn't want to get caught to go on I mean, 1997, this is almost national
00:42:36
radio. I mean, by this point, Howard Stern he's still on terrestrial radio, but it's
00:42:42
he's syndicated throughout the country and in many different states, especially in some of the major cities.
00:42:49
And so, why would he want to risk right? Because that's what he's doing. He's if he is who he says he is, his
00:42:56
risk of getting caught, that number just went really way up because of this action. It's risky
00:43:04
behavior to call in and announce to Howard and and anybody that's listening who you are and what you've been up to.
00:43:12
And well, and I also don't think he's sitting there being that calculated on the information
00:43:18
he's giving. There he's it's not like he's has there's hesitation or that he's there's these long pauses
00:43:26
before he starts answering stuff. Some of this stuff is coming out of his mouth real quickly.
00:43:32
And that's what's disturbing to me because that's where I lean on the side that this guy's telling the truth.
00:43:37
Because he's he's not struggling to come up with an answer because he's he doesn't know what the questions are
00:43:42
going to be before he calls in. So, it's not like he can script all of his answers. He does a a pretty good job,
00:43:48
too, of not giving a great physical description of himself even though you can tell at times Howard is kind of
00:43:54
trying to bait him a little bit. You said bait. And maybe get some information from him. So, but this is
00:44:00
what? You said it's what? About a 10-minute phone call? Yeah. So, over the course of a 10-minute conversation that
00:44:06
we listen into, really the only physical description that he offers up about himself is that he's a
00:44:13
white male with no tattoos. Even so much so that when Howard says like, oh, well,
00:44:18
you must be like a big powerful big strong person. And what a slick answer that Clay offers
00:44:24
up. He says, well, I wasn't back then. Well, that that's not even a real answer. That's not a yes, I am a big
00:44:31
strong huge person or I'm a meek little individual. That's an extremely vague answer of, well, I
00:44:38
wasn't back then. Right. Meaning he could still be not big. But Exactly. And again, define what is
00:44:46
big. It's not really defined when he's asked to give an answer. So, he really offers up no physical description of
00:44:53
himself other than to say he has no tattoos. No tattoos is a direct reply to Howard on a specific question
00:45:00
that is thrown out there and that he's a white male. I did the same thing with this call that I did with the Brandon
00:45:08
Lawson 911 tape. Listen to it one time. Okay. Listen to it again. And then immediately it was like, okay,
00:45:17
let me get a pad of paper and start dissecting it. I mean, it it felt like the same feeling.
00:45:25
And like I said, you see that he's perturbed cuz you call him Ed, doesn't understand that it's Howard, find that
00:45:32
interesting right away. And also, he mentions two at least two comic book references. He talks about,
00:45:39
well, I saw this thing in a comic book where the killer was painting with the victim's thumbs. And then he said
00:45:46
something like, well, I don't want to turn myself in because I'd miss the next Batman movie.
00:45:52
So, two comic book references. And then also, like you said, where he goes, oh, well, no, no, I'm a white male.
00:46:00
You have any tattoos? No, I wouldn't do that to myself. Even though that the answer came out so
00:46:06
quickly, it could be look, when you have a lot of tattoos, people will ask about them.
00:46:15
And somebody sometimes you'll hear the reply, yeah, I'm too scared to do that or I don't know what I'd put on myself
00:46:22
or I wouldn't do that to myself. So, it could be just a ruse. Oh, yeah, do you have any tattoos? Nah,
00:46:30
don't have any tattoos. I wouldn't do that to myself. And and kind of a joking answer to
00:46:35
himself. Well, one thing that I find really interesting is his where he does struggle to give an answer
00:46:44
is when he's asked if he does drugs. And he he hesitates on his answer and he throws something out there like, well, I
00:46:51
did acid when I was a teenager or something. Like he gives some answer that's not really a direct answer to the
00:46:58
question that that was just delivered by Stern. And one thing to me that that I really I
00:47:04
really focused in on that because when we talk about offering up no real description of himself, well, if he says
00:47:13
yes, I'm a drug user or or goes into specifics about the types of drugs that he uses, well, these guys that kill
00:47:23
5 6 7 10 12 people, they usually have other crimes that they've committed throughout the course
00:47:30
of their lifetime. And so, that creates a police record. The police have a record of those convictions. Use on
00:47:37
file. And so, he doesn't want to offer up. That would be one thing that he really wouldn't want to offer up besides
00:47:45
a physical description of himself because he could be he could be in a database somewhere. You know, I I need
00:47:51
somebody that I know has been in the area for this period of time from this year to to the current year. Remember,
00:47:57
this was November of 1997 of the phone call. I need somebody that has has previous drug convictions. We know that
00:48:05
he had a driver's license at one point because he says his car broke down and that was a factor in why he he briefly
00:48:11
stopped killing for a while. So, there's some things that you can start to piece
00:48:16
together if you really wanted to track this down. Now, he he says he's calling from the New
00:48:21
Orleans area. One thing that would have been really interesting to know and this is a call as startling as it is,
00:48:31
Captain. This is a call that's not referenced on the show. I don't know that it's ever been
00:48:36
referenced again on on the show. One that I could find, but I I'm a regular listener. I don't listen to every single
00:48:42
day or every single minute of the show, obviously, but uh Well, the information I found about this call is
00:48:49
supposedly the call happened and they've never discussed it ever since. They didn't even supposedly discuss it on the
00:48:56
next segment. Hey, remember that guy that just called us? What do you think? It's almost like they had the
00:49:02
conversation and they just moved on. And and look, for all we know, law enforcement was listening. Maybe
00:49:10
they even got contacted by law enforcement. You know, hey, do you have screeners? Can you tell us what number
00:49:17
this guy's calling from? And maybe they were told legally just not to talk about it.
00:49:23
Well, and that's one thing I wondered like and it was never mentioned, was it in fact a New Orleans area code? I would
00:49:30
have loved if if Gary would have chimed in or whoever was screening the calls would have chimed in to let us know that
00:49:37
at least the guy's calling from the area that he says he's calling from. Well, I
00:49:41
actually believe that's correct because when he says Howard is the one that says New Orleans.
00:49:47
Oh. And and and you can tell that he's a little startled by the fact that they know that.
00:49:53
Yeah, he's a little off-put that that's thrown out there right away. Yeah, and I
00:49:57
and I have always found that to be a little suspicious where he's going he's talking and they're like, okay, yeah,
00:50:03
you're calling from New Orleans and he's like, yeah. It's almost like he knows that might have been information that
00:50:09
Clay didn't want to give out. Well, and we can say this that there was an active serial killer in New Orleans
00:50:18
in the early 90s. And the one of the more extensive articles and information that I could
00:50:27
find out there says that it could be up to 26 victims. And this would be through the course of
00:50:34
looks like 1991 to about 1996. Now, the only the only thing that I throw in there
00:50:45
in regard to this call is that the last victim that they have listed here, the 26th victim, was found
00:50:52
in April of 1996. And Clay says that he he says that he hasn't killed in almost a year. And this
00:51:01
call's taking place in November of 1997. Now, let's circle back around to something else though. When he is
00:51:10
talking about how he killed some of his victims, he says a a hammer is one of them, strangulation was was at least one
00:51:19
of them. And I believe he says that most of the victims he killed with a hammer and he
00:51:23
strangled one of them. And he also says something about the strangled victim saying, well, that's
00:51:30
probably one of the ones that they found. So, just because we don't have any victims found
00:51:39
after April of 1996 or or information pointing us in that direction doesn't mean that the call's not legit, right?
00:51:46
It doesn't mean that the call isn't legit because maybe they just haven't found his more recent victim or victims.
00:51:53
Well, like you said, he hesitates on when he says, you know, are you on drugs? And he hesitates and I wonder if
00:51:59
that's he then follows up saying, you know, well, you know, maybe I'd be drinking when I'd
00:52:06
commit these crimes. You wonder well, how much is this guy drinking? And is he drinking and then
00:52:13
once he has enough beers that he's also doing some other drug? And is it possible that he just doesn't
00:52:20
remember some of the murders? Yeah, that's certainly a a possibility here. Um I would I would guess that the the
00:52:29
individual might not be so sloppy drunk that I mean, if if he if what he's saying is true, he's been able
00:52:37
to pull this off 12 times without getting caught. Yeah. And he he seems to believe that he's so far off their radar
00:52:44
that he can call into a uh a national radio show and tell tell everybody what he's been up to. Yeah, I
00:52:51
thought that too, but um with the drinking thing, you know, yes, cuz I I would I would assume that
00:52:59
these killers would have this urge the urge is growing. Now, they know that uh I I have to start planning. I think they
00:53:07
start working out this this puzzle in their in their brain, but I'd also think that individuals that had these
00:53:17
urges if they were an avid drinker that once they got enough booze into their system
00:53:25
that maybe they wouldn't be able to control their their um impulses. Well, yeah, I mean, oftentimes they will
00:53:32
they will do something to loosen themselves up to build up the courage to cuz a lot of times these are fantasies
00:53:39
that these individuals have and they've kept to themselves their entire lives and they want to act out these
00:53:44
fantasies. They've just never had the the guts to do it. Yeah. And as as dumb and sick as that sounds, that's that's
00:53:51
the truth. They've they've never been able to build up the confidence or the bravery or whatever you want to call it
00:53:58
to to act on these fantasies. Now, one thing that I found interesting though too is he doesn't shy away from the fact
00:54:07
that one of his 12 victims was a a cross-dresser. That, you know, come to discover later
00:54:14
during the attack or what have you, he learns that what he thought was a female victim is now a a male victim.
00:54:24
And the thing that's interesting to me about that, Captain, is in this the list that I was able to find of the 26
00:54:31
victims from 1991 to 1996 in I'm sorry, 1990 yeah, April 1996 in and around the New Orleans area. And
00:54:42
unfortunately, they with very broad strokes, they paint the the a picture here in the title of what the
00:54:50
list is saying that these these 26 individuals were all uh you know, sex workers or prostitutes.
00:54:59
And I don't think I've seen some information come out from family members of some of the the persons that have
00:55:06
been been identified that are on this list saying, you know, they weren't a sex worker. They're they're being lumped
00:55:13
in in this group. But what have you, what we know here is that I don't think that it's the same perpetrator that
00:55:20
carried out all 26 of these murders. I I don't believe that at all. I believe we're probably looking at
00:55:26
three, maybe four possibly more because a couple of these could be just one-offs where where
00:55:33
somebody killed just one person and they never killed anybody else ever again. And it just happened to take place
00:55:38
during this same time period and so they're getting kind of lumped all together here.
00:55:43
Uh but within this list of 26, there are two men that are listed. And they're thrown into that category.
00:55:51
Again, it's a very broad brush saying uh that these were these were sex workers in the area and they were they
00:55:59
were found. So, I apologize, three males because we have two that have been identified
00:56:06
and one that is is listed as a John Doe. So, again, this is a weird piece of information that
00:56:16
somebody in the area may not know. And what I mean is somebody that's calling in to fake it may not know that
00:56:23
that that they've tied some of these male victims in with these female victims and
00:56:29
they believe that they're connected at least enough to fall on the same list. Right.
00:56:34
And I found that interesting. Now, around this same time for my understanding though too, Captain, it
00:56:39
was well known that there was a serial killer in the area and or multiple individuals that were
00:56:47
killing, you know, similar women, uh similar being ages or profession, uh drug users, things of that nature in
00:56:57
this time period. In fact, so much so that there was a I want to make sure I I have the exact
00:57:04
term analogy of what they were calling it back then. Uh I won't give out the the phone number
00:57:09
because I don't know if it would ring to anybody and if it did, who knows where the phone call would go because this is
00:57:15
a task force that was in operation in the late 90s. So, they had a serial murder task force is what they were
00:57:22
calling it that was investigating those 26 homicides that fell onto this list. So, there would have been some general
00:57:31
public awareness that this was going on. One, that these murders were happening.
00:57:35
And two, so much so that law enforcement has deemed this or some of these murders
00:57:41
at least to be the work of a serial killer. And they are treating it as such so much so that they've formed a task
00:57:47
force to investigate these cases. Well, when I told a couple of my friends, hey, I think we're going to try
00:57:52
to dissect this call and I'm I'm interested to hear Nick's thoughts on this. They they would
00:57:59
go, oh, yeah, I'm I'm interested to hear his thoughts too. Like Like who cares about your thoughts,
00:58:06
Captain? Well, there's a couple of interesting names that are loosely tied to this
00:58:10
story, maybe a little more strongly tied to the story depending on who you ask. But those names would be Victor Grant
00:58:18
and Russell Elwood. So, many people believe that Russell Elwood is in fact the guy calling
00:58:25
himself Clay, Clay the serial killer that calls into the Howard Stern Show confessing to killing 12 women.
00:58:31
But Victor Gant is the other individual that's referenced in relation to this story as well. And he's
00:58:39
really interesting too because it kind of falls back on something that Clay is talking about during the phone call.
00:58:46
Victor Gant is a former law enforcement officer who was tied to two possibly more of the slayings on that
00:58:58
list of 26 that that I keep referencing. So, he did have, as Clay says in the call,
00:59:07
a direct relationship with one or two of the victims. Well, like you said, anything in this call could have been a
00:59:15
lie. It could have be a ruse to throw people off the scent. And I'm trying to look here on the fly, Captain, to figure
00:59:23
out if Victor Gant was ever prosecuted or convicted of any of these these killings here.
00:59:31
But it doesn't look like, and this is not the most updated information, but the the most recent stuff I can find on this
00:59:40
individual is that number of victims, they put it at anywhere from zero to 27. So, he may not have been convicted of
00:59:49
any of these actual killings, but it does specify on some different websites that he is suspected of having
00:59:57
killed two or more of the women that are on this list. The interesting thing about Victor Gant as well, when it comes
01:00:06
to this list of of homicides here, is that he seems to match some kind of physical description
01:00:14
that was being tossed around in relation to some of these earlier murders that were taking place in and around the New
01:00:22
Orleans area in 1992. Mhm. So, the suspect sketch then, at that time, depicted depicted a large, muscular,
01:00:31
African-American man in his 30s, and Gant matched that physical that be it vague, but he matches that
01:00:41
physical description. So, who's this Russell Elwood? He is the individual that many believe
01:00:48
is Clay, the serial killer who called into the Howard Stern Show. He did go on trial in 1998 for two
01:00:56
murders that took place in 1993. This was the murders of Cheryl Lewis and Delores Mack. He was found in
01:01:05
The way that he was apprehended, okay? From my understanding, this dude worked as a cab driver for for quite some time.
01:01:14
I don't know if it was the full length or extent of when the killings were going on,
01:01:21
or if it was just for a a more brief period of time during the course of those killings. But, a couple
01:01:27
key things to know about Elwood is one, he was not from the New Orleans area. He
01:01:33
moved there after living here in Ohio for quite some time. And there's some information out there to suggest that he
01:01:40
was in Ohio for portions of these killings. That he may not have even been in the
01:01:48
area when some of these women were were abducted and killed. The way that he lands on the police
01:01:55
radar is one, taxi cab drivers are not uncommonly listed as suspects in these types of cases, especially when we're
01:02:03
talking about sex workers. So, his his job sort of sort of fits what you're looking for, because everybody willingly
01:02:12
gets into a taxi cab, and so it's easy to come up with victims. But, they arrest him, they find him,
01:02:20
police see his vehicle in the middle of the night out in an area where they've recovered at least two bodies by this
01:02:27
point, and they find him there sitting alone in his car, and they question him. You know, just
01:02:33
the basic question of, "Well, sir, why are you here?" While police knowing, "Hey, we've recovered bodies in this
01:02:38
area, and it wouldn't be uncommon for a serial killer to return to the area, or maybe he's here because he's getting
01:02:44
ready to dump another victim that he has in the trunk of his car. Yeah, that makes sense.
01:02:48
He claims, first of all, he's not fully dressed, which I I wish they would offer
01:02:53
up more detail on that, because if it's 90° out and he's just not wearing a shirt, that doesn't seem extremely
01:02:59
suspicious to me, uh but they say in the report that he's not not fully dressed.
01:03:04
Flickering, flickering. And that he claims that he's in this area because he's going to change the
01:03:09
oil in the vehicle and change the brake pads on the vehicle. And he wanted to be
01:03:16
out there because he could dump the used oil out in this area, and you know, without
01:03:22
anybody having concern about it. You know, you're supposed to properly dispose of
01:03:27
used oil, and he wanted to just dump it on the side of the road. Well, police are extra suspicious, because then they
01:03:34
search his vehicle. I guess they're hoping to either find drugs or maybe a victim that they can save. Uh you know,
01:03:42
they got a lot of suspicions when they're approaching his vehicle. They don't find anything of that nature, but
01:03:48
what they also don't find is brake pads or oil or tools to do any of the work that he claims he's going to do. Again,
01:03:57
he's out in near a field in pitch black area. He doesn't have any uh lighting to
01:04:02
assist him in in doing any of this work. So, they know they've caught him in in a
01:04:07
lie. Got him. Now, they need to know not only, "Why are you here?" but two, "Why
01:04:12
are you in this area and then lying about why you would be here?" So, he looks extremely suspicious, but again,
01:04:19
we have to we have to note here that he is it's proven that during the course of
01:04:24
some of these murders, when some of these murders took place, he was not in New Orleans. He was not in the state of
01:04:30
Louisiana. Well, like you said, there's probably multiple killers responsible for the the sum total of the What do you
01:04:37
say? 27? Yeah, 20 26 is the list that I have, and eventually Elwood was charged and I believe convicted in both of the
01:04:47
two that he was charged with. I say that with a little hesitation, Captain, because I know that there's been some
01:04:53
question marks on one of those two homicides over the years that there's been some information coming forward
01:04:59
that he he may not have been in the area for both of those murders. It looks to me like this this Russell Elwood is good
01:05:06
for for several of these. He also claimed to I know we don't like jailhouse snitches.
01:05:13
The people that he was locked up with, Elwood would fit good with Clay, too, because he had multiple drug convictions
01:05:20
in multiple states before he was ever charged with any of these murders. So, that would make sense
01:05:26
to me, too, if that he wants to kind of shy away from that in the in the portion
01:05:31
of questioning on the Stern Show. But, when he was locked up in jail in in Florida
01:05:37
facing some kind of charges there, these weren't murder charges, we had inmates telling law enforcement
01:05:46
that this is what this dude told us he was up to. And apparently, if we are to believe these jailhouse
01:05:53
snitches, what they're claiming is that Russell Elwood told them that his thing was he liked to
01:06:00
he liked to pick up his uh a street walker. He he would get them to do drugs, whatever their drug of choice
01:06:07
was. I could be heroin, crack cocaine, what have you. But, he would get them to shoot up. He wanted them to overdose
01:06:16
in his in his presence. And sometimes I think he's having sex with them while they're overdosing, and then he has to
01:06:25
uh if they don't completely overdose, then he has to kill them by other means after the fact, and that he just kind of
01:06:33
left his victims on the side of the road because he had no real attachment to them. There was no nothing connecting
01:06:39
him connecting victim to perpetrator in those cases. So, he didn't feel compelled to conceal the bodies or go to
01:06:46
any great lengths or efforts to kind of conceal the bodies. Now, that doesn't really fall in line with what Clay
01:06:56
tells Howard on the phone. Mhm. Because Clay says that most of them he killed with a hammer, and one of them he
01:07:02
strangled, where the jailhouse snitches are telling us that oh, well, Elwood liked to make them overdose, having sex
01:07:10
with them while they're overdosing, and with some of them he I think one of the victims he she didn't die, so he drowned
01:07:19
her. One of them, I believe he claimed that he that he strangled her, but at no point in any of those in any of that
01:07:25
information could I find the use of a hammer, which seems to be what Clay is saying that he's done with with most of
01:07:32
the victims. I could see his voice matching his picture. What what I think is probably most likely in this situation,
01:07:41
again, when we talk about this list of 20 26 victims here, uh we're probably have a situation where we have multiple
01:07:49
multiple perpetrators. Victor Gant's probably responsible for a couple, maybe two to four of these. Russell Elwood's
01:07:57
probably responsible for a handful of these murders as well. And this Clay individual who called in could be who he
01:08:04
says he is, and some of his victims could be on this list as well. And it's just a uh a tricky a tricky
01:08:13
situation here. Now, on the Stern Show, we do know that it's not uncommon for them to have fake phone calls. Right.
01:08:21
In fact, they they employ people that call the Howard Stern Show pretending to be legit callers. Somebody starts making
01:08:29
prank phone calls to them, and they're so entertaining that they offer them jobs.
01:08:33
Yeah, and so they would off they would regularly have these fake calls. But, one thing I want to say about that is
01:08:40
that Howard typically will move on from those calls relatively quickly. Like, unless they're home run comedy smash
01:08:47
hits, he moves on from those calls very quickly. And a lot of times, especially in the last 10 15 years,
01:08:55
he's also quick to point out well, not quick to point out, but toward the the end of the phone call,
01:09:02
he'll point out that it's somebody in the back, you know, that it's one of their staff and they've they've come up
01:09:06
with something, because that might become a character that you will regularly hear on the show going
01:09:12
forward, because it was such a smash hit. Now, a long time listener here telling you, I don't know of a situation
01:09:20
where somebody claims to be calling in with a serious matter. There's nothing more serious than discussing the taking
01:09:26
of one's life. I I can't recall knowing of a fake call to be saying something of that weight,
01:09:35
of that gravity. So, now, is it out of the realm of possibility? No. Because we know that he was was and is a
01:09:44
shock jock and who knows what lengths they would go to to shock the audience, to grow the audience, or keep the
01:09:50
audience. But, I have a feeling here that if this is a fake call, then Clay is the fake
01:09:58
is the is the fake here, not somebody calling in from the back, that this is not a manufactured call from somebody on
01:10:04
the Stern staff. Well, I also put a little weight to the fact that they've never discussed it afterwards. Like I
01:10:10
said, they could have been caught, they could have been contacted by New Orleans police, maybe even a a
01:10:17
lawyer, and and maybe that's one of the reasons why they've they've never discussed it afterwards. Or, on the flip
01:10:24
side, they realized it was a fake and that's why they've never brought it up again. Now, I would believe Captain that
01:10:32
the BSU from the FBI would tell Stern and the local serial murder task force that they had established there in New
01:10:41
Orleans at the time, this guy talking is our best weapon. We want to keep him talking. So, let's have
01:10:48
him reach out. Let's give him a Let's put him on speed dial so he can reach out and communicate with Stern or
01:10:56
somebody on the local level because he seems to want to talk and he's going to be able to offer up some clues if in
01:11:03
fact he is who he says he is. And we've kind of been discussing this, gearing up and getting ready for this
01:11:10
and I think we both uh have similar thoughts and opinions. No strong gut feeling either way. If I had to bet,
01:11:21
I would say that Clay is an actual serial killer. I think that's because the devil's in the details and how
01:11:29
quickly he comes up with those details. And also, I find it interesting on how many times that he corrects Howard. And
01:11:41
so, when he says like, "Oh, well, I I originally wrote some notes and tried to put out some clues and and
01:11:47
and wanted to get some press." And and then when Howard like contradicts him on that, he he repeats,
01:11:54
"Oh, no, no, I originally wanted that. I originally wanted fame." I think if you're if he was lying to
01:12:01
Howard about that, and then Howard went in a different direction, you wouldn't Maybe maybe you wouldn't
01:12:08
double down, but maybe you'd just move on and just let let him be incorrect. Again, the other reason why I would lean
01:12:16
towards or if I had to bet that he is telling the truth is when they state New Orleans and how
01:12:22
shocked he seems. And almost where I'm not even going to deny that. They must know somehow that
01:12:29
I'm from New Orleans and so I have to give up that information. And he doesn't seem initially like he wanted to give
01:12:36
that up. Where I question myself here, Captain, is whether this caller is in fact who he
01:12:41
says he is. I I think he's probably legit if I had to if I had to just give a simple answer,
01:12:48
that would be it. But, a a longer, less simple answer would be one, I'm a little
01:12:54
shocked at how long he stayed on the phone if he is who he says he is, because he
01:13:00
doesn't strike me to be dumb or ignorant to the fact that there's law enforcement
01:13:04
looking for him. So, I'm a little surprised at at how long he stays on the call itself. And I
01:13:11
also wouldn't be surprised if he's fluffed his numbers a little bit, where he says I've killed 12, but maybe he's
01:13:16
not killed that many people. Maybe he he he still could be who he says he is and not have killed 12
01:13:23
people. And like always, we want to hear your thoughts and opinions on the episode.
01:13:39
So, go to truecrimegarage.com and make sure you leave a comment on the blog. Colonel, do we have any
01:13:45
recommended reading for this week? That's right. Thank you, Captain, and we want to thank everybody who has posted
01:13:50
questions and comments on the blog throughout this wonderful year. It's been a It's been a busy and exciting
01:13:56
blog at truecrimegarage.com. This week we have a great recommendation for your eyeballs, a little recommended
01:14:02
listening. If you have not already, well, then make sure you go and check out the Missing Persons podcast by our
01:14:09
friends over at Abjack Entertainment. True Crime Garage and Abjack have been friends for years. Mike Morford, who
01:14:16
many of you will remember joined us on our Zodiac episodes, and I'll put the Colonel's stamp on this, there is no
01:14:22
better person on this big blue marble to talk Zodiac with than Mike Morford. And
01:14:26
also a big player over at Abjack is one that has helped us out here at True Crime Garage for a long time, Jessica
01:14:33
Bettencourt. She has worked here behind the scenes for several years and she has
01:14:39
done some wonderful gangbusters work for us and for Abjack. We are recommending that everyone check out the Missing
01:14:45
Persons podcast because we paired up with them to feature one of our most recent cases titled Paige Coffee. Paige
01:14:53
has been missing from the greater Cleveland area since May of 2019. Her family, True Crime Garage, and the
01:15:00
Missing Persons podcast are asking for your help. We need to locate her. We need answers and we are determined to
01:15:07
get justice for Paige and her family. True Crime Garage released the Paige Coffee episode last week on December 7th
01:15:14
and this past Saturday, the Missing Persons podcast released a Paige Coffee episode as well. They are two very
01:15:21
different shows and I encourage everyone to listen to both, especially if you live in Ohio or the surrounding states
01:15:28
because again, we need some help. Merry Christmas and happy holidays to Jessica and Mike and happy holidays to you all
01:15:34
and everyone and we will see you back here in the garage next week. Until then, be good, be kind, and don't litter.