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[Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome to true crime garage wherever you are whatever you were doing thanks
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liqueur it's smooth sipping here today in the garage my friend's garage grade four and a five bottle caps and this
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week's fridge is full thanks to our good friends first up we have Meghan P and Matt s in Dallas Texas and a big we like
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Pennsylvania recommending rose' ale by Ryan Geist of course we love Ryan guys and last but certainly not least in fact
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the best we have Shanna Kay who wants us to talk about it who wants us to talk about the Golden State killer of course
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round grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] Bakersfield California is a city of
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380,000 about a hundred miles north of Los Angeles Bakersfield is the county seat of Kern County in the ninth largest
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city in California it's considered to be a pretty wholesome Family Values type of
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town but in the late 1970's and early 80's something strange was going on the series of murders began these murders
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had just enough similarities and just enough linking them to make people wonder are they connected now no one
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shared suspicions that an undetected serial killer was at work this was something totally different something
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very strange and something very rare what we have here is a faint pattern to the killings suggesting an underlying
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darkness something deep down at their root what would emerge was an old boys network a dirty Club with members
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scattered amongst the upper echelon 'he's a Bakersfield's power elite a ring populated by public officials and
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trusted city leaders but this network wasn't just about cronyism or corruption at its root was pedophilia this is true
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crime garage and this is the story the Lords of Bakersfield [Music] Bakersfield California 1978 the city was
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described by CNN as clean safe conservative Republican and religious yet over a span of seven years from 1978
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to 1985 there were five unusual murders the cases are explored in a sensational 2003 expose that ran in the local paper
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the Californian written by Robert price a columnist for the paper and was assisted by assistant managing editor
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Louis Henry many of the facts stated here by us come from this lengthy and scandalous column On January 4 1978 a
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gardener working on a property for a house on Beach Street in Bakersfield could not help but notice blood seeping
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out from under the back door of the house this alarming sight caused the gardener to call the police officers
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rushed to the house and after making their way into the home they found a man lying on the floor covered in blood the
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man was naked and it appeared he had been beaten and stabbed but somehow he was still alive he was unresponsive
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paramedics arrived on the scene almost as soon as police when they found the man who was barely still clinging to
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life they went to work applying life-saving efforts and then they rushed him to the hospital now the gardener
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told police that the home belonged to a man named Tommy Tarver the badly beaten man was quickly identified to be in fact
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Tommy Tarver yeah Tommy was in his 40s but he's pretty well known in the community he was also doing pretty well
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financially Tommy owned a popular hair salon called mr. t Worchester located on F Street in
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Bakersfield this salon was frequented by many of the rich and powerful in town it appears Tommy lived alone he had been
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married twice before both ending in separation or and Tommy was living an openly gay
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lifestyle now we said he was unresponsive in fact he was in a coma and remained so for about five days
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until he died from his injuries that he suffered during this heinous attack police were looking for a suspect and
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the neighborhood was in shock police canvassed the area talking to anyone in close proximity wanting to know did
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anyone see or hear anything strange leading up to their gruesome findings inside the house on Beach Street a
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couple that lived nearby told police that the night before a man in his early to mid-20s knocked on their door asking
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if they could call him a cab to which they agreed to help according to the papers they did not notice anything
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strange about his appearance however while the man remained at the doorway while they were placing the call for the
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cab something fell from one of the man's pockets it was a silver spoon after calling for the cab this was the last
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did the couple saw of this man the spoon was later found by police now that same
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day police got a big lead in what would later turn out to be a homicide investigation this lead came by way of a
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traffic stop when an officer pulled a vehicle over the officer very quickly discovered two things way out of the
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ordinary first the car was stolen and its rightful owner was Tommy Tarver mm-hmm the man they found
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attacked in his home who is now in a coma lying in a hospital bed just a couple days away from death find you the
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second thing that they noticed was that the vehicle was being operated by a 13 year old boy this is 13 year old Robert
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Glenn mistral he was caught behind the wheel of a soon-to-be dead man's stolen vehicle so we have 13 year-old Robert
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that's driving this guy's car that was viciously attacked but he also has some of his items in the car with him
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so of course police wanted to know everything and young Robert did seem have quite a bit to tell them Robert
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admitted to knowing the much older Tommy Tarver and in fact admitted to going to
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his home Robert told the police he had been living in seedy hotels with his alcoholic mother Robert said he got by
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on selling sexual favors to men for money and had been doing so since he was just 11 years old so Robert and his
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mother were living or staying however you choose to look at it at the Rancho Bakersfield motel now according to
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Robert this is where he met Tommy Tarver this was some time before the actual attack Tommy offers to pay Robert to mow
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his lawn and Robert agrees but according to Robert as soon as he gets to Tommy's
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house Tommy starts putting the moves on him now Robert looks like a good suspect so far right
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he's caught driving Tommy's car with items belonging to Tommy but here's where the timeline for the night of the
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attack this is where it gets a little wonky a taxi driver told police then on that night the night of what would turn
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out to be a murder he drove Tommy a man in his 40s and 13 year old Robert to Rancho Bakersfield
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Motel coffee shop around 11:30 p.m. this Motel was apparently a meeting place for
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men in town many of whom were living secret double lives hmm the cabbie said he later drove Tommy and a different
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escort home this was 24 year old William Kenneth Manley a university student from
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Santa Rosa William Manley was also staying at the Rancho Bakersfield motel and there he said he met Tommy at the
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bar the two decided to go clubbing but Tommy wanted to stop at his house first to change his clothes while there Manley
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witnessed two other men arrive then argue with Tommy and then one of them began engaging in sex with Tommy manly
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decided to leave but not before pocketing about $1,000 worth of silverware and jewelry from the home on
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his way out cuz of the witness this is the couple that identified Manley as the man who
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stopped and asked to call a cab he was arrested and charged with the murder of Tommy Tarver Robert Mistral the 13-year
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old was charged only with burglarizing Tommy's home and Tommy's hair salon as well apparently the salon was an easy
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target for Robert because he had a key to get into the place now it's unclear if Tommy ever gave him the key or my
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guess is that Robert got the key when he burglarized and then had the keys to Tommy's car at the trial
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Manley's defense tried to claim that Robert mistral had been with Tommy earlier that night and was possibly a
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suspect but the deputy da convinced the judge not to let Robert be questioned in
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the end Manley was acquitted of the murder of Tommy Tarver and Robert got six months in the San Felipe boys home a
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Kern County youth facility for the burglary charges the murder of Tommy Tarver remains unsolved at the time of
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course this was a shocking murder but no one realized that this would be the first in a series of killings involving
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what later would appear to be an underground community in Bakersfield Glen Fitz was well at least according to
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one article this article described him as quote a pillar of the law-enforcement community
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and quote he was the former director of the Kern County Police Academy a member of the Bakersfield Police Commission and
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recently retired police science instructor from Bakersfield College unfortunately Glenn's wife passed away
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so by April 1979 he was 56 years old retired and living single around this time he started hanging out in a nearby
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park where he was interacting with the teenagers there he would routinely invite local teens back to his place
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that's not creepy at all no come on over come hey I'm gonna just hang out at the
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park and stare at kids all day back then they didn't even have cable hmm he started hosting parties with teenagers
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and this is what was expected well the short of it is he was trading things like beer alcoholic drinks and pot for
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sex or sex acts with both teenage boys and possibly teenage girls as well on April 10th 1979 Glenn threw a birthday
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party for one of his teen friends attending this party was about 20 teens some of them as young as 14 years old
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yeah come over let's have a party for my teenager friend where's the party at oak
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repose House well at the party was a 14-year old named Dana Charlene Butler Dana went missing
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and it seems like the last time anyone remembers interacting with the young girl well Dana was alive and well and
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wanting Leigh attended this very party it wasn't until three days later that she was found dead dumped in a park
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reports were that she was found with 30 to 40 shallow knife wounds and two deep fatal wounds it appeared she was
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tortured before being killed and the body contained more evidence investigators found one of Fitz's pubic
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hairs as well as dog hairs from both of his dogs on the body this was the 70s and hair evidence was standard in lieu
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of yet to be developed DNA the police searched Fitz's home and just as suspected they found blood matching
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Dana's witnesses told police investigators that Fitz replaced the plumbing fixtures in some carpeting
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inside the home just the day after Dana went missing with mounting evidence a grand jury was convened and they
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interviewed everyone this including Fitz and the plumber but just as this was really picking up speed it came to a
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screeching halt this is when the DA's office and explicably declined to ask for an
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indictment for murder against Glen Fitz the head of the Bakersfield Police Department detectives unit told the
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Californian the newspaper that he was baffled as to why charges weren't brought as in his opinion there was
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ample evidence in all of the files that he had seen now meanwhile the Californian reported that there was a
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suspect but never named Glen Fitz as a suspect and they say this because he had not been named by police but
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nevertheless it appears that the whole town seemed to know who the suspect was parents knew that Fitz was the suspect
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and they started picketing around his house the County Administration's building and right outside of the
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courthouse building as well again if you know this guy is a creep then why are you letting him why are you
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letting kids go to his house for a party it's ridiculous likely the if you're talking about the parents it's likely
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they were unaware that their children were going over to his house to get drunk and do drugs anyway these people
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these two hundred people it's about two hundred people that participated in these picketing events outside of the
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the two buildings and his home obviously they wanted an arrest made in this case
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they were calling themselves the mothers of Bakersfield examples of the mobs picketing signs well some of them read
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quote who is blocking the investigation question mark and DA office what are you
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afraid of question mark now the other thing here is the local sheriff's department they were very confident that
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Fitz was good for this crime and the DA's office and then the grand jury failed to bring an indictment so local
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law enforcement and I'm guessing that this was not public knowledge at the time likely this was probably more of a
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behind closed-doors type of thing but it sounds to me like basically the local law enforcement was
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threatening the DEA okay so if you don't charge this man for the murder of this girl then we are going to push to charge
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the same man with any kind of lesser charge so at the very least we can make an arrest right right we're gonna get
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this jackass no matter what it's basically what they're saying well I don't know if it was the mob of people
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or the behind-the-scenes activity that we just explained or if it was a combination of both but whatever it was
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it seems like the DA his hand was was forced because eventually the DA press charges against Fitz but not for the
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murder of a 14 year old but instead for suspicion of furnishing drugs to a minor
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mm-hmm so of course this is an extremely lenient charge based off of the general
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facts and evidence of the case but when they be able to like charge them with multiple counts of this for like the
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parties and stuff that he was throwing I believe there were five charges that were pushed forth and three of them were
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felony charges now this did result and Fitz being arrested on May 21st apparently no indictment was ever handed
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down a Pulitzer prize-winning expose many years later on the corruption in Bakersfield
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stated that quote senior prosecutors withheld key evidence from the panel meaning the grand jury hmm right I just
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wonder what his connection is to this prosecutor well he was retired law enforcement
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he held all three of those different positions throughout his career being the former director of Kern County
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police academy member of the Bakersfield Police Commission and retired police science instructor from Bakersfield
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College no right rag I get that part but you just wonder how close these individuals are or if they're you know a
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part of some group outside of their jobs it really really makes you wonder right
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because what you're talking about is why the hell who cares if they had some kind
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of connection on a professional basis we're talking about murder here the murder of a child
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and we're also talking about evidence to point to him as being the very likely suspect right in this case now I
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understand that her body is found out in the park somewhere and but we have evidence of of him or where he got the
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huge man on the body right we got pubes well here's the other thing too this is one thing that I found very interesting
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okay so his his previous job of the police science instructor and then we have the neighbors claiming that he they
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were aware that he was replacing plumbing and carpeting inside his home yeah then the day after it's believed
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that she went missing that seems like somebody with one okay look yeah if you got large blood stains everywhere
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no Doug you you you get rid of the carpet and try to replace that but on top of that factor in the the the job
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that he had a police science instructor he is aware of certain things that the general public would not be aware of and
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it makes you really wonder what what plumbing fixtures was he replacing you know we've talked about some cases where
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the where law enforcement will go in with their Tech's and remove drains and drain pipes right because they know that
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they're going to find evidence down there and that's something that a lot of people don't consider when they're
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trying to cover up a homicide right so on you got that on the one hand you go okay well what you said replacing the
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carpets not a big deal pipes you got to have some kind of knowledge about that but then you're gonna leave pubes and
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dog hair on the victim seems to not make sense right I mean a lot of this case is
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not going to make sense so nobody I mean like that you you would do all these necessary steps you don't -
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to your house but you want to do that to the to the actual crime scene I feel like what we have here is a man that
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panicked and thought that the first thing a most important thing to do at the fat
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this point mm-hmm was to get the body out of his house yeah and then went back in and tried to do damage control to his
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house now mind you he went to all this effort and and what did police find inside of his home blood that matched
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the same blood type as Danis so do you know where they found that I don't know it seemed like a lot of the work that he
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was doing appeared to be taking place in the in the bathroom or the bathroom area
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of the home I couldn't find where they said specifically where the blood was in fact found but look I I believe 100%
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that she was probably killed in that bathroom or moved to the bathroom shortly after some kind of attack took
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place we're talking about possibly a prolonged torture that went on in this case as well from from what little we
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can see and observe in this case again is sometimes when there are those points of evidence they don't actually report
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on them now one thing that does go in the way of a defense for why maybe the DA did not press charges or did not get
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that indictment that the public was so very eagerly seeking apparently there was some kind of quote screw-up that's
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that's how it's been reported as a screw-up at the coroner's office now apparently for some reason and I'm
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uncertain of their exact protocol back there and then but they failed to do a time of death test on Dana Butler so
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they never established a time of death now this this only really becomes difficult once you do get to trial
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because with her missing for several days before her body's found yeah you're you're you know alibi or need for an
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alibi all that gets pretty dicey when you've not really honed in or even created a window of time for the
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possible time of death so there was also some doubts out there as to they're 56 year-old Glen Fitz who many
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say was in poor health with a heart condition if he could have in fact killed the girl and then disposed of her
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on his own mmm well you know we we know that he was working out daily at the park
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within days of all of this mess here Glen Fitz died of a gunshot to the head leaving behind a strange note which read
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Dana Butler was last seen in front of a church between 11:30 nine and 12:30 I on
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the morning of April 9 was home waiting for and there the note ends the death of
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Glen Fitz was officially ruled a suicide which we should point out some weird things with this as well because first
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Fitz's body was found outdoors between his home and his neighbor's and second a neighbor reported hearing two gunshots
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on that day now the murder of Dana Butler remains unsolved Glen Fitz may have killed her or she may have been
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killed by someone else it does seem however whoever killed her did so inside Fitz's home this was the
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second case where an older man associated with teenage boys ended up dead and here again this man could have
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been preying on teens for sex [Music] they seem like a friend or even family you trust them with your life but behind
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the promises of fame success and riches beyond your wildest dreams it's just another scammer trying to
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cheat you out of your life savings every week the park has original con artists dives into the psychology of hustlers
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Spotify or wherever you listen to podcast again search con artists or visit par cast comm slash con artists to
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listen now welcome back cheers mates for all of our old episodes check out the stitcher app and check out our weekly
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bonus show called off the record you can do so at true crime garage com awesome welcome back to you captain welcome now
00:28:35
the next case we have here takes place in 1981 hmm so we have 55 year-old edwin buck edwin was the personnel director
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for kern county he was associated with a name we have heard before this is young
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Robert Mistral at this time robber is about 17 years old and he told police that he met buck at
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each Park in 1979 when he was 15 police were aware of activity at this park and actually warned Edwin buck and other men
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there numerous times about sexual activity and sexual activity with minor boys Robert hung out with buck on a few
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occasions a buck caught Robert stealing money and tools from him on one of these occasions and threatened
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to have robber arrested for the theft a buck told Robert that he would not involve the police
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if Robert agreed to participate in making a porno movie with another young boy so always a good idea to throw
00:29:46
blackmail and child pornography into the blender of totally effed up situations right you have a key imagine I mean
00:29:54
you're 17 years old you stole some stuff the guy goes I'm going to the cops right
00:29:59
or you can have sex with this kid like go to the cops [ __ ] good I mean yeah yeah and I think I don't want to get
00:30:09
into that too much because I think there's there's a lot of there's more weight stuff to sift through before we
00:30:15
before we get into some of that stuff but what we have here is Robert doesn't tell you no old nasty Uncle Buck to go
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to the police yeah instead he recruits a friend and this is 18 year old Roy Carmen ish but Roy
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wasn't recruited for the purpose of starring in a homemade movie he had an entirely different role to play so one
00:30:42
night Robert invited Edwin buck for a moonlight drive once they got out into a nice spot buck pulled the vehicle over
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and parked the car mm-hmm Roy who was unbeknownst to buck following them this is all a part of
00:30:59
Robert's plan Roy pulled up in front of them Robert apparently knew what was going to go down because later he said
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he retreated to Roy's car this is where he sat so he would not have to see anything
00:31:14
ROI was high on LSD at the time an attacked buck Roy stabbed buck several times he hit him in the head with a
00:31:24
hammer and he slit his throat the two boys then stuffed a bucks body into the trunk of bucks car they drove
00:31:34
the car back to Bucks home and parked it in the garage once there they robbed the house and set
00:31:42
it on fire later investigators found bucks body in the trunk of his burned-out car this was
00:31:50
three days later Robert and Roy were soon arrested and one of the bits of evidence that they found in this whole
00:31:59
scenario was they found a microwave oven from bucks home they found this at Roberts
00:32:05
mother's place now this case was a media sensation for just about as many reasons
00:32:13
as all of us could imagine Robert would be tried as an adult it seemed that he was suspected in the
00:32:22
unsolved murder of Tommy Tarver as well this is because a hammer was also thought to have been used in that murder
00:32:30
now at trial Robert and Roy they turned on each other Robert blamed Roy stating that Roy was
00:32:39
the one that killed Edwin buck Roy's defense presented Roberts involvement not only in the
00:32:47
Tommy Tarver murder that was still unsolved as but presented that as evidence that he was guilty of Edwin
00:32:53
bucks murder as well what came out of Robert's trial rather than just the facts surrounding the murder of Edwin
00:33:02
buck is why this case is famous Brian Robert had all sorts of firsthand stories to tell about secret
00:33:11
homosexuality including sex with minors and all of the corruption among the elite in Bakersfield what he called the
00:33:21
Lords of Bakersfield all right we need to provide some background information here
00:33:28
so until these cases broke in the late 70s and early 80s Bakersfield's dirty little secret was just that it was a
00:33:37
secret whispers and rumors existed as far back as the 1950s of a loose network of powerful prominent white men who used
00:33:45
their power and influence to protect each other and they harbored a dark secret they were into homosexual
00:33:53
pedophilia in some cases and just sex with very young men and others stories about a so-called White Orchid Society
00:34:02
were told in town for years but no one could really substantiate these tales which were of a group of older male
00:34:09
predators victimizing young men and boys so then in 1985 there's a lawsuit by a former police officer which alleged a
00:34:20
network of corruption favoritism and cronyism in Kern County a 2000 page exhibit - this lawsuit addressed a
00:34:30
pedophile ring among the power elite using the term the Lords of Bakersfield the lawsuit was dismissed but the
00:34:39
moniker stuck and the lords legend it has its name the 2003 Californian expose about the Lords of Bakersfield describes
00:34:49
it as formally the province of conspiracy theorists except that now it seemed there was some truth to the
00:34:58
legend yeah it seemed like there's some validity to these stories but this this was a really hard case to research
00:35:04
there's not a lot out there well and I want to go ahead and throw this out there for everybody listening and
00:35:11
primarily for those that are already familiar with this case this is this is one of those weird situations where the
00:35:20
tentacles of this story kind of spread far and wide and through a lot of different people a lot of different
00:35:27
buildings organizations and such and it's also a story that may span not only a couple of decades but several decades
00:35:35
I mean we have rumors going back to the 1950s so anybody listening to our presentation of this story please
00:35:45
keep in mind that there may be things that that could be connected to this things that might not be connected to
00:35:53
this when you really look at this story and you you realize that you have to present it in some form and in some
00:36:00
light it gets difficult along the way to decide which portions to include and not
00:36:07
to include the connections here are not always clear so if in our review of this
00:36:14
case if you believe that we miss something we may have just it may just not have been presented us to have a
00:36:21
clear connection or we had to pick and choose some of these to include in to not include right so the ones that we're
00:36:30
going to go over here are the ones that that I could find were for the most part
00:36:36
believed or reported to be believed as part of this whole legend of the Lords of Bakersfield so let's go back to that
00:36:46
murder trial right we have Robert Mistral the the the the one that was involved in the first case
00:36:53
that we talked about and now involved in being on trial for the murder of Edwin buck he testified to some bombshell
00:37:02
information that's clear now although he was under 18 he claims that he slept with as many as 150 men in
00:37:11
both Bakersfield and in Los Angeles he says many of these men were people of prominence in the community men who held
00:37:19
positions of power and influence these men were politicians media judges attorneys County executives and more and
00:37:29
Robert took this a step further he named names now one of the names that he named
00:37:38
was Edwin buck and Tommy Tarver of course here's where things get a little a little dicey here form of Hampton go
00:37:49
Harry I have a longer list of individuals that he named and I don't know that I don't know that
00:37:59
they're all that they all should be named by by me I don't know that I feel comfortable naming all of them I will
00:38:06
say that one of the other names that he mentioned was Glen Fitz the ex policeman
00:38:11
or police officer who was suspected in Dana's Dana butler's murder the another interesting person that he names is Ted
00:38:24
Fritz okay let's different people Ted Fritz was the editor and co-owner of the Californian the the local newspaper that
00:38:33
we've referenced more than once Fritz was notorious in town for his legendary parties with the wealthy elite and here
00:38:42
again there are a lot of names that are thrown out as having attended these parties and I will I refuse to name them
00:38:50
here because because of just this I don't want anybody to be under the assumption that any of these individuals
00:38:57
are guilty of anything at all just because they attended some party all right we're kind of seeing this in the
00:39:04
media right now with with the arrests and that the suicide of Epstein and having these black books and and all
00:39:13
these people connected you know you can't I think it's irresponsible you just make the leap that some Creepo has
00:39:22
your contact information and therefore that you're associated with every long doing he did I think it's a you're
00:39:32
responsible leap and we we need to look for more evidence correct and what what I will say here is look I'm not foolish
00:39:40
enough to believe that nobody that attended one of Ted Fritz's parties is not guilty has never done a bad thing in
00:39:47
their life right you know I don't believe that for one bit but as you pointed out I believe it's irresponsible
00:39:53
to throw out the suggestion that just because somebody attended a party that they had a there's a deeper relationship
00:40:00
there that they that whoever you know it's it's just downright wrong to to imply that anybody
00:40:09
ciated with an individual is guilty of all the same things that that individual is likely guilty of right okay so his
00:40:17
whole part in this story is he more so than these these parties is that he's the editor and the co-owner of the
00:40:26
California of that newspaper and I mean just browsing this list these are names of people that are still alive and
00:40:33
people that you would know by name I want to I want to say this though as well the the list I'm looking at nobody
00:40:41
on this list has ever been convicted of anything you know heinous anything weird
00:40:48
and to my knowledge has never even been suspected of anything like that but of course because Ted Fritz is a
00:40:56
powerful individual in this area many of these attendees would be politicians law
00:41:03
enforcement local government officials and so on now Robert Mistral's role at these parties I guess he worked at these
00:41:11
parties he says along with other boys his age and sometimes younger his job was part of like the waitstaff almost
00:41:20
you know wait on the guest dress up in a tank top and shorts and be he said he was told to be accommodating of the male
00:41:30
guests so Robert says and don't like check their coats and give them hand jobs we should I let me check your coat
00:41:39
stop saying jokes cuz they don't want to I don't want to laugh this is a is a very it's so disturbing though it's
00:41:46
disturbing it's and it's a difficult it's a difficult thing to discuss a little bit here Robert says for whatever
00:41:55
his job was at these parties right and we also have got a we also got to mention these are his claims right we
00:42:04
have to then determine this is this guy's a thief a known thief right yeah he has some problems we we don't want to
00:42:12
assume that all of all of his allegations are false though either I mean or truthful I think I think there's
00:42:19
a weird that will we're waiting in weird waters here right well so Robert says in turn for his role
00:42:27
at these parties he was provided with money temporary residence at Fritz's mansion and he was also allowed to drive
00:42:37
luxury cars now while Fritz remained the editor of the Californian the paper stayed away
00:42:44
from coverage of the Lords of Bakersfield so Frances bigger connection seems to be that of a close connection
00:42:53
to Robert Mistral according to Robert Mistral and the fact that he is pretty much running the California in the
00:43:01
newspaper and many people suspect all these years later that that's why that newspaper stayed away from you know
00:43:09
thorough coverage of anything that could possibly involve any of these Lords of Bakersfield or naming names or throwing
00:43:17
people under the bus and then like I said I mean just to find different sources about this case was really
00:43:25
difficult well one thing that is super interesting to me and I'm gonna go out on a Ledge here and say that it's
00:43:35
probably I think you're supposed to say out on a limb right not at all of the ledge I think I think you can go on out
00:43:42
you go out on anything you want go ahead and jump we don't care my people say go
00:43:47
out on a plank go out on a bridge so this is where I think I'm starting to see some really strong evidence or at
00:43:58
least people they are willing to take their suspicions to the to the to the furthest out right so this man who's in
00:44:09
charge of the californian of the newspaper he ends up dying of AIDS in 1997 his sister his flesh and blood his
00:44:18
sister took over as managing editor in 2003 she is the one that gave Robert price the go-ahead to write the expose
00:44:29
on the Lord's even though it would point the finger at the paper that she was now
00:44:36
in charge and her own brother yeah but if you know it's I would think being related to him
00:44:47
if she knew that something wrong happened that at some point you have to allow that information to come out well
00:44:55
and I want to give her plenty of credit as well as the newspaper itself for writing or wrong you know in correcting
00:45:03
their missteps through through over the years but one of the most disturbing things that Robert attested to during
00:45:12
this trial was the wink and nod arrangement that allowed certain man to check out court supervised juveniles
00:45:21
like library books from the boys home and returned them a few hours later hmm yeah well this was I took this from
00:45:32
Robert prices article now mistral alleged in the trial testimony and later in his own failed lawsuit against the
00:45:43
state that he and other boys were taken from the boy's home under the excuse that they were going to be given jobs
00:45:51
but he says instead they were drugged sexually abused and forced to participate and porn before being
00:45:59
returned to the boys home as if nothing happened yeah so that's awful so further Robert claims that he was
00:46:08
used as a scout to recruit other boys for parties thrown by these older men where young men were desired to be
00:46:17
amendable to their advances but Roberts trial testimony seems to have been shoved under the rug in other words none
00:46:28
of this scandal really leaked out until much much later so at first we have no Lee kids and then then we have a lot of
00:46:36
leakage well no investigation into his claims of abuse and statutory rape ever ensued
00:46:44
after the trial in the end 18 year old Roy pled guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced
00:46:52
to life without parole and Robert was convicted of first-degree murder by a jury receiving a sentence of 31 years to
00:47:02
life while this is difficult - because you do want to believe somebody that is accusing somebody of these heinous
00:47:09
crimes you want to think that somebody would go through this endure this suffering and and just be making this
00:47:17
stuff up right but then it becomes this this double-edged sword for me where it's like you go well he's basically
00:47:26
creating this giant conspiracy and then it's like well where's your evidence of it well because it's such a giant
00:47:32
conspiracy you go well that's why there's no evidence they don't want this stuff to get out out there does it make
00:47:40
does that making sense makes total sense number one but then let's add in to the
00:47:45
fact that there doesn't seem to be any investigation into his claims yeah so where you go all right well are these
00:47:52
allegations is this just a man that's on trial for first-degree murder who's coming up with with excuses excuses and
00:48:01
maybe playing to the the crowd a bit in saying you know this this was a jury trial he's technically under the age of
00:48:12
18 even though he's going to be tried as an adult you look look what you have here in the
00:48:20
end you have an 18 year old Roy who pled guilty and gets first-degree murder well plead guilty to first-degree murder
00:48:29
and was sentenced to life without parole and then you have 17-year old Robert who
00:48:34
is convicted of first-degree murder by a jury receiving a sentence of 31 years to
00:48:40
life think about those two scenarios real quick all right we have an adult who pled guilty and received no you know
00:48:49
leniency for him pleading guilty to where we have to go through the trial and convict Robert a first-degree murder
00:48:58
and he's actually shown some for a couple of reasons one probably because the jury even though he's being
00:49:05
tried as an adult he's viewed as a child being 17 years old and on top of that the jury's probably viewing him as some
00:49:13
some type of victim right so he gets 31 years to life now keep in mind I do understand that the story bidding being
00:49:21
put forth is that Robert simply was involved in the plan that created this plan of murder and then sat by while it
00:49:32
happened and then helped dispose of the body brain whereas Roy showed up and really carried out this brutal brutal
00:49:42
murder so I can I get there's a difference there right but you're the reason that the vicious murders there
00:49:48
though right correct I mean Edwin buck may have never been murdered at all let alone murder by Roy yeah you
00:49:55
have had this Robert not set it up if I took Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy to a party and it didn't end well that's
00:50:03
that's on me right mm-hmm that's all I'm saying so yeah this this is where it gets very
00:50:11
difficult and the other thing I want to point out too while we're on this whole thought is you heard that number that
00:50:18
that we pushed forward there was that he claimed Robert claimed like a hundred and fifty men in both Bakersfield and
00:50:26
Los Angeles that he slept with before he was the age of 18 I'm not saying that Roberts lying I'm just saying that's a
00:50:34
very high number that's a very high number and there were a lot of people along the way that he named that we
00:50:42
didn't name and a lot of these people are involved in law enforcement and prosecuting criminals and things of that
00:50:52
nature and at some point you start to go like you said you want to believe him you want to say hey let's investigate
00:51:02
these allegations and that's where I think this whole thing went wrong that his allegations don't seem to have been
00:51:08
investigated but then at some point you go 150 men how can that be well the and then on top
00:51:17
of that you go every one of these people that he's naming is involved in some they have their in some you know line of
00:51:26
power they break they they have their men of fluency might start to wonder you can at some point it can't be everybody
00:51:33
it's not everybody that's involved in this bull right and is I was I started with this a little bit this week because
00:51:41
again you know I don't want a victim blame at all you know if that's the case of these horrible acts happened to this
00:51:47
kid or this kid was put into these awful situations I want a victim blame but I think it's it's also a little different
00:51:55
you're you're not just coming forward and saying look this is what happened to me and here's the evidence we have
00:52:01
somebody that is you know a part of like a bullies home a part of a community where he's in and out of trouble so he's
00:52:10
around these law enforcement officers he's around people of power so when you end up getting caught with something you
00:52:19
get and you end up getting busted with something it's not that out of line to think maybe this kid is so messed up and
00:52:27
has so much disdain for authority that he just goes look this one cop he arrested me a long time ago his name was
00:52:37
Jack whatever ain't well he was in on it too he was having sex with boys all this
00:52:44
this this teacher that was mean to me oh yeah they were having sex with boys too
00:52:48
you know it's not that far-fetched to think that that that story could be created by a troubled youth and that's
00:52:56
why these allegations really should have been looked into further well they weren't investigated at all it seems
00:53:04
like so they should have been investigated look this is a story with with so many in justices but that is one
00:53:13
of the big ones [Music] one of these you guys for listening things for telling a friend and sharing
00:53:31
on social media much love in Sears and until tomorrow be good be kind and don't live
00:53:38
[Music] [Applause] [Music]