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subject to credit approval see store or ashley.com for [Music] details [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever
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you are whatever you are doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always as a man that would
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like to remind you that true crime garage is 100% glutenfree he is the captain thank you thank you thank you
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it's good to be SE and it's good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a
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[Music] friend today we are very proud to be featuring a listener selection blackback
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me some rye lately captain and because blackback is infused with real honey Lor it's smooth sipping here today in the
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garage my friends garage grade four out of five bottle caps and this week's fridge is full thanks to our good
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friends first up we have Megan p and Matt s in Dallas Texas and a big we like your jib to Brooke and all the girls at
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[Music] crime Bakersfield California is a city of 38,000 about 100 miles north of Los
00:04:48
Angeles Bakersfield is the county seat of karna County and the ninth largest city in California it's considered to be
00:04:57
a pretty wholesome family values type of of town but in the late 1970s and early
00:05:03
80s something strange was going on a series of murders began these murders had just enough similarities and just
00:05:12
enough linking them to make people wonder are they connected now no one shared suspicions that an undetected
00:05:21
serial killer was at work this was something totally different something very strange and something very rare
00:05:29
what we have here is a faint pattern to the killings suggesting an underlying darkness something deep down at their
00:05:38
root what would emerge was an old boys network a dirty club with members scattered amongst the upper echelons of
00:05:47
Bakersfield's power elite a ring populated by public officials and trusted city leaders but this network
00:05:56
wasn't just about cronyism or corruption at its route was pedophilia this is true
00:06:03
crime garage and this is the story of the Lords of [Music] Bakersfield Bakersfield California
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1978 the city was described by CNN as clean safe Conservative Republican and religious yet over a span of 7 years
00:06:34
from 1978 to 1985 there were five unusual murders the cases are explored in a sensational 2003 expose that ran in
00:06:46
the local paper the Californian written by Robert Price a columnist for the paper and was assisted by assistant
00:06:54
managing editor Lois Henry many of the facts stated here by us come from this lengthy and scandalous column on January
00:07:04
4th 1978 a gardener working on a property for a house on Beach Street in Bakersfield could not help but notice
00:07:12
blood seeping out from under the back door of the house this alarming sight caused the gardener to call the police
00:07:20
officers rushed to the house and after making their way into the home they found a man lying on the floor covered
00:07:26
in blood the man was naked and it appeared he had been beaten and stabbed but somehow he was still alive he was
00:07:35
unresponsive paramedics arrived on the scene almost as soon as police when they found the man who was barely still
00:07:41
clinging to life they went to work applying life-saving efforts and then they rushed him to the hospital now the
00:07:49
gardener told police that the home belonged to a man named Tommy Tarver the badly beaten man was quickly identified
00:07:57
to be in fact Tommy T Harver yeah Tommy was in his 40s but he's pretty well known in the community he was also doing
00:08:05
pretty well financially mhm Tommy owned a popular hair salon called Mr T Worchester located on F Street in
00:08:13
Bakersfield this Salon was frequented by many of the Rich and Powerful in town it
00:08:19
appears Tommy lived alone he had been married twice before both ending in separation or divorce and Tommy was
00:08:27
living an openly gay lifestyle now we said he was unresponsive in fact he was in a coma and remained so for
00:08:35
about 5 days until he died from his injuries that he suffered during this heinous attack police were looking for a
00:08:43
suspect and the neighborhood was in shock police canvased the area talking to anyone in close proximity wanting to
00:08:51
know did anyone see or hear anything strange leading up to their gruesome findings inside the house on Beach
00:08:58
Street a couple that lived nearby told police that the night before a man in his early
00:09:04
to mid 20s knocked on their door asking if they could call him a cab to which they agreed to help according to the
00:09:13
papers they did not notice anything strange about his appearance however while the man remained at the doorway
00:09:20
while they were placing the call for the cab something fell from one of the man's
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Pockets it was a silver spoon after calling for the cab this was the last that the couple saw of this man the
00:09:35
spoon was later found by police now that same day police got a big lead in what would later turn out to be a homicide
00:09:45
investigation this lead came by way of a traffic stop when an officer pulled a vehicle over the officer very quickly
00:09:53
discovered two things way out of the ordinary first the car was stolen and it's rightful owner was Tommy Tarver mhm
00:10:02
the man they found attacked in his home who is now in a coma lying in a hospital
00:10:07
bed just a couple days away from Death mind you the second thing that they noticed was that the vehicle was being
00:10:14
operated by a 13-year-old boy this is 13-year-old Robert Glenn mistell he was caught behind the wheel of a soon to be
00:10:23
dead man's stolen vehicle so we have 13-year-old Robert that's driving this guy's car that was viciously attacked
00:10:30
but he also has some of his items in the car with him so of course police wanted
00:10:36
to know everything and young Robert did seem to have quite a bit to tell them Robert admitted to knowing the much
00:10:43
older Tommy Tarver and in fact admitted to going to his home Robert told the police he had been living in sidy hotels
00:10:51
with his alcoholic mother Robert said he got by on selling sexual favors to men for money and had been doing so since he
00:11:00
was just 11 years old so Robert and his mother were living or staying however you choose to look at it at the Rancho
00:11:08
Bakersfield Motel now according to Robert this is where he met Tommy Tarver this was some time before the actual
00:11:17
attack Tommy offers to pay Robert to mow his lawn and Robert agrees but according
00:11:24
to Robert as soon as he gets to Tommy's house Tommy starts putting the moves on him now Robert looks like a good suspect
00:11:33
so far right he's caught driving Tommy's car with items belonging to Tommy but here's where the timeline for the night
00:11:40
of the attack this is where it gets a little wonky a taxi driver told police that on that night the night of what
00:11:48
would turn out to be a murder he drove Tommy a man in his 40s and 13-year-old Robert to Rancho Bakersfield Motel
00:11:56
coffee shop around 11:30 p.m. this Motel was apparently a meeting place for men in town many of whom were
00:12:04
living secret double lives the cabbie said he later drove Tommy and a different escort home this
00:12:13
was 24-year-old William Kenneth Manley a university student from Santa Rosa William Manley was also staying at the
00:12:21
Rancho Bakersfield motel and there he said he met Tommy at the bar the two decided to go clubbing but Tommy wanted
00:12:29
to stop at his house first to change his clothes while there Manley witnessed two
00:12:35
other men arrive then argue with Tommy and then one of them began engaging in sex with Tommy Manley decided to leave
00:12:44
but not before pocketing about $1,000 worth of silverware and jewelry from the home on his way out because of the
00:12:53
witness this is the couple that identified manly as the man who stopped stopped and asked to call a cab he was
00:13:02
arrested and charged with the murder of Tommy Tarver Robert mistra the 13-year-old was charged only with
00:13:09
burglarizing Tommy's home and Tommy's hair salon as well apparently the salon was an easy target for Robert because he
00:13:18
had a key to get into the place now it's unclear if Tommy ever gave him the key or my guess is that Robert got the key
00:13:27
when he burglarized and then had the keys to Tommy's Car at the trial Manley's defense tried
00:13:36
to claim that Robert mistra had been with Tommy earlier that night and was possibly a suspect but the deputy da
00:13:45
convinced the judge not to let Robert be questioned in the end Manley was acquitted of the murder of Tommy Tarver
00:13:53
and Robert got 6 months in the San Filipe boy home A Kar County youth facility for the burglary charges the
00:14:02
murder of Tommy Tarver remains unsolved at the time of course this was a shocking murder but no one realized that
00:14:11
this would be the first in a series of killings involving what later would appear to be an underground community in
00:14:18
Bakersfield Glenn Fitz was well at least according to one article this article described him as quote a pillar of the
00:14:28
law enforcement Community end quote he was the former director of the kar County Police Academy a member of the
00:14:36
Bakersfield Police commission and recently retired police science instructor from Bakersfield College
00:14:44
unfortunately Glenn's wife passed away so by April 1979 he was 56 years old retired and
00:14:52
Living Single around this time he started hanging out in a nearby Park where he was interacting with the teenagers there
00:15:03
he would routinely invite local teens back to his place well that's not creepy at all no come on over come hey I'm
00:15:10
going to just hang out at the park and stare at kids all day back then they didn't even have cable he started
00:15:16
hosting parties with teenagers and this is what was expected well the short of it is he was trading things like beer
00:15:25
alcoholic drinks and pot for for sex or sex acts with both teenage boys and possibly teenage girls as well on April
00:15:36
10th 1979 Glenn threw a birthday party for one of his teen friends attending this
00:15:44
party was about 20 teens some of them as young as 14 years old yeah come over let's have a party for my teenager
00:15:51
friend where's the party at ELO's house well at the party was a 14-year-old named Dana Charlene Butler Dana went
00:16:02
missing and it seems like the last time anyone remembers interacting with the young girl well Dana was alive and well
00:16:09
and wanting only attended this very party it wasn't until 3 days later that she was found dead dumped in a park
00:16:18
reports were that she was found with 30 to 40 shallow knife wounds and two deep fatal wounds it appeared she was
00:16:27
tortured before being being killed and the body contained more evidence investigators found one of Fitz's pubic
00:16:34
hairs as well as dog hairs from both of his dogs on the body this was the 70s and hair evidence was standard in lie of
00:16:43
yet to be developed DNA the police searched Fitz's home and just as suspected they found blood
00:16:51
matching Dana Witnesses told police investigators that Fitz replaced the plumbing fixtures in some carpeting
00:16:59
inside the home just the day after Dana went missing with mounting evidence a grand jury was convened and they
00:17:08
interviewed everyone this including Fitz and the plumber but just as this was really picking up
00:17:15
speed it came to a screeching halt this is when the DA's office inexplicably declined to ask for an
00:17:24
indictment for murder against Glenn Fitz the head of the Bakersfield Police Department detectives unit told the
00:17:32
Californian the newspaper that he was baffled as to why charges weren't brought as in his opinion there was
00:17:41
ample evidence in all of the files that he had seen now meanwhile the Californian reported that there was a
00:17:49
suspect but never named Glenn Fitz as the suspect and they say this because he had not been named by police
00:17:58
but nevertheless it appears that the whole town seemed to know who the suspect was parents knew that Fitz was
00:18:08
the suspect and they started picketing around his house the county administration's building and right
00:18:15
outside of the courthouse building as well again if you know this guy is a creep then why are you letting him why
00:18:21
are you letting kids go to his house for a party it's ridiculous likely the if you're talking about the parents it's
00:18:28
likely they were unaware that their children were going over to his house to get drunk and do
00:18:35
drugs anyway these people these 200 people it's about 200 people that participated in these picketing uh
00:18:43
events outside of the the two buildings and his home obviously they wanted an arrest made in this case they were
00:18:50
calling themselves the mothers of Bakersfield examples of the mobs picketing signs well some of them read
00:18:57
quote who is blocking the investigation question mark and DA office what are you
00:19:03
afraid of question mark now the other thing here is the local sheriff's department they were very confident that
00:19:11
Fitz was good for this crime and the DA's office and then the grand jury failed to bring an indictment so local
00:19:21
law enforcement and I'm guessing that this was not public knowledge at the time likely this was probably more of a
00:19:29
behind closed doors type of thing mm but it sounds to me like basically the local
00:19:36
law enforcement was threatening the da okay so if you don't charge this man for the murder of this girl then we are
00:19:46
going to push to charge the same man with any kind of lesser charge so at the very least we can make an arrest right
00:19:54
right we're going to get this jackass no matter what it's basically what they're
00:19:58
saying well I don't know if it was the mob of people or the behind the scenes activity that we just explained or if it
00:20:06
was a combination of both but whatever it was it seems like the da hand was was forced because
00:20:15
eventually the da pressed charges against Fitz but not for the murder of a 14-year-old but instead for suspicion of
00:20:23
Furnishing drugs to a minor so of course this is an extremely lean charge based off of the general facts and evidence of
00:20:32
the case but wouldn't they be able to like charge him with multiple counts of this for like the parties and stuff that
00:20:38
he was throwing I believe there were five charges that were pushed forth and three of them were felony charges now
00:20:46
this did result in Fitz being arrested on May 21st apparently no indictment was ever
00:20:53
handed down a Pulitzer Prize winning expose many years later on on the corruption in baker's field stated that
00:21:00
quote senior prosecutors withheld key evidence from the panel meaning the grand jury right I just wonder what his
00:21:08
connection is to this prosecutor well he was retired law enforcement he he held all three of those different positions
00:21:18
throughout his career being the former director of Kern County Police Academy member of the Bakersfield Police
00:21:24
commission and retired police science instructor from field college no right right I get that part but you just
00:21:32
wonder how close these individuals are or if they're you know a part of some group outside of of their jobs it really
00:21:40
really makes you wonder right uh because what you're talking about is why the hell who cares if they had some kind of
00:21:48
connection on a professional basis we're talking about murder here the murder of
00:21:52
a child and we're also talking about evidence to point to him as being being the very likely suspect right in this
00:22:01
case now I understand that her body is found out in the park somewhere and but we have evidence of of him or or dog we
00:22:10
got pubes man on the body right right we got pubes well and here's the other thing
00:22:15
too this is one thing that I found very interesting okay so his his previous job
00:22:20
of the police science instructor and then we have the neighbors claiming that he they were aware that he was replacing
00:22:29
plumbing and carpeting inside his home yeah the the day after it's believed that she went missing that seems like
00:22:37
somebody with one okay look yeah if you got large blood stains everywhere no duh
00:22:43
you you you get rid of the carpet and try to replace that but on top of that factor in the the the job that he had a
00:22:50
police science instructor he is aware of certain things that the general public would not be aware of and it makes you
00:22:57
really wonder what what what Plumbing fixtures was he replacing you know we've talked about some cases where the where
00:23:04
law enforcement will go in with their texts and remove drains and drain pipes because they know that they're going to
00:23:11
find evidence down there and that's something that a lot of people don't consider when they're trying to cover up
00:23:17
a homicide right so on you got that on the one hand you go okay well like you said replacing the carpet's not a big
00:23:24
deal pipes you got to have some kind of knowledge about that that but then you're going to leave pubes and dog hair
00:23:33
on the victim seems to not make sense right um I mean a lot of this case is not going to make sense no but you I
00:23:44
mean like that you you would do all these necessary steps you know to to your house but you
00:23:51
wouldn't do that to the to the actual crime scene I feel like what we have here is a man that panicked and thought
00:23:58
that the first thing and most important thing to do at the fastest point was to get the body out of his house yeah and
00:24:07
then went back in and tried to do damage control to his house now mind you he went to all this effort and and what did
00:24:13
police find inside of his home blood that matched the same blood type as Dana's so do you know where they found
00:24:21
that at I don't know it seemed like a lot of the the work that he was doing appeared to be taking place in the in
00:24:28
the bathroom or the bathroom area of the home I couldn't find where they said specifically where the blood was in fact
00:24:36
found but look I I believe 100% that she was probably killed in that bathroom or
00:24:45
moved to the bathroom shortly after some kind of attack took place we're talking
00:24:51
about possibly a prolonged torture that went on in this case as well well from from what little we can
00:25:00
see and observe in this case again sometimes when there are those points of evidence they don't actually report on
00:25:09
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
00:25:19
that indictment that the public was so very eagerly seeking apparently there was some kind
00:25:25
of quote screw up that's that's how it's been reported as a screwup at the coroner's office now
00:25:33
apparently for some reason and I'm uncertain of their exact protocol back there and then but they failed to do a
00:25:41
time of death test on Dana Butler uh so they they never established a time of death now this this only really becomes
00:25:51
difficult once you do get to trial because with her missing for several days before her body's
00:25:58
found H your your you know Alibi or need for an alibi all that gets pretty dicey
00:26:04
when you've not really honed in or even created a window of time for the possible time of death so there was also
00:26:13
some doubts out there as to whether 56-year-old Glenn Fitz who many say was in poor health with a heart condition if
00:26:23
he could have in fact killed the girl and then disposed of her on his own well you know we we know that he was
00:26:32
working out daily at the park within days of all of this mess here Glenn Fitz died of a gunshot to the Head leaving
00:26:39
behind a strange note which read Dana Butler was last seen in front of a church between 11:39 and
00:26:48
12:30 I on the morning of April 9 was home waiting for and there the note ends the the
00:26:57
death of Glenn Fitz was officially ruled a suicide which we should point out some
00:27:03
weird things with this as well because first Fitz's body was found Outdoors between his home and his neighbors and
00:27:12
second a neighbor reported hearing two gunshots on that day now the murder of Dana Butler remains unsolved Glenn Fitz
00:27:22
may have killed her or she may have been killed by someone else it does seem however ever whoever killed her did so
00:27:30
inside Fitz's home this was the second case where an older man associated with teenage boys ended up dead and here
00:27:40
again this man could have been praying on teens for [Music] sex this show is sponsored by better
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today welcome back cheers mates for all of our old episodes check out the Stitcher app
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and check out our weekly bonus show called off the record you can do so at true Crim
00:30:13
garage.com awesome welcome back to you Captain welcome now the next case we have here takes place in
00:30:21
1981 so we have 55-year-old Edwin Buck Edwin was the Personnel director for Kar County he was associated with a name we
00:30:33
have heard before this is Young Robert mistr at this time Robert is about 17 years old and he told police that he met
00:30:43
Buck at beach park in 1979 when he was 15 police were aware of activity at this park and actually warned Edwin buck and
00:30:54
other men there numerous times times about sexual activity and sexual activity with minor
00:31:02
boys Robert hung out with buck on a few occasions Buck caught Robert stealing money and tools from him on one of these
00:31:11
occasions and threatened to have Robert arrested for the theft Buck told Robert that he would not involve the police if
00:31:20
Robert agreed to participate in making a porno movie with another young boy so so
00:31:27
always a good idea to throw blackmail and child pornography into the blender of totally effed up situations right
00:31:35
yeah but you can imagine I mean you're 17 years old you stole some stuff the guy goes I'm going to the cops right or
00:31:43
you can have sex with this kid like go to the cops [ __ ] you know what I mean yeah yeah and I think I I
00:31:51
don't want to get into that too much because I think there's there's a lot of there's more weightu to
00:31:57
before we before we get into some of that stuff but what we have here is Robert doesn't tell you know old nasty
00:32:07
Uncle Buck to go to the police yeah instead he recruits a friend and this is 18-year-old Roy
00:32:15
Carmines but Roy wasn't recruited for the purpose of starring in a homemade movie he had an entirely different role
00:32:23
to play so one night Robert invited Edwin bu for a Moonlight Drive once they got out into a nice spot Buck pulled the
00:32:33
vehicle over and parked the car MH Roy who was unbeknownst to Buck following them this is all a part of Robert's plan
00:32:43
Roy pulled up in front of them Robert apparently knew what was going to go down because later he said he retreated
00:32:50
to Roy's car this is where he sat so he would not have to see anything Roy was high on LSD at the time and
00:33:01
attacked Buck Roy stabbed Buck several times he hit him in the head with a hammer and he slit his throat the two
00:33:10
boys then stuffed Buck's body into the trunk of Buck's car they drove the car back to Buck's home and parked it in the
00:33:20
garage once there they robbed the house and set it on fire later investigators found Buck's
00:33:28
body in the trunk of his burned out car this was 3 Days Later Robert and Roy were soon arrested and one of the bits
00:33:39
of evidence that they found in this whole scenario was they found a microwave oven from bucks home they
00:33:46
found this at Robert's mother's place now this case was a media sensation for just about as many reasons as all of us
00:33:57
could imagine Robert would be tried as an adult it seemed that he was suspected in
00:34:04
the unsolved murder of Tommy Tarver as well this is because a hammer was also thought to have been used in that murder
00:34:13
now at trial Robert and Roy they turned on each other Robert blamed Roy stating that Roy was the one that killed Edwin
00:34:24
Buck Roy's defense presented Robert's involvement not only in the Tommy Tarver murder that was still unsolved as but
00:34:33
presented that as evidence that he was guilty of Edwin bucks murder as well what came out of Robert's trial
00:34:41
rather than just the facts surrounding the murder of Edwin Buck is why this case is famous right Robert had all
00:34:50
sorts of firsthand stories to tell about secret homosexuality including sex with
00:34:56
minors and all of the corruption among the elite in Bakersfield what he called the Lords of
00:35:04
Bakersfield all right we need to provide some background information here so until these cases broke in the late 70s
00:35:14
and early 80s Bakersfield's Dirty Little Secret was just that it was a secret Whispers and rumors existed as far back
00:35:23
as the 1950s of a loose network of powerful prom white men who used their power and influence to protect each
00:35:31
other and they harbored a dark secret they were into homosexual pedophilia in some cases and just sex with very young
00:35:40
men and others stories about a so-called white Orchid Society were told in town for years but no one could really
00:35:48
substantiate these Tales which were of a group of older male Predators victimizing young men and boys so they
00:35:56
then in 1985 there's a lawsuit by a former police officer which alleged a network
00:36:03
of corruption favoritism and cronyism in Kern County a 2,000 page exhibit to this
00:36:11
lawsuit addressed a pedophile ring among the power elite using the term the Lords
00:36:18
of Bakersfield the lawsuit was dismissed but the moniker stuck and the Lord's Legend it has its name MH the
00:36:27
2003 Californian expose about the Lords of Bakersville describes it as formerly the province of conspiracy theorists
00:36:36
except that now it seemed there was some truth to the legend yeah it seemed like
00:36:42
there was some validity to these stories but this this was a really hard case to
00:36:46
research there's not a lot out there well and I want to go ahead and throw this out there uh for everybody
00:36:52
listening and primarily for those that are already famili amiliar with this case mhm this is this is one of those
00:37:00
weird situations where the tentacles of the story kind of spread far and wide and through a lot of different people a
00:37:09
lot of different buildings organizations and such and it's also a story that may
00:37:14
span not only a couple of decades but several decades I mean we have rumors going back to the 1950s MH so anybody
00:37:23
listening to our presentation of this story please keep in mind that there may be things that that could be connected
00:37:32
to this things that might not be connected to this when you really look at this story and and you you realize
00:37:39
that you have to present it in some form and in some light it gets difficult along the way to decide which portions
00:37:48
to include and not to include the connections here are not always clear so if in our review of this case if you
00:37:58
believe that we miss something we may have just it may just not have been presented us to have a clear connection
00:38:06
or we had to pick and choose some of these to include and to not include right so the ones that we're going to go
00:38:13
over here are the ones that that I could find were were for the most part believed or reported to be believed as
00:38:23
part of this whole legend of the Lords of Bakers field so let's go back to that murder trial right we have Robert Mell
00:38:32
the the the the one that was involved in the first case that we talked about and
00:38:37
now involved in being on trial for the murder of Edwin Buck he testified to some bombshell information that's clear
00:38:46
now although he was under 18 he claims that he slept with as many as 150 men in both Bakerfield and in Los Angeles
00:38:57
he says many of these men were people of prominence in the community men who held
00:39:02
positions of power and influence these men were politicians media judges attorneys County Executives and
00:39:11
more and Robert took this a step further he named names now one of the names that he named
00:39:21
was Edwin buck and Tommy Tarver of course here's where things get a little a little dicey here for me
00:39:31
Captain little Harry I have a longer list of individuals that he named and I don't know that I don't know
00:39:42
that they're all that they all should be named by by me I don't know that I feel
00:39:46
comfortable naming all of them I will say that one of the other names that he mentioned was Glenn Fitz the ex
00:39:53
policeman or um police officer who was suspected in Dana's Dana Butler's murder M the another interesting person that he
00:40:05
names is Ted Fritz okay let's the different people Ted Fritz was the editor and co-owner of the Californian
00:40:14
the the local newspaper that we've referenced more than once Fritz was Notorious in town for his legendary
00:40:21
parties with the wealthy Elite and here again there are a lot of names that are thrown out as having attended these
00:40:30
parties and I will I refuse to name them here because because of just this I don't want anybody to be under the
00:40:38
assumption that any of these individuals are guilty of anything at all just because they attended some party right
00:40:46
we're kind of seeing this in the media right now with with the arrest and that the suicide of Epstein and having these
00:40:54
black books and and all these people connected you know you can't um I think it's irresponsible to just make the leap
00:41:02
that some Creo has your contact information and therefore that you're associated with every wrongdoing he he
00:41:12
did I I think it's uh irresponsible leap and we we need to look for more evidence
00:41:18
correct and what what I will say here is look I'm not foolish enough to believe that nobody that attended one of Ted
00:41:26
Fritz's parties is not guilty has never done a bad thing in their life right you
00:41:31
know I I don't wouldn't believe that for one bit but as you pointed out I believe
00:41:35
it's irresponsible to throw out the suggestion that just because somebody attended a party that they had a there's
00:41:42
a deeper relationship there that they that whoever you know it's it's just downright wrong to to imply that anybody
00:41:51
associated with an individual is guilty of all the same things that that individ
00:41:56
idual is likely guilty of right okay so his whole part in this story is he more so than these these parties is that he's
00:42:06
the editor and the co-owner of the California of that newspaper and I mean just browsing this list the these are
00:42:13
names of people that are still alive and people that you would know by name I want to I want to say this though as
00:42:20
well the the list I'm looking at nobody on this list has ever been convicted of anything you know heinous
00:42:30
anything weird uh and to my knowledge has never even been suspected of anything like that but of course because
00:42:38
Ted Fritz is a powerful individual in this area many of these attendees would be politicians law enforcement local
00:42:47
government officials and so on now Robert mist's role at these parties I guess he worked at these parties he says
00:42:55
along with other boys his age and sometimes younger his job was part of like the
00:43:02
weight staff almost you know weight on the guest dress up in a tank top and shorts and be he said he was told to be
00:43:10
accommodating of the male guest so Robert says in turn like check their coats and give them hand jobs
00:43:20
uh sorry let me check your coat stop saying jokes cuz I don't want to I don't want to laugh this is a this is a very
00:43:26
it's I mean it's so disturbing though it's disturbing it's and it's a difficult it's a difficult thing to
00:43:33
discuss a little bit here um Robert says for whatever his job was at these parties right and we also got a we also
00:43:42
got to mention these are his claims right we have to then determine this is a guy this guy's a thief aown thief
00:43:51
right yeah he has some problems we we don't want to assume that all all of his allegations are false though either I
00:43:58
mean or truthful I think I think there's a weird we're waiting in weird Waters here right he well so Robert says in
00:44:07
turn for his role at these parties he was provided with money temporary Residence at Fritz's mansion and he was
00:44:18
also allowed to drive luxury cars now while Fritz remained the editor of the California the paper stayed away from
00:44:27
coverage of the Lords of Bakersfield so Fritz's bigger connection seems to be that of a close connection to Robert
00:44:36
mistell according to Robert mistell and the fact that he is pretty much running the California the
00:44:43
newspaper and many people suspect all these years later that that's why that newspaper stayed away from you know
00:44:52
thorough coverage of anything that could possibly involve any of these Lords of Bakersfield or naming names or throwing
00:45:00
people under the bus and like I said I mean just a fine different sources about this case
00:45:06
was really difficult well one thing that is super interesting to me and I I I'm going to go out on the ledge here and
00:45:15
say that it's probably I think you're supposed to say out on a limb right not out on the ledge no I think you can do I
00:45:23
think you you can go on out you can go on you want go ahead and jump we don't care my people say go out on a plank go
00:45:30
out on a bridge um so th this is where I think I'm I'm starting to see some really strong evidence or at least
00:45:41
people that are willing to take their suspicions to the to the to the furthest out right so this man who's in charge of
00:45:52
the californi of the newspaper he ends up dying of AIDS in 1997 his sister his flesh and blood his
00:46:01
sister took over as managing editor in 2003 she is the one that gave Robert Price the go-ahead to write the
00:46:11
expose on the Lords even though it would point the finger at the paper that she was now in charge of and her own
00:46:22
brother yeah but if you know it's I I would think being related to him if she knew that something wrong happened
00:46:32
that at some point you have to allow that information to come out well and I want to give her plenty of credit as
00:46:40
well as the newspaper itself for writing a wrong you know and correcting their missteps through through over the years
00:46:49
um but one of the most disturbing things that Robert attested to during this trial was the wink and Nod Arrangement
00:46:59
that allowed certain men to check out Court supervised juveniles like library books from the boy home and return them
00:47:09
a few hours later right yeah well this was I took this from uh Robert Price's article now mistr alleged in the trial
00:47:21
testimony and later in his own failed lawsuit against the state that he and other boys were taken from
00:47:29
the boy home under the excuse that they were going to be given jobs but he says instead they were drugged sexually
00:47:38
abused and forced to participate in porn before being returned to the boy's home
00:47:44
as if nothing happened yeah it's that's awful so further Robert claims that he was used as a scout to recruit other
00:47:54
boys for Pary thrown by these older men where young men were desired to be amendable to their
00:48:02
advances but Robert's trial testimony seems to have been shoved under the rug in other words none of this Scandal
00:48:12
really leaked out until much much later so at first we have no leakage and then at then we have a lot of leakage well no
00:48:20
investigation into his claims of abuse and statutory rape ever ensued after the trial in the end 18-year-old Roy plad
00:48:32
guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to life without parole and Robert was convicted of first-degree
00:48:40
murder by a jury receiving a sentence of 31 years to life well this is difficult
00:48:46
to because you you do want to believe somebody that is accusing somebody of of these heinous crimes you don't want to
00:48:53
think that somebody would U go through through this endure this suffering and and just be making this stuff up right
00:49:01
but then it becomes this this double-edged sword for me where it's like you go well he he's basically
00:49:08
creating this giant conspiracy and then it's like well where's your evidence of it well because it's such a giant
00:49:15
conspiracy you'd go well that's why there's no evidence they don't want this stuff to get out out there does it make
00:49:22
does that make any sense makes total sense number one but then let's add in the fact that there doesn't seem to be
00:49:29
any investigation into his claims so where you go all right well are these allegation is this just a man that's on
00:49:37
trial for first-degree murder who's coming up with with excuses excuses and maybe playing to the the crowd a bit and
00:49:47
saying you know this this was a jury trial um he's technically under the age of 18 even though he's going to be tried
00:49:56
as an adult mhm you look look what you have here in the end you have an 18-year-old Roy who plad
00:50:05
guilty and gets first-degree murder uh well plad guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to life without parole
00:50:14
and then you have 17-year-old Robert who is convicted of first-degree murder by a
00:50:20
jury receiving a sentence of 31 years to life think about those two scenarios real quick all right
00:50:26
we have an adult who plad guilty and received no you know leniency leniency for him
00:50:34
pleading guilty to where we have to go through the trial and convict Robert of first-degree murder and he's actually
00:50:42
shown some leniency for a couple of reasons one probably because the jury even though he's being tried as an adult
00:50:49
he's viewed as a child being 17 years old and on top of that the jury's probably viewing him as some some type
00:50:56
of victim right so he gets 31 years to life now keep in mind I do understand that the story being being put forth is
00:51:05
that Robert simply was involved in the plan that created this plan of murder and then sat by while it happened and
00:51:15
then helped dispose of the body right whereas Roy showed up and and really carried out this brutal brutal murder so
00:51:25
I I I get that there is a difference there re right but you're the reason that the vicious murder is there though
00:51:31
right correct I mean Edwin Buck may have never been murdered at all let alone murdered by Roy yeah you had this Robert
00:51:39
not set it up if I took Jeffrey dmer and and Ted budney to a party and it didn't
00:51:44
end well that's that's on me right mhm that's all I'm saying so yeah this this is where it gets very difficult and the
00:51:54
other thing I want to point out too while we're on this whole thought is you heard that number that that we pushed
00:52:01
forward there was that he claimed Robert claimed like 150 men in both Bakersfield and Los
00:52:09
Angeles that he slept with before he was the age of 18 I'm not saying that Robert's lying I'm just saying that's a
00:52:17
very high number that's a very high number and there were a lot of people along the way that he named that we
00:52:24
didn't name and a lot of these people are involved in law enforcement and Prosecuting
00:52:33
criminals and things of that nature and at some point you start to go like you said you want to believe him you want to
00:52:42
say hey let's investigate these allegations and that's where I think this whole thing went wrong that his
00:52:48
allegations don't seem to have been investigated but then at some point you go 150 men
00:52:57
how can that be well and then on top of that you go every one of these people that he's naming is involved in some
00:53:06
they have they're in some you know line of power they they they have their men of influence and you start to wonder you
00:53:13
can't at some point it can't be everybody it's not everybody that's involved in this well right and and I
00:53:20
was I struggled with this a little bit this week because again you know I don't want to vict blame at all you know if
00:53:27
that's the case if these horrible acts happened to this kid or this kid was put into these awful situations you don't
00:53:33
want to victim blame but I think it's it's also a little different you're you're not just coming forward and
00:53:39
saying look this is what happened to me and here's the evidence we have somebody
00:53:44
that is you know um a part of like a boy's home a part of a community where he's in and out of trouble so he's
00:53:52
around these law enforcement officers he's around people of power so when you end up getting caught with something you
00:54:01
get you end up getting busted with something it's not that out of line to think maybe this kid is so messed up and
00:54:09
has so much um uh disdain for um Authority that he just goes look uh This One Cop he arrested me a long time ago
00:54:18
his name was uh Jack whatever right well he was in on it too he was having sex with boys oh this this this teacher that
00:54:28
was mean to me oh yeah they were having sex with boys too you know it's not that
00:54:33
farfetched to to think that that that story could be created by a troubled youth and that's why these allegations
00:54:41
really should have been looked into further well they weren't investigated at all it seems like so they should have
00:54:48
been investigated look this is a story with with so many injustices but that is one of the big
00:54:56
[Music] ones want to thank you guys for listening thanks for telling a friend and sharing on social media much love
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and cheers and until tomorrow be good be kind and don't litter [Music] [Applause]
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