Monsters Among Us Vol. II

[0] Hey, Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad -free on Amazon Music.

[1] Download the Amazon Music app today.

[2] Today's podcast will feature three stories that will make you wonder how many monsters you've encountered in your life without even knowing it.

[3] The audio from all three of these stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel and has been remastered for today's episode.

[4] The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description.

[5] The first story you'll hear is called Granny Ripper, and it has one.

[6] one of the most shocking plot twists we've ever covered.

[7] The second story you'll hear is called reign of terror and the implications of this story are massive and will take you down a very deep rabbit hole.

[8] And the third and final story you'll hear is called Inside Scoop and it's about one of the most unbelievable revenge stories ever, but you won't even realize it's a revenge story until the very end.

[9] But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do, and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday.

[10] So, if that's of interest to you, the next time the Amazon Music Follow button is out of town, secretly bug their house with cameras and microphones, and then live stream those feeds on the billboards in Times Square, New York.

[11] Okay, let's get into our first story called Granny Ripper.

[12] I'm Dan Tibersky.

[13] In 2011, something strange began to happen at a high school in upstate New York.

[14] A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms, and spreading fast.

[15] What's the answer?

[16] answer.

[17] And what do you do if they tell you it's all in your head?

[18] Hysterical.

[19] A new podcast from Wondry and Pineapple Street Studios.

[20] Binge all episodes of hysterical early and ad -free on Wondery Plus.

[21] In March of 2015, 68 -year -old Tamara Samsonova was having renovations done to her home in St. Petersburg, Russia.

[22] A friend of hers, 79 -year -old Valentina Ulanova, had heard about Tamara's renovations, and she approached her and said, do you want to stay with me while that's getting done?

[23] Tamara was very thankful, immediately said yes, And as soon as she moved in, she immediately started picking up the slack by cleaning up the house and doing the dishes and made sure she always cooked food for her friend because she wasn't able to pay rent.

[24] After a couple of weeks, the renovations on Tamara's home were complete, but Tamara didn't want to leave.

[25] She was really enjoying living with Valentina, and so she asked Valentina, would it be okay if she stayed a little bit longer?

[26] Valentina was a little bit reluctant, but did ultimately say, okay, that's fine.

[27] A couple of months go by, and Tamara is showing no sign that she plans on leaving Valentina's home anytime soon, and Valentina is getting increasingly frustrated with that reality.

[28] Finally, in late July 2015, Valentina confronts Tamara and says, you gotta go.

[29] And Tamara just says, no, I'm not leaving.

[30] This causes a huge fight, but at the end of it, Tamara still doesn't leave.

[31] So for a couple of days, the women just do not speak to each other.

[32] The silence is finally broken on July 23.

[33] third, when the women get into a fight about some empty cups in the sink, that one of them was supposed to clean, but they didn't, and they thought about whose responsibility it was to do the dishes.

[34] And then, of course, the whole subject comes up again of Valentina saying, you shouldn't even be here, you need to leave.

[35] And Tamara's like, no, I'm not going to leave.

[36] And so another big blowout fight happens.

[37] But at the end of this fight, Tamara finally concedes and says, okay, I get it, I need to leave, just give me a couple of days, and I'll be out of your hair.

[38] Immediately, the tension is gone in the room, they're no longer fighting, and Valentina is happy that she's finally going to get her apartment back, and Tamara says, look, I'll make us dinner tonight, I'll go out and get some food.

[39] Tamara leaves the apartment and goes to a pharmacy and gets a whole bunch of sleeping pills, and then she gets the ingredients to a particular salad that she knows Valentina really likes.

[40] She goes back, she starts making dinner, and as she's making this salad, she crushes up the sleeping pills and mixes the powder with the salad dressing and gives that to Valentina.

[41] And Valentina, who's very high, hungry, eats the whole salad, and doesn't notice anything is wrong.

[42] As soon as Tamara was sure, Valentina had eaten the entire salad, Tamara just goes up to her room and goes to bed.

[43] A couple hours later, at about two in the morning, she goes back down to the kitchen, and she sees Valentina is passed out on the ground.

[44] Tamara goes up to her and sees that she's still breathing, which was a disappointment because she wanted her to die from taking all these sleeping pills.

[45] But it doesn't matter.

[46] She takes out her hacksaw that she had borrowed from the neighbor earlier in the day and proceeds to butcher Valentina and she makes special care as she's cutting her into pieces to remove her lungs and not damage them because Tamara had a taste for human lungs.

[47] It was actually her favorite food.

[48] She took Valentina's head and she put it into a big pot of water and began boiling that to eat it.

[49] The rest of her was cut up into as small of pieces as she could get them and then wrapped in a shower curtain and placed in various bags.

[50] As Valentina's head and lungs are being cooked on the stovetop, Tamara begins making dozens of trips from the apartment, down the stairs, out the front door, all the way down to the lake that was near their property where she would dispose of the body parts before coming back and getting more.

[51] Valentina's hips and legs were apparently too heavy to haul all the way down to the lake, so she took them to a nearby forest.

[52] Tamara's final trip sees her carrying a big silver pot, inside of which is Valentina's head, or at least whatever is left of it after Tamara was done eating most of it.

[53] Four days later, on July 27th, a young couple that was living in the same apartment complex as Tamara and Valentina were out for a walk with their dog out near that lake.

[54] And as they're walking, their dog takes off running and stops in front of this huge bag that it's sniffing and pawing and trying to open.

[55] And the owners of the dog try to call it back, but they can't get it to get away from this bag.

[56] And so the owners walk over and they kind of poke the bag.

[57] They can see it's pretty heavy and they open it up and they find a human torso and it's Valentinas.

[58] When the police show up, the first thing they do is they go to Valentina's apartment and they're surprised to find Tamara living there.

[59] They're kind of sensitive with her and they say your friend, your relative was just found deceased and we need to look around the apartment.

[60] Tamara was completely indifferent.

[61] She did not care.

[62] They had just discovered her body and she didn't care that they were searching the apartment.

[63] It was like she knew someday this was going to happen.

[64] During the search, the police officers quickly find blood all over the bathroom and in the kitchen.

[65] They even find the hacksaw she used that's got blood on it.

[66] And they find Tamara's diary that's sitting next to this book about black magic.

[67] And the police are horrified when they see that the diary contains meticulous notes that Tamara had kept of all of the ritualistic killings she had perpetrated over the past.

[68] 20 years, and there was 14 of them.

[69] And almost all of them were motivated by Tamara's desire to cast spells that she apparently was reading about in these black magic books she had.

[70] And virtually all of these spells required human flesh for other human components.

[71] And so she would kill these people, she would use their bodies to cast these spells, and then afterwards she would consume them.

[72] Not because that had anything to do with the spell, but because she liked the way people tasted.

[73] in particular human lungs.

[74] The police arrest Tamara, who doesn't put up a fight, and she says, yep, you got the right person, I did all this.

[75] While Tamara was on trial, she seemed like she was in a great mood, she told the judge, I hope you give me a really severe punishment, I expect to die in prison, she was seen blowing kisses to reporters, it was like she was just totally out of touch, or maybe she literally knew this was going to happen and just didn't care anymore.

[76] Tamara, who would be nicknamed the Granny Ripper, by newspapers over the course of this trial was given a life sentence and to this day she is still sitting in jail.

[77] Our next story is called Rain of Terror.

[78] On December 18th, 1956, a brand new game show called To Tell the Truth aired on a major American television network.

[79] The premise of the show was relatively simple.

[80] Four celebrity judges would be presented with three people called contestants who all claimed to be the same person.

[81] And this person who they claimed to be was always remarkable in some way.

[82] They had some incredible talent or some crazy job, or they had accomplished something extraordinary.

[83] One of these three contestants was the real person they were claiming to be.

[84] The other two people were doing their best to pretend to be that person.

[85] And it was the job of the celebrity judges to try to figure out who was telling the truth.

[86] So for a set amount of time on the show, the celebrity judges would ask the contestants questions about their background and try to figure out who was who.

[87] And then at the end of the time, the celebrities would cast a vote about who they thought was the real remarkable person.

[88] After the votes were tallied up, the host would have the real remarkable person stand up to reveal themselves and the entire audience would go crazy, and that was the show.

[89] And the show became quite popular, so popular, in fact, that today, nearly 70 years later, it's still on the air.

[90] And over this show's very long history, virtually all the episodes are pretty similar.

[91] It's a pretty redundant show.

[92] But there is one episode that will forever go down as the most unique.

[93] In October of 1972, three contestants walked out onto the stage in front of the four celebrity judges, and they all introduced themselves as Ed Edwards.

[94] Then the host of the show read aloud the biography of the real Ed Edwards, and he would say that Ed at one point was on the FBI's list of the top 10 most wanted criminals in America.

[95] for crimes like armed robbery and impersonating a federal officer.

[96] And then after he was finally caught by law enforcement and went to prison, a prison guard helped him turn his life around, and then upon release from prison 14 years later, Ed remained this reformed criminal and became a successful author and motivational speaker who specialized in telling people how to identify con men and criminals and how to protect themselves from these people.

[97] After the real Ed Edwards' biography was read aloud, the three contestants sat down, and the celebrity judges began asking them questions about their past, and then after the time was up, the celebrities cast their votes, and then the real Ed Edwards was revealed.

[98] And even though two of the four celebrity judges had correctly identified the right Ed Edwards, the crowd was totally astonished at who this guy actually was, because he did not look like this ex -convict.

[99] He looked like this kind of all -American, middle -aged father who was totally harmless and wouldn't hurt a fly.

[100] But either way, the show ended and then the world forgot about Ed Edwards, until 2009.

[101] That year, Ed's estranged daughter, 40 -year -old April Belasio, finally decided to investigate something that had plagued her for her whole childhood.

[102] Despite her father's claims that he was this reformed criminal and this stand -up law -abiding guy, she didn't believe it.

[103] She never believed it.

[104] She thought he had never been reformed and just was a criminal and always had been.

[105] Behind closed doors, Ed was violent and abusive, and he was a compulsive liar.

[106] She remembered in the 1970s and 80s when she was a young kid, Ed would make their family pack up and move sometimes in the middle of the night, and April always assumed it was because her dad was wrapped up in something criminal.

[107] But every time she asked him, he would say, oh, well, you know, I was an informant when I was in jail and I snitched on some people, and some of those people figured out where we live, and so we got to move.

[108] April knew he was lying, but there was nothing she could do, and so they just kept on moving around.

[109] But she always thought something else was going on.

[110] So in 2009, when April is now this 40 -year -old woman, she's laying in bed one night and finally says, you know what, I'm just going to start Googling some stuff.

[111] So she hops in her laptop, and she starts typing in the different names of towns that she and her family lived in as a kid, and then after she'd write the name of the town, she'd write unsolved mystery or unsolved crime, and she would see if anything popped up.

[112] And so as she began looking, she found one in 1980.

[113] It was an unsolved murder in a town called Watertown, Wisconsin, that happened right around the time that her family very briefly lived in this town.

[114] There was this young teenage couple that had left this wedding and they had driven down this dead -end road and they were just kind of enjoying each other's company when an unknown assailant who matched the description of Ed Edwards walked up to their car, broke in, shot them both to death, and then disappeared.

[115] And so on a hunch, April called the Watertown Police Department the following day and told them that I think my father might have been responsible for this double homicide.

[116] It's just a hunch, but he matches the description.

[117] We were there in this very small window of time when it happened.

[118] And so the police said, okay, we'll go have a look.

[119] And so the Watertown Police, they tracked down Ed Edwards, who was living in Kentucky at the time, and they got him to give them a DNA sample.

[120] And when they tested the DNA sample, it matched these samples that were taken at the crime scene in 1980.

[121] And so Ed Edwards, he was arrested and brought back to Wisconsin, and as soon as he was in custody, he confessed to the murder.

[122] And then he requested the death penalty.

[123] But he was told the maximum punishment for this crime was life in prison.

[124] Ed didn't like this, and so he confessed to another double homicide from 1977 in Ohio, where he killed another teenage couple, thinking that would give him the death penalty.

[125] But through a loophole, they said, well, actually, that still won't get you the death penalty.

[126] you're still facing life in prison.

[127] And so frustrated, Ed revealed a third murder he had perpetrated.

[128] In 1996, he had killed his own foster son for the insurance money.

[129] And so for this crime, he was eligible for capital punishment, and so he was sentenced to death.

[130] But he would die of natural causes two years later in 2011 before the state could execute him.

[131] Since his death, cold case investigators and members of his own family have theorized that Ed Ed, Eddard, is almost certainly responsible for more killings beyond just the five he happened to confess to.

[132] In fact, many people believe Ed Edwards could actually be the infamous Zodiac killer, who's one of the nation's most notorious uncought serial killers that killed 37 people in Northern California in the 1960s and 1970s.

[133] If this is true, then Ed Edwards did not become a killer after he was on that game show in 1972.

[134] No. When he showed up for that game show and stood in front of the audience and smiled and answered questions to the celebrity panelists, at that time, as you're watching him on TV, he would have already been a seasoned serial killer with dozens and dozens of victims.

[135] But Ed stopped confessing to murders after that third confession because he was just kind of using those murders as bargaining chips to get what he wanted, the death penalty.

[136] And once he got it, he went silent.

[137] And now that he's dead, we're never going to get another confession out of him.

[138] And there's no proof connecting him to any unsolved murder cases.

[139] And so unfortunately, it's unlikely we'll ever know the full extent of Ed's reign of terror.

[140] She struck him with her motor vehicle.

[141] She had been under the influence and she left him there.

[142] In January 2022, local woman Karen Reid was implicated in the mysterious death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O 'Keefe.

[143] It was alleged that after an innocent night out for drinks with friends, Karen and John got into a lover's quarrel en route to the next location.

[144] What happens next?

[145] Depends on who you ask.

[146] Was it a crime of passion?

[147] If you believe the prosecution, it's because the evidence was so compelling.

[148] This was clearly an intentional act.

[149] And his cause of death was blunt force trauma with hypothermia.

[150] Or a corrupt police cover -up.

[151] If you believe the defense theory, however, this was all a cover -up to prevent one of their own from going down.

[152] Everyone had an opinion.

[153] And after the 10 -week trial, the jury could not come to a unanimous decision.

[154] To end in a mistrial, it's just a confirmation of just how complicated this case is.

[155] Law and crime presents the most in -depth analysis to date of the sensational case in Karen.

[156] You can listen to Karen exclusively with Wondery Plus.

[157] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

[158] I'm Dan Tiberski.

[159] In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York.

[160] I was like at my locker and she came up to me and she was like stuttering super bad.

[161] I'm like, stop fucking around.

[162] She's like, I can't.

[163] A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast.

[164] Like doubling and tripling and it's all these girls.

[165] With a diagnosis, the state tried to keep on the down low.

[166] Everybody thought I was holding something back.

[167] Well, you were holding something back.

[168] Intentionally.

[169] Yeah, yeah.

[170] Well, yeah.

[171] No, it's hysteria.

[172] It's all in your head.

[173] It's not physical.

[174] Oh, my gosh, you're exaggerating.

[175] Is this the largest mass hysteria since the witches of Salem?

[176] Or is it something else entirely?

[177] Something's wrong here.

[178] Something's not right.

[179] Leroy was the new date line and everyone was trying to solve the murder.

[180] A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, Hysterical.

[181] Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast.

[182] You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad -free right now by joining Wondry Plus.

[183] The next and final story of today's episode is called Inside Scoop.

[184] In the early evening of May 7, 2008, a 65 -year -old woman named Zavana Temalcoska walked around her kitchen inside of her apartment in the little southeastern European city of Kesevo.

[185] Kesevo is a quiet place at the base of this huge mountain in northern Macedonia, and while it's totally beautiful, it's utterly remote, and basically nothing really of note happens here.

[186] Zavana cleaned houses for a living, but on this particular day, she was on a day off, and so she was just kind of hanging out at her apartment, waiting for her adult son, named Zoron, to come home.

[187] It was a beautiful, warm evening that night, and so Zavana had the windows in the kitchen open as she walked around making herself something to eat, and at some point, as she was doing this, she heard her phone ring, and so she grabbed it and answered, and she heard the sound of her friend on the other line, but her friend's voice sounded strange.

[188] It was strained and very uncomfortable, and she was asking Zivana if she was paying attention to the news right now.

[189] Did she have the radio on or the TV?

[190] And Zavanna was like, no, why?

[191] And the friend would tell her that all over the news right now, there was this huge, terrible traffic accident that had happened in their town, and unfortunately, Zavana's son, Zoran, who she was waiting for to come home, was apparently involved in this accident.

[192] Zavana let out a strangled cry when she heard this, and then just dropped what she was using to make food, and turned and ran out the door.

[193] And when she did, her neighbor who was outside saw her emerge and yelled out to her, you know, hey, is everything okay?

[194] And Zavana, as she literally just continued running towards the road, she basically blurted out to the neighbor that her son was hurt and she was going to the hospital.

[195] And this neighbor watched as Zavana just ran down the road, turned the corner, and disappeared.

[196] Zavana did not have a car of her own, and so literally she was going to run to the hospital to make sure her son was okay.

[197] A little while later, That same neighbor who had just watched Zavana disappear around the corner heard a knock on their door.

[198] And so the neighbor went to the door, they opened it up, and they were totally shocked at who they saw standing outside.

[199] It was Zavana's son, Zoran, who did not appear to be hurt in any way.

[200] But before the neighbor could ask any questions about this, Zoron, who looked visibly confused, said to the neighbor, you know, hey, have you seen my mom?

[201] We were supposed to meet and have dinner together, and it's just totally unlike her to disappear without telling me where she was going.

[202] The neighbor just stared at Zoron for a second, having no idea what was going on here.

[203] And then the neighbor was like, well, wait a minute.

[204] You know, Zoran, were you in a car accident?

[205] And Zoran's like, no, what are you talking about?

[206] And then the neighbor kind of filled Zoran in about how they had seen his mother run outside, and she had mentioned how her son had been in this car accident, and she literally ran to the hospital.

[207] Zoron was just as mystified by this as the neighbor was, and so Zoron just grabbed his phone and called, called the hospital to see if his mother was there.

[208] But when the hospital picked up, they would tell Zoron that his mother was not there.

[209] She had not been there all day.

[210] And two, even though they had heard reports about this car accident in town, there had not been any car accident victims brought to the hospital at all that day.

[211] And so by the end of that night, when Zoron really had no idea what had happened to his mom, where she was, or what was going on with this car accident thing, he just did the only thing he could think to do, which was go to the police and report.

[212] his mother missing.

[213] Nine days later, on May 16th, when still Zavana was missing and the police had no idea what happened to her, there were no new leads, nothing.

[214] On this day, a 56 -year -old reporter named Flado Taneski, who actually happened to live not that far away from where Zavana lived, he got a call from one of his police sources, and the source would tell him that Zavana had actually just been found, even though this was not public information, and unfortunately Zavano was dead.

[215] Her body, which had been beaten and strangled and stabbed, had been found wrapped up in plastic and dumped in this illegal dumping area not far from the town's football stadium.

[216] The source told Vlado that when her body was surged, they discovered she still had valuables on her person, and so that kind of ruled out the possibility that this was a robbery gone wrong, which was the initial theory about what they were seeing.

[217] However, when police had done an initial probe, into Zabana's life to figure out who this victim was, they discovered that she was just this poor old cleaning lady who had no enemies to speak of, and so it really just made no sense that she was the victim of such an obviously brutal and intimate murder that was not financially motivated, at least not on the surface.

[218] Flato thanked a source for all the information and then hung up.

[219] Flato's source had sounded really shocked by this murder as he was telling Vlato, but now as Vlato was sitting here thinking about what he had just been told, he wasn't really shocked as much as he was suspicious.

[220] He felt like something just was off about this murder.

[221] You know, maybe Zavana appeared to be this poor old cleaning lady with no enemies, but in reality, maybe that wasn't who she was.

[222] Maybe she was leading a secret life that got her killed.

[223] Or maybe she had stumbled upon something she was not supposed to see and that got her killed.

[224] You know, Vlato had no idea, but he just felt like, you know what, there's something off about this and it needs to be investigated.

[225] Now, Vlaude, Vladow had a reputation in town for being this very aggressive and kind of fearless journalist who had no problem diving headfirst into some of these really murky stories that could involve corruption or misuse of power, and he would get to the bottom of it, and he would publish these articles where he spoke really critically about the government, about police, about anybody really who was in a position of power.

[226] But as a result of conducting himself this way, over his 30 -year career, Vlato had been threatened with violence many, many times.

[227] for things he had written or things he was about to write.

[228] But even though Vlado knew this Zavana murder case had the potential to once again put him in hot water with the powers that be, he still felt like it was his responsibility to dive into this thing and get to the truth.

[229] So, feeling determined, Flado grabbed his notebook and pen and he walked out the front door of his house and he made the several minute -long walk over to Zavana's house.

[230] And when he got there, her son, Zoran, opened the door, and a few minutes later, Vlado and Zoron were sitting in the kitchen talking about what had happened.

[231] Zoron told Vlato all about how he came home and discovered his mom wasn't there, and then he went to the neighbor's house, and they explained how they had seen Zavana running off to the hospital to go look for Zoron, but Zoron's like, I'm not hurt, I didn't get into a car accident, what's going on here?

[232] And as Zoran spoke, Flado took lots of notes and asked lots of follow -up questions, and by the end of this interview, when Vlato felt like he knew everything there was, to know about Zavana, he felt like he actually had a pretty good working theory as to what actually happened to Zavana.

[233] And the reason he felt like his theory could be accurate had to do with what Zoran told Vlato his mother did for a living, that she was a cleaning lady.

[234] Now, it took Vlato a couple of days to put together his story.

[235] He had to go out and interview dozens more people in the neighborhood.

[236] But finally, on May 19th, so just three days after Zavanna was found murdered, Vlato published a story in the newspaper, and the story's explosive headline read a serial killer Stox Casevo.

[237] In the story, Vlato says that Zavana's murder was very likely not an isolated killing.

[238] Instead, her murder was likely linked to two other murders of two other women.

[239] And these two other victims looked an awful lot like Zavanna, literally.

[240] They were poor older women who were also cleaning ladies.

[241] And so that was why when Vlato was talking to Zoron and Zoran described how his mother was, what she did for work, what she looked like, that Vlato started to remember these other victims, and he put it all together.

[242] The other two victims were 64 -year -old Mitra Simjanoska, who was murdered in 2005, and the other victim was 56 -year -old Lubitsa Lukaska, who was murdered in 2007.

[243] Now, Vlado's story was totally explosive, because what he's saying is that there is a serial killer that is on the loose in this town.

[244] But this story was also highly explosive because Vlato spoke very critically about the police who were involved in this investigation.

[245] Specifically, he pointed out that the 05 and 07 murders of those two other women, those have been totally mishandled because arrests had been made in at least one of those cases and clearly whoever they arrested was innocent here.

[246] And so the police just totally dropped the ball, at least in Vlato's opinion.

[247] And when the police read Vlado's story, they were very upset at him because he was so critical of them.

[248] However, the police also did see that Vlato had managed to uncover a lot of new details from all of his interviews with witnesses and people in the neighborhood that did seem to paint a picture of this potentially really being a serial killer, not individual isolated killings.

[249] And so the police, based on Vlado's story, would actually begin investigating a serial killer in their midst.

[250] They linked all three murders, and they began basically a new investigation.

[251] However, at the same time, they began this new investigation.

[252] Vlato began to notice that he was being tailed all the time by police.

[253] He would be out in town doing his job, you know, reporting and interviewing people, and there'd just be a police officer standing somewhere in the distance watching him.

[254] But Vlato had anticipated that no matter what, he was likely going to face some sort of back from the police, and so he just kind of accepted that they were going to watch him and maybe try to intimidate him, but it wasn't going to bother him, because he had done his job, he had reported the story the best that he could, and if they wanted to watch him from a distance, they could do that.

[255] By early June, so about two weeks after Zavana had been found murdered, the police, in this new serial killer investigation they were doing, had narrowed down their suspect pool, which was in the hundreds, down to just three people.

[256] and they felt like they were very close to making an arrest.

[257] About a month later, on June 20th, so by this point, Vlato is still being trailed by police all the time, but the police have not come out publicly and said anything about the serial killer case.

[258] They're just continuing their investigation.

[259] But on this day, June 20th, Vlado's editor at the newspaper got a call from a police officer telling the editor they were about to make an arrest in the serial killer case.

[260] And as soon as their conversation ended, the editor called Vlado to tell him the news.

[261] But when he called Vlato, Vlato didn't pick up.

[262] Which was very unusual.

[263] Vlato always answered his calls.

[264] And the editor was also thinking to himself how strange it was that this officer had contacted him and not Vlado.

[265] Like, why aren't you going to the guy writing the stories and telling him about this new development?

[266] Why are you coming to me?

[267] The editor would continue to try calling Vlado several more times, but Vlado never answered.

[268] And so ultimately, the editor just kind of assumed, that Vlado must be busy, you know, interviewing someone, or maybe more likely, he had already learned about this imminent arrest, and he was on scene, ready to capture in real time, this arrest that was about to take place.

[269] Meanwhile, on a quiet street in Kesevo, the police had surrounded this very modest two -story home that was very overgrown up front.

[270] It was surrounded by tall fir trees, and all the windows had heavy drapes covering them up.

[271] And then once the police felt like they had totally surrounded this building, a team of officers walked up onto the porch and knocked on the door and yelled out that they were police and whoever was inside come out with their hands up.

[272] And for a moment it was just silent and tense and then the police on the porch heard footsteps inside the house.

[273] You know, they had their guns ready to go and then the door slowly opened up and this man who seemed very unthreatening and kind of confused stepped out onto the porch and the police immediately arrested him and took him away.

[274] A few minutes later, back at the newspaper headquarters, Vlato's editor got another phone call.

[275] And when he answered, it was the same police officer who had called before to warn him about this upcoming arrest.

[276] Except this time, the officer was calling to say the arrest had been made, they had caught their serial killer, and then he told the editor the name of the person they arrested.

[277] And when the editor heard the name, he dropped the phone in shock.

[278] The serial killer was Vlato.

[279] It would turn out that Vlato appeared very professional and calm on the outside, but inside, he was full of rage, specifically at his mother, who he viewed as this terrible, cruel person.

[280] And after she died in 2002, Vlato became obsessed with this idea of getting revenge on his deceased mother.

[281] And the way he decided he would do that would be by killing random women who just kind of looked and seemed an awful lot like his mother, i .e. they were poor, older, and cleaning ladies.

[282] His three victims, Mitra in 2005, Lubitsa in 2007, and Zavana in 2008, had all personally known Vlato's mother.

[283] And so Vlado had actually used that connection to gain each of his victim's trust, and then once he had their trust, he would lure them away to strangle, stab, and beat them to death.

[284] In Vlado's explosive newspaper story, he lied about a whole bunch of things, just to throw the police off.

[285] Like, for example, he made up that he spoke to a witness who claimed to have seen Zavana get into a car with two men right before she vanished.

[286] Vlado did not see that.

[287] That was just a total lie designed to confuse the police.

[288] Vlado had also been the one to plant that story on the radio about Zavanna's son, Zoron, being in this terrible accident.

[289] You know, that had caused Zavana to run out of her house and be vulnerable to be scooped up and killed, which is exactly what Vlado wanted.

[290] he had called the radio station and told them about this accident, and because he had previously worked for that radio station, they believed him without doing any fact -checking and broadcast the story.

[291] And so really, that whole radio broadcast was just a very intentional trap by Vlado to kill Zavanna.

[292] But what ultimately got Vlado caught was in the article he wrote, he left in some really specific details that the police had not revealed to the public.

[293] And so basically by including these in the story, it meant Vlado had an inside scoop into what was really going on.

[294] Like, for example, Vlado said that all three of these women who had been killed by the serial killer had been strangled to death by telephone cords that were left at the scene.

[295] But again, the police had not revealed that to the public, and so when they read the story, they actually became very suspicious of Vlado and thought he could be involved in these murders.

[296] And so when Vlado felt like the police were trailing him just to intimidate him, in reality, the police were trailing Vlado because they thought he could be the murderer, and eventually when they got a DNA sample from Vlado, it was confirmed that their suspicions were right.

[297] He was the killer.

[298] After Vlado's arrest, he was immediately charged with two of the three murders, and the police were getting ready to charge him with the third, and they were even looking at a fourth victim potentially that maybe Vlado had killed as well, but they weren't entirely sure yet.

[299] But on June 23rd, so just three days after Vlado's arrest, he died in jail in a way that really didn't make any sense.

[300] Vlato had drowned in a small bucket of water inside of his jail cell, while there were three other people inside of that jail cell with him who all said they didn't notice it happening.

[301] Officially, Vlado's death was ruled a suicide, and after his death, all of the murder investigations were closed.

[302] Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast.

[303] If you enjoyed today's stories, and you're looking for more strange, dark, dark, and mysterious content be sure to check out all of our studios podcasts.

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[307] So that's going to do it.

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