286 - MFM Guest Host Picks #9: Bridger Winegar

[0] This is exactly right.

[1] Welcome to my favorite murder.

[2] I'm Bridger Weinerger.

[3] I host the podcast I said no gifts on Exactly Right.

[4] And every week I invite a guest on and then they try to ruin my day by breaking my no gift rule.

[5] So we have a lot of fun.

[6] We have some very funny guests and I get a lot of gifts.

[7] So feel free to listen or don't.

[8] It's up to you.

[9] Now I know what you're thinking.

[10] You're thinking, oh, I wish he were Karen and George.

[11] And look, I wish I were Karen and Georgia, too, but there's really nothing I can do about that.

[12] There's nothing you can do.

[13] Just imagine I'm your babysitter, your parents hired after they've already gone through their nine first choices.

[14] So I'm very excited to be guest hosting today.

[15] I can still remember years ago when Karen told me she was going to be starting a podcast about murder with her friend Georgia.

[16] And I thought, oh, that sounds nice.

[17] I'm sure they'll have fun.

[18] And now here we are, years later, my favorite murder has at least 11 listeners, and, you know, I was a fool.

[19] Now here's the show.

[20] So I had two choices of Karen's stories.

[21] The first was the International Dunes Hotel Murders, which growing up in Salt Lake City was legendary.

[22] We would drive past that hotel all the time and talk about how the swimming pool was haunted.

[23] That's not what I'm going to talk about.

[24] I settled on another story from episode.

[25] 76 and it's very close to my heart because I was the person who suggested it to Karen.

[26] And I believe this is still the only murder I've suggested to Karen that she wasn't already aware of.

[27] You have to be careful, you know, when you bring up murder stories with Karen, because she knows all of them.

[28] She's the genius.

[29] She's the encyclopedia.

[30] So it's a bit of a badge of honor that I knew one murder she wasn't familiar with.

[31] It's another story I heard mentioned of growing up in Utah, and I don't want to give away too much because it's got twists, and Karen tells it so well.

[32] She really tells it perfectly better than other people who have tried to tell this story, in my opinion.

[33] But I will say it does involve some of my favorite things, things like Radio Shack, fraud, deep financial trouble, talking salamanders, and also someone named Button.

[34] Very special.

[35] Also, Karen says, look at this rat bastard, which I feel like would make a great t -shirt, just putting a merch idea out there.

[36] And now here is the murderers of Master Forger Mark Hoffman.

[37] Okay.

[38] Mine is, it's hard sometimes, as we've talked about, for me to get my homework done.

[39] No, it's, yeah.

[40] And especially when I will work on something for a while, and then if I have a friend who goes, have you ever heard of this one, I will switch immediately and go do my friends.

[41] I switch, you know, you're halfway done.

[42] It's not like you're just reading about it.

[43] No. I switch all the time.

[44] Yeah.

[45] And so many of these stories, because, you know, you guys are just as into true crime, if not more than either of us.

[46] So oftentimes you feel like I'm only telling a third of this story.

[47] I know there's so much more.

[48] I should have read an entire book about this, whatever.

[49] That's what other people do.

[50] So sometimes I'll bail just because I know a story.

[51] has much more to it and I should invest more time.

[52] You're not going to give it just do it justice.

[53] Right.

[54] Someone else already has.

[55] But this one was so juicy and I loved it so much.

[56] My friend Bridger is the one who told me about it.

[57] He's a hilarious.

[58] He's very famous on Twitter and he's a great writer.

[59] And he grew up in Utah.

[60] So he was like, have you ever heard of this one?

[61] And I had never heard anything about it.

[62] Turns out there's a forensic files.

[63] There's lots of stuff.

[64] There's an amazing book.

[65] but anyway I'll just give you I'll give you what I know so we're in Salt Lake City okay what's this is it called is it called anything I'm not going to call it anything because I usually do that and then I end up giving it away I totally understand okay so we're in Salt Lake City the morning of October 15th in 1985 okay a man named Steve Christensen who is a businessman a husband a father of four and a bishop of the Mormon church he arrives at his office on the sixth floor of the judge building in downtown Salt Lake City one time I did a story and it was that horrible one about the woman throwing her kids off the top of the hotel in Utah in Salt Lake City even right and in that I threw out the the random idea that it was a very uh because you know all of Utah I assume is very Mormon that Salt Lake City would be a conservative town well I was couldn't have been more wrong about that would like to say now I now know because of making that mistake that actually Salt Lake City is the like liberal part of Utah and it's a college town and it's the hit place and it's probably best case scenario and if you're looking for I don't know a great shirt or um really cool flats I'm not I don't know so Steve Christensen gets to his office he sees a brown wrapped box shaped package in front of his office door and his names written on top of it, he picks it up and it immediately, immediately explodes.

[66] Oh, fuck.

[67] Here, I thought it was something else, and this is fucking, let's do this.

[68] Yeah.

[69] So, it was a pipe bomb.

[70] Steve is killed.

[71] The Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Fire, yeah.

[72] It's, it was a pipe bomb that was made with concrete nails were inside, and concrete nails are the nails you use to pound in, they're not made of concrete.

[73] They're the really strong industrial -sized nails that you pound into concrete.

[74] so the person that made this pipe bomb wanted the person who picked it up to be killed wow what a bummer yeah so the ATF officers arrive they begin to piece the bomb back together to figure out that it's a pipe bomb and that was activated by a mercury switch that would go off when the package was picked up and tilted one way or the other so so the minute the mercury like shifts exactly it's in a little glass circuit and if it in it is laying on one side of this little glass thing and then when you pick it up, if you put it and chip it one way or the other, the circuit connects, and that's when the bomb explodes.

[75] Wow.

[76] So they know from a bomb like that that the person, that the bomber dropped that box off because they would have to make sure it stays exactly the way it is.

[77] And they couldn't mail it.

[78] Yeah, you can't just give it to somebody else.

[79] Okay.

[80] So also inside the bomb were Tandy brand batteries, which is as many RC enthusiasts know, Tandy is the Radio Shack brand of batteries.

[81] Really?

[82] So they start going around to the local radio shacks trying to find out who's bought batteries there in the past week or whatever.

[83] They also find out that Steve Christensen had recently worked at a financial company called CFS, which after doing huge business in the 70s and the early 80s had started losing money and was in serious trouble.

[84] So this is the part that I actually found interesting because so the 80s were like a time of big money that's when everybody pretended to be rich and preppies and you know it was a very eyes odd coke time yeah and apparently salt lake city in that time was a hotbed for financial fraud really yeah so what people would do conmen would go to salt lake city and they would kind of like get get into the Mormon church they would either pretend they were Mormons or they would befriend higher ups in the Mormon church and then when they would do business they would like say they were in securities or whatever stocks bond they like I got a ground floor fucking thing to get in on exactly and then the elders or whoever in the church would be like oh this guy is is trustworthy and so then all the parishioners or Mormons I'm not sure what you call the general word for but all the people in that church would then trust that person and buy into whatever thing that that person was bringing to the table, whether it was high finance or also very popular, a pyramid scheme vitamin sales got to be very popular.

[85] What the fuck?

[86] Back then.

[87] Yeah.

[88] So it was kind of an, there was lots of Amway, low grade Amway kind of bullshit going on.

[89] Did they get the vitamins?

[90] Did they ever get the vitamins?

[91] Did they ever get the vitamins they needed?

[92] I don't know.

[93] But it was a kind of thing.

[94] They call it affinity fraud.

[95] and it happens in lots of different kinds of religions This is why my money is under my bed Right?

[96] And trust no one Yeah.

[97] It's the same It's the assumption that quote unquote One of your own is going to Look out for your best interest as opposed To an outsider.

[98] Oh, I don't trust anyone.

[99] Do you?

[100] No, I'm scared of all money.

[101] My fucking cousin Isn't financial, whatever the fuck and I Like, I'm scared.

[102] Sorry, Mitch.

[103] Well, because it's so anyone can tell you anything and if you don't know exactly what's going on you you it's a hundred percent pure trust yeah and if people are that into money like they're into money and they want it yeah exactly okay well um so it's the same thing bernie made off did yeah uh to he got 20 billion dollars as you well know watching that documentary so good um from wealthy jewish people a guy named alan stanford did it to southern baptists wow he had a seven million or seven billion dollar empire that fell.

[104] There was even a con man named Monroe L. Beechy who became trusted within the Amish community and he went to prison for orchestrating a scheme that defrauded 2 ,700 investors, many of them his friends and neighbors.

[105] What a dick.

[106] So it's just a very common practice of like this idea that your religion would stand for your good morals and that therefore the business is a trustworthy one.

[107] It's almost worse con than just, you know, clients because, yeah, these people are trusting because they, because if you're in their religion, it's because you believe the same things they do.

[108] You have the same morals.

[109] They're going right on the inside.

[110] You know, they're not just standing out and like rolling the dice that maybe you'll believe them and maybe not.

[111] They're asking you.

[112] They're playing on your ultimate faith.

[113] Yeah.

[114] Which is very ugly.

[115] And in the Mormon religion, I believe.

[116] a lot I know lots of Mormons I've grown up I grew up with Mormons one of my good friends that I used to work with Betsy is a Mormon and you know it's it's a very moralistic they the life they live is really the whole idea of it is that you live this life based on your faith so it's like my friend just said it the other day he's like Mormons really walk the walk yeah so it's not just and I may maybe I'm only saying this because of all those like design websites that you see these days and when you trace them back it's like a young Mormon family but it's like the most beautiful you know table setting yeah and the cutest design and it's like here's a great thing for your baby i've heard so many bloggers like famous bloggers or like the big ones that have beautiful websites are Mormon for some reason yeah because it's kind of like it's the whole idea of like home building yeah and like putting the best into your home right and being ambitious and always having something anyways yeah yeah yeah I mean, these are insane generalizations, obviously.

[117] We're not speaking for every single person that's in the religion.

[118] But there is just, there's something to that.

[119] There's something to that.

[120] Where there's it, there is a, there seems to be an innocence that, that in the 70s and 80s, con men were like, oh, we can exploit this, this community, this sense of community that they have.

[121] Two hours after Steve Christensen's attack, there's another bombing at the home of Gary and Kathy Sheets.

[122] Gary Sheets was Steve Christensen's boss at CFS, and his wife, Kathy, was the one who picked up the package.

[123] It exploded in her hands, and she was killed.

[124] Oh, my God.

[125] How have I never heard of this?

[126] I know.

[127] So now the police are thinking that these bombings are related to the failed CFS business dealings, and so it could be retaliation from an old employee or even the mafia.

[128] Oh, my God.

[129] Um, police talk to the sheets 13 year old next door neighbor who saw a tan minivan pull into the street's driveway the night before around midnight and thought it was suspicious.

[130] But all he saw was the car.

[131] He didn't see anybody, um, anybody get in or out.

[132] Um, but then they also talked to a jeweler who, who worked on the fifth floor of the judge building, one floor below Steve Christensen's office.

[133] Um, his name is Bruce Passy.

[134] And he tells the police that the morning, the morning of the bomb.

[135] he got into the elevator with his father and there was a man standing in the elevator wearing a letterman jacket but with no letter on it and he was holding a brown like paper wrapped box that said to Steve Christensen on the top of it oh shit and so he um Bruce Passy describes this man to the police um saying he is a white male five foot eight medium brown hair the next day there's a third bombing um this time it's inside a car and the victim is seriously injured but he's not killed it's 30 year old mark hoffman he is rushed to the hospital um where he's in critical condition but he ends up being able to tell the police that he'd opened his car door and the package was sitting on the driver's seat with the action of opening the door it fell off and exploded oh good so he didn't get the full impact right but he had a fingertip blown off he had a huge um wound in his knee where parts of the explosives went into his knee cat, like his knee area.

[136] So he was, he was pretty badly injured.

[137] But immediately the police are suspicious because if he had his fingers blown off, that doesn't, that means that the box was in his hands, not on the seat and then tumbling to the ground.

[138] Also with the direction, the guy in forensic files explains it really well, but it's basically the way they know bombs explode and the directions they go.

[139] If the thing was in his knee, then he could not have been standing outside of the car.

[140] He must have been inside of the car leaning over.

[141] And so they basically reconstruct it.

[142] I want to watch that.

[143] I'm like trying a picture on my head.

[144] Basically, they, with the trajectory of the stuff that flew out of the bomb, which hit him, they realize he must have been leaning over the center console holding the box.

[145] and basically inside the car.

[146] So his story, why would you lie about that?

[147] Why wouldn't you just tell him exactly?

[148] I love when cops figured that out.

[149] Like this person killed themselves.

[150] And it's like, no, the trajectory, like yours last week, the trajectory shows that that person couldn't have killed themselves.

[151] And that's the relatively new forensic part.

[152] That's like what forensic files is all celebrating.

[153] Because it's like we, you would never have known that until a forensics comes in and is like, hold up.

[154] So the police.

[155] police search Mark Hoffman's house and they find a letterman jacket just like the one that Bruce Passy said the guy in the elevator was wearing and they also find they also see that he has a tan minivan oh shit and there's gunpowder that they find traces of around his house that match the brand used in all three bombings well there you go so Mark Hoffman maintains his innocence says he's the victim um and he demands to take a lie detector test and he does they give him a lie detector test and he passes with flying colors oh shit yeah so the police start looking into who this guy really is so mark hoffin was born in salt lake city on december 7th 1954 raised in a strict Mormon household he was a mediocre student um but later he was tested to have an IQ of 169 wow which is insanely high that's one point over mine I feel like in stories I've read, people who are like mad geniuses are usually in like the mid -130s to 140s.

[156] I was going to say that.

[157] Like, I feel like very, very, very fucking smart is like 130.

[158] I think so.

[159] But like, then genius is like 160 something.

[160] And maybe.

[161] I like us trying to guess what genius IQ level are in the dumbest way.

[162] Well, I know when my brother was a kid with fucking.

[163] attention issues they tested him and he had like one very high up there because it's like well he's just fucking bored yes so yeah and i never i was not that smart and i was never bored no i was you're like this is fascinating just bored not smart and bored um okay so he collected coins as a teenager and when he was when he was young uh that that's a weird cut and paste he Collected coins as a teenager, and at some point, he forged a rare mint mark on a dime that was verified by an organization of coin collectors to be genuine.

[164] And when he was a kid, he tricked the shit out of fucking professional coin people.

[165] Exactly.

[166] He got the taste early of like, you know.

[167] It's impressive.

[168] I think so, too.

[169] This don't kill people next.

[170] I mean.

[171] So in 1973, he volunteered to spend two years as an LDS missionary.

[172] When he came back from his mission, which was in England, he enrolled as a pre -med major at Utah State University.

[173] He married Dorally Old in 1979.

[174] They eventually have four children together, and she filed for divorce in 1987.

[175] So in 1980, Hoffman claims to have found a 17th century King James Bible with a document inside that he claimed to be the transcript that Joseph Smith's, who, was the founder of the Latter -day Saints Church, he had a scribe named Martin Harris, and it was supposed to be a transcript that Martin Harris brought to a Columbia Classics Professor in 1828 that was originally copied by Joseph Smith from the golden plates, from which he translated the Book of Mormon.

[176] So I'm going to say this probably incorrectly, but the general idea of the founding of the Church of Jesus Christ, the Latter -day Saints, is Joseph Smith found golden tablets that he dug up and from those tablets he wrote down the tenets of the religion.

[177] Okay.

[178] And an angel appeared to him as he dug up those tablets to help him.

[179] So, basically, he presents this document.

[180] They freak out because they're like, they had never, it's a historical document from their church.

[181] never seen before.

[182] And the, um, the church ends up buying it from Hoffman for $20 ,000.

[183] Fuck.

[184] So this not only sets him, uh, financially, but it also sets his reputation as a historical documents dealer.

[185] I wonder where he said he found it.

[186] Oh, is it inside a King James Bible.

[187] So he, okay.

[188] So he was already, um, trying to become like a historical book.

[189] Okay.

[190] Dealer.

[191] So one of the book.

[192] Okay.

[193] That makes sense.

[194] It was a really old.

[195] It was a 17.

[196] century king james bible so then it was like inside that got i got it okay um so basically he then starts um for the next several years selling forged quote unquote lost lDS documents to the church um the most notorious notorious of which was the salamander letter in 1984 so he basically starts forging pieces of historical text and bringing them to the church and as as a church member himself going i found this i found this now the church is part of it is like a little bit like oh yeah we need to we need to be owning these papers and sometimes he would donate them and sometimes they would buy them from him but essentially it was it was text that they that was relevant to them knowing about their own religion and the and the founder of their own religion so the one that is the most infamous is the salamander letter which basically said that when Joseph Smith dug up those tablets, it wasn't an angel that appeared to him but a white salamander.

[197] So that was such a change of the historical record.

[198] And they had never heard that before?

[199] They'd never heard it before.

[200] It was super freaky.

[201] And it was kind of like they didn't know if they should announce it.

[202] It put them in a really weird position.

[203] Because suddenly it's it's a very non -religious sounding and almost like a magical witchy sounding version of the story of how their church is founded.

[204] That's a salamander is kind of like not as cool as a snake.

[205] Is this snake?

[206] No. Well, but snakes are in like Christian religion are evil.

[207] So there's, but there's just something weird about it's an albino salamander, like as opposed to an angel.

[208] Man, I think he could have done better.

[209] Well.

[210] A bear.

[211] An albino bear.

[212] A blue bear.

[213] A blue bear.

[214] Well, it turned out.

[215] he was actually forging all of these documents, and he had lost his faith when he was a teenager.

[216] Like, he went on his mission, basically, because he felt a lot of pressure from his family because he was raised in such a strict Mormon household, but he was trying to embarrass the church.

[217] Oh.

[218] So he was writing these documents and changing these stories and basically adding in little inconsistencies and mistakes so that the church would kind of.

[219] of be scrambling and not knowing what their official approach should be.

[220] And he, and he was like a master forger because he had already sold, let's see this, here's the list, he'd forged unpublished poems by Emily Dickinson, signatures of Mark Twain, a full handwritten letter supposedly written by Betsy Ross.

[221] No. He tricked the Library of Congress.

[222] he tricked Sothebyes.

[223] He sold signatures by George Washington, John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Daniel Boone, John Brown, Andrew Jackson, Nathan Hale, John Hancock, Francis Scott Key, Abraham Lincoln, John Milton.

[224] Wow, this guy is so lucky.

[225] He just finds all this shit.

[226] Yeah, and makes a shit ton of money off of it.

[227] There was somebody named Button Gwinnett.

[228] No, there wasn't.

[229] His signature was the rarest and therefore the most valuable of any signer of the Declaration.

[230] of Independence.

[231] The guy named Button signed the Declaration of Independence.

[232] Or girl.

[233] Oh, sure.

[234] No way.

[235] But Lil Button Ginnick got up there.

[236] He also said he claimed to have discovered a famous document called the Oath of the Freeman, which is believed to be, or, you know, some say the precursor to the Declaration of Independence.

[237] It's from the 1600s and it was worth over a million dollars.

[238] Oh, my God.

[239] But this, they never knew it existed until he came.

[240] They knew it existed, but there were no copies of it in America.

[241] So he had claimed he found one, and he was trying to sell that, but the sale of that was kind of held up because they were questioning its authenticity.

[242] Finally, someone's like, you know what we should do?

[243] Well, in this, it's funny, because I think in the forensic files, they start talking about how they, because it's within the church and the way he did it, he was a master manipulator.

[244] He was super smart.

[245] so he knew how to do it where they would not they didn't question the documents because of who he was and what he had already sold so it was like well if he sold something to the library of congress yeah and suddeby's and all these places what are we gonna we're gonna question him yeah this guy's an expert and he's a mormon so get him all the way in on the inside um but he also would buy really expensive things so he was always broke even though he would make big money on selling these forgeries he would then buy like rare books books, and he was buying things so that he could then forge other things later.

[246] Right.

[247] I mean, it's very complicated, and there's a book called The Poet and the Murderer by Simon Worrell, and that is, tells the story of Mark Hoffman, but specifically from the view of him pretending to have discovered poems by Emily Dickinson, and the public library in Amherst, Massachusetts, which is where she was from.

[248] collects money to buy these heretofore unpublished, lost Emily Dickinson poems that were fake.

[249] Yeah.

[250] What a bumer.

[251] He's like a, he, he was like one of the greatest foragers or the, you know, most infamous foragers anyone had ever seen.

[252] Working it.

[253] Uh, he's doing it.

[254] So essentially what happened was he was trying to sell some new set of documents to the church.

[255] Steve Christensen knew a little bit.

[256] it about antiquities and old documents.

[257] And so he was questioning.

[258] He was like, I heard this guy is being a question about the oath of the Freeman.

[259] They're not even sure, like he's under investigation.

[260] We need to look closer at these papers.

[261] Calling him out.

[262] Yeah.

[263] So what he did was he plants a bomb at Steve Christensen's office to kill him.

[264] Then he planted the other one at Gary Sheets House to make it look like it had something to do with CFS instead of anything to do with him.

[265] shit that's fucking tricky yeah i mean this guy is you know yeah tricky he's a trickster uh he was eventually arrested in january of 1986 charged with a total of 27 counts oh including murder forgery possession of an unregistered machine gun and jesus christ yeah that's it literally jesus christ uh and a salamander so he albino salamander albino salamander i know you You can't forget the albino part.

[266] I mean, all of their beliefs for hundreds of years are one thing.

[267] And then he gives him paper that's like, it turns out an albino salamander had a say.

[268] They're like, you know, an angel sounds cooler, so we're just going to stick with that.

[269] They're like, now we need to have a really big meeting.

[270] Then what if we have to start fucking preying to an albino salamander?

[271] I mean, would that ever even have been a choice?

[272] No. They say also, so he had like 600 forgeries that got sold and are in the market where they're still finding them to be.

[273] I was going to ask.

[274] So they're apparently, and he wrote a letter from jail explaining which things that he did were forgeries.

[275] Because some things, obviously, when he started out, he kind of, there were valid ones.

[276] So, but they're saying that they're like, there's some Daniel Boone signatures out there that are fake that, like, there's, there's, because there were hardly any in the first place.

[277] But then Mark Hoffman comes along and suddenly there's four that are in the marketplace, which brings the value down.

[278] right um and it turns out you know three of them aren't real do you think that his forgeries are now worth money a lot of money mm to murderino types yeah or like is there a forgers museum i'd go to that i would too i mean i think overall the historical signatures are going to be worth the most of course because they're like the you know but i feel like some there's got to be like Smithsonian or some kind of thing that's just like you know it's history look at this rat bastard in that department look what happened yeah yeah I just think it's funny that he did it so much and when you see the paper like he would bake the paper in the oven yeah I was gonna ask like a lighter yeah exactly like an old western yeah um all that they found all this you know they found ink that he specifically mixed to match but then the when the um the guy who finally started investigating it forensically he was like the new ones all glow blue underneath a microscope because they're new yeah and so he was just really easily able to once they knew start investigating all of them and just be like none of this is real yeah sorry this letter from betsy ross that's crazy I bet he'd be good at the lettering challenge he might be he's got to have good handwriting he would add in he'd be like I believe that this is a real I don't know where I was going, but anyhow, he initially maintained his innocence, but at a preliminary hearing, the prosecutors showed so much evidence of his forgeries and his debts and all of the evidence linking him to the bombs that instead of risking the death penalty, he pled guilty to two counts of second -degree murder, a count of theft by deception for the salamander letter, and a count of fraud for the sale of the McClellan collection.

[279] was, which was that last collection he was trying to sell when Steve Christensen stepped in.

[280] He confessed all of his forgeries in open court.

[281] He was, in January, 1988, he was sentenced to five years to life in prison.

[282] He's spending life in prison.

[283] Five years.

[284] Wow.

[285] And he's still there.

[286] We can...

[287] Still there.

[288] Wow.

[289] Yeah.

[290] That's Mark Hoffman, everybody.

[291] First, I thought you were going, like, towards the Ted Kaczynski route when I heard about a bomb.

[292] Oh, to be killed by a bomb.

[293] Do you ever open envelopes and you're like, I don't know what this is going to be?

[294] Yes.

[295] Well, that's my moth's thing.

[296] I never think it's a mom, though.

[297] A bomb, though.

[298] Or a mom.

[299] Just a mom coming to tell me to sweep up the kitchen.

[300] Honey, do those dishes.

[301] Oh, what is that fear?

[302] They're just sitting there.

[303] You let him soak for too long.

[304] Yeah.

[305] You can't just let things soak in cold water, Karen.

[306] It's true.

[307] But also, this was the 80s when, like, this was back when you could walk into an office building with a plain package, I feel like, you know, as worrisome as it all sounds, we don't live in that world anymore.

[308] It's like, that was definitely a very pre -9 -11 era.

[309] Yeah, except I, yeah, yeah, but maybe not.

[310] You know what I mean?

[311] Well, I'm scared.

[312] I know, I know.

[313] You can be.

[314] Wow, that's fucked up.

[315] Good job.

[316] Thank you.

[317] Karen, you know I'm all about vintage shopping.

[318] Absolutely.

[319] And when you say vintage, you mean when you physically drive to a store and actually purchase something with cash.

[320] Exactly.

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[336] Goodbye.

[337] Wow.

[338] Now, isn't that a, well, I don't want to say wonderful story, but it is an incredible tale.

[339] And, you know, you don't get a lot of murder and talking salamanders combined.

[340] So I love it.

[341] I absolutely love it.

[342] And I still feel like there's room in the world for a religious.

[343] started with a talking salamander.

[344] Somebody should think about it.

[345] Now, I want to get into George's story, which is also fascinating.

[346] It's the sleepwalking murderer from episode 160.

[347] This one is truly a wild story, and as someone in a relationship with a man who sleepwalks, a little bit personal for me. It's, you know, I live in terror because of this story.

[348] And all I'm saying is that if my boyfriend ends up killing me in his sleep, I want this guest hosting episode of my favorite murder to be played in court.

[349] Now, this story involves murder, there's gambling, marital trouble, someone waking up covered in blood.

[350] It's got it all.

[351] I really, and speaking of waking up covered in blood, I feel like if you wake up covered in anything, you're probably in trouble.

[352] So, and it's just the beginning of a great story.

[353] So let's hear Georgia tell the story now, should we?

[354] So this is mine.

[355] I was originally going to do like a three, three different.

[356] topics on this, three different murders on this subject, but then reading the most famous one, I was like, this is a fucking story in itself.

[357] Okay.

[358] So this is the case of Kenneth Parks, aka the sleepwalking murderer.

[359] Remember?

[360] Yes.

[361] I remember.

[362] Yes, but remember?

[363] Remember?

[364] I feel like this is a combination of several different investigation discovery shows that I've watched.

[365] But I feel, okay, go ahead.

[366] Yeah, no, I, I kind of remember.

[367] it and you first hear it.

[368] It kind of reminds me of like the woman who spilled McDonald's or McDonald's coffee on her lap and you're like, oh, that's a, you know, this legend, that crazy woman.

[369] Yes.

[370] And then you see the documentary about it.

[371] I can't remember what it's called.

[372] And you're like, oh, this is legitimate.

[373] Yes.

[374] So I kind of, ah, you'll have to tell me what you think.

[375] But, all right.

[376] So I got a lot of information from psychology today.

[377] There's an article by a woman named Barrett Brugard.

[378] She's a PhD, obviously, and a bunch of other letters.

[379] Is there an M in there somewhere?

[380] I'm sure there's a big C and little dots and stuff.

[381] She's very smart.

[382] And then also there's a paper called the homicidal synambulism, a case report in the sleep research society.

[383] It's like crazy.

[384] Okay.

[385] Hey, Karen.

[386] Hey, sleepwalking is relatively common in childhood.

[387] Did you know that?

[388] I did not.

[389] Have you ever slept walked?

[390] Not that I know of.

[391] Yeah.

[392] But there's a good chance that I did.

[393] I woke up, was traumatized and then just went back to sleep by myself.

[394] Lots of stuff happened in the middle of the night where my parents.

[395] wouldn't get up because I was very high maintenance in the night time.

[396] Sure.

[397] So my mom was always like, go to bed, go back to sleep.

[398] So about 15 to 20 % of all children's sleepwalk, only about 2 % of children, mostly boys, weirdly, go on to be adult sleepwalkers.

[399] So it's not a huge fucking thing in adults.

[400] So don't try to say that it is.

[401] Don't come at us with sleepwalking.

[402] There have been about 68 cases of homicidal sleepwalking.

[403] Sixty -eight.

[404] Uh -huh.

[405] And like throughout history.

[406] Okay.

[407] And that only goes until 2005 because that's what Wikipedia told me. Got it.

[408] Wikipedia's, I don't know if there's been one since then.

[409] Is that the year everybody stopped doing Wikipedia?

[410] That's when everyone stopped.

[411] Homicidal sombenilism and Wikipedia.

[412] Okay, but this is arguably the most famous one.

[413] May, 1987, we're outside Toronto, Canada.

[414] And here's Kenneth Parks.

[415] He's a 23 -year -old married man. He's married to a woman named Karen.

[416] What's up, Karen?

[417] Hi.

[418] Who she played by in the 1997 TV movie, The Sleepwalker Killing?

[419] 97.

[420] Justine Bateman?

[421] Hillary Swank.

[422] Close.

[423] Same vibe.

[424] Yeah, yeah.

[425] And they had a five -month -old daughter together, and at the time, Ken is under extreme stress.

[426] So the previous summer, Ken, played by a 1997 TV movie, The Sleepwalker Killing.

[427] Chad Lowe.

[428] Charles Easton, which I think is weird.

[429] He's the dude from Nashville.

[430] The show Nashville, there's like the hot country guy.

[431] Sure.

[432] Him.

[433] Okay.

[434] So Kenan developed a gambling problem.

[435] His friends had like taken him gambling to the horse races.

[436] He was like, whatever.

[437] And then he won some money.

[438] And then he was like, oh shit, it's on and couldn't stop fucking...

[439] He got the fucking fever.

[440] He got the horse race fever.

[441] And so he quickly fell into deep fucking debt.

[442] But however these debts, he starts taking money from he and his and Karen's savings.

[443] I think he forges a couple checks as well.

[444] I'm getting a debt stomachache.

[445] Are you okay?

[446] It's just, I know the feeling.

[447] I'm being that in debt.

[448] You're in debt and then you're doing something pretending it's going to solve it when you know deep down, it will not help.

[449] But there's no other way to fix it as quickly as if you did win?

[450] Yes.

[451] I actually, there was one month where I did not have my rent.

[452] And I honestly considered there was somebody that.

[453] I knew, like, very tangentially and through comedy, whose father was a professional gambler.

[454] And I almost called him to say, can I please give you $200 just to see if your dad get turned it into something.

[455] I mean, his dad, if he were any good, I wouldn't say no. I would hope.

[456] But also, the guy would be like, hey, since you never talk to me, go fuck yourself is probably what would have happened.

[457] Wow.

[458] Yeah.

[459] Scary feeling.

[460] Sad solution.

[461] My solution was never get a job.

[462] Isn't that interesting?

[463] Well, Ken's solution is that he began to steal from his employer, where he worked in electronics.

[464] So he's just fucking trying to, you know, win back the money constantly, but he keeps losing it all.

[465] And by the time his employer finds out about the fact that he's been stealing, and he finds out, they find out in March 1987, he's stolen $32 ,000 from them.

[466] Oh, shit.

[467] That's too much money.

[468] Also, that means he's stealing and bedding and stealing and betting.

[469] That means he's in debt probably triple that.

[470] That's just how much he's taken.

[471] Yes.

[472] Obviously, he's fired and he's charged with fraud and, but he's awaiting trial, so he's out.

[473] This is real stress.

[474] Here we go.

[475] This isn't just like, oh, I'm slightly nervous.

[476] And he has a five -month -old daughter too at the same time.

[477] So before getting into this debt, though, Ken had a good marriage to Karen and he had a really good relationship with her parents, 42 -year -old.

[478] mother -in -law, Barbara Ann, who knows how old he is, Dennis Woods, the father -in -law.

[479] He was interestingly 18.

[480] Isn't that neat?

[481] It's kind of, it's a sexy little...

[482] We can do it, ladies, in our 40s.

[483] Happy Galentine's Day.

[484] Marcia.

[485] Cynthia.

[486] Let's see.

[487] Okay, part of the reason why, and her parents fucking adore him, part of that reason is because they had gotten married really young.

[488] And when Karen and Ken first met, she was a runaway.

[489] And Ken convinced her to return home.

[490] So they were like, Ken, thank you so much for getting us our baby back.

[491] And we're so grateful for it.

[492] We love you.

[493] Everything.

[494] And by all accounts, he was a super sweet dude.

[495] Barbara and the mother -in -law called him her gentle giant.

[496] And it kind of seemed like they were this like replacement for his parents because his parent, he wasn't close to his parents ever.

[497] And they kind of weren't involved in his life.

[498] So he, you know, he had this lovely in -law.

[499] set of parents.

[500] Yeah.

[501] You know.

[502] And they said that he was closer with Karen's parents than his own.

[503] Okay.

[504] But after losing his job because of all that fucking money, remember, Ken is unshamed.

[505] That's not true.

[506] He's proud?

[507] He's the opposite of unshamed.

[508] He's deeply shamed.

[509] Completely shamed.

[510] And he can't find a new job.

[511] And so he stops visiting Karen's parents because he's so embarrassed and doesn't want to talk to them about it.

[512] And he does also continue to gamble, which of course makes his.

[513] Karen's marriage fucked up.

[514] So it is an addiction.

[515] It is an addiction.

[516] It's like, 100%.

[517] It's so horrible.

[518] Just the idea of that where it like, it defies logic.

[519] And you're like, look, I'm super broke.

[520] Let me just gamble this money.

[521] It feels like you have hope when you're doing it.

[522] Like I've been to Vegas a few times.

[523] I feel like that could be.

[524] I shouldn't live near anywhere near a place where you can gamble because it's so fun.

[525] Yes.

[526] And you have this like, maybe me feeling.

[527] And that feeling for.

[528] like somebody that's always wanted to be a performer or an actor gets real kicked up when you're just like, is this when I become special?

[529] Like how many times?

[530] The first time I went to Vegas with friends when I moved to L .A., we drove out there.

[531] We got there within, I would say, two hours, I had lost $300.

[532] Wow.

[533] And that I was like, I did not have money.

[534] So I was just like, oh, no, I can't do this.

[535] And then you realize how boring it is there when you don't have money because all there is it gamble and drink.

[536] That's all.

[537] Well, one time in like fucking 2001, I won $300.

[538] So now it's been what, 100 years and I'm still like, but I could maybe win.

[539] I'm one of those winter types.

[540] Right.

[541] The amount of money I've actually lost there is much more.

[542] Is a lot more.

[543] Can I just add one more stories?

[544] Because I won once on one of those oversized machines.

[545] I love those.

[546] And I, it was very odd.

[547] It was like the last day we're going to leave, whatever, stuck in $10.

[548] I won $400.

[549] But you would have thought, the classic me, that I won $4 million.

[550] I was just like, thank you, everyone!

[551] And like reaching out to touch people and stuff.

[552] You grab some woman's flowers that she's just walking by and throw them at yourself.

[553] She's like, those are mine.

[554] Those are my anniversary.

[555] It was the most, and then taking the coins from that oversized thing over to the cashier.

[556] Those dirty, fucking disgusting ass coins.

[557] I was just scared.

[558] I was scared to death.

[559] I was positive that was when the heist was going to take place.

[560] Of course.

[561] They want your $400.

[562] My $400 precious dollars.

[563] Ridiculous.

[564] I still play the lottery, though.

[565] Okay.

[566] It's fun.

[567] It's so fun.

[568] So, yeah, so that's very stressful.

[569] So much fucking money.

[570] He continues to gamble, though, and she's like, dude, bro, what the fuck.

[571] Yeah.

[572] And since he had started gambling the summer before, his personality had completely changed, obviously.

[573] He stopped socializing.

[574] He starts to suffer from pressure headaches.

[575] and he gained 70 pounds.

[576] Oh, no. Yeah, he's just like addiction central.

[577] Dude, I relate.

[578] He suffers from insomnia and he would only sleep for four to six hours a night, which sounds like a lot of sleep time.

[579] I know, that's not bad.

[580] But he slept on a couch a lot and he'd sometimes go entire nights without sleeping at all.

[581] And then he had the fucking baby, so that's like double time non -sleepy times, you know.

[582] He eventually agrees to go to Gamblers Anonymous.

[583] And in that May, he agreed to stop.

[584] gambling and he agreed to tell um both his grandmother about what was going on and karen's parents who was super close to he was like all right we'll go over there on a sunday and i'll confront you know my confront them no no listen you mother fuckers i have a fucking gambling problem you're making me bet on horses right so he agreed to do it and he agrees to tell him about the upcoming trial for fucking fraud that he has going on to so like Shit is fucking bad right now.

[585] So the day, so it's one of those things where it's early in the morning of the day.

[586] So 4 a .m. on Sunday morning, the day he was supposed to, later that day, obviously, go tell his grandmother and his beloved in -laws about what was going on.

[587] So it's May 24th, 1987.

[588] The night before he falls asleep on the couch, watching S &L, at about 4 in the morning, he gets up from the couch.

[589] where he'd been sleeping, puts on his shoes and jacket, walks out the front door, which he left unlocked, which he never fucking did, and he drove the 14 miles to the house of his in -laws in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough.

[590] He drove, he sleep drove.

[591] Yeah.

[592] That's if you believe this.

[593] Oh, okay.

[594] The other thing, too, is like some people are like bullshit.

[595] Right, right.

[596] So when Kenorized at their house, he takes a tire iron from the car trunk, and he uses his key that he has to their house to open the house, goes to the bedroom of his in -laws.

[597] He first strangles his father -in -law, Dennis, until he is unconscious.

[598] Then he proceeds to beat his 42 -year -old mother -in -law, Barbara Ann.

[599] 42 years old.

[600] Forty -two.

[601] He beats her with the tire iron and stabs her repeatedly with a kitchen knife.

[602] Oh, my God.

[603] He then stabs his father -in -law.

[604] Barbara is found in a room five to six feet away from the bedroom, and she had sustained six saloons.

[605] through her chest, one through her shoulder blade, and a fatal wound through her heart.

[606] And now it's fucking awful.

[607] I'm sorry.

[608] Barbara dies, but Dennis survives barely.

[609] Oh, my God.

[610] And there were other kids in the house.

[611] I think a teenager, I don't know who else, because they were young.

[612] They were young.

[613] They had other kids who were under in their teenage years.

[614] And they woke up from the noise.

[615] They start yelling.

[616] But Ken left them alone, and he walked out of the house.

[617] So the kids saw him.

[618] I don't know if they saw, I feel like, or they just heard the noise.

[619] They heard, maybe they saw something.

[620] They all locked themselves in their room.

[621] Oh, yeah.

[622] So, that would make sense.

[623] But he goes to the door and just leaves.

[624] He doesn't try to come towards them or anything like that.

[625] Right.

[626] Very weird.

[627] So it was almost like, this is the mission.

[628] Yeah.

[629] Okay.

[630] So from their house, he drives straight to the police station.

[631] He gets there at 4 .48 .5 a .m. He's covering blood.

[632] The police say he seems distressed and he was shaking.

[633] He kept repeating.

[634] And it's fucking many times that he's.

[635] says this.

[636] I just killed someone with my bare hands.

[637] Oh, my God.

[638] I've just killed two people.

[639] I stabbed them and beat them to death.

[640] It's all my fault.

[641] He says to the police.

[642] Isn't that insane?

[643] Yes.

[644] Police also said that he seemed completely oblivious and not in pain of the fact that he'd severed tendons in both his hands with the knives.

[645] He wasn't even fucking aware of it.

[646] Ew.

[647] I know.

[648] Stephen is gripping his hands so tight.

[649] right now.

[650] He's hiding his hand.

[651] If you hear skin on skin, it's a scene.

[652] That's crazy.

[653] Isn't that fucking fake that?

[654] No. Tendence.

[655] Not being in pain.

[656] I guess like you could say something about like adrenaline, maybe.

[657] Maybe.

[658] Tendons.

[659] That's a bloody mess.

[660] And also you would, you'd still have to be conscious in some ways.

[661] I don't know.

[662] I don't buy that.

[663] I don't know.

[664] No, it's bananas.

[665] I don't want to.

[666] I know.

[667] I. So I. after reading this homicidal sominabolism report synambulist thank you um i believe him and i fucking didn't at first and i was like well bullshit i don't really buy it but after reading that and all the details and stuff and like that particular thing bananas also oh i'll just throw this in really quick to me it seems like if you're faking it you would go home and get back into sleep and be like what do you mean I was up like you would be playing the part right someone who slept walked yeah because usually the picture you have of sleepwalkers is they go out they do something and then they come back but he was bleeding so badly that he could have been like oh i need to get to the hospital how do i like make it seem like that you know what i mean true true so that's just an argument but turning yourself in right you would have just gone to the hospital holy fuck because it what what if you woke up covered in blood i mean it's like it's like that um there's that amazing movie.

[668] It's Farrah Fawcett.

[669] It's basically the same thing.

[670] She wakes up covering blood and doesn't know what happened because she's a blackout drunk.

[671] Oh, shit.

[672] It turns out she got set up.

[673] Oh, fuck.

[674] Spoiler alert.

[675] Okay.

[676] But I can tell you the name in the movie, so I didn't spoil up for you.

[677] No one will ever watch it.

[678] So you can't spoil something.

[679] We're not going to watch.

[680] Okay.

[681] Ken is arrested and he goes to trial to face charges of first degree murder of his mother -in -law and attempted murder of his murder of his father -in -law.

[682] And his defense, they have to say it in a certain way.

[683] It's basically temporary insanity due to sleepwalking.

[684] It's way more fucking involved than that legally, but we don't need to do that right now.

[685] Right.

[686] You get it.

[687] That's all I get.

[688] That's right.

[689] While in prison can undergo all these sleep tests and psychological tests.

[690] There's an EEG scan while he's sleeping that shows that he had some abnormal brain activity during sleep.

[691] So he did legitimately have a sleep thing and periods of partial awakenings, indicative of parisomnia.

[692] And it's fucking, I mean, I read a lot about this shit and like sleepwalking and sleep talking and people actually committing crimes.

[693] And, you know, a lot of them seem like, I don't know about that.

[694] But this one seemed legit.

[695] Yeah.

[696] He was studied for months by team of psychologists.

[697] And they determined that he was in an acute state of emotional turmoil leading up to the attack.

[698] And that's what caused him to lash out and kill these people that he loved and really had nothing to gain by killing them.

[699] Right.

[700] And there was no anger or anything like that involved.

[701] It was just extreme stress.

[702] Well, and they, he hadn't told them yet.

[703] They didn't know.

[704] His wife is the one that knew.

[705] So it seems like if you were going to do something to try to remove the fact from your existence, just go upstairs and kill your wife.

[706] I mean, to me, that would be a, that's a really good point.

[707] Thanks.

[708] You're welcome.

[709] And like, yeah, that's a good point.

[710] It's almost like the thing he was so stressed about, which is telling his parent -in -laws is the thing he acted out on.

[711] Yes.

[712] Because that was what was in his brain.

[713] His brain wasn't functioning properly.

[714] And it was like neuron to neuron, go do this thing.

[715] It's like the fixation of if you get rid of them, you don't have to tell them.

[716] Right.

[717] Right.

[718] You can see where like the fucked up brain thing messaging would be there.

[719] So let's see.

[720] Since there's allegedly no way to fake an EEG result, and since Ken had appeared to feel no pain when he arrived at the police station, it is determined that he was sleepwalking when he attacked his in -laws.

[721] So, but there's like kind of some weird shit.

[722] Like Karen said she had never seen Ken sleepwalk, which I feel like she would have.

[723] Right.

[724] She did say he was a really deep sleeper, and sometimes she would talk to him, to her in his sleep.

[725] His mother said she remembered only one incident of Ken sleepwalking as a child when his brother grabbed his legs as he like, crum.

[726] rolled out of a window.

[727] Oh, shit.

[728] I know.

[729] So, like, there was something going on there.

[730] And Penn's grandfather and a lot of his family members slept walked and had some sleep issues, which it is hereditary, which I found interesting.

[731] And, yeah, children whose parents are sleepwalkers are two to three times more likely to become sleepwalkers.

[732] Okay.

[733] Bananas.

[734] And my brother slept walked a little bit in his youth.

[735] And, yeah, I don't know.

[736] I did a thing one time, and it was purely out of stress, but I wasn't, I was trying to to go to sleep and the stress built up and then I just jumped up and ran and it was one of the weirdest things I've ever done because I couldn't really it was when I was still married and my was like I don't know I have to get out I have to get out your body was like clean sleep clean sleep get out get out and you get out yeah it was super weird and it was it was just from like I can't deal with this pressure anymore yeah I think stress will do that to you yeah um at trial can says he didn't remember any of the details of the attack, he said he remembered falling asleep on the couch, sometimes after midnight, his fucking next recollection is his next thing he remembers seeing is opening his eyes and seeing his mother -in -law's frightened face.

[737] And her eyes and mouth are open.

[738] And while he's in prison, he is distraught and devastated and he's mourning this and he just feels horrible.

[739] Karen's with him during the trial.

[740] Oh.

[741] Can says that after seeing his mother -in -law's face, he just sat there.

[742] He didn't, he just like almost like woke up then.

[743] And then he heard the kids yelling.

[744] And he says he thought the kids were in trouble.

[745] So he said he yelled kids, kids, kids.

[746] But the kids said they only heard like grunting animal noises.

[747] So he thinks like he's in a dream.

[748] He's talking and saying these words, but they, but that's almost like, that's what he thought.

[749] It's the way somebody would if they were sleeping.

[750] Right.

[751] Thinking that they're saying something.

[752] Totally.

[753] And so also, for some reason, Ken picked up the phone at the house and left it off the hook and also walked up to the bedroom of the kids but didn't go in or try to at all.

[754] So that's just a weird little, I don't know.

[755] Sorry.

[756] Like, as he was leaving?

[757] I don't know if it was before or after.

[758] I think before he left, he went to the kids room.

[759] I don't know with the phone.

[760] Yeah.

[761] On Ontario Supreme Court jury deliberated for nine hours before finding Kenneth, Parks not guilty.

[762] Wow.

[763] The judge upheld the ruling saying that the state had failed to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that Parks was aware of his actions, which fucking upset a lot of people.

[764] A lot of people call bullshit on it.

[765] I mean, there's really no way to tell.

[766] But based on what I read, I feel like it's true, but am I just like being foolish?

[767] Jesus Christ, I just saw something out of the corner.

[768] What?

[769] Is someone walking by?

[770] Oh.

[771] Well, you know, it's funny.

[772] To me, this seems like, like you're saying, the lady that McDonald's, lady that at first pass of course you say that because that sounds like the ultimate excuse the best excuse it sounds like the beginning of a date line totally he was sleepwalking and there are a bunch there are a few of those that are they're I mean it's almost like it to me it kind of reminds you the staircase where it's like he says that she fell down this you know and it's like of course he said that he fucking killed her but you know but and that's almost the this one's almost worse that a fucking that he was sleepwalking it's like bullshit right but then like like Like, what if it's true?

[773] Right.

[774] What if it's true and what are the, what could actually support that?

[775] Like, and those people took all that evidence and for nine hours worked through it and went, yeah, he didn't do it.

[776] But at the same time, it's like, but he did still do it.

[777] Are you not culpable at all in your sleep?

[778] Like, he, is there some kind of like manslaughter or something, you know, like he just gets to leave?

[779] He's done.

[780] Well, but he did go to jail, you said, right?

[781] Well, just during the trial.

[782] Oh, oh.

[783] Yeah.

[784] Yeah.

[785] I don't know.

[786] I mean, that's horrible.

[787] Yeah.

[788] Yeah.

[789] What do you say?

[790] Yeah.

[791] Only he knows.

[792] I mean, like, only he knows.

[793] Totally.

[794] I do know that they didn't stay married only because a murderino fucking emailed us and said that she was friends with this girl when she was younger and went over to her mom and stepdad's house before and she told her about it.

[795] So they weren't married anymore.

[796] Well, how could you be though?

[797] No, totally.

[798] Would you?

[799] Even if it was the love your life, you absolutely believed he was innocent.

[800] That's just so hard.

[801] He's not innocent.

[802] He still killed your parents.

[803] But, I mean, like, that it wasn't an intentional plan.

[804] God, can you imagine sleeping next to him?

[805] I mean, Jesus.

[806] Well, that alone.

[807] That alone.

[808] We're just like, yeah, that's, it's.

[809] I've punched Vince in my sleep before.

[810] Have you?

[811] Yeah.

[812] Like, having a dream about a fight.

[813] I mean, punched him.

[814] It's so bad.

[815] And I'll sometimes talk.

[816] Mostly yell.

[817] yell at my mom.

[818] Oh, yeah?

[819] My son.

[820] But he did end up, I, they're so hard to find any information.

[821] The most recent thing I found was that he was running for a spot on the district school board in 2006, which mentioned that he had six kids ages four to 19 in 2006.

[822] So he was in another relationship at some point.

[823] Right.

[824] Yeah.

[825] And like, you can't find anything else.

[826] He probably just wants to live his life.

[827] And if he fucking didn't do it on purpose, great.

[828] But also, like, can you imagine, like, knowing your past you, it's, it's.

[829] crazy.

[830] It's horrifying.

[831] It's crazy.

[832] It's horrifying.

[833] And that is the case of Kenneth Parks, aka the sleepwalking murderer.

[834] Wow.

[835] The fuck.

[836] Yeah, that's...

[837] I mean, because there's ones we do where it's like, they you describe their childhood and it's the worst thing you've ever heard.

[838] So then when they become killers, then you're like, well, I it doesn't justify it, but I see how A plus B will see.

[839] Right.

[840] But, so this is a version of that.

[841] It is because you're like, you can imagine being so under so much stress brought on by yourself.

[842] That's the other thing too is like the stress he brought on was by himself.

[843] Yes.

[844] So it's also still like, well, you're culpable for that.

[845] Yeah.

[846] Are you culpable for the murder?

[847] I mean, for the things that happened because of your choices and actions.

[848] Yes.

[849] I mean, it is, I mean, this is a real like conundrum in that way where to be, can you imagine being on that jury?

[850] Oh, fuck shit.

[851] Oh, gross.

[852] And probably that you, I bet there was sleepwalk right out of that second jury.

[853] I'd just be like, Sorry.

[854] I don't believe in sleepwalking.

[855] Goodbye.

[856] Don't believe in it.

[857] Oh, my God.

[858] I think it's an urban myth.

[859] I mean, I can't imagine staying married to the person after that.

[860] No, no, you couldn't.

[861] You couldn't.

[862] That's too much to ask.

[863] Oh, my God.

[864] Fuck, man. Horrible.

[865] That was heavy.

[866] Sorry.

[867] Sorry, I just told you a horrible murder story.

[868] Oh, you mean like the theme of this podcast we've been doing for three years?

[869] That's right.

[870] Yeah, wow.

[871] Yeah.

[872] is a rough story to hear, I know, but I think it's very interesting and also very comforting to hear someone else have difficulty pronouncing some nambulant.

[873] That is a word I will never be able to say correctly, and it's nice that I can hear other people struggle with it as well.

[874] So this is the end of me guest hosting.

[875] I hope you've had a wonderful time.

[876] I hope you enjoyed these stories as much as I did.

[877] And if you want to find me, again, I'm Bridger Weiner, Wienager.

[878] I host I Said No Gifts here on exactly right every Thursday.

[879] And now I'm going to say a phrase that I just thought of and that I plan to trademark.

[880] Stay sexy and don't get murdered.

[881] Elvis, do you want a cookie?