Temple of Death (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

[0] On the morning of August 10th, 1991, in a little rural town in Arizona, two women walked across a parking lot toward a Buddhist temple.

[1] They were there to prepare a meal for the monks who lived inside.

[2] As they walked, the women noticed that none of the monks were outside meditating or gardening, which was strange.

[3] And when they reached the front door, not only was it locked, which was strange, there was also this huge puddle of water forming in front of it, which they just couldn't understand.

[4] The women sensed something was off, but they shrugged and left the front door and found an open door on the side of the building and went inside.

[5] Minutes later, those women would come running back outside, hysterical screaming for help.

[6] This story includes graphic descriptions of violence.

[7] As such, listener discretion is advised.

[8] But before we get into today's story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious Delivered in Story format, and you come to the right podcast because that's all we do.

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[12] I'm Dan Tibersky.

[13] In 2011, something strange began to happen at a high school in upstate New York, A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms, and spreading fast.

[14] What's the answer?

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

[16] Hysterical.

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

[18] Binge all episodes of Hesterical early and ad -free on Wondery Plus.

[19] Okay, let's get into today's story.

[20] Early on the morning of Friday, August 9th, 1991, in a small town in south central Arizona, a man stepped out of his home and stood quietly on the doorstep.

[21] His face turned to the east, where the...

[22] sun was just starting to show above the horizon.

[23] Even though he had gotten up early so he could get some gardening in before the real heat of the day set in, now that he was actually outside, he showed absolutely no sign of hurrying.

[24] His unlined face and dark eyes were serene as he watched the first rays of light spreading over the desert that bordered one side of the property where he lived and the cotton fields that bordered the other side.

[25] Once the sun was up, the man stood with his eyes closed, still as a statue, for several more minutes.

[26] taking in the sounds of the world waking up around him.

[27] He could hear the hum of insects along with birds cooing and scratching in the dirt for seeds.

[28] He was also aware of the steady rhythm of his own breathing and the movement of a very slight breeze through the branches of the nearby cottonwood trees he had planted two years ago.

[29] For 36 -year -old Buddhist monk Perush canthong, these early morning hours that he could spend alone in his garden were often the most peaceful and reflective part of his day.

[30] Now, opening his eyes, Perush turned his attention to the narrow path along the side of the single -story white stucco building with the red roof that he and five other monks called home.

[31] When Perush had first arrived in Arizona from his native Thailand eight years ago, he had led a small Buddhist community in the state capital of Phoenix.

[32] But back in 1985, after the community had scraped together enough money to buy these five acres of rural farmland located 20 miles west of Phoenix, Perush had worked tirelessly to collect the money that allowed them to build this modest temple, which was called Wat Prom Kunaram.

[33] Since opening its doors two years ago, the temple had become an important site of worship for the 1 ,300 members of Arizona's scattered Thai Buddhist community.

[34] And as the abbot of the temple, an abbot is the leader of a monastery, Perush oversaw not only the services, classes, and festivals that the temple offered its worshippers, but he also oversaw the training and education of the five monks and three novices and temple helpers who currently lived there.

[35] Stepping away from the door he had been standing in that led back into the temple's dining room, kitchen, and simple bedrooms, Perush adjusted his bright saffron orange robe and began walking along the narrow path that ran the length of the temple.

[36] He listened to the gentle slap of his sandals as he slowly walked past the eggplant, basil, lemon grass, and mint that he had planted alongside the mango, banana, pomegranate, and loquot trees.

[37] Coming to a stop near the end of the path, Perush knelt down in front of one of the many little shrines that dotted the garden.

[38] As he knelt, he picked up a handful of dry soil and let it run through his fingers.

[39] Back in Thailand, August was the wettest month of the year when rice farmers could expect 19 inches of rain.

[40] And until his move to Arizona, at the age of 28, Perouche marked his country's rainy season by staying indoors, so there was no chance that he and his fellow monks might accidentally step on and damage any of the rice seedlings growing in the nearby paddies.

[41] But out here in the Arizona desert, things were totally different.

[42] Water was scarce, and so it was a very precious commodity.

[43] If your property met certain minimum size requirements, you could sign up for a weekly water distribution that was delivered to each property through an irrigation system of pipes and gates.

[44] While the temple property was too small to qualify for this water allotment, Perush had worked out an agreement with his neighbor, Betty Craft, whose property also failed on its own to meet the minimum size requirements, but together their two properties were big enough to sign up for a weekly water distribution, and so they did that, and Perush and Betty shared the water between them.

[45] He grinned as he thought of Betty.

[46] She loved gardening as much as he did.

[47] He'd see her that night since Friday was the night that the town posted the weekly water distribution schedule.

[48] He knew Betty always worried that he might forget to close the headgate on the temple's property, which prevented their shared water allotment from flowing through to the next property along the irrigation line.

[49] And so on whatever day they were scheduled to get their water, Betty almost always called Perush just to make sure that he had adjusted the headgate and opened his hoses so they wouldn't waste or lose even a single drop of their shared water.

[50] That was good, though.

[51] Perush always enjoyed comparing notes with Betty, and he would find out this evening how her fig trees were doing.

[52] Maybe that was something he should add next year to the gardens at the temple.

[53] Collecting a handful of basil and lemon grass, Perush felt the air growing hotter, and he knew that soon he would hear the sounds of activity inside the monastery as the monks began their morning routine of meditation and work around the temple grounds.

[54] As he enjoyed his last few minutes of solitude, Perush was again thankful for the temple's remote location.

[55] In Thailand, practically the entire population was Buddhist, but in Arizona, the sight of Thai monks in their bright orange robes with their shaved heads was unusual, and it had drawn a lot of public attention and curiosity at the temple in Phoenix.

[56] But here, out in Waddell, the temple's location, was so far away from the center of town that many of the town's 1 ,500 residents didn't even know it existed.

[57] And those who did, like Betty, they had come to welcome the site of the monks in their orange robes quietly going about their business.

[58] And so, Perush and the other monks and time members of the temple were all basically left alone to meditate and practice their religion.

[59] At the core of their religion, Buddhism is the belief that human life is one of suffering and the only way to achieve enlightenment or nirvana is through meditation, spiritual and physical labor, and good behavior.

[60] Buddhists also believe in reincarnation that you are reborn again and again after death until you reach that final state of enlightenment and you are released from suffering.

[61] Buddhist monks play a key role in the religion by living a very simple life that allows them to meditate not only on their own path to enlightenment and acceptance of the present moment, but on enlightenment, peace, and non -violence for all people.

[62] By 11 a .m., the temperature outside had reached 101 degrees Fahrenheit, and not even the cottonwood trees could shade perush from the heat.

[63] Soon, it would be time for the monks to eat their single meal of the day.

[64] It would be made and served at the temple by a member of the community whose gift of time and food would count as service merits, along the path to enlightenment.

[65] After lunch, Perush would check in with the temple's newest resident, a 75 -year -old nun from Thailand who had moved into the temple just three weeks earlier.

[66] Visiting her was her 17 -year -old grandson and novice monk, an American high school student named Matthew.

[67] Perush stood up and brushed the dirt from his knees and robes, and then he turned and walked back down the path to the side entrance of the temple that he had been standing in earlier.

[68] Before stepping back inside, he took off his sand, and he enjoyed the smell of cooking rice wafting out from the kitchen.

[69] Once inside, Perush closed the door behind him, and then he stood there quietly for a moment.

[70] He let go of all the noise he was hearing both inside and outside of his mind.

[71] Then he opened his eyes and stepped into the nearby kitchen, and he left his handful of freshly picked herbs on the counter.

[72] At 8 .30 a .m. the next day, Saturday, August 10th, Betty Craft called the temple.

[73] At the local well last night, she and Perouche had seen that their water distribution was scheduled for that day, the 10th.

[74] But that morning, Betty had found out that the distribution was going to start a bit earlier than usual.

[75] So she was calling Perush to let him know, and she wanted to remind him again to make sure the temple's water headgate was closed.

[76] But after dialing the number to the temple, the phone didn't ring.

[77] It was just silent.

[78] Betty didn't know why this was, and after trying again and still getting nothing, she decided to just hop in her car and make the short drive over to the temple to tell Perush in person.

[79] A few minutes later, Betty drove through the open gates of the concrete wall that surrounded the temple's five -acre lot, and she pulled into the temple's parking area and parked her car.

[80] Getting out, she walked over to the side entrance that she knew led into the monk's living quarters.

[81] Once there, Betty quickly saw that the temple's hoses were open.

[82] Water was running out of them.

[83] But it struck her as odd that Perush had not arranged the hoses so that all the water would run into his gardens.

[84] Instead, some of the water had started to collect on the little patio right outside the door and was even overflowing into the parking lot down below.

[85] Betty felt even more puzzled when she knocked on the side door and didn't get an answer.

[86] The same thing happened when she walked around to the front entrance that led directly into the large square temple sanctuary where the monks conducted services.

[87] Not only did no one answer either door, but everything inside the building seemed unusually quiet.

[88] But not wanting to enter the monk's space without an invitation and checking once more that the grounds were empty, Betty shrugged her shoulders.

[89] At least she knew that the temple's hoses were on and the head gate was closed.

[90] So she jumped back into her car and returned to her own property.

[91] Two hours later, at 10 .40 a .m., another car drove through the open gates of the temple into the front parking lot.

[92] Inside the car were two Thai women who were friends and who were both members of the temple.

[93] They were there to make the monks' Saturday meal.

[94] When the car came to a stop, the two women looked around and noticed something strange.

[95] There was not a single person outside working in the vegetable gardens or walking on the meditation paths.

[96] The women figured there must be a reason for this, so they just got out and headed for the front door of the temple.

[97] But before they could reach the door, they had to walk around this large puddle of water that had formed in front of the temple from all of the water pouring out of the open hoses.

[98] The women wondered why the hoses had not been adjusted to aim in other directions, but ultimately they ignored the growing puddle, and one of the women reached out and grabbed the front door handle, but when she pulled it, she saw it was locked.

[99] This was now the third irregularity that the two women had spotted in the span of just a couple of minutes.

[100] Fifty -one -year -old Chawi Borders and her friend, Primshat -Hash, were starting to get a bad feeling about what they were seeing at the temple.

[101] Something just felt off.

[102] But they quickly reminded themselves that they needed to just focus on what they were doing at the temple, not what the monks might be doing.

[103] They were there to make lunch and earn service merits.

[104] And besides, the two women agreed that the monks must just be inside studying or meditating.

[105] And as for the water and locked door, the monks must have just forgotten to turn off the irrigation system and open the front door to the sanctuary.

[106] So the two women left the front door and headed around to the unlocked side entrance.

[107] They took off their shoes outside and then stepped inside.

[108] The room they walked into was the dining room.

[109] To their left was a door that led to the kitchen.

[110] Straight in front of them was that large square temple worship area.

[111] And then to their right was a hallway that led down to five bedrooms that made up the monk's living quarters.

[112] The women turned left and went straight into the kitchen and got to work preparing the monk's lunch.

[113] But they hadn't been there for very long before Primshot thought she'd discovered the reason for at least some of the irregularities they had witnessed that morning.

[114] As she had walked from the kitchen back toward the side entrance to go back outside and get something from the car, she had glanced quickly down the hallway that led to the monk's five bedrooms, and at the front of that hallway, close to where she was, was a small sitting area with a couple of sofas inside.

[115] And in this sitting area, Primshot saw the monks were lying quietly on the floor between these two sofas.

[116] After getting what she needed from the car, Primshot returned to the kitchen and told her friend Chawi that she had just seen the monks in the sitting area and that they were either sleeping or praying.

[117] Not wanting to disturb them, the two women went about their meal preparation very quietly and at some point when Chawi thought she heard the faint ring of a phone, she immediately stepped out of the kitchen into the dining room to answer the phone before the sound could interrupt the monk's concentration or rest.

[118] But when she put the phone to her ear, she heard nothing.

[119] thinking she must have picked up the wrong phone as there was two phones in the dining room.

[120] She walked across the room to the other phone and put that phone to her ear, but this as well was silent.

[121] But as she stood there with this silent phone pressed her ear, she looked at the first phone she had picked up and she could tell right away that the cord connecting the receiver to the phone had been cut.

[122] Then she pulled the phone in her hand away from her ear and she saw the same thing.

[123] the phone's cord was cut.

[124] As she realized that clearly she had not heard a phone ring because now she's seeing, neither phone would work.

[125] Chawi just happened to glance at the sitting room at the front of the hallway where the monks were lying on the floor in various attitudes of prayer.

[126] And almost absently, she noticed that mixed among the colorful saffron robes that the monks wore was the long white shirt and pants worn by the elderly nun who had joined the monastery with her grandson just a few weeks ago.

[127] Chawi was suddenly very uneasy.

[128] She knew that could not possibly be right.

[129] It was absolutely forbidden that a male monk who took strict vows of celibacy would ever lie down next to a woman, let alone lie close enough that their bodies or robes would be touching.

[130] As Chawi stood there frozen, her friend, Primshot, stepped out into the dining room as well and began to let out this terrible wail because something else was horribly wrong with what the two women women were looking at, there was blood everywhere in the sitting area.

[131] There was blood on the floor, on the walls, and on the two sofas.

[132] She struck him with her motor vehicle.

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

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

[135] 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.

[136] What happens next?

[137] Depends on who you ask.

[138] Was it a crime of passion?

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

[140] This was clearly an intentional act.

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

[142] Or a corrupt police cover -up.

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

[144] Everyone had an opinion.

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

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

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

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

[149] Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

[150] If you're listening to this podcast, then chances are good.

[151] are a fan of the Strange Dark and Mysterious.

[152] And if that's the case, then I've got some good news.

[153] We just launched a brand new Strange Dark and Mysterious podcast called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries.

[154] And as the name suggests, it's a show about medical mysteries, a genre that many fans have been asking us to dive into for years, and we finally decided to take the plunge and the show is awesome.

[155] In this free weekly show, we explore bizarre, unheard of diseases, strange medical mishaps, unexplainable deaths, and everything in between.

[156] Each story is totally true and totally terrifying.

[157] Go follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts, and if you're a prime member, you can listen early and ad -free on Amazon Music.

[158] It was 11 .09 a .m. that Saturday morning, when the emergency call came in to the dispatcher at the Maricopa County Sheriff's Department.

[159] Chawi and Primshot, who were totally hysterical, had run barefoot to the house of a neighbor who had called 911.

[160] By 11 .21 a .m., the first law enforcement officer had skidded to a stop in the temple parking lot, and three minutes later, four more officers had arrived.

[161] By 1145 a .m., the perimeter of the temple grounds had been marked off with yellow crime scene tape, and the parking lot was full of police and medical personnel.

[162] And the news had already spread like wildfire through the Buddhist community and among local, state, and national media.

[163] It was also making headlines back in Thailand, because the temple was now the site of the worst mass murder in Arizona history.

[164] Inside that small sitting room, police had found nine people, every single inhabitant of the temple, including the abbot, Perouche, all of them dead.

[165] Physical evidence at the scene did not paint a complete picture, but it did allow police to establish a few theories about what happened.

[166] There had been at least two killers.

[167] On the carpet near the victims were 17 -22 caliber casings, and three spent shotgun shells.

[168] A nearby storage room had been sprayed with a fire extinguisher, and in the foam on the floor, police counted two different sized sets of footprints made by people wearing combat -style boots.

[169] The small monastic cubicles where the monks slept had been ransacked and vandalized.

[170] The sleeping mats had been pulled off of the wooden bed frames, and what little furniture there was had been broken and knocked to the ground.

[171] Police were also able to determine that the killers had found the temple safe, but they had not been able to open it.

[172] What puzzled investigators was the fact that the temple's worship area, which was that large square room, not far from the sitting area where the bodies had been found, appeared to be untouched, despite the fact that in the worship area, right near the altar, was a visible money tree with at least 20 bills still clipped to the branches.

[173] So if this had been a robbery, why didn't the robbers take those bills?

[174] Whoever had committed the crime had also left another clue behind.

[175] Overlaying the stench of clotting blood, spent ammunition, and human flesh that had already begun to decompose, there was also the smell of something else that was completely out of place in a Buddhist monastery, the stale but strong scent of cigarette smoke.

[176] Even as the first responders to the crime scene went about their grisly work of photographing the dead and collecting evidence, the sheriff of Maricopa County, 55 -year -old Tom Agnos, knew his department was in way over its head trying to deal with a mass murder.

[177] So he immediately began the process of pulling together a multi -agency task force to help investigate the crime, process the crime scene, and collect and analyze any forensic evidence.

[178] But before the police could even write up their preliminary crime scene report and just hours after the bodies had been discovered, along with the media, hundreds of members of the Asian community in and around Phoenix were gathering outside the temple wall.

[179] In the 101 degree Fahrenheit heat, reporters had already begun to broadcast and air interviews putting forward wildly different and competing theories about possible motives for the killings.

[180] Some reports speculated that the murders were a robbery or a hate crime directed at the Asian and Buddhist communities.

[181] Others speculated that the killings were gang -related or drug -related, that maybe the temple itself or some of the monks or temple residents had direct connections to the growing trade and heroin coming out of Thailand into the United States.

[182] Meanwhile, based on their discussions with Betty Kraft, who had met with Perush at the local well in Waddell at 930 p .m. on the night of August 9th, along with findings from the medical examiner's office, the investigators were able to narrow down the time of the murders to between 2 and 4 a .m. on the morning of August 10th.

[183] But despite all the evidence of violence and destruction left at the crime scene, By August 12th, two days after the mass murder, the best lead that investigators had was just a report of a red SUV, a Ford Bronco with a white stripe that had been seen by several different witnesses driving away from the area where the temple was located around the time that the murders were likely to have been committed.

[184] Over the next few weeks, more than 60 law enforcement personnel would follow up on more than 500 leads, including that report of the red Ford Bronco, but none of those leads would pan out.

[185] Officers dug into the private lives of the nine victims, but they just could not come up with any person or group who might have wanted one of them or all of them dead.

[186] Members of the Asian community had raised a $10 ,000 reward for information leading to the killers, but no one had come forward with anything useful.

[187] But almost exactly one month after the murders, the task force would receive what they believed was their first real break in the case.

[188] On Monday, September 10th, Police in Tucson, Arizona called the Special Task Force headquarters in Phoenix saying they had just gotten a tip related to the mass murder.

[189] The tip had come in that morning from a 24 -year -old patient at the Tucson Psychiatric Institute who had checked himself into the facility after attempting suicide.

[190] The patient, who gave police several false names before giving them his real name, Michael Lawrence McGraw, was known in his hometown neighborhood of South Tucson by yet another name, Crazy Mike.

[191] He told Tucson police that he had something to say about, quote, some kind of murders that happened in Phoenix at the Buddhist Temple.

[192] As soon as they got this tip, investigators drove to Tucson and went through the administrative process of getting Mike released from the psychiatric hospital so they could drive him back to Phoenix for questioning.

[193] Once that was done and Crazy Mike was in Phoenix, investigators at the task force headquarters spent the next three days questioning him during interrogations that sometimes lasted longer than 12 hours at a stretch.

[194] Between sessions, Mike was taken to a four -star Sheridan hotel and treated to room service, but he was never allowed to sleep for more than a few hours at a stretch, and he did not have a lawyer with him for the interrogations.

[195] Eventually, Crazy Mike confessed to the Temple murders, although audio recordings of the interrogation showed that Mike needed and got a lot of help from his interrogators before he actually got the details of the crime straight.

[196] On September 13th, three days after Mike had been brought in for questioning, police had arrested four other men from Tucson that Mike had said were also involved in the killings.

[197] All four of the accused were acquaintances of Mike, and all four were subjected to the same interrogation techniques that detectives had employed when they had questioned Mike.

[198] And three of the four men confessed to the murders and were immediately charged with multiple homicides, The fourth man had a solid alibi and just refused to yield to what the courts would later describe as questionable interrogation techniques by the task force.

[199] But by late September, the case against the so -called Tucson Four, which was Crazy Mike and the three other men who confessed, quickly fell apart.

[200] Each of the suspects recanted their confessions, saying they were, quote, coerced by investigators who frightened them, gave them details about the case, and told them that their friends had already implicated them in the