285 - MFM Guest Host Picks #8: Kyle Russell (kikiwithkiki)

[0] This is exactly right.

[1] Hello and welcome to my favorite murder.

[2] I've always wanted to say that.

[3] Hey guys, it's Kyle Russell, otherwise known as the lip -sync assassin Kiki with Kiki from TikTok and Instagram.

[4] Y 'all, I can't tell you how excited I am to be jumping in with the MFM and the Exactly Right Network's guest host picks series, which is kind of a tongue twister.

[5] I think, as with most of us listeners, my MFM obsession started with a cautious listen.

[6] You know, the kind where you're not really sure if you're ready to purchase, you're just trying it off for size.

[7] But I've been hearing great things about the podcast, so I decided to give it a listen.

[8] And thank goodness there were 12 episodes to binge because I was hooked.

[9] Not just because I'm a true crime junkie, but because of our queen's razor -sharp humor and ability to make you instantly feel like you're part of the family.

[10] And then the lip sinks happened.

[11] I started doing the lip sinks because I kept hearing people on TikTok, lip syncing to their favorite comedic scenes, and then the light bulb just went off.

[12] At first, I was only going to do duet versions where another person would play the opposite Karen or Georgia, but then I realized there were parts from each person's scene that were just as hilarious the other.

[13] So I started doing both, and the Red Cap Georgia was born.

[14] So truly, from the bottom of my heart, thank you all for indulging my silliness.

[15] All right, everyone.

[16] So this week, I'm taking us all the way back to 2017 with episode 90, peak experience.

[17] Now, this one really sticks with me because of my love of scary movies and stories.

[18] So someone get Ed and Lorraine Warren on the horn because we're talking about the Amityville horror murders.

[19] I've seen all the adaptations of this movie, And let me tell you, nothing scares me like possession, because it's totally in the realm of maybe kind of sorter could happen, possibly.

[20] We just don't know.

[21] Demons and ghosts aside, it was awesome to hear the facts about the Defeo case without the supernatural Hollywood veneer we see on film.

[22] But the facts are still just as terrifying.

[23] So here's Georgia telling us the tale of the Amityville horror Defeoio.

[24] murders.

[25] Are you first or my first?

[26] I think it's you student.

[27] I think it's me too.

[28] Oh yeah.

[29] Yeah, yeah.

[30] Are we counting that?

[31] Yeah.

[32] We're counting what happens to us.

[33] We're counting what we decide.

[34] Yeah, exactly.

[35] And I'm going to go first.

[36] All right.

[37] Have a peak experience with this one.

[38] All right.

[39] It's October.

[40] Everyone's favorite month.

[41] It's fucking Halloween time.

[42] Listen.

[43] Let's do this.

[44] It's like you're giving me a sales pitch.

[45] in a voice that says, I'm not interested.

[46] I'm not interested in working with you.

[47] Well, I did this murder because I wanted to do it.

[48] And then I realized I could fucking tag it on to the fact that it's Halloween time.

[49] Oh, yeah.

[50] But it's very loose.

[51] So I don't, I'm not, I'm not married to it.

[52] You know what I mean?

[53] Got it.

[54] And I also watched this, the way I actually did think of doing this is I watched this movie on Netflix, like a Netflix movie that I had heard nothing about called Little Evil that ended up being so fucking good.

[55] Good.

[56] It's basically if the kid from, like, if Satan's spawn, the spawn of Satan had a mother and the mother was Evangeline Lily and she married a man who became the spawn of Satan's stepdad and it is Adam Scott.

[57] Oh.

[58] And it's so charming and so cute and funny.

[59] I don't know how this just like went under the radar.

[60] And Bridget Everett is like his sidekick.

[61] Wow.

[62] It's such a charming movie.

[63] So it's like a, it's like comedy.

[64] It's a dark comedy.

[65] That's awesome.

[66] It's so good.

[67] So please go watch it.

[68] And then I thought, oh, that's fun.

[69] So here is, here's the story, the real story behind the Amityville Horror.

[70] Yes.

[71] You ready for this?

[72] Okay.

[73] Just really quick.

[74] And I know I've said this a thousand times.

[75] The hardback book of the Amityville Horror.

[76] So it's shaped like a paperback, but it had a hard.

[77] white cover.

[78] Huh.

[79] Was the book in my grammar school library that I checked out so many times Sister Rita Rose got mad at me?

[80] I forgot that it was that book and now I feel like I've stolen a murder from you.

[81] You have not?

[82] Okay.

[83] And I celebrate this and I'm thrilled.

[84] Okay.

[85] I want to tell baby Karen, a little Karen, about this story.

[86] Well, she's right here.

[87] Well, I'm going to tell her right now.

[88] No, I don't want you to.

[89] That's what she's like.

[90] All right.

[91] So, of course, everyone knows about the Amity.

[92] horror the movie.

[93] It's this haunted house.

[94] It's like, you know, inhabited by Satan and all this bullshit.

[95] But I don't know.

[96] People maybe don't know that it's actually based on an actual story that happened before the haunting.

[97] That's right.

[98] I was a huge fan of the book.

[99] Me and Sister Rita Rose.

[100] What I loved about the book is the fact, or this story, whether or not it's true, is it starts out as, oh, they find out this horrible thing happened in their house.

[101] But then they find out that there's something else going on.

[102] So they, but that could completely be for like the book and movie.

[103] Who knows if that part is real?

[104] I'll tell you.

[105] I'll fucking tell you.

[106] Sweet.

[107] Yeah.

[108] Here we go.

[109] Yeah.

[110] All right.

[111] So the family, the Defeo family, they consist of Ronald Defeo Seniorys 44 and his wife, Luis, 42.

[112] Ronald is a car salesman at the family dealership, super fucking successful.

[113] Mob ties, maybe, probably, pretty much definitely.

[114] I mean, don't, don't all Italians have mob ties?

[115] eyes.

[116] Oh, my God.

[117] Oh, no, she just defended a quarter of our listeners.

[118] How dare you?

[119] So the random fucking car dealership is doing so well in Brooklyn that the Defeo family is able to move from their apartment in Brooklyn to a three -story colonial in the charming town of Amityville on Long Island, about an hour outside of the city.

[120] Do the whole thing in that voice.

[121] Okay.

[122] I was trying to be a, uh, real estate agent.

[123] Oh, that's fun.

[124] That's why you put that neckerchief on.

[125] And bake some cookies.

[126] Yep.

[127] All right.

[128] They chose this home.

[129] And as you saw on the cover of the Amityville book, it's a piece of Americana, two stories, plus an addict.

[130] It's huge and sprawling.

[131] There's a boat house right on the Amityville River.

[132] And out front, they put a sign post that says, high hopes, basically naming the house.

[133] So it's this gorgeous, huge colonial house.

[134] It has eyes.

[135] It looks like it has eyes because it has these two windows up in the attic that look like eyes.

[136] Yeah.

[137] So the oldest of the Defeo children is Ronald Butch Defeo Jr. He's born on September 26, 1951.

[138] Ronald Sr., the dad, is a domineering man. He would fucking pick fights with his wife and children.

[139] he was physically abusive and the target of a lot of this abuse was Ronald Jr. I'm going to call him Butch partly because he was the eldest so there's a lot of expectations on him and then it said that he would beat the shit out of him he'd throw him against a wall and hit his head so there's the head injury aspect that we all know in love so as Butch gets older he starts fighting back and he's also known as a bully at school he's just like angry, mean kid um bullies get bullied bullies are bullies because they've been bullied exactly so the parents they try to take him to butch to a psychiatrist he fucking refuses to go and so instead they're like let's just appease and placate him and they start buying him anything he wanted and giving him money like if that's their solution I bet it worked right I mean you know what the only way we would know if someone would do it to us that's what we should try is all I'm saying.

[140] What a bizarre plan.

[141] I mean, like, because I understand that they were rich, but that I feel like never in the history of man has that worked for rich kids.

[142] Oh, clearly it's never worked up.

[143] But I understand, especially back in the 70s, it's like, well, here's what we'll do.

[144] If he's never unhappy, he's never going to get mad.

[145] Right.

[146] You know?

[147] Right.

[148] And so they start buying him a bunch of shit, including a $14 ,000 speed boat when he was 15.

[149] What?

[150] $14 ,000 today would buy you a nice car back then.

[151] Can you imagine?

[152] This, okay, so these people, something happened and they're swimming in money.

[153] Why would the son, the own, the son's owner of a car dealership in Brooklyn have that much fucking money?

[154] I mean, quality salesman.

[155] Just, he's really friendly and he's got a couple pinky rings, not just one like normal car salesman, but a couple.

[156] Well, let's the other thing, too, is he looks like Tony Soprano.

[157] Yeah.

[158] He's got that.

[159] big, bulky, you know, intimidating presence.

[160] He's kind of, you know, he speaks like a Long Islander word, which I will refuse to do.

[161] Hey, the parkway's over by my pocketbook.

[162] It's a lot of that kind of shit.

[163] Why is there a parkway by his pocketbook?

[164] It's those are the two words that remind me of Long Island.

[165] Because my friend Vicky, I used to work with my friend Vicky, who is from Long Island.

[166] And those are the first like two things I heard her say on like one of the first days that We worked at Ellen together where I was like, where are you from?

[167] There's no such thing as a parkway out here.

[168] And pocketbooks, wallets.

[169] Stop it.

[170] Calm down.

[171] She also used to always say food shopping.

[172] I'm going to go food shopping where I'm like, that's just shopping.

[173] You know, I don't care.

[174] You have to specify.

[175] Yeah.

[176] No, we get it.

[177] It doesn't matter.

[178] I just got my food shopping done.

[179] How about you?

[180] I just went shopping for food.

[181] How about you don't tell me about your fucking errands?

[182] Yeah.

[183] How about we all do it?

[184] Listen.

[185] I love you, Vicki.

[186] Aliens, Vicky, and Long Islanders.

[187] Vicky Ernst.

[188] Apologies in advance.

[189] Boop, boop.

[190] Okay.

[191] Of course, not surprisingly, it only made things worse.

[192] And by 17, Butch had become an LSD and heroin user.

[193] Oh.

[194] Which is like heroin in the 70s.

[195] That's when it was really organic.

[196] It was just a gorgeous golden brown.

[197] It was like a pure trip.

[198] I do feel like, though, people were so nice.

[199] naive about drugs in the 70s.

[200] Like, my friend Jerry had a story about doing, I think they called it window pain, which is that intense acid from the 70s.

[201] She said they were tripping for days.

[202] And every day they saw the whole world in a different color.

[203] So the first day it was red and the second day was purple.

[204] And I was kind of cool, but I don't want that.

[205] It sounds, it makes me sick to my stomach.

[206] No, I was thinking that too.

[207] It's just like, won't ever end.

[208] And that was just like, because they walked home from school and a guy was like, hey do you want to buy this acid oh he loved it he loved making them trip that hard oh fuck that crazy okay I ate crayons as a joke once when I was on LSD let's not talk about it my friend and I were like let's chew these crayons up and see what happens when we spit them out it would be really pretty oh my god cut this immediately was it pretty it was gorgeous I wore a vinyl dress to my own Christmas party and I was answering the door and people were like are you okay and then I realized it was because my I was so cold my My lips were blue, but I was like, this outfit is amazing.

[209] I look like I'm from space.

[210] Hosting a party on acid, not a good idea.

[211] Never, ever.

[212] Don't do drugs.

[213] Okay.

[214] Don't do drugs, everybody.

[215] Expelled from school as well.

[216] So at 18, he's expelled from school and they're like, you know what?

[217] You know what it'll fix him?

[218] Let's give him a job at the family car dealership.

[219] Yes.

[220] Let's do that.

[221] There it is.

[222] Let's not give him a lot of responsibilities and let's give him a large salary.

[223] Boom.

[224] Sorry, you're reading me the Donald Trump story?

[225] What's happening?

[226] Oh, political.

[227] You better be careful.

[228] I liked them till they got political.

[229] My fucking mom.

[230] Okay, so he's the boss's son asshole that's coming in on a full salary but doesn't have to do anything.

[231] The boss's son and then the boss is boss's grandson.

[232] Oh.

[233] And he's just like, pay me, motherfuckers.

[234] How about you pay me?

[235] And he looks like, he looks, and he's probably the original Brooklyn hipster.

[236] He looks like this.

[237] Brooklyn hipster sideburns what more do you need sideburns beard like 70s garb but it's because it's in the 70s right you know what I mean it's not just like fucking bed bug used outfits from a thrift store right it's the real deal it is real so okay um blah blah blah he's he uses the money the salary he makes to buy guns alcohol and drugs and continues his shitty behavior which included runs with the law blah blah blah okay once during a fight between his so his mom and dad were fighting meaning the dad was like fucking bullying the mom butch points a 12 gauge shotgun at his father and pulls the trigger the gun malfunctioned and didn't fucking shoot oh my god so this guy's out of his mind um so in the weeks before the murder this thing happened where uh but this the car dealership to the bank.

[238] They're like, go to the bank deposit this.

[239] Use your boat.

[240] Use your boat, which is like, why are you giving this kid that money?

[241] And not surprisingly, he reports that he had been robbed at gunpoint while he was waiting at a red light, but he had actually planned the mock robbery.

[242] And at first the dad seemed to believe it, but when the police showed up to question him, which is like, stick with your story, bro.

[243] He fucking loses this shit and is super pissed off and refuses to cooperate.

[244] And then so his dad realizes something isn't right, and he thinks his son was up to it.

[245] And Butch threatens to kill him.

[246] To kill the dad again?

[247] Yeah.

[248] Now, a week later, cut to the early morning hours of November 13th, 1974, the family is sleeping and Butch goes around with a shotgun.

[249] So the first shot, he goes into his parents' room, they're sleeping on their stomachs.

[250] the first shot hits Ronald Sr. in the back tearing through his kidney and exiting through his chest.

[251] He fired another round into his back and it pierces his father's spine and lodged in his neck.

[252] He's dead.

[253] Then he shoots his mother twice as well.

[254] It shatters a ribcage collapses her right lung and physical evidence shows that Luis's mother was awake when she was shot.

[255] She went to turn around to see what was going on.

[256] They're both on.

[257] their stomachs when they're found then which goes into his sweet baby brother's rooms mark who's 12 and john matthew who's nine and shoots them both while they're face down in their beds and then he ends by shooting his sister's point blank versus alison who's 13 and he shoots her in the face and then as young uh and she's killed instantly and then he turns on a sister don who's 18 and shoots her in the head blowing off the left side of her face so fucking brutal with a shotgun so just after 3 a .m. in a span of less than 15 minutes Ronald Butch Defeo Jr. had brutally slain every member of his family they were all found lying on their stomachs in bed butch showers, trims his beard, gets dressed in jeans and work boots and then he collects his bloody clothing and the rifle wraps him up in a pillowcase and on his way to work he disposes of the pillowcase and everything in it by tossing them into a stream a storm drain I spelled that wrong tossing them into a storm drain and that's where the clown from it was waiting that's the scariest thing I've ever heard in my life why did you say that well that's what I think of when I think of storm drains totally that or that or JFK being killed because they arrested someone in a storm drain right after it happened no no Oh.

[258] Yeah.

[259] We'll get, you know what?

[260] Maybe I'll do it one day.

[261] Shit.

[262] I'd never heard that.

[263] Yeah.

[264] Every time I walk George, my dog, she, if we walk, there's a storm drain that we always walk by and she always has to go and stick her head down in it.

[265] No. And every time I'm like, if that fucking clown from it is in there, I am going to lose it.

[266] She's going to get her head chomped off.

[267] By what?

[268] A clown.

[269] She loves it in there.

[270] So many smells.

[271] I know.

[272] So many raccoons.

[273] Okay.

[274] Then tosses it in a storm drain.

[275] Then goes to work at the car dealership at 6 a .m. Oh, all by himself?

[276] Yeah.

[277] Goes to work.

[278] At the family car dealership.

[279] And I think they were like, what are you doing here at 6 a .m.?

[280] It's weird anyways.

[281] He's like, you know me, butch, how much I love working and getting along with people.

[282] Want to get an early start.

[283] Come on.

[284] I got my boots on.

[285] My jeans.

[286] My beard is trimmed.

[287] So throughout the morning, he keeps.

[288] saying, like, I don't know why my dad, my dad's not here yet, so he keeps calling home.

[289] He leaves work around noon, and he spends the day with his friends, and to secure an alibi, he tells them that he couldn't seem to reach anyone at home to let them know that he's like, trying.

[290] And, hey, look, no one's, no one's answering.

[291] Yeah.

[292] He ends up at a bar real close, in Amityville, real close to his house.

[293] And then it's like, hey, guys, I'm going to go check on my family.

[294] It's so weird that I haven't heard from them.

[295] And then at 6 .30 that night, he burst back into the bar.

[296] and yells, you got to help me. I think my mother and father are shot.

[297] So, uh, Butch and a small group of people from the bar went to the home and they found the whole family dead in their beds.

[298] When the detectives questioned Butch about who could be a suspect in the murders, he told them that he believed that a mafia hitman named, uh, Lewis Felini may have been responsible and that his whole family was like in with the mob and that they had wronged the, uh, Felini family in some way and they were pissed off at him.

[299] Um, so he then gives them the alibi if I've been gone all day.

[300] And when I left the house this morning, my whole family was, I think they were still alive.

[301] So they, the police take him into protective custody while they search for the suspect.

[302] But when they searched the house, they found an empty box for a recently purchased 35 caliber Marlin gun.

[303] It's for you gun people in Butch's room.

[304] And when the timeline came together, it placed Butch at home at the time of the homicides not after he left so when they question him he begins to change his story he says that Fellini had appeared at the house early that morning put a revolver to his head and dragged him from room to room as they murdered his family him and an accomplice murdered his family making Butch watch then eventually under questioning he broke down and confessed to killing his family saying once I started I just couldn't stop it went so fast.

[305] On trial, his defense lawyer, William Weber, tried to prove that he was insane, saying that he heard demonic voices that told him to kill his family, but the psychiatrist for the prosecution proved that he suffered from antisocial personality disorder, which doesn't mean you're crazy.

[306] The illness made him aware of his actions, but motivated by a self -centered attitude.

[307] And even at one point during the trial, he threatened to kill both his own lawyer and the judge.

[308] they put him on they put him on the stand he it seems like that's his solution to a lot of problems is i'll kill you yeah yeah which really you know as we're learning is not is a non solution yeah it's this thing of like people pretending to be crazy to get uh the the verdict of insane and it's like no you're just proving what a piece of shit you are and you're also understanding that you need to plot this out so it makes you look sane because you understand reasoning and plotting.

[309] Yes.

[310] There's not.

[311] The insanity part isn't there.

[312] But you are clearly either a sociopath or just the most rotten, spoiled child of all time.

[313] Like is that where spoiling children can get you?

[314] Yeah.

[315] Because that should be a PSA.

[316] All those kids that are fucking screaming out loud in restaurants.

[317] It's like, get a hold of it now.

[318] Yeah.

[319] Or you're going to go the route of the Mr. Bush to Fayo.

[320] Amen.

[321] or at least something close and it's or you're just annoying everyone else around you and like I'm trying to eat in peace yeah just no screaming how about the rule of no screaming no screaming no screaming and if your child is screaming take them outside or how about you glare at your child no one wants you to hit them no but how about a good icy my father used to stop us in our tracks with the look on his face oh my god like you've gone too far also he was very large and intimidating so I'm sure he only had to look at us but we'd be like ugh and you just like uh yeah sit exactly where you this is not going well stop right now yeah i love it so on november 21st 1975 uh the jury finds butch guilty on six counts of secondary murder he sentenced to six consecutive life sentences but all these questions and this is like one of the reasons why this murder is still big to this day and people still debate it when it's clear that he just this fucking crazy dude on acid and heroin who was a piece of shit narcissistic guy asshole just killed his entire family, there are things that are weird that make people question what really happened and think that it didn't happen that way.

[322] So one of them, which I totally understand and want to know the answers to is how did he shoot six people in four different rooms without any of them waking up or trying to escape?

[323] Yeah.

[324] And they're all, they're all on their stomachs when they're shot.

[325] So no one turned over to be like, what the fuck was that?

[326] Like they were drug?

[327] Well, that's what I thought, too.

[328] Okay.

[329] No drugs in any other systems.

[330] Really?

[331] Period.

[332] Oh.

[333] Yeah.

[334] And no neighbors heard the rifle blasts at all.

[335] And this is a fucking rifle.

[336] Yeah.

[337] The defense experts conducted an experiment on the Marlin rifle and I found that it's report.

[338] Report.

[339] Report?

[340] Report or report?

[341] Report.

[342] Report.

[343] Report.

[344] It's spelled report, guys.

[345] It's just a report.

[346] Its noise was so loud that it could be heard almost.

[347] a mile away.

[348] It's a rifle.

[349] Yeah.

[350] So how did none of the neighbors hear it?

[351] And you can see photos.

[352] They weren't that far away the neighbors.

[353] They were like literally next door.

[354] I mean, he must have done, I mean, like, then did he put rum in something?

[355] I mean, like, he must have affected them in some way, right?

[356] But how did the neighbors not hear it either?

[357] Oh, oh, like silencer.

[358] No, nothing.

[359] No. There's no silencer.

[360] There's no drugs in the system.

[361] Alcohol, I doubt it either.

[362] Well, but I mean, could there be a silencer that they didn't find?

[363] I don't know.

[364] Yes.

[365] I'm putting it out there.

[366] I'm going to say yes.

[367] I'm putting it out there.

[368] Even though I don't know.

[369] Rifle silencer.

[370] It's probably Satan.

[371] Could be Satan.

[372] Yeah.

[373] It is weird.

[374] Everybody's sleeping on their stomachs.

[375] Yeah, that's weird.

[376] Why isn't one person sleeping on their side?

[377] Like a normal human being.

[378] Or did he, you know, there's this, the obvious answer to me is that he went from room to room and was like, stay down.

[379] There's someone in the house and like warn them that like, don't move.

[380] I'm going to protect you.

[381] maybe but then why wouldn't the dad get up and then why would the neighbors hear the shots he went and killed the dad first he went and killed the dad and the mom went into the kids room I was like you guys stay in here something's something's happening oh that's fucked okay stay on your stay on your stomach stay on your stomach because I'm weird you know what else he could have walked in the room and they were sitting up and he said lay down on your stomach and then shot them because he didn't want to see their faces when he killed them true but he shot one of his sisters in the face.

[382] He did.

[383] Maybe he was particularly hateful of that sister.

[384] Maybe.

[385] Maybe.

[386] Which is, it is a thing that they fought a lot too.

[387] Dawn, the older sister who was 18.

[388] Well, but then there's also the, oh sorry, are you doing more theories?

[389] Which one are you going to do?

[390] The theory that Don was his co -conspirator and she shot people.

[391] Let's go to that one.

[392] Okay.

[393] Let's go to the tapes.

[394] So years, it wasn't until years later, though, that Ronnie changed his story again while he was in prison and said that his sister, Dawn, was involved in the murders.

[395] Now, listen, Ronnie makes up so many stories that you just they're all bullshit yeah they're all bullshit but here they are um that she had actually planned the murders with him to kill their parents after they had a huge fight with them um but they had no plans to kill the siblings and then uh so she went to kill the parents and when he found out ronnie found out that donned also killed the kids she was so pissed off he was so pissed off um she had wanted to eliminate them as witnesses that he wrestled the gun from her and shot her in the head himself.

[396] So the only person he was guilty of killing was this murderer, his sister.

[397] I mean, that sounds like absolute bullshit.

[398] Absolutely.

[399] Okay.

[400] Yeah.

[401] I mean, it's just, it sucks that we can't get any information about what their home life is really like from anyone but Defeo and secondhand, you know, boyfriends and friends saying what it was like.

[402] But from all their accounts, it wasn't good.

[403] Yeah.

[404] So who knows?

[405] He, um, and then it was reported during the original police investigation that traces of gunpowder were found on Don's nightgown indicating that she may have fired a weapon.

[406] Hmm.

[407] But I guess it's also proven that if someone shoots you at close range, you can get that as well.

[408] Yeah.

[409] Then he claims that his sister, Don shot his father, then says a distra, their mother, distraught over that shot Don and her three youngest kids so that the, mother that dawn killed the dad the mother killed dawn dawn and the other three youngest children then shot herself and then when when when butch found out he flies into a rage and fired one bullet at his wounded mother who had just shot himself so the only person he shot was the like it's just but all that happens way later he said he makes his stories up later no no i get it i'm saying like Like, the reason that doesn't fly is because of the laying down on the stomachs thing.

[410] Yeah.

[411] Like all, you can't have that kind of chaos and then everyone end up in the same position.

[412] I mean, it's just like such a far -fetched theory.

[413] It's stupid.

[414] Like to believe it is idiotic, especially with only the fucking testimony of a fucking crazy person who's trying to get himself away from any responsibility of what happened.

[415] Yeah.

[416] It's, it almost sounds like somebody he like was sitting in jail bored and he's like, maybe the listen to me if I just make up a new story.

[417] Totally.

[418] Totally.

[419] So in 1975, let's get to the fucking haunting shit real quick.

[420] Also total bullshit.

[421] In 1975, now we're in a fight.

[422] Karen the Catholic.

[423] This is my favorite story.

[424] You can't say it's bullshit.

[425] I'm sorry.

[426] It's my favorite.

[427] I know.

[428] I want to believe it so much too, but the more I'm reading the more I'm like, oh.

[429] I know.

[430] And the movie when I was a kid scared the shit out of me. I also looked up when that was made and I was like, Nope, too young to have watched this.

[431] What, like 82?

[432] Something crazy like that?

[433] I don't know, Stephen, look it up because that would mean that was only two.

[434] That's the Jim Rowland movie, right?

[435] Where he's the beard and he's like super nuts.

[436] It's a gorgeous movie.

[437] They keep going to that digital clock that it's like 312 or whatever time it was that it happened.

[438] 3 .15 or something.

[439] Yeah, and he keeps waking up.

[440] All right.

[441] So it's based on the fact that George and Kathy Lutz, they buy about a year after this, they buy the Defeo house for 80 grand.

[442] they knew about the murders but they were like it's cool we don't believe in shit Steven 79 then I wasn't born yet 79 so I watched it in the womb I I think I watched it on like a Friday night yeah it was on TV classics or whatever no it's because I remember watching it in my aunt's living room and I wouldn't have watched it when I was nine yeah it was on TV we must have been home alone turned it on and then I wanted to kill myself it was like a creature feature thing yeah you're just like what's this yeah it terrified me remember the flies on the window the flies in the window wasn't there a scene where like all the they were standing outside of the house when they had left it and all the lights were flicking on and off and all this crazy shit was going on inside yes that scared me more than anything I ever had until I watched it wow I mean it's not that big of a deal that was a scary cat as a kid it's a very big deal thank you all right okay so they buy the house they're like no big deal it's a we got a good deal on it so george and kathy and they're and kathy's three kids from a different marriage moved in that doesn't matter uh then weird shit starts happening what's happening what it doesn't matter i mean i didn't it doesn't i don't need to specify that she had three kids from a different marriage you know it was just like that's fine okay like i don't want to shame her like she's a oh she's a divorce say with three kids you know what i don't know why i did that like i'm not judging her it seems like information you're trying to convey I don't need to.

[443] It's unnecessary and it seems So they were born out of wedlock?

[444] No. They were born...

[445] I'm just kidding.

[446] Listen.

[447] Let me tell you about her life.

[448] Okay.

[449] So they have a priest come to bless the house.

[450] He said he felt an unseen hand slap him.

[451] Yes.

[452] In one of the rooms and heard a voice saying, get out.

[453] Get out.

[454] Get out.

[455] Um, they said that they had crazy things happen like windows locked, windows and doors would lock.

[456] inexplicably and then open and close.

[457] A devilish creature was seen outside the window at night.

[458] George was seemingly, quote, possessed by an evil spirit and green slime oozed from the walls and ceiling.

[459] The family, there was operations of hooded figures, clouds of flies, I think I already said that, cold chills, personality changes, sickly odors, objects moving about on their own.

[460] And then the youngest Lutz child, a little girl, became friends with a devilish pig, evil demonic pig, imaginary friend called Jody.

[461] Yeah.

[462] Jody the pig.

[463] Jody the pig.

[464] Good old Jody the pig.

[465] And then Kathy reports that she was often beaten and scratched by unseen hands and that one night she was levitated off of her bed.

[466] Shit.

[467] And then George says his wife was physically transformed into an old woman with a face and hair and wrinkles of a 90 -year -old woman, which I'm like, that's insulting.

[468] that to yourself.

[469] You know what I mean?

[470] Like when Vince is like you have too much makeup on, it's like, shut up.

[471] You know what I mean?

[472] But it was demonic forces.

[473] It wasn't just like, I fear you.

[474] I fear your old age in the future.

[475] Okay.

[476] And then he'd wake up at 3 .15 every morning when the murders happened.

[477] So just 28 days after they moved in, they fled the house.

[478] They left all their clothes in the closets and food in the refrigerator.

[479] By the way, when they bought the house, it had all of the Defeo's furniture still in it, except for the mattresses where the kids were fucking murdered on.

[480] No way.

[481] So what the fuck is wrong with you people?

[482] Like, redecorate, man. Like, the real estate agents, like, you can buy this as is.

[483] Yes.

[484] And it's a bargain.

[485] You know that murder house in Los Felis that's been fucking closed up forever?

[486] Yeah.

[487] Like, can you imagine buying it?

[488] Be like, well, this is great vintage furniture.

[489] Just leave it.

[490] Yeah.

[491] No. Okay.

[492] So they end up publishing the account of the hauntings in a book that was written by, that they worked on with Jay Anson called the Amityville Horror, True Story, which we all know and love, published as nonfiction in 1976, sold up more than 6 million copies.

[493] Film version comes out, huge box office success.

[494] The Lutz has become famous.

[495] They later admit it was a hoax.

[496] No!

[497] When?

[498] Concocted with the help of Butch's defense lawyer, William Weber.

[499] Remember him who was like, no, he's crazy.

[500] He heard demonic voices.

[501] So they said it wasn't ghosts.

[502] they had all these fucking psychics and mediums come in.

[503] I was like, there's no ghost here.

[504] It's demonic possession, which I believe in ghosts.

[505] Sure, fine.

[506] Let's, let's have it.

[507] But demonic possession is fucking stupid.

[508] I don't know.

[509] Famous last words.

[510] So William Weber's angle was...

[511] Georgia just turned her head all the way around.

[512] And then I vomiting his face.

[513] William Weber, remember, was trying to say that is basically using this account who, by the way they said that they came up with after a few bottles of wine oh my god i forgot that part with the lutzes that to like to prove that the house was possessed and so was butch and he was not responsible basically yeah that's why the family was killed so ronnie's still in prison all of his appeals and requests to the parole board to date have been denied and that's the amityville horror and the murder of the defaio families it's so in the amityville horror book.

[514] They talk about this red room that's in the basement and how it's filled with evil and all this stuff.

[515] And I was so fascinated by this.

[516] It's almost like they centralized where the evil was coming from.

[517] And like people tried to go in there and they would get crazy headaches and all this weird shit would happen.

[518] I was so fascinated by that.

[519] It doesn't exist.

[520] I'm sorry.

[521] It exists.

[522] Karen, it exists in your mind.

[523] Karen, it's this in your heart, It's all.

[524] It's fine.

[525] I feel like at the heart of every story like that is, is people want to go like, oh, my God, the devil has been here and there's flies on this sewing room window.

[526] But at the end of the day, the truth of it is, a spoiled asshole drug addict killed his family, which is the thing people can't face because it's not a monster.

[527] And Andy, like, how could someone kill children?

[528] Right.

[529] Who had nothing to do with any of this.

[530] It's like...

[531] So you'd rather be like, the devil did it.

[532] Exactly.

[533] Yeah.

[534] Yeah.

[535] It's easier.

[536] Yeah.

[537] Oh, honey, I'm sorry.

[538] Oh, what a story.

[539] I love it.

[540] I can't believe I didn't do that.

[541] I know.

[542] I can't believe I did.

[543] It didn't even cross my mind that that was the story.

[544] I don't know why I was thinking of the omen as that story.

[545] Oh, yeah, because he's the, he's this for you.

[546] He's got the mark.

[547] The book you checked out.

[548] I totally forgot.

[549] Oh, yeah.

[550] Girl, but I mean, it makes it even worse that you can check that book out.

[551] It was so scary.

[552] It was horrifying.

[553] Oh my God.

[554] It was very detailed.

[555] And I mean, the nun that was mad at me was the scariest part of all.

[556] Right.

[557] Right.

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

[559] Absolutely.

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

[561] Exactly.

[562] And if you're a small business owner, you might know Shopify is great for online sales.

[563] But did you know that they also power in -person sales?

[564] That's right.

[565] Shopify is the sound of selling everywhere, online, in -store, on social media, and beyond.

[566] Give your point -of -sale system a serious upgrade with Shopify.

[567] From accepting payments to managing inventory, they have everything you need to sell in -person.

[568] So give your point -of -sale system a serious upgrade with Shopify.

[569] Their sleek, reliable POS hardware takes every major payment method and looks fabulous at the same time.

[570] With Shopify, we have a powerful partner for managing our sales and if you're a business owner you can too connect with customers in line and online do retail right with shopify sign up for a one dollar per month trial period at shopify dot com slash murder important note that promo code is all lowercase go to shopify dot com slash murder to take your retail business to the next level today that's shopify dot com slash murder goodbye wow i don't know about y 'all but I'm still super creeped out by that one.

[571] However, I think one of the best parts of this episode is caring telling us it's her favorite story and Georgia's wholesale destruction of that dream.

[572] Kind of like when you learn your favorite nursery rhyme is actually about Bloody Mary and not a simple gardener.

[573] Next, we have an episode from 2018, episode 119, Fingers Everywhere.

[574] I love this one, because it has everything.

[575] Babies, ladders, cross -continental travel.

[576] It goes all the way to the top.

[577] Well, maybe to the third ladder wrong, but still.

[578] So Karen's telling of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping always horrifies me because losing someone is everyone's worst nightmare, but the facts of the case, however cut and dried they are, still leave room for questions.

[579] And who doesn't love a good conspiracy theory.

[580] Not that you believe them, but that they make for great gossip.

[581] And the whole eugenics turn, girl, it's a mess.

[582] So here's Karen giving us the story of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping.

[583] So somebody suggested this on Twitter and I was positive I was going to write her name down today when I was like, oh, I am going to do that one she suggested.

[584] It's a theme.

[585] And she, yeah, exactly and she um suggested it in a terse way so i imagine she's the kind of person that's going to be very pissed off that i took her idea and didn't give her name well good she said have you guys ever done the blah blah blah case i think you should it was something like that it was basically like come on get with it yeah and i was like that's actually a great idea thought i could look her up while we were sitting here and my twitter does a thing sometimes or it just won't go back very far so I couldn't look it up so full apologies hopefully I'll hear from you email Twitter first tell them to fix their shit at Jack know to stop letting Nazis run free on his website and then that we need to be able to go back a couple days just for the podcast or like search a word and okay you know what also editing it would just be nice to get one more pass before you send your ideas out anyhow guys this I am going to do the crime of the century the kidnapping of the Lindberg baby girl I'm applauding you but I would scare Elvis who's sitting on me right now yeah don't worry about it also it's not my applause it's this girl's whose name I'm not saying this girl you're amazing oh also I woman we should be say woman right we don't know I actually could be misremembering and I'm just attributing like a feminine aspect to like whatever picture maybe she had long hair who knows humans we're going to that human is going to let us know just how pissed they are about not getting credit for, you know, a case, I also can't believe that we haven't done yet.

[586] Yeah.

[587] And as I was doing it, part of me was like, what if George has done this?

[588] And I was like, yeah, at this point, I just don't care.

[589] I just want to do what I want.

[590] I think that, yeah, I think that's our new, our new theme is, did she do this?

[591] I mean, let's just start repeating stories and retelling them and just do better each time.

[592] Oh my God.

[593] Less and less corrections corner.

[594] Love it.

[595] And then in like seven years, we're going to get to that journalistic level, people have been wanting us to be at this old time.

[596] No, we're not.

[597] Never.

[598] And then we'll give up on the podcast.

[599] Yes, then we'll quietly walk away in the night.

[600] Yeah, because you know how quiet we are, walk away.

[601] So I got all this information from an episode of Nova.

[602] Oh, great show.

[603] Thank you, fucking God for that.

[604] PBS.

[605] Baby, it's like, and you can get an education for free on PBS.

[606] And the funniest thing is this episode of Nova featured John Douglas, FBI profiler, John Douglas, who you just mentioned.

[607] He's the main, basically, they pulled John Douglas all the way through of going, the Lindberg baby case was, and murder was presented in this way, and they got to this conclusion, John Douglas doesn't agree.

[608] John Dougie, that's what we call him.

[609] He's in there with his super reasonable face, and his glasses, holding his glasses in his teeth.

[610] a friend of the show John Douglas there's a Netflix series called Conspiracy that is good and I got and they do the thing where they do it's compilation so it's like three stories in each episode and this one what's that so you don't get bored yeah they keep it moving and this one is the episode is disappearances it's also the other I can't remember what the third crime is but the other first crime in that is the Lord Lucan Oh, you did that guy.

[611] Disappearance.

[612] Yes, I did do that.

[613] I love it.

[614] Loving it.

[615] So here we go.

[616] He's a little backstory for you of why anybody cared about Charles Lindberg in the first place.

[617] On May 21st, 1927, a 25 -year -old U .S. airmail pilot named Charles Lindberg touched down in an airfield outside of Paris, France, in his plane, the spirit of St. Louis.

[618] When I read that name, I'm like, oh, that's what that is.

[619] What?

[620] You know, the spirit of St. Louis?

[621] Oh, yeah.

[622] Like, if you would ask me that, I would have confused it with the spruce goose.

[623] Uh -huh.

[624] I would have...

[625] Maybe in Amelia Earhart situation.

[626] But at least you know it's a plane.

[627] We know it.

[628] Maybe it's a plane, or...

[629] But now we know exactly.

[630] That's Charles Lindbergh's wonderful plane that got him.

[631] He was the first man to ever make the non -stop flight from New York to Paris.

[632] It was 33 and a half hours.

[633] It was 3 ,600 miles.

[634] Is that like in one of those planes that doesn't have a face either?

[635] so it's just like, it went in your face.

[636] No, a biplane?

[637] I'm pretty sure it had a face on it.

[638] Although, why would I, why would I say that if they were two years in?

[639] Why would I fucking say that?

[640] Because you're not going to start now with not knowing shit.

[641] Look, my brain shows me movies, and that's reality to me. And I just report to you yes or no. My brain shows me movies and that's reality.

[642] And that's my reality.

[643] I love it.

[644] It was a...

[645] 33 hours.

[646] We complain about...

[647] four or five hours to New York City 33 hours and 33 hours alone.

[648] And all day, all night.

[649] And all you hear is...

[650] And all the whole time.

[651] He couldn't bring a bunch of extra shit.

[652] Stephen's on the...

[653] Stevens got it.

[654] The plane.

[655] And do you know thank God the Spirit of St. Louis is closed in the front.

[656] Thank God.

[657] But I bet it's loud as fuck still.

[658] Oh, the whole thing.

[659] It looks like a big aluminum can.

[660] No temperature control.

[661] No toilet.

[662] No It was freezing.

[663] You know he was peeing in an old Pepsi bottle.

[664] I mean.

[665] Throwing it over overboard.

[666] Throwing it overboard for the first time in human history.

[667] Okay, so when he sets down in Paris and he does this thing.

[668] So just to give you a little, ooh, did that fucking...

[669] Huh.

[670] God damn it.

[671] I cut and pasted it and then lost this piece of information.

[672] Okay.

[673] But, like, six other people had tried to do this, and three of them died.

[674] So this wasn't a thing.

[675] This was not, this was something, because there was a prize, it was, it was, these people said, whoever does this first gets $25 ,000.

[676] Jesus.

[677] So lots of pilots and different people were, um, were trying for it.

[678] And it's really hard.

[679] And some people, like, had to ditch out and whatever.

[680] But, like, people lost their lives trying to make this flight.

[681] So when Lindberg landed in.

[682] this airfield outside of Paris, he was immediately an international superstar.

[683] He was the most famous man in the world.

[684] He got carried around the people that were waiting at the airstrip.

[685] He never had to walk again.

[686] He never walked again.

[687] His feet became curled and atrophied.

[688] No, they said they held him.

[689] This is in the Wikipedia page.

[690] They carried him on their shoulders for over a half an hour.

[691] Jesus.

[692] He's like, I've only wanted to touch the ground for the past 30 hours.

[693] the first three were great put me down yeah he's like this is the exact position I've been stuck in for 33 hours all right so he he gets the nickname Lucky Lindy gets that 25K he also gets thousands and thousands more for all these promotion oh yeah I bet because apparently the Pepsi bottle it's Pepsi company Pepsi's like we want that bottle yeah but apparently this really opened up aviation in general but also for air mail.

[694] So he was the guy that kicked it open over like FedEx and everything.

[695] Or it's like you want to get something to Europe.

[696] We're doing now we're going to be able to do that.

[697] And that was kind of what the whole contest was about.

[698] Okay.

[699] Was to kind of focus on aviation, but then like, you know, opening up so that suddenly people were thinking, you know, business in terms of aviation.

[700] I don't know I'm talking about.

[701] Okay.

[702] He was, he'd given the Medal of Honor, which is the military.

[703] highest award.

[704] And he was given, he was Time Magazine's first ever man of the year.

[705] Wow.

[706] And still the youngest to this day.

[707] He was 25 years old.

[708] That's so young.

[709] Yeah.

[710] And he was kind of hot, too.

[711] Well, do you know who he looks like?

[712] Do you mind pulling up a picture of Mr. Charles Lindberg at age 25 when he made this flight?

[713] Don't tell me until I see it.

[714] Okay.

[715] Who is?

[716] I'm going to show you a picture.

[717] Okay.

[718] You're going to tell me who you think this man looks like.

[719] Now, please, take your time.

[720] I'm just killing time while Stephen finds it.

[721] Was he tall?

[722] He looked tall in all his photos.

[723] Yes.

[724] Okay.

[725] He was tall.

[726] He was blonde.

[727] He had a dent in his chin.

[728] Love it.

[729] He was, his coloring was very like caramel but with blonde hair, which you know those people.

[730] Those people always win.

[731] They always win.

[732] Let me pull up oh.

[733] It's such an old man of the year thing that it's illustrated.

[734] That's how long ago this story took place.

[735] Come on, I'm sorry, I did this.

[736] No, no, it's okay.

[737] Hi.

[738] Because why don't you look at this picture and tell me. Oh, hello, handsome.

[739] Who you think this looks like.

[740] Well, I'm going to get this wrong.

[741] No, you're not.

[742] He looks, he definitely looks like he's in a Brit pop band from the 60s in this photo, doesn't he?

[743] Yes.

[744] Does he look like, God, he's hot?

[745] Tell me. Paul Holes.

[746] Look at the face of it.

[747] He does look like Paul Holes.

[748] This is the Holes episode.

[749] Well, let's just work all this paul -holes stuff out now.

[750] This is the holes upon holes upon holes episode.

[751] Okay, so.

[752] He does look like paul -holes.

[753] So, Limburg being the most famous man in the world, and, like, he's being brought everywhere.

[754] He's, like, he's being fedded in this really intense way.

[755] And he's making a ton of money.

[756] Good for him.

[757] They said that for everything that kind of he got paid for around that flight, he made, like, almost half a million dollars.

[758] Jesus.

[759] us um in today's money okay so but still a lot a lot of i'll take today's money half a million for fuck's sake it's pretty nice uh so that he gets a financial planner a financial consultant from jp morgan so big company and uh it's a big company did you know and um the planner's name's dwight morrow and he's also the ambassador to mexico what the fuck he was you know this was when they gave important job a ton of important job to one white guy.

[760] It was the 20s.

[761] So when Morrow invites Charles Lumber to come on a goodwill tour of Mexico because he's famous and everyone loves him, well, just by chance, Maro's daughter, Anne, is down there and they meet and they fall in love.

[762] Oh, rich people falling in love.

[763] Rich good -looking people who have their own planes fall in love all the time.

[764] They deserve everything.

[765] Then he started to fly Okay, he teaches her how to fly I bet he does Yeah, girl And then he teaches her how to I don't know Love They get married Immediately start a family Charles Lindberg Was very vocal and verbal insulting or criticizing I should say Other pilots of the day There was lots of, you know, pilots Like it's the Emilia Earhart era where it's like being dashing being you know being a pilot was a big deal he was a trash talker he was because he said that air force cadets and pilots of the day they were all um they were had facile attitudes about women oh how dare you how dare whereas he believed the ideal romance was stable and long term with a woman with keen intellect okay good health whoops and and strong genes.

[766] Oops.

[767] Oh, so you're a Nazi.

[768] Uh -huh.

[769] Good one.

[770] Good eye.

[771] His, quote, experience in breeding animals on our farm have taught him the importance of good heredity.

[772] Of good breeding.

[773] Oh, dear.

[774] Hey, Chuck.

[775] No. No, no. It don't work that way.

[776] Okay, so that's just a little, that's your, that's your, um, foreshadowing.

[777] Okay.

[778] So let's go to the crime.

[779] This is 1932 and, um, Charles Lindbergh have been married and they now have two kids and newborn and their baby Charlie, their first son, who is two years old.

[780] On Tuesday, March 1st, 1932, the family staying at their as yet unfinished new house in Hopewell, New Jersey, or right outside of Hopewell, New Jersey.

[781] They only visited this house on the weekends.

[782] They were living full -time at Ann Morrow's family estate.

[783] called Englewood.

[784] Englewood.

[785] Rich people.

[786] Yeah, represent.

[787] So no one except for the family would have known that they would have been at this house because they were full time living at the Englewood estate, but they would come to the Hopewell house and live there just for the weekend, just for fun of like, this is going to be our new house.

[788] There was, of course, full staff at both houses.

[789] So sometime, between 8 and 10 o 'clock on March 1st.

[790] One or more, they're still not sure, kidnappers, lean a homemade folding ladder.

[791] So it's a ladder that has three pieces that, like, slide into each other, an extending ladder, I guess, but it's homemade.

[792] Lean it up against the wall of the house underneath the baby's window.

[793] The windows unlocked.

[794] The kidnapper breaks in, grabs the two -year -old.

[795] they say they theorized that they subdued the two -year -old somehow because no sound was made no one in the house heard anything everyone was still awake so it's not like everyone was asleep and the baby was stolen everyone's up and awake downstairs um the baby doesn't make a sound they go back out down the ladder and off into the night with charlie and uh they leave a window a letter on the window cell so there's another ransom um demanding 50 thousand dollars to be dropped off at midnight at a local cemetery on april second and they warned not to contact the police or they'll kill the baby so um basically charles lindberg takes over this case now it seemed to me that what they were kind of insinuating in both of these specials is that charles lindberg really kind of believed he was the shit that the world was saying that he was for for making that uh that transcontinental flight he was cocky the transatlantic flight he was cocky the Atlantic flight.

[796] Yes.

[797] He, some people believe he was a narcissist.

[798] Um, you know, whatever, but, but essentially once this started happening, he didn't trust anybody.

[799] He didn't trust the police.

[800] And he basically told everybody how it was going to go.

[801] And in doing so fucked up this investigation, that then also some people afterwards kind of theorized maybe he was doing it on purpose.

[802] So there's, there's suspicion cast, but he basically told the police like, we're going to make this ransom drop.

[803] You.

[804] you will not tail anybody, you will not follow them.

[805] Just do it.

[806] Yeah, but we're going to do it.

[807] And so the police said, okay, fine, just let us, let us organize the money, the cash that you're going to drop.

[808] Because what the police wanted to do was essentially they're using a goal, it was like the gold standard, there used to be bills that were like, it was gold standard money.

[809] Yeah.

[810] And they were beginning to phase it out.

[811] But they were like, if we just use only money with the, serial numbers it'll be easier to track what if these people try to spend this money after the fact right so they put together 50 ,000 dollars they put it in this wooden box now of course when the kidnapping happens it's it's everywhere it's the hugest story in the nation and remained so of course it got even worse after but yeah it's the hugest story so when they know that there's a kidnapping and there's a ransom note a retired school teacher named dr john con who idolized Charles Lindberg puts an ad in the paper saying that he volunteers to be the go between and make the ransom drop at the cemetery.

[812] No, don't trust him.

[813] Lindberg and the kidnappers both say, sounds good.

[814] So then now...

[815] What is this world?

[816] You have to see it in the in the Nova special.

[817] The Nova special is really good because it has so much footage.

[818] It's so crazy.

[819] I love it.

[820] There's footage from the trial.

[821] It's intense.

[822] But this old guy it's just another one of those things we're like, it's a guy in a three -piece suit so everyone went, yeah, do whatever you want.

[823] Come on into this thing.

[824] And he is a blowhard and he, you know, they say he had good intentions, but he made himself, he's one of those people.

[825] He was like looking for the spotlight.

[826] Opportunist, yeah.

[827] So basically he goes, he goes to the cemetery to make that drop and he hands over a box full, and it's a, wooden box full of $50 ,000 in these special bills and he exchanges that for a note saying where baby Charlie can be found the kidnappers take the box of money they give the note they disappear and the information in the note turns out to be incorrect so it was all of that was for nothing yeah so they still don't have the baby and the kidnappers have gotten away scot -free yeah so you saw it coming Yeah.

[828] So six weeks later, on May 12th, a truck driver driving from Princeton to Hopewell pulls over because he has to use the bathroom.

[829] He walks into the woods a little bit.

[830] This is five miles away from Lindbergh's Hopewell estate or home.

[831] And this truck driver finds the decomposing body of Charlie Lindberg.

[832] And the police and the corner and everybody determined, eventually determined the baby was killed.

[833] killed the night that he was taken.

[834] So it turned out that his skull was fractured on one side.

[835] And then there was a hole in the other side of the skull, the opposite side, kind of back by the ear.

[836] And so the police report said that the officer that went and tried to get the body, you know, like pull the remains out of the mud, had used a stick.

[837] and the officer thought he had poked a hole through the skull with a stick.

[838] But in this episode of Nova, there's a man named Dr. John Butts, and he's the North Carolina chief medical examiner.

[839] John Butts.

[840] John Butts, he's a retired medical examiner, but he's also an expert on the death of suspicious death in children.

[841] Oh, my God.

[842] I want to talk to him forever.

[843] Right?

[844] And he's so, I love when those guys come on and they're just like, nope.

[845] And it's basically he's saying, you could not the way, especially children's goals are you couldn't poke there's no way to do that and so even if whether or not this person was just simply mistaken and freaked out or they were trying to mislead he believes that the original wound oh oh because the theory was from that the theory became that when the kidnappers were coming back down that ladder this story has stuck this part I know and it fucking is horrifying yeah they think they thought at time the kidnappers were coming down the ladder with the baby and dropped the baby or fell forward at the because wasn't one of the ladder rungs broken yeah this ladder is the ricketyest dumbest looking thing you've ever seen it's truly like if we went and made our own ladder i mean anything's possible with a homemade three tiered ladder yeah insane and when you see this thing and you can see it in the nova thing it's like it doesn't even make sense but the problem is with that theory the fracture that only accounts for the fracture on one side right and it doesn't include just the baby had more injuries than that and they i think probably maybe in the hopes of simplifying but basically they weren't taking an account and so dr john butts was like that baby must have been laying down and there is a blow to one side of the baby's head which caused the hole by the ear and the pressure of that caused the fracture on the other side that's that's his theory personally No buts about it.

[846] Is that a TV show?

[847] And then he just goes through and is talking about horrible child deaths.

[848] Everyone's like, wait, I thought this was.

[849] He's like, in this outlet, and there's no butts about it, and everyone's crying.

[850] I don't want to talk about this anymore.

[851] Two and a half years after the body is discovered, it basically goes cold for a little while.

[852] Yeah.

[853] A man in New York State buys 98 cents worth of gas, but he pays with a, uh, a $10 gold certificate with this old money.

[854] And the attendant cites it and writes down his license plate number, not because he knows it has anything to do with the Lindbergh kidnapping, but he knows that money, that currency is going out of use.

[855] And he wants to make sure he writes the license plate number down because he wants to make sure he can get a hold of that guy if the bank doesn't take his money.

[856] What a crazy world to living in that certain currencies going out and not going to exist anymore.

[857] Can you imagine just living it?

[858] It's so old -timey.

[859] It is, but it all looks exactly the same.

[860] It's the same design as modern money.

[861] It just had yellow gold things on it.

[862] I didn't look up what the gold standard was.

[863] I didn't.

[864] But, you know, if you're interested in currency or the U .S. meant, I urge you to take a tour and educate yourself.

[865] I can't do it all.

[866] So the cool thing is then he immediately calls the bank, the bank recognizes that it's on this list of the Lindberg ransom money, and they call the police.

[867] So why do I think I can hold a huge cup of coffee and do this at the same time?

[868] So that license plate is tracked back to a car that belongs to a man named Bruno Richard Hopman.

[869] Hotman is a German immigrant carpenter who lives in the Bronx, and when the police searches home, they find a little less than 14 ,000 which is exactly two -thirds of the ransom money no way I'm sorry one -third of the ransom money got it that's what I thought yes but 50 ,000 half is 25 yeah a third I wrote two -thirds well the other person has two -thirds right it's the non that's what you meant it's the third that's not the two -thirds exactly and that's what I'm trying to say he has so basically he has the money with the serial numbers in his house he also has a handgun they're like it's this guy then they look up he has a criminal record where he's from in Germany he had two arrests one for climbing up a ladder into the second story window what to break into the mayor's house shut your fucking face to break into the mayor's house of Germany to the whole mayor of Germany and the other crime was for holding up two women who were pushing a baby carriage.

[870] Dude, you're like, it's like a map.

[871] It's a map and it's like, here's one thing I'm not afraid to do.

[872] Here's this other thing I'm interested in doing.

[873] Also, I love ladders.

[874] Also, God damn it, I love to make a ladder.

[875] Now, on that very topic, if you picture, so this ladder needs to be tall enough to reach a second -story window.

[876] So it's like he made a normal ladder, then he made a slightly smaller ladder that would slide up within that ladder and then a third one.

[877] Like that's how rickety and janky this ladder was.

[878] I wouldn't claim that thing.

[879] And they find that the third section of this ladder, there's a piece of it that's made from yellow pine and when they look up into Richard Hopman's attic, the floorboards of the attic are made of yellow pine.

[880] Dude.

[881] They pull that shit down.

[882] They pull that piece of the ladder off and they match it exactly so it's one more piece of like confirming evidence that this guy was there and had something to do with that yeah oh sorry also the bottom legs of the bottom part of the ladder broke and that's that's what led them to that um theory that the baby fell and and cracked its head okay because that the part of the later ladder that he left there um the bottom legs were broken okay or had cracked it's rickety as shit it's like Like, why even?

[883] Yeah.

[884] Just get four people and climb on their backs.

[885] It would be safer.

[886] Okay.

[887] So all of that, all of that combined gets Richard Hotman arrested on September 19th, 1934.

[888] And talk about this, like, how it all went so fast back then.

[889] And there was no, but also the world was watching this crime.

[890] I mean, when that baby was found dead, they said the nation hadn't mourned like that since Lincoln was assassinated and didn't mourn like that again until JFK was assassinated.

[891] It was like, this was everybody's baby and it was this hero, this American hero's child.

[892] Yeah, but we still have, it's almost why we have, you know, appeals and shit today is because you didn't have that back then.

[893] Yeah.

[894] Just fucking killed Ethel and Julius Rosenberg out the fucking bat.

[895] Yes.

[896] Their solution to everything was just, okay, great kill him.

[897] we solved it now now we don't do this paperwork anymore before they ask any questions about what happened yes quick kill quick beat them for 10 hours and then kill them as quickly as possible they confessed killing quick quick quick everything is quick so he stood trial January 2nd 1935 and he's found guilty on February 13th of the same year and given the death sentence now at one point he maintained his innocence throughout the whole time including when the cops were like if you give us the names of your co -conspirators we will reduce your sentence we'll make sure that you don't get the death penalty and he he he just maintained his innocence and didn't give any names so on April 3rd 1936 Bruno Richard Hotman is put to death in the electric chair by the state of New Jersey yeah so now there's all kinds of theories of course about this murder.

[898] That was it.

[899] So the case closed.

[900] Case closed.

[901] They got the guy.

[902] And you can see in this Nova special, they have clips of him on literally on the stand during court.

[903] And the lawyer is yelling at him so loudly.

[904] Like there's no microphones, obviously.

[905] It looks like he's just sitting on a chair raised up above everybody.

[906] And the lawyer's like, and do you tell me?

[907] And he's like yelling the place is packed it was a total zoo like that it the the surrounding area was packed with like thousands of people going just being at the courthouse every day is super crazy so yeah they just wanted it over they were just like done and they were like oh he's he's doing the thing a guilty person would do which is like no no no I didn't do it the whole time and yeah like even the the phrase the Lindberg baby like that was like it was huge huge story it was it was a huge story and people wanted someone to pay yeah this was a this was like this tragic thing that seemed unnecessary and they wanted someone to pay it so here's the theories of course the first and strongest is that he didn't act alone nobody thinks he acted alone the lick the the liquor the ladder was too rickety somebody needed to hold that stupid thing from the bottom because it was like the dumbest ladder of all time yeah um once he got inside there a baby that would make noise so you have to have you know they're going to have to subdue that baby somehow and then they have to get back out and back down the ladder holding it still nothing about it just couldn't they just don't see how it could be done by one person yeah and there's just so much organizing and and you know stuff to do also later they do handwriting comparisons they were 15 overall um the police don't know officially because Lindberg was like you don't get to be a part of this.

[908] But there were 15 different ransom letters that were written.

[909] What?

[910] Yeah.

[911] They communicated a bunch.

[912] And, you know, with the old retired school teacher, Lindbergh.

[913] Yeah.

[914] They were masterminding all of it.

[915] And at the time, and in court, they proved the handwriting expert at the time proved that it was Richard Hopman's handwriting on all the letters.

[916] But of course, modern day.

[917] And in this episode of Nova, they're just like, yeah, it is inconclusive.

[918] And it's that super cool modern handwriting.

[919] writing analysis where they're taking the you know like two letters that always get written together like a e and a t or whatever and then they're showing how it's like all percentages it's very scientific and exact of like this matches this doesn't because of course in every letter a couple things match and then and then some things don't so it's all total like percentages yeah and it depends on what letters are written before and after them and and where they place in the in the word Right.

[920] I love that shit.

[921] Yeah.

[922] It's very cool.

[923] And you can kind of see that it doesn't match, you know, from a distance, but they needed it.

[924] They needed it to be at the time.

[925] So they believe that other people were involved.

[926] Also, they, because of how many things had to go right with a kidnapping like that, they believed that it was somebody that worked on the staff in one of the houses.

[927] It was an inside job.

[928] Oh, shit.

[929] And they believe that this is a man named Lloyd Gardner, who's a professor at Rutgers, and he has, this is his theory.

[930] And it's a very strong, interesting theory, strongly interesting.

[931] So it's his theory that there was somebody inside the house that was helping set it up.

[932] And they're also the only other people that would have known that the Lindberg family would have gone to the Hopewell house because they were full time at the other house.

[933] so that's like very few people would have known that would have known to go to the unfinished house that they didn't live in yet right the police interviewed a servant who worked at the inglewood estate named violet sharp and they interviewed her twice she gave contradictory stories between the first and second one when they went back for the third interview she runs upstairs drink silver polish and dies within minutes oh that sounds chill then that's very suspicious right and it's like well something's going on yeah in this household okay so lloyd gardner's theory and then maybe other people's too and this pulls in some dark shit in charles lindberg's life he had okay so charles lindberg had a sister who died of heart failure and he started he was um a researcher he was an inventor he did a bunch of other shit just besides being in the uh he was in the air force and being a pilot and all that stuff.

[934] He did a bunch of other stuff too.

[935] He started working with a Nobel Prize winning scientist named Dr. Alexis Carroll.

[936] And Dr. Carroll had won the Nobel Prize because he did all this work in vascular surgery.

[937] And so Dr. Carroll, Lindberg went and worked with him as a medical engineer because they were trying to figure out essentially how to build a heart pump to keep people alive if they had heart failure.

[938] And that's the work they did.

[939] But the work that they, that people didn't know so much about is that Dr. Alexis Carroll was a huge proponent of eugenics.

[940] Oh dear.

[941] And if you don't know, eugenics was this kind of pseudoscientific belief that got very popular in the 30s in America because of this doctor that we, that human being should be breeding to make that basically genetically superior people are the only people that should reproduce.

[942] A master race.

[943] Yes.

[944] And that we should sterilize anybody who's physically or mentally imperfect.

[945] It was gaining tons of popularity and Dr. Carroll told Lindberg he was the perfect example of the Uber Man, Superman, that eugenics was aiming toward, which of course, you know, our boy Charles Lindberg was like oh really tell me more I love this idea that I I'm the one everyone should want to be like and I already was the international superstar and then you go to your J .P. Morgan's fucking daughter like Jesus Christ master race yeah so he becomes this huge proponent of fucking eugenics which which basically becomes a very shrouded pro -Nazi anti -Semitic movement but it just has this super creepy face of like you know the american dream is almost how they they were trying to market it it's super gross okay so um so the theory is that charlie lindberg charles lindberg's first son was not a healthy baby that he had a mild form of rickets um there's rickets is the disease and little kids if if they have it bad enough it basically makes their legs their knees touch and like their legs are bowed and they're really deformed.

[946] Charlie's wasn't that bad.

[947] So that's some people argue that this are that this health argument isn't strong enough or like the case can't be made.

[948] But the theory is that they wouldn't have that the family was very secretive about what all these medical problems were.

[949] He also didn't have a closed fontenelle, um, which I love that word because that's what Holly Hunter says in raising Arizona.

[950] Something about, I swear that you mentioned that just now because there's something about this case has always reminded me of raising Arizona and that they take a ladder and climb up to the second floor and steal a fucking baby yeah it's kind of exactly that it's like the comedy version of this horrible story yeah and my his little fontanelle yeah mind his fontanail I love him so much um mine his fontanelle mine his fontanelle so okay so the fontanelle wasn't closed which is a soft spot on a baby's head and he was two years old okay so it's that's very late for to be happening okay also there's a doctor um i think on the conspiracy show who was talking about that that when the um baby when the remains were found there were deeper inner organs that were missing um and and at the time i think they the medical examiner they they wrote it off as well it's exposure yeah and wild animals have gotten to it and this woman in the in uh the conspiracy one one goes yeah but you wouldn't be missing right you wouldn't be missing your heart you wouldn't be missing um half of your lung but not your heart right you wouldn't like they're not going to be like I'm a big fan of lungs yeah I'm going to take this piece and it's not a pick and choose situation it doesn't make sense so they're saying they think this baby had a bunch of surgeries that there was a lot of things wrong and just nobody knew about it it was like the secret and that that the plan was because this was a thing that got down a lot back then that the plan was that it was Charles Lindbergh's idea to quote unquote kidnap the baby then the baby's missing and then meanwhile they can anonymously check that two year old into an institution and basically institutionalize the child so that he doesn't ever have the world will never know that his genes are not perfect and he is not this super bench oh I did not know this yeah well this is a theory so this isn't obviously proven and this is no it's true take it up with Nova if you don't like it but um but I think it's fascinating because it would there's nothing about that story that makes sense yeah like this the the mystery of the Lindberg baby kidnapping is why why would you kill a baby if you got the money for it what monster would just immediately same night before anyone gets a chance to pay off yeah anything just kill the child it doesn't make sense yeah and then keep going with with it yeah yeah uh and also then just that those things those behaviors are connected like if you're into eugenics there's some thing going on inside you that is really gross yeah and really creepy and it continued on so um so basically after the kidnapping and then the body the body being found the public attention and pressure was so great on the Lindberg family um that they and apparently in one of these stories they said that there was another kidnapping threat against their baby john their new baby so they um they were given diplomatic passports and they traveled under assumed names and they took a boat like they left in the middle of the night and took a boat to england and ended up going to live with family that they had there in um in wales is where they they ended up going to wales and then they went out to some um island off the coast of france they were just like tried to get away from everybody um but so they lived in Europe for the next three years but the next three years was 35 to 38 in fucking Europe and the Nazis were coming to power and the Nazis had heard all about how much Charles Lindbergh was into eugenics and they were like guess what we're into eugenics too why don't you come and take a tour of the fucking factory so that basically he came out as a very huge anti -Semite and a big pro -Hitler like he was his whole thing was like I don't know why Hitler has to be so extreme about everything but they do have great ideas he was that guy yeah and nobody like I'm not a Nazi but yeah but I do love I love their ideas and they're organized or all that bullshit okay so um so basically he gets at they he gets asked to return to the United States to be a consultant for the U .S. Air Force because I think the military was like we're about to get into this thing yeah um At that point, when they come back, they have, he and Anne had had five children.

[951] Jesus.

[952] And they say over the years, his kids only saw him a couple months a year.

[953] That he was really detached, distant father.

[954] And then, so none of that explains the kidnapping, and none of that attributes anything.

[955] And there was lots of distant fathers that you know, reduce it.

[956] But then here's another weird twist.

[957] In 2003, these people, in Germany, these juries.

[958] German citizens come forward and announce that they are secretly, they were secretly fathered by Charles Lindberg in the 50s.

[959] What?

[960] Seven adult people.

[961] So what happened was, and this turns out to be fucking true.

[962] No way.

[963] That in the late 50s, he goes over to Germany and he starts having an affair, he has an affair with a woman named Brigitte Hessheimer.

[964] She has, he has three children with Brigitte.

[965] and then Brigitte's sister of Mariette, who's a painter, he has two kids with her sister.

[966] Oh, my God.

[967] And then with his private secretary in Europe, he has a, her name is Valesca.

[968] I just have the name Valesca.

[969] He has a son and daughter with her.

[970] Oh, my God, dude.

[971] All seven kids, they're born between 58 and 67.

[972] and in 1974 Charles Lundberg died of lymphoma and 10 days before his death he wrote letters to all three women begging them not to reveal the secret and so none of them did and the only way they found out was one of I believe it was Brigitte's daughter I could be wrong about that but I believe it was Brigitte's daughter found they all had suspicions because he told them they were all they they met him and like would see him once a year year maybe twice a year over the years but he said his name uh uh was shit i won't be able to remember it i don't have it written down it was something weird like carl kent or something like that just a weird fake name that's the only way they knew their father but then did you get it yeah thank you caroo kent mhm make that shit up man it's caroo kent would show up and be Like, it's me, your dad.

[973] Merry Christmas.

[974] So, Brigitte's daughter finds love letters and photographs, puts it together.

[975] They all get their DNA tested.

[976] And then they find out it's seven children that he fathered.

[977] It was busy.

[978] And it goes along with his eugenics thing of I am the one that needs to propagate and have tons of kids.

[979] So I'm going to go and have all these affairs and just have kids all over the place.

[980] Yeah, I have to.

[981] it's for the fucking greater good it's for the greater good of shit of fucking Germany so so I mean that's just kind of like an interesting weird creepy thing where it's just like who is this person who is this mystery man that like the world held up is this great human being because he made a solo flight across the Atlantic the good part about this horrible story that basically rocked the nation and was the hugest story like it's all anybody talked about for years and years is that the day after this baby was kidnapped Congress passed a law making kidnapping a capital offense so that's when they put it into effect that if you take a person over state lines oh right yeah it's a capital offense and basically that's it was and it was called it then and you know although remains popular at the time it was the crime of the century that's incredible that they never found any the other two -thirds people that it could have been they're in if you watch this nova special there's a guy on there that and it reminds me of like a lot of the black dahlia stuff where there's a guy on there who's like my father knew a person and he overheard this conversation and it could have been this guy and it could have been this guy it feels like it would have been that someone related to that the dude the one -third dude yeah just have a brother -in -law he's a brother -in -law It's always the brother -in -law.

[982] Well, because he was this German immigrant, there was other people on the city block that he lived on that were from the same city that he was from in Germany.

[983] And so the landlord of this guy who says his father overheard a conversation that that man's landlord was from the same city as Hotman.

[984] So the theory, it's very strong theory, but it is just theory and it kind of goes all over because it's basically this guy's father overheard a conversation.

[985] where they all talked about Engle, they used the word Englewood, and they said the name Bruno, and then there's pictures and whatever.

[986] But nothing is conclusive, so I didn't include it.

[987] They never found the other money, right?

[988] Like, no one ever spent it.

[989] Well, but there's the one guy that they suspected, one of the two people that they really, this guy knew and they suspected, took a, what at the time would have been a $70 ,000 world cruise.

[990] Holy shit.

[991] With his wife and there's pictures of him on the cruise.

[992] And he came back from Europe after Hopman was found guilty.

[993] So basically they took a cruise, got the fuck out of Dodge, went around the world on a boat.

[994] And then when they heard that they got the guy and they were sending him to the lecture chair, they were like, okay, we can come back now.

[995] That was him.

[996] I think it was him.

[997] Yeah.

[998] Yeah.

[999] That's crazy.

[1000] it's but it's very sinister and and definitely unproven but the idea that he just wanted this not perfect baby out of the house is just so dark or maybe what they were going to do is like take take the baby out put him in a facility something accidentally happened and he died maybe they were going to replace him with like an adopted perfect baby that they were going to say was him oh maybe you know could be I mean, when you see, there's lots of, they have lots of home video and these black and white videos of this baby.

[1001] It's not like this baby looks like anything is wrong.

[1002] Yeah.

[1003] But I feel like if he was under this pressure to be the perfect human being and that that's the whole theory of eugenics is like perfection, perfection.

[1004] Then you can't have a baby that has turned in knees, rickets, you know, like is that is even in any way developmentally slow.

[1005] Yeah.

[1006] Maybe the baby that they've found.

[1007] that was dead, wasn't Charlie.

[1008] Maybe they put Charlie in a fucking institution, killed some other baby to be like, nope, Charlie's dead.

[1009] And then they could, like, have this sick baby that they visit whenever they want.

[1010] Maybe.

[1011] That's, I think that's it.

[1012] You've done it.

[1013] You know what I mean, though?

[1014] You've added another twist.

[1015] Yes.

[1016] Well, basically, they did it.

[1017] Yeah.

[1018] That's even darker because then they're killing a baby.

[1019] Right.

[1020] yeah yeah it's i mean the whole thing is it would be nice to have some answers let's dna test that shit go on genealogy dot net test that shit right get on there um well fuck that was great oh thanks oh we i bet you guys have never heard the word ladder more in your life oh my gosh you guys this has been so much fun thanks so much to karen and georgia and the exactly right team for bringing us great content every week.

[1021] And thank you for listening.

[1022] I'm Kyle Russell.

[1023] You can catch me on Instagram at Kiki with Kiki.

[1024] And this is the end.

[1025] Bye.

[1026] Stay sexy and don't get murdered.

[1027] Goodbye.

[1028] Elvis, do you want a cookie?