346 - Fistful of Butter

[0] This is exactly right.

[1] And welcome.

[2] To my favorite murder.

[3] That's Georgia Hard Start.

[4] That's Karen Kilgareff.

[5] And here we are, face -to -face.

[6] A couple of silver spoons.

[7] That's right.

[8] Still on fucking Zoom.

[9] All of the things.

[10] I was thinking the other day about how difficult working, and this is, in this day and this day and age you have to qualify everything with like not harder than this.

[11] There's definitely a work.

[12] There's things out there.

[13] But there is this very specific type of mind fuck when you work from home on a Zoom but do a thing that says dependent on like a timing and connection as podcasting.

[14] Yeah.

[15] It fucks you up.

[16] And somehow we make it fucking look seamless.

[17] Literally, as you were saying, you were glitching out on my Wi -Fi.

[18] So that is how, like, it couldn't have been a better time.

[19] for it to be like, it's easy to podcast from home.

[20] Everyone, try it.

[21] Oh, wait, one second.

[22] Because my thing, my Google Nest got unplugged.

[23] I'm sorry.

[24] Oh, okay.

[25] All right.

[26] We had tech diffs for a sec, but here we are again.

[27] Yeah, my Zoom, it kind of like rolled, it scrolled, then there was the face of the devil really fast, and then my face came back.

[28] And a little Max Hedrum just to like do a deep cut there for the us Gen Xers.

[29] Max Hedrum, if a demon was haunted.

[30] So what you're saying is, it's spooky Halloween season.

[31] Oh, we start, are we kicking it off?

[32] Like everyone else is, right?

[33] It's like already happening.

[34] Well, because the 12 -foot skeleton army is up in, up and atoms.

[35] Right.

[36] We got a text from Stephen over the weekend of a sighting in the, not flesh, but, you know.

[37] Wild.

[38] Wild, thank you.

[39] Mm -hmm.

[40] Of a 12 -foot skeleton up an atom.

[41] It's a trend that now is about people see them and go, I have to show this to Karen and Georgia, and then we get roped in.

[42] That's right.

[43] People who have them go, this is taking out more basement space than I expected for like a one -time joke, but now I can't get rid of it.

[44] What are you going to put it on the curb and, like, hope someone takes it?

[45] No, they think it's decoration, so you can't get rid of it.

[46] Yes.

[47] That's true.

[48] Further out, you try to set it from your garage.

[49] You're like, no, this is a large item pickup, But it's like amazing decoration.

[50] Yeah, or they're like, now you're threatening your neighbors.

[51] Can you please stop putting the 10 foot, 12 foot skeleton into the neighborhood?

[52] I used to think it was a 20 foot skeleton.

[53] I kind of like that feel.

[54] They're just gigantic.

[55] I mean, 12 is plenty.

[56] You think by now they'd have the technology.

[57] It's been, what, three years?

[58] And you can feel like they could get it together to get a 20 foot skeleton at this point.

[59] There's always room to go up, always.

[60] To the moon.

[61] To the moon and back.

[62] To the fucking.

[63] The heavy spooky Halloween season.

[64] I like the idea of just declaring it mid -September.

[65] I feel like mid -August is when I first saw it.

[66] So I feel like we've been kind of, we're like on the back end of it, really.

[67] Really?

[68] Is it time to put up our Christmas tree?

[69] Yeah.

[70] Our collective Christmas tree, you and me?

[71] Yeah, we technically have missed Halloween, really, if you want to be technical about it.

[72] Yeah, yeah.

[73] And I do.

[74] I always want to be technical.

[75] You know that about me. That's why you went to ITT Technical Institute.

[76] That's right.

[77] Can I read you a tweet that I got that's an update to my survival story that went out last week about Antonio Sena?

[78] Yeah.

[79] Remember in the beginning of that story when I talked about how he had like eight to ten rolls on him?

[80] Marcella Jalbert, I'm going to put a little French pronunciation on that.

[81] Could be Jalbert, but I don't think it is.

[82] They wrote to me and said Brazilian American here with the intel on the rolls.

[83] Antonio Sina had.

[84] Wait, rolls of toilet paper?

[85] No, no, no. Like, I remember I said, what are those dinner rolls?

[86] Why would you bring rolls with you?

[87] Got it.

[88] I thought I missed a key part of that story.

[89] No. It was just a funny detail that then here comes Marcella, and she's like, I have key information for you.

[90] These are an absolute, all caps, absolute staple in a Brazilian home.

[91] Their breakfast, aside, a snack with coffee, or literally whatever.

[92] They have a hold on us, and it is not at all shocking.

[93] that he had 12 on hand.

[94] He had 12.

[95] And it's called Pao de Sal, which either means salt bread or there's also Pao Francaise, which is French bread.

[96] And then there's a follow -up.

[97] Also, they translate to salt bread or French bread and they're eaten most commonly room -temp, not toasted, with room -temp butter.

[98] I mean, that is a follow -up.

[99] That's what I'm looking for in a person listening to this and going, you wondered about a weird detail.

[100] Here comes the weird detail.

[101] patrol.

[102] Absolutely.

[103] Especially when it's carb -based.

[104] Like any detail you can give us that's carb -based, I'm going to need to know about it, please.

[105] Because you know what is going to happen next?

[106] I'm going to find a Brazilian bakery and we're going to try these on the air.

[107] Yes.

[108] Right?

[109] Yes.

[110] Okay.

[111] So, Marcella, you're a part of this.

[112] I guess Venmo me $5.

[113] You're in this taste test with us.

[114] Everyone has to put in $5 .00.

[115] They can't be $5.

[116] They've got to be like $1 .25, I would say.

[117] Yeah, but there's shipping and handling.

[118] I'm going to keep a lot.

[119] I'm going to keep a lot of this.

[120] Right.

[121] The handling part is key.

[122] I'm going to touch your rolls so much.

[123] That costs.

[124] Everyone knows it causes a lot of money to get cared and handle your rolls.

[125] Here's how we warm up.

[126] We room -temp that butter is I just hold it between my hands.

[127] Don't be.

[128] That's right.

[129] Filthy.

[130] Oh, there's nothing I love more than to hold a foil butter pat until it, until it's usable.

[131] Until it's warmed up.

[132] Oh, yeah.

[133] Butterfist.

[134] That's what you've got to have in your life.

[135] It's just a fistful of butter.

[136] You've got to go through your life with a fistful of butter.

[137] That's right.

[138] And a pow -day cell.

[139] Carves.

[140] So exciting.

[141] I read a, I listened to a book that's a memoir that I really loved that, like, made me remember that we wrote a memoir.

[142] Yeah.

[143] And in that way.

[144] Remember our memoir?

[145] Vaguely.

[146] So this chick, Jeanette McCurdy, do you know her book, I'm glad my mom died?

[147] She just, it just came out.

[148] I fucking listened to it too.

[149] You did not?

[150] Yes, I did.

[151] Oh, my God.

[152] How good was it?

[153] It was fucking unbelievable.

[154] Oh, my heart was in my, like, I was about to cry most of the book.

[155] Yes.

[156] She writes about a lot, a little, like, about her struggle and with so many things.

[157] Of course, I identified with the bulimia part.

[158] And she said this one thing that I really love.

[159] love that her eating disorder therapist taught her, which was you can slip, but that doesn't mean you have to slide.

[160] And I love that so much where you can fuck up with whatever your fuck up is, whatever the thing that you're always struggling with.

[161] But that doesn't mean you have to just like do what I do and put a match in the whole thing, burn it to the ground.

[162] You're a fucking loser and you screwed up.

[163] You just slipped.

[164] You didn't slide.

[165] I mean, it's hard though if you have perfectionistic tendencies.

[166] What I think is amazing.

[167] And if you guys don't know Jeanette McCurdy by name, she was on, what's the show called?

[168] Icarly.

[169] We're both way too old for it.

[170] So old.

[171] Huge hit.

[172] Yeah.

[173] I never saw it.

[174] And she had a butter sock.

[175] You just said the thing about Butterfist, but she had a Buttersock.

[176] That's what made me think of it.

[177] Yes.

[178] I was like Butter.

[179] Speaking of butter.

[180] Her talking about that, and I understood that it was like for the Icarly generation, that was like Fonzie's leather jacket.

[181] But I had no clue what she was talking about the entire time.

[182] And it was still the most compelling thing I've heard in so long.

[183] Yeah, it was really good.

[184] It's exactly what you think of when you're like stage moms and getting kids into acting too early.

[185] And I bet it's harmful to them.

[186] And I wonder what it's like to go on auditions as a little kid.

[187] And then you hit puberty.

[188] Like she explained it all, you know, in a way that I've been, it's so fascinating.

[189] I'm so curious about.

[190] But also her own personal struggle.

[191] and how she dealt with it.

[192] And she's so raw and open.

[193] And it was just, I really enjoyed it.

[194] It's an amazing book.

[195] She's such a good writer.

[196] And then she named her book, I'm glad my mom died.

[197] She's also an amazing narrator because it was like, it was no fat, no nothing.

[198] Unbelievable.

[199] That's ballsy and hilarious and heartbreaking at the same time.

[200] And so good.

[201] And then you hear this story and you're like, mm -hmm, yes.

[202] Narcissistic mom.

[203] I see you.

[204] What's up?

[205] Yeah.

[206] Hey, that's so weird because I couldn't think, I knew there was something I wanted to talk about and I couldn't remember and that's what it was.

[207] Oh, wow.

[208] That's so weird.

[209] Yeah.

[210] I also, I don't know, are you watching The Patient on Hulu, the new Steve Carell and Dom Hall -Gleason TV show?

[211] Fuck, I totally forgot to keep watching it because Vince couldn't watch it.

[212] That's how good it was, you know?

[213] He doesn't like suspense.

[214] And he also was like, this is so twisted that I can't watch this.

[215] So I watched it alone and then he's been home from when he was out of ten.

[216] so I haven't caught up.

[217] Oh, my God.

[218] The premise is so fucked up and good.

[219] It's so good.

[220] And also those are 20 -minute episodes, which is very strange.

[221] Like, when they end, you feel like the rug's been pulled out from under you.

[222] And it is, like, I feel like I was going to say Steve Krell doesn't get enough, like, praise for being a really good actor.

[223] But I actually think he does.

[224] Now that I think about it, I'm like, no, I think he actually, he just makes great choices.

[225] He does.

[226] Because his range is so wildly unbelievable.

[227] And watching him play this psychoidist, too, is in quite a predicament.

[228] It's just unbelievable and so intense.

[229] It's so intense.

[230] And then for one, what's the guy's name?

[231] One -on -one to play against Steve Correll like that.

[232] Dom Hall Gleason.

[233] Oh, my God.

[234] How challenging and fun must that be.

[235] And to play a psychopath.

[236] Right, I know.

[237] And how good.

[238] So do you remember, did you watch the first season of Black Mirror?

[239] He's the guy that's the robot of the woman's dead husband that she, after a while, is like, it starts to bummer out.

[240] Yeah.

[241] That's him.

[242] And also, Brendan Gleason is his father who was the guy from In Bruges.

[243] Yes.

[244] He's a very famous Irish actor.

[245] Yeah, I know the name very well.

[246] Okay.

[247] Yeah.

[248] He's a real badass actor because he's from a family of actors.

[249] Yeah.

[250] Yeah, he's got this.

[251] Yeah.

[252] Good for him.

[253] He's like, I'm about to show you what being around one of these people is actually like, and it's so believable.

[254] And so, like, when those times when he's like, yes, dead face, but then also like heavy -eyed, it's so creepy.

[255] I think I only got to the end of one of the seasons when he starts talking to the person who he can hear upstairs, and then they cut away.

[256] And I have, so I have to catch up from there.

[257] Oh, yeah.

[258] Okay, okay.

[259] All right.

[260] Vince is gone tonight.

[261] I'm fucking doing it.

[262] It's happening.

[263] It goes so fast.

[264] I think you're going to like it.

[265] There's a little bit of a, there's a pacing, like, two -man play element to it, power through it.

[266] Because sometimes people get that construct and then they're like, don't try to be highfalutin with me. It doesn't, it's not like that.

[267] Well, you know I always say that.

[268] That's my motto.

[269] Don't try to be highfalutin with me. Georgia gets really upset if people try to get highfalutin.

[270] And then she does what I was just doing, which is she kind of swings her arms back and forth like an old -time cowboy.

[271] It's a march and place, a lot of elbows.

[272] Don't get highfalent with me. Don't get highfalutin with me. Tattoo that on my back, because that's how much I mean it.

[273] Yeah, a lot of great content.

[274] A lot of great content around lately.

[275] Should we do some exactly right highlights?

[276] Hey.

[277] Tell people what's going on.

[278] Let's do it.

[279] I'm happy to talk about it on my other podcast, do you need a ride?

[280] We have the great Bridger Weiner from the podcast, I Said No Gifts, which you can listen to every Thursday on the Exactly Right podcast network.

[281] He has a hilarious podcast.

[282] If you haven't tried out, I said no gifts, because you're like, oh, me, I don't, I'm a Seventh -day Adventist, I don't like gifts, or whatever your personal background story is, what I'm telling you is put that aside, this is not about gifts, this is comedy, comedy, comedy, comedy.

[283] So comedy.

[284] It's the funniest show, Bridgers had some of the best guest, Darcy Cardin, Tony Hale, Tony Hale, Bowen Yang, Weird Al, Chris Fleming, there's so many amazing, hilarious comic artists that go onto that show and play the I said No Gifts game with Bridger, and it's such a delight.

[285] It is.

[286] Give it a try if you haven't listened to it.

[287] It's a really great comedy talk show that you just have to, you have to take you away from all your misery that you have from all the highfalutin people in the fucking world.

[288] That's right.

[289] Don't let the highfaluters get you down.

[290] Yeah, listen to I said no gifts.

[291] And do you need a ride?

[292] Okay.

[293] On September 28th, the next episode of MFM animated by Nick Terry will premiere.

[294] So don't miss Knife Bears on the exactly right media.

[295] channel, please subscribe or whatever you do on YouTube to the exactly right media YouTube channel, please.

[296] Thanks.

[297] And to follow up with that, if you're so moved because you like those cartoons and so much that Nick Terry makes for us, you can go over to the My Favorite Murder Store at My Favorite Murder .com and get MFM animated merch.

[298] There's new MFM animated merch.

[299] And it's basically, if you want a lazy Halloween costume, this Halloween, there's one way to be.

[300] for you over there.

[301] Oh, we've got some great new, great new merch.

[302] You're going to love it.

[303] All right, is that it?

[304] I think it is.

[305] That's a quick start to get you going, to get you revving.

[306] I could tell you the story about how there was a police helicopter over my head this week.

[307] And then when I looked out my front window, there was a guy crouching behind a car.

[308] Excuse me?

[309] But is that too much of a bumer?

[310] Will it bring you down?

[311] Are you legally allowed to say that?

[312] Nothing happened and it turned out that the crime, somebody shot themselves like in the leg, in like an encampment down by the river.

[313] So it was not, it was just a crime of a person fucking up with a gun.

[314] But there's like all these, you know, cop cars and helicopters everywhere.

[315] So of course it was after the fact, much less scary.

[316] Yeah.

[317] But while it was happening and I saw the man crouch down.

[318] Was he crouched?

[319] Well, because I think he was hiding from the helicopter.

[320] But he wasn't who they were.

[321] were looking, okay, I'm so.

[322] I don't know.

[323] Karen, I need all the answers.

[324] All I know is that here's what I did.

[325] I was standing there without my glasses on looking and that and seeing that.

[326] And I'm like, well, whatever that is, the gate's unlocked.

[327] So you better get down there right now.

[328] So I grab my keys.

[329] And so fast and so quietly, I run to the gate and lock it really fast and then run away and lock all the doors and then just wait.

[330] And when I got back, the guy was gone.

[331] So it wasn't like eminent anything, but it was that kind of thing that is just like, wow, that's uncomfortable.

[332] Maybe it's just a guy who's scared of helicopters.

[333] That's what I said was, you know what I said was, it could have been somebody walking a dog leaning down to pick up shit right as I look out and I'm like, oh my God, it could have been He's crouched, right?

[334] It was just a weird, no, that's creepy.

[335] Jarring thing to see.

[336] It's like if he was, if he wasn't doing anything wrong and he wasn't, like that's the most inconspicuous thing.

[337] No, the most conspicuous thing he could possibly freaking do is crouch down when a helicopter's overhead, dude.

[338] Yeah, like, who else would crouch?

[339] It's like, if somebody is on drugs and they don't understand what they're looking at, crouch down, or they're hiding.

[340] So it's just like, it's like, it was just daytime, chill, there's, you know, very few people in this neighborhood and then a crouching guy where I was just like, here we go.

[341] It makes you ask, what's in a crouch?

[342] Because a crouch can be so many things, you know.

[343] I also think there was, his hands were not, it was not like he was crouched down doing something actively.

[344] I could tell his hands were up by his head.

[345] Nefarious.

[346] So it looked like a very, like, stop, drop and roll position.

[347] It just looked like an emergency.

[348] That's a nefarious crouch, for sure.

[349] I mean, there was guilt in there.

[350] There was guilt in there for sure.

[351] All right, well, I'm first.

[352] All right.

[353] Let's go for it.

[354] Okay, let's do it.

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

[356] Absolutely.

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

[358] Exactly.

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

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

[361] That's right.

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

[363] Give your point -of -sale system a serious update.

[364] upgrade with Shopify.

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

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

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

[368] With Shopify, we have a powerful partner for managing our sales, and if you're a business owner, you can too.

[369] Connect with customers in line and online.

[370] Do retail right with Shopify.

[371] Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify .com slash murder.

[372] Important note, That promo code is all lowercase.

[373] Go to Shopify .com slash murder to take your retail business to the next level today.

[374] That's Shopify .com slash murder.

[375] Goodbye.

[376] All right.

[377] So today I'm going to talk about serial killer Robert Garrow.

[378] But this case is about so much more than that.

[379] It's kind of just a horrible serial killer story.

[380] But the story is also about what his case meant for legal ethics and attorney -client privilege.

[381] And this is also known as the buried boss.

[382] Bodies case.

[383] So the sources I use today, there's a 2016 Radio Lab episode that covers this case about the legal aspects of it.

[384] And so I listened to that and got a lot of info from there.

[385] I also used a crime library article by Mark Gatto, a post -standard article by Dick Case, a Buffalo Law Review article by Jeffrey Chamberlain, a New York Times article by Mary Brested, a bunch more.

[386] You can see them in the show notes.

[387] So, Karen, let me tell you about the Adirondacks real quick.

[388] I wish you would.

[389] I love their chair.

[390] That's right.

[391] The Adirondacks are the largest national park in the lower 48, and the total area is bigger than Yosemite, Yellowstone, Glacier, Grand Canyon, and the Great Smoky National Parks all combined.

[392] So it's fucking huge.

[393] I know.

[394] That's actually quite something.

[395] That was a ton of parks.

[396] Right?

[397] I named a bunch.

[398] Along with lakes and waterfalls and hiking trails, the Adirondacks has lots of little small towns and villages peppered throughout its wilderness.

[399] It's very popular.

[400] with summer tourists, as you, I'm sure have heard.

[401] It's very beautiful.

[402] Think dirty dancing where it took place.

[403] I think that's the Adirondacks.

[404] Maybe not.

[405] Isn't that in the...

[406] It's the Jewish?

[407] Catskills.

[408] Okay.

[409] I always get Catskills and the Adirondacks mixed up, and I just did it.

[410] Okay.

[411] But it's like that kind of area.

[412] You know what I mean?

[413] Yes, totally.

[414] So on July 14th, 1973, 23 -year -old Danny Porter, and his girlfriend, 20 -year -old Susan Peck.

[415] are camping for the weekend in the Adirondacks.

[416] Danny grew up in Mansfield, Ohio, and was enrolled in Harvard's government studies program.

[417] He's a photographer for the Harvard Crimson.

[418] Both these kids have their whole lives ahead of them.

[419] Susan comes from a Chicago suburb called Skokie.

[420] She's a journalism senior at Boston University and writes for the East Boston Community News, and they've been dating since the fall of 1972.

[421] So once the two arrive in the Adirondacks, Danny and Susan set up camp about 28 miles east of a town called Speculator.

[422] However, before their camping trip is over, Danny will be found tied to a tree, stabbed to death, and Susan will be gone without a trace.

[423] Police quickly surmise who their likely suspect is as there's a serial sex offender who had gone on the lamb a month before after being arrested for first -degree sodomy involving a child when he sexually assaulted two pre -teen girls.

[424] So he had skipped bail and headed deep into the Adirondacks to hide out.

[425] So he was just on bail for these.

[426] He fucking left town.

[427] They know he's hiding out the Adirondacks.

[428] And so a warrant is issued for his arrest.

[429] His name's Robert Garrow, with police reports describing him as white, five foot 11 inches tall, weighing two 10 to 220 pounds, baldish brown hair, blue eyes, and a tattoo on his left forearm consisting of the words mom and dad and a heart.

[430] The police said he wore sunglasses and had a hat on most of the time.

[431] So everyone's on the lookout for him.

[432] Let me tell you a little bit more about this man just to catch you up.

[433] It's the basics we've heard a million times before and the story is about so much more than him and so I don't want to really get into it.

[434] But just to sum it up, Robert Francis Garrow is born in Danamora in upstate New York on March 4th, 1936.

[435] He spends a lot of his time in the Adirondacks.

[436] So he's really familiar with the area.

[437] He's the second of six children, all of whom are severely physically abused as children being beaten constantly and sometimes so severely that they're beaten unconscious.

[438] He doesn't attend school, so also has no friends because of that.

[439] At age 17, he joins the Air Force, but he's bullied over bedwetting, which is something he's done his entire life.

[440] A year later, he's court -martialed for stealing money from a superior officer and served six months in a military prison in Florida, and he's eventually released.

[441] In 1957, now 21 -year -old Robert returns to New York where he marries and has two children, but he can't hold down a job and is fired from one after the other.

[442] Around this time, this is just a weird little aside.

[443] He's said to become involved in an abusive sexual relationship with his lawyer who ties Robert up and whips him.

[444] But by this time, Robert is prowling the streets on his days off, looking for young women.

[445] He's a big guy, as I said.

[446] in 1961, the 25 -year -old pleads guilty to raping a teen girl and assaulting her boyfriend.

[447] He's convicted and sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison, but only serves about seven years.

[448] And in August, 1968, now 32 -year -old Robert is paroled for good behavior.

[449] He gets a job as a mechanic at a Syracuse bakery where he maintains the machinery.

[450] But he goes straight back to raping women, and now he also targets children.

[451] In 1972, the 36 -year -old ties up two young college students.

[452] He's arrested for unlawful imprisonment, but the young women declined to press charges.

[453] And this brings us back to June 1973 when he's arrested for a first -degree sodomy involving two preteen girls in the town of Gettis.

[454] And this is when he skips bail and goes on the lamb deep in the Adirondacks.

[455] And a warrant is issued for his arrest.

[456] A month later, on July 11th, a 16 -year -old girl named Alicia.

[457] Hawk goes missing and is a suspected runaway.

[458] And on July 14th, as I told you in the beginning, Danny and Susan leave Boston to go camping.

[459] And Danny is tied to a tree before being stabbed to death with the hunting night and Robert kidnapped Susan.

[460] A man reports finding an abandoned car in a dirt road in the Adirondack and Danny's friends notified the police that he hasn't returned so the cops head out to the area.

[461] Officers find Danny's car locked, no signs of a struggle, so they're not concerned, but Danny's friends take matters into their own hands and go out searching for them.

[462] And on July 20th, they find Danny's body tied to the tree.

[463] Oh, his own friends.

[464] His own friends found him because they could just tell something it wasn't right, only 20 yards from his car.

[465] But Susan's still missing.

[466] So then on July 28th, 18 -year -old Mount Pleasant High School graduate Philip Dumblowski and three of his high school friends go camping in the Adirondacks.

[467] The group is from Schenectady, New York, where Philip is a member of the National Honor Society, the group set up camp near Route 8 just outside of the village of Speculator.

[468] The next morning, on July 29th, Robert is driving northbound on Route 8.

[469] He sees the group's campsite off the side of the road and stops the car.

[470] He takes out his 30 caliber rifle and a hunting knife.

[471] He unzips the tents and orders the teenagers to come out of the tents.

[472] He forces the group to walk about 400 yards away from their campsite into the woods near the town of Wells and instructs each one of them to tie the others up.

[473] Then, oh my God, this is so horrible.

[474] Then Phillips' friends listen in horror as Robert stabs Phillips in the chest multiple times.

[475] So they're all tied up far away from each other, but they can hear their friend being stabbed to death.

[476] Horrible.

[477] Phillips' friends are so freaked out that they're able to get out of their restraints.

[478] They all make a run for it.

[479] They escape and report the incident to locals who alert the police.

[480] And the group identifies Robert, who has fled in his car.

[481] through police photographs.

[482] So now they know this psycho is on the loose, this murderer.

[483] And Susan Petz is still missing.

[484] Police now wonder of Danny Porter and Phillips murders are linked.

[485] They obviously know someone dangerous is on the loose and these murders are probably linked.

[486] And they realize, too, that this murder scenes are only 25 miles apart and Robert's parents live close to where Danny is murdered.

[487] So they're hoping they can find Susan alive still and apprehend Robert.

[488] So law enforcement launches the biggest manhunt in New York State history.

[489] And this becomes a huge story, and people who are camping and the Adirondacks find out about it and just get in their cars and leave.

[490] So all these campsites are abandoned, which means that Robert can use those campsites himself.

[491] Ooh.

[492] So he has ample ways to survive.

[493] Supplies.

[494] Yeah.

[495] So for 12 days, over a hundred square foot mile area, state police troopers and local police work around the clock using tracker dogs and helicopters to cover every inch of the Adirondacks.

[496] Robert's wife and son are even brought in to record a message, which is broadcast from police cars pleading for him to give himself up.

[497] Roadblocks are set up throughout the park where officers stop motorists and search their trunks.

[498] Drivers are warned not to stop for anyone hitchhiking.

[499] Residents of the Lake Pleasant and Speculatory area are locking their doors and sleeping with loaded firearms under their pillow.

[500] And it's a normally busy tourist season, but everyone leaves and it comes to a standstill in the Adirondacks.

[501] Robert continues being able to hide in the woods because he knows the Adirondacks like the back of his hand.

[502] Having spent his formative years in the area, he evades police every day for 12 days.

[503] But finally, on August 10th, Roberts apprehended by officers in the woods near the hamlet of Witherby after being spotted and shot.

[504] He's shot in the arm, foot, and back, but survives and is taken to the hospital.

[505] Wow.

[506] He's treated for his injuries and he claims he's now paralyzed from the shooting.

[507] But doctors dismisses a complaint that he's insistent that he's paralyzed.

[508] And he files a $10 million civil suit against the state of New York alleging negligence in the medical treatment he receives.

[509] Sure, absolutely.

[510] There we go.

[511] If you're going to be a douchebag, go all the way with it.

[512] You might as well.

[513] That's right.

[514] The idea that you would be insisting that you're paralyzed to doctors who are like, dude, you're fine, we can tell.

[515] We went to school for it, for this specifically, we can tell.

[516] Even though he's captured in charge with the murder of Philip Dumbluski, investigators are still looking for Susan Pets and suspect Robert in the disappearance of Alicia Hawk as well.

[517] So now in custody, he appoints his attorney, so he gets an attorney named Frank Armani to defend him, not the same attorney that he had been having a sexual, some kind of sexual relationship.

[518] with.

[519] Okay, good.

[520] Yeah.

[521] Great.

[522] Good.

[523] Good first step.

[524] So Frank Armani, this attorney, who's not a criminal defense attorney, he's known Roberts since 1972 because he represented him in some minor legal matters.

[525] And in this radio lab episode, he's immediately like, I knew this guy was super dangerous.

[526] I don't know why he wanted me to defend him, but he insisted on it.

[527] I tried to get out of it.

[528] He's like, I had no experience in murder trials.

[529] But the only reason he takes it is because the judge insists he takes it.

[530] He says he has to take it.

[531] Take the case.

[532] Oh, no. Yeah.

[533] Because, you know, right to an attorney.

[534] But it's like, if you're like, I can't defend him to the best of my ability, because I don't know how to do that, then probably shouldn't be the attorney.

[535] But he's forced to be to represent this monster.

[536] They're like, look, this is the Adirondacks.

[537] You don't have attorneys just falling off every deck and off of every chair.

[538] Please do this job.

[539] That's right.

[540] And so this.

[541] guy is, in 2016, he's interviewed in radio lab fully.

[542] He's in his 80s.

[543] And like, remembers the whole fucking thing.

[544] He sounds like Christopher Walken.

[545] It's wild.

[546] That's genius.

[547] Yeah.

[548] So he's like, all right, if I have to do this, I'm going to recruit someone who I know can actually help me with this.

[549] So he recruits his friend, Francis Belgi, who has a lot of criminal trial experience.

[550] He has to, like, beg his friend to do it because he's like, this is a high -profile case and I don't want to be, you know, I don't want to be defending a murderer, known murderer, but he does it.

[551] So the Hawk and Pets families want to know if Robert has killed their daughters.

[552] So they think that the girls could still be alive, that he could have been keeping them somewhere that whole time.

[553] And if so, if they are dead, they want to know where their daughter's bodies are, of course.

[554] So Robert initially insists he knows nothing about the young women, but in late August, he confesses to his two attorneys that he's raped and killed.

[555] killed two women and hidden their bodies.

[556] So he confesses privately to his attorneys about this.

[557] Robert says he picked up Alicia as she was walking along Glenwood Avenue in Syracuse and raped her at the rear of an apartment block.

[558] And when she tried to escape, he stabbed her before hiding her body in Oakwood Cemetery nearby.

[559] He acts like he's insane, doesn't remember details, says he has headaches and that's why he kills.

[560] He's kind of, you know, all over the place and really evasive.

[561] even with his attorneys.

[562] So he draws a diagram showing where one of the bodies is.

[563] Frank and Francis, these are the attorneys, want to know if Robert is telling the truth.

[564] So they have reason to believe Susan could still be alive but tied up.

[565] So they follow the diagram and they don't tell the police about it and they go searching for the bodies.

[566] And after several hours, they find Susan's body in an abandoned coal mine air shaft at the base of a mountain in Mineville.

[567] So then Frank lowers Francis down into the shaft by his feet to take a Polaroid photo of Susan's leg as proof that they found her.

[568] Okay, so at this point, this is where like kind of everything turns.

[569] Did they have a legal obligation to their client and attorney -client privilege, or did they have a legal obligation or a moral, more so obligation to let these families know that their daughter is dead and here is where her body is so that they can have some peace?

[570] I mean, tough call.

[571] what with the fact that I flunked out of state school but why would you go and involve yourself basically in the investigation as the defendant's lawyer knowing you're going to fuck everything up if you find something you now have like eight more problems on your hands but you just go do it so you can see that doesn't seem like a smart plan because if like if you don't find anything it doesn't prove anything But if you do find something, which they did, then you're like, yeah, then you, I think you have to turn it over to the authorities of trying to find out what happened in this case.

[572] But then the Sixth Amendment to client attorney privilege that you can tell your attorney anything and it's a secret unless you're going to kill someone, essentially, then that's just gone to shit.

[573] There's no point in it at all.

[574] However, I will say they were never going to argue for his innocence.

[575] They were going to argue for his insanity defense.

[576] So they were never going to try to get him off totally.

[577] They were just going to try to get him into a better facility and maybe less time because of insanity defense.

[578] But they're doing it dishonestly, though.

[579] Yeah, totally.

[580] Totally.

[581] Like call some people.

[582] Call some people who come with you.

[583] that wear uniforms and write things down on official paperwork.

[584] Right.

[585] So this is where the story becomes, what it becomes.

[586] They choose not to say anything at all.

[587] They leave her body there and they don't tell anyone.

[588] Oh.

[589] Oh, I thought you just meant they didn't inform the proper authorities.

[590] They literally keep it a secret.

[591] Yeah.

[592] Because of a patient.

[593] What do I keep calling it that?

[594] Because of attorney -client privilege.

[595] All I have to say is God can see them.

[596] God can see you.

[597] What are you doing?

[598] No. The next day, Francis, one of the attorneys, goes to the Oakwood Cemetery where he said he left one of the bodies and finds Alicia Hawks badly decomposed remains.

[599] So they find both women based on Roberts' diagrams and admissions, and they don't tell anyone.

[600] Both bodies?

[601] Yep.

[602] That's egregious and ridiculous and no. That's a firm no on my side.

[603] Yeah.

[604] I rest my case.

[605] They destroy the photographs and diagram.

[606] Destroying that diagram, to me, seems like tampering with evidence for sure.

[607] Right.

[608] Could they use the diagram if it's attorney -client privilege?

[609] I don't think so.

[610] To me, it's more just simply than knowledge.

[611] Yeah.

[612] Here's two pieces of very important evidence that you're hiding.

[613] Yeah, that you're not turning over to prosecution.

[614] Yeah.

[615] It's not a decision they take lightly, and they do both, it does trouble them both very deeply, but they think that they're doing the right thing.

[616] I know.

[617] It should.

[618] They did the wrong thing.

[619] But as lawyers, they feel they have no. choice under the professional ethical obligations to their client.

[620] But they made the situation that way.

[621] Sorry to argue with you.

[622] Oh, no. I agree.

[623] But I mean, you can't claim the excuse that you basically manufactured.

[624] You set it up that way so that then you would have this excuse.

[625] That's total bullshit.

[626] At the same time, Alicia and Susan's families are, of course, totally distraught.

[627] They think there's a possibly their daughters are still out there alive, you know.

[628] And so Frank knows the Hawk family from bowling and church, and Alicia's sister and Frank's daughter are even in the same class at school.

[629] So he, this is a small town.

[630] He has personal connections with these families.

[631] Alicia's father, Bill, makes a public plea for information, while Susan Petz's father Earl, flies to Syracuse and a one -on -one meeting pleads with Robert's lawyers, these two people who have seen her body, have seen his daughter's body, to give him any info Robert may have given them, but they say they have no information.

[632] So how fucking heartbreaking?

[633] That is just chilling.

[634] He pleads with them, where is my daughter?

[635] Do you know where my daughter is?

[636] If she's alive, I need to find her.

[637] If she's not, I need to find her.

[638] Do you know anything has he told you anything?

[639] Like pleading with them human to human.

[640] And they don't tell him anything.

[641] And they just sat there staring at him and lying.

[642] Yeah.

[643] And the lead up to Robert's trial.

[644] So Frank and Francis do one thing to try to get this information out.

[645] They put a plea bargain to the prosecution saying basically, will give you these two girls' bodies.

[646] We'll let you know where they are and admit that he killed them if Robert is sentenced to life in a psychiatric hospital instead of prison.

[647] They don't specifically say we know where they are.

[648] They say, we'll help you find them.

[649] Meaning, like, maybe we do and maybe we don't.

[650] And the prosecution's like, fuck, no, that's not happening.

[651] Because this is a huge trial at this point, too.

[652] This guy's a monster.

[653] Everyone's following this trial.

[654] This prosecutor can't just be like, on this murderer, you know, he dismisses it completely.

[655] Yeah, you can't bargain that because...

[656] But he didn't know for sure if they even had the bodies, too, in the prosecution.

[657] Well, but they did.

[658] Yeah.

[659] The defense did.

[660] And that's that thing of, like, they can say all day long after the fact that they lost sleep over it or felt bad about it.

[661] Yeah.

[662] Yeah.

[663] In the prosecution's defense, it doesn't seem like he knew, he had any idea they actually knew where the bodies were.

[664] So in December 1973, four months after Robert's confidential confess, Some kids playing near the abandoned mine shaft finds Susan's body.

[665] And just a week later, a college student walking through Oakwood Cemetery finds Alicia's remains.

[666] So a week apart, they're found.

[667] So that many more people have to be traumatized also.

[668] Exactly.

[669] Roberts trial begins on June 10, 1974.

[670] He pleads not guilty by reason of insanity.

[671] He admits to murdering not only Philip and Danny, but he also admits on the stand to murdering Susan.

[672] in Alicia.

[673] So he's totally unemotional throughout the confession.

[674] At times, he says he can't remember certain details.

[675] He's evasive in his responses.

[676] So at one point, Francis, one of the attorneys, asked Robert about Alicia and says something along the lines of, is that the one I found?

[677] This would have probably never been found out if he hadn't accidentally slipped and said that during the examination.

[678] In court?

[679] Is that the one I found?

[680] Oh.

[681] So everyone in court are fucking, what the fuck are shocked, right?

[682] His secrets now publicly exposed.

[683] Now everyone knows the attorneys have been sitting on the information about Susan and Alicia's bodies the whole time.

[684] Oh, God.

[685] The public and the media are totally fucking outraged by the whole thing that the attorneys knew about the location of the bodies for months and didn't tell anyone.

[686] I mean, taking a photo, it's so disgusting.

[687] I just don't see the excuse.

[688] It's their eyes were open the entire time.

[689] They made a very definitive decision, a very, I think, bad decision, obviously.

[690] Like, there's no excuse for it.

[691] They can't later be like, I felt bad.

[692] Let me play devil's advocate.

[693] Client in private said to them, yes, I killed them.

[694] He's going to trial for a murder.

[695] Not their murder, though.

[696] Yes, I killed them.

[697] Here are their bodies.

[698] No one's in imminent danger at that point.

[699] and the prosecution could then use that confession and those bodies in this case that he's being tried on.

[700] So I'm just saying in their minds, I could see, I think they're wrong.

[701] I totally think they're wrong and it's totally immoral, but I could see where they thought that that was their job was to not tell anyone, at least until after the trial was over.

[702] Yeah.

[703] I don't agree with it.

[704] I'm just saying that that's what their argument seems to be.

[705] Well, yes.

[706] And we cannot I think that's the whole thing of lawyers is like trying to figure out angles, right?

[707] Trying to rationalize and do this.

[708] I'm just saying, like, to me, what's very striking is what you said, which is they play, they bowl with these people, these people whose child it is that's been murdered.

[709] And it's like that information is informing the court about the person that they're representing.

[710] I get that it's like bad strategy.

[711] but this isn't New York City.

[712] Yeah.

[713] It's a small town where everyone knows each other.

[714] So it's like, who are you actually protecting?

[715] Not strategy, though.

[716] I think legally they really thought they were not allowed to tell anyone about this.

[717] Legally.

[718] I get it, but I feel like there must be, this must have happened before where someone who is representing a serial killer with a body count, suddenly has to tell someone else, like tell the authorities, right?

[719] Who knows?

[720] There's more going on.

[721] Yeah.

[722] I'm interested.

[723] I'm interested, like, what that privilege covers, I guess.

[724] Yeah, legal people, let us know, please.

[725] But really short, like, two sentences.

[726] Yeah, yeah, yeah, like, a quick, like, one little, one of those cute little paragraphs in Instagram that are, like, real short and to the point.

[727] Two -minute TikTok.

[728] That's right.

[729] The jury doesn't accept Robert's plea of insanity because his escape attempts and concealment of Susan and Alicia's bodies prove he fully understood the difference between right and wrong.

[730] So on June 27th, he's found guilty of first degree murder, and on July 1st is sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.

[731] So you're right.

[732] Him concealing these two other bodies, it seems like it shouldn't have been allowed in this trial to begin with, but prove that he knows the difference between right and wrong.

[733] So it is part of the trial.

[734] So maybe they did just want to save their asses and get their insanity defense or their insanity plea in there and win the case in a sense as best they could.

[735] Yeah, the thing I was just thinking is, I feel like if not reporting anything because you are like rationalizing, I'm the lawyer, this is privilege, okay, but then you wouldn't go try to find the bodies because that would implicate you.

[736] Right.

[737] It would be like, I don't want to know.

[738] Yeah.

[739] Is that the big mistake that they went and inserted themselves in these cases?

[740] I mean, it seems like only based on television, but it feels like that's when the lawyer's line is, I don't want to know, don't tell me, it has nothing to do with our case.

[741] Right.

[742] Totally.

[743] That's a separate thing.

[744] You're going to have to talk to your other lawyer about that.

[745] Instead, these guys are like, hey, we'll go, we'll get involved.

[746] Yeah.

[747] No, it's a really good point.

[748] We'll go find answers.

[749] Like, it's fucked up.

[750] That's a good point.

[751] It's fucked up.

[752] So, of course, the pets and Hawk families are still furious with Francis and Frank, even though they got a guilty verdict.

[753] Almost overnight, both attorneys lose clients.

[754] They're deserted by their friends and receive obscene phone calls and even death threats.

[755] People are out for video.

[756] anti -justice, they vandalize the attorney's homes, offices, and cars.

[757] The public call for the removal of Frank and Francis's licenses to practice and even want them prosecuted for obstructing justice or being accomplices after the fact.

[758] Onondaga County, DA, John Holcomb announces a grand jury will consider whether the attorney's conduct meets the threshold of a criminal offense.

[759] Francis explains his actions to the New York Times saying, quote, the information was so privileged, I was bound by my lawyer's oath to keep it confidential after I found the bodies.

[760] I spent many, many sleepless nights over my inability to reveal the information, especially after Mr. Peds came in from Chicago and talked to me. So whatever.

[761] Yeah.

[762] I mean, they painted themselves and do a terrible corner.

[763] Yeah.

[764] You're right.

[765] They should not have looked for the fucking bodies.

[766] But if they still had that information, did they have an obligation, a moral obligation to give that information to the authorities, probably?

[767] moral obligation, not a legal obligation is what it feels like we're saying, which is kind of sad.

[768] In February 1975, a grand jury indicts Francis for violating two aspects of the New York public health law.

[769] One requires that the dead be given a decent burial, while the other requires anyone knowing about the death of a person to report it to authorities.

[770] So he gets indicted by a grand jury.

[771] Well, that's also an interesting thing to know that that's a law.

[772] Yeah, totally.

[773] So you are actually breaking the law if you learn that and don't report it?

[774] I guess so.

[775] As a lawyer?

[776] Well, I don't know.

[777] Hold on.

[778] He has some support in legal circles.

[779] The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers provides a brief advocating for him.

[780] And they say if he's convicted, this will basically destroy attorney -client privilege going forward.

[781] No client will ever be able to talk freely with their attorney without fear of violation of the professional code of ethics.

[782] So, slippery slope.

[783] Yeah.

[784] In August 1975, the court finds Francis did as he was ethically bound.

[785] He protected Robert's Fifth Amendment rights to not incriminate himself.

[786] And their conversations about the location of the bodies were protected by client attorney privilege.

[787] And the indictment is dismissed.

[788] But you're right.

[789] The conversation is protected.

[790] Not him fucking going out, Scooby -Doo style and finding.

[791] What would you, why would you implicate yourself?

[792] Like, why would you?

[793] Yeah.

[794] No, it's a great point.

[795] Why would you go learn information you cannot share?

[796] That would drive you insane.

[797] It doesn't help anything.

[798] You have no intention of helping the investigation.

[799] What is the value?

[800] But then when is he obligated to tell authorities about the location of these murder victims?

[801] Is he ever at that point?

[802] If he doesn't find them, he's just told this by this obviously mentally ill, you know, lunatic.

[803] Then at what point is he obligated to give this information over?

[804] I guess if nobody, when the case was over and if no one found them?

[805] I don't know.

[806] I guess is what their plan was.

[807] I'm confused by it.

[808] Yeah.

[809] The appeals court holds up the decision.

[810] However, the judge comments that attorney -client privilege shouldn't be considered some type of blanket free -for -all saying attorneys must, quote, observe basic human standards of decency.

[811] Hey.

[812] Susan Petz's parents filed a complaint with the New York State Bar Association.

[813] But in February 1978, this is dismissed.

[814] the Bar Association states clients must be reassured of confidentiality if they're to fully disclose all relevant facts.

[815] And even though both attorneys are absolved in any criminal or ethical responsibility, their reputations are just totally ruined.

[816] Francis starts drinking heavily.

[817] He quits the law and moves to Florida.

[818] Frank has a heart attack, but stays in law and works to rebuild the business he once had.

[819] So both of their reputations are ruined.

[820] And their whole lives, like friends would not talk to them anymore, you know, family members.

[821] Yeah, the loss, the losses seems so not, like they didn't think that part through.

[822] What would people think of us if we did this?

[823] Right, right.

[824] It's just like, by the book only.

[825] Could they have gone to the judge and been like, we have this, I'm sure this is like me being community college dropout being like, could they go to the judge and be like, we have this information that we can't keep to ourselves turning client privilege, but this is big and we don't know what to do with it.

[826] Can you replace us So we can, no, they couldn't have, obviously.

[827] Well, it also, it sounds like if the Bar Association backed them, then technically, they did.

[828] They did what was right.

[829] But, like, they involved themselves to a degree where then they were the bad guy now.

[830] Like, it spread right onto them.

[831] Definitely.

[832] Like, just ostracized by your town.

[833] Yeah.

[834] It's horrible.

[835] Yeah.

[836] In March 1975, Robert pleads guilty to murdering Alicia Hawk, Danny Porter, and Susan Pets, and is sentenced to 15 years to life for each count.

[837] Robert demands to be moved to a minimum security facility claiming it's the only place appropriate for him given his paralysis, remember that?

[838] Prosecutors strike a deal with him saying that if he drops the negligence lawsuit against the state, they'll move him.

[839] So he agrees and is transferred to the, quote, elderly and handicapped section at Fishkill Correctional Facility in New York.

[840] Here's a surprise to nobody.

[841] On September 9th, 1978, guards at the low security elderly and handicapped building at Fish Kill Notice, he isn't in his cell.

[842] They don't think much of it because, remember, he's paralyzed.

[843] Where is he going to go?

[844] But he isn't paralyzed, and he has escaped.

[845] The night before, he walked out of the door of the facility, scaled a 15 -foot -high prison fence, and he has a 32 -calibre pistol with him, which his son had snuck into the prison concealed inside a bucket of chicken during a visit.

[846] Jesus grace.

[847] I know.

[848] Also think about that fence is three feet higher than a 12 foot skeleton.

[849] That's high to be fake paralyzed and climb a fence like that.

[850] That's a really high fucking fence.

[851] That's no joke.

[852] That's some park horseshit right there.

[853] Authorities search his cell and they find a hit list that includes Frank and Francis's name on it.

[854] So for whatever reason, he's still pissed off at these guys.

[855] Those guys are fucking losing, coming and going.

[856] I know.

[857] This is the worst thing that's ever happened to them.

[858] I know.

[859] Officers, tracker dogs, and helicopters converge on the area and then spread out in the belief that he again is on his way to the Adirondacks.

[860] They're all freaking out.

[861] When actually he's hiding out in a nearby wooded area, only a few hundred yards away from the western edge of the prison, watching everything going on.

[862] He's there for three days, concealing himself in a hole covered with foliage.

[863] And then on September 11th, Robert emerges from his hideout.

[864] He's spotted by guards.

[865] A shootout ensues.

[866] He's shot three times.

[867] and finally falls dead on the spot.

[868] Following his death, his son is sentenced to four years in prison for his role in the great chicken bucket escape.

[869] The case is a...

[870] Okay, so this is a crazy thing about this.

[871] This case is a watershed moment for the way ethics is taught across law schools in the U .S. So this case specifically is taught in all ethics classes in law school.

[872] Oh.

[873] In 2002, the American Bar Association amends a confidentiality rule.

[874] This now means that in some states, lawyers may reveal information the client provides if it's believed someone's life is at risk.

[875] So they did the right thing legally.

[876] Yes, I see that.

[877] Yeah.

[878] Where it's like that both women were dead, it would have implicated their client.

[879] It's unfortunate.

[880] Here's the thing.

[881] They should have stopped when he confessed.

[882] And Ben, like, don't tell us about shit like that.

[883] It'll fuck you up and us.

[884] Yeah.

[885] But instead, they did, I just think that part is weird.

[886] It is.

[887] That they went and got information they couldn't tell anybody on purpose.

[888] Why did they want to be involved so badly in this?

[889] I completely agree with you.

[890] However, it's crazy that it's taught as the correct thing to do.

[891] There's no, like, there's no moral.

[892] Like, what about the morals?

[893] Right, because you have to, it's the relationship.

[894] It's about the attorney -client relationship, and that makes sense to me. That makes sense to me. It's such a hard case.

[895] Susan Petz has awarded her journalism degree posthumously at Boston University, but her mother Roberta remains unhappy.

[896] The case is taught in all legal ethics courses.

[897] In the 2016 Radio Lab episode, she says, quote, I'm pretty horrified to think that this is what's considered correct because I don't think it's ethical at all.

[898] And to think that it's being taught as the right way to do things in an ethical class is totally incomprehensible to me. And that is the story of serial killer Robert Garrow and the legal ethics and attorney -client privilege fight.

[899] Wow.

[900] That was a borderline roundtable discussion that we just had, two people who don't know what they're talking about, thoroughly discussing modern law.

[901] And we were both right and we were both wrong completely.

[902] And we were both as wrong as we are right.

[903] Yeah.

[904] I mean, God, that truly is like a great example of it's about this, not that, when you're like, how can that be?

[905] Yeah.

[906] Or like, don't.

[907] become a lawyer because it's hard morally.

[908] And there's so much memorization, so much.

[909] Oh, my God.

[910] Ew, like tort reform?

[911] Please.

[912] The way you read, like, they're reading constant.

[913] There's no audiobooks.

[914] Boring.

[915] It's, yeah, and it's not fun memoirs.

[916] It's fucking torts.

[917] Although, what if for people who want to be lawyers, torts are, like, our true crime, where they're like, this is the detail I'm looking for on exactly how to do this, how to rule and regulate.

[918] Different minds, man, different minds.

[919] Different minds.

[920] Different upbringings.

[921] So we have never covered this story, which is kind of crazy because it's one that we like.

[922] But I think it's because long ago, last podcast on the left covered it.

[923] And it was that kind of thing where it's just like they did, Marcus Parks did such comprehensive, amazing research.

[924] The whole presentation was so monumental that I think I've always.

[925] been like, no, they did it.

[926] If you want to know the dirty, down -and -dirty details of this horrifying cult, please listen to the last podcast on the left's episode about it.

[927] Today, I'm covering Om Shinrikio.

[928] Okay.

[929] The doomsday cult of Japan.

[930] The main sources used for today's episode are the episode, The Amishin Ricio Death Cult, by Last Podcast on the Left, destroying the world to save it by Robert J. Lifton, which is a book.

[931] Shoko Asahara and the Cult at the End of the World by David Kaplan and Andrew Marshall for Wired.

[932] That was a 1996 article.

[933] And a book called Underground, The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche by Haruki Murakami.

[934] I love Haruki Marikami.

[935] He's such an incredible author.

[936] Yeah.

[937] And then there's other sources that you can find in our show notes.

[938] Please forgive my pronunciations.

[939] I will do my very best.

[940] But man, it's just that kind of thing.

[941] I think I'm good and then I'm like rechecking things and going, wait, wait, I actually did that wrong.

[942] Yeah.

[943] But I'll do my best.

[944] So starting out, it's 8 a .m. on March 20th, 1995.

[945] Put yourself there.

[946] Chokers.

[947] I am.

[948] Okay.

[949] Chokers, black tights, plaid skirts.

[950] Yep.

[951] Right?

[952] Very specific baby bangs.

[953] It was a real specific time.

[954] It really was.

[955] This is morning rush hour in Tokyo, Japan.

[956] The city's subway stations are teeming with people on their way to work.

[957] In March of 95, around 6 million people use the Tokyo subway system daily.

[958] That's double the amount of people who ride the New York City subway system at the same era at the same time period.

[959] So that's kind of like wild to consider.

[960] Kind of wildly too many people.

[961] One of these Tokyo commuters is a man -neutral.

[962] named Dr. Ikao Hayashi, and he's a brilliant heart surgeon with an impressive medical background.

[963] But as Dr. Hayashi boards a front train car on the Chioda subway line, holding an umbrella and a few liquid -filled plastic bags, he is not the same man who took a nose to do no harm.

[964] The Dr. Hayashi of today has a mission, and that is to bring about the end of the world.

[965] So just as Dr. Hayashi's train approaches the next station, he draws.

[966] the plastic bags to the train car floor and uses the sharpened tip of his umbrella to poke holes in them.

[967] And then once he's done, he steps off the train, exits the station, and gets into a car that's waiting for him outside.

[968] And meanwhile, the doors close and it continues along its route, carrying the punctured plastic bags.

[969] So within minutes of Dr. Hayashi leaving the train, everyone on board is coughing, eyes are red and burning, they're choking, an eyewitness named Kyoa Izumi describes the scene this way.

[970] She says, when I took a deep breath, I got this sudden pain.

[971] It was like I'd been shot, and all the sudden, my breathing completely stopped.

[972] It felt like if I inhaled anymore, all my guts would come spilling right out of my mouth.

[973] Oh, my God.

[974] All around her commuters fall to the ground.

[975] Some are seizing.

[976] Some are foaming at the mouth.

[977] At the next stop, she pushes herself off the train.

[978] She's not exactly sure where she's going, and nowhere seems safe to her.

[979] And she would later say, quote, I took a good look around, but what I saw was, how shall I put it, hell describes it perfectly.

[980] Three men were laid on the ground, and spoons had been stuck in their mouths as a precaution against them choking on their tongues.

[981] I was at a loss for words.

[982] I didn't have a clue what was happening.

[983] And may I break in as a person with seizure disorder to say, don't put anything in the mouth of anyone having a seizure.

[984] That's a misnomer, neither spoons nor anything.

[985] Don't put anything in anyone's mouth if they're having a seizure.

[986] Interesting.

[987] Okay, good to know.

[988] Meanwhile, Dr. Hayashi is in his getaway car, and the second he gets in, he's injected with an antidote against the deadly effects of the sarin nerve gas that he's just exposed himself to.

[989] Just a pinhead size drop of sarin is enough to kill a healthy human being.

[990] Dr. Hayashi has just left a leader on the train.

[991] And he's not acting alone.

[992] He's part of a five -man team, which includes three physicists and an electrical engineer.

[993] Oh, my God.

[994] So all five of these men have left several liters of liquid sarin in separate cars on three separate subway lines.

[995] And they've timed these sarin drops so that at 8 .15 in the morning, all of these trains that they were on will converge into the Kasum -Igisaki station.

[996] They picked that station for all the cars to meet in because, It's the closest to all the government buildings in Tokyo.

[997] So the hope is that basically a bunch of sarin will get evaporated into the air and basically just cause mass destruction and kill tons and tons of people near the government center.

[998] Yeah.

[999] The Tokyo subway to sarin attack on March 20th, 1995, remains one of the worst terrorist attacks in Japanese history.

[1000] It leaves 13 people dead, over 5 ,000 injured, and it brings to light a disturbing, cult.

[1001] Because Dr. Hayashi and his group of terrorists are not the end of the story, they're merely puppets, disciples of Om Shinrikio, the most notorious death cult in Japanese history, led by a psychopath named Shoko Ashahara.

[1002] Of course, Shoka Ashahara isn't his real name.

[1003] He's born in Kyoshu, which is in the most southern of Japan's four largest islands.

[1004] He's the fourth of five children in a very poor family, and he is born with a condition that leaves him with limited vision.

[1005] So because of this, he's eligible to go to a boarding school for blind children free of charge with guaranteed meals.

[1006] And so his parents enroll him at a young age because that's the only kind of opportunity he would have.

[1007] One of his teachers would later say, quote, if Matsumoto had gone to a regular school, he would have been picked on.

[1008] But in a blind school, because he could see to some degree, he was very special.

[1009] And I think that word special is questionable or the usage is like, could be, they didn't mean it in the way that we would interpret it.

[1010] Not Montessori special, not an individual.

[1011] Got it.

[1012] So in school, Matsum, you're like, I get it.

[1013] That's fine.

[1014] In school, Matsumoto uses his partial vision to his advantage, of course.

[1015] Like, this makes him the king of of his classmates.

[1016] Totally.

[1017] He acts like if they go out into the city, he acts as a guide.

[1018] He basically does anything he can to make his classmates dependent on him.

[1019] And then he uses that as an opportunity to dominate, to bully, even scam them.

[1020] He's described as imposing and manipulative, but he also is someone who might be willing to guide his peers to off -campus restaurants or coffee shops as long as they buy him like a meal too.

[1021] Wow.

[1022] So like right off the bat, he's showing cultly tendencies.

[1023] Or yeah, or just like what's good for me. Yeah.

[1024] No matter the situation, yeah.

[1025] Not a lot of like just generosity of the heart.

[1026] Right.

[1027] So yeah, even as a kid, it's clear that he wants power.

[1028] He becomes the kind of like Erzat's leader of a gang of his misfit peers because they all see him as the authority figure.

[1029] But his aggressive personality scares many of his fellow students.

[1030] He repeatedly ran for and lost student elections, which made, which made him.

[1031] I'm terribly depressed, apparently.

[1032] Oh, I got it.

[1033] Been there.

[1034] Haven't we all?

[1035] He also does this, which is kind of the same as constantly running for student elections, which is that he arranges fights between his classmates, and he calls it pro wrestling.

[1036] At one point, he even threatens his teachers.

[1037] One of the school's guidance counselors remember him saying, I'll shoot you to death before clarifying and saying, quote, as long as I don't really shoot you, it's not against the law.

[1038] I can say whatever I like.

[1039] Damn.

[1040] So again, getting off on a technicality.

[1041] Troubled youth.

[1042] So when Matsumoto is 20 years old, he moves to the nearby city of Kumamoto, where he gets a job as an acupuncturist and a masseur, or perhaps a massage therapist, it's modern day.

[1043] But it was 19, it was the 70s.

[1044] He can't stay out of trouble, of course, though, because that's his personality.

[1045] So in 1976, he's criminally charged for injuring another person.

[1046] There aren't really any details about what that means.

[1047] but we do know that he's fined 15 ,000 yen, which is about $100.

[1048] And the following year, he moves to Tokyo because of that incident to basically get out of town.

[1049] By 1978, Matsumoto seems to be getting his life on track.

[1050] He marries a woman who comes from a wealthy family, and they all support him as he opens a pharmacy that specializes in Chinese herbal medicine.

[1051] So his business becomes very successful, and he begins exploring his spiritual side.

[1052] So in 1981, he joins a new religion at the time called Agon Shoe, which combines Hindu and Buddhist teachings.

[1053] He's also getting into mystical forms of yoga, reading up on the American New Age movement, and big red flag.

[1054] He's also becoming obsessed with the book of Revelation, which is the scariest book in the Christian Bible, the one that makes the least amount of sense.

[1055] And he also is reading the writings of Nostradamus, the 16th century.

[1056] astrology.

[1057] Red flags right there.

[1058] Right?

[1059] You know, just a lot of negativity.

[1060] Yeah.

[1061] So around 1980, Matsumoto moves on from Agon Shue, along with his pharmacy that's very successful, he opens a yoga school and a cafe called Om.

[1062] And by all accounts, he's an excellent instructor.

[1063] But even as he makes conscious steps to transform himself into a guru, he still can't stay out of trouble.

[1064] So in 1982, he's arrested for selling, quote, fake medicines at his pharmacy.

[1065] He gets a light prison sentence.

[1066] He's humiliated and financially devastated by this, but he seizes the shake -up in his life as an opportunity to reinvent himself and kind of dive deeper into the spiritual side of things.

[1067] So in 1984, Matsumoto starts going by the name Shoko Ashahara, which partially translates to bright light.

[1068] And basically, that's what he's known as.

[1069] for the, you know, until that sarin attack.

[1070] Yeah.

[1071] And he's now dedicated to, he's got this successful yoga school, like a yoga practice.

[1072] And then he also has his ambitions beyond just teaching yoga, which is evident in the flowing purple robes he's begun to wear.

[1073] Ooh, here we go.

[1074] Now we're in the outfit era of when he's starting to believe his own bullshit.

[1075] Yeah.

[1076] He travels to India and Nepal to meet with high -ranking Tibetan llamas, including the Dalai Lama himself.

[1077] Back in Japan, his yoga teachings become a hodgepodge of Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, modern psychology, and like just a general self -help.

[1078] All right.

[1079] In 1987, he decides to name his religious sect.

[1080] He calls it Amshinrikio, which means teaching of the Supreme Truth, and he starts recruiting followers.

[1081] And he's really good at marketing.

[1082] So what he does, he gets radio airtime in Russia and Japan.

[1083] He becomes a recurring zany figure on Japanese talk shows.

[1084] He basically normalizes himself.

[1085] Does this sound familiar at all?

[1086] He starts popping up at universities where he basically is there to speak and he seeks out math and science students.

[1087] Anytime he goes out to recruit for Shinrikio, he brings along his most beautiful current members to entice people into joining and being interested.

[1088] Smart.

[1089] Right?

[1090] He knows that the ideal recruit is a disaffected, alienated but highly intelligent young person who longs for an alternative to the structured, conformity -minded Japanese culture.

[1091] So he's just kind of, right?

[1092] He's just playing people against their own upbringing and their own kind of rebellious tendencies.

[1093] Ashahara sells that alternative.

[1094] Basically, he leans into fantasy and science fiction and he gives interviews to sci -fi magazines like one called Twilight Zone, which is not related to the American TV show.

[1095] Where in 1985, he stages a now -famous photograph that appears to show him levitating.

[1096] I don't know if you remember that one, but it's like he's sitting cross -legged and that's what it looks like, but it's fake.

[1097] Yeah.

[1098] So in his many interviews and media appearances, Ashahara talks about all the time, travel, exciting new gadgets, and one of his favorite topics, the apocalypse.

[1099] Yay.

[1100] For your fun, funny, funny, zany talk show.

[1101] he's aware that many young Japanese people have grown up glued to manga and anime about heroes and villains, world destruction, and nuclear fallout.

[1102] So before long, Ashahara has attracted thousands of followers, and they're not just students and loners like he started out with.

[1103] Now, many of Japan's best and brightest, including scientists, engineers, physicists, chemists, and doctors are joining this cult.

[1104] The All -M membership eventually reaches 40 ,000 people worldwide.

[1105] Right.

[1106] I didn't realize it was that big.

[1107] With members living in at least six different countries, but the majority are in Russia and Japan.

[1108] So as his popularity grows, Ashahara starts corporatizing his public image.

[1109] He launches a publishing company that puts out magazines, manga, and books, including one book called Declaring Myself the Christ, where he, you guess it, declares himself the Christ.

[1110] He even starts selling leaders of his own bath, water from $500 U .S. Oh no, what's up?

[1111] Only fans.

[1112] Yeah, I mean, it's so specifically disgusting.

[1113] And also he sells his own blood for $10 ,000 U .S. No, no. He promises followers that both of these things will give them magical powers.

[1114] Then take the bath water.

[1115] Don't buy the blood.

[1116] Yeah, I...

[1117] Meanwhile, people are flocking to Oms -Schenrikio facilities to begin practicing under Ashahara.

[1118] To begin, they have to turn over all their money, property, and assets to the cult.

[1119] Then they're given new names.

[1120] It's peak, they had around 1 ,500 live -in followers on their cult properties.

[1121] Wow.

[1122] A lot of other people lived at home and just were in a cult from their house, but I thought that was kind of a crazy, like, that's a serious campus.

[1123] Yeah.

[1124] Totally.

[1125] In this environment, Ashahara is able to control almost every single aspect of his followers' lives, and many of Alms' activities seem to be specifically geared at breaking them down, which is how cults work.

[1126] So some examples of those are followers are forced to fast for long hours.

[1127] Then when they do eat, they're only given two tiny portions of rice and vegetables a day.

[1128] They're only allowed to sleep for a couple hours at a time in cramped uncomfortable rooms.

[1129] They have to practice celibacy and they're disciplined for having sexual urges, not having sex, just having the, just having good vibes.

[1130] Just don't tell anyone.

[1131] That's not.

[1132] Of course, this does not apply to the leader who forces new female members to sleep with him as part of their initiation.

[1133] Come on.

[1134] Yeah, not very Hindu.

[1135] No. Not very Buddhist.

[1136] They're also required to practice a difficult cleansing exercises for hours on end as a form of meditation.

[1137] So all of those things, as we have talked about in other episodes about cults, add up to basically depleting people's bodies of energy and, you know, health and exhausting them and then not letting them sleep.

[1138] And that is how you break someone's mind.

[1139] That's how you brainwash someone.

[1140] Right.

[1141] You're in survival mode, so you're not thinking clearly and thinking straight and making rash decisions.

[1142] And you're losing who you are.

[1143] Your name has been changed.

[1144] You're just doing whatever this guy tells you.

[1145] And the more you're abused and treated terribly, the more you're rationalizing it.

[1146] And then you're just in and you're starving and you're exhausted and you're in this totally new world.

[1147] So, of course, things get, it's a cult.

[1148] Things escalate.

[1149] They always do.

[1150] So in 1988, Ashahara orders an own member to be hung upside down and repeatedly plunged into extremely cold.

[1151] as one of these cleansing rituals that they need to do.

[1152] He had decided this guy needed this specific one.

[1153] The man who's already exhausted from a lack of food and a lack of sleep basically dies because he goes through this experience.

[1154] Oh, my God.

[1155] So on top of all that, Alm members also provide free labor for the cult's many side hustles.

[1156] They build and sell computers.

[1157] They operate Alm affiliated gymnasiums and restaurants and travel agencies.

[1158] Oh, my God.

[1159] Yeah, he's like a small businessman all over the map.

[1160] And they even start buying small businesses and properties overseas.

[1161] They have a cattle ranch in Australia.

[1162] And then Marin wrote a note that said, one book I read says that OM members even ran a cult -filiated dating service.

[1163] Aw.

[1164] But then she couldn't find anything else about that.

[1165] So she didn't want to put it in officially.

[1166] But I'm like, that is actually interesting.

[1167] Like, are you kidding me?

[1168] Before long, Omshan Rikio, and of course Ashahara have amassed a fortune.

[1169] I mean, that's that many businesses and that many people who are giving over their high -performing people before they join.

[1170] And they sign everything over to the cults.

[1171] By 1995, some estimates put the group's net worth at a billion dollars.

[1172] Jesus.

[1173] Ninety -five money, which I think is $2 billion in today's money.

[1174] Sure.

[1175] So it's probably clear by this point that Omshan Rakeo is a cult, specifically a doomsday cult, because he's, Ashahar's never stopped talking about the apocalypse this whole time, whether he's doing yoga or computers or whatever, like, he's doing.

[1176] He's still, the message remains.

[1177] He, not only being obsessed with the Book of Revelation and Nostradamus, he's also positioned Shiva, the Hindu god, associated with salvation through destruction.

[1178] at the center of this, like, belief system, and Ashahara's teachings now are starting to get really dark.

[1179] For example, he teaches a distorted version of the Buddhist principle called Poa, where he claims killing someone is an act of altruistic kindness because it allows that person to rid themselves of bad karma and start over with a clean slate.

[1180] So he basically, this is like that ultimate sign of brainwashing and somebody that has...

[1181] has total control over his followers, he basically convinces his followers that this is the truth, that when you kill someone, you're actually doing them a favor.

[1182] And therefore, he now has all these people who are basically hit men for him whenever he wants to, because that's all been accepted as basically killing in the name of spiritual cleansing.

[1183] So the man who was dumped repeatedly being hung upside down and died in 1988.

[1184] He had a friend who was also in the cult named Shugi Taguchi.

[1185] And he was, Shuji was so devastated when his friend died that he threatened to leave.

[1186] So this gets back to Ashahara.

[1187] Ashaara gets paranoid that Taguchi will go to the authorities and basically rat on him.

[1188] So Ashaara orders his followers that to Poa this man in the name of spiritual cleansing.

[1189] And Shuji Taguchi is strangled to death by three of his Shonrikio fellow cult members.

[1190] Oh my God.

[1191] So now they're just like straight up murder.

[1192] Now they're just murdering people like to cover and for convenience.

[1193] And if Elm wants them to.

[1194] So of course, this is that thing where people when they hear stories about cults like go, well, I would never do that or that could never happen to me. I would never join an organization like this.

[1195] Or if they started doing stuff like that, I would leave.

[1196] Yeah.

[1197] You know, if you know anything about cults, you know that people get into them because they have an emptiness or they're looking to fulfill something.

[1198] And Ashahara targeted his marketing strategies at a very vulnerable demographic young people who believe themselves to not fit in to regular society.

[1199] A 1995 New York Times article quotes a professor named Susuma Oda, who says that Omshin Riccio has a particular appeal to young people looking for a father figure.

[1200] whose own dads might have prioritized work over family time.

[1201] Oda also suggests that, quote, religious sex in Japan are to some extent the equivalent of the drug culture in America, offering people relief from stress and the opportunity to develop creative powers.

[1202] Wow.

[1203] So speaking of drugs, there are drugs everywhere in Oms -Shenrikio.

[1204] They're all over the properties.

[1205] Many people involved in this story, are basically on never -ending acid trips.

[1206] They do a ton of LSD.

[1207] Oh, God, a nightmare.

[1208] Yes.

[1209] They do LSD, they do meth.

[1210] They make their own barbiturates.

[1211] Oh, my God.

[1212] Because they have so many doctors and chemists that are in the cult.

[1213] Right.

[1214] So they make their own drugs, basically.

[1215] I bet there's some good drugs.

[1216] Right?

[1217] To the point where they start kind of like doing a little business with the Japanese Yakuza because they're a little.

[1218] like, oh, we're drug dealers.

[1219] We're also drug makers.

[1220] Yeah.

[1221] It's the, it's how breaking bad was conceived.

[1222] So a cult where everyone is on drugs is not unique to Om Shnricho.

[1223] This coupled with Ashihara's obsession with the end of the world often draws comparisons to the Manson family, of course.

[1224] And although there is some overlap, Um, Shinrikio is like on a whole different level.

[1225] You have to remember that there are tons of math and science nerds.

[1226] Right.

[1227] Smart people.

[1228] Yes.

[1229] And there's a ton of money around.

[1230] These cult members are very willing to sink that money into these far -out experiments.

[1231] So Dr. Hayashi, who was the person I was talking about at the beginning of the story, he's one of the cult's senior most mad scientists.

[1232] He goes so far as to put electrode caps on insubordinate cult members and deliver such intense shocks that in some cases, people's short -term memory is wiped.

[1233] So they're experimenting on themselves and they're on their own.

[1234] Meanwhile, another senior own member, someone named Hideo Murai, they have a background in astrophysics.

[1235] So they try to develop laser weapons using Soviet technology.

[1236] And at one point, they managed to make a laser that can slice through an iron plate.

[1237] What the fuck?

[1238] What is the end game here?

[1239] There's so many twists and turn and like so many.

[1240] facets of their, it's like they have ADD as a whole and can't concentrate.

[1241] They have LSD.

[1242] So they're just kind of like, I don't know, I want to, I've always wanted to do more drugs and we could kill somebody from far away.

[1243] Oh my God.

[1244] Yeah, so they're basically are, they're making lasers, they're studying missiles, rockets, all sorts of explosives.

[1245] They actually are working on a death ray.

[1246] That's like the, that's the idea behind that laser that they're making.

[1247] They're also casually trying to enrich uranium at their Australian farm in the hopes of making a dirty nuclear bomb.

[1248] So they're going full on like we are going to start the end of the world.

[1249] Yeah, there's some balls to the wall, Armageddon shit going on.

[1250] So by 1990, police know that the Om Shonrigio cult and its members are up to some incredibly illegal shit.

[1251] And on top of that, the families of the cult members have been begging authorities to do something about it.

[1252] But when NOAA action is taken, a lot of people begin to believe that the cult has infiltrated the Japanese government, the military, the legal system, and basically there are people acting on behalf of the cult to protect it.

[1253] And a deep dive in Wired magazine notes that a regional judge once donated a million yen, which is almost $10 ,000 to the cult.

[1254] So the theory of people being on the inside is very possible.

[1255] But the cult also uses intimidation to stay under the radar.

[1256] Journalists talk about receiving threats if they gave OM any sort of bad press.

[1257] So now the heat is on.

[1258] Ashahara is getting increasingly paranoid.

[1259] The drugs aren't helping.

[1260] He decides he needs to do something to protect the cult.

[1261] So he runs several OM members, including himself as candidates in the 1990 Japanese elections.

[1262] Oh, no. So because his plan is, some of them are going to win and then they're going to go into all these different offices and places in government and then shut down any investigations about the cults from the inside.

[1263] It's a massive failure.

[1264] Every single one of his candidates loses by huge margins.

[1265] Ashahara himself only gets 1 ,700 votes out of 500 ,000 that are cast.

[1266] Whoa.

[1267] He again, these losses humiliate him.

[1268] It's the student elections all over again.

[1269] Oh, shit.

[1270] Life is a horrifying flat circle, will it ever end?

[1271] So many people who are experts on this cults and what they did say that this basically perceived insult is the final turning point.

[1272] And this is when Ashahara starts ramping up his militant vision of doomsday.

[1273] And instead of a plan to survive the apocalypse, he starts paving away for his followers to usher the apocalypse in.

[1274] So after the election, Ashahara gathers his disciples near Okinawa for a so -called Armageddon seminar.

[1275] So he tells his followers that he is the blind savior from the book of Revelation that Amshin Riccio is officially in a war against evil and that their group is the only one capable of surviving the apocalypse.

[1276] And after everything is destroyed, they're going to start anew in the vein of Shiva and that will be their salvation.

[1277] And Ashahara's big idea is to carry out an attack on Tokyo so big that Japan will think that the United States did it, and then that will usher in World War III, which will then usher in the end of the world.

[1278] That's the plan.

[1279] But first they have to prepare.

[1280] So the members, all members try to build up a weapons arsenal to varying degrees of success.

[1281] They still don't have the nuclear bomb figured out.

[1282] They try to plan to manufacture automatic rifles.

[1283] That falls apart.

[1284] So they do try to create anthrax.

[1285] They even travel to Zaire in Africa to try to get an Ebola sample so that they can figure out how to weaponize Ebola.

[1286] But that doesn't work either because you have to remember, they're on tons of drugs.

[1287] Right.

[1288] So they go try to do these kind of like things.

[1289] Like they never leave the fucking Hudson books.

[1290] store in the kid they can't get to their gate.

[1291] They try to check their Ebola bag and the airline loses it.

[1292] They just start staring at all those different kinds of peanuts on the wall.

[1293] They're just like, I love it here.

[1294] So in 1993, at their facility at the base of Mount Fuji, talk about cartoon, the cartoon villain, they finally figure out how to make Sarin.

[1295] And so Sarin is among the most toxic chemical agents known to man. It's 500 times more deadly than cyanide.

[1296] Wow.

[1297] And it was first developed in, yep, you guessed it, Nazi Germany.

[1298] It was used at all the death camps.

[1299] And of course, Ashahara becomes obsessed with Sarin.

[1300] He talks about it all the time in his speeches and in his sermons.

[1301] And later, police even find own pamphlets that contain two parodies of popular Japanese television theme songs reimagined to be about Sarin.

[1302] Oh, twisted.

[1303] Marin actually included the lyrics.

[1304] No. It's the weirdest, yeah, it's just the weirdest thing you've ever seen.

[1305] It's that kind of thing where I don't care if it's an obsession with murdering people or an obsession with, like, arrests development.

[1306] You've got to stop doing one thing over and over.

[1307] Yeah.

[1308] And you've got to, like, fold other people into the conversation so that they can go, hey, you're talking about that too much.

[1309] Yeah, but what if all the people around you are talking about it too?

[1310] If you've put yourself in the position where we only are ever going to talk about Nostradamus and the Book of Revelation, then of course, anything you think that comes up is like, well, this is really bad.

[1311] This is the end of it.

[1312] You're asking for it.

[1313] Like, you have to open the window a little bit more.

[1314] And take like a week off of LSD every now and then.

[1315] I mean, please.

[1316] Also, meth?

[1317] Oh, God.

[1318] That drug, you can make people do anything if they're on meth.

[1319] Can you imagine how pure that meth was, too?

[1320] Like, that shit will fucking just pop your brain cells.

[1321] Like, audibly pop your brain cells.

[1322] Oh, God.

[1323] I was so smart when I was on meth.

[1324] Like, you think you know everything.

[1325] Yeah, you get to make a plan.

[1326] The plan usually involves digging or building something to go up.

[1327] Opening a restaurant.

[1328] I'm always telling everyone.

[1329] While AOM scientists are tinkering with all these weapons of mass destruction, it's getting harder and harder for the police to ignore the police from family members and the complaints made by people who live near the AOM properties, some of whom have had to file lawsuits against the cult.

[1330] And of course, those lawsuits piss Ashahara off.

[1331] And in June of 1994, in Matsumoto, Alm members target the homes of judges overseeing this cases.

[1332] of the lawsuits that people had against them.

[1333] Can't do that.

[1334] This basically, this became a test run of what they were going to end up doing in the Tokyo subway system.

[1335] They released sarin gas from slow -moving trucks in front of the judge's house, basically to attack the judges.

[1336] Oh, my God.

[1337] It ends up killing eight people and injuring hundreds.

[1338] Holy shit.

[1339] So basically, they've been killing people for a while now.

[1340] Everyone has adopted this idea that it's actually good.

[1341] What they're doing is good for people, killing them off and letting them start over.

[1342] Some estimates put Omshin Riccio's body count at 80 people.

[1343] Most of these killings involve either dissenters, people actively investigating the cult going back as far as 1989.

[1344] In one of their more high -profile murders, Amshin Ricio members targeted a lawyer named Susumi Sakamoto.

[1345] They were working to disprove Ashahara's claim that his $10 ,000 blood gave people magical powers.

[1346] But before he could bring the case to court, cult members broke into Sakamoto's home, murdered him, murdered his wife, and murdered their young child.

[1347] Oh, my God.

[1348] So even though people pretty much immediately knew that Omshin Rigio are the ones who did it, this murder wouldn't be conclusively connected to them for years.

[1349] It isn't until February 1995.

[1350] One of their killings has consequences because they go after a wealthy Amshin Riccio member who's donated hundreds of thousands of her own money to the cult and she decides to leave.

[1351] Ashahara obviously wants to keep getting her money, so he enlists his disciples to find her and bring her back.

[1352] But she's gone so far off the grid that instead of tracking her down because they can't find her, they bring in her elderly brother, who had nothing to do with this cult, to get information.

[1353] But they end up bungling the whole mission because they're on drugs and killing this brother.

[1354] Oh, my God.

[1355] So in the wake of this murder, investigators finally start to scrutinize the cult and its activity.

[1356] And they start to link a bunch of Alm -affiliated dummy companies to suspiciously large orders of dangerous raw chemicals.

[1357] So they're just starting to kind of link it all together.

[1358] They know about what happened at the judge's houses in Matsumoto.

[1359] So a case connecting the Am Shunricho cult to that is starting to build quickly.

[1360] Ashahar knows that a police raid at Om facilities is eminent, and that could unravel his entire enterprise.

[1361] So he makes a Hail Mary move to deflect attention, and he decides that Om Shrinichio is going to attack Tokyo ahead of schedule, which basically brings us back to the beginning and the story.

[1362] So his long -term plan of kicking off the apocalypse by, you know, kicking off World War III, it gets moved up to March 20th, 1995.

[1363] And the deadly sarin attack on multiple train lines in Tokyo's incredibly busy subway system kills 13 people, injures thousands, and, of course, deeply traumatizes many who will live with what they saw that day for rest of their lives.

[1364] Chemists who later analyze their sarin found that the sarin had about 30 % purity.

[1365] A Federation of American Scientists report says that, quote, had the chemical mixture and delivery system been slightly different, the resulting tragedy would be unprecedented, if not beyond comprehension.

[1366] So basically, the chemists at Ocean Riccio, they basically made very specific mistakes.

[1367] And if they hadn't made those, if they hadn't been on drugs, basically, tens of thousands more people would have died that day.

[1368] I wonder if there's anyone on that team who was making those chemicals who purposely fucked with them to make it less deadly.

[1369] I love that idea.

[1370] I mean, that's me being taken it down from the inside.

[1371] But that's very possible because at this point, at this point, they're killing their own.

[1372] So there's got to be people in there who don't know what else to do, but are kind of going through the day to day.

[1373] Right.

[1374] Yeah.

[1375] Oh, I like that idea.

[1376] That kind of gives you a little hope of like...

[1377] It does, but...

[1378] I mean, otherwise, it's like these brilliant scientists fucking up that bad seems impossible unless they're on tons of drugs or did it on purpose.

[1379] Yeah.

[1380] Right.

[1381] Why not both?

[1382] Why not both?

[1383] Let's have it be both.

[1384] So police quickly piece together evidence that Omshun Ricchio is behind the attack.

[1385] Two days later, police raid the headquarters at the base of Mount Fuji.

[1386] They don't find Ashahara, but who's now on the lamb.

[1387] They do find a Russian military helicopter, gobs of LSD and meth, millions of dollars.

[1388] Gobbs of LSD is...

[1389] It's so evil and awful, like, that actual attack and how alarming.

[1390] But the idea that behind it are cult members, like, with pupils the size of fucking pizza trays.

[1391] Yeah.

[1392] They have the worst intentions and they can't execute.

[1393] Yeah, that's terrible.

[1394] It's insane.

[1395] And also just like, so you're going to run and leave millions of dollars behind?

[1396] Yeah.

[1397] You didn't get like a side suitcase just to get that.

[1398] Well, they thought they'd get away with it probably and like come back home.

[1399] Or they were just like, oh my God, my hand is purple and my other hand is orange.

[1400] Like.

[1401] Yeah.

[1402] Okay.

[1403] So gobs of LSD meth millions of dollars and the supplies to make enough sarin to kill four million people.

[1404] Holy shit.

[1405] So over the next several months, Japanese police conduct more than 500 raids, make dozens of arrests, including Ashahara himself, who's been hiding out for two months.

[1406] He's charged with 17 different crimes, including murder.

[1407] And before these horrible attacks, many people in Japan knew of Omshin Riccio as kind of just a weird, kooky, religious sect, right, that the leader would be on TV every once in a while.

[1408] People are shocked to learn that this is the group behind one of the country's worst terrorist attacks.

[1409] Well, you know, my uncle lived there at the time, and I think we did it.

[1410] I think he did a hometown once where he rented out his room to one of the killers.

[1411] He was like not in Tokyo.

[1412] He wasn't in Tokyo at the time, and he rented out either his room or a room in his apartment.

[1413] And it turned out they were there in town to do the sarin attacks.

[1414] Holy shit.

[1415] Yeah, and like the cops came and questioned him.

[1416] Of course, he had nothing to do with it.

[1417] That's amazing.

[1418] Yeah.

[1419] So the prosecution paints Ashahara as a twisted evil cult leader who pulls all the strings, but his defense argues he's pure of heart and his disciples are the ones acting independently and trying to kill everybody.

[1420] In the trial, Ashahara never speaks for himself.

[1421] And when he does, the few times he does, he gives these weird meandering, incoherent answers.

[1422] And because of this, it's all anyone's talking about.

[1423] And after a while, it just starts to feel tedious and drawn out and people don't.

[1424] want to watch it anymore.

[1425] So finally, in February of 2004, the Tokyo District Court finds Ashihara guilty of orchestrating the subway attack, along with several other Al -Shanrikio members, he's sentenced to death.

[1426] Reports say that when he's read his charges, he, quote, crossed his arms, smiled, openly yawned, snorted, scratched his head, smelled his fingers, and mumbled incoherently.

[1427] Wow.

[1428] So even after Ashahara's capture and prosecution, Omshnricho didn't go away, which I find so weird.

[1429] The sect splits into two different organizations that actually still exist.

[1430] One is called Hekari Noa and the other one's called Aulev, and both have tried to distance themselves from Anshnricho's violence, but they still have some things in common.

[1431] For many years, Aulov was under constant government surveillance, And one of the main reasons was they targeted lonely, alienated college students who felt isolated by the pandemic.

[1432] Oh.

[1433] Both organizations have a smaller but sizable membership.

[1434] They still target people in the fields of math, science, and technology.

[1435] So just to wrap up, psychiatrist Robert J. Lifton, who wrote the book, Ending the World to Save It, is referenced heavily in the research for this story.

[1436] He published a paper in the 80s that establishes three hallmarks of dangerous religious cults.

[1437] And I always love to talk about these.

[1438] Number one, a charismatic leader who, quote, increasingly becomes an object of worship and the single most defining element of the group and its source of power and authority.

[1439] So that's the first sign.

[1440] The second one is a coercive process of indoctrination or education, which leads to members working in the best interests of the group and the leader, but not for themselves.

[1441] And lastly, this is a quote from this book, Economic, Sexual, and Other Exploitation of Group Members by the group leader and the other cult leadership.

[1442] Trump!

[1443] Sound familiar?

[1444] That's Donald Trump's whole thing, everybody!

[1445] Buy a Trump bear, buy a flag.

[1446] Buy a this.

[1447] Donate.

[1448] Fucking give us all your money.

[1449] You don't have any and I already have all the money.

[1450] But you will if you give us all your money.

[1451] If there's someone in your life that you worry about that perhaps is getting tied up in a group that seems dangerous or manipulative, experts say that you should work hard to maintain a warm, supportive, trusting relationship with that person if it is safe for you.

[1452] If that is even possible, for many people, it's not possible.

[1453] But if you can, what you should do is try to keep in contact.

[1454] You should try to provide them with an access to media and other perspectives just to give, just to just to.

[1455] to keep other information in their life.

[1456] And whenever you're with the person, just remind them who they are as an individual, who they were before they got into the group and maybe help that person restore their sense of self, which is what they have lost when you join a cult.

[1457] That's what you lose.

[1458] But do not do that at your own expense because cults are powerful and people make their own decisions.

[1459] So you can only control what you can control.

[1460] Yeah.

[1461] And boundaries are important too.

[1462] That's right.

[1463] And it's becoming more and more common these days, whether it's like multi -level marketing that's high pressure and gets into like social things or all the way up to straight up like cults where people online, it's always the same story.

[1464] I told you that that podcast, The Opportunist, where it's like that woman who started a cult online basically saying they're fighting, they're fighting the devil coming back to Earth.

[1465] earth, and she went from being the person telling the story to being God.

[1466] Wow.

[1467] And, like, it's a, I mean, like, so many people are out there trying to manipulate people.

[1468] Yeah, for sure.

[1469] Be smart.

[1470] Keep your eyes open.

[1471] And that is the horrible story of the Om Shinarikio Doomsday Cult.

[1472] Wow.

[1473] Great job.

[1474] That's a hard one.

[1475] A little speech at the end by me. I know.

[1476] I know.

[1477] It's very long.

[1478] And I'm in the dark.

[1479] You are in the dark right now.

[1480] I can literally barely, I could see, like, a white outline of your face.

[1481] I didn't even see that.

[1482] That's really funny.

[1483] Yeah.

[1484] It's very funny.

[1485] Wow.

[1486] Great job.

[1487] That was a hard one to do a quickie on.

[1488] And you did a good job of it.

[1489] Thank you.

[1490] Thank you.

[1491] I didn't know a lot of details about that one, especially not the drug part.

[1492] That's fucking wild.

[1493] Yes, for real.

[1494] And I listen to this whole story.

[1495] I mean, I've heard this story from multiple places.

[1496] But I really, Marin McLaughen, who's my researcher, really synopsized it well.

[1497] in that way where how do you talk about all these things at once?

[1498] Because it went on for years and years.

[1499] Totally.

[1500] There's so much more to it.

[1501] I know that Heruki Marikami's book really, really gets into a lot of that stuff.

[1502] And he's such an incredible writer.

[1503] I'm sure that's a good resource.

[1504] Yeah.

[1505] All right.

[1506] All right.

[1507] We fucking did it two hour almost.

[1508] We did it.

[1509] We've done it once again.

[1510] Once again.

[1511] Thank you all for listening.

[1512] Thank you all for being here in our little cult with us.

[1513] Yeah.

[1514] That's right.

[1515] Don't put this one.

[1516] We appreciate you.

[1517] We love you.

[1518] We love you and don't go to sleep.

[1519] Don't go to sleep.

[1520] Ever, ever, never, ever.

[1521] Just never go to sleep.

[1522] Keep your eyes open.

[1523] Never go to sleep.

[1524] That's our only rule.

[1525] Oh, there's one more rule.

[1526] Stay sexy.

[1527] Oh, and don't get murdered.

[1528] Goodbye.

[1529] Elvis, do you want a cookie?

[1530] This has been an exactly right production.

[1531] Our senior producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton.

[1532] Our producer is Aleja Kack.

[1533] This episode was engine.

[1534] engineered and mixed by Stephen Ray Morris.

[1535] Our researchers are Marin McClashon and Gemma Harris.

[1536] Email your hometowns and fucking hoorays to My Favorite Murder at gmail .com.

[1537] Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at My Favorite Murder and Twitter at MyFave Murder.

[1538] Goodbye.

[1539] Follow My Favorite Murder on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen so you don't miss an episode.

[1540] If you like what you hear, rate and review the show.

[1541] Visit exactly right store .com to purchase My Favorite Murder merch.