196 - The Baddest Of Them All

Karen and Georgia cover the Gray Widow Murderers and the Burger Chef Murders.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Hello, Hello, and welcome. So my favorite murder the maxisode.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
I've been listening to old Mini so you have, I'll
admit it, okay, and it's pretty funny.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
I don't know. I like it our show. I'm always
you always gotta say to me. I've been listening, and
I'm like, oh fucks, and I've been listening, and we
really got to tighten this shit up, especially the intro.
I don't know how to do that. I wouldn't know
where to fucking start. I'm actually not that interested in
doing that. We're in an office, what more do you want?

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Yeah, we are indoors. Stephen has all kinds of equipment.
You should see the equipment.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
We have a lovely lamp lit because we don't want
overhead lights disturbing our precious, precious eyes.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Because Grandma is sixty nine years old. Nice and god
damn fluorescent lighting is rough.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
I was thinking how fun I would be if we
recorded at my house with the fire going in the background,
But then that would be really distracting to people who
don't like the sound of fire places. Not just like
a lit fire either.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
We light the house on fire and then try to
record and get it done.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Before the whole thing goes out. That's the challenge. We
start the fire downstairs. Ready, trash can ignite?

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Go on the count of five, We're gonna start a
fire and then record a podcast. There's just one episode.
You know what's really funny. It makes me think of
and it's.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
You got it. You're not gonna do it. I'm not
gonna do it. What could have Karen said? What do
you think it would have been?

Speaker 2 (01:46):
I want to talk about and you, Steven, you're the
one that's gonna help me here. Okay, sound it out,
our friends sound it out. Have a podcast. I'm friends
with one of the people on the podcast. It's called
podcast but Outside and do you know, yeah, it's hilarious
and skateboards.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
Yes, this is boring. I can see, well you look
at podcasts, but outside the podcast Outside they.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Just set up a card table somewhere and see who
comes and talks.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
That is so brilliant. It's really enjoyable. And they've gotten
into some ship. It's really fun.

Speaker 3 (02:25):
And and is the one I know, And then Cole hirsh.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
Cole Hirsh is and the other hosts. We'll have to listen.
I love that idea. They've done at the beach. They
did it at Cole's.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
Or Andrew's father's third wedding, I want to say third.
I follow them on Twitter, but it's really funny to
just see when they post they're like, we've got another
one where at the we're in the Santa Monica promenade
or whatever.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
But they just set up and like have to podcast
what happens. I love that. That's so creative. I think
it's super it's super genius. Sorry, tell me what yours
was my? I have one. It's called Family Secrets. I
really love this podcast. It's hosted by Danny Shapiro, who's
this incredible author and speaker, and she has she interviews
people who have had these crazy family secrets in their

(03:12):
life that come out or that they kept their whole
lives that they just found out. There's a lot of
like I did my DNA testing and this crazy thing
came out and like that's kind of shit. But the
stories are so heartfelt and beautiful and the podcast is
beautifully done. Wow, Family Matters, Family Secrets that is TG
I am show starring Uncle has a beautiful podcast.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Okay, I mean I guess everyway, Oh, I know, that's family.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
Secrets, Family Secrets Shapiro.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
Uh, oh, well, then if we're going to do this,
I'm sorry I forced us into a podcast round up,
but that's okay.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
Let's be here. You know why I was mentioning podcasts
but outside, Oh, I guess it was just like we
can podcast fire podcast.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
Someone's already doing it, podcast on Fire, Podcast on Fire.
We're basically taking Andrew's idea and then just upping it
a notch.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
But I did want to do. You know Chris Gercia,
He's a comic from San Francisco that I'm friends with.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
I think i've met him. You would know him from
like shows around town. But he has a podcast called
Scattered and I was on it. How he says guest
one time because his dad died of Alzheimer's right, and
so he and I had this conversation. That's pretty great.
I love him very much, and he and I it's
not like we came up together anything. We didn't know
each other that well. And then we kind of did

(04:26):
shows together and figured out both of our parents. His
father had recently died and my mom was still alive
with it, and it's this very strange immediate bonding amazing thing.
And we had this conversation talking through the experience that
I loved, and so they're re releasing it on November

(04:48):
twenty seconds with more time, I guess, an extended version
of the conversation, because I think we talked so long
that like there were producers that were like on the
phone in New York that were I'm sure sitting there like, well,
we can interrupt them. They're both crying, but we have
to stop recording this podcast. So if you're interested, and

(05:09):
that's something that isn't it does devastating bummer to you.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
Well, one of the things I love when we do
meet and Grace is or when people meet you, is
I hear them say thank you for talking about what
you went through with your mom. I'm starting to go
through it, I've been through it, whatever, and like talking
about it with other people. I'm imagining and hearing other
people talk about it would be so you know, gratifying.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
Yes, I think it's such an isolating experience that any
time you get a chance to hear anybody else talk
about it and talk about the guilt and talk about
the horrible parts, it does. I think it definitely helps
me when you know like when he and I talk.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
Oh, so, anyway, if you want to listen to the
little things that like you keep secret and you don't
want to talk about because it's too deep and it's
too much with anything in life, all these fucking struggles
we go through. Yeah, And the minute one person goes
vulnerable and starts fucking talking about it, everyone else is like, oh,
I don't have to be ashamed of this, and someone
else knows what I'm going through. And then you meet
random people and you're like, maybe they've been through that too,

(06:05):
and then you bondor them and because you never know
what people are going through until they fucking talk about it,
that's right.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
And oftentimes people have been raised not to talk about
the whole setup in our family, and I think in
a lot of I don't know if it's I don't
know if it's Irish Catholics, I don't know if it's
like the second generation immigrant, I don't know what it is.
But it's like, your problems are not relevant to other people,
They're not anybody else's business. It reflects poorly on the family,

(06:32):
and you do not talk about that. You all you
do is put on a brave face and go to
work all the time and that's the solution to everything.
And it's like the relief that people hear from the
thing a lot of people say to me is like
when you talk about how much you hate the parent
that has this disease, which is such a terrible feeling.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
Well, that's so taboo. You don't hate that parent, you
hate the person. I'd imagine that that is going through
these things and it's become this different person.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
Yeah, you hate this situation, right, but it comes out
terribly hates.

Speaker 1 (07:04):
Okay, you know, hate is an emotion that we all
have and talking about it isn't, fucking yeah, the end
of the world.

Speaker 2 (07:09):
And you're not a bad person because you are suffering
under excruciating circumstances.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
Yeah, yeah, fucking crazy. Say the name of the podcast again,
Chris Garcia. It's called Scattered. Oh did you have you
have a corrections corner? Oh? I do.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
Our best friend, our number one fan and the man
who has brought all of our our web platforms together,
Thank god, Denton.

Speaker 1 (07:36):
He's the reason the fan cult is fucking awesome now, yes,
and the website.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
And a website and the merch store and the fan
called I mean he's he's really and he's my old
friend I know.

Speaker 1 (07:47):
And he came to was like, let me fix this.
We didn't have to be like can you help us?
You know this sucks coming.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
It came and was like me and my twenty six
year old cousin needs you to fix this website immediately,
and we're like, we want to sobey anyway, he let
me know. On episode one ninety three, I said that
the fan cult basically when you if you break it down,
it's thirty twenty five. I claimed that it costs twenty
five cents a day. It's thirty nine ninety nine a year,

(08:13):
yes or something, And so I claimed it costs twenty
five cents a day. Well, Den immediately texted us in
that episode came out and said, actually, I want everyone
to know that it breaks down to ten cents.

Speaker 1 (08:23):
It's ten point nine cents a day. Wow. Just less
than eleven cents a day. Wow.

Speaker 2 (08:28):
Now, not everybody has eleven extra cents a day. I understandable.
In this fucking day and age, we get it so fine.
But if you think you can scare up eleven cents
a day for a year, you can join the fan cult.

Speaker 1 (08:39):
And the fan Cult's fun. We post videos every week.
We post a new live episode every month that isn't
ever going to be probably maybe played on the show
released release. Thank you. There's there's a fan Cult merch
store that's exclusive, really rad merch for fan cult members.
And also now we have fan called gift memberships available

(09:02):
in the regular store that you can buy for your
friends for the holidays. And yeah, that's that's very cool.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
If you don't have the eleven cents, but you think
your mom might, you can go ahead and drop that hint,
put it on your list that that's what you'd like
for the holiday.

Speaker 1 (09:14):
It's a great point. And also when you join, you
get twenty percent off your first like merch purchase total.

Speaker 2 (09:21):
Are you gonna call it a merch per merchise merchise?
Oh that sounds gross.

Speaker 1 (09:26):
It does your first merchase, you get twenty percent off
in your merse your man purse after you've merchased it
as a patha merch so you can get a lot
of gifts for the holidays. And we're gonna, oh my god,
we're about to fucking drop, as they say, an album
Coolest merch the most fire album about twenty sixteen. That's right,
it's gonna be just flames, the sound of flames names.

Speaker 2 (09:52):
We actually are so excited about the the merch items
that are coming out.

Speaker 1 (09:57):
We're collabing with a really awesome murdering a maker. We
will tell you all about it. There's good good stuff coming.
And also Denton wanted to tell us that tell you
that everyone the men's Denton's corner. Really many members of
the fan called are up for renewal a happy fan
call birthday. If you were on auto renewal on the
old site, you still need to renew on the news site, oh,
because we made it better and different. It's a basically

(10:19):
it's a brand new website.

Speaker 2 (10:20):
So if you don't expect anything to happen automatically, please
come over and update and start afresh. And we are
working very hard to make sure that it's worth your
eleventh Centsay, we really fucking are, We really are. We're
even getting into the occult for you, just so you.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
Know, get in that forum and say what's up to Marty, Yeah,
who bought himself a fan called membership. He didn't try
to get it, No, he wanted to do what the
experience was. I fucking swear to god, Marty's a lover
of life. Marty is a supporter of his children. Oh,
I have to tell you something. Please, Okay, let me
get this out of the way. Okay, we're in the

(10:58):
like less than a week. We're going on tour in
the UK. It's the lash of our shows for twenty nineteen.
Jesus Christ is not that crazy. I'd love to.

Speaker 2 (11:06):
Know the number of shows we did in twenty nineteen,
An I don't do that right now.

Speaker 1 (11:10):
That's a lot. I think it's sixty something. It's got
to be sixty something. Well, so there's a few tickets
left for Manchester on November twenty second, Glasgow on the
twenty third, Dublin on the twenty fourth and twenty fifth.
There's like it's like ninety six percent sold out on
those ones. So yeah, get your tickets, you guys, and
come see us.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
Please come see You're already preparing our stories. Yeah, we're
going to be so prepared. It are so exciting.

Speaker 1 (11:36):
I'm at one of those places in the like coming
up to tour where I'm like, I can't wait to
get on that plane and sleep. I know, you know,
it's we there's nothing more fun than touring. It's really
a joy. But when you do it for six months
straight and go through two full seasons, it gets a
little you get a little bit, a little bit exhausted,

(11:58):
or a lot nerves breakdown. We did have at that
of a nervous breakdown.

Speaker 2 (12:02):
We had to though, But it's I'm excited because usually
when we're on the road, or at least the process
has been up until this point, we go on the road,
we find our stories, we write last minute, there's a
lot we add in the tension, which is kind of
how I always kind of do everything. But this time
we're like, we've already done it so much that now
I'm like I regret all those times the last time
we were in Ireland in the UK where I sat

(12:25):
in a hotel room because I couldn't get my shit
done in time totally and basically didn't get to look
at stuff.

Speaker 1 (12:30):
We're going to explore. We're gonna go for it, We're
gonna do it. I had just a quick thing to
tell you, okakay, it's on the same level and plane
and like of existence as the cocaine bear. Oh okay,
I love that level of existence. Its read me this
headline today, and I was like, text that to me immediately.
I have to tell Karen Farrel hogs find and destroy

(12:52):
twenty two thousand dollars worth of hidden cocaine. I love
those Errel hogs. Eryl. I want to read you this
one line. Okay, it's these motherfuckers. Okay. It says an
unknown number of bores allegedly dug up and destroyed this
gang's packages of cocaine, dispersing their contents in the woods.

(13:12):
It was not immediately known what happened to the curious animals. Oh,
they're just kind of out and about. Yeah, that's from
the newsweek. Yeah, we don't know. So we have cocaine hogs.
Now they're they're down shooting pool and smoking a ton
of cigarettes. That's where they are. Plans for a restaurant.
Let's make our dreams. That's true. Tapas.

Speaker 2 (13:32):
I want to talk about stuff sushi, but tapas sushi
jam bands, She put Tapas. Okay, well, then in that
realm of I want to tell you something. This is
the new segment. I want to tell you something great
because I loved some A listener named Emily George. Assuming
it's a listener because she's talking about a minisode. Okay,

(13:54):
remember on minisode the story about the little girl who
said to her attorney father, fuck you daddy, it's Bobby Shapiro.

Speaker 1 (14:02):
Of course it's my lifeblood. Okay.

Speaker 2 (14:05):
Well, Emily George tweeted to uh. She says, I feel
obligated to inform Karen Kilharaff that Chloe Kardashian would have
been around the right age and the daughter of the
right attorney for that fuck you daddy, it's Bobby shapiro
hometown in my favorite Murder minnesode one, along with a
Chloe gift where she's going hashtag fact.

Speaker 1 (14:28):
How hilarious is that?

Speaker 3 (14:30):
It's?

Speaker 1 (14:30):
Okay, Kim Kardashian. If she yelled fuck you daddy, it's
Bobby Shapiro, then I then she's our new Oprah.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
Right, But she's saying it's Chloe. Oh, Chloe, Chloe was
the right age. She's done the math on this, dude,
Emily George went to town on this, brilliant.

Speaker 1 (14:47):
I thank you, thank you for that information. I would
never have put that together. No, I wouldn't have either. Yeah,
maybe it is Kay dash baby anything else. No, all
my look at all the shit I had written lot
and covered it all covered it all slightly sweating. I know.
We really powered through that, Like we're like faral hogs
on cocaine really are. I mean they didn't just cume

(15:11):
upon it like the bear did and like dove in.
They dug that shit up. Yeah, they were like, I
don't know, it doesn't smell exactly like truffles. It smells
more exciting as cocaine smell like anything. I guess people
should know that because they sniff it. Yeah, chemically it's yeah,
it's how didn't they smell? Those smart hogs were like, well,
let's have some fun. It smells like draino and baby aspirin.

(15:33):
That's what my dealer cuts it with, guys. Drugs hurt.
They hurt you, and they hurt others. And hog they
hurt hogs, They hurt feral hogs. We're just trying to
be themselves, sweet sweet cocaine bears who are just trying
to live their lives in the forest. What if those
faral hogs tore open those packages with their big crazy
fans and started running and they ran into cocaine bears

(15:55):
who were coming the other direction. They all made friends
and they had the most intent picnic conversations about scar intensities,
about the ives and looking being vegan. Okay, we've we've
worked it all out. I just want to see it a little.
I just want to see a little hog put his

(16:16):
little paw in the cocaine and rub it on his
teeth and tell it, tell his friends, Yep, it's cocaine.
And he's got a capri in the other a hoof,
one long hoof, pinky finger, pinky ring what is it?
One long hook? Oh jesus, a pinky nail, thank you,
And then there dives in. There's definitely a pinky ring
on that pinky. That's right. I think you're first, right am?

(16:40):
I well, all right, I'm gonna slow down on this whiskey.
Then Georgia, Georgia, she's sleeping. It's nap time. I actually
brought my tweezers because the bathroom, yes, okay, you guys
need to know the exactly right office is here. We
have this bathroom that has his overhead lighting that is
so fucking bright and obnoxiously it and it's like, hey,

(17:02):
here's what you really look like. You have you hag?
You think you put makeup on, didn't do anything, you
didn't do shit. So we got a we got an
office tweezer.

Speaker 2 (17:11):
Because every time we go in there, all of us go,
oh shit, have so many like at hair, black haired,
sticky out of my chin where it's like you just
sit there going, oh my god, are other people looking
at this?

Speaker 1 (17:22):
Yeah, so now it was a nightmare. We have a community,
it's probably not supersterile community tweezers.

Speaker 2 (17:27):
We can get some rubbing alcohol and stick it in
there and you could just kind.

Speaker 1 (17:30):
Of and every time Steven's bad, we pluck one mustache
hair that would hurts so bad. So I mean, I
know personally it hurts really fucking bad. Minor no, no,
all my mustache hairs, they're like, please take us, please
help you help yourself. Okay.

Speaker 2 (17:48):
You know what's funny is when I was trying to
find a murder for tonight, when I was looking up
my choices, I kept finding British murders where I'm like,
I'm not doing this one.

Speaker 1 (17:56):
Yeah, I'm saving it. So that's good. Get my homework done.

Speaker 2 (17:59):
Yeah, so I thought I would do. And I wonder
if you remember this story because it happened in the
early two thousands in Los Angeles, California, and it is
very upsetting. It's the gray widow murderers Helena Goley and
Olga Rudderschmidt.

Speaker 1 (18:17):
Not off the top of my head, Okay, Well I
think you might as I got.

Speaker 2 (18:20):
Okay, So the sources that I used for this, there's
a beautiful article from Los Angeles Magazine and the title
of it is what can I Tell You? By a
writer named Paul Brownfield, And is this the Katy Perry connection?

Speaker 1 (18:35):
One? No, no, never mind, John Banain't no? Okay.

Speaker 2 (18:40):
Wikipedia, although in the Wikipedia article they call them the
black widow murders, which isn't accurate, so it's.

Speaker 1 (18:46):
A little bit odd.

Speaker 2 (18:47):
I think they later kind of adjusted that title because
it's not a black widow murder technically. There was a
couple la Times articles from the time just reporting on
what happened. And then there's a great article written by
a writer named Stephen Johnson for a website called thirteenth
Floor dot tv.

Speaker 1 (19:05):
Have you ever gone on there? For it's really good
And this.

Speaker 2 (19:08):
Guy wrote a great and very comprehensive article about these murders,
Stephen Johnson for thirteenth Floor dot tv. The website not
a secure website. Just so you know that came up
as a in the little they tell you that. Yeah,
I guess nothing secure online anymore, nothing secure in life anymore.

Speaker 1 (19:28):
Don't kid yourself. It's all going down. It goes all
the way to the box, all the way to hell.

Speaker 2 (19:39):
Anyway. Okay, tell me, let's start in two thousand and three. Okay,
were you working on Melrose Avenue at the time.

Speaker 1 (19:45):
I was twenty three, so no, oh, okay, I think
I was. I was a lunch lady at that time.
San Francisco. No here, oh okay, back or hadn't gone yet,
hadn't gone yet. Okay, I just need to keep your
personal timeline in my head.

Speaker 2 (19:57):
I wish I wish you would thank you all the
red strings that are going in weird triangles about your
life in my head.

Speaker 1 (20:04):
It's a real boring. Okay.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
So it's two thousand and three and the Hollywood Presbyterian Church,
the one on Gower, which is Gower and it's gowern
almost Franklin. It's the one that's right by the overpass
and the one that yeah exit yeh yeah yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:21):
And it's red brill yeah yeah, that real big one. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:25):
It is it doing what it can to reach out
to the homeless people of Los Angeles. Among the needy
is a forty eight year old man named Kenneth McDavid.

Speaker 1 (20:34):
So.

Speaker 2 (20:34):
On top of the nightmare of being homeless in Los Angeles,
he also suffers with schizophrenia and he doesn't have any
family to turn to, so he goes to the big
brick church on Gower near Franklin, hoping that there will
be someone there that will help him. And there he
meets two older women who are more than generous to him,
seventy two year old Helen Galay and seven year old

(20:55):
Olga rudder Schmidt.

Speaker 1 (20:56):
Seven year old did I say seven? Yeah? That picture
a little kid? Seventy great seven zero.

Speaker 2 (21:04):
They take it upon themselves to find Kenneth an apartment,
to pay his rent and his bills, and.

Speaker 1 (21:09):
Try to help him get back on his feet. Amazing. So,
of course this is a godsend for him and.

Speaker 2 (21:16):
He, I mean he believes it to be, and why
wouldn't he because of these two nice old ladies, very charitable.
They found him a safe place to live and all
he has to do is sign a little paperwork, Oh dear.
So Two years later, on June twenty first, two thousand
and five, around midnight. Kenneth McDavid's body is found in
the alley behind the Bristol Farms grocery store in Westwood, Oh. Now,

(21:37):
if you've never been to Los Angeles, I don't think
Bristol Farms are national. Bristol Farms are the fanciest fucking
grocery stores you. When I first moved to LA I
wouldn't go inside.

Speaker 1 (21:48):
No, I go inside once in a while, and I'm
like in the neighborhood of one and it's and I
feel like they want to kick me out.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
Yes, I always felt like in the nineties when I
would go there, I felt like they thought I was
shoplift totally. I think because I was thinking of shoplifting
the whole time. Because it's like these eighteen dollars bottles
of olives.

Speaker 1 (22:05):
Every shit has truffles in it.

Speaker 2 (22:06):
Everything is like, oh, the truffle can be people sugar.
It's all truffles. Yeah, and it's all insanely expensive.

Speaker 1 (22:14):
It is hoity fucking toyto.

Speaker 2 (22:16):
Hoity toity, like crazy, and only in the way that
Los Angeles can be where it's that it's very conspicuous consumption.

Speaker 1 (22:22):
Bullshit totally don't evolve over it, okay, but they have
nice brand muffins. Uh well.

Speaker 2 (22:28):
And also it's like and if you do have the money,
you can go in there and be like, yeah, I'll
buy a thirty seven dollars brand muffin, check it out.

Speaker 1 (22:34):
I don't care about money. I just want to shit.
I just want that fiber in my system. Don't want
to be regular. I don't pay any price.

Speaker 2 (22:45):
Okay, let's get back to the horrible, can we Okay?
So this it's also the irony, and it's so Los
Angeles that this homeless man who's murdered, is his body
is behind this grocery store that is literally only for rich.

Speaker 1 (22:57):
People, and it's in a high end neighborhood. Yeah, Westwood
is very fancy. If you went to Ucle, you know
that your fucking cookie store. Anyway, when the authorities get there,
they find that Kenneth McDavid's body there's pulled blood around
his head due to lacerations on his scalp. He has
three broken ribs, a fractured pelvis, and lacerations on his

(23:20):
spinal cord. Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (23:23):
The corner later describes these as crush injuries, and according
to the toxicology report, Kenneth has a high dosage of
prescriptions sedatives in his system, so authorities find an ID
card in his pocket that points them toward a Hollywood
apartment building. They contact the landlord. That person says McDavid
has been staying there for a few years but recently

(23:44):
moved out, and the landlord is able to provide police
with the name of the woman who's been helping McDavid
pay the rent and who signed his lease for him,
a woman named Helen Golay, So they contact talent to
notify her about McDavid's She says that she's his cousin.
She comes to the morgue to identify the body, and

(24:05):
then she pays to have him cremated, so investigators tracked down.
They're eventually able to track down surveillance video from the
hit and run.

Speaker 1 (24:15):
So they think they it's a car accident.

Speaker 2 (24:18):
Yeah, well, basically with the crush injuries, they were consistent
with somebody being hit or run over by a car,
So they find surveillance video that shows a silver nineteen
ninety nine Mercury Sable Sedan hitting McDavid and leaving him
for dead, but nothing else on the car is identifiable.
No plates or whatever. So it's the only lead and

(24:38):
it goes cold until the mighty insurance investigator comes calling.

Speaker 1 (24:43):
So yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:45):
A few months after Kenneth and McDavid's body was found,
an insurance investigator named Ed Webster shows up to collect
the incident report about the accident from the LAPD. He's
been trying to get in touch with the beneficiaries of
the five hundred thousand dollar life insurance policy that had
been taken out on Kenneth McDavid with his company Mutual

(25:06):
of New York. They had filed a claim, but Webster
had been unable to track them down, so essentially they
filed the claim to get the money, and then he
reached out and said, yeah, I'd like to meet you
guys so we can talk about this, and they never
called him back, so that immediately sent his census tangling.

(25:26):
So as he starts looking into this strange case, he
discovers another five hundred thousand dollars life insurance policy, also
on Kenneth McDavid's name. The beneficiaries on that policy also
Helen Goalley and Olga Rudderschmidt. So Helen told authorities that
she was Kenneth McDavid's cousin, but the life insurance policies

(25:49):
state that she and Olga are investment partners who are
funding Kenneth McDavid's screenwriting career. That's just not a relationship
that happens in this town fun screenwriting careers, right, And
also unless you're a successful screenwriter, right then it's like, hey,
we're paramount, we'd love to fund paying.

Speaker 1 (26:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
The insurance inspector Webster smells a rap, so he goes
to the LAPD Robbery Homicide Division for help, and he
talks to a detective, Dennis kill Coin. So kill Coin
isn't immediately convinced that these two little old ladies are
capable of.

Speaker 1 (26:25):
This level of crime.

Speaker 2 (26:26):
He's got lots of other other robbery homicide shit to
worry about, and he's kind of like, yeah, okay, until
as everyone's talking about, oh, the two little old ladies
that people think or whatever, And then a colleague reminds
kill Coin of another hit and run case from nineteen
ninety nine in which a seventy three year old homeless
man named Paul Vados had been the victim. And when

(26:48):
they look into that, they find that Vados also had
insurance policies taken out in his name, and the beneficiaries
are Helen and Olga.

Speaker 1 (26:56):
What the fuck? So they now have picked up a
rock God, someone remembered that. Yes, well, that's kind of
the beauty of like these people. It had happened what
four five years before, but they carry that around. It's
like a seventy three year old man in this hit
and run like you know, they're kind of like, oh,

(27:18):
wait a second, Yeah, it's sharing information at least, yes,
and talking about it. Okay.

Speaker 2 (27:23):
So now the authorities get serious about this case, and
they call in the big guns, the FBI, the US
Attorney's Office, and the baddest of them all, the California
Department of Insurance.

Speaker 1 (27:34):
No fucking mess they that's their motto. There, don't fuss
and mess. The cool bloody they don't even need to
finish the sentence, okay.

Speaker 2 (27:44):
So they all begin to investigate these seemingly sweet old ladies.
So let's talk about Helen Goley and Olga Rudderschmidt. They
meet in the eighties because they're two health conscious middle
aged women in Los Angeles. Yeah, girl, And they meet
at a West Los Angeles health spa and they find

(28:06):
out that they have a lot in common. So Olga,
she grew up in war torn Hungry in the forties,
suffered injuries from a World War two bomb raid where
they said an entire building collapsed onto her and basically
barely escaped World War two Hungry, and Helen had suddenly

(28:27):
and tragically lost her father in a car crash at
a young age. So the two women bond over their
childhood trauma and they become fast friends. So as the
years pass, both Helen and Olga suffer failed marriages, they
have problems with their kids, and they have intense financial instability.
They have friends who have very distinct memories of the

(28:47):
two women complaining about needing big money fast, and so
as their desperation peaks, the two women decide to start
committing petty crimes together. So the story is that Helen
would sneak into the Beverly Hills Hotel or the Roosevelt
in Hollywood Hotel.

Speaker 1 (29:05):
Fancy as fuck right.

Speaker 2 (29:06):
They pretend to be registered guests. They go into the
locker room, they change into their pool stuff. Now they're
both physically fit. It's very la They're both these blondes.

Speaker 1 (29:15):
How come I can't do that? I'm too scared to
do that. Yeah, it's just it's you're not a sociopath.
Oh right, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:22):
So Helen has this big blonde bouffont and she's like,
she's leggy, and she's you know, used to being a
hot lady from the past, right, And Olga has like
a jag a gobor thing going on. So nobody thinks
twice about these two seemingly rich, middle aged ladies, right,
because when you're a middle aged friend, you can become

(29:42):
completely invisible.

Speaker 1 (29:44):
It's kind of exciting. Actually, no one fucking gives a shit.
Oh god, So what they do is they change into
their pool clothes and they go hang out, and then
they steal purses and credit cards out of people's lockers,
and no one suspects them because of old white la
the privilege. So essentially it's like, oh, it could never
be these two. They have so much shitty lipstick on,

(30:05):
yeah or whatever. She's she's almost exactly like Ja Ja Gaborg.
She could never be stealing my fucking credit card. Right.

Speaker 2 (30:12):
Okay, they do that so much and so often, and
they never get caught, They never even get suspected. So
of course those petty crimes going on. Prosecuted emboldens the
old gals to escalate to credit card fraud, then insurance fraud,
suing small businesses, faking or exaggerating injuries.

Speaker 1 (30:31):
Fuck what dicks.

Speaker 2 (30:32):
Yes, So they start they start realizing how they can
make money, which is basically by ripping people off in
all different ways.

Speaker 1 (30:39):
Oh man, Just like these small businesses I think about
who like suddenly have the stress of a fraudulent claim, yes,
that they have to deal with, or just trying to
fucking make ends meet. Where it's like you've seen it
in a bunch of movies or whatever, where it's like,
I'm sure one of.

Speaker 2 (30:52):
Them went in you like have a little vial of
you know, eighteen dollars olive oil or whatever, you throw
it on the ground. You got to slip and fall.
Now it's a lawsuit. You own that dry cleaners or whatever. Right,
that's the story. And these guys worked that system. So
with all these cases, Olga finds herself a fellow Hungarian
immigrant lawyer named George Brownfield, and he handles all of

(31:14):
her cases. She turns to him for personal injury claims
from auto accidents and slip and falls. It's one of
my favorite petty crimes is a fake slip and fall.
Slip and fall where people fake slipping and falling in Oh,
it's the worst.

Speaker 1 (31:30):
All of these.

Speaker 2 (31:30):
Cases that she brings to him seems sketchy and embellished.
But George is known for his loyalty to fellow Hungarian
immigrants in the LA area, so he continues to represent Olga.
And this is the lawyer who Paul Brownfield wrote the
article about. It's his father. Wow, and the article is beautiful.
It's all about how he kind of didn't know his

(31:51):
father and after his father died, he had to go
in and he found all these cases, case files and
went through all of this stuff to figure out why
he would continue to represent this criminal.

Speaker 1 (32:03):
I'm telling you this. It's some family secret podcast shit
right here.

Speaker 2 (32:06):
It's totally family secrets. Okay, So that's oldest story now.
Helen Golay is she's a bit of a mystery lady.
But from the La Times article, her hairdresser who wouldn't
give her name because she was afraid for her personal safety,
but she told the La Times that Helen once explained

(32:26):
to her quote how a woman could score a windfall
by marrying an older man, insuring his life and then
secretly feeding him daily doses of viagra until it triggered
a fatal heart attack.

Speaker 1 (32:37):
Oh god, what a way to go.

Speaker 2 (32:39):
You're just trying to cut some bangs into some old
lady's hair, and then you're like, sorry, what's this? I
didn't ask you for advice, I'm ma'am. And then and listen,
this is what she says the hairdresser who.

Speaker 1 (32:51):
Asked on to be named. Oh, I said that already.
The hairdresser quotes Golay as saying, I am evil. You
have no idea how evil I am. Anyway, Bye, A
good one anyway. So three weeks from now, we'll just
touch up these roots. I tipty ten percent, see you later.
I'm evil. So I tipped you ten percent? By god? Yeah,

(33:12):
that's oh. I want to meet that hairdresser. How unnerving.

Speaker 2 (33:17):
Yeah, to come upon these people in real life and
have them be like, well, you are my hairdresser.

Speaker 1 (33:21):
I guess I'll tell you my dirtiest secret. And she's
just like, can you stop talking? Please, please go somewhere else.
There's a super cuts down the street. Okay.

Speaker 2 (33:29):
So usually the cases that Olga would bring to George
Brownfield were small and petty, until she arrives at his
office one day in early two thousand to tell him
that her quote cousin, Paul Vados, had been run over
and killed in an alleyway. She explains to her lawyer
that she and Helen had been taking care of Paul,

(33:50):
who she claims was a quote retired electrical technician who
was barely getting by on his Social Security. Olga explains
that out of gratitude for their help, Paul agreed to
to make she and Helen the beneficiaries.

Speaker 1 (34:02):
It would be her and Helen.

Speaker 2 (34:03):
Paul agrees to make her and Helen the beneficiaries on
his life insurance policy, but now that he's dead the
insurance the insurance company refuses to give them their payout
because Paul's death is a potential homicide and the authorities
couldn't rule out Olga and Helen as potential suspects yet,
so George takes the case and fights the insurance company

(34:26):
because he's Olga's lawyer. Sure he says that they can't
withhold payment unless they can prove Helen and Olga are
actually under investigation for the death of Vedos, and since
there's no proof that they're involved. George wins the case
and Olga and Helen are awarded their payout.

Speaker 1 (34:43):
Holy shit.

Speaker 2 (34:45):
Their success with this scam emboldens them both to move
on to help out another homeless person in need.

Speaker 1 (34:52):
Kenneth McDavis. That's where we started. Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (34:56):
But as all of that proof is piling up, investigators
are now hot on the old gals trails, so they
start tailing them and watching them in action.

Speaker 1 (35:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:07):
So the ladies would frequent that first Presbyterian church on
Gower troll for victims, and it's usually they would look
for alcoholics or people with mental illness, easy targets for them.
Then they'd offer them food and shelter with no strings attached.
And after some time passed and they'd secure the man's trust,

(35:30):
they would tell their new charge that they're going to
help They're going to the bank to help him open
his own bank account. This is basically getting him back
on his feet. And they would make sure to take
them to Bank of America because at the time it
offered a free thousand dollars life insurance policy. Once a
checking account was open somehow in connection, so they would

(35:52):
sign their basically their target, they would sign him up
for that automatically, and they.

Speaker 1 (35:58):
Would automatically end.

Speaker 2 (35:59):
Then they would send notifications to increase the ENA, and
so that by tens of thousands of dollars it would
start out as a one thousand dollars life insurance policy.

Speaker 1 (36:08):
They already signed it, so they could just keep increasing.

Speaker 2 (36:10):
They could keep increasing, and they were in charge. And
once they had that policy, they could take out several
more policies on the same man with companies that did
their business either online or through the mail, only they
didn't have to meet anybody in person. They would just
sign him up and then show that he had already
had They already had all this information.

Speaker 1 (36:29):
Well, I think these policies should be changed.

Speaker 2 (36:32):
It seems like it's too easy to do that to somebody,
and I bet they have been since that time. I
would hope, got to hope. So basically, Helen and Olga
learned how to game the insurance system pretty severely. They
were cunning and calculating and their cold blooded killers. So
as they're tailing the women, authorities are horrified to discover

(36:54):
that Helen and Olga's names have popped up again as
beneficiaries on a life insurance policy.

Speaker 1 (36:59):
For a home.

Speaker 2 (37:00):
Almost man named Jimmy Covington. Okay, so Olga and Helen
meet Jimmy and offer to put him up in a
Hollywood office building at no cost. But Jimmy Covington is smart.
They picked the wrong guy when they pick Jimmy Covington
cool because he already thinks it's weird that they're these
nice old ladies and they're just doing all this stuff

(37:20):
for free, but that they keep insisting he fill out
this paperwork and provide them with his personal information. Yeah,
so they they keep coming back and trying to get
him to fill out these forms, and he just isn't
doing it. So one time they just snap and they
like get really angry and yell at him. And that's
when he knows that he's sure he was right and

(37:42):
that something isn't cool about this. So when the next
time the grannies go back to check on him and
get that paperwork, Jimmy Covington is nowhere to be found.

Speaker 1 (37:51):
The fuck out of there. He was like, yeah, I'm
not buying any of this any later days, ladies.

Speaker 2 (37:57):
But by this time, the police have now amassed an
enough proof of the two women's twenty year escalating crimes
free and they have enough evidence to charge both Helen
Golay and Olga Rudderschmidt with felony, mail fraud and suspicion
of murder. As they were tailing Olga, they just watched
her steal her neighbor's mail.

Speaker 1 (38:17):
No, yeah, that's a federal offense. Old, you can't sure
wh no one's tailing you first, Okay.

Speaker 2 (38:25):
So on eighteenth, two thousand and six, two separate teams
of police officers arrive at both Helen Golay's residents on
the West Side and Olga Ruttererschmid's residence in Hollywood and
arrest them simultaneously. And Detective Dennis kill Cooin in one
of those articles, talked about how they wanted to go in.

(38:45):
They went in with all these cops. They wanted to
like shock and add dazzle both of these old ladies
so that when they brought them in, like they knew
it was a big deal. Everyone saw, the neighbors saw everything.
So when they came into the same jailhouse where they
were getting booked, they would know that they both that
they were superbusted and it was time to start singing.

(39:06):
And they knew it would only be a matter of
time before they each flipped on each other. Totally just
kind of a genius plan. So there's lots of pictures.

Speaker 1 (39:15):
Of them getting arrested that you can look at them
on the internet. Okay, yeah, I love it.

Speaker 2 (39:19):
So once the police are inside Helen's home, they find
a mixture of ground up prescription pills. They say, enough
to put an elephant to sleep. She just has it
sitting around in her apartment. Oh my god, I got
mortar and pestle just like. And she's also handcrafting specialty
cocktails as well.

Speaker 1 (39:38):
Uh okay.

Speaker 2 (39:40):
So they also find organized files of all the life
insurance policies that she and Olga had taken out on
their victim.

Speaker 1 (39:47):
Okay, so she's killing people and can be that organized,
and we're fucking can I know? You know? Yes? Well,
also it's like, why would you keep all that stuff
right now in your apartment? Like, how about you go
out and get like one of the.

Speaker 2 (40:01):
Storage blockers. Thank you storage war that shit. They also
find documents from three other men that Golet and Rudderschmidt
had tried to ensure for around eight hundred thousand dollars.
But those applications had been denied, and the police say
that there was no reason for them to believe that
those three men were in danger anymore, but basically that

(40:22):
they had kind of gotten processed, they would have denied.

Speaker 1 (40:25):
Yes, holy shit.

Speaker 2 (40:26):
So though Golet and Rudderschmidt worked as a team, there
was evidence that each was not always aware of this. Sorry,
this is from Paul Brownfield's LA magazine article.

Speaker 1 (40:37):
It's a quote.

Speaker 2 (40:37):
Though Golet and Rudderschmidt worked as a team, there was
evidence that each was not always aware of the other's activity.
Of the thirteen policies on McDavid for example, that's Kenneth McDavid,
the murder we started with. Golay was the sole beneficiary
on eight, so she had taken Wow about her Helen
off of eight of them. You can't trust on murdering liar,

(40:59):
I know, yeah, no honor.

Speaker 1 (41:01):
Sometimes they tried to remove each other as co beneficiaries regardless,
insurers sold policy after policy and paid up as often
as not end So between the two women, Helen and
Olga had gotten themselves paid with these scams nearly two
point eight million dollars. Holy shit.

Speaker 2 (41:21):
Yeah, imagine how much they'd make if all of them
went through it, right, These bitches are dirty birds. Yeah, Okay,
So authorities also discover when they're going through these apartments
that the Mercury Sable that was used to kill Kenneth
McDavid is registered to a Hillary Adler, who goes to
the same gym as Helen's youngest daughter, Keisha Holly. Hillary Adler, however,

(41:44):
didn't buy the car years before her purse had been
stolen from the locker room at that gym. Later, Helen
had used Hillary's ID to buy the car, telling the
dealer it was a gift for Hillary. So basically they
find that Mercury Sable and they find proof that on
the night of Kenneth McDavid's death, Helen Goley had called

(42:05):
Triple A to have a broken down Mercury sable Toad.

Speaker 1 (42:09):
No, the car broke down, yes, after she.

Speaker 2 (42:12):
Killed someone with it. They had to have it, Toad,
and Triple A has it on records.

Speaker 1 (42:16):
Buck. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:20):
When the police possess the car and they test the undercarriage,
they find Kenneth McDavid's DNA on it, and so this
they have everything they need to now charge these women.
So the trial begins on March eighteenth, two thousand and eight.
They both plead not guilty. Neither one testifies, you know,

(42:41):
their lunatics.

Speaker 1 (42:43):
Over the course of the three week trial, each woman's
lawyer tries to pin the entire scheme on the other women.
It must have been.

Speaker 2 (42:52):
This is really horrible and tragic, and it's shocking how
cold blooded these murders are. But to sit in that
courtroom and see this would be a circus. Yeah, this
would be like high, high level courtroom viewing.

Speaker 1 (43:07):
I think I wonder if this was on court TV. God,
I don't know this at all. Okay.

Speaker 2 (43:11):
So, Helen's defense attorney argues that her daughter Keisha had
conspired with Olga, referring to records of phone calls between
Olga and Keisha to support this argument. Olga's attorney, however,
argues that Helen dazzled Olga with her lavish lifestyle and
manipulated her into going along with the insurance fraud plan.
He claims Olga didn't know that the schemes would involve murder.

Speaker 1 (43:35):
But then Jimmy Covington takes the stand.

Speaker 2 (43:39):
Oh she yes, our friend who got out and was like,
fuck these old, two old ladies. He busts in and
blows the doors off both of those defenses. He is
their only living murder for insurance scam victim, and he
sets the record straight. And because of that, three weeks
after the start of the trial, in April of two
thousand and eight, Helen Golay and Olga Rudderschmidt are both

(44:01):
found guilty of insurance fraud and of the murders of
Paul Vados and Kenneth McDavid. And they're each sentenced to
life in prison, where they remain to this day. And
that is the truly disgusting story of the Gray widow murderers,
Olga Rudderschmidt and Helen Goley.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
Wow, I have never heard of that. You haven't, Okay,
so wait, let me show you this. These are the ladies.
That's Helen and that's Olga. Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (44:29):
Then who does Helen remind you of? I don't know
who the woman who killed Sylvia Lichens. You're right, isn't
that crazy?

Speaker 1 (44:37):
They look exactly doth she has that crazy long Stephen.

Speaker 3 (44:41):
Sorry, Gertrude benaz zeus.

Speaker 1 (44:46):
Chefski. Probably yeah, chuckles, falk In. Is not that weird.
She completely looks like that lady. They look exactly the same.
For a second, when I was researching this, I was like,
that's the lady that tortured Sylvia Likns. But it's just
that same weird, upsetting, awful face. So do you think
they were in the car together when they hit him? Yes,
that's so awful. I hate that, you know, I hate

(45:09):
taking advantage when people take advantage of people who are
the easiest targets, mentally, ill, homeless, you know. Yeah, it's
just like.

Speaker 2 (45:17):
And I hate the people would have the fucking balls
to attend church as if they're there to help too,
totally when actually they're doing the exact polar opposite helping
anybody there. It's so calculating, it's so mercenary, and it's
totally disgusting.

Speaker 1 (45:35):
That is a fucked up story, isn't that awful? Good job?
Thank you? I've never even seen it in my deep
dives into stories. It's when this one came out because
it was like no one they were like on the news,
would you like two old women?

Speaker 2 (45:49):
Like, no one can believe old ladies. But then these
pictures come up and you're like, I fucking believe it.
That's the lady that would like pinch you when no
adult was looking and be like, little girl, that's these
they're both little girl women.

Speaker 1 (46:02):
God, yeah, that's fuck the horrifying. All right, okay, so
if you'll humor me. Sorry did you hear that? Yeah?
It was lost?

Speaker 2 (46:14):
So sorry that was I'm so excited that like falls
turning into winter here and I had to pull out
my old thermal long sleeve shirt.

Speaker 1 (46:24):
You're you're double cupping that mug in a really cozy way.

Speaker 2 (46:27):
I really pulled like kind of a lipt and teeth
looking out the window stereo.

Speaker 1 (46:31):
WD. If only we had a fire.

Speaker 2 (46:34):
Oh, if only we started this building on fire and
then ran podcasting.

Speaker 1 (46:39):
That would be our podcast. Okay, all right, if you'll
humor me, I'm going to start this in a different way, okay,
having an intro and then telling you what it is interesting.
I know I'm hooked. We're one hundred and ninety six
episodes in and I'm going to change it up a little. Yes,
this is the time. That's right.

Speaker 2 (46:55):
You have four more episodes to figure out what your
permanent style is.

Speaker 1 (46:58):
I just want to keep a relationship, singing fun, thank
you on your toe. That's why we're going on vacation together.
So we really are after London. Me, Karen and Vins
are going on a little We're calling it a retreat.
It's a company retreat. Company we get to go to
because we're already there. Right, no offense, Steve, we'll think

(47:19):
of you. Let me start, okay, Karen, let me tell
you about Speedway, Indiana. Speedway indian Speedway, Indiana. It's a
middle class enclave of Indianapolis, which we were just in
and it's a fucking rad place. We love doing shows
in that place. It is great.

Speaker 2 (47:35):
All I think of is those the crowds that it
just went on forever. Yeah, and everyone was great, everyone's nice.

Speaker 1 (47:42):
It's so. Speedway, Indiana is a town and it's home
of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Sure, it hosts a Formula
racing's annual Indianapolis five hundred every Memorial Day weekend. I
just say that, like, you've never heard of the Indianapolis
five Those words have never come out of my mouth
in my fucking life. Truly, that's the first time I've

(48:04):
ever said Indianapolis five hundred. You're not a crazy NASCAR head.
That's weird. There were zero sports in my house. I
really had a single mom.

Speaker 2 (48:13):
Oh, yeah, that would make sense. We just didn't have sports,
we didn't have Indy five hundred style. Car racing was
a different realm.

Speaker 1 (48:21):
Sure, but you know about it.

Speaker 2 (48:22):
But I do know about it, and I've seen other
people like it. Also, what I hear is when you
go there and watch it firsthand, pieces of tires, no
fly up into your face. No, Like it's intense car experience.
I just keep thinking about it. If they all have
fancy crazy hats on.

Speaker 1 (48:37):
But that's the.

Speaker 2 (48:38):
That's the I was going to say, the home run derby,
that's the what do you call it?

Speaker 1 (48:42):
Derby? Yeah? Even any idea the derby.

Speaker 3 (48:45):
Oh, I just want to say my mom's was a
huge NASCAR fan and she was on a documentary about
I think Jack Johnson, not the singer, the Jimmy Johnson.

Speaker 1 (48:55):
Jimmy Johnson.

Speaker 3 (48:56):
Yeah, she was a huge fan. She was in a documentary,
like a fan documentary about Oh and it's her birthday
when this episode comes out.

Speaker 1 (49:02):
I have your Moday, missus Ray Morris.

Speaker 3 (49:05):
So she's she's the one exception to the nest.

Speaker 1 (49:08):
You've said the words Indianapolis five hundred before. Okay, here
we are Na Speedway, Indiana During the post war years
and into the nineteen seventies, Speedway became a suburban utopia
of Indianapolis. Low crime, good schools, none of those big
problems with the big cities, you know. And by nineteen
seventy more than fifteen thousand people lived there. So it's small,

(49:30):
but it's a suburbia, okay. Though normally a safe place
to live, the year nineteen seventy eight brought some crazy
fucking shit to this relatively small suburb. I believe it.
Nineteen seventy eight, man, people are still hitchhiking a lot
of brown cord. That's right. Great set the scene well. So. First,
on July twenty ninth, nineteen seventy eight, a local like
total church going grandma named Julius Ciphers was shot to

(49:55):
death in her own garage in the middle of the
afternoon when a stranger showed up at her front door.
Her husband nswers the door. The man is like, hey,
you had had a recent rummage sale. I wanted to
see some of these like higher end items that you
were selling. What No, that's not how rummage sales were, know,
And the guy's like, okay, back later, right, So he's like,
let me get my wife. He grabs Julia and she

(50:16):
brings him to the garage to check out them antiques. Oh,
and he takes out a gun and shoots her, killing her,
and then drives off without taking anything. What So it's
like a hit. Yeah, okay, well, oh okay.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
Like, oh okay, you'll talk about it again. Oh, I
don't have to guess until I get it right. You're
going to tell me a whole story.

Speaker 1 (50:37):
This podcast is called My Favorite Murder, My Favorite Guessing
about things. Then starting a month later a month so
a month after this, on September one, nineteen seventy eight,
and lasting until the six So it's just a few days.
A series of six seemingly random bombs go off in
public places around the town of Speedway. What the fuck? Yeah,
small town and all these fucking like bombs are exploding.

(51:00):
The first five explosions didn't hurt anyone. It's almost like
they purposely didn't. They were put in places where like
parking lots and where people wouldn't be around. But then
the final bomb, an explosive device concealed in a Speedway
High School gym bag, detonated in a parking lot of
Speedway High school shortly after a freshman football game. Uh

(51:22):
oh yeah, So, like all these people are going to
see this football game, it exploded there and Vietnam War
veteran Carl DeLong is struck by the bomb, which severs
his right leg and severely injured his left leg and
right hand, and severed an artery in his wife, Sandra's leg.
So this elderly couple is hit. Carl's leg had to

(51:42):
be amputated. I fucking look this up on my favorite
murder Gmail, and this woman named Miranda emails us. Oh,
this badass woman. She says, in September nineteen seventy eight,
there was a series of bombings in Speedway, Indiana, the
last of which took place at my dad's high school
parking lot and blew my grandpa's right leg off and

(52:03):
severely injured my grandma. My grandpa was a Vietnam veteran
and killed himself in nineteen eighty three after becoming depressed
due to the loss of his leg and chronic pain.
And she says, my grandma is a fucking badass, by
the way, just so everyone knows, I bet she is. Yeah.
At this point, So at this point in the fifty
six year history of Speedway, only two homicides had been

(52:25):
reported and just half a dozen robberies a year had
been recorded, So it's a safe place.

Speaker 2 (52:31):
I was sorry. I was just going to go back
really quick. Sylvia is the name of the woman who
got shot in her garage, Julius Cipher's, Julia Cipher's. I
was just going to go back really quick and say
this about Julia who got shot in her garage and
that like, now that you say that, there is only
did you say two two homicides a year? Oh no,
wait sorry, two homicides that have ever been recorded in

(52:51):
the history. Okay, So when people, the neighbors and the
town found out what happened to Julia, that must have
been the scariest. I mean, like, a woman shot in
her own garage, right that neighbors, friends.

Speaker 1 (53:06):
People I'm sure knew her. Like, what a bewildering, frightening thing.
And you have no motive, there's no this woman had
no known enemies. There's no reason for this to happen
to this woman.

Speaker 2 (53:17):
Date for some reason, the daytime element also has the
world's gone insane.

Speaker 1 (53:22):
And it's targeted. And then suddenly a month later, these
explosions start happening around town. I just want to I
don't know why.

Speaker 2 (53:30):
I just felt like we didn't sit on that long
enough where I'm like, oh, the growing feeling of Julia
being murdered for no reason and no one knowing how
to explain it, so no one's getting any relief, there's
no arrest.

Speaker 1 (53:42):
That's just a growing thing. And then bombs start going out.
The worry over these two seemingly unrelated events, which we'll
get back to you later. Yeah, the murder of Julia
and the bombings was about to be quadrupled by an
event that shook the community and still fucks people up
to this day. This is the story of the burger
chef murders. Are you? Ew? I just got the weirdest chill, Really,

(54:04):
are you? Because what the fuck? Eight? Oh? Like all
this happened? Okay, please tell me? And actually, I fucking
want your opinion on this because it's I'm sorry to
spoiler alert, it's unsolved. No I knew that. Yeah, yeah,
so I need your opinion on this, Okay. I got
so much information from Indianapolis Monthly, Indie Star Medium. There's

(54:27):
a podcast that their whole first season is about this.
It's called Circle City Crime Podcast or three C podcast,
and they just cover like the theories and the you know,
evidence and all this about this podcast, Wow, Crime, About
this crime, The Already Gone podcast. There's an episode about it.
And then I read a book I bought on it.

(54:47):
I bought a book and read it over the weekend
called The Burger Chef Murders by Julie Young. Wow.

Speaker 2 (54:52):
Okay, awesome highlighter and fucking hand. So you're really doing
it now? So are you saying that's what we have
to do now? Is like really do research? There's certain
so this.

Speaker 1 (55:01):
Is like this is a case that hits all my buttons,
you know, like the yogurt shot murders. There's something about
fast food murders or like you know, store murders that
really just like get my blood boiling and get my
brain working, and when they're unsolved, I just fucking can't
handle it. And I'm like, the answer is there, we
have to find it, and so I want to know
everything about it. Yeah, it makes sense. Yeah, so let's

(55:24):
get into it. Okay. On the night of Friday, November seventeenth,
nineteen seventy eight, employees of the local burger Chef fast
food restaurant. Do you know that, did you? You didn't
have them? So it's basically like Carls Junior. Oh okay, so,
and they were eventually bought by Harty's and Vince knew
about it. It's like a Midwestern kind of chain that
everyone knew per Chef. Okay, yeah, So it's in Speedway, Indiana.

(55:47):
They're closing up the shop for the night. Assistant manager
Jane Freet who's twenty. She had recently transferred from the
Plainfield Burger Chef, Ruth Ellen Shelton, who's eighteen, Davis is sixteen,
and Mark Flemons who's also sixteen. So there's a bunch
of fucking kids closing up the shop.

Speaker 2 (56:05):
Also, I think is part of it too, right, if
someone's taking advantage of the youth element in most fast
food in retail situations right where it usually is a
couple of seventeen year olds pretending that they're holding it
down right when actually that's like the most exploitable, like

(56:26):
they're trapped as a victim.

Speaker 1 (56:27):
But it also makes it so much more scary that
it wasn't someone alone closing up, It was four fucking people. Yeah, Okay,
all right, so they're closing up in the evening. A
little later after midnight, another employee drives by the burger
chef and he notices all the lights are on and
he's like, that's fucking weird. It should be closed in
dark by this point, so he stops by to check

(56:47):
it out, only to find the back door open and
all four employees gone. Oh. He notices that the both
female employees purses are still there, and there's two coats
left behind, which is strange. It's the middle of fucking November.
It's like thirty or forty degrees. You don't leave your
coat behind. He immediately calls the police and when they
arrive on the scene, they find over five hundred and

(57:09):
eighty dollars in cash missing, which doesn't sound like a lot,
but in today's money it's twenty two hundred. About twenty
two hundred dollars, but a couple hundred more and change
are left behind, and Jane Freed, the assistant manager. Her
car is missing from the parking lot. The cash registered
tills are like thrown on the ground. The manager's office

(57:31):
is kind of a mess. It's where the safe is,
and the show's signs of a struggle and there's an
empty roll of duct tape nearby. So but instead of
thinking it looks suspicious like the teenager did, who called
the fucking cops and treating it like a crime scene,
the local law enforcement assumes that the missing workers stole
the money and later day to go out partying for

(57:52):
the night, left the back door open, left their purses
and jackets behind, left a mess, and it's these four
fucking responsible kids who have jobs and are all in
like I don't know, four h or whatever the fuck.

Speaker 2 (58:04):
Right when you're if you're a teenager that has a
job that's as hard as fast food, yea, you are
not messing around like that. Absolutely you don't. You're not
that kid. That's the rich assholes that have no idea
how these things impact people exactly. It's a different style
of person.

Speaker 1 (58:20):
And then you look at clues like purses and jackets
leaning left behind, and you know something's not right now.
But this just it pops.

Speaker 2 (58:27):
This pops into my head because we've heard so many
of these stories, but there was this time where whoever
showed up first got to theorize. And if it was
the kind of person who was like I don't want
to do this that much. I don't want to get Basically,
I don't want to get involved, and I think maybe
sometimes it's I don't want to. I want to think
this because the alternative is horrifying, right or And also,

(58:49):
there's only been two homicides in my city in this
long I don't know how to fucking work a homicide scene, right, Yeah,
And if I don't know how, instead of getting someone
that does know how and being like, I don't know,
better to just blame and feel superior and walk away
and walk away, which I don't know if it happens
as much anymore, I don't think. I feel like there's
more oversight. Yeah, well that's exactly what happened. So they

(59:16):
call the store owner and the next morning an opening
crew are told to finish the closing duties, clean up,
and open the store as usual.

Speaker 1 (59:24):
No, and this is like, in my mind, this is
why the case has never been solved, like they because
they clean up the crimes. They wiped away any fingerprints
that could have been there, any DNA or blood samples,
They wiped down all the countertops. No crime scene photos
were taken. There's nothing. And I want to remind you

(59:47):
of the Browns Chicken massacre, which they had bagged and
tagged all the trash, remember, and then nine years after
the murders, they used a chicken and half eaten chicken
leg in the trash as a DNA match to the killers.
So that the shit's important. They threw all the trash away.

(01:00:08):
Couldn't be more important, right? Yeah? So the next morning, though,
when the four employees hadn't shown up at their homes,
their worried families, all knowing their kids weren't, all knowing
their kids were responsible and reliable, they raised the alarm.
They file missing persons reports and they're like, something's fucking
going on. Later that day, Jane's missing car is discovered

(01:00:29):
parked a short drive from the restaurant and just a
couple blocks from the police station. Oh no, I know.
The car is like vaguely searched, and cops mind a
couple burger chef wrappers, they take some cigarette butts. The
driver's side door is locked, but the passenger door is not.
What does that mean? I don't know, but it's becoming

(01:00:49):
clear that the workers had been abducted while closing the restaurant,
and possibly when someone was throwing trash bags up because
there was like one trash bag in the dumpster, so
while the door was open, and maybe that's when someone hit.
A full on search is issued for the missing kids,
and on Sunday, two days after the Burger Chef employees
are reported missing, some local hikers foind a gruesome scene

(01:01:11):
in a rural wooded area in Johnson County, which is
the next county over. It's about thirty to forty minutes
drive from Speedway. In a clearing, the bodies of the
four missing workers. This is so sad, all still in
their brown and orange Burger Chef uniforms were found. Daniel
Davis and Ruth Ellen had both been shot execution style

(01:01:33):
numerous times with a thirty eight caliber firearm, so it
was almost like they had them lay down there. Then
Jane was found a little ways off and had been
stabbed twice in the chest, so violently that the blade
was later recovered from her body, but the handle was
never found. Oh my god, So it seemed to me
it seems like Jane and the other employee, Mark made

(01:01:56):
a run for it. Yeah, right, So about seventy five
yards away from the others, Mark Flemons is found he's
also he's the strongest and most athletic of the group.
So it's determined that he was bludgeon with an unknown object,
maybe a chain that was never found. But he also
this is fucking horrible. He also suffered blunt force head injury.

(01:02:19):
So coroners speculated that he tried to make an escape
but maybe ran into a tree while he was running
away and then fellon choked on his own blood. And
it's possible that the captors thought he had got away
and didn't know until the bodies were found that he
had died. Oh god. So it sounds like the two
of them made her fucking run for it, which is
like heartbreaking, right. It's also sounds like she fought them, yeah,

(01:02:44):
if she was stabbed that vine like they were mad
at her for doing something.

Speaker 2 (01:02:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:02:48):
And it does seem too that, like it's weird to
have three different ways of murder, right, So maybe it
says there's like more than one assailant, yeah, or even
too right. Right. So officers from Johnson County where the
bodies are found, Marion County where the burger chef was,
and the Indiana State Police all arrive on the scene.

Speaker 4 (01:03:10):
Good no, oh, it's the State Police's crime scene since
it's inter jurisdiction, and of course there's a fuck it's
nineteen seventy eight.

Speaker 1 (01:03:20):
There's a power struggle between the departments. Johnson County Sheriff
Tom Pritchard, so he was left out of the loop
and he was by the state Police, and he was
pissed about it, and he said, quote, if they're going
to treat us this way, we're not going to bend
over backward to help them. Like you're not helping them,
You're helping these fucking murder victims.

Speaker 2 (01:03:41):
Yeah, it's not if you can't if you can't handle
the basic politics of this stuff, right, we shouldn't be
in that business. I mean, it's so frustrating. Every time
anything is like this, I immediately just think I start watching
the Zodiac movie in my mind. Yeah, because it's all
that stuff of like, yeah, man, it's all like pissing
contests totally. It's infuriating, especially for a cold fucking case

(01:04:05):
that like is just mishandled.

Speaker 1 (01:04:08):
Yeah. So either way, some of the first officers at
the scene claim that the state police move the bodies
before the forensic team or the coroner arrived. I don't
know if that's true. I just read it in a
lot of places. Yeah, why would they do that? I
don't know. And since no one roped off the crime scene,
there are footsteps everywhere from the three different departments, trampling
into potential forensic evidence just a different time too, totally.

(01:04:31):
After the news of the discovery, the Burger Chef puts
up a twenty five thousand dollars reward for any information
on the case, and they help the families with funeral costs.
The town of Speedway is, of course, now fucking in
a goddamn pan.

Speaker 2 (01:04:45):
I mean it's too much. That's like too much. That's
three massive tragedies.

Speaker 1 (01:04:50):
Right. You move away from the big city to get
away from like the crime and this, and your town
is just fucking besieged with it. Yeah, yes, it is okay, great.
The same day the burger chef murder. Oh okay, this
is fucked up. They're found on Sunday. That's the next day.
The murders are in the paper. It's the exact same day.

(01:05:12):
It shares a headline with the news of the bodies
being found of the mass suicides in Guyana at the
Jonestown compound. Reverend Jim Jones. He's an Indiana native had
originally formed his People's Temple cult in Indianapolis. So it's
that true. Yeah, So like this fucking little area is

(01:05:34):
losing its fucking mind.

Speaker 2 (01:05:35):
That's and also that news itself eclipsed, eclipses everything that
happened four months after.

Speaker 1 (01:05:42):
That, right, So maybe this could have been a national
news story and could have gotten more leads, but insteady
and everyone's focused on this massive, sane, huge tragedy.

Speaker 2 (01:05:51):
Understandably, but still, yeah, it could have if it had
the airtime. Yeah, something could have been made of it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:58):
Oh god, this is awful. I know. Sorry, No, okay,
I want to take this on. Okay you sure, yeah, okay,
thank you because I can stop. No, you can't. If
we could have stopped, we would have done it right now,
but we can't. We would have done it one hundred
and ninety five episodes ago. The leading theory in the
Burger Chef murders is that the employees were kidnapped following

(01:06:20):
a botched robbery. When one of the killers entered the
burger chef will one of the employees were taking out
the trash. Maybe one of the abductors was recognized by
one of the employees and they were like, we now
have to kill you all. But it still puzzles investigators
that the employees weren't killed at the burger chef because
there's so many of these stories from back then where

(01:06:42):
they're found in the cooler or in the manager's office
by the safe, all killed. But it's such a huge
risk to take them to another location thirty to forty
minutes away and four people, four people who are still alive,
and they take one of the cars and maybe they
there's like a car waiting, but that's where they take
them to. Whatever. It's just it's really fucking weird and

(01:07:03):
there's no explanation. So after the bodies are discovered, a
sixteen year old eyewitness comes forward and he says at
the night of the murders, he and his girlfriend were
making out on the train tracks overlooking the burger chef
and they see two suspicious men in a nineteen seventy
three or seventy five green van with bubble windows outside
the burger chef just before closing. It's the only eyewitness.

(01:07:26):
He describes the men as shabbily dressed white men, both
estimated to be in their thirties. One man has a beard,
who becomes the Bearded Man, and the other is clean
shaven with light hair, and he's acting suspicious. He keeps
looking down while trying to conceal his face with a bandanna.
Oh it sounds like them, like the people who did it. Yes, right,

(01:07:47):
the teen said. The men approach them and tells them
to leave because there's been reports of vandalism in the area.
So the teens take off. It's almost like they the
perpetrators knew that there was someone nearby and they were like,
get the fuck out of here. They cased it. Maybe
they cased it. They see these kids. They're waiting for
the kids to leave. They're not leaving. They know they
have to get in there before the trash is taken

(01:08:09):
out or whatever. They make them leave. Yeah yeah, right, Yeah,
that makes sense. So the police make it make compositive
the story. It also just a theory.

Speaker 2 (01:08:18):
It also maybe points to they only they could have
been totally on drugs. They only wanted to rob it
and then something went wrong.

Speaker 3 (01:08:27):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:08:27):
They weren't looking to kill anyone.

Speaker 2 (01:08:29):
Yeah, they just want They wanted no witnesses. They wanted
their money, and they wanted to get out of there,
which is usually how those things I think go.

Speaker 1 (01:08:36):
But then robbers and burglars aren't necessarily murderers, no, or
don't want to be, at.

Speaker 2 (01:08:42):
Least one would think, because that's the whole idea. You
want to get away and spend your money and just
steal money. Right, it's a different thing than cold bloodedly,
terribly viciously murdering teenage exactly. Also, they warning too teenagers
to get out of here, right, they would have just
killed those kids if that was the exactly if they were.
But here's the other thing that bothers me. These two

(01:09:04):
guys might have nothing to do with it. They're just
two weirdo randoms that like, yeah, it could be a
red herring.

Speaker 1 (01:09:09):
That's the problem, And it's those these two. So the
police make composite sketches based on the eyewitness description of
the suspects. Those look incredible and so fucking realistic and creepy,
and so they're saying like, that's that is the clue
because everything else was fucking destroyed. They make clay three
D clay models. When the leads don't come up with

(01:09:31):
the drawings, they don't look anything. They're the creepiest nightmares
I've ever seen. I know, bless their hearts. They need
to get the artists that did the John List three
DK model very much set genius. I think it was
a woman. There's fucking so many theories to get into.
Listen to the three C podcast they get into them. Okay,
pretty much every investigator, whether they've been assigned to the
case or not, has a different suspect they're convinced as

(01:09:52):
the Purp. They're all mad at each other and they
all think this is the this is the purper, that's
the Purp, and no one can you know, prove it.
Each claims to have inside information regarding their suspect. It
includes ties to biker gangs, armed robbery crews, organized crime,
a police officer's nephew, and connection to the I sixty
five murders. There's just so many theories going on.

Speaker 2 (01:10:13):
Just can I come in as an armchair quarterbacks what
we're here for and say it's not the mob.

Speaker 1 (01:10:19):
No, it's not the mob. You take that off the list.

Speaker 2 (01:10:22):
Yeah, because even the it's stupid, that's not how they
do it, and you know that's not how they do it.

Speaker 1 (01:10:27):
The drug smuggling aspect, I kind of believe there's even
a theory that like maybe they were using the drug
smugglers and there were a lot in that area at
the time. We're using the bathrooms at the burger chef
to like put their drugs in and then the person
would come pick them up in a hiding place and
maybe one of the burger chef employees found it, and
those people lost their shit and also knew that they

(01:10:48):
could turn them in for those drugs, so they had
to kill them all.

Speaker 2 (01:10:51):
Yes, yeah, like they became witnesses to the bigger crimes
going on and then they had to be gotten rid
of exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:10:59):
Yeah. Yeah, okay, okay, wow, So this is a big
I know. One through line is the bearded man. This
guy comes up in like a bunch of different iterations.
Investigators Ken York and Stony Van from the Indiana State
Police are certain that a robbery gang was operating in
the Indianapolis area. They think they're the culprits. Okay, this

(01:11:20):
gang had had already hit several other burger chefs and
fast food restaurants. They were like fast food bandits, including
burger chefs, and in fact, after getting a hot tip
about one of these dudes, dubbed the shotgun man. They
were serving a warrant to this guy and his next
door neighbor is mowing his lawn and they're like, holy

(01:11:40):
fucking shit, that's the bearded man, like apparently looked exactly
like him. Really yeah, and the shotgun man is the
fair haired guy. There's other people involved whoa As a result,
they had the man, this bearded man, whose name we
don't have because he was never indicted. He is brought
in for questioning and for a lineup. When he shows

(01:12:02):
up the next day, he had shaved his beard that
he had had for the past five years. Uh huh,
sure he did. Of course he did, Sure he did.
Years later, when the bearded man dies, his son comes
forward and says his father had given him a deathbed
compassion that he had done it. But there's no there's
nothing okay, there's nothing. Can't prove it, to tie it together, okay,
And there's some of those people who are part of

(01:12:24):
that gang that are still alive that there's nothing to
time together. And these investigators are like the case assaultd
we know who did it, we just can't prove it. Wow,
what about those cigarette butts? I don't think they might
have just belonged to Jane Oh right, oh the burger
chef Rappers. She worked there and there. It's so frustrating,
I know. So Maryon County Sheriff's Department, a different department,

(01:12:48):
investigators mel Willseee and Gary Maxi. They're certain it's a
man named Donald Wayne Forster. He's a popular suspect among
the followers of this case. At thirty four years Donald
Wayne Forrester, this guy's a fucking piece of shit. He
had just been convicted of raping a woman in Hamilton
County and had like priors for like he was a
fucking pedophile, burglar, piece of shit. He and an eighteen

(01:13:12):
year old accomplice had abducted a woman as she left
a nightclub and driven her out of town and raped her,
and she had only escaped by jumping from the moving car.
Jesus Christ. Hell, yes, girl, guess how long he got
for this conviction? No, no, no, no, this is a good one.
Oh ninety five years in prison? Really, can you fucking
believe in the seventies? Fuck yeah, that's.

Speaker 2 (01:13:32):
What I want at a middle judge in Indianapolis.

Speaker 1 (01:13:36):
Jesus Christ. That's incredible, isn't it great. Yeah, and he
was about to be transferred as a sex offender in
the general population of the aka killed. You're gonna get
killed at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, which
what everyone's saying is this, you'll get killed even if
you're not a fucking pedophile. Okay, if you are, you're

(01:13:57):
fucking dead. Now, You're truly dead, which makes which makes
me not believe it's him, because he's trying to get
out of this. So he's like, I know about the
burger chef murders. Oh got it? You know what I mean? Yes,
it's the jailhouse confessions type. And he never has anything
totally concrete. He is an attention whore too, which is

(01:14:18):
why many people think that they write off his subsequent
information on the case. And he eventually confess on tape
that he had shot David. He was the one who
shot Davis and Shelton, and according to him, what had
happened was that Jane Fret's brother, James, so Jane is
the assistant manager closing that night, that her brother owed

(01:14:39):
money from a drug deal, and in fact that that
made sense with James Free's criminal record. But that's what
he's been cleared, so they say that the brother owed money,
he and his associates came to threaten Jane and to
threaten her brother, Okay, and then Flemmens, who was one
of the kids, stepped in to protect her and he's killed.

(01:15:00):
So then they have to kill everyone. But wasn't he
killed thirty miles away in the forest. They said, like
he hit his head and they had to take them
all away all of a sudden. But it's like no
blood was found, but also no blood was looked for,
so who the fuck knows? Okay, Okay, So that's just
one of the theories. Yeah, okay. The most compelling fact
is that Forrester's ex wife told authorities in nineteen seventy

(01:15:21):
nine that her husband, this guy Forrester, had brought home
some shell casings and had flushed them down their toilet
from the area. Right, the investigators, years later dig up
the septic tank of your house, yes, and find shell
casings fuck yeah, which they say match the bullets used
in the Burger Chef murders. But for they must not completely.

(01:15:45):
That must not be enough evidence. There must just not
be enough.

Speaker 2 (01:15:48):
It's probably not the it can't be conclusive for exactly,
which I think now they're saying that's not conclusive evidence anymore,
Like hair and fiber shit, how they're like blood's batter. Yeah,
all these things, I mean, sticks though, ballistics, but they've
been in a septic tank for fucking like a decade.

Speaker 1 (01:16:04):
Yeah, metal is affected by your acidy urine. That's right
by your brand much us and stuff. You're blaming me urine.
They're sick of the way your acid urine ruins. Sorry, no,
I love it. They so they in all these detectives
spent eighteen months pursuing Forrester full time. They just like

(01:16:27):
zero in on him, and I think they maybe get
blinders on it and don't And in my mind it's
like it makes sense. Yeah, they drive him out to
and they're like, he picked out where it was. But
now that we know all these like confession tapes on
Netflix talking about how easy it is to feed lead
someone to a spot, like, it's just hard to believe.
He failed two polygraph tests and later recanted his confession.

(01:16:49):
Died of cancer in two thousand and six, so that
they still think it's him. Okay, roundabout remember the bombings,
You sure do? They We're going back to that okay.
On September twentieth, nineteen seventy eight, federal agents arrested a
twenty seven year old man named Brett Kimberlin for attempting
to illegally obtain United States government credentials. Here's this guy.

(01:17:12):
He's a fucking odd bird. He's a known drug trafficker
in Speedway and around the surrounding areas. But he also
put his money in legit cover businesses like retail health
food store, a vegetarian restaurant, and earth shoe franchise. Rich shoes,
did you know them? Yeah? They went uppill.

Speaker 2 (01:17:29):
The front of the shoe was higher than the back
of the shoe, and so I think they tried to
sell them like ergonomics or something where it was like
you were always walking up pill and it was supposed
to be good for you.

Speaker 1 (01:17:38):
Oh my god. Well he had a franchise, he had
Nerds Shoe.

Speaker 2 (01:17:43):
That'd be like if he was like, I'm gonna take
my drug money and invest it in a bunch of
doctor shoals.

Speaker 1 (01:17:48):
Yeah, it's basically in health food stores back in the seventies.

Speaker 2 (01:17:50):
Like, that guy's a genius because no one suspects hippies
exactly Okay, So they obtain a search warrant after this.

Speaker 1 (01:17:57):
After they arrest him for his home and vehicle, investigators
found wirings similar to those used on the explosive devices.
Oh this guy. Yeah, and subsequent search of his home
reveals more than one thousand pounds of marijuana. That's too
much marijuana. Problem. Oh, you're right, that's way too much marijuana.
But back then, it's like an elephant.

Speaker 2 (01:18:18):
Like one pound of marijuanas is equal to like one
hit of marijuana today today, Yeah, you had you had
to smoke all of that and knock it as high
as you coult off like a vappened off of one
gummy that you accidentally eat at the concert that your
friend's like, come.

Speaker 1 (01:18:32):
On, splitting with me and then.

Speaker 2 (01:18:35):
Crying in the corner and you can't actually sip your
drink because liquid won't go in.

Speaker 1 (01:18:39):
Did you see me at the spill? I've been watching shit. Okay.
So there's no motive established at the bombing trial, but
prosecutors and police believe Kimberland went on the bombing spree
to deflect attention away from another ongoing investigation that was
focusing on him. Oh, that other ongoing investigation that used

(01:19:00):
a bomb to distract from the murder of Julia. Yeah,
are you fucking kidding. Here's what fucking happened. While authorities
were looking into the murder of sixty five year old
Julia Ciphers, they discovered that Julia quote violently disapproves of
her daughter, her daughter's relationship with Kimberlin. So her daughter,
who's like in her twenties, is friends with the sky
Brett Kimberlain, and he's and she's Julia's especially concerned about

(01:19:23):
the strange affection Kimberlin is paying to her to Julia's granddaughter,
who's fucking ten years old, and he's like twenty something. Yeah,
and he's fucking clearly grooming her.

Speaker 2 (01:19:36):
Yes, And Julia's like, no, thank you, No, jolly's happen,
no way, her daughter is kind of letting it happen.

Speaker 1 (01:19:43):
We're blind to it, Yeah, exactly. Julia learned that her
granddaughter had gone with Kimberlin on several solo out of
state trips no nope, and proclaimed that he wanted to
marry her when she grew up. Oh no, no, no, no,
no no. So Julia is like hell no, and was
in the process of arranging for her daughter and granddaughter

(01:20:03):
to come move in with her because she wanted to
get them away from Kimberlin. Yes, and it was possible,
So she she was going to report him for drug
smuggling and pedophilia because she knew that her daughter was
beginning to help smuggle drugs for Kimberlin. Shit.

Speaker 2 (01:20:19):
So she basically tried to break in on this super
super pervy, disgusting criminal and the bullshit he was pulling
on her family.

Speaker 1 (01:20:28):
And before she could do it, she was shot in
the head in her garage.

Speaker 2 (01:20:31):
So the husband didn't know. Julia's husband didn't know what
the boyfriend looked like.

Speaker 1 (01:20:35):
Well, here's the thing. Oh he he briefly saw the shooter.
It wasn't Kimberlin. He knew Kimberland, okay, but it was
identified as a close associate of Kimberland's named William Bowman,
and he's the one who shot with his wife. He said,
holy you were fucking right in the beginning of the head.
Holy shit, it goes all the way to the fucking

(01:20:56):
bowels of hell, that's right. In June nineteen eighty one,
Kimberland's convicted of the bombing and drug charges. He receives
a sentence of fifty years in federal prison. After his conviction,
prosecutors released yellow legal pads that they had confiscated from him,
which said had detailed plans to kill key eyewitnesses and
prosecutors on the case, as well as stage another series

(01:21:17):
of bombings to provide him an alibi. Dude, the bombing
thing doesn't work. So the day of the first bombing
was the same day that Kimberlin was supposed to come
into the police office to talk to detectives about Julia's claims.
So that's he used a bomb to distract them and
make them busy he couldn't come in and talk to them. Oh,
so the bombing part being a distraction to the investigation

(01:21:42):
is an important clue here, because you see, Kimberlin had
begun to include Julia's daughter in his drug smuggling business,
and the night before she was going to be called
in to talk to authorities, the Burger Chef murders occurred.
So this is fucking conspiracy theory though, but there still
oh fucking proof at all. I'm just getting the feeling

(01:22:03):
of the cop that starts linking these things together and
the feeling they must have gotten as they're like wait,
ding ding, These random, crazy, awful violent things are not random,
and it's a stretch to go from killing this specific
target and setting off bombs that seems like he didn't
actually pen to hurt anyone, And as soon as he did,

(01:22:24):
the bomb stopped. The bombing stopped. But he did counter
Melinda told us he did counter sue her family when
they tried to sue him to get money for her grandparents' injuries.
Are you serious? Yeah. Investigators continue to follow leads relating
to possible suspects. They go to Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Chicago, they
go everywhere trying to fucking track down leads, but they've

(01:22:45):
been unable to come up with anything promising. They can't
locate any of the evidence they thought would have been useful,
like a gun, any of the murder weapons. Despite thousands
of hours of police investigation, the attackers were never prosecuted,
and the case remains officially unsolved. Forty years later. It'll
be forty one a couple days after this comes out.
Oh my god, that's right. Retired state police investigator Brock

(01:23:09):
Appleby said quote that investigation could be used as an
example of what Not to do oh. During the summer
of twenty eighteen, the community of Speedway raised money to
plant four red oak trees in honor of the Burger
Chef victims. Each tree is a plaque with a short
description of each of the victims. Ruth Sheltons says creative,

(01:23:30):
honest and kind with a love for music. Jane Fritz
says a leader with a sense of humor and a
heart of gold. Mark Flemon says friendly and selfless with
a sense of style. And Daniel Roy Davis's talented photographer
who made love one smile And that is the Burger
Chef murders. Holy shit, Yeah, that is unfucking believable. How

(01:23:54):
crazy is that fucking story? It's so weird.

Speaker 2 (01:23:56):
And you know what's funny is that I really did
I've heard the name of the Burger chev merder.

Speaker 1 (01:24:01):
Yeah, and I assume I put them in. Put it
in with basically every other case just to mentor there's
so many where you just go, Okay, this is a
story of human greed where somebody who it's the seventies,
people are all on fucking terrible.

Speaker 2 (01:24:16):
Crank and a really bad white drug. The shit that
like no one should have put into their body. They've
gone totally insane, and now they're just shooting other human
beings for.

Speaker 1 (01:24:27):
Forty dollars and like for thrill, like thrill kills, yes.

Speaker 2 (01:24:31):
And weird bullshit of like we'll just do this until
the cops kill us, essentially. I mean that's a common story,
so a lot of those ones, and we have different
interests when we look in these things. I'm more in
the serial killer realm of what is this intense psychopathy?
But stories like that, especially when they're unsolved, I find
very frustrating and upsetting. So I just put this in

(01:24:54):
the file of all the other fast food murders. Basically
I didn't know any of that shit.

Speaker 1 (01:24:58):
I did too, but then I started reading the book
about it, and it's just there's like crimes that like
I could have gone into the I sixty five murders
I could have gone into, like other local there were
other local fast food chain murders that had happened around
that time. Unbelieve there's so many stories about them. And
then these four fucking people who you think about what
they went through the last couple hours of their lives

(01:25:19):
being taken away and knowing this was like not going
to end well, maybe knowing their killers right personally, it's
just it's horrific. It's horrific. Oh my god, amazing job.
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:25:31):
Yeah, oh there was there was something, As you told
me that, I was watching my own reactions to it,
and I couldn't stop wanting to say jokes because it was.

Speaker 1 (01:25:43):
Starting to freak me out.

Speaker 2 (01:25:45):
No, no, no, but I know when people ask us about
the weird connection or isn't it inappropriate or blah blah blah,
it really is the way I deal with stress and
being upset ali being of the extreme unhappy for other people.

Speaker 1 (01:26:02):
Is I need to comment on it in a way
that will we break the tension you're breaking, because because
I'm filled with tension right now because that's incredibly terrible.
Yeah yeah, sorry.

Speaker 2 (01:26:15):
No, I mean, but also it's the kind of tension
where you go, yes, let's all, let's all talk about
these stories as long as we have to, so that
you do have current day police people saying you do
not do it this way. We no longer do it
this way. We have learned the lessons from these terrible
cold cases where people are murdered and nobody pays for it.

Speaker 1 (01:26:36):
Well, it's the same thing too. Why I love hometown
stories and why like I I've always been fascinated by
people's hometown murders. Is like Speedway, Indiana. Is this place
where everyone was traumatized. Yes, in the late seventies. Everyone's
parents have this story about it. You know, everyone's parents
worked at this fast food place and had the night
off and all these and everyone was scared of the bombings.

(01:27:00):
And it kind of like, you have this little town
where this little thing happens that's not national news that
traumatizes the town and makes everyone make decisions differently. Yes,
and everyone stories.

Speaker 2 (01:27:11):
And if it wasn't for the very bizarre coincidence of
Jonestown happening breaking on the same news day, it would
have been a national story. It would have stayed a
national story. But instead it just got obliterated. Yet it
was still there, and for that town, it's never not
been there. Yeah, I mean unbelievable.

Speaker 1 (01:27:32):
Yeah, yeah, wow. It should we do fucking erect inappropriate honestly,
to do a fucking ray, Well, that's the whole idea
fucking hurray, that's true.

Speaker 2 (01:27:44):
We do the bat the record scratch moment of Cokay,
we're not there anymore, and it hit Lensing a little
gratitude that it's no longer nineteen seventy eight.

Speaker 1 (01:27:53):
Thank god. It wasn't a nice time. I was there. Yeah,
I was there, writing backwards on station wagons with seventeen
other kids in one car, no seatpals, no smoking with
the windows rolled, adults smoking, children smoking. You're forced to
smoke in carpools.

Speaker 2 (01:28:08):
That's right, Ane Benedetti, I'm confronting you, just kidding. She
was the best weed too, and pounds, thousands of pounds
of weed.

Speaker 1 (01:28:16):
She'll not get you. I he was all s gone.
Just give you a headache. Okay, speaking of that, do
you want to go first? Sure? I just my fucking array,
and I guess.

Speaker 4 (01:28:29):
No.

Speaker 2 (01:28:29):
Sometimes you get that tone of voice or you're like,
I just have to say one more thing, vinced it well,
which I love.

Speaker 1 (01:28:34):
It's not far away. It is a love Okay. I
got to see my brand new baby nephew over the weekend,
so yeah, you fucking saw the look in my face.
It's your love voice. I recognize it. He's just he's
brand new, how big like a month old? Barely opening
his eyes? Is it like this? Like not funny?

Speaker 2 (01:28:53):
Like watermelon size, not even not even smaller than teeny
tiny CANi can't an.

Speaker 1 (01:29:00):
Oblong, yes exactly. And he just smells so good and
he's got your little hands, and he's just like so
precious and sweet and cute, and yah, I love holding him.
I'm just staring at him. But this is my other
nephew's baby bro.

Speaker 2 (01:29:20):
Yes' just quick reminder of you don't know George's of
the other nephew who is four for you. Just repeats
what he hears his parents say, which is what all
children do. But when you live in Los Angeles, you
often say things like the one on one to the
four or five to well.

Speaker 1 (01:29:38):
You know what else he says now, And I feel
like he's such a hard stark and I love it.
He's when someone asks him to do something he doesn't
want to do, he goes, I'm tired, which hard starks
are like champion knappers, and I'm just like, yes, I'm tired.
I'm tired. So he has this little baby brother now, and.

Speaker 2 (01:29:58):
That's the best. So sweet, that's nice. That's a good one.
That's yours. Mine's very similar. It's about my fan weekend.
No we didn't because we posted a live show last week.
We never really got to, like I was saying this
before we started recording, I was saying this to you
and Stephen.

Speaker 1 (01:30:17):
We never really got to, like do a full on
talk down about how that weekend was for us.

Speaker 2 (01:30:26):
So I just want to say now it was bewilderingly wonderful.

Speaker 1 (01:30:32):
And we were at least I'll speak for myself, No,
I can speak for you, Yes you can. We were
so fucking worried it wasn't going to go well. We
were so worried. There were like so many variables that
could have gone wrong, and we were thinking about all
of them, and we were worried.

Speaker 2 (01:30:47):
We were very stringent about the way we were doing
it and how much we were asking of people, and
we were very uncomfortable, and the whole thing was very
worrisome in our way of we want people to feel
good and be happy that they're participating and so holding.
I didn't understand how much of that stress I was

(01:31:08):
holding until the night one when we walked out to
give the welcome speech and all of these listeners were
standing there, and they also put it in this the
most echo wee kind of spot that they could have.
But the like the cheering and the clapping that we
got in that moment was so exciting and beautiful and

(01:31:29):
kind of like another one of those moments where we
stand there and go like, oh, they're with us, Like
we don't have to worry that all of a sudden,
all these people are going to be like cross their
arms and be like, my thing didn't come on time.

Speaker 1 (01:31:41):
I don't like you anymore. That's not how our people
do it. And that kicked off the most fun.

Speaker 2 (01:31:48):
Weekend where we got to have great conversations and talk
to people and see people. There are people that have
come to so many shows of ours, Laura, who came
Who I mean, there's all these people. And there was
people that we just kept meeting.

Speaker 1 (01:32:04):
Who kept saying like, I just met these friends. I
came alone. Yes, I got tagged in so many group
photos of we didn't know each other and now we're
all best friends. And we all came together because we
met through my favorite murder and it was so heartwarming.
It was incredible. Then the murder.

Speaker 2 (01:32:19):
You know, makers who came to sell their stuff at
the weekend all told us they had the best sales
weekends of their lives, and everyone was so friendly and
cool and excited and the products were amazing, and it
just all felt it was just like it was such
a satisfying and then then of course all of our
friends got to be there, you know we on per

(01:32:40):
Cast Murder.

Speaker 1 (01:32:41):
Squad Io Tillett, right, DJ Dante Fontana and djf Fi
Laru are close friends.

Speaker 2 (01:32:47):
Amazing, and then just all the people that came and
like threw down and participated, and the very last night,
I will say this just to wrap it up, this
is a big thank you. But it's also like this
is a it's such a weird experience.

Speaker 1 (01:33:00):
It's weird, and.

Speaker 2 (01:33:01):
It just keeps getting fucking weird right now. It's like
it's hard to anticipate anything. I felt the same way
when we came out that first night. It was like
you're with us, You're so with us, Like it was
twenty five times louder than what I thought it was
going to because I thought it.

Speaker 1 (01:33:14):
Would be like people sip in their wine and being like,
oh yay, we finally landed, and the energy and the
enthusiasm and the love was so amazing, so lucky, and
with great conversations. But then at the very very end,
the last night, we went back to our hotel. And
there are two sets of people that were in the hotel,
in this hotel bar that was completely empty except for

(01:33:36):
I want to say.

Speaker 2 (01:33:37):
One woman's name was Joyce, and I think the other
one's name is Kathy, But anyway, one was there with it.
It was her and her husband's anniversary weekend that he
got the package for her, and he was saying he
had a shirt that said keep your eyes on the
what was it? He had a shirt about how his

(01:33:57):
wife might kill him. That was so funny.

Speaker 1 (01:34:00):
Never never like sleep with one eye open when you
were married to a murderer.

Speaker 2 (01:34:05):
Now, yes, that's she had made him a shirt that
said that. She when we walked into this empty bar,
basically stood up, gave us a standing ovation. I walked
straight over because she looked like a familiar person. And
then she gave me a speech about how proud she
is of us. That was so goddamn touching and so
mommish and beautiful.

Speaker 1 (01:34:25):
And then the other woman's name and I want to
say Kathy, but that's kind of she was on her honeymoon,
she was on it was her birthday week that's right,
and her husband got her the package for the birthday,
for her birthday as they were so sweet. It was
just like everywhere we turned there was a person going, hey, hooray.
And it was cool too because like our agents were there,
who we love, Joan Orange, Stephen was there with his

(01:34:47):
amazing girlfriend. Jay was there with his amazing girlfriend. Danielle
was there, Adria there. It was just like it was
a really fun Vince of course.

Speaker 2 (01:34:56):
And Vince of course was running the show, but it
was it was really also it was like a shit
it was a live show experience for us, but we
weren't alone because we've been going out and traveling all
around and having those experiences by ourselves and then coming
back and being like bye, say later.

Speaker 1 (01:35:12):
Yeah, it's very weird. Please hug in the elevator, like
good job and job by six am tomorrow, please be
downstairs at six am. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:35:21):
So it was kind of like pulling everybody and to go,
can you please come and watch this experience that we've
been having and understand it with us because it's not so.

Speaker 1 (01:35:31):
Long story short, thank you. Yeah, and hopefully we'll do
more weekends and in different places. Yeah, we have to
do it.

Speaker 2 (01:35:37):
We have to do it more because we really we
and thank you for CID, which the company that arranged
the entire thing. Every single person said that the people
they worked with, all the people that helped them were great.
Everything went on time, everything was beautifully done.

Speaker 1 (01:35:52):
And the Arlington Theater in Santa Barbara was so generous and.

Speaker 2 (01:35:55):
Gorgeous, gorgeous, and it was like our home base anyway,
just like, oh my god, and thank you and the usual.
And if you didn't get to go, almost everybody from
Exactly Right Network has posted their live shows from that weekend.
So there's a live per cast, there's a live murder squad,
there's us, and there's the minisoda as well. Yeah, and
there will be more to come, but don't feel left out.

Speaker 1 (01:36:17):
We will do it again.

Speaker 2 (01:36:18):
And you know, for all the people that were there,
thank you for making it such a really special experience.

Speaker 1 (01:36:25):
I've had so much coffee that I could actually keep
on talking about that.

Speaker 2 (01:36:27):
Experience for ten more minutes, because now I want to
talk about the fancy hotel we staya.

Speaker 1 (01:36:31):
Now I want to talk about it. But it's really
sweet because they're like, there's so much going on with
us in our lives. It's only been four almost four years,
so that's it and there, and these live shows are
so they've become this thing that we just do and
we go on stage and they're they're great, and we
have so much fun and it just happens, and we
record in this office and it just happens. But then

(01:36:52):
there's these little moments, like when you meet a special
like a fan, or you go to these incredible weekends,
or like someone you know since a lovely letter that
just like hits you. How fucking big this is and
how life changing this has been for us, it has
this is this is not how I expected my life
to be at all, and it's the most shockingly wonderful

(01:37:16):
thing that's ever I could have ever imagined.

Speaker 2 (01:37:19):
Yeah, I might have to go under the table and
have a quick cry.

Speaker 1 (01:37:24):
I'll be down there with you, but I'll be making
fun of you the whole time. That's okay, because I
can't cry. It's just from the inside of this.

Speaker 2 (01:37:31):
People tell us from the outside all the time, like
we're proud of you, or this is exciting, or it's
been so cool to watch this From the inside, it's
been so fucking weird.

Speaker 1 (01:37:39):
We can't even explain it. We might as well have
been abducted by Aliens.

Speaker 2 (01:37:43):
Yes, but thank you for still being there with us
because it continues. Apparently, we'll do it as long as
you feel like doing it, totally like, let's fucking just do.

Speaker 1 (01:37:53):
It, and we appreciate you guys listening. Yes, thank you
so much, Stay sexy and don't get murdered. Goodbye, Elvis.
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