Let's Go To Court! - 15: The BTK Serial Killer & That Time Some Dude Stole the Mona Lisa

Episode Date: May 9, 2018

This week, Brandi scares the pants off us with the story of serial killer Dennis Rader, a.k.a., the BTK killer. Over the course of several decades, Rader killed ten people and terrorized his community in Wichita, Kansas. Then, like a true douchebag he gave himself a nickname. He dubbed himself, BTK, which stood for Bind, Torture, Kill. He loved to taunt the police and the media… and that eventually bit him right on the ass. Then, did you know that in 1911, someone stole the Mona Lisa from the Louvre? Neither did we.  Kristin lightens the mood with this incredible story about the thief who kept the Mona Lisa hidden in his apartment for nearly two years. French police searched high and low for him. At one point, Pablo Picasso was the prime suspect.  And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases. In this episode, Kristin pulled from: The documentary, “The Missing Piece: Mona Lisa, Her Thief, the True Story” The documentary, “Mona Lisa Robbery – Who Stole Da Vinci’s Painting?”  “When Picasso Went on Trial for Stealing the Mona Lisa,” Artsy.net “The Theft That Made The ‘Mona Lisa’ A Masterpiece,” NPR.org In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “Dennis Lynn Rader” murderpedia.org “BTK Victims Speak Out In Hearing” CNN Transcripts “The Floppy Did Me In” by Rebecca J Rosen, The Atlantic

One semester of law school. One semester of criminal justice. Two experts! I'm Kristen Pitts. I'm Brandi Egan. Let's go to court! On this episode, I'll talk about that time when the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre. And I'll be talking about Dennis Rader, or, as you might know him, BTK. This is going to be a good one.

He is a heavy hitter. I feel like first we should say that we've had some inquiries about sponsoring the show. Yes. Not from anyone with any real money. But would you please tell folks about Dan Jones's proposition? Yes. I think it's hilarious.

Yes. So our friend, since we were... In high school. Yeah. Text me and said that he would like to sponsor the podcast.

And for $300, he would like us each episode to say something cool about him until he is out. And we would have to keep doing this until he is outbid by another sponsor. Which I think Dan could have done this for like 10 bucks. We will accept no money from him. That's right. But we think it's really funny.

So let's say some cool stuff about dan um he has good hair i know this because i cut it okay okay no but like not just because it's not just good it's not just good because i cut it he grows a nice head of hair okay that's it for that one that's it that's all he gets. And this one's on the house. Okay. So Dennis Rader, better known as BTK. Oh my God. Is a serial killer who murdered 10 people in Wichita, Kansas and evaded authorities for decades.

So from his first murder to his eventual capture, 31 years. I'm so excited you decided to do this one. This is a crazy story. This is, I would say, the first serial killer that I really got interested in. I know that sounds weird. But it was. Knowing you, it's not at all. It's right. But I read sounds weird, but it was... Knowing you, it's not at all. It's right. But I read, like, this just one.

I just remember seeing the stuff on the news about it and so vividly. And so... Well, because he was captured when we were in high school. Like, right after we graduated from high school.

He started, like, taunting the police, like, in 2004. So that's, like, the year we graduated high school. Ultimately, it was completely his own ego that did him in.

That's what I love about this. Yes. I mean, that sounds gross to say that. No, no, no. But, like, if he could have just, like... If he could have quietly

kept killing people, who knows how long. How long he could... How many people he could have killed, how long he could have quietly kept killing people, who knows how long. How many people he could have killed, how long he could have gone on. I got my info for this episode from Murderpedia.org and the court transcripts. Okay. I would like to start by saying in researching this case, I came across a definition for a psychopath. And I realized that on multiple episodes now, I have called myself a psychopath. And I would like to clarify that I am not. I'm going to share this definition with you.

I will be the judge, Brandy. So a psychopath is a person who is incapable of empathy for other beings. They are self-centered to the extreme that no one else matters unless someone serves a purpose or potential purpose for the psychopath. This is a person who has no problems hurting others, no guilt, shame or remorse. It is a person who is deceptive, lies freely and skillfully without shame or regret. freely and skillfully without shame or regret so before you read that definition you were like psychopath is just a a nice fun person i don't know i think that i have um i would like to rephrase how i describe myself i have a morbid curiosity i am in no way a psychopath. I feel lots of empathy for others. Yes, you do. I'd just like to go on the record and take back that self-proclamation that I'm a psychopath.

Very good. I agree. Okay. Now on to BTK. Dennis Rader was born in Southeast Kansas on March 9th, 1945. He was the first of four sons born to William and Dorothy Rader. The family moved to Wichita when Dennis was a young boy, and the Rader settled into a modest home, which remained in the Rader family until it was sold in 2005. Wow.

So 60 years. Mm-hmm. Ish. Not much is known about Rader's childhood. By his own admission, he says he developed fantasies about bondage, control, and torture from an early age. Like, while still in grade school. Oh. He dreamed of tying girls up and having his way with him.

The Mouseketeer, Annette Funicello, was one of his favorite targets for imaginary bondage. Ew. Yeah. He also admits to having killed cats and dogs by hanging them as a child. But, of course, I mean, you kind of know that about a serial killer. Yeah, I mean, that's not the least bit surprising about somebody who goes on to become a serial killer. Those who knew him personally described a quiet and polite young man who preferred to keep to himself. Dennis Rader was not a follower or a joiner or known to be very socially active in high school.

One friend described him as utterly lacking a sense of humor, but tending to be studious and focused. Okay. Sounds like a fun friend to have. Right? That's what I look for in my friends. So that's why we're so good. All right.

All right. So that's why we're so good. All right. All right. He was described as a person who chose his words before speaking and who would give you his full attention as you spoke to him. So I don't know what that says about him. I think that says like creepy dead. I agree.

I agree. Yeah. In the summer of 1966 at age 21, Raader joined the U.S. Air Force. Rader's four years on active duty in the Air Force appear to have been unremarkable. Discharged from active duty in the summer of 1970, Rader returned to his hometown of Wichita. Where did he serve? Do you know? All over the place.

I know he was in Japan for a time. Why does your face look like that? I don't know. I'm just like, now my mind is spinning out. Like, did he get away with crimes in other countries? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very well could have. Yeah.

Okay, continue. So less than a year after he returned to Wichita on May 22, 1971, Dennis Rader married Paula Dietz. Paula was also from the same area and had attended the same high school dennis was 26 at the time and paula was 23 they settled into park city which is like a suburb of wichita it's like you know one of the little towns that makes up the wichita metropolitan area thank you for explaining in case you didn't know what a fucking suburb was. I totally

christened that for you. Brandi, you're going to need to slow that down. Explain. People are in homes there and that's when you have like four walls and Don't ever assume that people have any knowledge of anything ever when they got married dennis was working in the meat department of the iga supermarket which i feel like is creepy i'm with you So he's like slicing big slabs of meat.

Exactly. When you find out that someone goes on to become a serial killer in their past, they worked in a meat department. Ugh. You think that they probably got some weird satisfaction out of that, right? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Paula was a bookkeeper.

By January of 1974, Dennis Rader was in between jobs and restless. It's not a great combination. Idle hands. Yes, that's right. The devil's playthings. His wife now worked at the VA hospital in Wichita and didn't like driving in snow and ice. So Dennis would sometimes drive her to and from work. On these trips, you know, after he dropped her off, he didn't have a lot to do.

And so he would do what he called trolling. So he would drive or walk around certain neighborhoods or school campuses where there were women to watch. He would focus in on like a good prospect, somebody that caught his eye and enter into a fantasy of bondage, torture and death. Imagining what he would do to her, bind her, torture her, kill her. her torture her kill her yeah do you know if he had anything that he looked for in a person so his victims did not have anything it wasn't like everyone was blonde no no they didn't have anything in common all age ranges he killed both men and women. It was said that he found Hispanic women very attractive. He liked their dark eyes and dark hair. Okay. And his first victims happened to be a Hispanic family.

Oh, God. So it's 1974. He's on these trolling missions. And there's a Hispanic family that had just moved into a corner house in one of these neighborhoods. One day after dropping his wife off, he spied Julie Otero, age 34, and her daughter, Josephine, Josie, age 11. Rader devised a plan. raider devised a plan he gathered together what he called his hit kit consisting of a gun cords knives and various tools for breaking and entering he observed the otero household for a time getting an idea of their routine when people left and returned what their daily schedule was like on the morning

of january 15th he could wait no longer after 8 a.m he came around the house snuck into the yard and cut the phone line hesitating at the back door unsure if he could go through with it he finally got the courage oh god and barged in is that his word yes yeah he said um that he stood there and started to panic and didn't think he'd go through with it and then um i think actually what happened is that somebody opened the back door to let the dog out. And so he took that opportunity to. Yeah. You mean he got really courageous all of a sudden? All of a sudden.

Because he's the hero? He just mustered up all that courage and went in and fucking killed the family. Yeah. Joseph and Julie Otero were home with the youngest two of their five children, Josie, who was 11, and Joseph Jr., Joey, who was nine. Rader overpowered them by threatening them with a gun and forced them into the bedroom. He tied them all up and attempted to strangle them using cord, bags, and their own clothing. He later recounted that it was much more difficult than he anticipated to strangle them. And that multiple times he thought they were dead, but really they had just blacked out and that they came back too.

Oh, I'm so sorry for him. Right. Yeah, it's pretty, pretty tough on him. I mean, it's just terrible. so he kills the mother and father first he kills them in their bedroom then he takes joey the little boy to his bedroom kills him in there and then thinking that he had already strangled josie she had just blacked out she comes back back to. He makes her get up, walk down to the basement, where he makes a noose and hangs her from the sewer pipe in the basement. He takes off her clothes, and he acts out some kind of sexual fantasy on her, and he leaves behind semen on her legs and on the pipe behind her

that she was tied to. on her legs and on the pipe behind her that she was tied to. This one, like, I remember seeing, Norman and I saw a documentary about BTK a while back, and I remember this one in particular just really got to me because if I remember correctly, when he got in there, he told the parents, look, I'm just here to rob you. Yeah, he said. Let me just tie you up yeah

and i there's something about that yeah you just you feel so horrible for for the victims because you're thinking well yeah i would probably do the same i guess yeah so he got in there he wasn't expecting um joseph the father to be home and so on the spot, came up with this ruse that he was a vagrant and that he was just there to steal their car and get some money. And so he had a gun. And so the father complied. He thought he was protecting his family. He was like, this will stop us from being killed. Yes.

I'll just, we'll do what he says. He'll take our money. He'll take our car. He'll leave. Horrible. Yeah. Yeah. Afterwards, after he strangled the four, he picked up a bit, collected his things and left.

Picked up a bit. Yeah, because there had been like a little bit of a struggle here and there. So he kind of picked that stuff up so that the scene wasn't terrible these are his own words yeah i mean i'm not holding you okay uh okay because he had to you know opened his kit up so he picked put all this stuff back in his kit so he didn't leave behind any of his own belongings and this so he left semen on the pipe but this was before dna testing was a big thing right yeah yeah it's like 70s 74 74 okay yeah yeah at that time i don't know that they could get much out of a semen sample at all i mean they collected it i don't know what testing

was available at the time i feel like i shouldn't even say it because i know i feel like there's some way that they could get some kind of profile out of it not a dna profile but no like a blood type or something i have no idea i don't know don't quote me on that i assume that you know they collect everything they can possibly collect in the hope that one day maybe it'll give them something they need. Yes. So he picks up. He takes the Otero's car, backs out of the driveway. And by now he's like so flustered because he's like, according to him, he had like gone into a state when he went into this house and completely lost control over

himself factor x is what he calls it factor x steps forward and he loses all control so by now he's coming back into you know realization of what he's done and he's very flustered he backs out of the driveway and he does so so fast without looking that he almost hits another car like an oncoming car um that would have been so great right yeah yeah um he drives the car to a nearby supermarket and leaves it there um somebody later recounts that they saw him leaving this car there and that he was like physically like shaking she described it as like shaking like a leaf when he gets out of this car um so raider had no idea that the oteros had three older children all of whom had left for school before his arrival charlie 15 daniel 14 and carmen 13 were the ones who found their family dead when they arrived home from school that afternoon.

Next, in April 1974. So that was January 1974. Just a couple months later, Rader began stalking a woman named Catherine Bright. She's 21 and he had seen her one day entering the home that she rented in Wichita and had just become obsessed with her. On April 4th, he broke into her room or into her home via the back porch and hid in her bedroom. Around 2 p.m., Catherine arrived home accompanied by her brother, Kevin, who was 19 years old. Kevin didn't live there and Rader had not planned for him to be there.

He had like gone to the bank that day with his sister or something and had come back to her house. Rader startled them by emerging from the bedroom and pointing a gun at them. Shit. Yeah. by emerging from the bedroom and pointing a gun at them shit yeah he then forced them into a bedroom where he tied katherine up and then took kevin into a different bedroom and tied him up but he had only brought enough supplies to tie up katherine and so he had to just tie kevin up with stuff he found around the room and kevin worked his way loose whoa um and he got in a vicious fight with raider he nearly got the gun from from him oh my god but raider um managed to get the gun

back and he shot kevin in the face oh my god still fighting kevin made another attempt to overpower raider he got shot in the fucking face and he's still fighting oh my god yes then raider shot him again and shot him in the side of the head oh my gosh kevin dropped to the floor and raider assumed that he was dead or dying and left the room to go work on Catherine in the other bedroom. She fought him as well, but was tied up and couldn't do much. And the scene had become so chaotic, it had gone so not according to his plan that he switched from strangulation to stabbing. He stabbed her 11 times in the back and torso. Meanwhile, Kevin had managed to get up, shot in the head and the face,

run out of the house screaming for help. No. Yes. So when this happened, Rader had to book it out of there and he ran from the scene on foot back to his car, which he had ditched like blocks away.

Yeah. Once again, I think I know a story. I have no idea. I have no memory of this. Yeah. Holy crap. Catherine died at the hospital

a few hours later, despite attempts to save her with surgery and blood transfusions. Kevin was in critical condition after being shot in the fucking head and face. Yeah. But he survived. Are you serious? He survived. Oh, my God. Yeah.

He had lifelong problems because of it. Nerve problems and memory problems. But he survived being shot in the face and head. Was he able to talk to the police about what he did? But I think that at this point, during some of his crimes, BTK wore a mask. Okay. It was like a plastic Halloween mask. Oh, God.

Just like the face. Just like a little flimsy face one. It was like a woman's face. Oh, God. It's so fucking creepy. Yeah. And I think maybe he had worn a mask during this. Okay.

I don't know for sure. Okay. So that was April 1974. Oh my gosh. Now we're to October of 1974. An editor of the Wichita Eagle newspaper received a phone call directing him to a letter hidden in an engineering book at the Wichita Public Library. Oh my gosh. He notified police who found the letter at the library it was a

gruesome description of the unsolved otero murders by someone who had complete knowledge of the crime scene yeah it was written in poor english with numerous misspellings the writer was concerned that the police had recently arrested the wrong men for the Otero murders. So they had arrested somebody, an acquaintance of the Oteros or something like that, like two men, I think it was.

Wow. So this letter proudly proclaims, I did it myself with no one's help. And then the letter went on to say, the code words for me will be, bind them, torture them, kill them btk so he gave himself that nickname if we ever needed more proof that he's a douche serious someone who gives name yes okay now it's november 1974 good god and didis raider gets a great new job with adt security oh my god oh no a company specializing in the installation of alarm systems. He would stay with ADT for the next 14 years.

I bet he did. Yeah. He rose to the position of installation supervisor, which gave him some amazing flexibility in the terms of where he could be during the day. He was just supposed to, you know, stop in on various job sites. So there was few people who knew where he was supposed to to you know stop in on various job sites so there was few people who knew where he was supposed to be or anywhere that he had to check in during the day well and have you ever had one of those people come to your house they're like it's their job to scare the

shit out of you yes i don't know about this neighborhood you're in so yes that was his job to go and scare people i bet he was great oh i it. Oh, I'm sure he was great at it. Yeah, he went on to be a freaking installation supervisor. It was reportedly like the first job that he stayed at this long and was so successful at. Because it was, I mean, just the perfect job for a fucking psychopath like him. Or you. Shut the fuck up. Psychopath like him.

Or you. Shut the fuck up. So between the responsibilities of this job and the birth of his first child, Rader found little time to kill, unfortunately. That's the first time I've ever heard little time to kill, like, in a literal sense. In a literal sense, yes. But he says he still managed to find time to troll and would fantasize over what he would do to the women he saw. So almost three years go by and now it's March of 1977. March 17th of 1977 to be exact.

Rader decided it was time for another murder he went to a house he'd been watching for a while and showed some kind of badge to the children who lived at this home probably his adt security badge to a child it would look very official. Well, and children tend not to question adults. Yeah. And they let him in the house. Oh, no. He was closing the blinds in the living room as their mother, Shirley Vian, came into the room. Can you just imagine? Oh, my God.

You come, you're in your bedroom. Your children are watching TV in the living room. You come down in your bedroom your children are watching tv in the living room you come down in your bathrobe there's a fucking man standing in your living room who's closed and locked the door and is closing your blinds she freaks the fuck out well obviously yeah and tells him to leave or explain who's who he is and he pulls a gun. Yep. At gunpoint, he orders the children into the bathroom and barricaded them in there. Oh my gosh. Then he forced Shirley into her bedroom, tied her up, and strangled her with a cord.

He left semen on a pair of panties found next to the body. He was gone before the children could break out of the bathroom and summon help. Rader later stated that a ringing telephone unnerved him and caused him to leave before he could kill the children. Oh, my gosh. He had planned because they had seen his face. He had planned that he would go ahead and kill them, too. How old were the kids? The kids were little.

The oldest was like six or eight. And then the other two were younger little babies yeah okay so that was march of 77 december of 77 raider became fixated on nancy fox a 25 year old he was stalking her from her residence and workplace she worked at a jewelry store he reportedly like went in there a time or two and looked at cheap jewelry whatever yeah on the evening of december 8th he broke into her modest duplex through her bedroom window after first cutting the phone line yeah he awaited her arrival from her evening job at the jewelry store and nancy lived alone she was the sole occupant of this duplex and so he knew you know he didn't have to worry about anybody else no brothers no children yeah the

initial confrontation took place in the kitchen, in the kitchen, presumably again at gunpoint. Nancy didn't fight back. I am sure she thought, I'm just going to do what this guy says. He'll rape me. But I can survive that. See, that's exactly what I'm thinking about that first crime. Yeah. I truly don't know how I would handle that.

I don't either. Because you think, OK, well, a rape I can survive. A robbery I can survive. Maybe. You just don't know the smart way to play it. Yeah. Yeah. So she thinks, you know, I'm going to do everything he says.

Worst case scenario, he's going to rape me and leave. Yeah. So he orders her into the bedroom where he ties ties her up and then he takes all of his clothes off and i'm sure she's like you know that's happening and then he tells her who she who he really is oh shit oh of course because he's got this huge ego bragging about how he's the person who killed the Oteros as he strangles her to death. Oh, my God. This time he left semen on a nightgown found next to the body. The following morning, Rader dialed a police dispatcher from a payphone and said,

Yes, you will find a homicide at 843 South Pershing, Nancy Fox, and left the receiver dangling. Of course he did. Police rushed to the residence and found the lifeless body still lying on the bed. A tape recording of that call was eventually played repeatedly all over over the news and they were asking anybody who recognized the voice to call in no one including raiders co-workers or family were able to recognize the voice do you know did he attempt to disguise his voice from from my understanding he didn't it was just it was just his voice wow but i'm imagining that like it's what 1977

probably the recording equipment at that time is it's all analog you know on yeah tape and so i think anybody's voice probably wouldn't sound quite like it does you're it's a recording through a pay phone. And then that recording is being paid, played on the news. I don't know that anybody would be able to recognize someone's voice, even if they hadn't made an attempt to. And even if it sounds kind of similar. Yeah.

Would it? I mean, you, if yeah. Yeah. You wouldn't want it to sound like, so you'd be like, no,

that's not, there's no way there's. Yeah. That the good guy from ADT. Right. Ugh. Yeah. Okay.

In early 1978, Rader attempted to send a postcard with a sarcastic poem entitled Shirley Locks to the Wichita Eagle, but no one recognized the significance of it until days later. It was followed by a letter that was taken more seriously. In it, the killer took full responsibility for the Otero murders, the Shirley Vian murder, and the Nancy Fox murders, plus an unnamed seventh victim, later assumed to be Catherine Bright. Okay. The letter forced the Wichita Police Department to make a decision. They decided that they would publicly announce that Wichita had an unknown serial killer on the loose. And the citizens were urged to be extra careful about locking doors and looking out for each other. Citizens were urged to be extra careful about locking doors and looking out for each other.

A whole generation of women grew up in Wichita with the instructions to, you know, lock your door the second you get in and then check your phone. Check for a dial tone. Oh my God, that is so scary. Yes. Sales of security systems skyrocketed. No. Oh, my God. Yes. He was in people's homes selling them security systems to protect them from him. That is.

OK, I feel like in this moment, it is so bad to be on a podcast because I'm like gripping my head. And I'm wondering why the hell was I so excited for you to do this one this yeah this is so bad yeah it's fucking terrible i thought it'd be real fun yeah it'd be a real real good time we're not laughing as much as i thought we would in june of 1978 raider's wife paula gives birth to their second and final child she had been pregnant through all of these events and nancy fox's murder so he's got a baby at home and a pregnant wife and he's out doing all of this. I'm always so curious about the spouse. Yeah. In these situations.

Yeah. I'll go into the family a little bit later. Because I, man. In April 1979, Rader broke into the home of Anna Williams, a 63-year-old widow who had recently lost her husband. He waited fruitlessly for Anna to come home, but she didn't until much later than he anticipated. Rader grew restless, took a few items, and left disappointed. In June, so a couple months later, Anna receives a package in the mail with a poem entitled, Oh, Anna, Why Didn't You Appear?

So I read this poem and researching this. And I would just like to say, it's fucking terrible. There's no, I mean, this guy is no poet, let me tell you. There's no cadence. There's, it's terrible. Okay. Is that your main issue with this? That's my main issue with this a lot of people think btk

was a good poet he was not i am here to tell you he was a terrible fucking poet it didn't make any goddamn sense so this is another one that i that sticks with okay yeah imagine you get a package oh my gosh this package has this this letter saying, oh, Anna, why didn't you appear? A drawing of what he had intended to do to her. What? And then items he had stolen from her house. Okay, what did he steal? And are you going to read us the poem?

No, I am not going to read you the poem. And I don't know. It didn't list it specifically. It just said a few small items. But I have this cheese and wine right here. You're going to give them snaps? Yes, snaps. That just, that scares the shit out of me.

Yes. A similar package was also mailed to the TV studios at kake tv in wichita anna was terrified all of wichita knew about this serial killer by now she booked it the fuck out of there she was like i'm gone she moved far away okay yes yes i know it's always impossible to know exactly what you do in that situation. But I think if I had even the slightest bit of money, I'd be like, okay, he's not going to get a second chance at killing me. Exactly. Goodbye. My new name is Cassie Chadwick.

Cassie Chadwick. Shout out to a previous episode. I am the illegitimate daughter of Andrew Carnegie oh what he's dead um if timeline doesn't match up don't worry about it yeah I would

get out get the fuck out of there yes or I would live at the police station like look open up one of those holding cells I'm moving in

yes go ahead and incarcerate me I'm sure I've done something terrible. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Oh. Okay. So that was 1979.

Jesus. I mean, okay. I don't know how to say this. Yeah. He accomplished a lot in the seventies. Yes. I mean, he accomplished is the wrong word. Yes.

He was busy. there you go and you two fucking small children at home yeah i don't know yeah okay by 1985 it had been years since the last kill. Mm-hmm. 70, 78, 77. Why did he wait so long? I don't know. I don't, I'm not sure. I think not a lot of opportunity.

He was busy raising his kids. He did get involved in scouts. And he was really involved in his church. I mean, these things are disgusting to me. That is so weird to me. So he was, I believe, living off of the memories that he had stored from these horrible crimes. And he was doing these. Okay, so when they finally catch him, they find all of these Polaroids that he had taken of himself in bondage. He had tied himself up in all of these crazy positions, many times dressed as a woman.

And then he had rigged up a Polaroid camera to where he could pull a cord and it would take a picture of him in these crazy positions, many times dressed as a woman. And then he had rigged up a Polaroid camera to where he could pull a cord and it would take a picture of him in these crazy positions. I mean, there were tons of these pictures. I saw some of them during my research and they are horrifying. Okay. And we should say, obviously, that'd be gross to picture just about anybody like that. But if you've seen a picture of Dennis Rader. He's not a looker.

No. You do not want to see him dressed as a woman. No. In bondage. No, you don't. I don't want to see you in bondage, Kristen. I thought you were going to say dressed as a woman. I don't want to see you dressed as a woman, Kristen.

It's a bit of a farce, isn't it? I like to think I pull it off well. I mean, you're so tall. Who do you think you're kidding? I know. I do my best, you know? You're really doing some great stuff with contouring, covering up that Adam's apple. I follow Kim Kardashian very closely.

I would just like to go on the record and say Kristen looks nothing like a man. Thank you. She certainly looks nothing like Dennis Rader either. Okay, now go ahead and tell them how super hot I am. Believe me, Norm gave you enough shout out about how beautiful and talented you are on Twitter. That's right. That's right. Yeah.

So everybody's heard it. You're the hot one. To be fair, it'd be really weird if my husband had been like if he'd been talking about the two beautiful, talented podcasters. I would have been uncomfortable with that.

Okay. Back to Dennis Rader. No, give me more compliments. Okay. So it's 1985. It's been years since he last killed. He, like I said, was a busy family man. He had no criminal record.

He was doing this job with ADT, really moving up the ladder there. He was apparently religious and very involved in his church. Despite all of that, he went to great lengths to pull off his next murder. And at this time, he's now 40 years old. And at this time, he's now 40 years old. Maureen Hedge, 53, was a widowed neighbor who lived on the same street in Park City as the Raiders. That's bold. She lived six houses down from them. His ego.

Oh, yeah. His ego's out of control. He committed his first murder over 10 years ago. He's been taunting the police. Nobody's on to him. So his ego at this time is. Yeah. He's never even been questioned.

No. Yeah. Yeah. She was described as a petite, friendly woman and a mother of four grown children. And her husband had died within the last year. On the weekend of April 27th, 1985, Rader was attending a Boy Scout camp with his fucking son just outside of Wichita. He left the camp that evening with the pretext of having a headache and needing to get to town to buy something for it. He parked his car by a bowling alley in the city and bought himself a beer. He swished the liquid around in his mouth and then spit it out and then deliberately poured some beer on his

clothing so he would smell like he had been drinking. Then he called a cab and pretended to be drunk and instructed the driver to take him to a park in Park City so he could walk it off before he got home. The park backed up to Maureen Hedges' yard. When Rader gets to the park, he's disappointed to see that Maureen's car is in the carport, and he assumes she's home. He decides he's going to go through with it anyway.

So he wanted to be there waiting. Yes. That was his MO. He wanted to be in the house before people got home. He didn't want to... It went so poorly when he broke into the Otero's house.

It had gone very... We broke in when people were at home. He had changed it to where he wanted to get there, be in hiding, and then have them and then come out and surprise them he cut the phone line and then quietly pried open her back door and turned out no one was home but as soon as he got in there a car pulled into the driveway. Oh, no. Oh, my God. And so he ran and hid in the bedroom closet.

Yeah. Maureen Hedge and her friend Gerald Porter entered the home. Gerald hung out for a little while and then left around 1 a.m. Oh, my gosh. Raider sat in the closet this whole time and waited for Maureen to go to bed and fall asleep. Oh, my God. Oh. He needed for Maureen to go to bed and fall asleep. Oh, my God.

Oh. After she fell asleep, he crept out of the closet, flipped on the light, and pounced on Maureen in her bed. He manually strangled the 100-pound woman to death. He didn't use a ligature this time. He did it with his bare hands. Oh. Then he did something with his bare hands. Then he did something that he hadn't done before. He dragged the body with the bedding to her car and put it in the trunk.

What? He then drove to his church and dragged her body down into the basement where he had previously taped black plastic over the window so no one could see in. And he posed the body and took pictures of it. Oh, no. In his church basement. In his church basement. Where he was such a trusted member that he had keys was he a deacon he went on to become his church president later it was a lutheran church i don't really know what the various steps are but you and i do not know this we've established that on this podcast. He had keys to the church.

Yeah, that says it all. Yeah. He then returned the body to the trunk of her car and found a dumping place in a ditch along a dirt road several miles outside of Park City. And hid the body under some vegetation. Okay. city and hid the body under some vegetation okay by now it was getting light and raider quickly made his way back to where he had left his car in wichita he parked marine's car there after wiping it down for fingerprints and return to the scout camp he was not connected to this crime for 20 years oh my gosh this was never believed to be a btk killing because it didn't matter he didn't use any ligatures it didn't match yep okay she wasn't bound no one knew that he had done it or connected him in any way to it for 21 years.

Her body wasn't found for like eight days. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. I think that really shows how good he'd gotten at this. Absolutely. This woman who lived six doors down from him was not connected at all until he claimed responsibility for it and walked people through exactly how it happened okay now i

understand that it wasn't totally his mo but how many women were dying of strangulation in wichita yeah i the thing is, though, is that it had been a long time. It had been a long time. Okay. And his victims did not fit any profile. This was an old woman.

He'd done young women. He'd done men. He'd done children. So, Okay, yeah. That was maybe Maybe I'm being too much of like a... There's somebody at the fucking door again, Kristen.

Oh my God, it's my husband. The scariest man of all. Oh, you scared the crap out of us. We're talking about the BTK killer. And then some creepo appears at the door. Well, that was freaky. That was so scary. You're talking about the BTK, and all of a sudden, Norman pops up on the porch.

I expected him to be gone for like a while. Yeah, he said he was going to be gone for a while. He came back like an hour later. His face was kind of obscured. Yeah, yeah. He said he was going to be gone for a while. He came back like an hour later. His face was kind of obscured. Oh my God. Okay, so back to the man who would sneak up on women and murder them. Oh yeah, okay.

Is that what we were talking about? Yeah. Okay, so he's murdered his neighbor who lives six stores up but is not connected to it for 20 years until he confess connected to it for 20 years. Okay. Until he confesses to it. He was, the police never connected him to the crime.

Right. So now it's September of 1986. And Rader has his eye on Vicki Wegerle, a 28-year-old mother of two. Sometime after 10 a.m. on Septemberember 16th he showed up at vicky's door dressed like a telephone repairman complete with hard hat oh shit he somehow managed to get vicky to allow him inside the home to check the phone line he fiddled with her phone for a minute and then he informed her that she was going to be tied up. He forced her into the bedroom and attempted to do so, but she put up a fight, scratching him in the process.

Rader finally managed to overpower her, though, and secured her with ropes, then proceeded to strangle her to death using pantyhose as a ligature. strangle her to death using pantyhose as a ligature. He photographed the dying body in a few poses and left in the Wegerle car. Vicky had warned him that her husband would be arriving home shortly. Rader later stated that had the husband come home, he had decided that he would kill him as well, obviously. Well, sure, I mean, that's no surprise. Bill Wegerle indeed came home soon afterward and even saw his own car

driving in the opposite direction away from the house. He couldn't identify the driver, but he thought, like, it's like, I think it was one of those things where you see a car drive by and you're like, wait, was that my car? And then you're like, no, it wasn't. He didn't see the driver. like no it wasn't he could he

didn't see the driver he knew it wasn't his wife vicky uh-huh he gets home their two-year-old is sitting in the living room like oh unsupervised oh my god he like going through the house looking for vicky he can't find her because she had was behind oh my god the bed between like the bed and the wall laying on the floor did he put her there yeah i think when he was posing her to take pictures once he finds her he obviously calls the police paramedics rush to the scene. They tried to revive her, but she's pronounced dead. Yeah. A short time later. Meanwhile, Rader had driven around the city disposing of evidence. I don't know what that means.

Like tossing stuff out the window? Tossing stuff out the window in the Wegerle car. Then he returned to an area near the house and parked the wegerle's car it was just a couple blocks from their home when they found it he exited the area on foot and returned to his own car nearby again he was not connected to this crime oh my god guess who the suspect was? Who? The husband. Oh, of course. Of course. Bill Wegerle's life took a rough turn. Oh.

Not only had he lost his wife and the mother of his two children, police completely believed that he had done it. Yeah, and every other? Every other person. A dark cloud of suspicion hung over him for 18 years. Oh, my God. This poor man. Oh, this poor man. Yeah.

Can you imagine? No. No. But at the same time... Okay, so the serial killer goes from killing all these random people to all of a sudden killing his wife. That doesn't really, they just wanted to find somebody, right? Yeah, they didn't connect it. They didn't think it was a BTK crime.

They thought it would, like he had done it. Oh, I see. Maybe tried to make it look as if maybe it was a BTK thing by tying her up and strangling her. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Because, again, it had been, we know that Rader was active during this time but it had been since 1978 since he had communicated with police at all or committed a murder that they were able to tie to him did police think that maybe he was dead or in jail so yeah so there was a lot of speculation that they believed that yeah

maybe he had been arrested for something else maybe he had died maybe he'd left the area yeah yeah they didn't think oh he's busy with work and raising two kids no yeah exactly okay so now it's january 1991 and raider commits his final murder now 45 raider has narrowed his scope to older women who lived alone as they were easier to subdue and less likely to fight back he set his sights on dolores d davis a 63 year old woman who lived only a mile and a half from his home he his ego was so huge now that he wasn't even caring to venture that far out he's like i can kill whoever i want yeah yeah no you're not catching me that night he approached her house on foot and threw a concrete block through

the plate glass patio door to gain entry thinking a car had hit her house oh my gosh dolores came running to see what what was going on right And Rader was standing there in her kitchen and handcuffed her. Oh, my gosh. D-begged, I've got kids. Don't hurt me. Don't hurt me. And Rader talked with her and calmed her down and said, you know, he did kind of the same vagrant story that he had told before.

You know, I just need money. I'm going to steal your car, whatever. Yep. Acting as if he was about to leave rater removed her handcuffs and tied her up and then strangled her with pantyhose he said that the two or three minutes it took for her to die fueled his fantasies for years he put a blanket around her dragged her to the car um threw her in the trunk and dumped her body under a county bridge the following night he came back to the dumping spot to pose and photograph the body i think something like 13 days went by before they found this body oh my gosh and again it wasn't connected to btk

yeah only four months after this episode raider was hired by park city as a compliance and animal control officer see this is the job i remember yeah thing okay he became a combination dog catcher and local code enforcer. He was now part of the local law enforcement. He gained a varying reputation ranging from efficient and friendly to overzealous and petty,

writing citations if lawn exceeded six inches in grass height. There were complaints against him and several people were said to have moved away from Park City due to his crazy antics and like the thing. Yeah, I would write people up for but no complaints ever resulted in disciplinary action because a local officials would usually side with Raider when many of these complaints escalated. usually side with Raider when many of these complaints escalated. By 2004, the investigation of BTK was long cold. Remember, he hadn't communicated with them since like 1978. These murders that he had done in that time since 78 to now were not tied to him right but something happened that led raider to start communicating with local media again there were two things that

were going on this online article was posted in like the crime like crime library okay and it said that they believed that btk was or institutionalized. Uh-huh. And he was like, how dare you? How dare you? And then this Wichita lawyer was getting ready to publish a book about the hunt for BTK. And he was like, I'm not going to let somebody else tell my story. This is my story. Wow. I'm going to be the one to tell you how it happened. Uh-huh. So in 2004, Rader began a series of 11 communications to the local media. In March 2004, the Wichita Eagle received a letter from someone using the return address Bill Thomas Killman,

BTK. The author of the letter claimed that he had murdered Vicki Wegerle on September 16th, 1986, and enclosed photographs of the crime scene and a photocopy of her driver's license, which had been stolen at the time of the crime. So remember, her husband had been the one who had been under suspicion all of this time for her murder. Right. And then now you have somebody who can prove he did it because he has crime scene photos and her driver's license. In May 2004, television station KAKE in Wichita received a letter with chapter headings for the BTK story, fake IDs and a word puzzle.

Which was supposed to be like his code thing. It was just poorly executed and they couldn't make any sense out of it. I feel like he was trying to do like a Zodiac thing. That's exactly what I was going to say. But it turns out those are a little more complicated than you thought they were on june 9th 2004 a package was found taped to a stop sign at the corner of first and kansas in wichita it had graphic descriptions of the otero murders and a sketch labeled the sexual thrill is my bill ew in october 2004 a manila envelope was

dropped in a ups in a ups box in wichita it had cards with images of terror and bondage of children on them and a poem threatening the life of lead investigator lieutenant ken landwehr landwehr landwehr landwehr l-a-n-d-w-e-h-r do whatever you land in december 2004 wichita police received another package from the BTK killer, this time the package was found in Wichita's Murdoch Park. It had the license of Nancy Fox, which was noted as stolen from the crime scene, as well as a doll that was symbolically bound at the hands and feet with a plastic bag tied over its head. In January 2005, Rader attempted to leave a cereal box cereal killer oh god he's so clever yeah i don't know what that sound was that was me mocking a serial killer in the bed of a pickup truck at a home depot in wita. But the box was found in the,

it was just like a random person's car. You put this in the back of their truck. The person found it and threw it away. Wait, so that was supposed to be some big communication. Yes. This guy was so fucking stupid. Fucking dumb. I mean, clearly he wasn't that dumb.

He got away with this for 30 fucking years but you know how i get i know one of the things that has always did maybe i should save this i'll say look keep going keep going okay it's not that this is great insight or anything but i'm i kind of feel like if people don't know how he was caught then it might kind kind of ruin it. Yeah. So the owner of this truck found this cereal box in the trash. It's like, not my cereal. Yeah, thought somebody had dumped it in the trash or dumped it trash in his truck. So he'd put it in his trash can at home.

And then his wife threw a pillow away on top of it. So ultimately, they preserved the box by throwing that pillow away. So days later, when he sees that this stuff has been going on, he's like, wait. Maybe there was something to that box. And so he goes and fishes it out. And sure enough, it says BTK on the cover on the front of it. And inside of it, it has all kinds of crazy shit. So surveillance tape of the parking lot from that date revealed a distant figure driving a black Jeep Cherokee, Cherokee, leaving the box in the pickup.

In February, more postcards were sent to KAKE and another cereal box was left at a rural location. box was left at a rural location and it contained another bound doll. This time it was tied to a PVC pipe, apparently meant to symbolize the murder of 11-year-old Josie Otero. The Wichita police were following the FBI's advice. Keep the killer communicating. Don't offend him publicly. Don't overexcite him into killing more. How do you not overexcite?

I think, like, don't let him know that you're closing in on him. Just try and keep it as it is. Okay. Just keep communicating until he makes a mistake. Okay. That mistake was coming soon. In one of the cereal boxes, Rader included a postcard that said, Can I communicate with a floppy and not be traced to a computer?

Be honest. He asked them to print the answer in the classified section of the Wichita Eagle. Per his request, and using the code name he asked them to, they posted an answer in the classifieds that said, Rex, it will be okay. On February 16th, 2005, 2005, Raider sent a purple 1.44 megabyte Memorex floppy disk to Fox TV affiliate KSAS TV in Wichita. Detectives wasted little time analyzing this disk and found software on it from Christ Lutheran Church in Wichita and the name Dennis. So what it was is that there was a deleted file on this disc.

It wasn't a fresh disc. It had, it didn't spring for the extra dollar 50. It had a, it used to have a word document saved on it. He had deleted the word document, but there's like this metadata that's collected on these disks. And that had saved what was deleted or that there was something that had been deleted and that the last what computer had accessed it and who logged into that computer to access it. So it was like access at this church by username Dennis.

OK, so they do a Google search. And they search the church and they search dennis and it comes up that he is their current president finally a crime that i could solve yes so a group of detectives drive by raider's house in Park City, and they see a black Jeep Cherokee parked in the driveway. Hell yeah. Rader was placed under surveillance because now they've got all this circumstantial evidence. Yep. But they need more. They need.

That wasn't enough. It wasn't. It wasn't enough. That wasn't enough? It wasn't enough. So they obtain a DNA sample of his daughter from her medical records. Whoa, but... I think this is kind of crazy. Doesn't she have to give consent?

Apparently not. Apparently because she was a student at K-State. Okay. And received some medical testing while she was there they could subpoena those medical tests wow and compare and test that tissue she had a pap smear oh they took the pap smear and did a familial dna test on it. Because Kansas State University is a public university. Uh-huh. They had access to that information.

They tested the familial DNA and it matched the DNA from the crime scenes. Whoa. Yeah. How weird for her. She said she felt so violated when she found out that's how they um too damn caught him i i mean i agree yes i know i i yes yeah i i see that the tiniest bit but in the big picture at the same time damn bad yeah although it's not her fault her dad did what he did no no but i'm saying like if it if it stops a serial killer go ahead and have a look at my pap smear

if you'd like chris email us at lg you know it would be really scary? If someone did it. Oh, God. Yeah, y'all said you were giving out samples of a pap smear. Oh, God. It's going to be that same lady who liked Charles Manson.

Oh, yeah. I never included anything in an episode about that. I know. I was afraid to talk about it. Our first love letter. Yeah, so our first ever Facebook post. This was before Brandy started doing

the really cute collages of pictures. I just did, for our first episode, a really disturbing looking picture of Charles Manson's face. I thought it would be eye-catching. It was, turns out. And we got a fan. Not our fan. No, no, a fan. Not our fan. No, no, a fan of Charles Manson. That's what we call a learning experience.

That was a learning experience. Okay, maybe we need to make these posts a little cuter. Maybe we're going to bring some bad people out of the woodwork. That's right. Anyway. maybe um we're gonna bring some bad people out of the woodwork that's right anyway okay back to back to btk oh please yeah let's get serious back to the pap gross so on february 25th 2005 raider left his office to eat lunch at home, as he usually did. Okay. He's driving down the road.

Mm-hmm. And he sees a police car. And then he sees another police car. Uh-oh. And then he sees another police car. And then he realizes that he is totally surrounded by police. Oh, I'd love to see a look on his big dumb face. He surrendered quietly

and was led to a waiting police car. Handcuffed, obviously. He was then taken to an interrogation room and at first he wouldn't say much at all about the crimes. They were like, you know, do you know why you're here? And he's like, I have a suspicion.

God. But he kind of just played dumb. And then they said, we traced your computer disk. We have your DNA. It's a match. We don't really need you to talk. So then he started to talk. Yeah.

In fact, he wouldn't stop talking. Oh, God. In a stunning 30 hour confession what 30 hours he rambled on endlessly about his crimes as though he was proudly reciting his achievements. Yep. Oh, yeah. Not the least bit surprising. No. Never before known details of all of his crimes, his methods, the way his mind work came out. The way his mind worked. How does your mind work?

During interrogations, Rader, quote, couldn't get over the fact that Landwar had lied to him. He had trusted him. Oh. Rader asked, I need to ask you, how come you lied to me? How come you lied to me? How come you lied to me? Because we were trying to catch a serial killer. And Landwar answered, because I was trying to catch you. Duh! Duh!

What? What kind of question is that? Yeah, in the end, Raiders trust in Landwar. I really feel terrible. I don't know how to pronounce his last name. Look, great job catching him. Sorry about your last name. So he had trusted him, and obviously that didn't work out well for him.

Raider blamed the disc, and he was quoted as saying, the floppy did me in did he say it sadly i mean he's doing the best tone i want to picture it the floppy the floppy did me in. The floppy did me in. On February 28, 2005, Rader was charged with 10 counts of first degree murder. On March 1, Rader's bail was set at $10 million and a public defender was appointed to represent him. Oh, God. Dennis Rader's trial on the 10 counts of first-degree murder

was set for June 27, 2005. As the date approached, with no news of postponement, speculation erupted about what Rader was up to. It became apparent that he was going to use this appearance to formally plead guilty. And that's what he did. The event turned into a dramatic courtroom confession as judge waller began to quiz raider over some of the details of his crime

before millions of viewers watching live coverage on kansas tv stations on court tv and worldwide on the internet raider calmly revealed the grisly details of his murders from his own perspective, talking about strangulations, hit kits, factor X, et cetera, as if they were all an everyday thing.

You can watch this confession, a huge portion of it. There's like a 45 minute video available like easily available on youtube yeah he just like walks through each of these murders and he explains it so calmly and so methodically it is horrifying but exactly what you would expect out of a psychopath. You know, looking back to that documentary that I watched, the thing I remember about it was when he talked about these crimes,

these horrible crimes, he had no emotion. The one time he showed emotion was toward the very end, after they'd caught him, obviously, and he was talking about what this meant for him and i want to say he got a little choked up do you remember this do you know what about his dog no no about how he wouldn't get to go and just have a cheeseburger oh yeah anymore yeah that's part of that's part of the whole statement like i'm not gonna i can't have a cheeseburger anymore i'll miss you know spending time with my dog yeah uh yeah no words yeah what the hell is that about yes well i obviously know what it's about you know what it's about yeah yeah he only feels for himself

yeah yeah i really i mean it's super creepy to watch but it's worth a watch if you want to see how this guy's mind worked. It's super creepy. Prosecutors, though, were like waiting for their opportunity because they were worried that there would be that there was some kind of opportunity for leniency here. Because it was clear that. it was clear that Rader was saying he didn't have complete control over himself when he committed these crimes. Okay, because Factor X. Yes, because

Factor X, which he called a demon. He believed that he was possessed by demons when Factor X came out. And so at the sentencing hearing on October 17th and 18th, 2005, prosecutors finally had their turn to present some of the accumulated evidence against Rader in open court. So they were just they were like, we just need to put this stuff out there because in case you're up there, judge, thinking you're going to maybe go a little soft on him because maybe he didn't have complete control over himself.

On the off chance that this judge is like, wait, you're not going to be able to have a cheeseburger? Yeah, exactly. Oh, no. This presentation was designed to show that Rader should be sentenced to the maximum permitted by law, which amounted to a minimum of 175 years to life in prison. They wanted him, obviously, to never be eligible to walk the streets again.

Yeah, no kidding. No shit. And Judge Greg Waller listened patiently him obviously to never be eligible to walk the streets again yeah no kidding no shit and judge greg waller listened patiently to two full days of testimony individual detectives representing the cases of the oteros katherine bright shirley via nancy fox marine hedge vicky wegerly and dolores davis all gave statements illustrated with grim crime scene and autopsy photos in front of a packed courtroom and another large international television audience i remember so clearly watching this stuff on tv i remember being at my kitchen table with a print copy of the newspaper

which shows how long ago this was. After their testimony was completed, members of the victim's family were asked to deliver victim impact statements. Moving statements were given from Carmen Montoya, who was one of the Otero children, and Charlie Otero. Kevin Bright, the surviving victim of BTK. Oh, yes. Yeah, the brother. Yes. surviving victim of btk yes yeah the brother yes steve relford and richard vayan who steve was i believe charlie's son maybe and then i don't know for sure he was a person um and then richard was obviously related to her in some way because he has the same last name. Fred Fox was the brother of Nancy Fox and her sister, Beverly Platt, both made statements.

Rod Hook, who was the son-in-law of Maureen Hedge, made a statement. Bill Wegerle and his daughter, Stephanie, made statements. And then also Dolores Davis's son, Jeff, and her daughter, Laurel, made statements as well. So I've spent so much time talking about the killer that I want to just read a couple of statements from the victim, like these victim impact statements, because we focus so much, I feel like, on the perpetrators of crimes all the time that I don't think all the time these victims get to be heard. Yeah. And even, I mean, these people were so much victims

because they lost these family members. And for many of these people, for years, didn't even know who had done it, how it had been done, how their family had been singled out, you know. Yeah, I mean, it's bad enough when someone dies from a heart attack or some kind of more traditional way. Yeah. So this is a portion of Carmen Montoya's statement. So she was one of the, she was the daughter of the Oteros.

Right. She said, I will not address you as Mr. Raider. Mr. is a word of respect as in, Mr. Can you help me? Not Mr. Are you going to kill me? BTK is how you want to be known. And I will not give you that satisfaction. Raider is an appropriate name for you as in one who invades a surprise attack that has nothing to be proud of. You are such a coward. Raider, you not only affected my life, but you took away the joy of the ultimate grandparents, aunt and uncle relationships my parents, or I'm sorry, my children deserve. My children, my grandchildren, my nieces and nephews will be told of their family with love.

You see, in my world, family is everything. Just recently, I realized that I could not remember my mother's voice. It was a painful discovery. But as I put my thoughts on paper, it comes to me. I am my mother's voice. And I know we've been heard. And then Bill Wegerle spoke. And Bill Wegerle, you know, he for years was living under suspicion that he was the one who killed his wife.

Yeah. So not only is he going through this horrible grieving process. Yeah. Of having his wife murdered. People think he did it. Yeah. Did he ever have his kids taken away? Okay.

Okay. But the cloud of suspicion is always there. Okay. He said, Dennis Rader killed my wife in 1986. The past couple days, the courts, the news media, the general public knows what kind of person he is. The vicious, cruel individual he is. It's all in the light now. There's no punishment that you can exact upon him

that will satisfy our needs. We can just ask the court to bestow upon him the most that you can. And hopefully, we will not have to deal with him or see him or hear from him ever again. And then the last one I'm going to share is from Jeffrey Davis, who was the son of Dolores Davis. So the final victim. Okay. For the last 5,326 days, I have wondered what it would be like to confront the walking cesspool that took my mother's precious life. Throughout that time, I always envisioned this day as being one for avenging the past. I could think of nothing but Wow. Now that the time has arrived, I've determined that for the sake of our innocent victims and their loving families and friends with us here today, for me, this will be a day of celebration, not retribution.

If my focus were hatred, I would stare down at you and call you a demon. If I were cynical, I would remind you, I would remind this court that you would return to your murderous ways in a heartbeat if given the opportunity. If I were to sink to your level, I would say that this world would have been much better off had your mother aborted your demon soul. If I had your sadistic nature, I would delight in the pain you feel now in realizing that your own arrogance and ego got you caught. That if you would have kept your big mouth shut,

you'd still be a free man today, able to eat that pizza and walk your dog Dudley. Yeah, yeah. If I wanted revenge, I would pray that you develop a lingering illness from which you suffer for many, many years before you ultimately choke to death one lonely night on your own vomit. But I won't rain these curses down upon you because you're not as smart enough to understand most of the words I would use anyway. I really like this guy.

That was so good. As of today, you no longer exist. Today, the focus finally moves out from under your depraved shadow of hell's darkness into the light of your victims and their families. Today, we also celebrate with this community the relief in knowing that we will never again be terrorized by a monster's demented fantasies. Today, we will each silently remember a father, a brother, a wife, a mother, a sister, a daughter, a grandmother, all those we love so deeply and miss so dearly still. From this point on, we declare our independence from the tyranny of your actions. Wow. Yeah. Wow, that was so good.

Yes. We declare our independence from the tyranny of your actions. Yes. That's awesome. Yeah. After the victim impact statements, raider was then permitted to give his own statement he rambled on for over 20 minutes delivering a semi apology to everyone and but mostly speaking about himself of course it took on the air of someone giving like an acceptance speech.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Or a speech to like a church group. Uh-huh. Thanking all the people who had helped him recently. Thanking his lawyers and all kinds of. I bet his lawyers were like, no, we're good. So I read through this transcript of this last night.

It's disgusting. And the worst part, and I don't know how I could have been the victim's families in court and hear this. The worst part is that he goes through each of his victims and he lists something he had in common with them. Are you fucking kidding me? Yeah. So he's like, Joseph Otero, he had in common with them are you fucking kidding yeah so he's like joseph oturo he had a daughter i have a daughter this person grew up on a farm my grandparents had a farm that i spent so much time on i mean he went through each of his victims and did that his point being what? I have no fucking clue. Disgusting. Disgusting.

Yep. Finally, at the end of the proceedings on August 18th, Judge Waller sentenced Dennis Rader to the maximum sentence permitted by law, a minimum of 175 years in prison. He will not be eligible for parole until 2180. So he will die be eligible for parole until 2180 so he will die in prison he is in solitary confinement for his own protection he spends 23 hours a day in a cell um there were some civil suits that took place by the families afterwards and basically the goal of those were to keep him from ever being able to make money off of his story. And so yeah, so basically, they all settled, they all ended up

getting judgments for millions of dollars, which means that if he ever sold his story, that money would go to those people, he would never be able to get a dime of it. Yeah, yeah. His wife and children never had any inkling. Yeah. Of who he was or what he was doing. His wife, on the day he was arrested, had lunch set out on the table waiting for him to come home. Right. When she got a call that he'd been arrested and that she needed to come speak to the police. She left that home home never entered it again

wow yes wow the city of which i ended up buying the house and demolishing it to keep like from yeah freaks like us from coming around through that and be her, his daughter and struggle with how you reconcile what you thought was a good dad. Yeah. what you thought was a good dad yeah and uh now you realize some kind of monster and she's actually writing a book about it it comes out next year will she get to keep all the proceeds yeah okay she has said that she has forgiven her father but that she did that for her yeah because she found that she was spending so much of her life re-examining every little thing yeah sure yeah yeah oh yep so that's b. Oh, that was terrible. It was fucking terrible.

How you been lately? I'll tell you. So I finished this up late last night. Yeah. And then I went and laid in bed and I was like, oh, my God, I feel terrible right now. Yeah. You know, the thing. OK, i'll say this now the thing that always struck me about this was they had this profile on btk they thought he was extremely intelligent yep so they were i mean they were looking in the totally wrong direction. Oh, yeah. He was highly intelligent. And then all of a sudden he asks them this question. Yeah.

And he trusts them. He just trusts that they're going to tell him. Yes. Okay. Be honest. Don't you lie to me. And then, yeah, he could not get over the fact that they had lied to him. It's all about him.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Why. Yeah. Why would you want to catch a murderer? Right. Oh, my God. Yeah. My gosh.

So now it's on me to bring us up. Oh, my God, please. I had a really hard time finding a case because I was like, okay, how do I lift things up from B2K? I know, you were like, you text me and you're like, are you going to do, what are you doing this week? Is it a heavy one? And I text back, I'm doing BCK. Is that heavy?

So fast forward to me, you know, Googling funny lawsuits, hilarious lawsuits with an upbeat ending. I didn't really come up with much. But I did find this story that I had never heard before. So, did you know that the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre at one point? I don't think so. You're so good at trivia, you probably did know. Well, no. I mean, I think there's like a You're so good at trivia. You probably didn't know. Well, no. I mean, I think there's like a weird like Tom Hanks movie about it.

Like, I don't know. Maybe it's a Nicolas Cage movie. Sounds like a Nicolas Cage movie. I felt like maybe it was one of like the Dan Brown book ones, like Angels and Demons or something. Da Vinci Code. I've never actually seen either of those.

I've never seen either. And so this could be one of those things where everyone knows this story and we are just the two dummies who didn't read the books didn't watch the movies.

I hate Tom Hanks. Such a popular opinion. Just kidding. I love Tom Hanks. Nickelback and Tom Hanks. i love tom hanks nickelback and tom hanks the look on your face when i cannot get enough nickelback lots of people feel that way oh god okay for the record can't stand nickelback wow you're so into music you Lots of people feel that way. Oh, God. Okay.

For the record, can't stand Nickelback. Wow, you're so into music, you couldn't even let people believe that for a second. Could not. Okay. I'm trying to keep my street cred up. Okay, you ready to learn something? Is the Constitution on the back of the Mona Lisa? A lot of people don't know that the U.S. Constitution is on the back of the Mona Lisa. Tell your friends.

They're going to think you are so smart. Okay, so picture it. Tuesday. Why are you looking at me with creepy eyes? I was giving you my best Dennis Rader stare. Wow, you're such a good listener, Brandi. Oh my God, I seriously had a heart attack earlier when Norman came to the door, so I was trying to make you feel creeped out, too. Okay, well.

Did it work? Yes. Very good job, Brandi. Okay, Tuesday, August 22nd, 1911. Man, I've got to pep us up. Yeah. Just so you know, there are no murders in this story. Oh, thank God. We had enough in your story. We have met the murder

quota for this episode. Big time. So Tuesday, August 22nd, 1911, at the Louvre, Paris' most famous art museum. I thought it was pronounced Louvre. Louvre. If you love...

Have I been pronouncing it wrong this whole time why is my face red i gotta say if you enjoy midwest pronunciations of french words buckle up this is the podcast for you. When I rehearse. Oh, wait, hold on. I got to bust my seatbelt. Oh, God, don't. Click. Don't. No, I tried to rehearse this a little. It's going to be so bad. I can't wait.

I'm so excited. I didn't even take French in high school. So, like, I don't even have the slightest. I can say buffet without the T. And that's my French. Woo! So, at the Louvre, which was Paris' most famous art museum, an artist named Louis Barou arrives.

He has this vision for his next painting. He wants to paint a young woman doing her hair with the Mona Lisa in the background. So, first things first. He needs to paint his take on the Mona Lisa. So, he goes to where the Mona Lisa in the background. So first things first, he needs to paint his take on the Mona Lisa. So he goes to where the Mona Lisa normally is, but there's just an empty space on the wall. And he is pissed. He goes to the security guard.

He's like, where's the Mona Lisa? Security guard, not one bit concerned. He's like, I don't know. Maybe the museum photographer has it. Sometimes he takes pictures to catalog things, do postcards. I don't know. Maybe someone important in the museum has it. They wanted it for a little while.

Who knows? Who knows? That is not good enough for Louis. He's got this vision for the painting. So the guard is like, okay, be cool. I'll look for it okay is he expecting to be able to set up his fucking easel in the louvre and apparently oh 1911 wow yeah yeah all right yeah that was what he was planning to do that day okay so the guard starts asking other people and everyone's pretty calm but after a while

they're like i don't have it do you have it i don't know does he have it oh shit pretty soon they're like oh no the mona lisa is gone oh shit oh shit indeed at 11 a.m they call the police they seal off the museum they tell people look there's been a water leak we need you to leave get out of here we're closing early 60 police inspectors arrive on the scene they're interviewing everyone fairly quickly they realize there was no break-in there's no, dead or injured security guard. No one's tied up in a closet. Like, his uniform's missing.

Yeah. So this can only mean one thing. The Mona Lisa was stolen in a very brazen way, probably with people around, probably in broad daylight. My gosh. this was shocking sort of i raised my eyebrow but i realized that that people couldn't hear that podcast

i'm intrigued tell me more that's what my eyebrow said no thank you i need you to interpret common facial expressions for me i'm also a psycho so here's the thing people kind of knew that security at the louvre was like non-existent a few months prior a reporter spent the night at the Louvre just to prove he could. Oh, my God. Just to be like, here's how little they're paying attention. I stayed there overnight. I could have done anything. Okay.

Sometimes. Did he touch the Mona Lisa? I'm sure he did. I would touch every painting. Just be like, touched it. Touched it. Now you've got me. You would, like, spoon a statue?

No, Kristen. Oh, too far. Excuse me. You just go, I'm not going to touch the penis, the stone penis. You brought that up. I'm talking about cuddling. You're talking about fondling. All right.

Never let Brandy into a museum. Oh, God. So sometimes minor pieces like little statues would go missing. And every now and then, the Louvre would get threats from people who said they're going to come in and steal artwork. Did this upset or worry the leadership at the Louvre? Not so much. They weren't too concerned about the missing pieces. I know, I know.

This is crazy. Yeah, this is crazy. So you might be thinking, which is what I was thinking, that maybe it's the early 1900s. Maybe that's just how museums were back then. Maybe it was just a different time. I don't think it was or it wouldn't have all this amazing art from hundreds of years ago, Kristen. You're smarter than I am.

People are just walking out. So here's the thing. At a lot of prominent museums in that time period, the art was, of course, bolted to the walls. You couldn't just go up and take a painting off a wall. At the Louvre, you could. So that being said, the Louvre had a ton of security guards. Tons. And they were all soldiers who'd been sent to the Louvre by the War Department.

Wow. I know. Sounds kind of intimidating, right? What are you thinking right now? That that's a bunch of people who don't care about being a security guard at the Louvre? You are good. You are very good. So, it turns out, the type of soldier who got assigned to the loom was not your best soldier.

So, they tended to be not highly skilled. A lot of them were just waiting to retire. Some of them were drunk. A lot of them loved to nap on the job. I'm sure some were good, too. But most were not. So, they had these security guards, but they mostly sucked. And people knew it.

Yeah. Here's an example of security at the Louvre. Around this time, two people walked up to famous paintings and just slashed them. What? Just slashed them with a knife. So one newspaper at the time made this suggestion. For the safeguarding of the precious objects, the public is requested to wake the guards if they are found to be asleep. And you have to put that out there.

It's time to get some new fucking guards. So that was, I mean, they're obviously kidding around, but like, it was just well known that security at the Louvre sucked. Yikes. Rest assured, though, on that Tuesday when the Mona Lisa went missing, everyone was wide awake. Yeah. So investigators determined that it had to have been taken the day before, when the museum was closed to the public on Monday. So, that sounds like it narrows things down a lot. And it does.

But the thing is, there were always a ton of workers at the museums. They'd move stuff around. They'd clean it. They'd photograph it. They'd do maintenance on it. How much maintenance does this thing need? I have no idea. Here's how I clean things. It's not very big. It's not like, you know, one week they have to clean like a tiny section of it and then... Well, you don't just spray it with Pledge, you know?

I'm sure it's a time-consuming process. But anyway, so here's the thing. There's tons of workers there on Monday. Not tons of security guards. There are 10 security guards. In the whole. And the Louvre is huge. Huge, yeah.

Huge. Have you been? No, I wish. Have you been? No. Damn it. Now we have to go. That's right.

They won't let us in, though, because they will have heard our pronunciation of these words. So there were 10 security guards on duty in the whole Louvre. Oh, my gosh. None of them were guarding the most important art in the museum. Who's to say that the Mona Lisa is the most important art in the entire Louvre? Oh, it wasn't. Oh. But it's in this big gallery, and so it was in part of a gallery

where they had the most important stuff. So you'd think they would have had a guard. You would think. No. No. Busy. Busy now. Napping.

So the police are like, well, this isn't good. The painting was taken more than 24 hours ago. Oh, gosh. No one really remembers who was here yesterday. We're not even totally sure what time of day it was taken. This is bad. But the police keep talking to people and they keep searching the museum for clues and that's when they find the mona lisa's frame in a small

staircase she's not in it no she's taken off so she's rolled up in Nicolas Cage's backpack. Funny you should mention that. Because Nicolas Cage was there. So the thief had taken the painting, obviously, out of the frame. But it was on wood. So you couldn't just, like, it's not something that you can easily, like, fold up and put into your pocket. So they're like, this person must have been fairly sophisticated or i mean yeah ballsy is all get out i don't know because i mean the mona lisa really isn't small i think it's like two by two so it's not like you can like hide it no up under your shirt anyway

by that night it made the evening papers this was horrible first because this was a very important piece of art yeah second because police had no idea who could have done it third because it had been really easy to take yeah that day the director of the louvre resigned uh the french government was very upset. The public was upset. The media was covering the hell out of this. Oh, yeah. It became international news. And there was a ton of speculation.

Did someone take it to sell it? God forbid, did someone take it to destroy it? Was it some weirdo? Did someone take it just to have it for themselves? So people thought that maybe it was like some rich American had hired someone to take this pain. Dirty Americans.

JP Morgan was the one that was really suspected. Also, they suspected Germans because there was a lot of anti-German sentiment. People were pointing fingers. When you point a finger kristin just remember there's three pointing right back to you thank you um i did take them on turns out the lube has learned nothing from this still Still, you just walk right up, you take it.

And boy, does it look great in your bathroom. Took down the jar of Q-tips and the candle, put up the Mona Lisa. I just want people to know that I'm a big deal and I appreciate fine art. So then investigators got lucky. The thief left a fingerprint on the Mona Lisa's frame. What the hell was that? I have no idea. This is the episode where we make noises we've never made before.

To me, that noise was like like i've heard of fingerprints before oh my goodness so back then they kept pretty good records on anyone with a criminal past so um they compared the print with the people they had on file couldn't find a match that's what one of the documentaries said i can't imagine they went through all their... All the fingerprints? Yeah, I'm... You just got like one guy with a magnifying glass, matching up fingerprints?

I am calling bullshit on that, but you know, whatever. Whatever. So, that didn't work out. But police still had a pretty good hunch about who could have done this. They used common sense. They were like, alright, it happened on a Monday, no one really remembers any strangers walking around. This was an inside job.

So they interviewed hundreds of workers. But the interviews went nowhere. They fingerprinted all of them. Couldn't find a match. So they're like, maybe we're wrong. Maybe this wasn't an inside job, which means like now our suspects are everyone in the world. Yes. So a month goes by.

Suddenly they get some new suspects. Get ready to shit your pants. Oh God. Hold on. Let me put on my rubber pants. I travel with them just in case. Take off those leather ones you're wearing. So, one of the suspects was a French poet named...

Do it. Guillaume... Uh-oh. Named Guillaume Apollinaire. Sure. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, France. We have like one...

We have two French listeners and they're going to be so pissed. They're like, they're even dumber than I thought they were. Piss. They're like, they're even dumber than I thought they were. The other was a young, little-known artist named Pablo Picasso. Pablo Picasso? He was a suspect. Oh my gosh. A fine suspect.

I know, I know. Aren't you glad you put on those latex pants? Rubber. Rubber, excuse me. I'm allergic to latex. You're not. No, I'm not. What a weird thing to lie about.

Okay. So, these two were friends, and they had this other friend. How dare you accuse me of not being allergic to latex, Kristen? I apologize, Brandy. Next time, I'll I'm being allergic to latex, Kristen. I apologize, Brandi.

Next time, I'll let you just tell all kinds of lies. What are you allergic to, really? Percocet. That's it. Percocet. Not like Percocet. Okay, sorry. How do you know that you're allergic to Percocet Not like Percocet Okay sorry How do you know That you're allergic

To Percocet They put me on it After I had surgery One time And I had a horrible Allergic reaction Oh well That'll do it

Okay now Back to Pablo Picasso Okay Everybody's got down My allergies Great Moving on Also tree pollen

So if anyone Wants to come after you They just say Allergy is great. Moving on. Also tree pollen. So if anyone wants to come after you, they just like. Tree pollen at Bergesen. Throw it at you. Okay, so Apollonia and Pablo Picasso. Love the name Pablo Picasso. That one's super easy. Got that one down. These two were friends and they had this other friend who stole some small statues from the Louvre.

So a pollinare knew that they were stolen, but bought them off the friend anyway, and gave one to Picasso. And he didn't tell him, oh, this is stolen. Yeah. He's just like, hey, here, take this. So Picasso has no idea this is stolen. Yeah. He's just like, hey, here, take this. So Picasso has no idea this is stolen. Although I read something somewhere that said on the bottom of the statues, it said property of the Louvre. Just stamped? You know, come on.

Right next to the Maiden China sticker. Yeah. So, you know, they've got these statues, and that's all well and good. Until the Mona Lisa goes missing. And all of a sudden, Apollinaire is like, oh, shit. They're going to find out that I have this stolen stuff from the Louvre, and then they're going to think that I stole the Mona Lisa, too. This is bad.

He goes to Picasso. Picasso, buddy, remember that gift I gave you? It's kind of stolen from the Louvre. Oh my gosh. Let's trash these statues and pretend this never happened. Picasso's like, no way.

We're not throwing away art. You need to just go to the police and be honest. Yeah. So it's a little clear what, it's a little unclear. It's super clear what happens next. It's super clear. So let me try and break it down for you.

It's super clear. Let me mess this up a little bit. No, it's a little unclear what happened from here. One of the documentaries I watched said that Apollinaire confessed. An article I read said that the original thief went to the press and basically spilled the beans.

Either way, the police catch wind of the whole thing. And when they questioned Picasso about it, Picasso's like, Apollinaire who? Never met the fellow. Don't know him. That was a pretty obvious strategy workout for him not great not great um so picasso and apollinaire become the number one suspects

in this heist of the mona lisa crazy so according to an article i read they actually went to trial neither of the documentaries mentioned that they went on trial but this is a court podcast so at the trial picasso cried like a baby so the article talked about how picasso was always like super macho and really played into that but dude was blubbering oh. Because he was being threatened with deportation and he really didn't want to be deported. And he didn't do anything wrong. Apollinaire confessed.

He accepted stolen goods. That is a crime, Kristen. But he claimed he didn't know they were stolen. Again, if there was a stamp on the bottom, Picasso, my dude. My dude. I don't know. So in the end, the judge threw the case out yeah there was no evidence on them it didn't make any sense gotcha two years go by

the mona lisa still missing yes yes for two years oh my gosh all those people that were showing up at the Louvre, who hadn't checked their paper, had no access to the news. All the while, the police, the general public, people in the art world, they're all thinking this was pulled off by a sophisticated criminal with an appreciation for art. But they had no idea who it could be then on november 29th 1913 an italian art dealer gets a really weird letter in the mail it's postmarked from france the writer says i'm from france oh my gosh it was a conehead so this dude with a a conehead. My god. So this dude with a big conehead shows up. No, so the writer says he's selling the Mona Lisa.

Doesn't mention Mona Lisa. Okay, here's the deal. Uh-huh. It's not a well thought through plan because once you have the Mona Lisa, if you're trying to steal it to sell it, how the fuck are you going to sell it? Black market. No, because anybody who then buys it can't display it anywhere. Which would mean it would have to be go to like a J.P. Morgan or like somebody who has a ton of money and like a little Heidi Holt. Yeah, where he just goes and he's like, look at my treasures. Look at my treasure chest.

Okay, continue. Sorry. Gets a letter. I'm selling the Mona Lisa. He doesn't mention money. You look so angry right now. I just think that it's so dumb if you're stealing a famous work of art with the intention of selling it. You're a fucking idiot.

But I mean, it's kind of like, I mean, it's kind of like drugs. No, you take the drugs, Christian. You don't display the drugs. No, nobody's displaying their drugs on the wall in their home. It's nothing like drugs. Okay, fine. Nobody's ingesting the Mona Lisa trying to get high off of it.

There was a lot of lead paint involved. You know what? Next time you come over, I'm just going to have like a bottle of ibuprofen taped to the wall. Like, some people do display their drugs that's all you can come up with ibuprofen that's the hardest drug keep pissing me off i'll put up some percocet

okay so this guy gets a strange letter in the mail. Got it. Sorry. The look on your face. Okay. I mean, I've heard of some dumb crimes, but... So, you are publicly saying you will not be heading to the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art and stealing the Van Goghs off the wall? No, I will not. Because what the fuck am I going to do with them then? I'd give you 20 bucks.

I will not, because what the fuck am I going to do with him then? I'd give you 20 bucks. So, the writer doesn't mention money, but he does say he's poor. And he says specifically he wants to get the painting back in Italy. The letter is signed, Leonardo. So, the guy who received this letter was basically the most important art dealer in florence he was an expert in italian art he regularly placed ads in the newspaper saying that he wanted to buy italian art he obviously thought this letter was a joke yeah he almost threw it away. But then his friend was like, maybe you should check it out. Yeah.

So he writes back and he's like, all right, Leonardo, you got the Mona Lisa. Bring it to Florence. And Leonardo does. Oh, my gosh. By this point, at Leonardo's request, the art dealer has agreed to pay 500,000 lira for the painting, which is about 2.9 million in today's money. I know how much you like. I do. I like when it's adjusted for inflation.

That was a double because he had to convert it to U.S. dollars and then adjust for inflation. I'm going to be honest. The documentary did it. Shh, don't tell people. I did it myself. If I did it myself, it would probably be wrong. But since the documentary did it, I think we can trust it. So they meet up in this crappy hotel.

Leonardo opens up a trunk, pulls out a false bottom, and brings out what appears to be the mona lisa the art dealer's like whoa he takes out a photo of the mona lisa and you know how the mona lisa has kind of like a crackled look to it that's how the oil paint has settled or whatever they hold the photo up to the painting, and they're looking to see, do the cracks match up? And they do. So they're like, whoa! This is the honest to God Mona Lisa in this crappy hotel.

The art dealer tells Leonardo a lie. He's like, thank you so much. We're definitely going to take this to the office which is definitely an italian art museum definitely not the way you pronounce it so the art dealer and his buddies start to leave the hotel with this painting but the concierge at this hotel is like whoa whoa whoa whoa what do you have there is that one of our paintings from the wall and so these guys are like oh no oh no we're just trying to get this very famous painting out of here undetected and into the right hands and we've been stopped by the concierge but the concierge is insistent so they show him the mona lisa and the dude's like oh

okay yeah that's not one of ours doesn't even recognize it has no idea what he's looking at oh my gosh so they skedaddle they call the police they're like go arrest that dude in that hotel he stole the mona lisa so police arrested Vincenzo Perugia. That was good. Thank you. It sounded kind of good. It sounded good. Is it all about confidence?

Yeah. I think, yeah, you're just going to, I love how you like lean shoulder first and pop your head back a little bit. You didn't mention my boobs. I don't know why. You didn't mention my boobs. I don't know why. So Perugia is a former Louvre employee.

And he has a criminal record. Does the fingerprint match? More on that in a minute. I feel like if we were super organized, then we'd go into like a sponsored bit. Yeah. More on that in a minute. Boom. And now. A word from our sponsor the gaming historian.com that's all you get norm sorry okay

so at trial we get the full story yeah here we go i'm in it perugia was from Italy. He moved to France for work. Well, to find work. But he faced a ton of discrimination from the French people. Apparently they called him macaroni. And sometimes they called him Did they stick a bit of sand? And called him macaroni. No.

They called him macaroni and sometimes they called him dirty macaroni. Oh! He did not appreciate that one bit. So, remember how I told you that some people went to the Louvre and slashed the famous paintings? Mm-hmm. Well, after that happened, the Louvre was like, we should really cover these things with some glass. Mm-hmm. that happened the Louvre was like we should really cover these things with some glass so Perugia was part of the team hired by the Louvre to put glass over the paintings

one of his jobs was was to install the glass covering over the Mona Lisa which could explain why his fingerprint was on the frame oh that's a good point. Anyway, I mean, it doesn't explain why he would have it. How about the fact that he stole it? So Perugia said that the Mona Lisa had a serious effect on him.

It ate away at him that this incredible painting from the Italian Renaissance was hanging in France. Oh, so he admits that he stole it? Oh, yeah. Oh. All right right let me take back

my sorry i was trying you were kind of into the mystery i was there's more twists and turns oh yeah wait don't worry i almost unbuckled my seat belt the plane is still taxing. Okay, got it. Keep that belt on. Okay. So it's this incredible painting from an Italian painter from the Italian Renaissance, and it's hanging in fucking France. He just can't stand it.

And they're calling him Dirty Macaroni. He starts asking people, why is this in France? Then he starts to learn about how Napoleon would take works of art from countries he conquered. Well, now he's just double pissed. France had no right to the Mona Lisa, and yet there it sat. So he decided to steal it.

For the record, I think da Vinci actually gave the Mona Lisa to France. I don't think it was part of the Napoleon. But anyway, Perugia didn't know that, didn't care about that. So here we go. Here's how he did it. That Monday, when the museum was closed, he dressed as a workman. He went into a side door in the museum, which was open. Why would it not be?

Went to the area where he knew the Mona Lisa would be. Took it off the wall. Walks out of the room. Goes to the small staircase. He takes the frame off the painting. He was the one who put it on there so he could take it off really quickly. Leaves the frame and glass in the staircase. Takes the Mona Lisa.

Covers it, probably with his smock. Why did I say that? With his smock. I feel like I'm having allergy issues. Smock, smock. Sorry. that's the sound of everyone hitting pause and never listening to this podcast let me get something to drink here i'm now drinking from all three of my beverages. Oh my gosh.

So he takes the Mona Lisa. He hides it in his... Huh? No, no. He covers it with his smoth. Beautifully said. You're so worried about your pronunciation of the French. You don't even have the English down. So he goes to the nearest door, but it's locked. So he starts unscrewing the doorknob.

Then someone comes up behind him. He turns. He thinks he's screwed. But he recognizes the guy. It's a former co-worker. So Perugia is like, some idiot locked this door. And the guy's like, don't worry, I've got a key. Unlocks it. So Perugia walks out. He's got one last gate to get through, though.

This one's going to be tricky. Because normally there someone there you have to talk to them they open the gate for you it's this whole thing not today nope not only was no one there the gate was just wide open and that's how perugia stole the mona. Oh my gosh. He went home to his one bedroom apartment. And that's where the Mona Lisa stayed for two years. Wow. But how did police not suspect him? He worked at the Louvre. Yeah.

He had a criminal record. One instance was he drunkenly tried to rob a sex worker, but she hit him and he got arrested. Um, then another time he got arrested for trying to steal some pipes. So they had his fingerprints on file. Yeah. Case closed, right? Uh, yeah. Let me unbuckle my seatbelt.

It's over. Please exit the ride. No. Oh, no.. Please exit the ride. No. Oh, no. So here was the problem. Back then, police thought that fingerprints were important. Just not that important. Gosh.

So they never took a full set of fingerprints. They would just do your right hand. And the print that he left on the frame of the Mona Lisa was from his left hand. Oh. Interestingly, they took other measurements like the size of your ears and stuff that really stood out to me.

I knew I was waiting for it. You're like, listen, I'll give you my pap. Don't you dare measure my ears you write them down as normal and you can do whatever you want. So, he was also an employee at the Louvre. So what about all those police interviews? Yeah. Okay.

So, according to one documentary I watched, the police forgot to talk to four people. Just forgot to talk to them? And Perugia was one of them. Oh my gosh. They forgot to talk to the guys who put the glass on the paintings. So he slipped through the cracks. Another documentary said that Perugia just didn't show up the day they were taking fingerprints. And that a police officer did come and search his apartment. But Perugia apparently hid the Mona Lisa face down

in this, like, cubby-looking thing where he kept firewood. And remember, it was a wood painting. And so the officer looked in there, saw a bunch of wood. He didn't, like, pull out every piece to see if there was a famous painting on the other side. Oh, my gosh. So he just slipped through the cracks. Oh my gosh.

So he just slipped through the cracks. Did both documentaries say he slipped through the cracks? That was me both times. Did I say that twice? I'm not saying smock again, I can tell you that. So his trial started on June 4th, 1914 in Florence. He told the court he did it because he was patriotic. He wanted the Mona

Lisa to hang in the Uffizi Gallery in Italy, but the prosecution was like, uh, no. You wanted to steal the painting, to sell it, even though Brandy says that's a bad idea. It's a terrible idea! included your name yeah in the court they're like like 100 years from now

so the prosecution's like this patriotism thing is all bullshit yeah he was in it for the money um but perugia in his defense, denied that. Perugia said, the only thing I had in mind was to give a gift to Italy. And I didn't intend to make any money off of it. Did he sell it to the guy that came to the creepy hotel? You sound just like the prosecution. So yeah, the prosecution's like, that sounds really nice. If it were true and be even nicer.

They were like, you asked the art dealer for 500,000 lira. And by the way, we know that you tried to sell this painting to an English art dealer a year ago. So you wanted the money. Okay. The defense was like, no, this was patriotism at its finest. Also, Perugia is mentally deficient. He's childish. He's not with it.

He's not totally responsible for this. But the prosecution is, again, saying, no. I mean, he pulled this off. He took the Mona Lisa from the Louvre. He hid it for two years without doing any discernible damage to it he's not dumb he's mentally with it here's something interesting so in one of the documentaries i watched they basically went to all the grandchildren of all the people involved in this and talked to them and they talked to the grandson of the psychologist who

determined that perugia was mentally deficient and the guy was like here's the thing my grandpa was a socialist he really sympathized with perugia i think he overplayed the whole mentally deficient yeah i don't think he i think he was just trying to help his cause. Yeah. But the tribunal found Perugia guilty. He was sentenced to one year and 15 days in prison. His lawyers appealed and they got his sentence reduced to seven months. So before I move on, what do you think of that? I don't think that seems like that much time. But he didn't destroy the art.

It wasn't harmed in any way. They found like a tiny little, two tiny little things. Yeah, I think that's probably fine. See, I was like, man, that would not happen in America. In America, we would stick a boot up your ass. Okay, Toby Keith. Yeah. I was looking at that.

I was like, there's no way. Someone goes into an art, like the Getty, and they take a, oh, no. Did he get to keep the money? No. No. What? Did he keep the money no she's asking

I don't even know that the money actually exchanged hands I would bet it didn't cause that initial meeting they were just like let me make sure this is real anyway so public reaction Because that initial meeting, they were just like, let me make sure this is real. Anyway. So public reaction.

It's even a dumber fucking crime then. Yeah. He didn't even get the 500,000 lira. I have the Mona Lisa, here I have it. Take it out of this. Dumbass. So you think he was mentally deficient. Clearly. So public reaction was kind of interesting.

A lot of people in Italy found him very sympathetic. They kind of liked what he did in kind of a way. But at the same time, they were like, this was pretty dumb. Yeah, it was dumb. So one thing that a lot of people still debate is why he took the Mona Lisa. Was it for money? Was it for patriotism? So like I said, in one of the

documentaries, they go and talk to the children. He's just trying to spice things up in his apartment by hiding it face down. It's just when people came over. Yeah, yeah. So they interviewed Perugia's daughter, his only child. She was like 84 when they interviewed her for the documentary and it was really sad she she doesn't really remember her dad she was a toddler when he died very suddenly and she was adamant that he did this because he loved italy and because the french called him dirty macaroni i mean you could tell she was proud of that story that was the story she'd been told but over the course of the documentary they did of course you'd believe that story yeah well it's a lot better than just like he wanted 500 000 lira yeah

so they did a bunch of research for this documentary and they actually found some of the letters that were confiscated that he wrote to his family after he stole the Mona Lisa. And he never said in the letters like, Oh, I stole the Mona Lisa. Yeah. Um,

but what he did say was, I'm going to make a ton of money. Yes. Very soon. All in one shot. And I'll share it with you. Yeah. He was in it for the money.

So at the end of the documentary, they show her the letters and she was really upset why would they do that was that necessary well she's 84 years old she's been living on this image of her dad no they thought about not showing no i don't like these documentaries now kristin they thought about not showing her, they should have kept with that thought. They just ruined her whole image of her dad. The thing is, though, like... No, you're not going to justify this. No, no, after hearing the letters, just to me personally,

I think the letters are kind of relatable. Like, he was really, he was dirt poor. And he's just saying, I'm going to come into some money all in one shot. I'm going to share it with you. I'm going to travel. I don't think he seems like such a terrible guy. I don't think he's a terrible guy either,

but I think those documentary makers are terrible. Okay. Write them a strongly worded letter. I'm going to. Okay. Are you ready? It was cruel and unnecessary is what i'm getting at do you really think so i do see it was funny because like her kids i mean they all handled it fine they were

there to like look at the letters and they were like wow did she cry uh i can't remember and i don't know why i can't remember i I watched this at like midnight last night. She was there in front of a bunch of cameras. So I think she wanted to keep it together. But you could tell it was upsetting. You know, I love seeing a documentary about fucking 84-year-olds getting horribly upset. God dang.

Hey, this is proof you're not a psychopath. The fact that you're getting fired okay yeah maybe it wasn't cool so are you ready for the plot twist yeah all right there's this other school of thought that maybe Perugia didn't act alone and maybe he was not the mastermind of this crime. In 1931, a new story came out. An American journalist named Carl Decker published an interview in the Saturday Evening Post. It was an interview with a con artist named Eduardo Dovofierno. It was good. Thank you. It was.

What was on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post? I don't know. Some Norman Rockwell shit. I want to know which one it was. It was the one with, like, the cute dog and the kid and the fishing pole. Wonderful. Thank you. I can see it now. I and the kid and the fishing pole. Wonderful. Thank you. I can see it now.

No idea what was on. Okay. So the only reason he published the interview was because Eduardo was dead. That had been their agreement that as soon as he died, then Carl Decker could publish this story. Here's the story. Eduardo was a big time con artist with connections to the art world. He had a good relationship with an excellent art restorer. So their plan was to forge the Mona Lisa multiple times

and sell it to very wealthy clients for a ton of money. But obviously, no one would have bought it because they knew it was in the louvre yeah unless it wasn't so they figured that if the mona lisa was missing from the louvre then they could create a bunch of fake mona lisas sell them to wealthy people people and while maintaining the keeping the original safe right right yeah so he says he went to perugia talked him into stealing the painting also had him work with a couple accomplices and he says that they pulled this off they sold five or six forged mona lisas to wealthy people all over the world. Then... Okay. Who's fucking buying that?

Good question. No, it's dumb. That's dumb. You can't... I had just gotten over this, Kristen. Get ready to jump back in both feet. No. So Perugia took it to Florence where it was discovered and eventually

returned to the Louvre. But when it was returned to the Louvre, Eduardo, Eduardo told all the buyers, Hey, be cool. You've got the real one. The Louvre is just embarrassed by this whole thing.

So they made a copy. You've got the real Mona Lisa. Yeah. What do you think about that story? Well, what else was he supposed to say? Everybody knew they were fake by then, so. So, this is, I think it's an incredible story. Part of me wants to believe it

because it's so nutty and, like, cool and, like, I love the idea of these fake Mona Lisas all over the world. But both of the documentaries brought up the fact that like... Have any of these fake Mona Lisas ever surfaced? Exactly. They're like, it's been like 100 years

since this crime. One of them would have surfaced by now. Yeah, no. It's total BS. No, because who's buying the fucking Mona Lisa? Okay, I still think you're wrong on that i am not wrong kristin okay isabella stewart gardner museum okay they had a bunch of paintings stolen one night like some rembrandts and stuff like there's a black market for stuff like okay yes Yes, but those are not, I would argue, that the Mona Lisa is top five most recognizable fine art.

Now it is. Let me get to something else. Because I think this is really interesting. Okay, I'm going to jump ahead. Where are they now? They're all dead. But no. up ahead where are they now they're all dead but no so the thing that is interesting to me about this is the mona lisa when it was taken yes it was appreciated for being excellent art art critics

knew it very well but it was not a must-see painting in the Louvre. Okay. And a lot of people, myself included, think that it wasn't that Perugia was really so obsessed with the Mona Lisa. It was that that was a small painting that was easier to carry than the others. So at the time it was taken, like I said, art critics knew it really well. The average person didn't. Like I said, art critics knew it really well. The average person didn't. So, like, for example, when the Washington Post ran a story saying that the Mona Lisa had been taken, they ran the wrong picture. Because people didn't really know what it looked like.

All right. Did I just poop on your sugar pops there? Okay, first of all. What? What? first of all what i did not take into account that it was not as famous of a painting back then but i think that's what's so interesting is like there's this theory that thanks to this heist the mona lisa has been brought into like this other stratosphere of celebrity that it would not have been in had it not been stolen that's probably and a lot of people don't myself included don't know yesterday why it's as famous as it is yeah yeah because we've all forgotten the story of the heist but

you look mad right now i still think it's a terrible plan yeah i don't think it's a great plan but i mean there's i think there's a market I think there's definitely like think about like the crazy rich dudes who just have more money than they know what to do with and it's just like a competition with their awful rich guy friends like

clearly I'm talking about people I know nothing about but like you know they can all buy all the same shit but not everyone can own the mona lisa come on come on no uh yeah no i'm not buying it i just don't know because there are eventually there will be people who you will brag about it to and show it off to who know that that shit's supposed to be somewhere else. Yeah, I'm not saying it's smart to own it.

I'm not saying it's smart to steal it. I'm just saying there's a market. People will buy it and you, I think you could make money for it. Now, not a ton of money because it's not done the legit way. Well, no, a ton of money. Now, not a ton of money, because it's not done the legit way. Well, no, a ton of money. Of course a ton of money. 500,000 lira, Kristen. Yeah.

$2.8 million or whatever you said. Eh. Nothing to me. Jump change. That's right. All right. You look very unsatisfied. I am.

You know what you look like right now? You like you're gonna drive away from here and then like 10 minutes into the drive you're gonna be like damn it i should have said this i look like that every week what do you think of parousia um well i mean yeah i think he probably just wanted money but what a hell of an argument to come up with that you're just super patriotic i see i kind of think you can make the argument that he was probably both yeah yeah yeah i don't see why people get stuck on like it was one or the other no yeah he was probably both i think you can be like i want money and i don't like that the French people call me Dirty Macaroni.

Dirty Macaroni. I wouldn't like being called Dirty Macaroni. I'm not Italian. It's one of those things, like, you hear it, and you're like, that's not bad. But if somebody says it to you mean enough, you're like, all right. Oh. Easy does it. I don't want to be called Dirty anything.

So that is the story of the Mona Lisa. I didn't know about that. had no idea i had no idea no i feel like this podcast is making me smarter i feel like i think it's opening our minds to the world kristin wow beautiful yes world, Kristen. Wow. Beautiful. Yes. Is that why I'm so good at pronouncing French words now? You knew it was only a matter of time.

Before I did the Kenan Thompson impression. Do you remember? Oh, yeah. I thought that was the funniest shit on earth. Oh yeah. And I was right. No, I thought that story was very good.

My dissatisfaction has nothing to do with the story you told. It's the dumb crime. I, yeah, I think it would be did you ever read the book the goldfinch new okay it's about it's about a guy who ends up taking a a serious piece of art and yeah i mean what do you do with this thing that is very, very hard to sell? Yeah. That is very precious, that you have to keep in these certain conditions. What do you do? I mean, it would weigh on you. What is brought to my mind?

Uh-huh. This is kind of a sad story, but bear with me. When the Royals pitcher, Ventura, died in a car accident. Yeah. In the Dominican. Right. Wasn't it the Dominican Republic? Yeah.

Yeah. I think so. He was reportedly wearing his world championship ring. Yeah. And people came to the car accident site before the police did. And his ring went missing that's horrible so it's believed that somebody stole his ring sure but what the fuck do you do with it you it was worth a ton of money i mean it was diamonds and jewels and whatever i think they

were like i don't know several several thousand dollars, like $30,000 a ring. And then it now belongs to a player who's now dead and was a huge celebrity in his home country. Yeah. But you can't sell it. You can't wear it around. You can't do anything with it. What is the point?

You can't tell anybody you have it yeah it's a dumb crime that one at least you could melt it down oh yeah everybody's got that smelting fucking thing in their garage no like take it out to my smelting room and melt it down? I'm just saying like, at least with jewelry. At least. Like with the Hope Diamond. Like they cut that down. Yeah.

Boy, so suck on that, Brandy. No. No, but I, yeah, I think that's one of those things. I'm just telling you that criminals are stupid. Not all of them. But when you do a crime that you can't make pay off, what is the point? But see, I'm saying, like, I think you can make that pay off.

Yes, you can. Yes, you can. I'm convinced. I'm convinced. If you find the right rich weirdo, you can make it happen. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.

Hmm. The thing I have learned about this is if you were going to commit a crime, an art heist would be like the last thing. I'm never doing it. The last. Because it is way too much work. There's way too much risk in it. What is the payoff? Millions. No.

Because still, somebody's's gonna find that even if you give the millions if somebody finds that that stolen painting hanging in fucking jp morgan's secret vault and they're like jp morgan did you steal that no he's gonna tell you who he bought it from yeah but he's not allowed to buy that you're not allowed to buy something that's been stolen like that. No, but still, his crime is not, you know, he gets immunity because he says, yes, I bought it knowingly stolen, but I will

give you the person who stole it. Okay, probably he would get immunity because he's a big rich guy. But by that point, you've changed your name to Carlos Danger. You're like, in some other country, you're hiding out. You've got your millions.

You're mad because you know I'm right. No. I'm mad because an art heist is clearly not the way to go. Oh, yeah, I agree. Not great. Nope. Checking it off the list. But I think possible money making schemes.

Yep. Next I'm going to check out Amway. Brandy, I've got news for you. I didn't just ask you here to do a podcast. I didn't bring me here to sell me to church. I've got like five multi-level marketing companies that I'm going to try to sell you right now. You look like you could use some Mary Kay.

Sorry, that was the most insulting way to say that. Oh, Kristen. Jesus. You look like you could use a beach body coach. Now that does suck. We all know that feeling when a friend from like way back in the day is like, hey, how you're doing? And you're like, oh, I'm great. How are you?

And they're like, so. Have you heard about Beachbody? I noticed you look really shitty. Have you thought about taking better care of your body? Oh, thank you. Thank you. Appreciate that, friend. Then you go back and you look on Facebook at all the pictures you posted recently.

Like, am I OK? Like, what? I've been questioning my whole life now. In conclusion, please don't try to sell us MLMs. No. And if a major art heist goes down anytime soon, I am the last person they will suspect.

Maybe this was all a ruse. You never know. That's right. Now I want you, I want to get you a print of the Mona Lisa. I want to, I want to do so many things. I want to get you a print of the Mona Lisa. I want to do so many things. I want to stick a severed finger in your chili.

I want to. Okay, it did give me a lot of satisfaction when someone said on Twitter the other day that we ruined Wendy's chili. Wendy's chili, yes. Although now I want to try it. My mom and I were just talking about it, how it's delicious. Doesn't put me off of it at all. What could I say to you that would put you off Wendy's Chili? Well, I told you when I thought somebody pooped in the chili, I was going to be done.

But you told me that that was false. You Snopes'd it for me. I sure did. Snopes'd it right up for me. Glad to save you. Well, I will say, thank you for bringing us back up with your story. I went through so many different potential cases. And you're like, that's not going to be enough.

No. Because I had like some kind of weird crimes. Yeah. But if anyone was hurt or injured in any way, it's like, we can't come back from BTK. No, BTK was just a... I'm glad it's out of the way. Because it was like... You knew you had to do it.

I knew I had to do it because it was something that I read so much about i was so into it but man so it's something i didn't mention in my story was the thermostat thing i was surprised you didn't mention that well it was so fucking long kristin i know i napped like a security guard so he something he did was that went after he murdered and i i told you this story the other day and my details weren't right and so let me clarify okay so something he did that he believed would throw the police off and determining a time of death is when he left a home after committing a murder is he would turn the thermostat way up. Oh, my God. And so it would speed up the decomposition process.

Oh, my God. Yes. And so I told you this story. I read all this stuff about it. I was very obsessed with this case. Watched all the coverage on TV. Zach and I are in our first apartment. I come home.

I mean, it two two years after this stuff has happened he's in he's in jail in el dorado kansas a prison in el dorado no dennis raider is in prison in el dorado kansas i come home to my apartment it's dark in there nobody left a lamp on and i'm like oh god and it is a million degrees in my apartment it is so fucking hot in there and i'm like my heart just starts racing yeah i flip on every light in the apartment and i go check my thermostat and it was just a poor design there was a light switch right by where the thermostat was and when somebody had hit the light switch on the way out they had just hit the lever from the thermostat all the way over but man it was a moment of sheer panic were you like he's out yes he's out he's here in my apartment oh yeah that is btk that is

scary scary stuff yeah because he was just out there interacting with all these people. He murdered his neighbor. Yeah. Six doors down. Yeah. And he was an ADT guy. Yes. Okay.

When he was a dog catcher guy. Yeah. I had heard stories that he euthanized dogs for no reason. I only came across one like confirmed case. But yes, he caught a dog and had it euthanized before the people could even try and come claim it. And yeah. For no reason at all. Peanut did not care for that one bit.

Yeah, Peanut just sighed in the background. Like this guy. Okay. I can't say this was a good one. This was a really heavy one. It was a heavy one. Nobody fucking cried, Kristen. Was I supposed to cry?

No! You always give us the heavy ones that make us cry. Lamonte McIntyre. Yeah, that one. I cried like five times in that one. We were both a mess. We were a hot mess. We were. I don't know. It affected me

too much. Way too much. Because I cried the whole day before as I was researching it. Oh, man. It was a mess. I'll tell you. Zach went to bed last night before I finished my episode. And so I go to bed. And it's like I turn all the lights off in the house. I go to bed.

And I'm laying there. And I'm like, I am so creeped out right now. Yes. Because I read about this creepy guy for the last four hours. Yeah. Yes. I know that feeling and sometimes it's like,

gosh, why am I having trouble getting to sleep right now? Oh, oh, I remember because I spent hours and hours and hours reading horrible stuff. Yes. Well, if you're like us

and, you know, like me, not a psychopath, but have a morbid curiosity. Wait, how about like both of us and not psychopaths? No, Kristen. Jerry's still out on Kristen. It's because I want to steal a painting isn't it yes and you liked what you heard here on this episode and made it through this whole episode jesus you've been with us for a while

then go head on over to our facebook page give us a like um leave us a review um subscribe to us wherever you listen to podcasts head on over to our twitter lg no let's go number two court and then and i'm finally actually yeah we're actually doing stuff on our twitter now so i'm gonna be honest i forgot about it we have a heavy twitter presence now 19 whole followers Very few of them bots. Yes. Every follower we get, Norm tells us it's a Russian bot.

We really appreciate his support. That's right. And then our Instagram is LGTCpodcast. You know, tell a friend about us. And then join us next week when we'll be experts on two whole new topics podcast adjourned

and now for a note about our process I read a bunch of stuff then regurgitate it all back up in my very limited vocabulary and I copy and paste

from the best sources on the web and sometimes Wikipedia so we owe a huge thank you to the real experts for this episode I copy and paste from the best sources on the web and sometimes Wikipedia. So we owe a huge thank you to the real experts. For this episode, I got most of my info from two documentaries, Who Stole Da Vinci's Painting and The Missing Piece, Mona Lisa, Her Thief, The True Story, and an article from artsy.net.

And I got my info from murderpedia.org, the court transcripts, and an article in The Atlantic. For a full list of our sources, visit LGTCpodcast.com. Any errors are, of course, ours. But please don't take our word for it. Go read their stuff and watch those documentaries. And they have conflicting information, so just know that I did my best.