Let's Go To Court! - 159: The Worst Woman on Earth & a Cruise Ship
Episode Date: February 3, 2021Brandi starts us off with a story about a serial killer who the New York Times dubbed, “the worst woman on Earth.” In 1889, Lizzie Brown took a job working as a housekeeper for a 70-year-old farme...r named Paul Halliday. Paul quickly proposed to Lizzie, but he’d come to regret that decision. As it turned out, Lizzie Brown wasn’t her real name. Soon, the Halliday’s barn burned down. So did the family home. Paul’s adult son, John, died in the blaze. Neighbors suspected Lizzie had something to do with the fires. Then Kristin tells us about the cruise from hell. “The Island Escape” is a no-frills cruise ship that sails the Mediterranean. It’s a converted ferryboat that caters to budget travelers and offers balconies that -- unlike most other cruise ships -- hang over the water. Nonetheless, this was the cruise that attorney Lonnie Kocontes selected when he wanted to woo his ex-wife, Micki Kanesaki. 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 “Open Water” episode of Dateline “Irvine attorney convicted in ex-wife’s cruise ship murder,” NBC Los Angeles ‘Almost Got Away With the Perfect Crime': Attorney Gets Life in Prison for Ex-Wife's Cruise Ship Murder,” NBC Los Angeles “Former lawyer convicted of murdering ex-wife on cruise, tossing her overboard,” by Amanda Woods for the New York Post In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “The Worst Woman on Earth” Murder by Gaslight “True Crime: The Worst Woman on Earth” by Kieran W, Medium “She Was Crazy About Killing by Mara Bovsun, New York Daily News “Lizzie Brown Halliday: The Worst Woman on Earth” by David Levine, Hudson Valley Magazine “Lizzie Halliday’s Trial” Buffalo Weekly Express, newspapers.com “Mrs. Halliday Convicted” Lancaster Intelligencer, newspapers.com “Lizzie Halliday” wikipedia.org YOU’RE STILL READING? My, my, my, you skeezy scunch! You must be hungry for more! We’d offer you some sausage brunch, but that gets messy. So how about you head over to our Patreon instead? (patreon.com/lgtcpodcast). At the $5 level, you’ll get 19+ full length bonus episodes, plus access to our 90’s style chat room!
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A proud member of Wayne's Auto Group.
One semester of law school.
One semester of criminal justice.
Two experts.
I'm Kristen Caruso.
I'm Brandi Egan.
Let's go to court.
On this episode, I'll talk about a cruise ship.
And I'll be talking about the worst woman on earth.
Oh, Brandi, we don't want to hear all about you. Oh!
Mmm, yes.
Professional comedian.
How you doing, Brandi?
I'm doing pretty good. How are you doing this week?
I'm okay. Yeah? I'm okay.
Yeah.
I'm okay.
That's as excited as you get.
Let me tell you something.
Our time with having my parents live with us has come to an end.
It's come to an end.
As some of you all may know, there was an RV saga.
Someone sideswiped their RV.
So the RV repair shop got back to to them it's going to be another two
months minimum before this rv is fixed and so they were like okay and we're getting a fully furnished
place very good something happened though what happened okay so this happened the other night
you know they were they decided on this place they were going to move to.
And they were talking about like, you know, OK, we've got to get this out of the house.
We've got to do this, do that.
A couple of days ago, my Aunt Denise, for their birthdays, sent like this really nice like Omaha steaks, like huge cooler full of like steaks and all kinds of meat.
And so it's down in the freezer right now.
And... Did Norman throw himself on top of the freezer?
He was thrilled.
Yeah.
Thrilled with this gift that was not for him.
Was not for him, yeah.
So my mom and dad are talking about, you know, all the stuff they've got to do to move.
Yeah.
And my dad goes, oh, and we got to grab our birthday meat.
That was terrible. Dad goes, oh, and we got to grab our birthday meat. Let that be a reminder to everyone.
Grab your birthday meat today.
That was just one of the many gems that I got.
Did you tell him in great detail why that was an inappropriate thing to say?
Okay, so he says, we're at the dinner table, by the way.
He said, got to grab our birthday meat.
And I just about died.
Yeah.
And Norm about died.
My mom about died of embarrassment.
Yeah.
It was a whole thing.
Yeah.
And he kind of, whoa, whoa.
And then he kind of got it and, you know, it was a whole thing.
Another fun story.
Yeah.
The other day we were all watching TV and a character called another character it showed.
And Norman and I started laughing and my dad says, what's that mean?
And, of course, I ignored.
And he said again, what's that mean?
I ignored again.
And finally my mom turns to him she whispers
i don't know what it means either so then they start pulling out their phones and i was like
stop no don't don't so then my mom googled it and then she oh and then she showed it to my dad so i don't know what the definition of chode is look it up lady isn't
it a real girthy peen is that what it means yeah it's a real girthy peen that's the webster's what
you're absolutely right yeah chode is slang for a penis wider than it is long.
Yeah.
A tuna can is the nickname.
That would be a very short penis, Kristen.
Hey, we're not here to penis shame, Brandy.
We're just here to give definitions.
Oh, oh.
What?
Hang on, I've got to move up my chair.
Turns out, it's not the only thing it means.
It's also slang for your taint.
Or your skeezy skunch.
No.
That's according to dictionary.com.
I don't like that one bit. It's usually used as a mild insult.
Only mild.
Don't be super offended if someone calls you a chode.
No, I don't like that.
I don't like that one bit.
That it's also a skeezy skunch?
Yeah, because, like, I don't get to call my hand also another, you know, it's also, that's also a word for my foot.
Come on now.
Just creates confusion is what that does.
Okay.
I get what you're saying.
I get what you're saying.
Okay.
So it's all, we are determining at this point.
Yeah.
That chode can only be used as a mild insult.
Hear ye, hear ye.
Word of clear.
A chode is only a girthy peen.
It is not a change.
Let it his forth be known.
We're like four minutes into this episode.
If this is somebody's first episode.
I was just thinking that.
It reminds me of that time we talked about butthole licking.
For ten minutes.
And then we did have somebody message us. And they were like, hey, that was my first episode, but I am here for it.
And that person is weird.
Well, I'm glad that you didn't have to explain to your mother and father what a chode is.
No, but I did have to see the looks on their faces as they realized what it was.
Oh, you know,
thanks to this podcast,
I had to explain to my parents
what a DP was.
Well,
we all have our trials in life.
And that's what this podcast is about.
Oh, goodness.
Whew.
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At Don Valley North, Don Valley North Connection.
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Oh.
You know what we should talk about?
New merch?
We've got to talk about our merch.
Okay.
Everybody, oh my gosh, thank you so much.
It's flying off the shelves.
Thank you so much.
This past week we launched.
Holy shitballs.
That's exactly.
Yeah.
Yes, thank you.
What a beautiful term.
Thank you.
It means a girthy peen.
No, that's a chode, Griffin.
Oh, excuse me, excuse me.
This past week we launched mugs, skeezy skunch mugs, and the freaking comfiest juvenile Bigfoot hoodies you've ever tried on in your life.
And as of right now, the mugs have sold out.
Yeah.
The sweatshirts are.
There's like a very limited number of sweatshirts left.
If you're a small or a medium, come at us.
I think we've still got a few XLs.
I'd have to look.
I don't know.
Very limited.
Yes.
Yeah.
So thank you all so much for your support.
The response was amazing.
Yeah.
Merch always feels like a big gamble.
We never know, you know, if people are going to want it.
Yeah.
And it has just been so nice to have people be so enthusiastic.
If you want to check out what we've got, it's lgtcpodcast.com. Or just Kristen's Twitter page.
What? You want to check out what we've got. That's my only fan.
No, so we thank you so much. And we're going to try to do new merch every couple of months.
Yeah, we're just going to do really limited. Yeah, very limited runs. That's kind of
merch every couple of months yeah we're just gonna do really limited yeah very limited runs that's kind of what we're doing here's here's the situation guys it's all being done out of
my house yeah we have limited storage space so we got to do limited runs so that means first come
first serve don't get so defensive i'm not getting defensive i'm just saying this is the way it is
oh boy if you don't like it skunch off I don't think that's a thing people say.
It's starting.
They're starting it right now.
Oh, is it taking off?
Yes, it's taking off as we speak.
Great.
It's climbing the charts.
I'm kind of an influencer.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, I'm kind of an influencer.
When you hear the word influencer, you think of like a 35-year-old woman in a Costco sweatshirt.
That's exactly right.
Is your sweatshirt from Costco?
What do you think?
What do you think? What do you think?
It's got that real boxy vibe to it.
I mean, it looks really cute on you.
Thank you.
Yeah.
You look cute in everything you wear.
That's why I'm an influencer, Bryna.
Do you know what that was a reference to?
To me looking hot every day.
No, no.
Damn it, Brandy.
He looks cool in everything he wears, but you won't catch him wearing a visor.
What?
You don't know what this is?
No, what are you talking about?
Dream phone.
Do you remember the game Dream Phone?
Oh, I don't think I ever played that.
Okay.
So you were trying to figure out which guy had a crush on you.
Oh, my God.
But then we're just getting, like, clues along the way that were, like, description.
You had all these little cards with dudes on them.
You had to call the number.
And the guy on the phone would be, like, you know, giving you clues about which guy had a crush on you.
And so you'd get all these things, like, he likes to eat everything.
But you won't ever catch him at the food court eating pizza.
And they said like the last thing really quiet so no one else around you could hear the clue that you were getting on the phone.
Okay, three people are going to get this.
This sounds toxic as hell, but I would play it.
Oh, yeah.
Absolutely.
Is it kind of like guess who?
Yeah, except the boy has a crush on you. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Is it kind of like, guess who? Yeah. Except the boy has a crush on you.
Well.
And Carlos had this windbreaker on with like a popped collar.
He was the one that I always wished had a crush on me.
Wow.
Wow.
Did you spend many a night alone with that little Carlos card?
Look up Dream Phone.
You will recognize this game.
No, I can picture the commercial. Yeah game. No, I can picture the commercial.
Yeah, Dream Phone.
I can picture the commercial.
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm seeing it.
Okay.
He looks cool in everything he wears, but you'll never catch him wearing sunglasses.
Hang on.
I'm looking up Dream Phone commercial.
1992.
Here we go.
Oh, yeah.
We're dancing right now.
He's not wearing a hat.
He's not wearing a hat. He's not at the beach.
It's Dan. Dan, my man.
You're right. I really like you.
I really like you.
Oh, my God.
The hot electronic talking phone game.
It's for you.
Dan was kind of a little on the dorky side.
You're right. I really like you.
Dan didn't look that dorky.
I mean, he looked a little square.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay, I'm going to look up Carlos Dream Phone.
Yeah, look up Carlos Dream Phone.
He was hunky.
Cosmo has an article from 2014, the definitive ranking of all your Dream Phone boyfriends.
Okay.
Let's see.
Let's see.
Ooh. See? Windbreaker see. Let's see. Ooh.
See?
Windbreaker popped collar.
Hang on.
I'm scrolling.
Let me find Carlos.
Oh, Steve.
Steve was the bad boy.
Everybody wanted Steve to have a crush on them.
Carlos.
Looks like a bit of a chill mode.
Yeah!
Like, looking back on it.
Carlos has a unibrow and he has a dead-eye stare.
This was your guy?
He was for sure the one!
Brandy, this is a red flag that you wanted this.
Oh, my God.
And you know what his catchphrase was?
What?
Don't worry, babe.
I've picked the perfect spot for our date.
That's serial killer stuff.
You've always been into serial killers.
Oh, man.
Oh, man. Oh, no.
I don't know.
I think this game's
very problematic.
This game is
super problematic.
And what the hell
is up with that hair?
That haircut is bizarre.
I don't know what the problem is exactly.
I can't diagnose it.
It looks like a layering problem to me.
It's a layering problem.
See what they've done.
In the picture, it is styled on kind of a middle part, but it has been cut on a side part.
It is 100% a layering problem. Yep.
Yep.
It's a real, real issue.
Carlos was for sure going to murder me on our date to the beach.
Don't worry, Brandy.
He's found the perfect spot for your body.
Okay, but look up Steve.
Okay, I'm looking up Steve.
To the new people.
You would totally be into Steve.
Okay, let me see.
For the new people, we don't normally start our episodes this way.
Okay, where's Steve?
He's in green.
Yeah, I'm trying to, hang on.
I'm trying to find my dream man.
Hang on.
Steve.
Okay, Steve.
Oh, my God, yes.
Yes.
Yes.
A thousand times, Steve.
Oh, even the Yes. Yes. A thousand times, Steve. Oh, even the style.
Yep.
He has a bowl cut.
But, like, it's, like, you know, kind of, like, messy.
Yeah, a messy bowl.
It's a cool bowl cut.
The coolest bowl cut.
You know.
You know how those were, the cool ones.
Mm-hmm.
Got kind of a bad boy smile, but he looks like he has a sensitive side.
Why does Carlos also look 30?
I was going to say, you really picked a weird one.
Maybe he's just the one that I can remember.
No, don't walk this back, Rudy.
You were like, the one I was choosing for was Carlos.
And now you see him and you're like, oh.
Oh, I can tell you why.
Okay, upon further inspection, I know exactly why I was into Carlos.
Why?
You loved a good windbreaker?
Carlos has dimples.
Oh, is that why I'm your friend?
Yes.
Okay, but Brandy, you can't get murdered by someone just because they've got nice dimples.
I mean, I've got to say, Steve was Cosmo's number one pick.
Steve was the one everybody always wanted.
And I was like, uh-uh, I don't even have time for Steve.
It's Carlos all the way.
You're like, I'm not a basic bitch.
I'm going for Carlos.
Oh, my God.
Oh, God.
Some of these guys, I don't know.
Obviously, Carlos hung out at Jim's gym.
You'll notice this guy.
I did notice.
Wow.
Whew.
Okay.
Enough of this.
Yeah, I was not allowed to have this game, I'm pretty sure.
Did you own this game?
Yes, we owned this game.
Wow.
Wow.
Yeah.
It's a different time, Kristen.
Okay, I've got to stop looking at these pictures.
Yeah, you've got to close the pictures.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
All right, please, if anybody else played this game, please reach out.
Oh, goodness.
I wonder what boy has a crush on me.
Carlos, obviously.
Yeah, that windbreaker was really a smart idea because it also worked to keep the blood
off of his other clothing.
You can hose off real easily in a windbreaker.
In a windbreaker, that's exactly right.
Yeah, you don't have to tell Carlos that.
Carlos knows.
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay, when you do the collage for this episode,
you gotta include Carlos.
I will include Carlos.
I will.
Maybe my lover Steve.
I will put Carlos and Steve in the collage.
It will be just a collage of jeering phone
people what if what if we find out that the actor who played carlos here later went on to
murder people well it's very possible i mean i hate to say that would be exciting to me but
it would be exciting all right enough of this all right let's talk about the worst woman
on earth okay okay first off grew up playing dream phone really set her on a bad path
old-timey disclaimer love it this is an old-timey case and boy are the articles contradictory okay
i've just gone with what seems to be the most cohesive.
Okay.
But yeah, there's some holes and, you know, whatever.
Also, shout out to murderbygaslight.com.
Excellent website for this old timey crime.
Okay.
Paul Halliday was lonely. He was a Union Army veteran who had settled in Mamucketing.
What?
Mamucketing, New York.
I guarantee you I'm not pronouncing that right.
But anyway, he'd settled somewhere in New York.
It's pronounced New York City.
After the Civil War, he'd bought a farm and raised five children with his wife.
But by 1890, his wife had died and four of his children had grown up, gotten married and moved away.
That left just Paul and his disabled son, John, on the farm.
And there was their 30-year-old Irish-American maid, Lizzie Brown.
Now, like I said, Kristen, Paul was lonely.
Oh.
Or maybe.
I think I see what's happening.
Maybe.
He has a dream phone crush on Lizzie.
On Lizzie the maid.
One source put it that he was cheap and didn't want to continue to pay Lizzie's wages.
Oh, no.
Either way, in May of 1890, Lizzie Brown became Lizzie Halliday when she married Paul, even though he was more than 40 years older than her.
So she was 30 and he was 70 something.
You know what, though?
That's not a bad investment in those times.
How much longer is he going to live?
Right?
Are you telling me that she murders him
and he's 70 in, like, the 1800s?
Wait five minutes.
People don't have patience is the problem.
That's the problem here.
You're right, Kristen.
It's not murder.
It's patience.
Paul's neighbors thought that the man was an old fool for marrying young Lizzie.
They laughed behind his back, saying she'd only married him to get at his money.
Not that he necessarily had a lot.
Or maybe she married him to get at his property.
But before long, the neighbors grew to fear Lizzie.
They found her wild, unpredictable, even erratic.
She was described as having serpent-like eyes under a thick furrowed brow.
That's literally how she's described in multiple articles.
Okay.
And whenever something went wrong, Lizzie seemed to be nearby.
In May of 1891, the Halliday home caught fire.
Lizzie was the only one around at the time.
Then, like three weeks later, the Halliday barn caught fire.
What does she have to gain from that?
This is before insurance, right?
It's not before insurance.
Insurance existed in these days.
Okay. Again, Lizzie was the only one around now i don't know the extent of the damage of these fires and there's some mention in a couple of articles that paul halliday had some business where he
burned charcoal which i don't know how you make a business out of that. And then he sold it, apparently, whatever the fuck that means.
But from what I can tell, he seemed unconcerned about the fires that were popping up on his property.
The neighbors, though, were growing more and more concerned about Lizzie Halliday.
And rightfully so.
Rightfully so.
What neither the neighbors nor Paul knew at this time was that Lizzie had actually previously been convicted of arson.
Oh.
In 1888, she'd been going by the name Maggie Hopkins and was living in Philadelphia.
She opened a little shop there, and when that shop burned to the ground, it was determined that the fire was arson and that Lizzie had been the one to set it.
She'd collected insurance money for the fire.
Oh, did she? Mm-hmm.
For the arson slash insurance fraud scheme, she was sentenced to two years in Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary.
So she would have been fresh off that stint when she came to work for Mr. Halliday.
But he wouldn't learn about all of this until after the events of May 1893.
By this time, Lizzie and Paul had been married for two years.
And it seems it was common knowledge around town that Lizzie despised Paul's son, John.
Oh, no.
So that made people all the more skeptical when one day in May of 1893,
while Paul Halliday happened to be away on business,
the Halliday home burned to the ground.
Lizzie and John had been inside when the fire started,
and only Lizzie made it out.
John was killed in the fire.
Was John physically disabled?
You said he was disabled, right?
They don't really specify.
They call him a lot of little timey terms.
Each one better than the last, I'm sure.
I'm not sure the nature of his disability.
Isn't it amazing some of the terms?
It really is.
I mean, why not just call someone a big fat turd?
Exactly.
Good grief.
Following the fire, Lizzie told authorities that when she made it out of the home that she ran to the neighbors for help.
She told them that she knew John was trapped inside inside but she couldn't get to him. Did she
like stop for a donut on the way to the
neighbor? Well, so it's interesting. Neighbors
who witnessed the fire told the
story a little bit differently. I bet they did.
They said that they'd
actually seen Lizzie dancing
around outside the home laughing
during the fire.
Oh.
Lizzie was arrested
on suspicion of arson
and murder.
Oh, man.
Just because she likes to dance
is dancing a crime?
She can lock me up.
Brandy is just always
doing the cha-cha slide.
There's almost always
a fire nearby.
So Lizzie's arrested on suspicion of arson and murder but it was decided that there wasn't
enough evidence to prove her guilt yeah and so she was released and went back to the farm with
her husband it was around this time, that the marriage became strained.
Yeah, that'll happen when somebody murders your son.
Paul began to speak openly about his suspicions that Lizzie was not only responsible for the many fires that had occurred on the farm, but also responsible for his son's death.
He believed that she had barricaded John in his room before setting the fire.
Yeah.
But he stayed married to her.
Shortly after she came back to live on the farm.
Yeah.
She met a man who was part of a gang of mountain robbers.
What? I don't really know you leave
those mountains alone there's some colorful language used to describe this gang so we're
gonna go with mountain robbers okay and what do you think is a term that we use today that you
think oh gosh i don't know it's kind of hard to know. It is hard to know. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure there are plenty.
Well, yeah.
I mean, that's just the way it is.
Like, we're going to evolve.
Skeezy skunch.
Yeah.
I mean, right now it's not offensive at all.
Not at all.
It's a term of endearment.
Exactly.
But maybe one day.
Chode.
Now it's only a mild insult.
A mild insult.
No one would ever be offended by being called a chode but
perhaps in five years what the fuck are you guys watching that they're calling people chodes on
okay there is this show that i'm convinced i'm the only one who loves this sketch show because like
nobody talks about this it's called i think you should leave it's on Netflix. There's only one season of it. Yeah. It's so funny. I doubt it.
Don't.
You.
I bet it's super cringy.
I bet I'd be so uncomfortable watching it.
Yeah.
I love uncomfortable humor.
Yeah.
It is.
OK.
Let me tell you just the first, very first sketch.
And I can tell you why.
I mean, you're going to know why you would hate this and why it makes me die
laughing every time it's a job interview at like a coffee shop and um the guy who's being
interviewed you can tell he's very nervous he's like well thank you so much I hope I did okay
I hope I you know he's very you know just worked up and the interviewer is very being very polite
like oh no okay great and so then the interviews is over and so you're looking like I'm just I'm Just worked up. And the interviewer is being very polite, like, oh, no, okay, great.
And so then the interview is over.
And so you're looking like you're here. I'm nervous.
I'm very nervous.
It's nothing.
Okay, so the interviewee starts to leave the coffee shop, and he pulls on the door, and the door won't go out.
And the interviewer says, oh, I think you're supposed to push it.
And the guy goes no no i came
here yesterday and i pulled it and you can pull it and the interviewer kind of looks at him because
it's clear you can't pull it yeah and so just the opening scene of this sketch show is just him
forcing this door open crying trying to open it, and finally breaking it open.
Uh-huh, yeah, I would hate that.
I love it so much.
No one enjoyed that story.
Love it.
Get ready to experience an all-new Dawn Valley North Lexus.
Dawn Valley North Lexus has temporarily relocated around the corner
to 7200 Victoria Park Avenue while they
build a brand new dealership for you. The deals don't stop though. Get loyalty rates as low as 1.9%,
delivery credits up to $1,500, and save up to $7,000 on select demonstrator models.
Don Valley North, Don Valley North for Lexus. A proud member of Wayne's Auto Group.
Anyway, so Lizzie meets this
man who's part of a gang of
mountain robbers. Right, right.
And she ran away with him to
elope. Well, that's probably a good thing,
right? Right. Get the murderer away.
But she was caught
with this man in the
act of stealing like a shitload of
horses. Like, I think like a dozen horses.
That's a really hard thing to steal.
Yes, it is.
Do you know from experience?
What if my criminal record was just horses?
Well, don't you think that's an outrageously difficult thing?
Yeah, okay.
And like it was two people trying to steal
a bunch of horses
yeah I mean great for
dreaming big but like you've got to be
realistic too you know what the problem was
there two dreamers you've got to have one
realistic person that's right you've got to have
why don't we just steal two horses
we don't have to steal all twelve of them
right yeah
these are great life lessons.
Yeah.
I think people are learning a lot from this episode so far.
We got the dream phone.
Yeah.
Only steal what you can carry.
So Lizzie was arrested and brought back to stand trial.
And when asked by a newspaper for a statement about his wife's behavior and the allegations against her paul halliday seemed
embarrassed and he simply said there's no fool like an old fool oh i know
well because okay realistically in this in this marriage yeah you know he was marrying her because
he wanted sex yeah she married him for money yeah I think sometimes, as long as you're both walking into it with that knowledge, who cares?
Yeah.
But clearly, she was a psycho.
Yeah.
And this is how he finds out she's a psycho.
Exactly.
She murders his son.
Exactly.
Ugh.
When it was time for Lizzie to stand trial for the horse theft, she put on this big show in court.
She screamed.
She spoke gibberish.
She ripped at her clothing.
She kicked over chairs.
She punched the bailiff.
Oh, God.
She was deemed insane and she was sent to an asylum.
But Paul told the judge that he thought it was all an act.
He was quoted as saying, she's shamming.
I just know it.
Because he never did this in front of her.
Correct.
Okay, put the thing down, flip it and reverse it.
You know what I mean.
So I don't really know what his motivation was here because it seems like getting her away would be.
He wants to get even.
Good.
But no, he's like, she's shamming.
She's not.
She's not insane.
You got to let her out.
Oh, not.
Yeah.
No, not.
You got to send her to prison.
No, you got to let her out.
Huh.
And so like he kept arguing that for like a couple of
months went by and he was like she's not insane you gotta let her out of there and so they did
maybe i don't know i i struggled with this to find out what really where he would be coming
from there like okay i've got a theory okay I wonder if back in these times, a mental institution was worse than a jail.
Yeah, I'm sure that it was.
Because, well, as you know, from the Glor Psychiatric Museum, which you've been to,
and I've been to, love it, St. Joseph, Missouri.
Yeah.
I mean, they used to do terrible things to people not that long ago at all.
Absolutely.
And so I wonder if she faked this at trial thinking, oh, this will be the way to go.
Yeah.
And then, you know,
you go to the mental institution
and, oh, God.
Yeah, but...
He believes she murdered his son.
Yeah, but he might...
Love her?
Mm.
He might feel really complicated.
Yeah, yeah.
I can see that.
He might feel really complicated.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He could also feel like,
you know what,
she tricked me.
I don't want her tricking more people.
That's true.
And so even though it doesn't really make sense to say get her out of there.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
For whatever reason, he continued this argument.
And eventually, after a couple of months, it was successful.
And he managed to convince them to release Lizzie back to him.
Oh.
And he managed to convince them to release Lizzie back to him.
And so she moved back to the farm to a new cabin that he'd built there following the fire.
Now, don't you burn this one down.
Right.
That's really weird.
I know.
By this point, people around town were very concerned about paul halliday's well-being yeah but they were also like fucking terrified of lizzie yeah so they kind of monitored her behavior and paul's
comings and goings but from a safe distance yeah in august of93, several people noticed that they hadn't seen Paul in several days.
So a group of them, led by one of Paul's sons, worked up the nuts to confront Lizzie about Paul's absence.
So they go to the property and like they're it's like a group of several people.
And they're like, where's's Paul tell us where he is
and she had some story about
how he was away on business
and so
they pushed
back a little bit but as I
mentioned like she's fucking scary
and so they
left but they were unsatisfied
with the answer that she had given so the group then went
to the justice of the peace and told the justice of the peace this story.
And they secured a search warrant for the Halliday Farm.
So when they showed up again to execute the search warrant, which apparently that's how it worked in the 1890s.
Just like a group of people can ask for a search warrant and then go execute it.
Dreaming you can do it.
All right.
So they show up with this search warrant.
They're like, OK, now let us look around the farm.
And Lizzie again tells them the story about how Paul is away on business.
And she even offered to take them to him.
Really?
Mm hmm.
So realizing that getting her away from the property during the search was probably a good idea, a couple of the searchers set off in a carriage with Lizzie off to wherever she told them Paul was while the others executed the search warrant on the farm.
Inside the cabin, they made a troubling discovery almost immediately.
There was a blood-stained carpet and a spent revolver round.
The search then moved to the barn, where Paul's friends and family were immediately concerned by a giant mountain of fresh hay in the hayloft.
What could it be hiding? They were sure that they'd find
Paul's body inside of it. So they started searching through that hay.
And they did find a gruesome discovery. But it wasn't Paul Halliday.
Inside the mountain of hay were the decomposing bodies of two women.
What?
They'd been tied up and shot.
What?
Yeah.
They were later identified as Margaret McQuillan and her daughter Sarah.
Lizzie had stayed with the McQuillans for a time when she was living in Philadelphia.
Margaret had come to visit Lizzie in New York, or perhaps she'd been kind of lured there under
the guise of like a housekeeping position. And then a short time later, Sarah had received a
letter from Lizzie saying that Margaret had fallen ill and that she needed to come right away.
saying that Margaret had fallen ill and that she needed to come right away.
The discovery of Margaret and Sarah only confirmed the searcher's suspicions about Lizzie and her maniacal ways.
So they were bound like there was rope tied around their chest, like their arms were tied down to their sides. And they'd both been shot in the heart multiple times.
And they'd both been shot in the heart multiple times.
So they make this discovery and then they're like, OK, where the fuck is Paul?
Yeah.
So the search intensifies and it wasn't long before they discovered his body under the floorboards in the kitchen.
Oh.
He'd also been tied up and shot multiple times in the chest, just like the McQuillans.
But he'd also been bludgeoned to the point that his skull was cracked open.
Lizzie Halliday was arrested and charged with the three murders.
And over the next year, while awaiting trial, she proved to be a difficult inmate, to say the least.
Her behavior behind bars grew increasingly erratic.
She tried to strangle herself with her own garter.
She refused to eat.
She set her bed on fire at one point.
People wear garters in prison?
Apparently.
I don't.
It seems kind of fancy. It does. it's the it's the 1890s i mean maybe that was just you know
part of the gear yeah i don't think they had like the orange cocktail night like they
well i know they didn't have orange scrubs but like a garter seems like a little extra for prison
right yeah she also like broke a window in her cell at one point and slit her throat with the glass, but it hadn't been sharp enough to really do much damage.
And she said at that point that she'd cut herself simply to see if she would bleed.
Okay.
Sounds like an emo song.
I know.
So they're like, okay, hold the phone on the trial. We need to hold an inquest
to see if she's even competent to stand trial. I mean, she was just constantly doing all of this
sort of stuff inside her cell to the point that they ended up like removing everything from her
cell and chaining her to the floor for her own safety.
Oh, wow.
Everything that was in there she was either using as a weapon against someone else or harming herself with it.
I wonder what was really going on with her.
I don't know.
So many people believe that all of this was an act because at the same time people would come visit her and she'd have normal conversations with them.
Like this group of women would come and bring like well wishes to her or pray for her or whatever.
And she would have normal conversations with them.
And see, I just don't know enough about this stuff to know if like.
I don't either.
Sometimes can you have a normal conversation?
I don't know.
I have no idea.
Okay. So they decide to hold this inquest and ultimately they decided that she was maybe competent to stand trial.
Oh, good.
So news of Lizzie Halliday spread across the country.
She became this monstrous figure in the newspapers.
Like I found an article from the 1890s in the Leavenworth, Kansas paper.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
Everyone wanted to know more about her.
Who was this creature?
And so this groundbreaking journalist.
Nellie Bly.
Nellie Bly.
Yeah.
Yes.
Yes.
Managed to secure an interview with her.
Yeah.
So Nellie Bly had built her career kind of in part on an expose about the inner workings of asylums.
In 1887, she had feigned insanity and spent 10 days inside a New York City asylum.
Her story revealing the inner workings of that asylum was eye-opening
and prompted the asylum to implement lasting reform.
That wasn't all she did.
She had an amazing career. She circled the globe in 72 days or something like that. Yeah, she did a lot of amazing things. This was just one part of it. The menfolk were quite threatened. Oh,
absolutely. So Nellie secures this interview with Lizzie Halliday and boy did Lizzie spill the beans when asked about her life. She said,
it's a long story and it's over many murders besides those that are known.
What Nellie uncovered was that Paul Halliday was Lizzie's sixth husband. Three of her previous
husbands had died like right after they'd married her and they died
under questionable circumstances. Though she didn't admit to murdering any of them, she did
admit to attempting to poison a couple of them. Both of those, I believe, survived. And one of
her husbands who hadn't died had actually just like run away right after the wedding and she'd never seen him again.
Good for him.
No kidding.
Is that true or did she just kill him?
I believe it's true.
I believe that Nellie Bly was able to like confirm that he was still alive.
Wow.
Yeah.
So this news like spread like crazy.
Nellie Bly wrote this big article about it that was posted in the New York paper and then other papers around the
country picked it up. And people
were just drawn to the story
of Lizzie Halliday. Like she seemed like
this just
monster.
Yeah.
Lizzie Halliday's trial
began in June of
1894 in Monticello, New York
before Judge Edwards.
People came from all over just to try and catch a glimpse of Lizzie.
Many people treated this like a vacation and like brought the whole family, like brought
kids into the courtroom to watch it.
I mean, you didn't have TV.
You didn't. Yeah. It was the entertainment of the it. I mean, you didn't have TV. You didn't.
Yeah.
It was the entertainment of the time.
Okay.
The prosecution's theory was basically that Lizzie Halliday was an evil murderess.
She'd lured the McQuillans to the property to rob and murder them.
And she'd married Paul Halliday knowing he was elderly, hoping he would die soon.
But after four years of marriage when he hadn't died yet or run off like her previous husbands,
she'd taken it upon herself to end his life.
The defense said Lizzie was insane.
That's all there was to it.
But they didn't have an insanity plea back then, right?
They did.
Oh, did they?
Yes.
Okay.
So that was a defense that they could use. They had an insanity plea back then right they did oh yes okay so that was a defense that they could use
they had an insanity plea but the prosecution put up two experts two doctors who examined lizzie
so this is really interesting both of these doctors examined lizzie like at the same time
for like five minutes the day they testified in court.
Okay.
So that morning, these doctors were brought into her cell
along with the prosecutor, along with the bailiff,
along with the judge, along with a reporter.
All of these people come into her cell
and she like loses her fucking mind.
She's like, no, nobody's going to touch me.
Nobody's going to assess me.
Nothing's going to be happening.
And so she fights them.
She bites one of them.
She punches someone.
They end up finally like holding her down and examining her.
And so the first expert who goes on the stand, his name is Dr. Mann.
And he explains all of this, how he'd gone to her cell that morning to examine her and how she'd fought and whatever.
And then he'd managed to to cell that morning to examine her and how she'd fought and whatever. And then he'd managed to hold her down and examine her.
And he said, I found her temperature at 120 degrees this morning.
Which sounds way too fucking high.
I don't know how they were measuring temperatures.
Yeah.
Okay.
He said, I found her temperature at 120 degrees this morning. Her skin was natural and moist from the exciting struggle, which would not be the case in a really insane person.
Oh, insane people don't sweat?
That's correct, Kristen.
This guy sounds like an idiot.
The distinction I made between her and a lunatic is the absence of furrows and the natural condition
of the hair and skin.
Absence of furrows?
I don't know what that means.
Okay.
I don't think that dude knew what it meant either.
So then another doctor gets up there,
a second doctor, and he gets up there and he's like,
her skin and hair were in perfect
condition. She's not insane.
Okay. Okay.
Yeah.
And so the defense then puts up their own expert, and their expert is like, her behavior is erratic.
She's made attempts on her life.
She's tried to beat other people.
She's refused to eat.
She's clearly insane.
This woman needs to be sent to an asylum, not to prison.
Plus she has acne and her hair is ugly.
Her hair is, look at that, lackluster hair.
There was a couple of articles that talked specifically about how her hair fell in her face rather than wearing it pinned back.
And apparently that meant she was a lunatic.
I don't know.
They put a lot of stake in the hair is what I'm saying.
Okay.
But from what I could find,
it seems like the testimony was pretty much limited at trial to those few doctors.
The two who were like, yeah, look how natural her hair and skin look.
She's totally A-okay. And the other doctor was like, yeah, look how natural her hair and skin look. She's she's totally a OK.
And the other doctor was like, no, she's she's she's acted out since the moment she got here.
Of course, she's insane.
Huh.
So the jury deliberated for a little over three hours.
And they decided that she was faking it all.
And that she was guilty.
that she was faking it all and that she was guilty.
They found her guilty
of the murder
specifically of
Sarah McQuillan.
That's who she was
charged with first.
And I believe that they did this
like so that if she was found
not guilty of that
then they would move forward
and charge her
with the next murder.
So it was like
she was only found guilty
of that one murder.
Yeah.
They never entered
verdicts on the other
two murders.
But for that murder, she
was sentenced to death
by the electric chair. She was the first woman ever
sentenced to death by electric chair.
In 1894,
they had the electric chair?
That is kind of surprising,
isn't it? Yes, I think it's very
surprising. I bet you that thing
was real shoddy. It probably
was, yeah.
So she's sentenced to death and she puts on
like this huge fight
when she's sentenced to death. She ends up
biting the bailiff
as she is being taken out of
court. So he
knew she was a biter
and he wore these special leather
gloves because he was going to
be handling her.
Yeah.
And she bit through the gloves into his skin.
The bite got so infected.
Oh, no.
That his arm later had to be amputated.
What?
And then some articles say that he then went on to die.
Oh, God.
From a bite?
From a bite.ikes yeah so she's sentenced
to death by electric chair only this medical commission had been gathered to rule on whether
she was insane or not and so despite the jury's findings that she was guilty,
this medical commission was like,
uh-uh, no, she is clearly insane.
We do not believe that she is faking all of this.
We don't believe she'd be able to fake it to this level.
The reason that the jury,
one of the reasons the jury did not believe
that she was truly insane, and they asked this question of one of the medical the jury did not believe that she was truly insane.
And they asked this question of one of the medical experts.
They said that this all seemed very planned.
She had planned out these things.
Right.
And they asked one of the medical experts whether an insane person could plan something.
And the medical expert said no.
Really?
Yes.
And so that was like the big thing for the jury.
Well, yeah, that would be.. That that she must not be insane. She must be she must be just a really good actress.
And so this medical after after she's sentenced to death, this medical commission comes forward and they they appeal to the judge and they're like, this woman is insane. And the judge is like, sorry, the sentence has already been handed down.
She's been sentenced to die.
And so they go to the governor of New York, Governor Flower,
and they say, this woman is insane.
You cannot put her to death.
And so he commuted her sentence.
Oh, wow.
And sent her to the state asylum.
oh wow and sent her to the state asylum which i think is very unusual for that time period maybe because it was a woman though
like that had to be shocking to people yeah yeah her heart get it sorry no kristen wow she sounds
oh yeah oh and there's more okay there. There's more to come. Stay tuned.
So she is sent to the Matiawan State Asylum in New York.
I pronounced that exactly right.
Nobody bothered to Google it.
So she's sent there in 1894 after the commutation of her sentence. For a while, she did pretty okay as a patient there.
She had her moments, like in 1895, when she attempted to strangle one of her attendants.
But they managed to get her off.
And they, you know, after that, for a good amount of time, several years, she became like a model patient.
They gradually gave her more and more freedoms.
And she did really well until 1906.
By 1906, she had become very close to one of her nurses.
Her name was Nellie Weeks.
Could be Wicks.
Could be Winks
could be Works
it's different in every article
okay great
but multiple articles have it as Nellie Weeks
so we're going to go with that
all right
she was very close with her nurse Nellie Weeks
but in September of 1906
Nellie told Lizzie
that she was leaving the asylum
that she wanted to go be a nurse in a hospital
and Lizzie was really upset and so she started watching Nellie a lot lots of people observed
her just kind of keeping to herself and sitting in a corner and just like fixing a stare on Nellie.
And then the day that it was to be Nellie's last day,
she came up to Lizzie and told her, you know, I'm leaving today.
This is my last day.
And Lizzie told her that she wouldn't do that.
She shouldn't do that.
And Nellie kind of laughed it off and said, you wouldn't hurt me.
Oh.
And then later that day, Nellie was in like the nurse's kind of like locker room area when she turned around and suddenly there was Lizzie Halliday standing behind her.
And Lizzie reached and grabbed a pair of scissors no off of nelly's
nursing uniform oh and she stabbed her more than 200 times oh with the scissors
she had locked the door beforehand and so like they had to keep calling people to try and find the key to the door to
get in to help nelly they could just hear her screams through the locked door finally they get
in they pull lizzie halliday off her and they rush nelly in for medical care she's like she goes into
a coma and like two days later she died yeah of more than 200 stab wounds oh my god most of them to the throat oh
when lizzie halliday was told that nelly weeks had died from her injuries
she laughed and said she won't leave me now. Oh.
From what I could find, that was like the last incident of her acting up in the asylum.
I don't know if they put her like on heavier guard after that or reduced privileges.
I would assume.
Yeah.
She didn't face any charges for that that I could see.
I mean, she's already in an asylum for the rest of her life so and lizzie holiday stayed there in that same asylum until she died in 1918 when she died the new york times ran an obituary for her and they titled it the worst woman on earth wow
and that is the story of lizzie holiday the first woman sentenced to die by the electric chair
wow that was fascinating yeah yeah i wonder who was the first woman who actually died by i yeah
me too i'd be interested to know that.
You know, I've got to Google.
Google it.
Martha M. Place, 1899.
See what she do.
Murder.
Murder.
I still got the definition of chode up here on my screen.
Well, you don't want to lose that.
You should probably always have that up.
For those of you listening at work, perhaps you should put that up there.
I don't think so.
Get fired.
Yeah, that's NSFW.
Blame this podcast.
No, don't blame this podcast.
Look yourself in the mirror and say.
You said NSFW like
you were really proud of yourself. Like, yeah, I know
what that means. No, I didn't mean for it to
sound like I was really proud of myself. I just thought it was just
like thrown in like some hip lingo.
It was hip internet speak, Kristen.
You know, we gotta keep this podcast fresh.
Because I'm young and cool. No.
I am the influencer here.
You're just the old
lady.
I believe our moms were
friends when I was little.
Oh wait, no. You were friends
with my... Damn it! Patty cut that.
I was trying to insult Brandy. It just totally
flopped.
Are you going to tell us about a cruise ship?
I am going to tell you about a cruise ship.
Is this the one where your dad made the fudge dragon?
Don't say he made the fudge dragon.
That sounds like he took a big dump.
Well, don't you think he did?
I don't want to think about that.
Thanks a lot.
You're welcome.
Yeah, that was, well.
In the end of the last episode, we talked about my experiences on a cruise ship.
You ever been on a cruise?
Yeah, I went on a cruise once.
Oh, is that where that famous picture comes from oh yes
the famous picture of my sisters and i in new orleans where we look miserable yeah yes that
is from that's from the day we we docked in new orleans we spent the day there it was hotter than
hell and they were paving the streets so yeah so you all looked really happy in that photo that's my mom's
favorite family photo i think it's hilarious it is funny has she ever posted that in the discord
she will now okay mom mom post that picture of the discord for everybody let's all laugh
what'd you think of the cruise i loved it okay, I'd absolutely go on another cruise. We went on a short one. It was like a four day
just to cause a melon
back. Oh, I see.
Aww. I, um,
here's my funny cruise story.
Okay. I was 18. Kim and I
were 18. Oh. And
my parents took us on a cruise that
year because Kim and I both turned 18. My sister Casey
turned 20. My sister Jen turned
21. I think my mom turned 40 and Steve turned 50 that year. So it's just a big year for
all of us. And so they took us on a cruise. Also, the last vacation they ever took us
on, which would have been cool for them to tell us that. Maybe we would have enjoyed
it more that day in New Orleans. Kim and I always joke about that. I was like, we didn't
know it was the last vacation they were taking us on.
So anyway, we went on this cruise.
It was super fun.
The first day we were out like on open water.
Once you're on international waters, you only have to be 18 to gamble.
And so the casino opens up and my sisters and I went to the casino.
We're playing the slots.
I won like 200 bucks like the first five minutes we were there.
Oh my God.
You had to have been so thrilled. I lost my mind, Kristen.
I lost my mind.
$200.
$200.
What did you do with all that money?
So my sister Kim thought it's just that easy.
You put in a couple quarters and you win $200.
So she spent the rest of the trip trying to win money in that casino.
She never won anything.
How much money did she win? I don't know what i've seen though what this is my dream i'm gonna have to take a
cruise just for this okay i've seen cruise ships that have claw machines with stacks of money in
them you know my love of claw machines we have you playing a this is not a plug for the patreon
but for real at the seven dollar level we have a monthly bonus video and in one of those videos
we took a trip to branson and you and norm played a claw machine yeah and you just barely missed the
thing and you get so into it i mean it claw machines. It looked like you'd been shot when you missed it.
What?
Claw machines are rigged these days.
You used to actually be able to win them.
I used to win stuff out of claw machines all the time.
Okay, Brandy, I've known you for many years.
Uh-oh.
She's going to kill me.
I've heard you talk a good game about how you're really good at getting things out of those claw machines.
I've never seen you actually get anything out of a claw machine.
Well, you're wrong.
I've won many a stuffed animal, many a t-shirt, never a stack of dollar bills, though.
You look genuinely pissed right now. I'm excellent at claw machines kristin
i believe you are very good at them but i believe they're also really really hard to do
they are thank you for for acknowledging my intense skill it was more like the intense
hatred you were looking see i i feel like I'm not a cruise person.
Yeah.
I mean, there was also like a lot of time where you're just like on the water on a big boat and there's not a lot to do.
And there's like a bunch of people.
Yeah.
And you know how I feel about people.
I thought you were going to say there's a lot of pee in the pool.
Well, yeah, that's disgusting to think about.
Thank you. No, I don't like a lot of pee in the pool. Well, yeah, that's disgusting to think about. Thank you.
No, I don't like a lot of people.
You don't.
I don't like to see most people in a bathing suit.
That's also true.
I'm also not big on buffets.
Yeah.
Oh, no.
There's just a 24-hour buffet on a cruise ship.
There's a little shuffleboard, though.
You like shuffleboard?
Not really.
Okay. All right. What about magic shows? There's always a cruise ship. There's a little shuffleboard, though. You like shuffleboard? Not really. Okay.
All right.
What about magic shows?
There's always a magic show.
I mean, again, here's my problem.
Snobby.
Mm-hmm.
A little bougie over there.
Yeah.
Too bougie for the cruise.
I think I'm too much of a snob.
All right.
I'm looking around.
I'm like, even though I'm a tourist, too, I'm like, I don't want to be associated with these people.
Duty-free shopping, though.
You're not interested in that either?
Oh, I love that in an airport.
You stop.
Oh, yeah.
I'm a big fan.
They do it at the ports, too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
Have we talked about that?
Yes, I think we have.
Okay. Yeah. Alright. Alright, yes. Okay.
Hugest of shoutouts to
the open water episode
of Dateline.
It's a Josh Minkowitz episode.
Was his hair
just kind of like, just rolled out of bed?
He had a
shorter do. Okay.
But
his sleeves... I was going to Okay. But his sleeves.
I was going to say, were his sleeves kind of wrinkledy and like his tie was just off kilter slightly?
His suit jacket.
The arms weren't long enough.
Uh-huh.
I have come to appreciate Josh Mankiewicz as the years go by.
Yeah.
Don't fake it, Brandi.
Don't fake it.
No, no, no.
I think he does a lot of great work.
Yeah. But where is the wardrobe person? That's goodbye. Don't fake it, Brandi. Don't fake it. No, no, no. I think he does a lot of great work. Yeah.
But where is the wardrobe person?
That's right.
Why is somebody not taking care of his hair and his suitage?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because someone's taking great care of Keith.
Yes.
Do you think Keith is doing it all himself?
Is that what we're learning from this?
No, because every other person on Dateline looks impeccable.
That's true.
And then Josh, you're like, what happened to this guy?
The budget has run out by the time you get to Josh.
That's the thing.
Poor Josh Mankiewicz is what we should be saying, not Josh Mankiewicz.
You're the Josh Mankiewicz hater here.
All right.
I'm rethinking my opinion.
And now I feel sorry for Josh Mankiewicz that he's not getting better hair and wardrobe, people.
What if we sent him a juvenile Bigfoot hoodie?
Do you think he'd wear it?
No.
Okay, can we send one to Keith Morrison?
Yes.
Please.
Actually, no, we're out.
Sorry.
I know.
Do you think he can wear a size small?
Maybe.
He's a very...
He is.
He's very trim. He's a very. He is. He's very trim.
He's a very thin boy.
He is.
But he seems like he'd be too lanky.
I was going to say he's too tall.
It'd be a midriff shirt.
Which those are kind of in.
And I don't think you can handle his midriff.
I know I can't.
Picture it.
Naples, 2006.
We're on a cruise ship called the Island Escape.
Ooh. It is not on a cruise ship called the Island Escape. Ooh.
It is not the nicest cruise ship.
Do we have a cruise line associated with it?
Well, according to Brandy's favorite website, planetcruise.com.
I've got that bookmarked right here.
It gives the Island Escape three out of six stars.
Six stars?
Okay, whose rating system is six stars?
I'm assuming this is an international thing.
Is that a thing?
Six stars?
Well, on your favorite website it is.
What is it?
PlanetCruise.com?
That's it.
Don't act like you've never heard of it.
But what do you expect?
The ship started its life as a ferry boat.
Yeah.
And at some point...
You know what I've always thought when I'm on a ferry?
You want to stay on it for days?
Boy, would I like to sleep here.
So at some point, it got an extreme ship makeover and became a budget-friendly cruise ship.
Oh.
The island escape didn't have the nicest accommodations
or the tastiest buffet.
No.
Or the best entertainment.
But what it lacked, it made up for in...
A set of balconies that had been welded onto the side of the ship
sort of as an afterthought.
Oh, so they just like hung out over the water?
Yeah.
No!
What's wrong with that?
That's terrible!
No, what's wrong?
What's wrong?
Well, that seems really dangerous.
Interesting you should say that because on most cruise ships, if you've got a balcony on your cabin and you were to fall off of it.
You'd fall onto the deck.
Right.
Not on this one.
You'd fall straight into the water.
Yeah, that's a recipe for disaster.
Or murder.
Right?
Am I right?
Am I guessing right?
We've got a brilliant woman here today.
She showed up for the True Crime Podcast and she thinks there's been a crime.
So anyway, in May of 2006, the island escape was doing its usual thing.
The cruise ship took off from Spain and did a little Mediterranean tour with multiple stops in Italy.
You kind of intrigued? Oh, the pasta you can eat. did a little Mediterranean tour with multiple stops in Italy. Mmm. Mmm.
You kind of intrigued?
Oh, the pasta you can eat.
Yeah, it was just like the Olive Garden.
Never-ending breadsticks.
On board on that particular trip were Lonnie Cocontes, I think, and Mickey Kanesaki.
For Lonnie and Mickey, the cruise was supposed to bring them closer together.
It was going to rekindle an old flame.
Because, see, Lonnie and Mickey had at one time been married to each other.
Oh!
The love boat.
Are you just going to start seeing that on every episode now?
Maybe.
But now, Lonnie wanted Mickey back he wanted to
prove to her that he had changed see he could be romantic he could spend some money so he suggested
that they go on this Mediterranean cruise and Mickey had been so excited cheapest version of it. A Mediterranean cruise sounds amazing. It does. A budget Mediterranean cruise.
A nightmare.
Yeah.
And you're not even to the worst part.
Oh, no.
Lonnie's travel agent had tried to talk him out of this particular cruise because in order to take it,
they would have to fly from California to Minnesota, then fly to London, and then fly to Spain.
And then when they finally got on this ship, it would be a no-frills situation.
For fuck's sake, no thank you.
Doesn't that sound awful?
Yes.
The travel agent was like, I'm worried you're not going to have a good time.
I'm worried you're not going to have a good time.
But Lonnie was not concerned.
And Mickey just seemed happy to go on vacation
because they never went on vacation and in a way Lonnie really owed Mickey a nice vacation
because Mickey had put up with a lot from him over the years like what so they'd met years ago
through work Lonnie had been a high-powered attorney at one of Los Angeles' top firms, apparently.
And Mickey had been, some sites said administrative assistant, another said paralegal.
Okay.
But anyway, the second Mickey started working there, Lonnie was smitten.
When she walked out of the elevator, his eyes bugged out of his head and turned into little hearts.
Ooh!
Because Mickey was a catch.
She was beautiful. She had shiny hair. She was smart.
She worked primarily for one of the other attorneys, but Mickey was a go-getter.
So she began working overtime, and at some point, she began working more with Lonnie.
And, you know, a lot of late hours in the office.
And as Josh Mekowitz puts it, that's when something blossomed.
Ooh.
Eventually, Lonnie's pants.
Ew.
I'm sorry, I don't know what you meant.
I mean, it could have been.
And it did, I guess.
But thanks a lot.
You're welcome.
So eventually, Lonnie and Mickey got married.
It was Lonnie's third marriage.
And they bought a beautiful home in Orange County.
And, you know, it's the classic tale.
Things looked pretty good from the outside.
What?
These don't sound like the type of people that take a budget cruise.
Interesting point. Yes. people that take a budget cruise interesting point yes how strange that a high-powered la
attorney yeah is going on what sounds like a terrible fucking cruise
why do you think he did that well there's a plot afoot, I believe. Yeah, so number one, there's a plot afoot, for sure.
Also, he was super cheap.
Okay.
He sounds like a ton of fun.
Excellent.
All right.
So, you know, their marriage is looking kind of good from the outside, but it pretty quickly turned to shit.
Mickey found out that Lonnie was super controlling, especially when it came to money.
Mm-hmm. Budget cruise. And then Lonnie got into a little bit of hot water. You see, a client at the law
firm accused him of, and this is how someone puts it on the Dateline episode, this is not my language,
And this is how someone puts it on the Dateline episode.
This is not my language.
Having sex with their daughter, but the daughter was underage.
That's not sex.
Nope.
That's at the very least statutory rape.
So anyway, Lonnie and Mickey were married and all of a sudden there's this accusation.
So the law firm fired Lonnie.
All right.
And it looked like he was going to face criminal charges.
Lonnie was scared.
He claimed he hadn't done what he was accused of doing.
And Mickey stood by him.
And so did their friends, Susan McQueen and Bill Price.
Susan and Bill were actually investigators for the law firm.
And they're kind of a quirky couple.
Bill is a former police officer who organizes dog shows.
And Susan is a professional dog handler.
And they are very much in love and very into investigating.
Okay.
What kind of dog do they have?
I mean, they have a bunch of dogs.
Like, I don't know.
They had some B-roll of them walking really big dogs,
you know.
You don't know what kind?
I don't know.
My dog is from the pound,
you know.
Were they majestic?
What?
Were the dogs majestic?
Like, just as a general adjective,
I would say yes.
Okay, thank you.
What?
Obviously, when i ask what kind of dogs were there i'm really just asking oh were they majestic yeah i would say so they were quite large okay yeah wonderful okay i'm getting a clear picture
all right so lonnie asked his friends bill and sus Susan to help him out with this accusation and they were like
sure so they investigated the issue and they discovered that thanks to key cards and stuff
like that that Lonnie what key cards and stuff like that like I thought you were gonna like give
us a list you know what I hope a majestic dog comes and bites you in the ass.
Where's Peanut?
So they discovered that Lonnie couldn't have been where he was accused of being at the time he was accused of committing this crime.
Okay.
Meanwhile, with these charges looming overhead, Lonnie told Mickey that they should probably divorce.
They didn't necessarily want to divorce, but they had about $2 million in assets.
And if Lonnie was found guilty, it was likely that a bunch of their assets would get confiscated.
So in 2002, after seven years of marriage, Lonnie and Mickey became divorced on paper.
Okay.
In reality, they kind of continued to be a couple for quite a while.
At some point after the divorce, the charges against Lonnie were dropped.
And his friends Bill and Susan were so proud.
They felt like their investigative work had really helped their friend get out from under a false accusation.
Yay! Did they do like a high five? They felt like their investigative work had really helped their friend get out from under a false accusation.
Yay!
Did they do like a high five?
And they like just stayed in the air for a while.
Yeah, I'm picturing it.
And their majestic dogs ran in the background.
Absolutely.
And then they all played Dream Phone.
Yeah.
So, you know, life continued.
And like you do, in 2005, Lonnie went to Las Vegas and got secretly married to a woman named Amy Wynn.
Oh! What?
Bit of a curveball, huh?
Yeah!
Well, you know, this story's gonna have some curveballs.
Okay.
Then he filed a court motion to force Mickey to sell the house that they had purchased when they were married.
And she was like, no like no uh go fuck yourself that's basically it she's like you can't force me to sell my house
they fought back and forth through the legal system and eventually
lonnie dropped the issue at least in the legal sense, he dropped it.
Because not long after that,
he divorced his new wife, Amy.
On paper?
No, this was for real.
But, you know, he divorced her and then Lonnie
decided that he wanted to get back together
with Mickey. For love.
It's because of love. Are you against
love? I'm anti-love, yes.
Well, that's terrible.
Especially with Valentine's Day
right around the corner.
So they began to rekindle things
in like a true romantic.
Let's go on a Mediterranean cruise.
Hold the phone.
Hold the dream phone.
Let's renew our vows.
No, no, no.
Even more romantic than that.
What's that?
Let's draw up a couple of new wills.
Oh, what?
Huh?
Yeah.
And let me make myself the executor of your estate.
How about that, honey buns?
Mm-hmm.
And then he suggested they go on the mediterranean cruise from hell
he actually invited their friends bill and susan along but like literally two days before this
cruise was supposed to start susan's mom got sick so they couldn't go or maybe they were like hey
we don't want to go to fucking minnesota and then to and then to Spain and then get on this shitty cruise ship.
Yeah.
So it was just Mickey and Lonnie alone on this cruise.
Off they sailed.
Oh, what a romantic time.
They have one of those balcony rooms.
They sure did.
He was very sure to get a balcony room.
Because, you know, it was nicer.
Yeah.
Than the other rooms and he was
real spendy and romantic yeah yeah fucking lonnie so here we go a supposedly successful lawyer
taking his ex-wife on a bargain basement cruise yeah oh what's that he sprung for a room with a balcony what a guy so they made a stop in messina they saw ryan's fountain they got back on the ship and then they
were headed to naples but something went wrong on may 26 2006 bill price was at home in bed with
his dog who i'm sure was majestic. Very majestic.
He now lived in Florida.
And he got a call at 310 in the morning.
It was Lonnie.
Something was terribly wrong.
Mickey was missing.
And Bill was like, last he'd seen her, she was on the balcony.
No, we're not going quite that far.
He's not going to give you all the puzzle pieces just yet.
All right.
So Bill's like, what do you mean she's missing?
And Lonnie said that earlier that night,
he and Mickey had had some wine,
and she left to go get some tea,
and he took 2-Ambien and went to sleep.
2-Ambien?
What the fuck is he doing
i've never taken ambien but i hear it's a hell of a drug yeah two is probably too much i think it's
i mean i i'm no doctor i think it's too much okay it's my official opinion
well maybe it was too much because when Lonnie woke up it was three days
no Mickey was nowhere to be found oh my gosh Lonnie alerted the crew and the captain and
the captain came to Lonnie and Mickey's cabin and noted that nothing seemed to be amiss
that morning the ship docked in Naples
and despite a lot of work from the crew, no one had been able to find Mickey.
Okay.
What?
Do they have cameras on a budget cruise?
No, they don't.
No, they don't.
Okay.
Making serious notes about never going on a budget cruise.
Jeff David all of a sudden is like, hey, I found a
cruise that's like 500 bucks
a person.
So,
soon, it was
time for the ship to take off for its next
stop. And Lonnie was
like, well, I can't stay on this ship.
Something's gone wrong. So he packed
up his things, and he packed up his things and he packed
up mickey's things and he got off in naples at this point the italian coast guard began looking
for mickey so there lonnie was alone in italy with his ex-wife mysteriously missing what's
what's with the face i don't know i. I'm just on the edge of my seat listening for details.
Listening for bullshit.
Well, I've got a stream of it coming at you.
Is it steamy and creamy?
Creamy, steamy, bullshit.
He called his good friends Susan and Bill.
He told them he was scared.
Mickey was missing. He was in a foreign country.
He didn't speak the language.
People were being mean to him, treating him like he was super sus, which is young people slang for the word suspicious.
Brandi, you probably learned that from your 12-year-old fiance.
But not everyone has a 12-year-old fiance.
And so that's why I include that definition.
Someone legitimately thought that I was 20 years older than David because of you.
That brings me so much joy.
Someone tweeted us
legitimately concerned that I was
mistreating a young boy.
Seriously?
No feedback
has made me happier
than when someone...
I think they were being polite.
They were like, I'm just trying to really figure out the H's because I don't really understand.
And I'm reading that like, yes.
So for anyone who's confused, Brandi is 87.
David is 12.
I know we've said on the podcast that we've been friends since fifth grade.
To clarify, I was in fifth grade.
Stop it!
Stop it!
He was in the nursing home at the time.
I went there on a class trip to sing carols to old people.
And I had a butterscotch in my pocket.
I lured young
Kristen right over.
That's how she got David too.
I used one of those strawberry candies
for David. Ew. No. Does he like
those? No. Nobody
likes those. Those things don't even
exist in the store. You just turn
a certain age and they appear
in your home. Yeah.
Butterscotch's are good, though.
Butterscotch's are good. I will not have anyone make me in front of a Werther's.
So, you know, everyone in Italy's being super mean to poor Lonnie, the hero of this tale.
And Bill and Susan felt so sorry for their friend.
And when Lonnie said he wanted to leave Italy,
I mean, Bill didn't think it was a great idea.
But he did agree to help Lonnie.
You're going to flee the country?
Yeah, it looks pretty sus.
Very sus.
Mm-hmm.
Vicious.
So Bill booked him a ticket to Florida.
My understanding is that Lonnie lived in California at this time and Bill and Susan were living in Florida.
I could be wrong on that because there was some moving around.
So they were like, hey, this is a tough time for you.
Come on to Florida.
But Lonnie didn't go to Florida.
Instead, he changed his flight at the last minute and went back home to California.
And guess whose house he went to? Mickey's? No, Mickey is dead. Well, okay. No, I meant like...
Oh, I see. I see what you... I'm sorry. Yes, yes. Okay, I get what you're saying. No, he went to his
other ex-wife's house, right? Exactly.
What's her name?
Amy.
Amy's house.
He went to Amy Wynn's house.
Mm-hmm.
The woman he'd secretly married and divorced before he supposedly wanted to reconcile with Mickey.
Mm-hmm.
Meanwhile, back in Italy, it's been about a day since Mickey was reported missing.
Her ex-husband has fucked off back to America. And that's when, on May 27, 2006,
Mickey's body was discovered floating in the Mediterranean.
They found it?
Can you believe that?
No!
Yeah, what are the chances?
Well, I'd have to call a statistician, but I can't imagine very good.
Well, I'll wait. I've got plenty of time.
The boat that found her wasn't even part of the Coast Guard,
not part of any search party.
Oh my gosh.
But they'd heard the alert that the Coast Guard was looking for an American
who was missing from a cruise ship,
and so they took her body and brought it to the Coast Guard.
From there, Italian authorities began to investigate what had happened to Mickey.
And a prosecutor named Alfredo Ladonio
knew right away that he needed to figure
out mickey's cause of death and the circumstances around her death yeah but that was easier said
than done her death could have been a suicide it could have been an accident it could have been a
murder yeah could have been a murder are you just just going to hit that again? Yeah.
Just really drive out.
It might have been a murder.
Because as we said, Lonnie was pretty sus.
Yes, vicious.
But here's the thing.
When an American dies outside of the United States,
the sus... Becht.
Becht.
Isn't just under investigation in that other country.
The investigation also falls under the authority of the FBI.
Oh, I thought you were going to say Interpol.
Oh, that'd be pretty exciting.
That would be very exciting.
I'm sorry.
Dateline made no mention of Interpol.
Damn it.
So the FBI tracked down Lonnie at Amy's house in California.
And they're knocking.
And, of course, they've got their little aviators on and their little jackets and their perfect posture.
Oh, the FBI?
Yeah, what do you mean?
Did you think I was talking about Amy and Lonnie?
Yeah.
No.
I was like, why do they have little jackets and aviators?
I don't even know that the FBI does.
I've just seen a lot of movies.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Blue jackets, yellow FBI, yeah, aviators.
And they're always there you
never see an fbi agent who needs a haircut i've noticed i mean i i assume it's like you know in
the high and tight yeah yeah you can't have hair down on your collar oh my god perish the thought
like that's in the rules
so lonnie calls up his good friend bill and the way this is portrayed it almost seems like
as the FBI is a knocking he's calling Bill yeah and Lonnie's like um hey buddy the FBI wants to
talk to me and Bill's like well talk to the FBI exactly yeah Bill, well, isn't that a good thing that the FBI is looking into Mickey's death?
And Lonnie's like, uh-huh.
Oh, right.
Yes.
I forgot how that's, I want this solved now.
So until this point, Bill and Susan didn't know anything about Amy.
So, you know, Lonnie lets it slip that he's at his ex-girlfriend's house.
And Bill was like, what?
What?
Do you know how this looks?
Your ex-wife has gone missing.
She was found dead.
You fled.
Left the country and now you're here?
Yes.
For fuck's sake.
And you know what Lonnie said?
What?
I needed consoling.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yep.
Yep.
All right.
So when Bill and Lonnie got off the phone, poor Bill was like, holy shit, is my friend an idiot?
He just couldn't believe that this was the course of events because he really believed in his friend's innocence.
He's like, my poor, innocent, dumb friend.
Poor, innocent, dumb friend.
So the FBI started talking to Lonnie, and they were like, that boy ain't right.
Because right off the bat, Lonnie was like, hey, guys, I just want you to make a note that I have no scratches on me.
No signs that I've been in any kind of...
No cards up my sleeve.
You learned that from the magician on the cruise.
The magician on the cruise ship.
No signs that I've been in an altercation.
And if you want more proof, I will get naked.
I will take these clothes off right now.
Sorry, did you say you wanted me to get naked?
I'll do it.
I'll whip my dong out right here.
And they were kind of like, please keep your clothes on, sir.
Well, they were like, well, usually we have to ask people.
They don't, like, volunteer to get naked.
And then they, like, turned around for one second.
And then they turned back around.
He'd been in a breakaway jumpsuit.
He was fully nude and bent over and was spreading his cheeks so they could do a cavity search.
Brandy, you have taken it too far.
First, you bring up chodes at the beginning of this episode.
I believe you brought up chodes.
And then you brought up taints.
This used to be a classy podcast.
That's not accurate. Yeah, we used to never talk politics and we were classy do you remember those were the days so at this point they called me in and i said
don't worry boys i've got a friend just like this and i said keep your pants on and so lonnie kept
his pants on and then he told them the same story he told Bill.
He and Mickey had some wine.
She left for tea.
He took some Ambien.
Then he woke up and, oh, my gosh, she wasn't there.
But the FBI wasn't buying it.
Yeah.
And neither was Mickey's family.
They knew something was up.
Yeah.
In fact, the FBI began talking to Mickey's niece, Julia, who is so gorgeous that it's not really fair.
And she has those cheekbones that are like little cliffs, you know, like just cliffs.
And then they just drop off, you know, no meat under them.
Yeah. Not a bit. She has very shiny, straight hair that still has plenty of volume.
Oh, the dream. I know. I know. It's really, yeah, it's not fair.
Anyway, right away, the FBI pegged Julia as a smart cookie.
They also admired her hair and bone structure, I'm sure.
I'm sure.
So they were like, look, we're suspicious of Lonnie.
You're suspicious of Lonnie.
Will you work with us?
Will you record your conversations with him?
Ooh. And Julia said,
sure. So she talked to Lonnie and Lonnie told her just a bunch of stuff. Hey, maybe it was an accident. Mickey had a couple good size glasses of wine that night. Maybe she went overboard.
Like. What? Maybe she went overboard.
Oh, no, no.
That's what.
No, I didn't.
No, I wasn't making a pun.
I meant literally overboard.
Bring a tea.
Did you think I was saying maybe she like went overboard on the drinking?
She like overdid it on the drinking.
No.
No.
Oh, my God.
Gotta give Brandy a minute here. Ah!
Sorry.
Okay. Maybe she literally yeah okay all right i'm fine is this a tough concept no it's not
so i mean i will pause and say like that didn't really make sense because Mickey was like five foot three and these railings were pretty darn high.
Or another possibility, Lonnie was just thrown out there.
Maybe she died by suicide.
Or, hey, we've got all these random crew members all over the place.
All these random people from different countries.
We don't know them.
Who knows what someone might
have done maybe she was murdered murdered not by me yeah the bottom line is we have to know more
about her body we have to figure out the condition of her body oh boy it appears her name is julie
okay at this point I have to pause.
But all of her best friends call her Julie.
So I'm sorry.
I don't know what we've cut from before, but I kept going back and forth on Julie's name.
Yeah.
Calling her Julia.
It's Julie.
I think I was so jealous of the bone structure in the hair that I decided to mess up her name.
That must be it.
Apologies to Julia. I'm sorry, Julie to mess up her name. That must be it. Apologies to Julia.
I'm sorry, Julie.
Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
Oh, no, Brady, don't spit.
Julie.
Oh, no, Brady's going to spit.
I'm getting off the rails this episode.
i'm getting off the rails this episode so julie was like she thought lonnie was being a big fucking weirdo yeah but she kept the lines of communication open and then the autopsy report
came in and it was disturbing the autopsy revealed that that Mickey had been likely strangled.
Oh, my gosh.
Her body was covered in bruises.
There were bruises on the inner thighs, indicating that perhaps she'd been sexually assaulted.
And there was no water in her lungs.
So she was dead when she went in the water.
Yeah.
No water in her stomach.
Mm.
Someone had murdered her and dumped her body into the sea.
It's terrible.
It's at this point that you might be interested to know that when Mickey died, all of her assets went to Lonnie, of course.
Of course they did.
So naturally, Lonnie looked guiltier than ever before, which was too bad because he was totally innocent.
Was he?
Yeah.
At least his friends, Susan and Bill, thought so.
They believed very strongly in his innocence.
And they were professional investigators, so they were the perfect people to have on his side.
And they were like, we know Lonnie didn't do this.
We just have to figure out what did happen.
And so they got out their tweed hats and their magnifying
glasses. And they got their majestic dogs. Yeah. So a few months after Mickey's murder, Susan and
Bill booked a room on the island escape. They documented the heights of different railings on
the ship. They met with the captain. They entered the room where Mickey stayed. And they learned that there had been like 1,500 people on board the ship when Mickey died.
They also learned that there were no security cameras on the ship.
And according to the crew, nobody heard anything suspicious.
Nobody saw anything sus either.
Suspicious.
But Bill and Susan were not Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen because they did not solve the crime by dinner time.
And neither did the FBI.
Instead, in December of 2006, this went before a federal grand jury.
And the grand jury's role wasn't to issue an indictment, but to investigate the death, which I don't fully understand.
Oh, to decide if it should be declared homicide or if it should be declared an accidental
death.
Well, look at you.
OK.
Yeah.
OK.
See, we've had a case before where they did that.
I pay no attention to our previous work.
I couldn't tell you which case it is, but I remember that we did a case where that's
what happened.
This is why you're so good at trivia.
And I'm so good at eating snacks during trivia.
So the grand jury met, and at that time, Amy Wynn, the woman that Lonnie had run back to after Mickey died, testified that she didn't know anything.
Nope. Lonnie had never said anything to her about a murder.
She didn't know a thing.
So no charges were filed against lonnie
what doesn't know anything huh seems mighty sus
you know who you remind me of murder she wrote that's rude angela lansbury yeah the little old
lady lansbury because i got the little old lady. Just like Angela Lansbury.
I was thinking in age. Because I got this butterscotch in my pocket.
But, you know, there's still this cloud of suspicion hanging over Lonnie's head.
And there's still the possibility that he might face criminal charges at some point down the road.
You know what?
I'll have you know that Angela Lansbury was a pretty
hot number back in her day. Yeah. And I'm sure in the 1950s you were too.
You look beautiful for 87.
And you know, some people say it's wrong that you and David are together.
But I say once you're in the sixth grade, you're able to make those choices.
Stop it!
Are you worried that more people will be confused?
Yes.
People think I'm a pedophile now.
Thank you.
It's just a hilarious joke.
That's hilarious.
Brandi's not really a pedophile.
Thank you. Everybody calm down.
Angela Lansbury
played Eglantine in
Bedknobs and Broomsticks and she
had a great set of legs.
Should I Google?
I think Angela Lansbury's awesome.
And her daughter got
mixed up with the Manson
family and so she moved her family on over to London to get them away.
I mean, that's a pretty boss move.
That is a boss-ass move.
So you know what?
You go right ahead and say I'm Angela Lansbury, because I would have thought that was pretty fucking cool.
Ooh, she was a little dish, wasn't she?
Yes!
She had those big eyes.
Big eyes.
Nice set of gams.
You checking out her legs?
Well, no, I didn't Google Angela Lansbury legs, but now I will.
Why not?
Well, look at that.
Right off the bat, image number one.
Yeah.
Pretty nice legs.
Yes. Yeah, look at that it's exactly what i look like
my god she was tiny oh yeah back to it so you know there's still this cloud of suspicion
hanging around lonnie so his good pal Bill offered to help him out.
Bill was like, buddy, let's do a polygraph just to prove that you're totally innocent.
Oh, Brandy's having a strong reaction.
Bill, you're leading him astray.
Yeah, yeah.
Everyone knows that polygraphs are bullshit.
You're an investigator.
Well.
Must have left your vest at home that day.
Just a regular gator.
Okay.
Okay.
So Bill's like, I know an expert polygraph dude named Mike, and Mike will hook you up.
Literally.
To the machine.
Oh, God.
So Lonnie said, okay.
So we did a polygraph, and Mike asked him all these pointed questions like,
did you kill Mickey?
Were you present when she was killed?
Did you cause the death of Mickey Kanesaki?
And once the polygraph ended, Lonnie, you know, excused himself to go to the restroom.
And Mike looked at Bill and he said, are you in on this?
And Bill was stunned.
He said, you want to repeat that again?
And Mike said, you know he's guilty.
Bill thought Mike was joking. Holy shit. He said, Mike, this isn't funny. And Mike said, I'm not trying to be funny.
At this point, Bill started to get uncomfortable. Yeah. Maybe he misjudged this whole situation.
Maybe his friend, whom he defended time and time again, had actually killed
his ex-wife. So Bill and Susan started having doubts, and they started kind of pulling away
from the friendship. And meanwhile, the FBI was still steaming mad about Lonnie. Lonnie clearly
killed Mickey, and he was getting away with it.
So, after Mickey had died, I mentioned that all the money went to Lonnie.
And he, quite wisely, put all that money in an overseas bank account. Uh-huh.
But then, for some reason, Lonnie opened a bank account in Florida
and tried to move more than a million dollars from his overseas account into the new Florida account.
And as soon as he did that, the FBI was like, gotcha, bitch.
And they opened up a civil suit against him.
And then they jumped into the air and did the high five.
And there was like a freeze frame.
No majestic dogs in the background this time.
No, unfortunately, no.
They were unavailable at the time.
So Lonnie was like, yikes.
And he hired an attorney who had two first names, David Michael.
I find that very confusing.
And David was like, this case is no sweat.
My client wasn't doing anything wrong.
You guys could never prove that Lonnie killed Mickey, which he didn't.
So you really have no case.
This is just a man, an innocent man, doing what he wants to do with his own money.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
You can't seize his money.
And the court was like, it's a fair point.
So Lonnie won his civil case.
Wow.
And that pissed off the FBI even more.
Yeah.
So they went to the district attorney and they were like, this guy is a definite murderer.
We have to get some criminal charges on him.
So they talked the DA in Orange County into looking into the case.
Meanwhile, Bill and Susan had their spidey senses piqued.
They thought Lonnie was guilty, but they weren't exactly telling him that.
So when Lonnie asked them to go meet with Amy and figure out what she'd said to the FBI
and what she might say in the future, kind of feel her out a bit,
they were like, okay, we'll do it.
So in January of 2009, they met up with Amy.
Bill stayed in the car because they thought maybe Susan would have better luck with her one-on-one.
So, you know, Susan asks her a bunch of questions.
Have you had contact with the FBI?
What have you told them?
How do you feel about Lonnie?
And, you know, it's going okay.
But Amy got more and more nervous as the conversation went on.
She seemed really afraid.
And finally she broke down.
She said, Lonnie murdered Mickey.
He went on that cruise planning to murder Mickey.
And he did it with the help of his friend, Bill Price.
What?
Yep.
And Susan, who is Bill's partner, was like, uh, excuse me?
Susan knew that was obviously not true.
Right.
So is that the story that Lonnie is telling, though?
That's what he told Amy. Oh my gosh. Okay continue. So Susan's like okay I know this is wrong
but Amy clearly believes this is what happened. So at this point Susan waved for Bill to come
join them and poor Amy must have been terrified because she was convinced that Bill,
a man who organizes dog shows, had connections to the mafia. Holy shit. But they must have
convinced her that Bill was a normal guy because then Susan convinced Amy to let her record the
remainder of their conversation. At this point, Bill is hearing this story and he's like, holy shit, Susan and I were supposed to go on that cruise.
Was Lonnie, my very good friend, planning on framing me for Mickey's murder?
Susan and Bill were pissed.
So the second they flew back to Florida, Bill confronted Lonnie.
He invited Lonnie over and he said,
Hey man, did you tell Amy that I was involved in Mickey's death?
Did you tell her that I had connections?
That I could have had Mickey killed?
What do you think Lonnie said?
No, she's very confused.
No.
He said yes?
He said I wanted her to think I was powerful, that I was a big guy.
Oh.
I was trying to impress her.
No.
You know how you try to impress people?
By saying, oh, my ex, I had him killed?
Yeah.
No.
I saw this in other places.
I can't remember where.
No.
I saw this in other place.
I can't remember where.
But he said that at some point in all this, Lonnie tried to calm him down by being like, oh, don't worry about it.
Amy already lied to the grand jury.
She already said she didn't know anything. Wow.
So everything's fine.
And Bill was like, well, I recorded everything and now that tape
is going to the FBI. By the way, you are
the worst best friend ever. And then he tore
off his necklace, which said
B-E and F-R-I.
And then he threw it on the ground
and he stomped on it
and he said, get out of my house!
Very good. Yeah, that was exactly how it went down.
And then
Bill called the FBI and the FBI called the D. the DA and they all shot off confetti cannons because now, thanks to Amy, they had a witness against Lonnie.
Hell yeah!
The prosecutors were so jazzed that they showed up on Amy's doorstep unannounced, which is the rudest thing I've
ever heard.
Yeah.
And she shut them down.
She was like, nope, I don't want to talk to you.
And they were like, well, okay, cool.
So then they just subpoenaed her.
Of course.
Yeah.
You don't really get to just say that.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
This is where it gets, oh, you ready for some cringe?
Oh, gosh.
You're never ready for cringe.
I'm not.
Hold on.
Let me.
Are you moving your boobs around to prepare yourself?
I just did my sweatshirt.
Okay.
All in the boob area.
Let the record reflect.
Let the record reflect.
So they brought Bill Price to this meeting.
Their logic was she talked to you before.
Maybe she'll talk to you again.
But Amy was scared.
And the recording of this discussion was weird she tried to pretend that
she didn't know bill what here's how she did it i do not know you and he he's talking so he's
talking to her in a normal voice and she's saying, I do not know you. Okay, that's super fucking weird.
I know.
And he's like, yes, you do.
They have the recording.
I gave it to them.
It has you and me talking to each other.
You obviously know me.
And she said, I do not know you.
And he kept being like, yes, we know each other.
I do not know you.
And finally, Bill said, I am not here to kill you. I am here to protect my name and to protect you
and bring you underneath my coat. I'm here to tell them that they messed with you. They messed
with me. I'm here to bring in the best attorneys if I
have to. What I'm not here to do is to protect his lies. He hurt me and everyone else around us.
I'm tired of him. I need your help. I need you to be with me.
He told her essentially that he needed her to step up to the plate.
And at some point, the DA offered her
immunity in exchange for her testimony. And finally, she talked. She said that Lonnie booked
the crews planning to kill Mickey and that he'd scared her into lying when she testified before
the grand jury. That was all investigators needed. Now they had to find Lonnie.
Turns out,
Lonnie was at work.
No kidding.
He wasn't an attorney anymore.
Instead, he ran a business
where he rented out bouncy houses
for kids' birthday parties.
That's a turn.
Cool.
And so,
in what I'm sure was a magical store that smelled of piss and feet,
Lonnie was finally arrested for the murder of Mickey Kanesaki.
Mickey's family was relieved.
It had been seven years since her murder.
But the case against Lonnie could have been stronger.
Yeah, it's not great.
Yes, Mickey had been murdered,
but there was no physical proof that Lonnie had been the one to do it.
Plus, the star witness was a very scared woman who'd lied before a grand jury when she was first asked about Mickey's murder.
But still, it all looked pretty bad. Lonnie had a lot to gain financially from Mickey's death.
His behavior after her death had been pretty sus.
Picious. Oh. from Mickey's death. His behavior after her death had been pretty sus, vicious.
But don't worry, he had excellent legal representation. And by that, I mean he had a public defender and himself. Himself, I was going to say. Lonnie did an excellent job
delaying his trial. He wrote brief after brief after brief and scored himself delay after delay
after delay. Obviously, I'm sure the real attorney had to file the stuff, but you know, Don, Lonnie
did a lot of his own work. It's cheaper that way. Yeah. You'll be happy to know that Lonnie did make
some friends in prison. One of his friends was a guy named Tony. Lonnie approached Tony and another inmate one day
and asked them for some help.
You see, he needed to take out a hit on someone,
but it was more complicated than that.
He wanted someone who could scare Amy Wynn
into taking back what she'd said about him murdering Mickey,
and then as soon as she recanted what she'd said,
he wanted that person to murder Amy.
Okay. Easy pe Amy. Okay.
Easy peasy.
Yeah.
So Tony heard this, and he did the thing that I love the most in this world.
He said, cool, cool, cool.
And then he met with the police and was like,
May, that sketchy Lonnie dude who thinks he's smarter than everyone is trying to pull off a murder for hire.
And the police got just as excited as I was because everyone loves a murder for hire story
and they did the old fake hitman trick yes they had an undercover cop play the role of Greg
a bad boy hitman who would happily kill Amy in this episode of Dateline, they said they had to interview him in disguise so that he could do more undercover work in the future.
And I was expecting, yeah, like the dark shadow.
Yeah.
No, he just had the Groucho Marx glasses on.
He might as well have.
He had on a hat and aviators.
What?
I'm telling you, I think I could pick this guy out.
I'm telling you, I think I could pick this guy out.
So Greg was not a man of mystery, but the dude was experienced.
He has played the role of fake hitman six times in his career.
Four of the six were for people who were in prison, and six of the six were men who wanted to have their wives killed.
Wonderful.
Romance.
So Tony introduced Greg to Lonnie and Lonnie offered Greg a hundred grand to kill Amy.
Wow.
And because Lonnie is not a total.
Yeah, that's actually that's probably the most we've ever covered.
That's a lot.
Yeah.
Most of my cases, it's like two grand and a chili's gift card if you're lucky except for that guy who paid all that money
and like the hit never happened like well that's just a great story that guy was an idiot what
episode was that no idea no clue you'll have to listen to all of them. So, because Lonnie isn't a total idiot, he did speak in code.
Amy's nickname was Property D-16.
He told Greg he wanted to take the property off the market.
No!
Excellent code.
Are you ready for this story to get lame?
Yeah.
Okay.
Unfortunately, Lonnie is about a thousand times smarter than every other murderer.
Figured it out right away?
I mean, but see.
Or he never spoke, he never.
Here's the thing.
He never said killer.
Every, every murder for hire that I have covered on this podcast, they've been total idiots.
Like, total idiots.
Yeah.
Like, the undercover cop is like, oh, I'm just a hitman with a heart of gold.
Remind me, why do you want your husband to be killed?
And the person is never like, hmm, this is weird that the hitman wants to have this conversation with me.
So then they get, like, the tape of the person being like, I just hate him so much.
Oh, here's the two grand that I am giving to you to have my husband killed.
And it's shit for the murder.
Yeah, exactly.
So Lonnie's not that stupid.
And at some point, Greg, the hitman, wrote Lonnie a letter asking him to just clarify some of the code words they were using.
Okay.
Right, I mean.
That's dumb.
Right, I mean.
That's real dumb.
Come on.
And at that point, Lonnie was like screech yeah and he called his attorney and he cut he asked the attorney to call
the cops and let them know that there had been some kind of confusion something was up and then
he called greg and he was like um tony misled me as to what we were doing here. So goodbye. I never wanted anything.
Just so we're clear, it's a classic mix-up.
Classic.
We've all been there.
But despite the fact that this is a clear case of oopsies, I hired a hitman.
He was nonetheless charged with solicitation of murder.
It's unfair.
It's unfair.
Years passed. Really? Yeah, so he did this like his first year in prison. Oh my gosh. Finally, 14 years after Mickey was murdered, Lonnie's trial
began in February of 2020. Holy shit. Yes. At trial, the prosecution argued that Lonnie killed Mickey because he
wanted her money. When they divorced, they'd put everything in her name. Now he wanted it back.
This was his plan for getting that money. Senior Deputy District Attorney Susan Price
said that Lonnie no longer loved Mickey. He'd gotten back with her solely for financial reasons.
The prosecution's first witness was the captain of the Island Escape.
He talked about meeting with Lonnie the morning after Mickey went missing,
and he said that Lonnie wasn't upset or emotional.
The prosecution also played the phone calls that Mickey's niece, Julie,
had recorded from her conversations with Lonnie.
Okay, one of the most damning portions
of this call, and I think this is so interesting, Julie just point blank asked him if he had
anything to do with Mickey's death. And he said, what do you think? Okay, that's not a no. Is this
is this Murderer 101? We've talked about
what's that show
that I just watched
that I love?
90 Day Fiance.
Well, yes.
But there's been
very little murder
in that program.
Dallas Cowboys
making the team.
Dallas Cowboys
cheerleaders making the team.
If it was about
the football team
I'd tell them
to fuck themselves.
Don't you make that
hmm, hmm.
No, it's Death on Murder Beach.
Death on Murder Street.
What am I trying to say?
I'm like, I'm the 87 year old.
It's on HBO.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Murder on something beach.
People are shouting the name at us.
Anyway, in that one, Point Bl blank asks people if they are the murderer.
And in my opinion, the only the true murderer is the only one who's like weirdly evasive.
Everyone else just says no.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I wonder if there's something to it as simple as that.
Right.
I'm not technically lying.
But it's so funny because it.
I don't know. It strikes me as so weird like you've gone through you've done the terrible thing and when someone asks you point blank you
can't just say no maybe there's like some weird psychological thing about them like well okay
maybe they're looking for me to lie and then i'll have a tell if I lie. So I'm not going to lie. Mm-hmm.
Maybe.
I'm going to turn it around on them.
But I mean.
It's stupid.
Brandy, did you murder someone at the Taco Bell today?
No. There you go.
I wish I went to Taco Bell today.
Nacho fries are back.
They sure are.
Don't have to tell me twice.
Oh, could we pause?
Okay, speaking of Taco Bell.
I like to bring it up every now and then.
I just have to pause.
We won't say your full name, but Christine sent us the loveliest little care package today.
Oh, my gosh, yes.
And I don't mean to brag to you all.
It's amazing.
But she sent me a shirt that says Taco Bell and there's an E at the end of bell.
She's like the princess of Taco Bell.
Which is what I've tried to be my whole life, is the princess of Taco Bell.
Yes, and Christine sent me like a travel tumbler that says I will cut you.
So thank you so much.
This is a ploy for more gifts.
No, it's not, Christine.
Totally.
No, we mentioned Taco Bell and I was like, I have to brag about my shirt.
Yeah, it's awesome.
So after they played that damning tape,
then came the experts who talked about the autopsy report
and the toxicology report.
Interestingly, the toxicology report showed that Mickey
didn't have any alcohol in her system.
Oh, weird.
So weird she hadn't been just drinking wine all night?
Right.
Right.
And we already know that the autopsy report
showed that she'd been strangled and died before she hit the water.
Bill Price testified.
Amy testified.
She said that Lonnie told her that the plan for the cruise was that Bill's people would throw Mickey in the water and that Bill and Susan would act as his witnesses.
But when Bill canceled at the last minute, Lonnie had to, quote, take matters into his own hands.
Oh, my gosh.
So, you know, the trial rolled on with a bunch of witnesses, many of them from Italy.
And now we're in March of 2020.
And COVID happens.
That bitch Miss Rona rolled right in.
And again, they're from Italy.
Yeah.
So at this point, the coronavirus is becoming a massive pain in the skunch.
They had all these Italian witnesses and literally 48 hours after the last Italian witness went back to Italy, boom, came the travel ban.
Wow.
And boom goes the dynamite.
Sorry, I couldn't not.
Kristen.
I'm of a certain age.
I have to say.
So at that point, all hell broke loose because, you know, 2020.
Yeah.
And the court, just like everyone else, was like, well, shit, we've got to hit pause.
Yeah.
And so this trial was paused for two months.
Holy shit.
Due to Ms. Rona.
Yes.
And in May of 2020, after that two-month delay, the defense argued for a mistrial.
They said, it's been two months since we last got together.
There's no way the jury is going to keep that information in their heads.
It's not fresh in their minds.
We have to start over at a start date of never o'clock.
Does never 30 work?
But the judge disagreed.
Oh, good.
He said, it's important to have the rule of law, even in a pandemic.
And so the jury came back and they were all socially distanced all over the courtroom and they were masked up.
And nobody did the thing where they had their nose hanging out over their mask like a big dong.
I hate it when people do that.
Bill Clinton did that at the inauguration.
Oh, I missed it.
I didn't see him doing that.
They say it's the new man spreading.
Is that really a thing?
Who's they?
Is they Kristen?
Don't worry about it.
Don't you worry.
I'm sorry, but I find it so distracting when someone's like, how do they not know how that looks?
Okay.
What?
Legitimately, we have a client that comes in to the tanning salon every day.
Every day?
He wears his mask in a straight line across his face.
A straight line?
Like it doesn't come down over his chin.
Oh.
It's like over his nose and his mouth.
But then it's also like coming up too high because he doesn't have it connected under his chin.
It's like he doesn't know how they work.
And yet he sees people in them all the time.
Okay.
Brandy's putting on her mask.
I wonder...
That's so weird looking.
I technically have my mask on.
Is my mouth covered?
I mean, technically.
Is my nose covered?
Technically, yes.
Yes, I mean, yeah.
Then you tell me who's wrong.
It just looks so strange.
It looks ridiculous.
And every day I'm like, does he know it doesn't work like that?
Are you going to have it that way for the rest of this recording?
So after this two-month break, Lonnie testified in his own defense.
Oh, boy.
Turned out, and this will be a bit of a surprise to you Lonnie haters out there,
the real victim in this whole thing. Is Lonnie?
Oh, yes.
Yes, yes, yes.
Afraid so.
Victim of judgment, huh?
All kinds of things.
Victim of circumstance.
Are you ready for this?
Victim of that budget cruise line.
All he wanted to do was have some fun at an affordable price point.
Is getting a bargain wrong?
Are the Maxinistas going to be locked up?
If bargain cruises are wrong,
I don't want to be right.
They are so wrong.
So wrong.
How much norovirus do you think is on a barking cruise? Well, that's the thing.
Okay.
You know, there are terrible stories were coming out before Miss Rona.
Yeah.
About like, you know, people get stuff at the buffet, then prayers for everyone's butthole on board.
Yes.
You know.
I, what?
I remember a story about a norovirus cruise where people were shitting in the hallways
oh no so sick no yeah and they're just like recirculating air through those things so
i mean oh just shit air just poop yeah poop particles everywhere you got norovirus and pink eye now
do you think anyone
managed to fall in love
on that course
I don't think so
I mean that would be real tough
I bet many a divorce was threatened
I bet so
oh you saved $300
thanks a lot.
So anyway, Lonnie was the victim here.
And that's all there is to it.
Lonnie painted Mickey as a violent hothead.
He said that one time she got so mad that she threw a fax machine down from the second floor of their house down to the living room.
At him or?
I'm not real sure how it all went down, but it was pew, fax machine, kaboom.
Yeah.
And oh, it was just awful.
Cops came and Lonnie had to talk him down, had to manage to convince everyone it was fine.
Who called the cops?
This sounds like malarkey.
No.
Balderdash.
No.
Poppycock.
No.
Also, Mickey had depression and Lonnie really helped her through all that and stood by her.
He's a hero and a victim.
Oh, woe is me.
And then he managed to talk some shit on some other people.
Mickey's niece, Julie, the one who recorded all those phone conversations.
Well, that was just so hurtful.
Okay.
And then his friend Bill turned on him oh the pain
i'm not feeling sorry for lani at all how about this one let's not even talk about amy
well okay let's talk about her she's a gold digger a liar and a gold about her. She's a gold digger. A liar and a gold digger. Can't trust a gold digger.
The defense also argued that the injuries to Mickey's body indicated a broken neck, which is consistent with a fall.
So she broke her neck when she fell in the water.
The defense also, of course, attacked Amy's credibility she'd lied to the grand jury
who's to say she wasn't lying now and finally five months after the trial began the jury went
into deliberation they deliberated for one hour wow and they found him guilty of first degree
murder for financial gain which is a special little thing. Oh, what does that mean?
What happens now?
Well, now he goes to life.
Yeah, yeah.
Is there like a special like?
It's just a special circumstance.
A little piece of flair gets added to your vest.
Your sash.
Thank you.
Your prison sash.
Prison sash.
So Lonnie was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
What if you had to wear a sash in prison with all of your convictions on it?
I think for some people that would be really bad.
For some people it would be kind of fine.
Yeah.
Well, what the hell do I know?
Well, I would just think that you wouldn't want the child molester badge.
No, exactly.
That's for sure.
You wouldn't want the...
Maybe if it's a certain crime, that should be required.
You think?
Yeah.
Scarlet letter?
Maybe.
In an environment that's all scarlet letters anyway, because you're already wearing the
orange jumpsuit?
Yeah, maybe.
It's not dangerous enough in there as it is.
Why am I trying to rile it up?
Maybe this is a bad idea.
Would it be a deterrent?
I don't think so.
Probably not.
I mean, yeah, I don't think that would be a deterrent at all.
Do you?
No.
I mean, maybe if you had to wear your merit badges out in the regular world.
Like as a sex offender or whatever.
But I mean, a sex offender is already very targeted in there.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I'm sad to say I don't think this merit badge idea is going to take off.
I think it's one of those brainstorming ideas we just have to put on the show.
What would your vest say?
Well, I haven't broken any laws, Kristen.
Bullshit.
You wouldn't have.
You know, I sped in 19.
I've gotten one speeding ticket in my life, yes.
Really?
Yeah.
Tell me all about it.
It was right in front of my house.
Oh, that's right.
And I didn't have my driver's license or anything on me. I literally, I had a work meeting that day and I'd gone to pick up signs from my dad that I had to take to the work meeting.
And so I literally.
And you thought you were above the law.
I did.
I thought I was above the law.
I was just like speeding like a little badass.
I was probably 22.
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
And I pulled up to my house and there was a cop right behind me like I hadn't even noticed.
Yeah.
He pulled me over and he's like, I clocked you doing 40 in a 30.
And I was like, you did?
I didn't even see you.
Tried to play innocent.
I didn't see you.
I was going so fast.
And then I was like, I'm literally at my house.
I don't have anything with me.
Like I didn't grab my purse.
I don't have my driver's license. I don't have anything with me like i don't i didn't grab my purse i don't have my driver's license i don't have anything and he's like were you crying no i wasn't
he said i remember you he was the police officer who had come to my house after the guy came into
my garage oh and so he's like i will let you go in and get your driver's license because i'm
familiar with you yeah it's like i trust that're not going to go in there and do anything crazy.
And so I went in and I got my driver's license.
And you came back out with a gun.
I mean, that really, really was kind of risky.
That could have turned dangerous, I guess.
I think he got a read on you.
So, yes, I went in.
I got my driver's license.
I came out and I got a speeding ticket.
Maybe this is white privilege right here.
Maybe. Yeah, absolutely right here. Maybe.
Yeah, absolutely it is. Yeah.
It absolutely is.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah, that would not be many people's experience with the police.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yes, it was very, very much a privileged experience.
Yeah.
It's funny because I said, well, he kind of sussed out the situation.
No, you were a white lady in Johnson County.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
So that's my one speeding ticket I've ever gotten in my life.
I think I've gotten two.
And the stories just aren't that exciting.
So, yeah, I guess our merit badges would be pretty lame.
They would be super lame.
So since Lonnie got sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, the DA's office dropped the murder for higher charge.
What?
Okay.
I mean, they didn't probably have much on him.
Yeah, yeah.
And there wasn't going to be anything
to gain from it
alright alright
okay fine
I'll allow it
you allow it
I'll allow it
and in a move
that will surprise no one
you will be
excited to learn
that he has appealed
of course he has
no word on that yet
and that's the story
of a cruise ship
wow
that was very like the time on that was so
drawn out it was it was a mess i felt really bad for mickey's family she sounded like a wonderful
woman one thing i didn't like was in this episode bill had said something like you know about his
role in it and i don't know he said something like it doesn't matter if she was a bad person or a good person or whatever.
You know, I had to do the right thing.
And it's like, I think he still believed some of the bullshit Lonnie had said about Mickey because from what everyone else said, Mickey was a lovely person.
Yeah.
And she didn't deserve to be murdered i wonder cruise
ship absolutely i wonder if she has family members that her assets would go back to i would hope so
i would hope so i bet you he blew through a lot of that you're probably right you're probably right. You're probably right. Hmm. Yeah. Poor Mickey.
Yeah.
I'm not going to be taking any budget cruises anytime soon, I'll tell you that.
That's the real lesson.
Whew.
All right.
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and at the $7 level, you get
all that plus monthly bonus
videos and you get a sticker, a card with our autographs.
You get inducted into the Supreme Court at the end of an episode.
And at the $10 level, that's the Bob Moss level, you get to listen to ad-free episodes a day early.
And you get 10% off on merch.
And you get kind of the heads up on the merch, too.
That's right.
That's right.
They got kind of first dibs at the limited run.
Very exciting stuff.
If you've ever seen a Walmart on Black Friday, that's what happens.
That's essentially what our merch store looked like.
So you just, you know, bring it on next time.
Oh, my phone wants to restart.
Absolutely not.
Do it after 2 a.m. is what I say.
Sometimes you got to be tough.
Yeah, with your phone.
Yeah.
You haven't really showed who's boss.
Kind of a badass situation here.
Oh, my God.
I just saw one I have to know.
Bob Moss for Life wants to know, Brandy, worst hair care products.
Oh, gosh.
What is it?
Worst hair care products?
Yeah, come on.
You've got to have an opinion.
Like the worst thing you can put on your hair?
No, that's not what they're asking.
They're like, you know, is there a product that you're just like, this is garbage.
Garbage.
Yeah, I would say the one that's most commonly used that's actually really hard on your hair is Pantene.
Really?
Yeah.
You're kidding me.
No.
Why?
Because it's wax-based.
Really?
Yeah.
You're kidding me.
Nope.
Why?
Because it's wax-based.
And so it actually causes a buildup on your hair.
And then it keeps your hair from getting its natural nutrients.
Shit.
And so it becomes brittle and breaks.
There's all kinds of videos you can find of people, like, removing the waxy buildup.
If a person has used it enough, you can literally, like, take the edge of your sheer and scrape it off of the hair strand.
I would love to watch those videos.
Yeah.
It sounds very relaxing to me.
It's a real shame because it smells so good.
I love the smell of pants.
They used to have those incredible commercials. Remember how silky the hair was?
I'm glad we had this discussion.
Lisa K. asks, how excited are you for the Super Bowl?
I'm so excited.
Kristen, you going to watch?
Yeah, I'll be there.
For the snacks?
Yeah.
Did I tell you what happened last week?
No.
So, you know, we had, you know, just the family.
Yeah.
Watch the Super Bowl.
Well, no, it wasn't the Super Bowl.
It was the playoffs.
It was the playoffs, yeah.
I know what it was.
Yep.
Shut up.
Uh-huh. AFC Championship. So, you know i i was down there in the basement with everybody and you know then
the kids left and i was like oh i'm just gonna go get myself another drink and you know so i went
upstairs poured myself a drink and i realized like i could go back downstairs where there's more
football or i could just go upstairs and be alone and watch YouTube videos.
And so that's what I did.
So boring.
So boring.
No!
Football?
Oh, I love it.
So much.
Patrick Mahomes is just like a joy to watch.
He's this amazing leader.
McCole Hardman dropped the ball and the Buccaneers ended up very easily being able
to score. He dropped it like on the one yard line and then the Buccaneers scored a touchdown the
very next play. He went over to the sideline and he like buried himself under his coat and freaking
Patrick Mahomes came up to him, pulled the coat off and he's like, ah, don't do that. Be you.
Patrick Mahomes came up to him, pulled the coat off, and he's like, ah, don't do that.
Be you.
You're good.
We've got this.
And then he went out there and he, like, made plays for McCool Hardman so that he could redeem himself.
He ran, like, a pass, like, 50 yards back, like, the very next play.
It was amazing.
That is really, really sweet.
Yes.
Unfortunately, it's so boring to watch all that.
But I do like this sweet story about, you know, people being nice.
Oh, it was definitely the Bills that we played, not the Buccaneers.
I think I said the Buccaneers.
We play the Buccaneers in the Super Bowl. Yeah. Why don't you learn a thing about sports, okay? Oh, it was definitely the Bills that we played, not the Buccaneers. I think I said the Buccaneers. We play the Buccaneers in the Super Bowl.
Yeah, why don't you learn a thing about sports, okay?
Oh, okay.
Bresh asks, where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?
Do you remember playing the computer game, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?
Uh, vaguely. It was also like an afternoon show.
It was like a game show type of thing.
Do you remember that?
Yeah.
Okay.
Also like an afternoon show.
It was like a game show type of thing.
Do you remember that?
Okay.
Okay.
My grandparents had like one of those Apple computers with the keyboard built in and you put the floppy disk in, you know, you picture what I'm talking about.
Okay.
They had Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego.
I loved playing it.
Except that to make a guess, like you put all the clues together and you had to guess where she was,
you had to be able to spell the city
right. And I was always terrible
at spelling.
And so I'd be like, I remember one of them was Kokomo
and I could never remember how to spell
Kokomo.
And so I just have to like, and you only got like
a couple of guesses before you're like,
you lost. But I'm sure you took
it really well. I took it
so well. Maggie wants to know, how fast would you have reported your Facebook friends to the FBI
if they post about being at the insurrection at the Capitol? Okay, Brandy. Someone big.
I've been meaning to talk to you about this.
Have you seen billboards?
They're all around Kansas City saying, you know,
if you know someone who was at the Capitol, contact the FBI.
There has to be someone in Kansas City that they're looking for.
There has to be.
Right?
Oh, my gosh.
No, I've not seen those billboards.
But that's really tough because there's only one mayor of Kansas City.
So who's going to be reporting that to the fbi you have to contact the mayor first and then i totally
i was like looking at you like what the fuck so is the billboard no you can call lucas you can
call the fbi directly fun fact not a lot of people know you don't have to do it through the mayor
no okay so here's what I wanted
to talk to you about. And we'll have
this discussion. Okay. How about
this? Alright.
If you successfully
reported someone
to the FBI
and you can prove it to us,
could we give that person a free
LGTC shirt?
Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Absolutely. Alright. us could we give that person a free lgtc shirt oh yeah okay yeah okay yeah absolutely all right
just you know get in contact with us you know have your mayor contact us that's how you get
contact with us our mayor nipple flicker oh my god should you not wash your hair the day before
you get it done or is that a myth?
That is a myth.
Do not come to me with your dirty ass hair.
If it's like second day hair, that's fine.
What are you doing to people's ass hair?
That's – if it's second day hair, that's fine.
There is no need to not wash your hair for multiple days before getting it done.
There is no service that you are getting done
that that is a requirement for color works better on clean hair i don't know who is lying to people
somebody told me it's brad mondo which i got problems with brad mondo if you're telling
people that you know that's not right because lots of color services you do clarifying treatments
before you seem like a lady who has had your fangers
in some dirty dirty ass hair and you're sick of it dirty ass hair and people are like well i figured
you know i've heard it's better to come in with with maybe people are just saying that to you
no people there's like an old life's tale i believed it and then you said no and then i was
like well this is just embarrassing that I've shown up with dirty hair.
You do not have to come with like freshly washed styled hair, but do not bring me three day old hair.
You know what I do?
What?
I just don't shower entirely for a week.
And then when I'm back at the shampoo bowl i just ask you to hose me down yes yeah absolutely
or usually just like enough water pools in your ear oh shut it rinse off real quick you guys
brandy brandy's always telling me oh your ears aren't that big you're being so silly
then when she washes my hair she likes to make note of the fact that water pools up in my ears like little kiddie pools.
Or big kiddie pools, as it were.
DeVry Law School asks, which is a wonderful name.
What's a household chore you weirdly love doing and one you cannot stand to do?
I know what yours is.
You know what one I love doing?
Yeah.
Vacuuming.
Yes!
I love vacuuming!
Everybody, this woman loves to vacuum.
I do!
She's a vacuuming freak.
I love vacuuming and I love vacuums.
Yet you're somehow up to date on all the latest vacuuming technology.
That's right.
I even got to do like a trial for a new, I got to be a tester for a new vacuum that came out.
How did you, are you on some kind of weird list?
I got an email.
And I was like, this sounds too good to be true.
And so I responded to it.
Didn't give them my social security number or anything.
Don't worry.
And then they sent me this awesome vacuum that I can't tell you.
I can't tell you anything about it because I signed a thingy.
But I did get to participate in a vacuum trial.
That's a shame because we are just dying to know what vacuum it was.
I know you are.
Brandy, if they sign up on the Patreon.
Wait, what's one that I can't stand?
I don't love dusting.
I hate dusting.
You're going to move shit around.
It's a pain in the ass.
Very little payoff with dusting, I have found.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Oh, sticky situation.
You are not the first to ask this.
Brandy, when will you share your Animal Crossing dream code so we can see your beautiful island?
I will do it.
I will share it in the gaming channel when I figure out what the fuck that means.
I promise.
I'll ask David.
He'll help me, and I'll share it.
You know, Norman has joked that they could take down the podcast
in the gaming section of the Discord
and he's absolutely right. I never check that
section. I just know it's never
going to be relevant to me. I look at every other
section of our Discord, but I do not
look there.
Coconuts, yes. Do either of you judge
or stop people for having their noses
out of their mask? I judge every single one of them.
I'm not going to confront anybody about their mask.
I've never stopped anybody.
Yeah, I've never confronted anyone either.
But yeah, I judge.
Yeah, I'm going to look at you like you're a fucking idiot because you are.
I will give a harsh look.
Yeah.
I'll look at you like your dick's hanging out of your pants.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Because that's essentially what you're doing.
Yes.
Dick to the wind. This is a really tough question, but something obviously I have personal experience with. Do you ladies
have any advice on getting over being cheated on? I think the biggest thing for me was to
really realize that like that was not my fault. Yeah. And that did not reflect on who I was.
Yeah.
That was huge for me.
Yeah.
I there was nothing I did that caused that to happen.
Right.
And I think that's really important.
That is on the other person.
How did you get to that point?
It was it was really tough.
That was super tough.
You helped me a lot. My you helped me a lot um my
family helped me a lot amazing you are you are i had amazing support who who just were like
you're amazing like yeah this is not this is not a reflection on you yeah and and that was
yeah i really felt like what should i have done differently? What did I do to cause this?
And like, that is the biggest thing.
Get, leave that.
That is.
That's the other person's issues.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And it's tough.
It is tough to get over that and get past that and see that that is somebody else's actions.
And that is not nothing of your doing but that is
very very important in my opinion it also helped that he was
patty please bleep that
performance help. Okay. Danny Mika asks, Kristen, what are your feelings about self-published books?
As a writer, I have complicated feelings toward them. I wonder if it's just me. I don't think it's just you. I think, you know, I think if that's the way you want to go, I think you should
do it and you shouldn't feel weird about it. And I honestly think like there are so many gatekeepers to
publishing that if what you want is just to get your book out there and get your book into the
hands of some people, then you should do it. For me, that just was never the dream. The dream was
never to self-publish. The dream was to go with a big traditional publisher and i'm still working on it working on it but you know if if after a while it doesn't work out then
i would probably self-publish but i'm still trying to do the traditional route oh my gosh this is not So this thing, apparently. What?
In China, they are now doing anal swab COVID tests.
What? Why?
Because it shows if it's in your system longer than a nasal swab does.
Oh, geez.
Because there's still people who are having like, I don't know, symptoms, but are testing negative.
And so they're checking the.
So is it just more accurate?
I guess.
A couple people tweeted us this link today and somebody just shared it in the Discord.
And you know what those people go in and say to the nurses?
I heard it's better if I don't shower for a couple days first.
Gross.
Well, seriously.
I mean, hopefully you.
I think you don't i think you just it's like a cvs drive through and you just pull your pants down and hang your ass out the window oh well that's not
weird at all good good that's great oh how terrible yeah i mean okay i told you though what
my my butt swab hurt way less than my COVID test.
Okay.
But, Brandi, that's because you were being ridiculous about that butt swab.
I mean, it's just a little butt swab.
You have poos bigger than that all the time.
Of course it's not going to hurt.
Well, you do.
You do.
You know what?
You helped me a lot on an episode of the podcast.
We were talking about swallowing pills.
Yeah.
And you said, you know, you knock back pills, you know, no big deal.
And I've always been, I've always really struggled with taking pills.
And I always said, you know, I can only take one at a time.
Right.
And you said to me, you swallow bites of food bigger than that all the time.
And I had never thought of it that way.
But now I think of you every time I take pills.
Oh, wonderful.
And yeah.
I think of you every time I shit.. Oh, wonderful. I think of you every time I shit.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Like, that little
swab going up your ass.
Good lord, you have
shits bigger than that every damn
day. You're barely gonna notice it.
I eat pieces of shit bigger than you for breakfast.
What does that say?
That's from a movie.
I don't see those. I mostly
just watch 90 Day Fiancé.
Senior Bigfoot
asks, which game show
would you most like to be on? Which I think we've talked
about before. We have. However,
I wouldn't normally answer because
we've answered it before. There is a new
one that I am dying to be on.
What is it?
It's the reboot of Name That Tune.
Oh, you know what?
I saw a little bit of that.
I left the room because I was bored.
You would be great on that show.
Oh, I want to be on it so bad.
You would be really, really good.
And you know what I found out?
What?
Which makes me even more jealous that I didn't know that it was a thing that was happening or I could have auditioned.
They filmed this current season in Australia because they've got their COVID shit together.
Weird.
I wonder what that's like.
See, we've got it great here because kids aren't allowed to go to school, but we can stay at bars until 2 a.m.
And that's the way it should be.
Right?
Nothing wrong with that.
No.
I was reading this article the other day that just, I mean, it made me so sad.
So it was about this push to get schools reopened.
And it was like, you know, people were saying, you know, we think we can do it safely as
long as a bunch of safety protocols are followed, as long as there's masks.
You know, we have to do all these things.
But the key is that if we reopen schools, we have to stop doing stuff like having bars open and doing all this optional extra shit that is spreading a bunch of crap and really doesn't add to people's lives.
Like school.
Like education.
For a child
like Jesus Christ
getting all
fired up
Danny Mika I guess not
a question here but a
comment worthy of mention
okay is it a compliment to you
they said
your Roman salad joke was
hilarious Brandy yes it was thank you for appreciating it what was your Roman salad joke was hilarious, Brandy.
Yes, it was.
Thank you for appreciating it.
What was your Roman salad joke? So a few people were complaining about you getting a Greek salad.
And you got it and it was messed up and you opened it up and you and then you pause.
And I was like, it was a Roman salad.
You know what?
It's kind of a Dixon cider situation where I just roll past because I'm so focused on the fact that I had cheddar cheese on a Greek salad.
I'm over it.
This is from Sweet Cheek.
Sweet Cheek, not Sweet Cheek?
Sweet Cheek.
Oh, very different.
Very different.
Would you rather be a famous actor in a big movie or would you rather be the face of a famous painting?
Famous actor in a big movie.
Why?
It's more active. If you're just a face in a painting.
What if you're the Mona Lisa?
What if that's you?
I don't know.
People admire you for centuries to come.
I mean, yeah.
I guess the big movie thing is more fleeting.
Yeah.
But, like, if you're the famous actor, you get to actually do something.
You know, it's not that you painted a famous painting.
No.
It's that you're just posting it.
You're not painting the painting.
I understand.
You're just posting.
You're being painted.
Yeah.
So you really have done nothing.
People are like, oh, it's the Mona Christi.
People try and steal you from museums.
Uh-huh.
Well, I mean.
And then you end up in some
stupid guy's
secret closet of pictures. Yeah, which happens,
Brandy. It happens.
He's got a closet worth
two billion dollars and he can't tell anyone about it.
The thing is... He just goes in there and sits.
The thing is, is that
this already happens to me. I walk
into the grocery store and
people just are looking and they are liking what they are seeing.
Is it because your nose is hanging out of your mask?
They are like, my God, would you look at that woman?
I must know her name.
Here's what this really boils down to.
name. Here's what this really boils down to.
Do you want the fame and the money
from the big movie
that you can enjoy in this, you know,
in your lifetime, or do you want
the legacy?
No, that's not what it boils down to at all.
In one,
you have an active role.
You are actually doing something. You are acting
and it is celebrating. It is an active role
of being the beauty in the painting.
No, you sit in a stool.
I'm not saying it's nothing, but I'm saying like what role did you really play?
Okay, what if this particular painting is of you putting your legs behind your head?
Does that make you feel better?
You know what?
It would.
If it was a painting of me doing something really cool that I actually did, then yes.
Uh-huh.
Yes.
Okay.
And then people will admire it.
And they're like, my God, she could get her legs back so far.
Look how limber she was.
Oh.
The limber Kristen.
What would you choose? I I mean you're obviously painting
no I think I'd choose the actor
what
you were just playing devil's advocate
look at you
I should have known
should have known
you wanted nothing to do
with a famous work of art someone would try to
steal you off the wall and you'd be like dumb ass what are you gonna do with this thing and put this
in your stupid closet and pet your stupid evil cat and then old fat what are they drinking those
highball glasses like an old-fashioned yeah good. Just like scotch neat. Maybe.
Or like a really expensive red wine.
Oh, yeah. Right.
In one of those.
You know what I'm talking about?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
I know exactly what you're talking about.
Yeah.
Here.
But what.
Bulbous wine glass.
What if the person was full of surprises?
So they pick you up.
They're drinking a Red Bull.
They take you home. They sip fireball. And look at you up, they're drinking a Red Bull. They take you home,
they sip Fireball.
And then what?
Vomit all over me?
There are no rules.
You're in some dude's house now.
His evil lair where he drinks Fireball.
Oh, if you, if you, sorry. If if you if you watched that program that new name that two
name that tune thing the host isn't that jane krakowski yes from uh from uh 30 rock yeah love
her yeah but did you hear that there was a rumor that she dated the crazy MyPillow guy? No! Yeah, yeah. There was a big scandal.
People were saying they had dated secretly,
and she came out and said, no, that didn't happen.
He also came out and said it didn't happen,
and he's threatening to sue, like, the Daily Mail or somebody,
and it's like, dude.
I'd be like, yeah, I begged her.
Absolutely.
Yes, she was so in love with me.
Yeah!
Like, you're the fucking MyPillow guy.
You're the MyPillow guy, and she's beautiful and hilarious.
And doesn't seem to have insane takes on politics.
Yeah.
But anyway.
He might have gotten his Twitter shut down.
Oh, it's a shame.
You guys, I tried to tell Brandy about a conspiracy theory thing and she said I was making it up.
Turns out I was not.
No, it was real.
It was real.
It was just stuff from the real deep internet.
Anyway, shall we move on to Supreme Court inductions?
Absolutely.
Hold on.
Let me pull up my Supreme Court inductions here.
I'll allow it.
Okay.
This week we are continuing with your names and favorite cookies.
We are.
We're required to say.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's in our contract.
By the powers that be.
With the Supreme Court.
Valerie Fair.
Milanos.
Katie Larimer. Ranger Cookies. Valerie Fair. Milanos. Katie Larimer.
Ranger Cookies.
Kara Richards.
Butterscotch Chip.
Sarah Kane.
Animal Cookies.
Tylee.
Compost Cookies.
Those have pretzel pieces in it?
That sounds amazing.
Cassie Carpenter.
Snickerdoodles.
Carolyn Burkham.
My Husband's Homemade Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip Cookies. Caitlin Seder. Carpenter. Snickerdoodles. Carolyn Burkham. My husband's homemade peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies.
Caitlin Seder.
Slightly burnt peanut butter cookies.
Okay, they're delicious that way.
Have you had like an overdone peanut butter cookie?
I don't like an overdone cookie.
An overdone peanut butter cookie is different than any other kind of cookie that's overdone, Kristen.
Calm down, ma'am.
It becomes like chewy and caramelized.
Okay, well that does sound good.
Yes.
Kenzie Taylor. Sugar cookies don scarberry gooey homemade chocolate chunk cena highbear gingerbread
cookies tay chunky chocolate chip jade prater peanut butter cookie with Hershey Kiss. A. Beaton. Snickerdoodle.
Courtney L.
Smarties Cookie.
Okay, I'm imagining the sugar Smarties that we have.
I'm guessing it's the chocolate Smarties that they have like in the UK and Canada.
I don't know.
Go wild, man.
Beth Bard.
Yellow Cake Mix Cookies.
Yellow Cake Mix rolled in powdered sugar.
Okay.
All right.
Okay.
All right.
Megan Bowman.
Iced pumpkin cookies.
Martha Jacobson.
Soft chocolate chip.
Welcome to the Supreme Court.
Don't shake your tatas at me.
That's a treat for you.
You ungrateful little thing.
Thank you guys for all of your support.
We truly appreciate it.
If you're looking for other ways to support us, please find us on social media.
We're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Patreon.
Please remember to subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen.
And head on over to Apple Podcasts.
Leave us a rating.
Leave us a review.
And then be sure to 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 got my info from an episode of Dateline titled Open Water,
as well as reporting from NBC Los Angeles and the New York Post. I got my info from
MurderByGaslight.com, the New York Daily News, Hudson Valley Magazine, Newspapers.com and
Wikipedia. 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.