Let's Go To Court! - 219: 48 Hours!

Episode Date: July 20, 2022

In this episode, we both covered cases from 48 Hours. Did we plan for this to be a themed episode? Yes. Yes we did. We are professionals. Brandi starts us off, as she often does, with a story about a staircase. (No, not that staircase.) When Lana Clayton flagged down a passing motorcyclist, she said that her husband, Steve Clayton, had fallen down the stairs. She feared he was dead. When emergency crews arrived on the scene, they initially thought that Steve had died from a heart attack. But Lana’s behavior indicated otherwise. Then Kristin tells us about Nikki Kuhnhausen. From a very early age, Nikki embraced her gender identity. As a pre-teen, Nikki boldly opted to be exactly who she was — a confident trans girl who aspired to become a makeup artist. But her dreams were cut short when she met a transphobic man named David Bogdanov. 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: An episode of 48 hours, titled “The Life and Death of Nikki Kuhnhausen” The podcast, “Should be alive” In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “The Eye Drop Homicide” episode 48 Hours “Everyone’s Favorite Uncle” episode American Monster “S.C. nurse who fatally poisoned husband with eye drops: "I just wanted him to suffer”” by Peter Van Sant, CBS News “Nurse Gets 25 Years For Fatally Poisoning Her Husband With Eye Drops” by Jill Sederstrom, Oxygen “Officials said he died in a fall. Then his wife admitted to poisoning his water with eye drops” by Hannah Knowles, The Washington Post "Woman sentenced to 25 years in prison for poisoning husband's drinking water with eye drops” by Ivan Pereira and Karma Allen, ABC News 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 30+ full length bonus episodes, plus access to our 90’s style chat room!  

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 be talking about trans panic. And I'll be talking about yet another staircase.

Mmm! You know what? What? I've been a bad girl and I've looked at... I know, that's a gross thing to say. But I've looked ahead at our sources. We both pulled from 48 Hours episodes this week. Oh, it's a 48 Hours themed episode.

Please don't say I've been a bad girl like that ever again. Okay. You know what? I tried to stop myself. But I couldn't. Should I spank you? Sign up for our Patreon to see Brandi spank me for saying I'm a bad girl. I am sorry.

That was unnecessary of me to say. It was. Anyway. I'm going to file sexual harassment. How are you doing there, Brandi? I'm doing great. How are you doing? Yeah, pretty good.

Pretty good. That's the end of the story. Yeah. I mean, we've seen a lot of each other in these past few days. Yeah, we recorded a bonus episode for the Patreon a day and a half ago. That's right. And here we are cranking out yet another award-winning episode. Phoned it in big time.

Or did we? Or did we? You decide. You be the judge. And if you want to hear that episode we just recorded, you got to sign up for our Patreon at the $5 level or higher. That's right. At the $5 level, you get all the bonus episodes, all the back bonus episodes, plus you get into the Discord

to chitty chat the day away. You know, someone just joined the Discord and they were like, I've been hanging out on Patreon. I thought that was the Discord. I thought it was so boring. Yeah, there's some confusion. It's a separate thing than just the Patreon. Yeah, it's a whole separate app you gotta get.

Yeah, if it doesn't feel like a 90s chat room. You're not in the right place. If someone's not asking your ASL, you are in the wrong spot, my dear. What happens at the $7 level on our Patreon, Kristen? You don't know? How unprofessional. You get all

that, plus you get monthly Zoom calls with us. Will I be spanked in this month's Zoom call? We just don't know. Brandi's acting like she's not interested, but you know, things can change. I'm watching that sex room show, and you know, people say they're not into

stuff, all of a sudden they're into it. So, you know, things can happen. Also at that level, you get a lovely card with our lovely autographs and a sticker. Oh, yeah, that's fun. Plus, you get inducted on this very podcast. Oh, yeah, that's fun. And at the $10 level, that's the Bob Moss level.

Did I sound like Julia Child? Oh, you kind of did. Oh. Yeah. Anyway, you get all that. Plus, you get ad-free episodes, and you get them a day early. That's my line. Plus, 10% off merch.

Mm-hmm. Or off on merch. I'm going to go off on you. I'm sorry. I'm going to go off on you. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm in a strange mood. You just did my hair. I've got wet hair.

You do have wet hair. And I can't be expected to be my best with wet hair. That's not true. Only like really, really fucking hot people look good with wet hair. It's true. You know it's true. You don't want to agree, but you've got to be really, really hot. You do have to be really hot to pull off wet hair.

Yeah, because it's like, ooh, I'm picturing them coming out of the shower. It's that vibe. That is exactly the vibe. Anyone else with wet hair, it's like, that's kind of unprofessional. Yeah. Yep. Here I am to give you my greatest dick jokes. And I've got wet hair and it's unprofessional.

I can see why you're upset. It's okay. It's fine. It's totally fine. All right, you want to talk about a staircase? Yeah, I hate to admit it. I like it when you do these staircase ones. But it scares the shit out of me because I have stairs in admit it. I like it when you do these staircase ones. I know, my favorite.

But it scares the shit out of me because I have stairs in this house. I know. Some of them quite rickety. I'm on a mission to cover all the staircase cases, but maybe not the actual staircase. Why not? I don't know if I have the nuts to do that. Yeah, no, I don't blame you. I don't blame you.

It's scary to do one where everyone has an opinion. Exactly. It is you. It's scary to do one where everyone has an opinion. Exactly. It is. It's really scary to do one where everyone has an opinion. And, I mean, I think it's also scary because I'm not sure what my opinion is on that case. No, that's super scary. It's all over the place. Yeah.

Did the owl do it? We just don't know. We just don't know. Anyway, we're talking about this staircase now today. Oh, excuse me. So for this, shout out to an episode of 48 Hours that I'm not going to give you the name of. Okay. Okay.

And also to an episode of American Monster, not a show I was familiar with. It's on ID. Of course it is. That one was called Everyone's Favorite Uncle. I don't think that gives anything away. It's not. Okay. He really was just like a

people liked him. He. Oh. You know what. That's you know I feel like uncle sometimes get a bad rap. I apologize.

Just bringing some of my own shit. It's not like a creepy uncle teeny situation. All right. Fair enough. That's a bonus episode if you want the deep traumas in my family history. James Blackledge was minding his business just out for a nice motorcycle ride on the morning of July 21st, 2018.

He was in an upscale neighborhood in Lake Wiley, South Carolina. Are you familiar with it? It's like right, I guess, right on like the North Carolina border or just, you know, real close to the state line. Oh, I see. So I lived in North Carolina for a couple years. So I have to know all the cities. You live like on this in Missouri. You're familiar with Kansas.

I didn't know how it worked. I've been everywhere. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. in Missouri, you're familiar with Kansas? I didn't know how it worked. I've been everywhere. Yeah, okay. Sorry. Anyway, James is out for a motorcycle ride and he kind of turned down a road and he was taking in the lovely scenery. There were beautiful trees everywhere.

Shut up. You don't care about those trees. I know you don't. I did see a picture of the house involved in this story. And it's quite striking how beautiful the trees are. The trees were beautiful. Yeah. And they're very tall.

I know. Why are they so tall? A lot of extra water. I don't know. The sunshine. People, you know, and maybe it's another thing. Sometimes when they put in these new housing divisions, they go in, they tear out all the trees, which I understand it's easier that way. But if you're doing it right, you're just, you know.

You pluck out a few and then you nestle the house in the trees, which I believe is what was done in this area. Because there were newer houses, but lots of mature trees. By the way, would you ever do a motorcycle? No. Yeah. No, absolutely not. No. I feel like that'd be my, I mean, I don't even drive a car very well.

So probably shouldn't be put on a motorcycle. Anyway. Okay, so James is on his bike. He's, you know, living it up, watching the trees, whatever. And then he notices someone running toward him. It was a woman named Lana Clayton. She was running toward James, waving her eye. She wasn't waving her eyes.

Are you sure? Positive. Back and forth? No, just waving her arms as it turns out. Okay. Trying to flag James down. If someone was waving their eyes at me, I would stop. I just know that I'm going to fuck up this woman's name the entire time.

Are you like a little nervous right now? No, it's Lana, but it's just spelled L-A-N-A, and I read it the whole time as Lana, but then I heard her pronounce it as Lana. And you think she knows how to pronounce her own name. That's a gamble. Okay. So if I mispronounce it as Lana. I believe she knows how to pronounce her own name. That's a gamble. Okay. So if I mispronounce her name, my apologies. I'd be really upset if you messed up someone's name. Kristen.

So Lana asked James, after she flagged him down with her arms and not her eyes, to call 911. She told him that her husband, Steve, had fallen down the stairs and that she believed he was dead. James Blackledge did just as Lana had asked him. He called 911 and relayed the information that he'd been given. And in the meantime, Lana ran across the street and got the neighbor, Terry Floyd, who was a good friend of the Claytons. James was still in front of the Claytons' house waiting for confirmation that an ambulance was on the way when Lana and Terry pulled up on a golf cart. The neighbor, Terry, ran into the house. He was like, you know, obviously in a hurry.

He asked Lana where Steve was and Lana told him that he was at the bottom of the stairs in the foyer. And then she sat down on the front steps and waited for the police to get there. James recalled on this episode of 48 Hours that he thought this was really odd. Not just because he had always thought it was pronounced foyer and Hannah had said foyer. He seems kind of douchey.

I'm going to be real with you. But because here was this woman who was seemingly distraught, so distraught that she would, like, flag down a random passerby, yet she just, like, sat down on the stairs rather than,

like, going in with the neighbor trying to aid her husband in some way. Okay, so this is the part in every story where I'm always like, well, people react in different ways. And they do. Yeah. But, yes, she's drawing in all these extra people.

Yeah. Yeah. A la Ramsey's. Gordon Ramsey. Gordon Ramsey, yeah. When he opens a new restaurant, he's always dragging in new people. That's right. It's the part of the secret to a success.

always dragging in new people. That's right. It's part of the secret to a success. Also, when you're covering up for your son who murdered your daughter, you, you know, have other people discover the body. Anyway, that's just a theory. The crime scene, you know. Just a theory.

Yeah, it's 2018. She doesn't have a cell phone. She doesn't have a phone in the house. No, yeah, she had to flag down a stranger and then go get the people across the street. F that. This is not the 1930s. Right. A short time later, emergency crews were on the scene, and Lana explained to them that Steve hadn't been feeling well for the past three days.

He'd been nauseated and dizzy, and she believed that he had a pretty severe case of vertigo. It was something he suffered from on and off like for several years. She said this time though it had been so severe that he'd basically been bedridden. But Lana Clayton was a nurse so Steve was in good hands, right? Don't say it like that. He obviously wasn't when you say it like that. Lana told the police that she had checked on Steve that morning, but that he'd been sound asleep, so she'd made sure he had all of his necessities, which is not at all what I wrote in my notes here.

What did you write? That's all odd his necessities. We can't be more clear than that. That's right. Okay, folks? So she'd set him up like a little table next to the bed with his water. Yeah, das all odds and necessities. We know.

We know exactly what that means. Das all the chapstick. That's right. And so she, you know, set up his little table in their second story bedroom and then she'd gone out to mow the yard. When she came in sometime later, she'd found him at the bottom of the stairs. And she assumed that he'd fallen trying to go down there and get something from the first floor, maybe come out to find her. She told the first responders that she'd checked for signs of life. She actually tried to flip him over because he was like face down and she'd been unable to.

He's a pretty big guy. But she hadn't found a pulse and that was when she had run outside for help, not into like the kitchen to get the phone or like pulled her cell phone out of her pocket. But people do weird things under stress. And I can't imagine anything more stressful than murdering your husband. Right. This is a great example. Paramedics quickly confirmed that Lana Clayton was.

Had murdered her husband. Correct. Right. Steve Clayton, her husband of five years. I'm going to feel like such a dick if I'm wrong. Steve Clayton, her husband of five years, was in fact dead. He was 64 years old. was 64 years old. Steve Clayton was described by his loved ones as this kind of like loud,

friendly, outgoing teddy bear of a man. He'd put himself through college working construction, and then he worked as a CPA for a time following his graduation from Florida State University. And eventually he started his own physical therapy business called Physical Therapy Resources, which he grew into a nationwide company with branches throughout the United States. Oh, dang. All right. He made millions. I'm sure he did. And he was able to fully retire in 1995 at the age of 41.

Oh, man. The fucking dream, right? Oh, man! Can you imagine? Amazing. Brandy. Yeah. What if some creepy-ass billionaire

offers us millions for this podcast? You think Elon Musk is buying podcasts? Oh, gross. Can you imagine? I mean, yeah, it'd be like, he'd offer us some money and it'd be just like

the Twitter deal. And then he actually, like, listens to the podcast and he's like, fuck this, no, I don't want it. And we're like, no, sir, you must. That's right.

Let's go to court. And then we lose because we don't have money. Yeah, and Elon Musk has, like, all the money. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, all right. I'm glad we don't have money. Yeah. And Elon Musk has, like, all the money. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway.

All right. I'm glad we explored that fantasy for a minute. Anyway. After Steve retired, he spent his free time traveling the world. Oh, my God. Like a dream he'd always had. He got super into, like, Eastern medicine. He did, like, acupuncture and stuff like that.

Like, he had it done on him. He wasn't doing it to people. Well, yeah. I mean, when you retire when you're 41, you're not doing shit. No, exactly. And he enjoyed spending his time with his friends and his family. Steve's family said that he loved love. He was a romantic, like, to the core, and he loved the idea of being loved love. He was a romantic like to the core

and he loved the idea of being in love. But as a result of that he often didn't make the best decisions when it came to relationships. He was blinded by love. And science.

Stop it. And by the light as it turns out. Everyone, she's so proud. She's so proud of herself. Anyway, so this decision making that he wasn't the best at kind of explained why Lana was Steve's seventh wife. Oh, my. Yeah. Pump the brakes, my. Yeah. Pump the brakes, Steve.

Why do you have to get married? Maybe you don't marry all of them. Yeah, right? Yeah. Because it sounds like you married all of them. Yeah. I think that's exactly what it was. Huh.

Yeah. He and Lana had met online in 2010 after Steve relocated to North Carolina from Florida. I thought you said South Carolina. Okay, he moved to North Carolina originally. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You know, I'm eager for you to mess up every now and again. Okay?

I mess up plenty. Not as much. I mean, it's a contest I'm winning, ma'am. So they met online. Lana was kind of like the opposite of Steve. You know, opposites attract. Okay. You know, two steps forward, three steps back, and I'm dressed like a cat.

Sure, we all get it. She was quiet. He was loud. She was kind of introverted. He was extroverted. She was a murderer. He was loud. She was kind of introverted. He was extroverted. She was a murderer. He was not. But Steve's family seemed—

Brandi, if I'm wrong, it's going to be terrible. I'm going to just— Don't worry. You're not wrong. Okay, good, good. But Steve's family really seemed like things were kind of different with Lana. They liked her a lot. Oh, they did?

They did, initially. Okay, well... They thought that Steve had never been so affectionate with anyone, like, ever in his life. I thought he loved love. He did love love, but, like, this seemed like maybe it was, like, this one was gonna stick. Well, I mean, they're not

betting people. Yeah. Okay. That was rude to say. Can you imagine if you attended all seven of his weddings? Right? Okay, on the episode of 48 Hours, like one of his nephews is like, you know, we kind of lost track. I think he was married six or maybe she was the seventh wife. You would lose track. You would, yeah. But another article said that she was the seventh.. You would lose track. You would, yeah. But another article

said that she was the seventh. So we're going with that. Okay. But Steve was sure that things with Lana were going to be great. And so Lana had been married once before. She had two adult children from that previous relationship and he was ready to go all in with her. He invited her to move in with him. And so she did. And they got two Italian greyhounds. They named them Guinness and Sadie. Had a little, you know, little family with their time. Why are you making that face about Italian greyhounds? No, no.

It's nothing against the Italian greyhounds. How dare you? I'm trying to think if there's like a connection between Guinness and Sadie. OK. So I saw another source that said their names were Guinness and Stella. And so I thought it was a beer thing. Yeah. But then in Steve's actual obituary that says they're Guinness and Sadie.

So I'm guessing that. Yeah, that's probably right. That's probably accurate. OK. Yeah. All right. Sadie, so I'm guessing that that's probably accurate. Okay. Alright.

And things were going well for Steve and Lena. They dated for about three years, and then in 2013, they got married. Oh, I'm so sorry! How did you even make that noise? Okay, so everyone, that was my

water bottle. I apologize. I had to kind of leapfrog it over my iced tea, and I stopped short, and it sloshed. And that's the story of the sound that that made. Are you good? I don't know. You know, we are always weird in these episodes. I know we are. We're always very weird in these episodes where we do two in a week.

You know what that sounded like? What? You know, the wave pool at Oceans of Fun? Oh, yeah. You're not supposed to bring that up. Why not? Because a little girl just died. Just died over there.

Yeah. Sorry. Don't. Okay. You're looking at me as if I killed someone. You're right. That's right. Yeah. sorry. Don't. Okay, you're looking at me as if I killed someone. You're right. Yeah. Yeah.

Am I allowed to reference wave pools? Absolutely you are. I apologize. Thank you so much. Hmm. Anyway, in 2013, Steve and Lana got married and they moved to Lake Wiley, South Carolina. They bought a million dollar mansion. It was just like right off the water.

It was said to be modeled off of George Washington's Mount Vernon estate. You want to see it? Yeah. I have an address for you. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Okay.

Hang on. All right. Go ahead. It is 4586 Island Forks Road, Lake Wylie, South Carolina. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Built in 2007. About 3,500 square feet.

Got some pillars. Yep. It has a grand staircase. Oh, shit. Just inside the front door. It's amazing how quickly I forget what we're doing here. I get sucked into these. Oh, my gosh.

Look at the butler's pantry. I know. Oh, this bathroom. Wait at the butler's pantry. I know. Oh, this bathroom. Wait. What? I'm sorry. This bathroom, it looks like there's no door. It just –

I think it's – I thought the same thing. Okay. Well, that has to be just a weird angle on that photo. Okay. Okay. But this bathroom also has French doors out onto like a balcony. That sounds amazing. Okay.

But, yeah, you want to limit the number of French doors to a bathroom, right? Yeah. Yeah. Where is the door to this bathroom? Exactly. It has to be just like a weird thing, right? They must open out, you think? Yeah.

Let's hope and pray. God, what a beautiful location. Yeah. Trees are. Yeah. The trees, right? View of the water. I would repaint the exterior of the home.

Yeah. But no one asked me. It is a it's a kind of an odd teal color. Why are these trees so tall? What kind of trees are these? Those are – shoot. Damn it. I can't tell you.

They look like pines a little bit. Maybe. I'm not sure. Anyway, that's the house that they moved into. Also, why – okay. I'm looking at the exterior here. Why is the front door not centered? I thought the exact same thing.

Thank you. What the fuck are they doing with that? I mean, just because George Washington did that. Okay. I looked up the House of Mount Vernon.

I think it has a centered front door. Okay. Well, then, what the hell are they doing here? I don't know! Hmm.

All right. All right. All right. Anyway, moving on. By the way, I do not like that light fixture in the dining room. You don't? No. Ew. What's the light fixture in the dining room?

Look for it. It's weird. It's... Is this the dining room? How do I know if I'm in the dining room? Is it this weird spindly looking thing? Yeah. I don't like that either.

Yeah. Here's the thing, folks. You gotta pick a time period. Okay, so I showed pictures of this house to David last night. I didn't tell him anything about my case because he won't let me. He'll, he like, la la la la. He's like not interested. No, he likes to listen to the

episodes and hear it all together. Anyway, I showed him the picture of the kitchen, which I think is amazing. He's like, ew, what's wrong with that island? He didn't like the accent island here. Okay. I am with him. I actually love the accent island.

I don't think it goes with the house. It doesn't. It doesn't go with the house. I would agree with that. I love the accent island, but I would agree that it does not go with the house. Yeah, and that's how I feel about – well, no, I don't love that fixture in the dining room. I do not like it anywhere. No.

I do not like it, no, I don't love that fixture in the dining room. I do not like it anywhere. No. I do not like it. Sam, I am. But also, it's like, if you're doing the Mount Vernon thing, you got to go more old-timey with your fixtures and your kitchen islands, which were for sure a thing at Mount Vernon. Yeah. I'm sure enslaved people didn't do all that. Anyway, it was only a matter of time before I brought that up. Did George Washington, was he an enslaver? He probably was, right?

I believe so, yes. Yeah, great. Anyway. Yeah. That's why it's so important that we focus on what the founding fathers thought when they created the Constitution. Absolutely. They knew exactly what they were doing. Anyway, please don't get political.

Please just talk to me about the fixtures. So this move to Lake Wiley, South Carolina accomplished a couple things for the Claytons. They had their house together. You know, it was their house, you know. And it put them closer to one of Lana's children. She had a son, and I believe he had some kids. So it was like their grandkids lived in the area. And then also Steve had a couple of nephews who lived in the area.

So it put them around family. And it seemed that, you know, for a while the Claytons were pretty happy there. Fast forward to 2018. In the spring and summer of 2018, Steve became really sick. Started with an earache. He would become nauseous and dizzy. At first they thought it was vertigo. He started seeing his acupuncturist like really regularly.

But it just kept getting worse and worse. And they'd never seen, like his family had never seen a bout of his vertigo this bad. It would keep him in bed for days at a time. How long had he had vertigo? Had he had it his whole life? For several years. Okay. So it wasn't like a new thing.

No. But it would just like come and go and it hadn't impacted his life to this degree before. But Steve's family was like, you know, he's in the best hands he could be in. His wife is a nurse. At least he has a caregiver by his side. And they thought he just needed some rest. You know, he seemed exhausted. And so I get one point in June of 2018, he had spoken to some family members and said he was just feeling really run down. And he was going to try and like get some solid rest, get some sleep. And Steve went to sleep and slept for 36 hours straight.

No. His sister was super alarmed by this. Well, yeah. She's like, that doesn't sound healthy. That doesn't sound. Well, can you imagine going to sleep and waking up 36 hours later? That would be, I mean, very unsettling. I'd go to the fucking hospital if that happened.

Of course you would. Yes. Of course you would. But when Steve woke up after that, like, he felt great. Oh, my. He felt like he was kind of, like, back to normal, and he threw his big Fourth of July party that he always threw.

He was very into the Fourth of July. Okay. And every year, he threw big parties. They put out, like, a dance floor on the property, played all kinds of music, did all kinds of fireworks, the whole shebang. Poke cake? Probably. Probably. With the blueberries. Multiple. Well, the whole shebang. Poke cake? Probably. Probably.

With the blueberries. I bet. Well, duh. I mean, if you have a Fourth of July party and you don't do that, I mean, come on. Yeah. And Steve's family was so excited to see him this way. Seemed like he was back to his old self. And Steve's sister, Rosie,

was her name, she observed him with Lana and she was like, things look really good between them. I think like during this time of his illness things kind of seemed like up and down. Like maybe Lana was feeling like this wasn't what she signed up for.

Or maybe she thought that her attempts at killing him weren't successful. Well, that is a bummer, isn't it? Yeah. But at this Fourth of July party in July of 2018,

things looked great. Then fast forward to July 21st, 2018, when... Well, that's not much of a fast forward at all. It's less than three weeks later

and Steve is found dead at the foot of his stairs. Yeah. So we're back to that day that she's flagged down the passerby and gone and got her neighbor and the police have come. There's some body cam footage of this as they walk through the house and they check out Steve. The officers and the first responders are kind of consoling Lana as they're doing it. And the neighbor tells them that Lana has told him that she's feeling really guilty, that she should have checked on him sooner. She shouldn't have gone out and mowed the yard, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so they go over and they are kind of speaking to her and consoling her and letting her know, like, oh, this isn't your fault.

You know, things happen. You know, this looks like maybe he just had a heart attack and fell down the stairs. It didn't look like he'd fallen all the way down the stairs. That wasn't what led to his death. He was at the bottom of the stairs, but it wasn't like a – as far as I can tell from what I've seen, it wasn't like a particularly bloody scene or anything like that. And so initially it seemed like he'd probably had a heart attack and just ended up kind of at the bottom of the stairs. And so the police kind of pulled Lana outside trying to calm her down and they just, you know, get a basic statement about what had

happened and she relayed to them what, you know, the thing about mowing the lawn and she'd come in and whatever. One of Steve's nephews, actually the nephew that they'd moved to the area to be closer to, was a police officer in a neighboring town. And he heard this call go out for emergency crews and he recognized that it was at his uncle's house. And so he went there as fast as he could. And he gets there and he goes in and he finds Lana and she, you know, gives him a big hug. She's crying.

And then he is like, OK, I got to see him. Like, where is he? And he goes into the house and he goes and he sees his uncle. And he said that it was just like a super difficult thing for him to see this uncle that he always looked up to. And he just looked he looked not himself. His coloring was all off. And then, you know, he was obviously dead. It was horrible for him to see.

And so he kind of started like chatting with the first responders on scene, you know, getting kind of the story from them. And then the coroner was called out. And the coroner, you know, came in and said, you know, nothing looks kind of suspicious here. Right. You know, it looks like we just have what appears to be just a really sad, natural death. Yeah. And that's kind of how this was treated at that point. But the nephew, who was a police officer, his name was Nick French. He started like making note of things that seemed really odd to him about Lana's behavior. He thought it was really weird that she'd flagged down a stranger and run across to the neighbor's house, why hadn't she called the police from inside the house? Why hadn't she used her cell phone?

Why hadn't she attempted to administer CPR? She was a nurse. He thought that was super odd. He also thought it was really odd that no one was able to find Steve's phone anywhere. So his uncle, he said, was never without his phone. Always had his phone. And so, like, in the early stages, that was, like, one of the things they were trying to, like, secure, like, where are the phones in the house? Yeah.

Like, you know, whatever. And no one could find Steve's phone. To this day, Steve's phone has never been found. Shut up. They believe that Lana threw it in the lake to dispose of it. Wow. What would have been on there that would be

incriminating? We'll get to that, but it's not what would have been on the phone. It's what Steve could have done with the phone. What? Are you just saying like he googled stuff? Nope. the phone. What? Mm-hmm. Are you just saying like he Googled stuff? Nope.

I'll keep my pants on. All right. I get it. And then Nick overheard a conversation between Lana and the coroner. So the coroner was like, okay, you know, have you guys talked about, you know, had you had any conversations about funeral arrangements? Do you know where you want us to take the body? Do you have a funeral home in mind?

And Lana was just kind of like sitting there and she's like, I don't know. It's just, it's too much right now. I have no idea. And the deputy coroner at that point was like, OK, you know what? In the meantime, until you decide, we'll take Steve's body. We'll take it to the morgue and we can, you know, pull some blood samples. We can, you know, run some tests. No, no, that's not necessary. And Nick was like, oh, to Lana, he was like, I think we should do that.

I think that's a great idea. Like, let's figure out what happened to Uncle Steve. Sure. And Lana, like, jumped up from where she was sitting. And she was like, no, that's not necessary. That funeral home down the street, the one that's right down the street, let's take him there. And we'll have him cremated. Yeah.

And Nick was like, no, he doesn't, he doesn't want to be cremated. He wants to be buried in Florida. And Lena's like, no, no, no.

He told me he wants to be cremated. So let's, yep, that funeral home right down the street. Let's take him there. No need to take him

to the morgue. No need, you know, to run any tests. I'm sure it was the heart attack. Just like you guys say, totally natural,

nothing to worry about here. Just as quickly as possible. If we can get him down there and get him cremated, that'd be great. And Nick was like, okay. Oh,

okay. And so at this point, Nick's like, okay, something is up. So he excused himself, went outside and he called his brother,

Chris. And he was like, um, yeah, I think something's up. I think you should, like, get here as quickly as possible. Okay, Chris may have been Nick's cousin. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. He's either a cousin or a brother.

Or a close friend. We just don't know. Steve is also his uncle, so I assumed they were brothers. And as I'm saying that out loud. Oh, yeah, you're thinking that's not necessarily how that works. Not necessarily true. Exactly. Very good. All right.

So he calls his relative. He calls his relative. And he lets him know what's going on. And he gets over to the scene as well and he's like Nick's like I need you here to like back me up on this because I think weird shit's going on and so Chris

comes to the scene and Chris is like let's get Uncle Steve's will because I'm sure we'll be able to find out what arrangements he wanted in the will and Lana's like there's no will and Chris goes to find out what arrangements he wanted in the will. And Lana's like, there's no will. And Chris goes, no, no, there's for sure a will.

I've seen it. Uncle Steve asked me to be the executor of his will. And Lana goes, I said there's no will. And then she like stormed out of the house. You don't get to just say there's not a will. That's interesting. I'm sorry. I'm going to put my socks on.

Go ahead. It's on account of your wet hair. Yeah. Yeah. Which is very sexy. You're picturing me coming out of the shower. The sexiest. The sexiest wet hair. Okay. Hop to it. I'm very interested in what's happening.

So that whole exchange happens and Lana storms out of the house and then Nick and Chris are like, what the fuck is going on? And so they call Steve's sister Rosie and, like, fill her in. She's very upset, obviously. She's crying. And she's like, I haven't been able to reach Steve in three days. Oh. And so they're like, what the fuck has been going on here? Yeah. And so they decide to go, like, through the house. Like, just, like decide to go like through the house, like just like take a lap through the

house, see if they see anything kind of out of the ordinary. And so they go upstairs to the primary bedroom where Steve was like, had been holed up for the previous three days dealing with his vertigo, according to Lana. And they find that room in such an alarming state that they're like, okay, this is something seriously wrong is going on here. The mattress was soaked in urine. Oh, my God. It was as if Steve had not been able or been allowed to get out of that bed in days and had not been cared for in any way, which they said was completely out of the ordinary. Like Steve was like a neat freak. He kept his house like very, very clean, very put together. Well, and even if you're not.

Yeah. For your mattress to be soaked in urine. Yeah. And your primary caregiver is a nurse. And so they kind of confronted Lana about this. And she's like, oh, when his vertigo is really bad, this happens. He's unable to, you know, have full control of his faculties and sometimes he'll wet the bed. Yeah.

But a mattress being soaked in urine is different than somebody. Yeah. Because if. If somebody. Yes. If somebody is really ill and they wet the bed, you change the bedding out. You – yeah. Get –

They get an adult diaper to wear when they're having these bad spells. You don't just leave them in – on a urine-soaked mattress. Yeah. So they began to form a theory that like Steve's phone had been taken away from him. Oh, gosh. So that he would have no way to reach out for help and that Lana had done something to him over the course of these three days to incapacitate him. Yeah. So Nick and Chris, the two nephews, make these discoveries.

They start forming this theory that something's going on. They go back downstairs and Lana's now in the kitchen and she's talking to some of the investigators and she's kind of explaining to them why she doesn't think an autopsy is necessary or why they should do one. And she's like, OK, really? This is in Steve's best interest because Steve is a habitual drug user and I just don't want that information to come out in his autopsy and for that to be like the thing everybody remembers about him.

And Nick and Chris hear this and they don't say anything at the time. Yeah. They're like, there's no fucking way that that's true. Yeah. say anything at the time. Yeah. They're like there's no fucking way that that's true. Yeah. Like we would know if that was going on.

That's never been mentioned ever like in his life. Right. They're like there's some reason she does not want an autopsy here. But they decided not to say anything that day. I believe they did arrange for the body to be taken to the morgue rather than the funeral home because they knew like once it gets to the funeral home, you've got like, it's a done deal. The cremation happens super fast. And if that happens, like, we've got nothing. And so they leave that day. But then they get together with Rosie, Steve's sister, and they all together call the police.

And they're like, something is wrong here. These are the things we've noticed. Like Steve always had his phone and we've been unable to get a hold of him for days now. The mattress to be soaked in urine like that. For her to say that this is all his vertigo. Like this isn't adding up. We really think a death investigation needs to be done here and an autopsy needs to be done. Yeah.

And so the police agreed and they did an autopsy and the autopsy came back. Kind of inconclusive. He hadn't had a heart attack. His heart looked fine. There wasn't anything remarkable on his autopsy. Nothing that signified a cause of death.

And so they had to wait weeks for a toxicology report to come back. And when that toxicology report came back, they found out that what Lana had been telling the police or the detectives or whatever was not true. There was no hardcore drugs present in his system. There wasn't really anything of note other than there was one chemical found in his blood that the coroner wasn't familiar with. It was tetrahydrozoline.

The coroner hadn't heard of it before. In fact, she had to look it up. She didn't know what it was. Yeah, I know. That's what it means. That's exactly what it means. She wasn't familiar with it. She didn't know what it was.

She had to look it up. Because she didn't know the definition of the word. Correct. It was the active ingredient in eye drops. Can you OD on eye drops? You sure fucking can. Really? It says right on the bottle, do not ingest, can be fatal.

Oh, my gosh. Mm-hmm. But, I mean, you'd have to – like a ton, right? No. Really? Not that much at all. It turns out that tetrahydrozoline is readily available. It is sold over the counter.

Anyone could buy it. And it is tasteless and odorous. Odorless. Tasteless and odorless. Wow. Completely undetectable by, you know. Well, I hope no murderers are listening. All right.

And it's not typically looked for on a standard autopsy. Oh, gosh. When they got the toxicology report back and the coroner looked at, you know, this chemical that was in it, this tetrahydrosoline. She then looked at the concentration of it, which was 68 nanograms per mils. Really? Oh, no. That's so many mils. I mean, so many nanograms.

And bananagrams. On this episode of 48 Hours, the coroner's like explaining this. And the host, Peter Van Zandt, goes, what's that mean in English? Oh. And she's like, it means I'm really worried. That's a lot. That's a good clip right there. Yeah.

Yeah. So it turns out that this poisoning by tetrahydrosaline has kind of become popular, for lack of a better word. Well, I'm sure it has. Since the movie Wedding Crashers. There is a scene in Wedding Crashers where they use – Yeah, on Bradley Cooper. They spike Bradley Cooper's drink with it to make him shit his pants essentially, which could be a side effect of a small amount of THC as tetrahydrosaline is commonly known. Think of how different that movie would have been if they'd killed him.

No kidding. would have been if they'd killed him. Yeah, no kidding. So yeah, a small amount of it, a couple of drops can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea. Higher concentrations of it can cause dizziness, confusion, reduced heart rate. Basically, the way it gets your red out of your eyes is it makes your blood vessels contract so they're smaller and so if it does that on a large scale in your body it slowly causes respiratory depression which then results in death so they get these results back and they're like, okay, so how did he get Visine

in his system? So they go back to the house and they, you know, look at that area that she'd had set up for him, his little table with his drink and his meds

and sure enough... What'd you call that? I can't remember now. And it turns out, yeah, there's his meds and his drink and his bottle of Visine right there on the table. And so they, like, test a glass that had been there and they find the residue of THC on the glass and they decide we better talk to Lana again. Of course. Well, she was pretty sloppy. Yeah, she was real sloppy.

They wanted to know if possibly, like, had he done this to himself? Had he ingested this as a way to, like— No, they didn't think that. No, stop. They did not think that. This is what they said on the 48 Hours episode, Kristen! Just because 48 Hours tells you this doesn't mean you have to repeat it to us like we're all this stupid. No one thinks that.

So they asked Lana to come down and have an interview, but not with the police, with the coroner. So they sat her up in like a little room, but they had the police sitting behind. Oh, sneaky, sneaky. Oh, it was very sneaky. They set up cameras and they

just let her think it was just a fun little conversation with the coroner. Oh, yeah. One of those. I often have fun little conversations with the coroner. I mean, you probably would. You would probably love to talk to a coroner. Yeah.

And so they sat her down. The coroner was like, you know, we've got a couple of questions. Let's, you know, go over some things. We've gotten the toxicology reports back. And, you know, there's some odd things in there. We're just trying to find out maybe how those got there. And so she mentions that they found tetrahydrazoline in Steve's blood. And Lana's reaction to that was like, oh, yeah, that's Visine.

What? Yeah. Lana? Uh-huh. And so the coroner's like, yeah, so. Very good, it is. You're familiar with it. And she's like, oh, yeah.

So Steve puts a couple of drops of Visine in his coffee every morning to help him take shit? No. No! They make actual medicine. Medicine for that. Yeah. No. No! No! They make actual medicine. Medicine for that. Yeah. Yeah, you can take Miralax every day. It'll help you.

Yeah. Yeah, so she's like, no, yeah, he puts a couple of drops of Visine in his coffee every morning to help him have a bowel movement. Give me. In the corner, so she just looked at Lana and was like, uh-huh. And how long has he been doing that? And Lana said, oh, he's been doing that for years. And so she's like, the coroner's like, okay, so he puts Visine in his coffee every morning and he's been doing that

for years. And she's like, oh yeah. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And they're like, oh, okay. And so the coroner's like, well that's really odd. Yeah.

And Lana's like, oh, is it? Is it odd? Yes, it's odd. Yeah. And Lana's like, oh, is it? Is it odd? Yes, it's odd. At that point, the detectives who were in the next room listening, they came in, and they were like, hi, you know, we're detectives with the York County Sheriff's

Office, and you know, don't worry, you're not in any kind of trouble. We just want to clear some stuff up with you, and also we're going to read you your Miranda right now, just so that, you know, everybody's clear about what's going on here. Well, you've got to be real cool to pull that off as, like, a casual little thing. Yeah. How'd she react?

She was like, oh, I'm just, what? I'm, I'm, and they're like, oh, we're sure you're overwhelmed right now. Yeah, you know, just, you know, I'm going to remind you, you know, this doesn't mean that you're in trouble. We just want to ask you some questions. You're a witness in this case for us. And so Lana, like, freezes up. And she's like, I know you said that there's the THC in his blood. I'm just wondering if maybe he had tried to die by suicide.

You know, he did have a mood disorder. I always had to walk on eggshells around him. Every day it was like a different Steve I was coming home to. I never knew, you know, if he was going to be nasty. You know, sometimes he was really angry and, you know, you just didn't know. And they're like, OK, well, you know, what was nasty, Steve? Like and she's like, he was verbally abusive. He would call me names and they're like, OK, all right. And then she's like, you know, I feel bad. I feel like I'm painting a bad picture of him. He wasn't a monster by any means. It just, you know, you just, you never knew. And they were like, okay, all right. And

so they're like, okay, well, let's talk about, you know, the THC a little bit. And Lana stops. And then she's like, I put it in there. I put it in his drink. Is she trying to say like she put it in there to help him with his bowel movement? Nope. She said, you know, he hadn't been feeling well. And so the day that he died, you know, I was really upset at him because he'd just been ordering me around. He'd been saying, you know, Lana, do this. Lana, do that. Lana, I need this. Lana, take me to the bathroom.

And he was just really mean about it. And I was tired of dealing with him. And so I just thought I had seen that, you know, it can make people sick. It can make their stomachs upset. It can make them have diarrhea. And so I just wanted him to suffer a little bit. And so I squeezed it in his water. I knew he wouldn't be able to taste it.

And I just wanted him to suffer. I had no idea that it would kill him. Wow. I can't believe she admitted to that. Yeah. And so they're like, okay. He admitted to that. And so they're like, okay.

Like, how much did you put in his water? And she's like, I just kept squeezing the bottle. I think I emptied it. Oh, well, of course he died. And they were like, all right. You know, thank you for your honesty. And at that point, Lana ended the interrogation and said that she was going to go home and they allowed her to leave. Going to go home?

Yeah. She's like, you know, I think I'm done talking to you for now. And they were like... Did she think this was over? I think she did. She went home. She's stupid. Yeah.

She's really stupid. So she went home and they did a little, you know, investigation into Lana. And it turns out that this was maybe not the first time that Lana had attempted to kill her husband. Oh, what happened to the first guy? Nope. Same husband. Oh. Oh, shit.

Two years earlier, Lana had shot Steve in the back of the head with a crossbow while he was sleeping. Oh, my. What? Okay. We've all been there. Okay, so this is what happened. It was a total accident. She was loading their crossbow, right?

In the bedroom? No, no, no. Not in the bedroom, Kristen. In another part of the house, but it got kind of jammed and Steve was napping, so she took the crossbow up to the bedroom to see if he could help her with it

and then as soon as she got in there That's the way it always goes. It just accidentally fired. As soon as you get help from someone else, the thing starts working right, and you shoot him in the back of the head. Come on. How many times have you shot Norman in the back of the head with a crossbow? You know what he has said? He has said, we should stop owning crossbows.

It just feels dangerous because I don't know how to use them. He had obviously woken up. He was bleeding profusely. He wasn't seriously injured. Oh, God. What they had. I mean, she had reported it to the police. I don't really know how that went down.

But an investigation was done. And Steve told the police that he believed it truly was an accident. And so nothing ever came of it. Wow. And so they're like, holy shit, I think this is the second time this woman has tried to kill this man. Okay. OK, I was calling her stupid, but she to her credit, she did improve a lot of subtlety from attempt one to attempt to. Yeah. Assuming these are the I was going to say, I doubt these are the only attempts.

It's the prosecution's theory. And my I agree with this theory that that illness that he had throughout the summer of 2018 was her attempting to poison him and just figuring out the right thing. She was a nurse. He was also very into Eastern medicine, so she knew he wouldn't be – when he was feeling ill, he wouldn't be going to the doctor and getting blood tests done. And so she, I believe, and the prosecution believes, was trying different things out, seeing what would work. Yeah. The official theory that the prosecution put together in this case was that those three days that he hadn't been able to, that his family hadn't been able to contact him, she'd been slowly poisoning him with more and more Visine.

No, she just did it the one time just to make him suffer a little bit because he'd been kind of a dick. I hate to tell you your own story. Until finally she got to the point where she poisoned him enough that he died. Yeah. Yeah. Why though? Because he was worth millions.

And she destroyed his will so it would all be left to her. Well, that's not really the way that works though. In South Carolina it is. What? So there's also a theory that that's why she specifically got him to move to South Carolina. In South Carolina, if there's

no will, the estate automatically goes to the spouse. Oh, well, that's common, but I's no will, the estate automatically goes to the spouse. Oh, well, that's common. But I mean. No, but. Okay. Hold on. So an attorney didn't have a copy of the will?

No one had a copy of it. Somebody had seen a copy of it before. Oh. But it seems it was the only copy of it, and it was in Steve's possession. And so she just. And Lana had herself a little fire. Sure, got a little cold one evening. I mean, you saw the pictures.

They had a nice little fire pit there on the property. I mean, they really did. They did. It's a cute little fire pit. Mm-hmm. Yep. Wow. Yep.

After this day that Lana left the interrogation where she admitted that she had put it in the Visine in Steve's water but had only done it because she was annoyed at him and he was being kind of mean to her. I'm still so amazed she admitted to that. I know. This kind of thing is really hard to prove. Yeah. It would have been very difficult to prove. Very nice of her to help him out. OK.

So after that day, you know, they do this investigation. They find out that this crossbow incident happened. Well, like a couple days later, the police got a call from Lana's neighbor and they said, you know, I went over to check on Lana and there was a suicide note on her front step. And so the police came and they like broke down the door and Lana had taken a bunch of pills and she turned the gas on on the stove. They rushed her to the hospital and they were able to stabilize her. And after she was released from the hospital, she was taken into custody and charged with murder and tampering with a food or drug product.

Yeah. Yeah. The Tylenol case didn't – did I tell that one when you – Yeah, that was when I had London. You ducked out to have a baby. Yeah, it kind of left me in the lurch that day. I did. Yep, yep.

I remember that. Oh, I'm going to labor. That's a Patreon bonus episode. It is a Patreon bonus episode. Lana's trial was set to begin in January of 2020. And like at the last minute, Lana took a plea deal. She agreed to plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter and tampering with a food or drug product. She insisted that she had never tried to kill Steve, that it was just she wanted to give him an upset stomach.

She wanted to give him diarrhea. Stories about like the how his mood was unstable and how he was mean to her kind of escalated throughout the case of this to told you, that she'd been poisoning him over a significant amount of time and trying to figure out what would work the best. And over those three days that his family had been unable to reach him, she'd gotten rid of his phone and she poisoned him, giving him more and more of the Visine until she'd managed to kill him. Okay. So the phone. Are you going to tell me the deal with the phone now? Yeah, the deal was that she was making him sick, and so he couldn't reach out to his family and ask for help. She got rid of it. Okay.

That's the theory, is that she threw it into the lake so that he would be unable to reach out to anyone for help. Oh, that's dark. Yeah. That's really dark. It that's dark. Yeah. That's really dark. It's really dark. Yeah. Because, yeah,

if he's bedridden, his family said he was never without his phone. Yep. Yeah. And they were never able to recover his phone.

Oh. Mm-hmm. At her sentencing, Judge Pail. I don't think that's right. I bet his name's probably Paul. What a beautiful name. His parents were Klansmen.

His name is Pop. Oh, little baby pal. Whose skin was white as snow his last name's Birch I have it in my notes that his name is Pale Birch beautiful anyway his name as it turns out, is Judge Paul Burge.

Weird. Ew. How'd they come up with that? Okay. Atlanta sentencing. He said, this one takes the cake as far as being bizarre. The old saying, what a taggle. Jesus.

I just started. Jesus. I just started. The old saying, what a tangled web we weave, Miss Colton. You sure have tangled this one up. She tangled it real good, didn't she? He said, how can you maintain that you did this to teach him a lesson when it is obvious from the facts that you let him suffer for three days? Yeah, no, she's just a big creepy murderer. Yeah.

Don't know what to tell you, pale. Lana was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Oh shit. The prosecution had asked for 50 years which was the maximum. OK. Involuntary. Involuntary. I'm sorry.

Voluntary. Voluntary. OK. Yes. Voluntary manslaughter and tampering with a food or drug product. How many years did she – do you know how many she got for tampering with a food or drug product? I don't. I don't know how it breaks down.

Okay. That's interesting. It's more than I thought. It is more than I thought too. Yeah. Yeah. Before the judge had imposed her sentence, Steve's goddaughter had given like a victim impact statement and had asked the judge not to be lenient. She said, Lana Clayton has fooled a lot of people.

Don't let her fool you too. Steve Clayton was buried in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, just as he had wanted. And that's the story of a poisoning, as it turns out, not a staircase. Wow. Switcheroo. What you gonna do? It's a switcheroo. Pretty good, Brandy.

Pretty good. That was, okay, that was very interesting. Yeah. So the 48 Hours episode goes into this a little more at the end of this, that there's a lot of concerns about Visine being so readily available. Well, sure. Because it's odorless, it's tasteless, and it's so readily available that people could be doing this left and right. And that scene in Wedding Crashers has led people to believe that it's not as dangerous as it actually is. Yeah.

Oh, God. Yeah. Yeah, it's funny. So I'm thinking about, what is it? It's antifreeze, right? Oh, yeah. That used to be sweet for a while. And so killers would put it in Gatorade.

And it would be a bad thing where, like, kids would get a hold of it and drink it. And so they change the taste of it. But probably a product you put in your eyes, you probably can't. There's probably not. Do we want to live in a world without Visine? No, it gets the red out. This is not sponsored by Visine, obviously. All right.

You ready for a really sad story? No, it sounds like it's going to be super depressing. It's going to be awful. I am sorry. Oh, God. Okay, so here's the thing. I was like, you know, I don't know that I've ever done a story about a trans person on this podcast. I really don't think I have.

No, I don't think so. And so I was like, well, I'll do one this week. Turns out trans people get murdered a lot. And are treated terribly as a whole in this country. Yeah. So if you're looking for a light story about a trans person involving the justice system. Myth, this isn't it. No. Okay, great.

And I mean, if you find one, send it to me. Absolutely. Maybe I'll send you that one. Anyway, so, yeah, just buckle up. Nice and depressing. Are you enjoying your beverage today? I am. Everyone, okay, I'm not an energy drink person.

Brandy is and Norm is. I love energy drinks, yes. not an energy drink person brandy is enormous and so norm offered her one of his and she was like acting like these things energy drinks are really expensive so no i didn't need to waste one on me it's not wasting to give a friend a beverage what are you talking about i'm enjoying it very much how much do energy drinks row? Usually they're like a couple bucks a can. Well, okay. I mean,

it's not wasting. I brought this perfectly good free water with me. Wow. Wow. Yeah. Oh, look at you with that thing.

You guys probably aren't going to be able to eat dinner tonight. No, we can't pay the mortgage. Because Norm gave away our most valuable possession. An energy drink. Drink up, Brandi. Hope you enjoy it. Okay. Shout outs to an episode of 48 hours titled The Life and Death of Nikki Kuhnhausen.

Great episode. Also, after I watched that episode, I was like, oh, I wonder what else is out there. Well, it turns out there's a whole ass podcast about this case called Should Be Alive. So, I mean, when I tell you I binged that thing. Yeah. There's seven episodes. I was going to say, you only had like a day to research this. I am a champion.

Yeah. I was in such a terrible mood yesterday. Well, yeah, because you were just like listening to that the whole day. I mean, it's a great podcast. I don't mean that, but like, I mean, I'm talking like a hardcore binge of just a really sad story, but I was

like, what if they've got good info? And they did have good info, and now I'm sad. Anyway, I'm glad we're about to just do this thing. Alright, here we go. I think you've stalled as much as you can for a tip. I really have. Tell right, here we go. I think you've stalled as much as you can. I really have. Tell me how you're doing today. Okay.

Nikki Kuhnhausen knew who she was. Identity issues can be hard for a lot of trans people, but according to Nikki's family, she was always very clear about her gender identity. And, okay, there are, like, the cutest pictures on earth to prove this. In one picture, she's, like, very young and she's wearing a tiara. Obviously, why wouldn't you? In another picture, when she's very young, she's got on this big blonde wig.

And her mom said that it was because, like, the babysitter was a hairdresser, had a bunch of wigs, and Nikki just could not help herself. At one point, judging by the photos, she looks like she's maybe four or five. She broke her arm. And when she was asked what color she wanted for her cast, she said pink. So the deal is like Nikki had a pretty big blended family and her brothers hated that she had a pink cast and kind of gave her a really tough time. But her mom, Lisa Woods, was like, hey, it's her arm. It's her cast. I don't care. So she let her get the pink cast. By all accounts, Nikki's mom and dad were very supportive

of her and very accepting of her. They understood that from a very early age, she identified as a girl. But her childhood wasn't easy. Her parents divorced when she was young and her dad was kind of in and out of prison. Her mom had substance abuse issues. So there was a time when Nikki and her siblings were in foster care. But I mean, Nikki was like a tough cookie. And that's what her friend said on this 48 Hours episode. I have to agree. She was also a ton of fun. Her mom, Lisa, said that when Nikki was in the sixth grade, she decided to be Nikki all the time, not just at home.

So she started dressing like herself. Yeah. Which I can't fucking imagine how brave you have to be. I mean, that's exactly what I was thinking. This is the wildest story to me. I can't fucking imagine how brave you have to be. I mean, that's exactly what I was thinking. Like, this is the wildest story to me. I can't, yeah. Ugh. How difficult that must have been. Yeah.

I love that her parents were so accepting. Mm-hmm. And, yeah, so, okay, she was born in, like, 2001. So this would have had to have been, like, what, like, 2013-ish? She's living in Vancouver, Washington, and she's just boldly being herself. And a lot of people loved her for it. She had really close friends who described her as super confident and like the life of the party. And as Nikki got older, she found her passion.

She got super into makeup, like very into makeup. She loved hair into makeup. Like very into makeup. She loved hair and makeup. In fact, when she grew up, she wanted to be Nicki Minaj's hair and makeup artist because she was obsessed with Nicki Minaj. She posted all this stuff on social media of her doing little tributes and stuff. It was really cute. She was also good at makeup. She, I mean, kids these days, posting all the selfies. Yes. I got to say, her eyeliner was always just. This is just what people can do with makeup.

It just blows my mind. Also, she had great cheekbones. But who cares? Not me. Shut up. Not jealous at all. No. I want round cheeks. That's exactly right.

That's what's the hot new thing. Chipmunk cheeks. Yeah. You know, people are all about those chiseled cheekbones, but that'll change. Yeah, that's right. Fashions will change. Saw it happen with butts. And, you know, cheeks are the butts of the face.

That's right. And your cheeks are the butts of the face. That's right. Nikki had some pretty serious struggles, and those really came about in high school, it seems. Her friends said that she became addicted to meth. She got into fights at school. She stopped going to school quite as frequently. You know, there can be a lot of different reasons for that.

Her mom said she didn't go sometimes just because her eyebrows didn't look right. You know, she had to get things right. We've all been there. Well, it's funny. It's like that – I mean that did make me laugh. But I was – so I was looking at – I kind Human Rights Commission did this study where like half of trans kids can't go to the bathroom they want to go to in their school. And it's weird to say that I hadn't thought about that in relationship to her not wanting to be at school. Yeah.

But my God, of course. Absolutely. If you can't go to a bathroom. Yeah. You're probably already dealing with a bunch of social shit that you don't want to deal with. And then you've got something really basic like that. Yeah. Anyway.

And I don't know that that was the case for her. But, I mean, probably, right? Yeah, I'm sure it was. Yeah. So, you know, she's getting into drugs. Her friend said that she was getting a little harder to get a hold of. And once when she was 16, Nikki went to her mom and told her, I don't think I can do my homework without being high.

Wow. Yeah, it's, I don't think I can do my homework without being high. Wow. Yeah, it's – I don't know. I mean she obviously had a problem, but I'm really amazed that she was able to be open with her mom about it and get help. In the 48 Hours episode, they said that there were many attempts to get Nikki into rehab, but nothing seemed to stick. So to me, that doesn't sound like she actually went to rehab. But, you know, there sounds like there were a lot of conversations about it. And in 2018, Lisa got a call from a detective. He said that Nikki had been shot six times. Oh, my gosh.

Lisa, of course, freaked out. She rushed to the hospital. And Nikki was there hanging out with friends and taking selfies. And her makeup was impeccable. What? I mean, yes. Yeah. She really had been shot six times.

Oh, my gosh. I'm hearing this story for the first time. And I'm like, OK, well, obviously somebody messed up here. No, she really was shot six times. This happened at night and she'd fled and knocked on like three different houses to try to get help. Finally, someone helped her and called an ambulance. And just by some sort of miracle, the bullets had missed all the important shit. Oh, my gosh.

As any doctor would say. That's exactly what doctors say. Yeah. What you've got here is important shit. And you're very lucky because the bullets all missed. The bullets missed that important shit. Yeah. Boy, I'd feel very at ease if my doctor talked to me like that.

Yeah. I bet I could be on that hospital show that I told you all about last episode. Children's hospital. No! The fact that Nikki lived through that was a miracle. Okay. She told her mom that she'd been shot because she'd gotten into an argument with a guy about drugs, which again I was like, I mean, wow. That's a lot of honesty.

I thought it was really interesting. In this podcast, they didn't mention that. Instead, a friend said that she thinks that the shooting happened because Nikki was transgender. But Nikki refused to talk to the police. She refused to tell any of her friends or family who shot her. So the guy who shot Nikki was never apprehended. Wow. I'm kind of inclined to go with the friend on this one.

Yeah. I thought it was interesting. In the 48 Hours episode, Lisa was interviewed a lot. And she talked about how Nikki was very accepted at school. She talked about how, you know, she was so good at makeup and all the cheerleaders wanted Nikki to do their makeup. But in the podcast, they also interviewed her brother. They interviewed her friends. And her brother was like, I would get into fights all the time at school because I was beating up people who were being mean to Nikki. Right. And so I wonder if Nikki held some stuff back from her mom to protect her mom a little bit.

Yeah, I think that's probably very likely. And especially because trans people are so often targeted for violence, especially trans women. I mean, it wouldn't surprise me. Anyway, hang on tight. This story gets even more fun. Great! Yeah.

So Nikki kept living her life. Hang on tight. This story gets even more fun. Great. Yeah. So Nikki kept living her life. She lived a pretty transient life. She crashed on friends' couches. And this feels like the right place to mention that according to the Human Rights Commission, 40 percent of homeless youth are LGBTQ+. Yeah. But she always kept in touch with her mom. Lisa worked at Walmart and they would talk on the phone before her shifts and they'd text. I mean, they were just always in contact

with one another. But one morning in June of 2019, 17 year old Nikki didn't answer her phone. And Lisa immediately knew that something was wrong. The funny thing was, Nikki's best friend, Ariel Fox, wasn't that worried. Nikki was always misplacing her phone or going silent for a while, and she was just like, oh, classic Nikki. But Lisa knew in her gut that something was very wrong. So she filed a missing persons report. So she filed a missing persons report. And that day she took Nikki's sweatshirt and made it into a pillowcase and slept with Nikki's picture and her Bible and prayed that Nikki was safe. So Nikki was missing.

Her friends and family and the local trans community really rallied to find her. They put up missing persons posters everywhere. Side note. Yeah. If I ever go missing, do not put my weight. Fuck no. Absolutely not. Nobody needs to know my weight.

Unless, like Nikki, I weigh like nothing. She weighed absolutely nothing. But as soon as I saw that, I was like,. She weighed absolutely nothing. But as soon as I saw that, I was like, oh, my God. Isn't a picture and a height and a hair color and an eye color. More than enough. Plenty of information. Talk about my tattoos. Don't you dare even think about mentioning even the zone my weight is in.

Well, I'll put weight, colon, none of your fucking business. Yes. I know that if I did put your weight, you would haunt me for sure. I for sure would fucking haunt you. I'd be just about to fall asleep. You're a bitch. Wait, what did I threaten to haunt Norm over today? Oh, that's right. The second time we've talked about me haunting someone.

Yeah, because. Oh. What? If I died while I was giving him a haircut. Uh-huh. And then he told people that that was the haircut. The half-finished haircut was like what I gave him. And like that was the end.

I had finished it. I told him I'd haunt him. That is so on brand for you. To not be like, oh gosh, I would die. That's sad. Instead it's, wait, Norm would go to my funeral with half a haircut and say that I had done that. Intentionally done that? Intentionally done that.

That's it. Yeah. I'm haunting this. I'm haunting the shit out of you. So they did everything in their power to find Nikki. They got her added to the Center for Missing and Exploited Children's website. I mean, they were on this, and I think especially that local community knew how common it was for these cases to be just swept under the rug. Absolutely. And they did not let that happen.

A lot of tips came in. People thought they'd spotted her just about everywhere. And I will say, you know, normally I like to take a big dookie on the cops. I will not in this episode. This was a tough disappearance to investigate in that Nikki was not boring. She didn't follow the same routine every day. If I go missing, that detective has had a lucky day, my friend. All right. She's either here or Costco.

Let's see. She talks to roughly five people on the phone. Yep. Yep. Pretty easy stuff here. So this investigation was kind of slow, tracking down all these leads that ultimately went nowhere. Eventually, the two women that Nikki had been staying with decided to tell police everything they knew. I say decided because one of the women on the night this all went down had actually been arrested. And so, yeah, of course, she gets back in. Maybe she doesn't want to talk to the police. So this was a big thing. And it's how investigators got their first solid lead.

Nikki's roommates told police that the last time they'd seen her, she'd come home wearing a man's coat, holding a bottle of vodka. This was, like, the wee hours of the morning. And she was saying that she was going out to meet a Russian man who was going to buy her a cell phone. And they indicated that she may have been talking with him on Snapchat. OK. So one of the friends when when Nikki came home and said this was like, this isn't a good idea. Don't do this. And she said that Nikki did seem, are you cold? I am.

I'm freezing. Turn the fucking fan off. Okay, I'm freezing too. Oh God, that's the light. Oh my God, hang on. Did you see me shiver?

I did see you shiver. Everyone, not to brag to you all, but Norman and I had to totally get a new AC. New air conditioner, and it works great. Oh, my gosh. I think Norm is so happy with it. He just, like— Let's that thing blow.

Oh, my God. I have been sitting here shivering, thinking you were fine, and then I saw you shiver i was like all right that's it that's it here we go so anyway nikki nikki had talked about this with her friend her friends like this seems like a bad idea yeah and she said nikki didn't seem like really gung-ho to go do it but i don't know it just seemed like a rough situation. Yeah. She wanted to go do this. So, okay, this next part took a while because blah, blah, blah, paperwork, Snapchat. Will you give us everything? No, we won't.

You got to do the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Do you get it? Yeah, they needed a subpoena. We're not going to give you anything without a court order. Also, it was really, really cute. On 48 Hours, they explained that Snapchat is a social media site.

Yes. Which, I want to be snarky, but I don't know much more than that. Eventually, they discovered that Nikki had been messaging with a 25-year-old man named David Bogdanoff. And he'd come to pick her up at 5.30 in the morning on the day she went missing. Yeah.

That's concerning. So he obviously seemed like exactly who they needed to talk to. But they couldn't find him. They called his phone. They left him messages. They even sent him messages on Snapchat. Nothing. But did they send it like from a police account?

Yeah. Did they? Yeah. Well, I mean, maybe you just sent a fake account, like pretend you're a hot girl. Okay. I'm going to be honest. That's initially what I thought. But then on the podcast, they go into more detail.

And the detective did i mean it would scare the shit out of me it was like hey buddy i'm shaking in my boots right now kristen hey the way you said hey buddy just now yeah that's like i know what you did i almost bent over and spread them just because, like... That's enough. It's a family podcast. They talked to his brothers, who, I mean, you would think he'd be pretty close with.

They all worked together. It was like a family construction. They were able to get in contact with his brothers? Yeah, what? Well, what? You're going to have to use your words. No, that was a very clear thought just now. Well, surely then they're like covering for him, right? Oh, my.

Oh, no. Yes. No. You know news. Oh, do you? Yeah. Yeah. They were't know this. How dare you. Yeah. Yeah. They were like, oh.

Yeah, I don't really know. I haven't seen him for a while. Haven't seen old Davey in a hot minute. Is his name David? Yeah, it sure is. Okay, great. Yeah, we're just not very tight. We're together every day, but not so much lately.

tight don't don't work together every day but not so much lately um at some point and i think this took a while investigators figured out that david had fled the country what oh excuse me gone on vacation oh yeah to where totally normal thing hang on here. Just a few hours after Nikki was last seen alive, David took a very last-minute trip to Ukraine. He got a one-way ticket. Nothing suspicious about that at all. You know how you're always taking last-minute, one-way trips out of the country. Yeah. Great. So, Nikki's still missing.

There's like a bird loose in its mind right outside the window. I know. It's like the world does not want us to podcast today. We're very distracted. Now, frankly, I'm getting a little hot with the thing. It's just a mess.

It did get stuffy very quickly. It did. It did, right? And I was like too embarrassed to be like, well, shit. I was so glad to turn that fan off. So anyway, Nikki's still missing. Her friends and family were, I mean, so worried. And again, Lisa knew something very bad had happened.

At one point, she attempted to die by suicide. Oh, gosh. And the lead detective reached out to her and he was pretty stern with her. And he said, I'm going to figure this out. And Nikki is going to need you when I bring her back to you. His name is also David. So there's a good David and a bad David in this story. This was unimaginably difficult for Lisa.

After Nikki went missing, Lisa's husband and Nikki's dad both passed away. Oh, gosh. Lisa's husband and Nikki's dad both passed away. Oh, gosh. So she needed support, and luckily a lot of the people who'd heard about her daughter's case were rallying around her. They formed the Justice for Nikki Task Force, which was comprised of trans people and parents of trans people who all wanted to amplify Nikki's story. But months went by and no one could find her.

And then came September. Nikki had been missing for about four months. And lo and behold, David finally reached out to investigators. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Four months later? Yeah. Well, oh, you're acting suspicious.

I am. But wait till you hear this. He had just been having some phone trouble. For four months. Yeah. And so he had just now gotten their messages. So he had to go to Ukraine to get his phone fixed? No, that's a different reason.

And we'll get to it. Oh, okay. But it's very innocent. And I think you'll feel like a real asshole. I doubt it. So he's like, oh, hello. How may I help you? And they're like, oh, great.

Yeah, why don't you come down to the station and talk to us? Yeah. So on October 2nd, David met with the detective and he told the guy a very charming story. I think you're really going to love it. You see, on the evening of June 6th, he'd been out drinking with his brothers, you know, the people he barely sees. It was roughly 3 a.m. and he spotted a young woman walking by herself. He was so alarmed. So being the good guy that he was, he walked over to see if she was OK.

He offered her his jacket. He offered her a bottle of vodka. He gave her his Snapchat info. And a few hours later, she reached out to him and he came to pick her up. He picked her up because she'd lost her phone and he wanted to help her either find it or get a new one. You know, you like 5.30 a.m. emergencies where you got to. Yeah. But when they were in the car, they got to talking and that's when Nikki dropped a bombshell.

She told him that she was trans. Or as David put it, quote, she told me that she's not a she. Oh, for fuck's sake. He was shocked. He was uncomfortable and really, really disturbed. So he murdered her. No, you couldn't be more wrong. Okay.

You've really jumped to the wrong conclusion. I don't think I have. He's actually a really nice, fun guy. No. Who wouldn't hurt anybody. No. According to his family. Wrong.

He asked her to please get out of the car because this is just really weird for me. Fuck off. And so she did. And that was the last time he ever saw her. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Brandi, have you heard this story? Are you familiar with this one?

Oh, my gosh. Yeah. So he drove away and that's the end of the story. No, it's not. It's not. Absolutely not. Yeah. The detective was like, I did kind of love the detective because he's like, yeah, that's not how people go missing.

No. That's just not how it happens. Sure is. It'll just get out of the car and then goodbye. Disappear off the face of the earth. No. David told the detective, for me, it's even disturbing when I'm around a gay person or somebody bi or transsexual or something else.

I just got disgusted and I asked her to just get out. Well, you're a dick and a murderer. Yeah. Then, totally unprompted, he said, I wish I could help you more, but I'm not a kind of person to, I'm not even a violent person, you know, at all, nothing. I swear I've never murdered anyone before. That's interesting.

Nobody brought that up. Nobody asked you. Looking into the disappearance. Yeah. And you are telling us. Oh, no, not me. I'm not even violent. Yeah.

Hmm. Holy shit. It was interesting to hear some interviews with this detective because he said it was so frustrating. You know you've got your person. Yeah. But they didn't know where Nikki was. They didn't have her body. They didn't know what happened to her. Yeah.

And so you got to let them go. Mm-hmm. And then on December 7th, 2019, six months after Nikki went missing, a man was looking for bear grass on Larch Mountain. Okay, thank you for making that face. What the fuck is bear grass? Exactly. So it's this – it's very pretty actually. You should Google it.

It's like – it's something people will go and get and like – I guess you can sell them to florists to put in their arrangements and stuff. Ooh. Right? Ooh, I love it. It's a stout perennial arising from a woody tuber-like rhizome. Oh, yeah. That's very well said.

Did you use your own verbiage here? I sure do. You know what? Leaves are a dull olive green and typically two to eight decimeters long. Decimeters? That's right. Oh, cool. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And they're two to four decimeters long. Decimeters? That's right. Oh, cool. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. And they're two to four millimeters wide. Yeah, I was about to say probably two or four. Mm-hmm. Perhaps you're more familiar with its scientific name, Xerophyllum tinax.

Ah, yes. Yes. I believe that's in Vizine. Yes. I believe that's in Vizine. You got to be careful with that. A lot of people take it to help them take a shit. Myself, I just, you know, have a Fiber One bar all of the day, you know.

Did I tell you about the time I ate three Fiber One bars in one day? I think you should tell the people. It's a real mistake. Okay. What I love about this is you and I had the same story with Fiber One bars. We thought that they did not affect us. I thought they didn't do anything to me. I had a box of them in my office at work. And then one day, it was like a super busy day.

And like I didn't bring a lunch. I didn't have like time to go get anything. And so just like between clients, I was down in five or one bars. I ate three of them in probably like a six-hour time period. And you were a ticking time bomb. My stomach bloated up. So I thought I was either going to just burst or just like blow away like a balloon like in the air and start to fall and come out of it.

So what did ultimately happen, Brandi? I am. So what did ultimately happen, Brandy? You know, I don't really remember if I ended up like, I mean, they had to come out somehow. Yeah. I remember I had dinner plans that night with my sister and my cousin. You were going to get together and eat more 5-in-1 bars. No, so we went to Granite City, which has this Caesar salad that I love, and it comes with this, at the time, I don't know if they still have it, came with this flatbread and stuff, and I fucking loved it.

I ordered it. I couldn't take a bite of it because my stomach was so bloated. Really? I sat there and looked at my Caesar salad. That's a really sad story. It was. It's really sad. That's a really sad story.

This is really sad. My story is Norman bought Fiber One Bars. I, like I said, didn't think they affected me at all. At all. We were flying to Kansas City. And so I just needed like a quick snack. So I grabbed a Fiber One bar, put it in my purse. And while we were at the airport, I went to the Starbucks, got myself a coffee.

Okay. Coffee and a Fiber One bar. I'm just going to shoot right through you. Well, so we get on the plane and, you know, I've really done a number on myself and okay I hate airplane bathrooms I've literally never been into an airplane bathroom yeah you should never go in this stuff about you know people having sex in there that's that's nuts disgusting That is appalling. There is nothing sexy about it. That is disgusting. Anyway, so I was refusing.

Yeah. And, yeah, I mean, I made it, but it wasn't pretty. I thought I was going to die that day. And on top of that, I was really, really hungry. Of course. So I looked in my bag and all I had was another Fiber One bar. No good can come of this. That was the last time I had a Fiber One bar.

I haven't had a Fiber One bar since either. This podcast is not sponsored by Fatter One. I mean, I'm not saying it's a bad product. Just don't get cocky with it. Yeah. Don't be like, oh, these don't affect me. Don't do anything to me. Oh, God. So anyway, this man was

searching for bear grass on Larch Mountain. Boy, we really took a wild turn. Yeah. And he came across aarch Mountain. Boy, we really took a wild turn. And he came across a human skull. Oh, shit. So investigators came out to the scene. They found more remains as well as a jacket, bandana, underwear, a watch, some jewelry, and a phone cord that had been very carefully tied. And I've been trying to figure out like how do you describe it. It was tied into like a circle about a four inch.

Yeah. Yeah. So she'd been strangled with the phone cord. Yes. And in one of the knots of the phone cord were what appeared to be ripped out hair extensions. They didn't immediately know that this was Nikki. There were unfortunately quite a few missing people who this could have been. But Nikki had a big presence on social media. So investigators took the jewelry and clothing they'd found in the woods and they

went through Nikki's photos. And sure enough, they found pictures of her wearing that bandana, wearing that jacket, wearing that jewelry. Later, a medical examiner would determine that the phone cord they'd found had been used to strangle Nikki. Once they determined that the remains were in fact Nikki's, they got David back into the interrogation room. And for this interrogation, David was dressed like a patriotic burglar. Okay, yeah, you want to guess what that is? It was a

very wild outfit to me. I'm not sure. I was like, what did they catch him doing? What was he in the middle of? Yeah, he was wearing a black beanie, a black long sleeve shirt, black pants that said NASA on them and had a little American flag underneath and black tennis shoes. OK.

Honestly, it was like they had just caught him going up to a bank like, Only one of those big canvas bags with a dollar sign on it? Not yet. He was going for it. They didn't immediately tell him that they'd found Nikki's body. Instead, they just asked him to reiterate his story, and he did. He told them that after he kicked Nikki out of his car, he drove straight to work, straight to Portland, Oregon. He was going to a job site. And Detective David, I've got to say, it was Detective Jenkins. Oh, David Jenkins.

Yeah. No, no, no, J Yeah. No, no, no. Jensen. Okay, great. Sorry. David J. It's for sure Jensen. Unless it's Johnson.

No, because I was thinking of Billy Jensen. I was like, oof, not that guy. So I remember now. Okay. So, Detective Jensen. Right? Yes. Okay.

He's loving this. He's in one of those rolly office chairs. He's just swinging back and forth. swinging back and forth. And he said, David, buddy, I don't know if you know this, but cell phones go ping, cell towers go pong, and we know your location all the day long. Or at least that's what he was thinking in his head. What he said out loud was, at the time we last talked, I didn't have the benefit of

all your phone records. But I do now. So David told David that the pings of the pongs showed him going to Larch Mountain, not Portland. Oh, weird. Yeah, super strange. Large Mountain? Larch. Larch.

Oh! I was like, we didn't get real creative with the naming. Close to medium mountain. Oh, God. Same stupid joke. We are so cool! Yep. So he says this, and David got very quiet, shrugged.

And the detective goes, what happened on that trip? And David said, I think I want to talk to a lawyer. This detective could not help himself. He was like, okay, okay. You're being arrested for the murder of Nikki Kuhnhausen, whose remains were found today, who was strangled to death.

You know, he's just like, giving each little uh-huh. And David just sat there shaking his stupid head. His head was stupid. A lot of people said that, not just me. That's in the 48 Hours episode, actually. Yeah.

You know how they do the voiceover. His head was stupid. I was like, that seems unnecessary to say, but I'm including it. Hey, like you had to include. Yeah. That's what they said. So what am I supposed to do? Not include the thing about his stupid head?

People paid very close attention to this case because violence against trans people is so common, specifically against trans women of color. And it's pretty fucking common for the person who commits the violence to just not even be arrested. This was a little tough in that there was no physical evidence tying David to Nikki's murder. Oh, you're making the face like you've given up on everything. No, I'm not. I'm not giving up. Investigators couldn't be sure where exactly she was murdered.

OK. Investigators couldn't be sure where exactly she was murdered. So for that reason, prosecutors charged David with second degree murder. But also malicious harassment, which is the way they pronounce hate crime in Washington. Right. I mean, no, it is hate crime. I'm. Yeah. Why not just call it a hate crime? I mean, as long as they charged him with it. I'm happy with that. All right. At a press conference after David was arrested, Lisa told the media that she believed with all her heart that her daughter had been killed because she was transgender.

I mean David told us as much. No. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no. He had nothing to, he was like, hey, leave. I feel weird. Sure. He specifically said he

was not violent. Right. Maybe you're forgetting that part. Uh-huh. David's trial was initially delayed due to COVID, but finally kicked off in the fall of 2021. Oh, dang.

I know. Everyone in the courtroom wore masks, obviously. But Nikki's friends and family wore bright pink masks in her honor. That's amazing. The prosecution argued in their opening statement that David murdered Nikki after finding out that she was transgender. that David murdered Nikki after finding out that she was transgender. They said, The defense claimed in their opening statement that David did not kill Nikki because she was transgender.

He killed her in self-defense because she had attacked him. No. Right. No. You're – No. Buckle up because this gets so stupid. He would testify in his own defense so they could hear this whole story for themselves.

would testify in his own defense so they could hear this whole story for themselves. I thought the defense's opening argument was kind of stupid because they were like, you know, this is really just like a novel. It's like a novel. And you got to wait till you get to the end of the novel to really know what's going on. Because, you know, the prosecution is going to say this one thing, make you think this one thing, but then you get to the end of the book and all of a sudden it's something different. And so that's what's going to happen here. It's like, no, this is not a novel. This is not a novel. It's in fact real life.

And someone was murdered. And it all kind of lines up. Yeah. I mean. Yeah, there's not a lot of mystery here. Right. Which is what I like in a good novel. It's a mystery.

Yeah. Which is not what's happening here. Not what's happening here, just to be clear. The prosecution called experts who testified about the Snapchats, about the cell phone records. They showed the jury a picture of the murder weapon. They called David's now ex-girlfriend to the stand and she said that their relationship had started out great, but then he started drinking heavily and he had no money.

And so apparently he would make like a bunch of money on these job sites and then just blow it. So somehow like he didn't have a place to live even though he made really good money. So he would kind of, you know, I think hang out with his brothers. But they never saw each other. So I don't know how that works. Anyway, I'm being – There's the mystery.

There is the mystery. It is like a novel. She said that the night that Nikki was murdered, she and David got into a fight. And all of a sudden, she didn't hear from him for like six weeks. She had no idea where he was. She didn't know he went to Ukraine? No. No.

Isn't that interesting? Yeah. She was so freaked out. She checked hospitals. She thought something was terribly wrong with him. She asked his family where he was. And all they would say was that he'd explain it when he got back. When he finally did come back, he told her that he'd gone to Ukraine to get help for his drinking problem.

That's the only place they have rehab. That's exactly right. We should get some rehab centers in America. They shouldn't only be in Ukraine. Okay. Also, he was... The fuck? He was super disgusted by gay people, and one time they went to a mall together, and they saw a gay gay couple and David was like, ew, I'm disgusted. This guy's a fucking dick and a murderer.

Yeah. You can be more than one thing. You can. And he's really proven it. Yeah. One point of contention at the trial was that the prosecution, I don't know if they believed that the murder may have taken place in David's work van, but in the Snapchat conversation, David told Nikki that he'd be picking her up in a white van. And the prosecution had photos that showed that in that work van was rope and a knife and handcuffs.

And that really pissed the defense off. They were like, there's no evidence that those were used in a crime. The defense called this malarkey of the highest order. They did not. Yes, they did. This guy used the word malarkey multiple times. Malarkey. I guess he felt like he couldn't say bullshit. Yeah. Malarkey. Malarkey i guess he felt like he couldn't say bullshit yeah malarkey it's a good word what do you think of that

not malarkey so i mean obviously in a construction vehicle some stuff i mean you're probably gonna have rope i don't know you're not gonna exactly thank you you're probably going to have rope. I don't know that handcuffs make sense. Exactly. Thank you. You're not going to have handcuffs. They asked for a mistrial on the grounds of prosecutorial misconduct. And what did the judge say about that? Well, first the prosecution had to talk. Just keep your pants on. The prosecution said, you know, hey, maybe these weren't used in the crime, but he's arguing self-defense and we're trying to show what other tools were at his disposal potentially in this self-defense argument.

And the judge sided with the prosecution. He said, look, you're arguing self-defense and we have a situation where only two people can say what happened and one of is dead, and it looks like the other may take the stand, and that means the prosecution has quite a bit of leeway here. Motion for mistrial? Denied! So the prosecution rests. The prosecutor looked at the defense and was like, in your face! Yeah.

Malarkey boy! Little malarkey boy. So the prosecution rested and the defense called their only witness, David. Fucking David. What's the. Oh, OK. That's their only witness. OK.

What did it say? David said that he was gay people. I mean, David said that he was taught – Ew, gay people. I mean, yeah, basically. He was taught and he came from a culture and religion where being part of the LGBTQ plus community is a sin. But he didn't hate gay people or trans people. Not hateful at all. It was just, you know, they were going to hell.

Yeah, I love it when people make this argument. Love the sinner, hate the sin, blow it out your ass. You can't do that. No. He said. Especially when you're talking about something that you're calling a sin that is like a core of a person's being. Right.

Their identity. Right. You're calling their identity a sin. Mm-hmm. Get the fuck out of here. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, it's wrong on so many levels.

I just, like, it drives me nuts when religious people try to play that game of, oh, I love you. I just don't love what you're doing. No, you're judging all the day long. Yeah. No, you're fucking bigot. You don't love me. Yeah. Yeah. Take your love elsewhere.

Yeah. Take your love elsewhere. He said that when Nikki was in his car with him, she was smoking something out of a pipe and he was like, oh, oh, my, what's that? It smells so strange. Is that pot? And she was like, no, it's meth, which give me a fucking break. Yeah. Yeah. Give me a fucking break.

Yeah. Yeah. No one is like, oh, my, is that pot? Someone's smoking meth. Meth, no. Uh-huh. No. She invited him to get in the back seat with her.

But before he did so, he put his gun between the driver's seat and the console. And this was totally normal. He always had his gun on him except for when he went to church, at which point he left the gun in the vehicle. Nikki was not freaked out by this gun because he told her he had a conceal and carry permit. David said they made out for a while, touched each other, and he got emotional as he told the jury that Nikki touched him in his private area. Yeah. She touched my bathing suit area. Yeah, my no-no zone.

And then he touched Nikki's private area and he lost it. Yeah, he fucking murdered her. Yeah, that's exactly what happened. Yeah. Except for let's listen to his bullshit. He said, I was in shock. I'd just been deceived. I freaked out. I push her.

I push her back. He said he freaked out telling her, you didn't tell me you're a dude. He called her a disgusting piece of crap. Later, the prosecution would get him to admit that he'd called her a disgusting piece of shit. He screamed at her, told her to get out of his car, and she kicked him. And she jumped up and went toward the center console, toward his gun. Yeah. He said, I'm thinking, you know, I was just deceived by this person.

And this person's high on meth. And all I can think is, oh my God, I'm going to get shot right now. He said he tried to hold Nikki back. He grabbed her by the jacket. But the material was so slippery. So he did the only thing he could think to do. He reached for a cell phone cord. By the way, some people were worried about how that cord was knotted,

how, you know, like I said, it was in that little four-inch circle. But according to David, that's just how he kept his phone cord. That was just good phone cord management. It's a very long phone cord. So, you know. He said he wrapped the cord around her and pulled her back, trying to keep her from getting the gun. He'd wrapped it around her chest. But as they struggled,

it went up to her neck, and she was hitting him, trying to gouge his eyes. And she died. His first thought was to call the police, but then he figured they wouldn't believe him. He wasn't sober. There were drugs in his car. There was a dead person. And you're fucking lying. Leave him. He wasn't sober. There were drugs in his car. There was a dead person. And you're fucking lying. Yeah.

It was all very sad for him. No. He said, No. This was a very humiliating thing that happened to me. I just wanted to put this behind me. Fuck this guy. So he took Nikki's body to Larch Mountain and he dumped her there.

He left the country a few hours later to get help with his drinking problem. Oh, my God. He said, I likely would not have been in this situation if I hadn't been drinking. You likely wouldn't have murdered someone if you hadn't been drinking. Are you fucking kidding me? Ugh. This guy's terrible. I know.

And it's upsetting because it makes me think of a couple nights ago when you and I had two margaritas before we recorded the podcast and we had no choice but to murder people. Right. Yeah. If only we hadn't been drinking. The prosecution's cross-examination of David was quite fun, in my opinion. They pointed out the size difference between David and Nikki. OK, so, yeah, let's let's pause here. First of all, let's let's try to believe his story. She's reaching for the gun. You're in the backseat with someone. They're reaching for a gun. What do you do? Wouldn't you also be trying to reach for the gun? Or if you're

so much bigger than she is, knock her back. I mean, because you said she's tiny, right? So she weighed nothing. She's five, eight. And I mean, weighed very little. Yeah. We'll get into their stats here in a minute. But, like, even if it plays out exactly how he says, that's a weird—sorry, I'm spitting everywhere because I'm mad. Spitting mad. Like an angry camel. That's where that phrase comes from. But like, you know, to grab a phone cord in supposedly the heat of the moment. No, it makes no sense.

No. So the prosecution pointed out the size difference between David and Nikki. And David knew this didn't look good. The prosecution was like, you're 6'2", right? And he's like, oh, well, you know, I'm more like 6'1". It's like, I don't need to do— First time in the history of the earth that a guy has— Said he was shorter. Said he was shorter.

Yeah. Well, and I'm sorry, one inch and all of a sudden now we've leveled the playing field. And the prosecution's like, okay, your driver's license says you're 6'2". And this part was on the podcast. I couldn't tell if it was the defense attorney or if he responded and said, well, you know, the DMV doesn't check that. And the prosecution said, OK, you were about 200 pounds at the time of this attack. And he was like, well, you know, maybe more like 190. So it's like, OK, we're talking about an inch and 10 pounds.

Great. Got it. You're really making it look so much better. They asked about Nikki. They said, you know, Nikki was about 110 pounds. And he was like, well, you know, it was hard to tell. She had a jacket on. But I'd say more like 130.

Okay, dude. Yeah. Right? Such utter bullshit. In closing arguments, the prosecution said that this case wasn't about fear. This whole thing was about hate, shame, and rage. Yeah. The hate, shame, and rage that he felt after finding out that Nikki was transgender.

And finding out that he was attracted to a transgender person. Yeah. Yeah. You know, one thing. So they talked to some jury members about this and I thought it was so interesting. So during David's testimony – here I am going back and forth on stuff. During David's testimony, he got emotional. But he got emotional when he told the part of the story about finding out that Nikki was trans.

the story about finding out that Nikki was trans. He did not get emotional when he talked about the part in the story where he's allegedly fearing for his life. Didn't get emotional when it came to killing her. No. No. Isn't that fucking interesting? Because he never fucking feared for his life. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. It's so interesting to me, though. He's up there spewing bullshit. Mm-hmm. And he's not smart enough to know.

Mm-mm. You know? Yeah. Ugh. Defense attorney Matthew Hoff said that, quote,

Nikki Kuhnhausen is not here today not because she was transgender, but because Mr. Bogdanoff was put in a life and death situation. No. The jury. That is malarkey.

Malarkey of the highest order. That's correct. The jury deliberated for nearly three days. The jury deliberated for nearly three days. They ultimately found David guilty of second-degree murder and guilty of malicious harassment. Two weeks later, Lisa asked the judge for the maximum sentence. David was given the opportunity to address the court, to address Nikki's family, and he declined. Wow. Judge David Gregerson got emotional as he

delivered the sentence. A lot of Davids in this case. Oh my gosh, that is another David. It's too many. It's a lot of Davids. So many Davids. So many Davids. He delivered a really nice speech and I didn't write any of it down. OK. That's totally fine. The part that got me was he talked about how much it meant to see people rally around Nikki and rally around her family. And he said, you know, people didn't do this because they are rich, because they're well-connected, because they're celebrities. They did this because Nicki mattered. Oof.

I'm getting goosebumps. I'm getting goosebumps too. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, because Nicki mattered. Yeah. Yeah. He gave David the maximum sentence, 19 and a half years, plus a year to be conserved concurrently for the hate crime.

That's it? Yeah. 19 and a half years is the maximum? Yeah. Lisa talked about this, and I thought this was interesting. He took somebody's life! Yeah. I know somebody's life.

Yeah. She talked about how upsetting it was because, you know, obviously. There are people who have drug problems and stuff, and she said. You know, if someone who has any kind of history of arrest for like drugs or anything were to go out and do this, their sentence would be so much longer. But because he didn't have anything else, he got this really light sentence. Yeah. That is an extremely light sentence. And I'm sorry. You're found guilty of a hate crime and it's a year?

Wow. Yeah. I mean – so I'm with you. The sad thing is, like, for someone to be found guilty for murdering a trans woman, like, that's kind of rare. Yeah. So it's like it doesn't feel like a victory victory. But yeah. Yeah.

This whole experience really got Lisa active in the trans community. About a year before this went to trial, she pushed for Washington Governor Jay Inslee to sign Nikki's law, which would stop defendants from using the LGBTQ plus panic defense. So I'm going to define that term. This comes from the LGBTQ bar, and here's what they say. The LGBTQ panic defense strategy is a legal strategy that asks a jury to find that a victim's sexual orientation or gender identity slash expression is to blame for a defendant's violent reaction, including murder. is to blame for a defendant's violent reaction, including murder. It is not a freestanding defense to criminal liability,

but rather a legal tactic used to bolster other defenses. When a perpetrator uses an LGBTQ panic defense, they are claiming that a victim's sexual orientation or gender identity not only explains but excuses a loss of self-control and the subsequent assault. Explains and excuses. Yeah. Yeah. So the governor signed Nikki's law. They knew that this technically couldn't impact David's trial because he murdered Nikki before the law went into effect, but it would stop anyone else from using the LGBTQ plus panic defense. So now Washington is one of just 16 states that has that legislation. Wow.

And OK, another part of this should be a live podcast that I loved. They had this researcher on who has researched this defense. And he said that now, you know, obviously this was more popular in the 80s and 90s. It's less likely that juries are going to buy this today, which made me happy. And then I, of course, being pessimistic, I was like, well, shit, well, do we even need this legislation if people aren't going to buy it anymore? But what he said was that the panic defense does seem to have an effect when it comes to getting a lesser charge. Oh, I would. Yeah. Yeah. So to answer the question, yeah, we do

need it. Yeah, I could absolutely see how that would. I want to end with a quote from Lisa, just because she she and it was so neat to hear like Nikki's friends talk about what a bright, shining person she was. And Lisa put it in a way that I kind of liked. She said she carried glitter with her and spread it all around. She was an amazing young woman. And that's the story of the murder of Nikki Kuhnhausen. That is terribly sad. Yeah.

That is terribly sad. Yeah. Yeah, I mean 19 and a half years for murdering someone does not seem like enough. But I get what you are saying about how a conviction in the murder of a transgender person lots of times doesn't happen. So. Yeah. I mean, it's shockingly little time to me. Yeah. I agree. The other thing I didn't, I didn't write this down, but there was a big concern about bail. Oh, yeah. This guy, because, you know, he was, I'm sorry, clearly a flight risk. Obviously. So the prosecution tried to argue, let's not even make this a possibility. Yeah.

And then they said, OK, but if you do make it a possibility, let's set it at $6 million. Yeah. And the judge initially set it at like $750,000. Wow. And people rightfully flipped out. Yeah. Because like if that's not a sign of where this is headed. No kidding.

I think the judge might have taken that to heart a little bit. He did raise it to I think it was two million. David didn't get out. Yeah. How do you spell Kuhnhausen? Oh, K-U-H-N-H-A-U-S-E-N. I'm going to look Nikki up. She's cute as a baby.

She's so cute. Oh, my God. Her eyeliner's amazing. Mm-hmm. I told you. Yeah. Fuck, her cheekbones. I know.

We're not jealous, so just stop. It's totally fine. You know what I think we ought to do right now? Should we take some questions from our Discord? I think we should. But how do they get in here? To get into our Discord, all you have to do is join our Patreon at the $5 level or higher. That gets you access to the Discord

where you can chitty chat the day away with other listeners. And then on recording days, we ask for questions. Judge Gerst Rederst asks, with the new Supreme Court decisions coming out, how do you feel about our justice system as of currently?

Oh, it sucks. coming out. How do you feel about our justice system as of currently? Oh, it sucks. Well said. Beautifully said. It's amazing we're not interviewed on news programs. It sucks! Well, Tim, it sucks out here! The whole thing's a fucking scam! Yeah.

I hate it. Everything sucks and I hate it. Yeah. Everything sucks and I hate it. Yeah. This country is a shithole. Gosh, where did I get that terminology? I can't remember. Anyway.

I see fat legs says, is there a stereotype about Americans that annoys you? Is there one you think is completely true? I kind of think all the rumors are true. Yeah, they kind of are. All the rumors are true. Ooh, Trans Am Princess asks,

will you be willing to do a trivia night at Obsess Fest? I know they will have a karaoke night. Trivia and game night is more my speed than singing and watching others sing. We may have been asked if we'd be willing to participate in some sort of gameplay. I really hope that I'm not put on the spot. Obviously, Brandy was very – Basically, here's the deal. Anything they asked us to do, we were like, yeah.

Yeah, we told them we would do anything they want us to do. And one of the things they asked about involves some trivia and game show type things. And I was like, hell yes, we're all in for that. And Kristen was like, yeah, I'll be there too. I will also be in attendance. Ooh, Pumpkin Spice asks, Brandy, if you had to get a tattoo of an LGTC inside joke, what would you get? I'm thinking Juvenile Bigfoot. You know what I think I would get?

What? Okay, that cross stitch that someone just sent us. Oh, yeah. Of the Dixon Cider kid. I would totally? What? Okay, that cross stitch that someone just sent us. Oh, yeah. Of the Dixon Cider kid. Uh-huh. I would totally get that as a tattoo. Where would you put it

on your body? Like somewhere that wouldn't show regularly. Yeah, like your vagina. Like on my thigh or something. I think that'd be cute. Ooh, right up your alley says Kristen,

since Brandy is a never nude, please tell me you randomly walk by her naked while y'all are recording the episodes. You totally would. Oh, absolutely. And you would think nothing of it. I wouldn't care. Are you kidding me? I would be naked in front of you all day long. Yeah, I have just never been, I don't know, never been that worried about it.

I mean, I've always had roommates and, you know, every now and then you have the roommate who insists on hiding in the bathroom to flop out her titties. Not me. Not you. You'll flop those titties out anywhere. I think it's because I'm impatient. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah, it's not that like I want you to see my beef. But, you know, if we're talking about that I have to like walk all the way to a bathroom, wait for the bathroom to open no yeah no i'm just dropping the overalls as they say how often are you wearing overalls you know what i'll tell you the truth haven't worn them since the fifth grade but i would like a pair i have a pair and they're just regular overalls but i only wore them while I was pregnant. I know. I felt like that was the excuse like to wear them. I would like to still wear them now, though. Wear them. I might. I might bust them out. What is wrong with you? I don't know. It doesn't I don't know. It doesn't feel age appropriate or body appropriate to me.

Body appropriate. Yeah. You know, that, you know that's a – I know. It's a whole me thing. Believe me. I know. Is this code for press fast forward on whatever you're about to say? All right. Well, just know that I'm giving you the look. Oh, this seems like stuff you've done.

What? Gajro wants to know have you ever tried the Impossible or Beyond burgers or any other plant based meat? Oh yeah. Eat a lot of plant based meat? I mean, not a lot, but yeah, I've tried them all. Yeah. I like them. Okay. You don't have to look at me like that. I'm very happy for you. Are you?

Are you? Yes, I am. You seem disgusted. No, I think they're good. Again, I'm very happy for you. The Burger King Impossible? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It's good. People like it. I bought some Morningstar Farms chicken patties one time because I was going to be, I saw a thing that people like This is how you lead a healthy life or you live a happy life They sat in my freezer for months. I never ate them

Well that's quite a story That's the whole story Lizzie Borden wants to know Has Kristen seen an episode of Bluey yet? Oh yeah I watch it all the time You do not. She has not Lizzie Bordom wants to know, has Kristen seen an episode of Bluey yet? Oh, yeah. I watch it all the time. You do not. She has not.

No, she hasn't seen a single episode of it. Lock me up. I have no children. I'm in my 30s, though I look like I'm in my mid-20s. And, yeah, no, that'd be really weird. Lollipopper asks, what is each of your wheelhouse for books? I like a thriller, psychological thriller, or like a mystery. That's what I mostly read.

What do you got? You like romance? No. You like those bodice rippers? No, I'm not against those. So my critique partner writes romance. So I do read quite a bit of romance. But it's not like if I'm on my own, that's not like what I pick up.

I don't know. I do like a lot of stuff. You're a slut for books. Here's the thing. I'm not that into a male protagonist. Oh, yeah. You're going to have to trick me. The cover is going to have to get me.

And then, you know, I get sucked in. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. I strangely feel the same way. I don't like a male protagonist either. Yeah. Hmm.

Hmm. I'll tell you the truth. I don't read a lot of male authors either. I don't either. I read almost exclusively female authors. Yep. Uh-huh. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it took me a while to realize that.

But yeah, I just. There's like male like comedy authors and like memoir authors that I like. Like who? Augustine Burroughs. Oh, yeah. David Sedaris. Yeah. Love him.

Yeah. That's kind of the end of the list. Yeah, I'm with you. I'm with you. Ooh, my uncle was a tree asks Brandy as a never nude. How did you feel about skin to skin contact for mother baby bonding? And did you ever do that with London? I did.

I did skin to skin. You put your ankle next to her ankle. Stop it. No, I put her on my chest but then I completely covered myself back up. I wasn't like sitting like tits out or anything. Which I know a lot of women do. That would be me. So I put her like inside

my gown and laid her there with me. Yeah. I am concerned that I am turning London into a never nude because I basically always have her clothes and she would probably love to run around with no clothing on. Yeah. Don't think for a second that I'm forgetting that one time when Casey was watching her, she was in a diaper and you were just like, oh, my. Oh, my.

I don't like an unclothed baby. My mom sent me a picture one day. You know, my mom watches London and she had taken her to the pool and then they'd come back and she'd taken off of her, like, off her swimsuit and stuff. And then she was just running around playing. She has, like, a shopping cart in her house, just completely naked. Running around naked. Oh, that's so cute. Oh, my gosh.

Go, little naked baby, go. And she's just, like, living her best life. Yeah. Yeah. She's like, I'm nothing like you her best life. Yeah. Yeah. She's like, I'm nothing like you, mother. I do whenever she takes a bath. So I hold her and we stand in front of the mirror and I like show her her cute little booty and stuff. Because I do want her to be comfortable with her body.

Yeah. Like, I want her to be way more comfortable with her body than I am. Yeah. Yeah. That's absolutely my hope for her. So I probably should let her like be way more comfortable with her body than I am. Yeah. Yeah, that's absolutely my hope for her. So I probably should let her, like, be naked a little more often. You should be naked more often. Okay.

I'm sorry. Ooh, back to breaks, Kristen. You know, I knew when I said it, I might as well have just said, you should eat a tarantula. Ooh. Kenneth Cole's reaction says if you could have a fictional character from TV, a book, a movie, et cetera, as a friend, who would it be? I have two. Who?

David from Schitt's Creek. Uh-huh. I want to be his best friend. Yeah. Fuck you. Sorry. That just came out. Second best.

Too late. And Ted Lasso. Oh, yeah. You're obsessed. Gosh, David and I have just watched Ted Lasso. It is such a good show. Yeah. It's so good.

such a good show. Yeah. It's so good. It's really like an uplifting, feel-good show, which I did not expect going in at all. Like, I was kind of

reluctant to watch it for a long time. Were you really? Yeah, because I was like, I don't want to watch a fucking show about soccer. You are such a soccer hater. Yeah, it is

a heartwarming show and I like there's some references to Kansas City. Yep, absolutely. And I'm always the dork who's like, oh, my God, did you see? Look at his T-shirt. I know what that means.

Okay. What? He mentions an elementary school in the show. Do you know this? No. Which elementary school? Well, I'm pretty sure your mom was the school nurse at this elementary. Yes!

Oh, my gosh! I'm clearly not caught up on Ted Lasso, but I did. I feel like I watched the first season. I loved it. Blair asks, any tips for negotiating a separation? That's such a tough one. First of all, I'm sorry that you're going through that. That's super, super tough.

Going through that. That's super, super tough. My best advice for that, and this is way easier said than done, is attempt to be logical and as unemotional as possible. But that is way easier said than done. Yeah. And also ask for what you want and what you deserve yeah well and i i think that's funny because like i think sometimes when people hear i think especially women when we hear like attempt to be logical and unemotional that can sometimes translate to ripping ourselves off yeah honestly oh I completely agree.

And no, think about it logically. Yes. Think about the time you put in. And yeah, that means something. Yeah. And also, don't worry too – I love how I'm not in this situation. I'm like, let me tell you. No, I would say don't worry too much about how the other person feels about what you're asking for. Yes.

Because pretty soon it won't matter at all. Well, and that's kind of what I mean about try to remain unemotional about it. Because I – yeah, I think that was very much a factor for me. It's like, I don't want to be mean. I don't want to – Yeah. I don't want to. Yeah. Yeah. And it's not mean.

No. To say, here's what I think I deserve. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Now, if you say, here's what I think I deserve, you jackass. You've got a stupid head. You know, that's.

I mean, also, you should probably say that. That's just being logical. Okay, I think this is interesting. Let's Go Eat Pork says, what do you think your neighbors call you? We call one set Merica and the other Megan because she has to be named that. I think my boyfriend and I are just the stoners. What do you think you guys are? I think they probably call us bougie because I'm bougie as fuck.

Yeah? Yeah. Okay. I bet we're the bougie couple next door. Or the bougie family next door. Yeah. What do you think your neighbors call you? The dog people.

Yeah, the dog people for sure. The dog people for, yeah. There's like no question. Yeah. The sad thing is like – There's nothing you'd rather be called by your neighbors first of all. Well, yeah. You're very proud to be the dog people.

Yeah, happy to be the dog people. But I mean like I remember growing up like there are certain neighbors who I can still hear. There was this neighbor who had two dogs, Sadie and Dexter. And she would let him out. And when she called him in, she always used the same voice. Sadie! Dexter! And I just know that my voice calling Dottie and Kit into the house is, like, ingrained in my neighbor.

Like, oh, God. The other day, Norman and I were driving around, and we saw this very intense woman walking her dog. Yeah. And she was all business. She had on a sun hat. She clearly had, like, a dog-walking outfit on. And she was moving and grooving. And I was like, oh, my God.

Do I look like that when I walk the dogs? Norman goes, you 100% look like that. I wear my visor. He was like, I thought that was you for a minute. I have a belt that I wear. It's all pretty cool is what I'm telling you. Sounds cool. And I'm trying to get my zone minutes, Brandi.

So if you think I'm just lollygagging around. Do you get those arms pumping? I do. Not the least bit surprised. Not the least bit. Oh, Lord. Should we do some inductions here? Not the least bit Oh lord Should we do some Inductions here?

Let's move on to Supreme Court Inductions To get inducted On this podcast All you have to do Is join us At the $7 level Or higher

On Patreon We are continuing To read your names And your favorite Cookies People are starting To kind of riot In the discord I know About this This induction topic We're thinking about Mixing it up cookies. People are starting to kind of riot in the Discord

about this induction topic. We thinking about mixing it up anytime soon? I mean, we could. We could. I will say, we've had a very good run with cookies. We have had a very good run with cookies. It takes a long time for people to get upset about cookies. Yes. Alright, Nicole Hansen.

Nestle Tollhouse Classic Chocolate Chip. Rachel Osler. My Daughter's Chocolate Chip Cookies. Nicole Hansen. Nestle Tollhouse Classic Chocolate Chip. Rachel Osler. My Daughter's Chocolate Chip Cookies. Meredith Bowman. Thin Mints. Kara Smith. Oob Cookies. What is that?

Oobay? Oobay? Ooby Cookies. Ooby Cookies? Ooby Cookies. Don't say it like you know it. I have no idea. I'm just trying stuff out.

Women Be Shopping. Ginger'm just trying stuff out. Women be shopping. Ginger snaps. Rebecca can't. Ginger nuts. Ginger nuts? What we call ginger snaps. Okay. In England.

Oh, my. All right. Ginger nuts. Shasta Wessling. Crumbled chocolate chip. Elise Leardom-Gadsen Biscotti Cookies Or as we say, Biscotte.

Sorry, that was stupid. Patty, please cut that. For the love of God, Patty. Save me from myself. Hannah Messick Chocolate Chip with Walnuts Lovely Lexi Fresh chocolate chip

Salinda Chocolate chip Carly Katrin Westrich Arby's salted caramel and chocolate chip cookies Arby's has cookies now? I know they've got the meats This cookie comes with a pile of roast beef That'd probably be pretty good I mean it'd be sweet and salty This cookie comes with a pile of roast beef.

That'd probably be pretty good. I mean, it'd be sweet and salty. Jennifer Sardone. Chocolate-covered Oreos. Kayla Schaefer. Sugared molasses cookies from Quick Trip. Ooh. Ooh.

Ooh. Eat that. Jamila Noblet. Peanut butter chocolate chip. Maureen Blageski. Thin, crispy, brown sugar cookies. What's a brown sugar cookie? I don't know, but I am interested. That sounds very good.

Megan Wilson. Peanut butter blossoms. Mary Kate Griffin. What? I'm sorry. I just love she gives a very phonetic pronunciation. I love it. Thank you, Mary Kate.

You think she overdid it, do you? No, I love it. Thank you. Chocolate peppermint snaps. What's a chocolate peppermint snap? I don't know, but they're Mary Kate Griffith's favorite cookies. Welcome to the Supreme Court! Thank you,

everyone, for all of your support. We appreciate it so much. If you're looking for other ways to support us, please find us on social media. We're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Patreon. Please remember to subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen and then head on over to Apple Podcasts and leave us a five-star rating

and 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.

I got my info from an episode of 48 Hours titled The Life and Death of Nikki Kuhnhausen and the podcast Should Be Alive. I got my info from an episode of 48 Hours entitled I Drop Homicide, an episode of American Monster entitled Everyone's Favorite Uncle, and articles for Oxygen, CBS News, The Washington Post, and ABC News. 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. Do it.