My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 246 - thanks for the lolz

Episode Date: October 29, 2020

On this week’s episode, Karen and Georgia cover the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing and The California Witch Killers.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We at Wondery live, breathe and downright obsess over true crime and now we're launching the ultimate true crime fan experience, Exhibit C. Join now by following Wondery, Exhibit C on Facebook and listen to true crime on Wondery and Amazon Music, Exhibit C. It's truly criminal. Hello. Hello. And welcome to my favorite murder. That's Georgia Hartstark. That's Karen Kilgaris. This is your third favorite podcast. Welcome. Hey. And your mom's second favorite podcast. What the? Your sister's number one. That's right. We like her better. Yep. We always have. Your mom does too. Your mom. No. Your dad's on the fence about both of you. Oh, shit. I was talking to my dad on the phone. I was talking to my dad on the phone this morning

because he was yelling at me for not knowing how important this Dodger's World Series win is. Uh-huh. And again, I tried to explain dad, I am not interested. I love the athleticism. I'll watch it if people are hanging out. Great snacks always. The fun hang usually. Not interested in stats or when things have and then haven't happened, whatever. So he's yelling at me about that. And then I look at the time and realize I have to get off the phone to go to my therapy, my virtual therapy appointment. And I go, dad, sorry, I have to get off the phone because I have to go talk to my therapist. And he goes, what? I thought I was your therapist. Yeah. What would your life be like if fucking Jim Kilgaris was your fucking designated therapist?

Well, he kind of was for the first 18. And I would say it didn't work out very good. It's not, I don't recommend it. The suck it up school of therapy doesn't work for most people. I think we're all learning that now that, oh, our parents were wrong about, and our grandparents were wrong about bootstraps and whatnot. Yeah. That maybe that approach, let the baby cry it out. Yeah. It's not good. It's not- You'll spoil the baby if you touch it too much. Oh my God. Love is very finite and you have to meet it out in tiny amounts. I am reading this book on this, basically the same thing called daughter detox about, you know, mothers and how to get, get over them.

And can you, they're like your first unrequited love, mothers. Exactly. And it's telling, it's talking about all these like, you know, psychological experiments they used to do before you had to actually treat people like human beings, like science had to care about humans and ask permission and things like that and like worry about the long lasting effects of these experiments. Yep. So depressing. And like, who lets, what people let their baby get scientifically fucking tested upon in the 50s and 70s? Well, that's, but that's also back when doctors, anything they said goes. So if a doctor said, oh, your child is showing signs of this, let's put them in this. It's good. It'll be good

for them. Here's a new medication that just came out that I'm getting money to give your child. Let's put them on it. Yep. So that's going great. It's, it's a different time. Much less information. My mom and I are going to go to therapy finally. Are you a mediator? Really? She used to be a lawyer. Isn't that interesting? It's G. I know. She's a therapist, a psychologist, you know, and she used to be a lawyer. I feel like it's going to be great. You know what you both need, huh? No judgments. Fucking, what do they call them? A mute button. No. Like when you're talking, it's like the, it's the old debates mute button. Oh my God, you're right. Like, you're not allowed to talk at the same time. Oh, that's a great idea. If only there was a button

that could make you hear people. Because even when, for me personally, when I'm not talking, I'm still sitting there going, nope, here's why I'm gonna say that. And here you're just doing the same thing again. Well, that's why I think couples therapy is so important and good is because ideally you have a therapist who you tell the therapist how you feel and the therapist translate it, translate it, translates it to your partner, whoever that might be, and tells it to them in the language they understand. You know what I mean? It's almost like they're an interpreter rather than like anything else. Right. And then you get told things. Right. Oh, that's the problem. You need to hear. No, no, I'm fine. No, no, no, no, no. Oh, shit. No. It's that it goes back the other way. Oh,

I was supposed to listen to that. It's a fully formed, I mean, Jesus, Jesus. Yep. It's like, here's the thing I've learned lately. Okay. First of all, did I tell you about when I made my therapist cackle so hard she threw her head back? No. Laughing? Did I already tell you this story? Did she hurt herself? No, we were just talking about how much I cannot stand vulnerability at all cannot with I can't withstand it. It's the same as as a danger feeling for another person is a vulnerable as me coming anywhere close to being vulnerable or honest or direct. And and to so she's talking about something about it and how it's of course very important and that you have to practice it and that it's a healthy thing and whatever. And she's like, and it's really,

it's a really good thing to do. And I go, I know, but it's so gross. And then she she exploded. The idea that I was calling vulnerability gross is like her favorite thing. You're being vulnerable in that moment, though, too, which is kind of lovely and ironic, right? It was it, but it was also just in these quarantine times when all of our human interactions are so restricted and strange to have like a belly laugh with your therapist. It was so we it was really enjoyable. But I was going to tell you so wait, do you want to say the name of that book again? Oh, just the daughter detox. That's called. It's good. It's fine. It's good. I highly I still highly recommend

adult children of emotionally immature parents. It's still one of my fucking favorite books I've read in understanding what's going on with me and my life, my childhood. I am going to wait to go to therapy with my mom till after the elections. What if you schedule it for December 1st? That's a great idea. Because 2024. Well, I was going to you you talking about that book and made me think of a book that my therapist recommended to me that like is one of those ones where and this is my problem with a lot of self-help books. It's my problem is when you when the first three chapters are amazing, I walk away. I'm like, got it. Thank you so much. And I walk away. But this one is like that, but I'm sticking with it. It's called burnout,

the secret to unlocking the stress cycle. And it's written by Emily Nagoski and her sister, Amelia Nagoski. And it is incredible. It like the first three chapters were basically the last 10 years of my life versus this thing where when you think you're in danger or you you you go into the stress response, you know, our our old brains that are basically caveman brains need to either when when the fight flight freeze response comes up, you either need to run or you need to go find people and then have people make the feeling go away. Like there's certain things your body needs to process the chemicals that that response sets into your body. Right. And if you don't do it, it just gets it just stays there. If that's a thing where

if you're like me, hey, folks, if you're like me and you're good at pushing all those feelings down and pretending you're not having them, it's it's just a fascinating education about your body. Like it's that they talk about it's like when something when you get into a fight with a person and then in front of them, you're fine and then you walk away and cry. That's your body needing to get out all of that energy and those chemicals and stuff because you get flooded with all these chemicals that are keeping your caveman body alive to get away from the the danger. Yeah. It's like when people start shaking after a car accident or something like that, right? Exactly. Exactly. Or is that adrenaline? You have to like but your it's your system

saying we got to get this out. Yeah. Because this isn't normal. Yeah. But if you keep just collecting it, then it's normalizing in your system and then you cut that that adds to that just opens the door. Anyway, I'm badly synopsizing. It's called burnout. Burn out the secret to unlocking the stress cycle so that you can basically work it out and stress out less recognize when it's happening more. That's an important thing. Yeah. Yeah. You start to write it really good automatically. Speaking of fear for those people who listened to the mini-soad this week and heard in the background after your terrifying fucking ghost story in the middle of it. And then suddenly there was a bell that rang that we all heard in Karen's house.

It was clearly in Karen's house. We all panicked. The dogs just like didn't bark. They just stared at the door. I was so angry and I was scared which of course my reaction of fear is anger. I was just like what the fuck is going on? So I walk out into the kitchen after we finish recording. So a couple minutes later or whatever and to go make dinner. And there's just a little Pyrex bowl sitting on the floor in the middle of the kitchen. In the middle. Like I looked at the photo. It's like in the middle straight up glass bowl. Yeah. So it almost seems like it fell off because it was on the strainer next to the sink. Okay. Somehow and it was a windy night but no windows were open. Dude. It fell off that strainer or is that the drying rack? Yeah. Yeah. It fell

off that. Yeah. Bounced on the floor. Didn't break even though it's a glass bowl and then was just sitting there. That's waiting for me. I'm still scared. That doesn't explain it away for me at all. My new house is haunted. I feel like if we would have known already because you lived there for a little while it was haunted and that's just like such a baby move. Like if that's how long it took to get the ghost to like do something then I think we're fine. Like in 10 years it'll finally figure out how to close a door or whatever. Thank you. You know what I mean? Yes. So yeah but that was a legit because the the idea of a bell ringing that isn't any connected to any part of your actual house and it's an old tiny bell. It's not like a new fangle

fucking I don't know are there new fangled bells? They're making new bells every day Georgia. Innovation in the bell in the bell area is unbelievable. It's the fastest way that we're learning. But it really was like and you think about it like a Pyrex bowl it's like gling. Yeah it's like how weird and old-fashioned it sounded. It landed face up whatever that means. Yeah in the middle I just don't like it. I still don't like it but I don't like it at all. What can we do about it? Yell at the dogs. Oh you heard it when you went back. Well listening back it was even scarier because it's like we all just like freeze so I feel like listening to it like because you're listening to a podcast and then all of a sudden like everyone's like it's unsettling.

Yeah I have to I'll have to listen back to that because I could I was talking so I only heard the end of it. Yeah but I saw Georgia's face change and I was like are we gonna ignore that? Or no. I only do what you need to do to make this work. Hey speaking of making it work making it work we have a we have merch guys. Hey again on the my favorite. One of the great segues. Thank you it's kind of my thing. We have some new merch in the store there's the here's the thing fuck everyone mug it's the mug that says here's the thing on it and then when you take a sip on the bottom it says fuck everyone which is really clever in case you didn't know. Tricky for work especially if you work at a church or

children's clothing place store clothing and play place. If you work inside the McDonald's play place you can drink coffee all day long. And then we have a we have a new face mask like mask you know face masks or face masks now of our actual logo on it so that's exciting. Now there's two options yeah and then we also have a stemless wine glass that has our logo on it that's really cute so. So if you're trying to be classy but it still need to be tacky yeah we've got the wine glass for you. That's right yeah so check that out my oh we also have exactly right merch on exactlyrightmedia.com in the store that's like really cute I have a the sticker on my laptop now my dad has the hoodie and the hat and it's just really good I put that hoodie on

it is a cozy sweatshirt and for the people that are like me that don't want a bunch of business on their sweatshirt it's just the exact it's a black sweatshirt with a white exactly right logo and that's it no drama. And the mug yeah so check that out if you feel like it if you don't yeah that's okay too. And also if there if you're looking for merch for and if the other podcasts that's all there on the exactlyright.com website. You know who's got great podcast uh merch is this podcast will kill you beautiful stuff they got great shit okay. As does bananas bananas got into merch before they even started their podcast they were like friends with talented artists and they've just they got it going immediately they've got great

stuff they do and we actually expanded it do you need a ride we expanded our merch because we only ever had the shirt yeah now we have other stuff take a look it's fun merch is the best speaking of bananas this week on bananas the guest is our friend of the family one of the funniest people fortune fiemster she's just a just a dream person she's the greatest yeah she's truly the most hilarious and the best her videos on instagram that she does dancing eating ice cream videos oh my god and her her Brenda videos oh my god yeah if you fortune fiemster put this in your put it in a file for when you are feeling and you just need to not think about anything you bring up a video of fortune doing an impression of it's Brenda Brenda yeah yeah uh she's either

playing Brenda or dancing and eating ice cream or any of the other or just her stand-up she has a great stand-up special totally that came out um just go enjoy fortune she's really an amazing performer yeah and she's great on bananas this week so check that out yeah oh uh aren't I said no gifts with Bridger Winneger the great Gabe Liebman who is a really amazing writer um I'm sure he was a performer originally because who wasn't and he's been he's written on all your favorite shows Brooklyn 9 9 pen 15 and he's on there talking to Bridger it's a hilarious Steven who was there to record it said it was a hilarious episode yeah they're they're both the best and the gift is really funny you're gonna I don't want to spoil it but okay it's really good okay good

love it yeah check that out and that's our that's our network's our business do you know what's maybe so happy last week which was so weird is like so we have this network right and it's like actually it's a jaw it's like a thing that we do and it's it's like an actual network and it's real which is crazy it's a full-time job yeah and so we had our Friday morning staff meeting as we always do and everyone catches each other up what we're doing and this past week we we have hired lots of people lately and we had so many people that this time we couldn't fit everyone on one screen yeah on the zoom meeting and I was just like holy shit this is our business it's cool and we have the best people yeah on the team it's just you really do you can't stop finding the best fucking

people it's great we're so lucky yeah so thank you all for yeah making it so that we have a network that people would even want to pay attention to totally it's only because you guys support us so much that we're able to do this awesomeness and bring friends and talented people fucking on to your ear holes yeah and and maybe FedEx some stuff here and there yeah hold on is that a ghost cat me me me me hi are you done come on come on in all right um another that's over what if she what if she jumped on the couch right now and went well hi well hi um i don't have a lot of tea i have unsolved mysteries the new season it's good okay okay how many episodes did you get into unsolved mysteries three or four only did you get into the tsunami the Japanese oh my god

oh crying crying every episode i really am blown away by unsolved mysteries we've talked about it before they're doing incredible work it's they've upped it this is like the the it's almost like the hbo version of unsolved mysteries yeah they've done all this every time i go look at this b roll they just like everything is shot beautifully um it's all the families yeah all the people that that have been affected it's these people telling their own story it's just so well done but this episode about that i believe it was 2012 tsunami in japan yeah and the after effects and the ghosts the ghosts of people who don't know that they didn't survive though it kills me it was so sad yeah it's so sad and all the old footage of it was just like oh my god it's yeah it's a

really it's big i mean it was it was i remember watching that watching it as it happened remember when that truck backed up and then drove away and got away from the water and so terrifying it's also fascinating episode because you learned so much about that the northern japan's culture yeah and i had no idea i didn't understand any of that and to have that um the monk that explains right actually what kind of a lot of this is based in it's it's so fascinating you will it's beautiful it's so sad and touching and beautiful and it's just hard and when they open they open the cafe so everyone because they the loss of life was so massive for this area of japan yeah and then they just started trying to bring people together yeah i mean just watch yeah just watch it just watch um bore that's

good that was good my sister actually called me and told me i have to watch it and then tell her if she could handle it and then i called her and said no you can't you can't handle it yeah oh okay oh my sister doesn't she's not a fan of true crime or bad things or scary things wait wait i'm talking about borat i thought you said laura okay my sister i'm my dawn and you had it my sister's scared of borat can i please tell my truth or are you just gonna roll right over it and i was like let's confirm let's confirm again yeah yep she's scared of big mustaches she's scared of pranks um sorry go ahead no nothing it's just like i liked it it's subversive and it's kind of like it's a little anarchist

you know it's like yeah it's cool here's my problem by the time i'm watching tv at night i need to relax yeah things like borat that's like what you that's me going doing it with friends if i have people around yeah but by myself i literally grind my teeth watching things where people are being pranked or like where someone's i feel like i have to go do it totally it's it's very i fast forward through a lot of it it's it's super like gross and silly and like dumb in a lot of ways of course but it also was like the most like punk rock thing i've seen in a long fucking time awesome anything else well oh there's a show so there's two versions of the show there's a british and an american they're both called the office what it's called sorry had to had to

i really like that character though that you just played the character of the girl that understands what you're talking about oh the office oh the office and always guesses the office no matter what you're saying oh that happened on the office once every time you tell us about your life oh you know what pam did that on the office one sorry what was the name of the show maybe like i can't talk to you right now um the show's called getting on and i'd seen i'd first seen the american version which has niche nancy nash lori i want to say lori kill martin because she's a stand-up comic that i love lori metcalfe from rosa oh it's amazing the nurse one yes and alex born lori metcalfe it's one of tv we talked about this like years ago i

think it's just one of the best fucking shows on tv okay it's it's so brilliantly done if you are looking for any it's comedy but then there it's really poignant it's really beautifully played yeah i always knew it was based on a british show well here comes now that everything i'm watching is that i'm starting to get recommended so the original getting on comes up and i start watching it it is unbelievably great oh by the way the the english british what the american the american one is on hbo i just looked it up the british one yeah okay the british one though is great i haven't seen it yes the american ones on hbo if you want to watch it it's amazing but the british one i was watching it on prime i guess and it is just it's really really subtle

and it's really fucking realistic yeah it's really realistic and it's so good there's one part where there's one part where an old lady because it's there are nurses in basically an aftercare yeah like uh final final care final care um section of the hospital and there's this one nurse that just so dry and she's so over it and she's and this old lady's yelling at her and she's like yeah terrible there's and she goes i know it's a nightmare everybody says so it's the best reaction like when someone's shitting on you to wholeheartedly agree with them you're just like believe me i was about to say it myself is my favorite hard being this bad i fucking know everybody says so it's the best so yeah if you're looking for if you're looking for anything

a little laugh getting on american getting on british yeah can't go wrong can't go wrong can't go wrong don't go wrong never go wrong never just keep it up never never i have to say now i'm gonna stop eating sour candy the nerds roped days are over i i went from nerds ropes into a um chewy sweet tarts area that has ruined my teeth and my stomach and my way of life and that's i'm done okay i have to get back to basics i've been silly i've been trying well vince has been helping me a lot try to find the best cookies and cream ice cream oh like who makes the best that's a noble a noble effort yeah where where have you landed so far so far i mean hog and oss of course they're the bell really like mcconnell's is that the big one yeah i mean you

can't it's never bad it's never bad there is a hog and oss limited edition that sometimes comes out and sometimes doesn't yeah called midnight cookies and cream that's just like instead of the cream it's like dark chocolate ice cream with cookies in it so it's like cookies and chocolate it's not cream it's cookies and chocolate cream yes i'm getting it it's i'm hearing it that sounds see i don't i don't love cookies and cream because as a child i honestly believed if you're going to get ice cream anything that wasn't chocolate based was a waste of your time i agree except for that but this one is now don't even have to fucking deal with it they're like hey georgia we know what you love yeah and we want to give it to you and i want to take it and you

know and just get it get it in there the office but but the the ice cream days had to end for me because that it's i'm slowly trying to pare it down where it's like i had to do it i was just telling my friend this i had to do an ice cream embargo i had to do a cereal embargo and now it's a candy embargo because it's like you're going to have to leave your house and be seen at some point stop acting like that's never gonna happen it's happening now when i'm still you know what i mean it's just like come on life's still happening it's so fucking annoying it really it's kind of a pain in the ass um who goes first oh hold please hold and i'm sorry okay that's okay but i thought i didn't have a lot but this is one thing i will share with you and i'm gonna send it

to both of you right now georgia steven ray on twitter i get a a tweet from um someone named adison hey adison adison here and they say hey carol garif michael myers has two arms to hold you with and then they send me pictures you can buy a 35 foot michael myers inflatable halloween 35 feet 30 okay 35 fucking feet holy shit oh my god can you see this yes in the distance amazing it's like a landscape shot and michael myers is humongous in the foreground he has a fucking knife and he's kind of staring up at your window if you were if your window was five stories high which reminds us to talk about the new mfm animated uh by nigg terry yes yes just really quick though the inflatable michael myers is three thousand dollars so for rich people only this is

thank you adison because honestly i looked at that message and i was just like this is simply the best thing really beautiful this halloween has really brought it in terms of joy badly needed joy wait i'm i'm gonna write adison back right now what should i say to them hey adison hey adison thanks for the there's a twitter down so let's not be too okay thanks for the lol xo xo mfm the lols thanks for the lols and then put it then put a gift of a kitten with a cake do it hey adison thanks for the lols and then a gift of that boom cool we did it perfect that's now that's just like a little easter egg for people to find on twitter okay sorry what were you trying to say i was saying who goes first

with the podcast of wait no i thought you were um i thought you just brought up mfm animated yes mfm animated the new one about your skeleton your 10 12 foot skeleton and susie in the fucking buying office at so deep osu what a joy here's a deep cut that i wonder if anybody noticed but me what su is doing when she's trying to explain to everybody how great it's gonna be is exactly the cocaine bear oh what's pointing at the yeah she's got a cigarette in her hand and she's got the hairs coming off of her head yeah she's just doing a mirror image of cocaine bear with a white board pointing out why but it's just like oh it's good it's just a little bit of a callback there's so many details so many people kind of keep talking about the

details it's the cutest the cutest cutest thing anyway you're first i'm first okay i'm gonna write because i i went last yeah i was it was just me by myself last time right so i'd go first looking for a better cooking routine with meal planning shopping and prepping handled hello fresh has you covered hello fresh makes home cooking easy and affordable so you can stay on track and on budget in the new year hello fresh meals are convenient seasonal and delicious stay cozy all winter long with classic comfort foods available weekly why stop with just dinner now you can enjoy hello fresh's expanded menu of quick lunch solutions weekend brunch simple side dishes and amazing desserts karen january is going to be my month for hello fresh i am so sick of

takeout i miss cooking so much i haven't lifted a knife or a pan since like early fall so i can't wait to get back in the kitchen and hello fresh makes it so easy and also makes it so that my food tastes good which is hard to do on my own it gives you everything everything you need so get up to 20 free meals with purchase plus free shipping on your first box at hello fresh dot ca slash murder 20 with code murder 20 that's up to 20 free meals plus free shipping on your first box when you go to hello fresh dot ca slash murder 20 and use code murder 20 goodbye hey i'm a risha and i'm brook and we're the hosts of wondery's podcast even the rich where we bring you absolutely true and absolutely shocking stories about the most famous families and biggest celebrities the world

has ever seen our newest series is all about the incomparable diva whitney houston whitney's voice defined a generation and even after her death her talent remains unmatched but her incredible success hit a deeply private pain in our series whitney houston destiny of a diva will tell you how she hid her true self to make everyone around her happy and how the pressure to be all things to all people led her down a dark path follow even the rich wherever you get your podcasts you can listen ad free on the amazon music or wondery app now let's get serious all right okay here's a toughy but unnecessary uh this is the 16th street baptist church bombing whoa yeah okay um so i got information from the zen education project website fbi.gov history.com wikipedia um the and then i

listened to a podcast it's called the black story um the black is spelled b l v c k story hosted by a guy named marquis all right this is a story that we all know that you know know and know how important it is to the civil rights movement but don't know i didn't know a ton of details about it i just knew about this tragic event so i thought it'd be good to kind of look more into it and and have some background absolutely okay so birmingham alabama in the 1960s was nationally known as one of america's most racially discriminatory violent and segregated cities martin leuther king of course um had been he'd been arrested there in 1963 while leading a nonviolent campaign of demonstrations against segregation and he described birmingham as quote probably the most

thoroughly segregated city in the united states um throughout the civil rights movement birmingham was a major site of protests marches and sit-ins and they're met with brutality by police and violence from its white citizens and white supremacists plant home-made bombs in homes and churches so often that the city gets the nickname bombing ham whoa yeah um in fact birmingham is home to one of the strongest and most violent chapters of the kkk they openly back then governor um george wallis who was an outspoken advocate for segregation total piece of shit uh as well as the city's police commissioner eugene bull Connor who was notorious for using violence against demonstrators i mean it's just this like fucking firecracker of a city you know

yep and it's because of it's because of these reasons that civil rights activists made birmingham a major focus of their efforts to desegregate the deep south it's like going into the eye of the storm yeah you know armed with only nonviolent you know options which is fucking incredible and so brave i can't even imagine yeah local black churches are fundamental in the organization of these protests and members of the kkk routinely call in bomb threats to churches they want to disrupt the civil rights meetings and church services alike that families go to on sunday mornings and the the three story 16th street baptist church which has a predominantly black congregation it's also a rallying point for the city's black population and a routine meeting

place for civil rights leaders for organizing and educating the marchers which of course means it's a target for the racists the morning of sunday september 15th 1963 was a typical sunday morning at the 16th street baptist church that day it was having its youth day festivities and around 200 church members were already there including kids attending the sunday school classes and everyone's getting ready for the start of the services at 11 a.m and the sermon that day that was to be given was called a love that forgives which is from luke 23 34 in which jesus is on the cross and asks god to forgive those crucifying him in the basement women's lounge five little girls are excitedly changing into their choir robes because in preparation for youth day

they would we're going to sing in the choir and be ushers for the services at approximately 10 22 a.m an anonymous man calls the church and when the call is answered says the words three minutes and then hangs up but not one minute later a bomb made a 15 sticks of dynamite that had been planted under the steps of the church close to the basement explodes and blows a crater five feet wide and two feet deep in the exact spot where the five little girls were getting ready adi may collins who's 14 niece mcnair who's 11 carol robertson who's 14 and synthia westley also 14 are all killed instantly the fifth girl adi mays younger sister 12 year old sarah collins survives but has 21 pieces of glass embedded in her uh embedded in her face and she's blinded

in one eye in um later recollections of the bombing she says that in the moments immediately before the explosion she watched as her sister adi tied another girl's dress sash right before it happened the explosion had shaken the entire building and blew a hole over seven feet in diameter in the church's real rear wall destroying the rear steps to the church the blast was so strong it blew passing motorist out of his car and other cars i know it's fucking insane um and other cars parked near the site of the blast were destroyed and windows of properties more than two blocks away from the church were also damaged that's what an insane explosion it was and the only stained glass window in the church that doesn't completely shatter is uh shows christ leading a group of

little children um violence escalates in birmingham in the hours following the bombing and you know there's just this outpouring of anger about what's happened you know suddenly the children are involved and you know that it's it's it's just everyone's horrified by it and then two more black youths johnny robinson who's 16 and virgil where who's 13 um are shot to death within seven hours of the bombing robinson is shot in the back by a policeman as he runs away down an alley he dies at the hospital and where is shot in the cheek and chest um with a revolver so he's in a residential suburb 15 miles north of the city and a 16 year old white team team named larry sims he's in a car he sees where on the handlebars of a bike and fires at him reportedly with his eyes closed he sims is later convicted

of second-degree manslaughter and a judge suspends his sentence and imposes two years probation instead and all at least 20 people are injured from the initial bombing and the ensuing riots the death of the girls draws national attention to birmingham martin luther king sends a telegram to governor wallace after the attack saying quote the blood of our little children is on your hands yeah yeah and in fact a week before the bombing wallace had set in an interview with the new york times that he believed alabama needed quote a few first-class funerals to stop racial integration on september 18th over 8 000 mourners attend the funerals for the the three for three of the little girls at reverend john porter's sixth avenue back baptist church the fourth little girl had a

smaller private service martin luther king also attends and addresses the mourners with a speech saying this tragic day may cause the white side to come to terms with this with its conscience in spite of the darkness of this hour we must not become bitter we must not lose faith in our white brothers life is hard at times as hard as crucible steel but today you do not walk alone by september 20th the fbi is able to confirm that the explosion was caused by a device that was purposely planted beneath the steps of the church close to the girl's bathroom so it's right there some wire and pieces of red plastic are discovered and they think it was part of a timing device within days of the bombing investigators start to focus their attention on the kkk a splinter group known

as the kahaba boys so the kahaba boys formed earlier in 1963 because they felt that the kkk wasn't doing enough to combat desegregation this group had previously been linked to several bomb attacks at black owned businesses and the homes of black community leaders throughout the spring and summer of 1963 and they're considered one of the most violent groups in the south and are later found to be responsible for the 1961 attacks on the freedom riders at the trailways bus station in birmingham as well the kahaba boys have fewer than 30 active members and among them are thomas blatant jr herman cash robert chambliss and bobby cherry who eventually become the main suspects in the bombing on at the 16th street church investigators gather numerous witness statements

and they say that they saw a group of white men in a turquoise chevrolet near the church in the early hours of the morning of september 15th and they indicate that a white man exited the car and walked toward the steps of the church and then physical descriptions closely match with two of the main suspects chambliss is questioned by the fbi on september 26th and three days later he's indicted on charges of illegally purchasing and transporting dynamite um but no federal charges are filed against him or any of his fellow conspirators in relation to the bombing on may 13th 1965 about two years later local investigators and the fbi formally named blatant cash chambliss and cherry as the four perpetrators of the bombing with robert chambliss the likely

ringleader of the four but the director of the fbi fucking j edger hoover formally blocks any impending federal prosecutions against the subjects he blocks it no one's allowed to fucking move forward at all and he refuses to disclose any evidence his agents had obtained with the state or federal prosecutors why because these are fucking racist pieces of shit but i mean did he have to explain why um what the legal reason was i don't think he does and in 1968 he closed the fbi closes the case officially uh-huh and any files that are you know pertaining to the case are sealed by his order the 16th street baptist church bombing remains unsolved for around eight fucking years but when William baxley is elected attorney general of alabama in 1971 he works on reopening the case

within one week of being sworn into office baxley researches original police files and determines that they're mostly worthless so he requests access to the original fbi files on the case and he's met with resistance from the federal agency um and he publicly threatens the department of justice for withholding evidence that could result in the prosecution of the bombing suspects and this will finally the fbi gives him their findings and um j edger hoover had died in 1972 so it seems like maybe someone else was finally able to hand those over he also seeks out the key witnesses and starts like building trust with them and they uh eventually identify identify shambles as the individual who placed the bomb beneath the church um and they and baxley also

gathers evidence proving shambles had purchased dynamite from a store in jefferson county less than two weeks before the bomb was planted and he uses the witness testimony and this new evidence to finally formally construct a case against robert shambles so on november 14th 1977 almost 15 years after the bombing that's how freaking long it took robert shambles now 73 years old stands trial in birmingham's jefferson county courthouse after being indicted by a grand jury the month before on four counts of murder at a pretrial hearing on october 18th judge wallis gibson rules that shambles will only be tried for the murder of carol mcnair and he wasn't going to be charged in relation to the other three deaths that's so it's so crazy about it and i've i urge everyone to go

look at civil rights era photos in color because the black and white makes it seem so long ago and it's freaking not and in fact these one of the little girls who was killed her friend at the time her childhood friend was condoleezza rice so that are you serious yeah so that tells you that how how recent it was yes yeah they would not have been these old ladies now they were no it was not that long ago and you know it's just it's horrifying yeah so one of the key witnesses that testifies for the prosecution um at at shambles's trial is reverend elizabeth cobs who happens to be shambles's own niece and i mean the the fear that the witnesses must have had testifying against these people who were just clearly terrorists yeah yeah terrorists exactly

so it takes a lot of putz butter to do that she states that her uncle repeatedly informed her he had been engaged in what he referred to as a one-man battle against black people since the 1940s she also says that on the day before the bombing he had told her he had enough dynamite in his possession to quote flatten half of birmingham in his closing statements before the jury on november 17th baxley acknowledges that shambles is not the sole perpetrator of the bombing and says that if denise were alive right now she'd be turning 26 because it happened to be her birthday that exact same day the jury deliberates for six hours and on november 18th 1977 they thank robert jambles guilty of the murder of carol denise mcnair and sentenced him to life

imprisonment uh he tries to appeal by saying that the evidence presented was circumstantial and that the 14-year delay between the crime and his trial violated his constitutional right to a speedy trial bullshit and i mean yeah um this appeal is dismissed and he dies in prison on october 29th 1985 at the age of 81 uh in 1995 10 years after shambles dies the fbi reopens their investigation into the church bombing as part of a coordinated effort between local state and federal governments to review cold cases um of the civil rights era good i mean it took to 1995 from the 60s to to give any attention to these cases it's horrific they enceal 9 000 pieces of evidence previously gathered by the fbi in the 1960s many of those documents relating to the 16th

street baptist church bombing had not been made available to baxley in the 1970s even though he you know was threatening them to get them released right senior agent bill fleming is assigned the bombings case um and he recruits birmingham police department sergeant ben hereon to work uh to work on it full time so he initially reluctant to take the case um given that more than a hundred potential witnesses had died in the decade since the bombing but in 1996 hereon remembers thinking that it was the ultimate cold case and said uh quote but if we're going to do it we need to do it right because this is the last time it would be feasible to try to re-investigate yeah you know for nearly 15 months um they scour case files with a singular focus on finding new leads

and they eventually track down bobby cherry one of the original suspects and they interview him for four hours um and cherry gets so pissed off about being interrogated like that that he calls a press conference to proclaim his innocence and it makes national news and because of it the fbi's phone start ringing and um fleming said quote this was the best thing to happen to our investigation because we started getting witnesses and people that were able to give us information nice yeah these same witness accounts would eventually implicate cherry that is trial cherry pleads not guilty to the charges he chooses not to testify on his own behalf but survivor sarah collins root off she testifies against him oh can you imagine oh on may 22nd 2002 after almost seven hours of

deliberation the jury four woman announces the verdict which convicts bobby cherry on four counts of first degree murder and sentences him to four life terms relatives of the four little girls openly weep in relief he dies yeah he dies of cancer on november 18th 2004 at age 74 while incarcerated still so more tips roll in and other witnesses step forward and fleming and hair on expand their focus to tommy blanton another original suspect and discover that um agents in the 1960s had planted listening devices in his home oh right um they they find the old real to real tapes and it's a scratchy audio in which blanton explains to his wife and another man the details of how the bomb plot unfolded they have fucking audio of it she says right no one ever

passed on so they relied on those tapes uh at the trial and a jury in 2001 took a couple hours to render a guilty verdict against blanton on state murder charges he sentenced to life imprisonment and he dies um june 26 2020 so a couple months ago a couple months ago yeah the fourth original suspect herman kash unfortunately had died in 1994 at 75 so he never gets punished he never gets any fucking punishment for this horrific crime that he committed fleming and hair on um both have said the investigation was the most rewarding case they ever worked hair on said quote you feel like you have you feel like you've done the job even though it looked like a tremendous uphill battle we finally got justice for the little girls outrage over the murder of the four girls became a

turning point in civil rights in the civil rights movement i think a lot of people um who had been you know who knew what was going on and kind of had been in the periphery you know suddenly realized how dire and how violent and how awful uh you know what was going on and it was a turning point for them and it helped build support for the struggle to end segregation two months after the bombing jfk is assassinated and he of course was an ardent supporter of the civil rights cause he had proposed the civil rights act of 1963 um and the movement is galvanized by the outpouring of grief over his death so on july 2nd 1964 now president linden johnson signs into effect the civil rights act of 1964 which prohibits discrimination based on race color religion

gender or national origin to ensure full equal rights of african americans before the law and the voting rights act of 1965 is also passed aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevents african americans from exercising their right to vote because you will get beaten if you go to the fucking polling places if you try to vote whether it's legal or not when it was you will be attacked right very relevant today sadly the shit that we're seeing and the shit that we never even understood was happening or wouldn't have it never makes the news yeah the idea that if you if you vote in a certain area of say Atlanta you're going to have to stand in line for eight hours yeah they'll make it that way to make it they'll make it that way

and you don't get time off work you cannot get paid to leave your fucking job and go right that's not a thing right so following the bombing the 16th street baptist church remains closed for over eight months as repairs are conducted and it's declared a national historic landmark in 2006 and it's still an active place of worship today 50 years after the bombing um on may 24th 2013 president barack obama awarded a posthumous congressional gold medal to the four girls killed in the 1963 baptist 16th street baptist church bombing adi may collins who was an outgoing artistic girl she would go door to door in the white neighborhoods to sell aprons and pot holders that her mother had stitched to help make ends meet carol robertson who was a good student she

loved reading and dancing she sang in her elementary school choir and played the clarinet and was a member of the jack and jill of america club it's a civic minded youth and family organization synthia westley who was raised by a single mother but stayed with her adoptive parents she could attend a better school where she excelled at math reading and band um and denise mcnair 11 years old who performed in plays dance routines and poetry readings to raise money for muscular dystrophy research and that is the 16th street baptist church bombing well well let's take a a incredibly left turn because mine is one of those stories is this week that i have um read a bunch of times um but it's it's just kind of like pure

insane chaos so i've always just gone like i don't even know how to research that i'm just going to put it aside yeah um but it is it's just a it's kind of a one of the class a classic true crime what in the living fuck are you talking about story this is the story um of the california witch killers some people call them the san francisco witch killers okay but they did it all over the stage they they crossed they just went up and down california just doing whatever the fuck it's so crazy and insane so okay i don't know if i know this one it's it's funny i've i've like almost picked it so many times um but there's a certain level of just like i don't even know how what like it's basically two mentally ill people then who then mixed in drugs

and mixed in it's a folly adieu they call you know when when it's basically they're both they're sharing a delusion yeah like no one thinks to say this is we shouldn't do this it's crazy it's just and also they're just not around other people because they're just doing drugs and telling each other what the plan is and it's you know it's one of these stories so um um got information of course from wikipedia oxygen.com um had a whole article on it um there is an id series called when couples kill that has tons of information and detail although they they were they were wrong about a couple things where i'm uh some of the map mapping on this might be um inaccurate because they they the the whole thing ends in santa rosa which

is the town one town north of petaluma yeah but they they say it all ended in napa county and i'm like is there some weird wine snob that's just trying to talk about napa in this story because that baby that's sonoma county um and then there's a on medium.com there's a really awesome comprehensive article called the san francisco witch killers by delaney r Bartlett um which is great so so it starts in 1981 um a 23 year old woman named caron barnes she's an aspiring actress originally from georgia and she's moved to the haydash berry um neighborhood in san francisco to to pursue an acting career so she i think she was like trying to go to the stop over a point before she got to los angeles maybe there's a lot of playhouses there right like theaters yeah

there's theater there um and there's a couple like you know there's a couple theater schools and stuff but um so it just funny to me of like i'm going to pursue an acting career so i'm going to california but i'm gonna go to stock then right six hours away from where it all goes down where it actually happens yeah that's fine i did the exact same route myself um and i also lived in the haydash berry and in the id one couples killed episode that i watched i was positive they were showing the front of the first apartment we lived in in san francisco oh my god because it's upper upper hayd yeah and it was one of those victorian um split level you know that we lived on the first floor and but there was also a base there's a basement apartment first floor second floor yeah um and

so she lived in a place like that um and she lived in the in the basement apartment um so she's very open-minded she's very interested in the spiritual aspects of the recent 70s counter culture movement she's just kind of like free spirit open-minded interested in like being around interesting people yeah um so one night she goes to a party and she meets this couple who's talking about meditation they're talking about psychic experiences and psychic behavior and she's just drawn to their outsider spiritual beliefs um and starts talking to them and they introduce themselves as michael and susan bear um so as they get to you know chatting they let her know that they need a place to stay so she's very open-minded and generous and she's like oh i have

an apartment you can come and stay in my apartment in the haydash berry and they do they end up moving in with her so it it goes bad relatively quickly um because they end up just being kind of like these it's old hippie drug dealers and they're both super weird and super they're combative and they're weird and it's it's kind of strange so on the morning of march 7th 1981 police respond to a neighbor's call about a disturbance in caron's apartment and when they go inside the basement apartment they find strange drawings all over the walls um unrecognizable strange symbols and the name susan written all around them they they look through the apartment and in the kitchen they find caron's body wrapped in a blanket her skull's been crushed and she's been stabbed 13

times in the neck and face oh my god one of caron's friends um hears something's going on at caron's apartment so she rushes over and um when she finds out that caron's been murdered she tells the police that caron's new roommates were these bizarre drug dealing hippies and that that's they should start looking for those people when they speak to caron's mother um she tells the police that although the couple um went by michael and susan bair their actual last name was carson which was a key um a key element to know for them to know but when the police try to locate the couple for questioning they're nowhere to be found so so michael carson who his first name was actually james not michael okay uh he's born in 1950 grows up in oklahoma to a

regular middle-class family um he's interested in history and religion and philosophy and he um goes ends up going to the university of iowa to study and that's where he meets his first wife um so they get married um in the 70s they have a daughter named jennifer and they move to arizona now the wife is the breadwinner of the family while uh james at the time stays home um he's he's basically a house husband he takes care of jennifer and he sells pot for like extra cash the first i was like good for him for taking you know the gender right wait a minute that don't like oh okay oh i get it uh yeah so it's alternative for the time um but he's a loving husband and in that uh cup when couples kill the daughter jennifer actually speaks on camera and she said he was a loving

father she loved growing up with him he was great yeah wow so as the years go by his personality begins to change which is usually the story right yeah so he becomes more and more anti-social starts having irrational angry outbursts regularly um and that coupled with his refusal to get a job um leads to um the couple's divorce in 1977 so then meanwhile susan um of michael and susan couple uh she her name's originally susan barnes and she had spent the 60s as a typical housewife and a mother of two two boys in scotsdale arizona but as the counterculture um the popularity of it begins to rise in the late 60s 70s she starts experimenting with acid with mescaline with peyote and also and this is the part that like makes my skin crawl she starts hanging out

with her son and their friends oh no who are all in high school and uh she even sleeps with her son's friends um also known as statutory rape um and word on the street is that she is slept with 150 like high school boys what now whether that's gossip because she's just the weird one yeah um i just ache for those boys who had a mother that was that invasive of their lives and disrespectful and then also clearly not okay yeah around the age 35 susan begins having visions um while she's on drugs but also even when she's sober she would always believe that she had psychic powers but now she's actually having these these visions uh or hallucinations and she's taking them very seriously um but no one else does in fact her husband's like this is it for me and he divorces

her um susan though sees this as an opportunity to reinvent herself she changes her name from susan with an s to susan with a z susan the z's in the middle susan she keeps one s she keeps an s and she gets rid of it she keeps an s and then she kicks one to the curb and gets crazy and puts a z in her name wow it's i'm sorry and i know we've said this time and again but if you're micromanaging the spelling of your name as a way to express yourself take a fucking pottery class like actually get into what self-expression is yeah it has nothing to do with the spelling of your name there's no there's no i or y that that's going to substitute for your fucking creativity no an eig h instead of a y means nothing about you as a person actually do something do something

real learn tarot reading there's so many ways to express yours right a little play write a play write a play about the alphabet and how much it means to you you fucking lunatic okay now here's the real uh she decides that she is going to become muslim but of course not in in the actual official sense not in a in a real way she's she kind of adopts um the muslim religion and then decides to fit it to her lifestyle in 1974 she has a mescaline induced vision instructing her to find a soulmate and a loyal disciple which i'm also in the market for these days i don't just want to understand my life i want someone to boss around that's beautiful um thank you so much i'm sure you'll find it karen thank you i i believe um so three years later at a party uh in 1977

she meets james karsten they just happen to be at the same fucking like what are the chances you know i mean they're just like two crazy magnets drawing together yeah so they meet at this party he introduces himself he says hi my name's james she immediately says no your name's michael no yes she does okay she says she had a vision about him and that he's he is essentially the angel michael who fought the devil uh which not sure about that but um but he immediately is like you're right my name is michael right immediately goes so now she's actually like here he is because he's my he's my follower i'm gonna be able to tell him what to do he's actually saying sure i'll change my name i just met this lady so it's like that it's love

it first sight yeah they hit it off in the worst way they immediately get together as we used to say in high school um and soon after susan with the z has another vision instructing them to change that that they need that they need to have the last name bear b e a r bear bear bear like the animal okay uh so they become susan and michael bear but not legally so um as michael falls deeper deeper under susan's spell michael's first wife grows increasingly concerned for herself and her daughter's safety yeah rightfully so so um she's afraid michael might try to kidnap gen take her away um or do something to the family so she cuts all ties with him stops talking to him entirely and anyone else who knows him basically so that he can never find them again and that he can't

find his daughter um susan and michael travel around in search of spiritual enlightenment and while dealing drugs um they claim to be quote vegan muslim warriors of god but of course their beliefism is entirely made up and has absolutely nothing to do with and in fact is it mostly in direct conflict with the tenets of islam yeah like it just starting with dealing with drug dealing drugs i mean it's insane um and then in that they're kind of like spiritual quest michael learns about an ancient sect called the hashishim um and they were basically this this sect of assassins they would smoke hash and then go kill their enemies and it's where the word assassin comes from actually just a little piece of trivia um so he decides that's what they are

and that's what he wants to do um susan's like yeah but we kill witches and basically they got it into their drug addled brains that there were witches everywhere and the witches were using mental powers to control others and try to control them so that it's their mission in life to kill witches and drugs drugs baby it's like when you come up with theories about what your life is all about right and it has to do with killing other people in a righteous way again check in with an adult or a qualified uh psychiatric right check yourself into rehab medical yeah start with rehab then go to a mental hospital oh that's right they don't have those anymore right because we've cut all mental health services okay so so susan and michael um they start out together in arizona

in 1978 they take a trip to europe um they kind of trying to preach this religion that they're making up um at one point they're in england they stop at stonehenge they get married quote unquote beneath the moonlight not a legal marriage just a weird pseudo hippie moonlight ceremony but soon they run out of money in 1980 they they make it to san francisco to the haydash berry and at some point there they go to this party and um they freak out almost everybody at the party except for 23 year old aspiring actress karen barnes um who is basically there to kind of be like you know i'm i want to talk to and meet weird people and and explore what life outside of what i already know to be like open-hearted and to see what the universe holds for her yet so yes yeah um

she's a very spiritual person herself so she's intrigued by when they're when they're speaking about this religion kind of thing that they're talking about you know she wants to hear it um and as i said she lets them come and stay at her apartment um but michael and susan actually want more um they want karen to join in on their relationship and book and they want to become a thruple with her because she's a gorgeous you know um a blonde actress i mean she looks like an actress yeah so she declines and that's when susan tells michael karen is a witch yeah so um when karen comes home from work on march 6 1981 michael follows her into the kitchen beats her in the head with a with a skillet then grabs a knife and stabs her a total of 13 times um they arrest

karen's head on a pillow wrapper body in a blanket and then draw these bizarre religious symbols all over the walls and the name susan with a z so um then they and then of course they get out of town yeah and what they do is they hitchhike all the way up to oregon um they get to grants pass um and they find there they find so it's kind of they're out in the wilderness and they walk in the wilderness until they find this abandoned shack so they hide out there and um while the investigation of karen's murders taking place in san francisco and that runs cold because they can't find yeah the the bears and um so basically michael and susan are squatting in this cabin for months um at one point they run out of supplies so while susan stays behind um in in this shack michael hitchhikes to

los angeles yeah which i don't i'm like why would how about you just go to the nearest town yeah but he basically i there's they didn't give a reason but um he leaves for a while to basically go get supplies um when he gets back by the time he gets back susan's starving and she's delusional in this cabin and they eventually get discovered by a park ranger who kicks them out and like you you can't squat here so they head south and hitchhike back down into california um and they get all the way down near big sir um and they get picked up by a really nice local who offers to let them stay in a treehouse he's built on his property um near the the ventana wilderness which is that big beautiful like forestry area by big sir um but and they stay there for a little while but of course

they become combative with the man they argue they freak him out with their weird beliefs and eccentricities apparently susan had this weird habit of smiling at really inappropriate times and i saw a little bit of video of her and it's really scary it's very odd yeah she smiles and laughs when you're not supposed to oh god uh yeah so um in spring of 1982 the man finally kicks them out of the treehouse yeah he's like i've been nice enough to you to retaliate susan and michael rob his house um uh and set it on fire holy shit yeah and then they basically run um and hitchhike back north so they're now they're going back up north to humboldt and they've stolen a handgun from this man's house uh so they had that with him they make it all the way to a town called alder point in

humboldt county um where they find work and housing working on a weed farm so it's an early 80s weed farm so it must have been highly secretive and you know kind of scary armed but also in humboldt it's like in the early 80s it's just there's nothing up there yeah basically it's real wild and you know sparsely populated yeah so they waste no time in revealing how weird they are to the fellow pot farm workers um launching into their belief about anarchy with killing witches their desire for revolution their prediction of a nuclear apocalypse in the not too distant future they're also constantly bickering they're just all around not the best right and and basically everyone kind of like bum out tolerates them until the pot farm owner's friend clark stevens

shows up to work on the farm too and clark is is a really outgoing gregarious guy he loves to drink he loves to party and immediately susan and michael don't like him and butt heads with him they're offended by his behavior by his partying ways and by his talk you know swearing and you know whatever hidden him just being himself um susan calls it an affront to a la okay which again and they're not actually talking about right you are being muslim in a meaning yeah exactly you're the definition of an affront to a la so when clark arrives for work one day in may of 1982 susan tries to keep him from coming on to the property he's angry he cusses susan out trying to get her to move and basically susan um goes back to michael and says he swore at me which

is the equivalent of rape and he is definitely a witch and you have to kill him so michael takes the stolen handgun um and shoots clark in the face um then he dumps lighter fluid and this is so it's out on this farm where they basically are the farm is in the middle of the woods to keep the pot hidden yeah so they're they're out they're kind of out in the middle of nowhere anyway then um so he kills clark by shooting him then he uh tries to light the body on fire to get rid of the evidence but it doesn't burn entirely so um he dumps a bunch of fertilizer on it in the woods and then just leaves the body there and they're on the run again oh yeah yeah so clark stevens is a report reported missing to the humboldt county police and um two weeks after that

confrontation a dog on the farm is found playing with what they think is a ball and when they get up close it's a human skull oh geez so they call the police it's a pot farm in 1982 and they call they have to call the police to be like we something terrible has happened because i'm sure deep down they were like this is kind of a case scenario of our missing friend totally so police find clark's burnt remains buried in the woods and michael and susan are of course the prime suspects um so on the run again uh michael and susan make it down to trinity county which is kind of right over the um state line there kind of where eureka is um so they're on the run right and they're hitchhiking and at one point they're um they're in the woods somehow kind of hiking through and they see all

these police with flashlights and police dogs and they think it's the cops have found them well what was actually happening it was a search and rescue team or looking for a lost hiker so they both and i'm sure they're still on drugs so they dump both their backpacks and run in different directions so when police um find those abandoned backpacks and search them they find pot they find 38 caliber caliber bullets they find um an id for a man named richard irada and they also find an anarchist manifesto entitled cry for war why did they leave their fucking backpacks why didn't they take that they panicked they they thought the cops like because they were heavy yeah and they needed to run okay so they just dumped them and ran i guess um that's my that's my theory and also that's what the

b-roll in the episode of one couples kill made it look like so it could have been they'd already taken them off i don't know yeah basically this this manifesto features a hit list of prominent figures um it declares that god wants them to kill ronald reagan who is the current president and johnny karson and the reason was because their first middle and last names both of those men's first middle and the last names each had six letters oh six six six oh my god so they're doing so we're talking drugs drugs drugs that's like the drugiest thinking of all time totally the police lift fingerprints off the manuscript they id michael who's wanted for questioning in the murder of clark stevens um and because it contained that that threats to the president this

the secret services also notified got it so um michael's on the run and he makes it all the way down to alhambra huh right in southern california so one night he's walking down the street in alhambra and uh he's i they ID him mistakenly for a rape suspect okay of a rape that had just happened so the description matched michael because he had this big crazy beard and long dark hair so so the cop basically um gets out he's and he still has the gun that he used to co clark but he's hiding it in basically in his crotch like in the front of his pants so the cop makes him get down on the ground and lay on the ground and then he pats him down like that so he doesn't feel the gun because it's in its crotch so then the cop puts him in the cop car and takes him

into the police station to take his picture to be identified he tells him his name is richard irada because that's the name that was on the id that he had so but he gets his picture taken they fax it to the hospital the rape victim sees the picture it says that's not the guy so um the officer ends up letting him go oh no yeah and then when the next um shift officer comes on duty it's i guess part of the job they go through the patrol car and that shift officer oh sorry he finds the gun that michael had had in his crotch he had taken it out of his pants and shoved it into the backseat of the cop car so that it wasn't on his person when he went into the station okay so once once they found that they knew this guy actually they should have kept him

they put out an apb for richard irada they run ballistics test on that gun and find out it's the same gun that killed clark stevens whoa yeah so now they know the guy that they had was like actually a murderer yeah but it was the early 80s where they did have a database um but they didn't think to check it right and it probably didn't work that fast either it was those really slow computers where you put in your request and it comes back four days later yeah okay so susanne and michael had a plan they to meet up in sonora california which is this little mountain town that's like east of stockton and a little bit north of yosemite so it's out in the middle of nowhere basically they end up meeting back up and finding each other in sonora oh my god

yeah yeah okay i mean no cell phones no cell phones no nothing modern and they end up meeting each other um they end up eventually getting back up to portland because they had a friend that lived there um so there was somewhere to crash of course almost immediately the friends like you guys got to get the fuck out of here you're the worst um and they do peacefully except they steal another 38 pistol that was at the friend's house so they stay on the run till january of 1983 when they are at that point they're hitchhiking down your baker's field and they're picked up by a 30 year old named john helier so john he's driving a pickup truck um he's going north that's where they want to go so he picks them up susan's in the middle michael's on the other side um and relatively

soon after they get picked up susan lets michael know very discreetly that she knows john's a witch so so they end up taking um the they basically they end up driving up to sonoma county from bakersfield so i think this guy was probably thinking he had this long trip to go on yeah and he didn't it's it's five hours so he doesn't want to go by himself so he picks up this couple like oh at least we can hang yeah but of course they're insane how subtle do you think she really was letting him know that the driver's a witch i bet it wasn't as subtle as they thought it was you know when you're on drugs yeah probably not and regular subtler two very different things i wonder if it's just like and if i smile real big you'll know that we're there's a witch in town

yeah um so and then there's all you know immediately there's conflict because he has country music on the radio she doesn't like it you know there's all these things and at one point his leg touches her leg and that's when she they're they're in sonoma county at this point and she basically turns gives michael the signal and lets him know that it's time to kill the witch she leans forward and michael pulls out the 38 and john's like holy shit and he ends up they're on the freeway oh my god he ends up fighting him off making sure like the the gun doesn't go off and pulling over to the side of the road holy shit getting out of the truck that michael and susan follow and chase him there's a fight on the shoulder of the freeway

that goes on for so long that people again no cell phones it's 1982 sorry it's 1983 there's a fruit stand on the other side of the freeway that can see it happening and they end up calling the police and there's all these witnesses driving by seeing this crazy fight on the side of the road john is is trying to wrestle the gun away from michael but at some point in the fight susan gets her hands on a knife and ends up stabbing john which then incapacitates him he can't fight anymore and then michael shoots him oh man i really wanted him to win i know i did too so now there's witnesses everywhere the police are on the way so michael and susan steal the truck and they speed off a 30 year old john helier is pronounced dead at the

hospital um so the police meanwhile have the description they know all these there's so many witnesses that they know exactly so now they actually end up being able to find and begin to chase um michael and susan in john's truck holy shit and a high speed chase and susan's the one driving oh my god so they drive for a little while but eventually she loses control of the truck they they go careening into a ditch and and the truck crashes they survive the police arrest michael and susan in custody michael and susan don't answer any questions uh that the police ask them about the clark stevens murder they just want to talk about their religion about susan's esp powers and about the threat of witches um susan tells police they are in the midst of a

holy war against witches they're held in jail as this investigation continues and basically michael starts complaining that they're not getting enough press uh huh so he basically says they've killed the biggest witch of the mall in san francisco and that they should be getting that reporters should know this story and be reporting this story well the police hear him say that and now basically they're like that was a confession to karen barnes's murder so that so now they know so they're basically they're like okay what you want to you want to tell your story let's set it up because they're like now we'll find out yeah any what whatever they've been doing at least we'll know they basically set up a press conference for the two of them to talk instead of a normal

interrogation that would be recorded and trying to get them to confess they're like okay it's a press conference so um on march 10th 1983 michael and susan sit with this big bunch of reporters and launch into a six hour rant about all of their beliefs and all of the things that they've been doing six hour video can you watch it there's there was a clip of it on that tv show yeah i'm sure watching it is exhausting mentally it's i if you are one of those reporters i'd just be like this is such bullshit you would literally run to the nearest bar when you left that oh my god because they clearly are not okay right she's standing there smiling he has dead eyes and he's just looking off the distance kind of talking about uh what's what's happening and it's and it's

really is a very upsetting clear mental illness and clear brain generation from drug use i mean that's just what it is yeah they talk about george orwell's 1984 they call ronald regan the devil which isn't isn't too far off and i can't ignore is a great book yeah um they say that witches prevent a universal threat they all need to be killed and um they say that their system is the best for exterminating witches susan has her visions about who's the witch and then michael kills them um so during this they end up confessing to the murders of caron barns clark stevens and john helier um and so the two both end up being each charged with three counts of first degree murder and from what i can tell that a press conference does not go wide so their first

trial begins in late may 1984 for the murder of caron barns um just before the trial begins they withdraw their confessions and they plead not guilty but it's too late and on june 12 1984 after just three days they're both found guilty of caron's murder and they're each sentenced to 25 years to life then they're tried for clark stevens murder and again very quickly they're found guilty and they each receive a sentence of 50 years to life their third trial for john helier's murder ends similarly they they each get 75 years to life for his murder neither michael or susan ever express any remorse for the killings in fact when asked they just talk more about the hit list that they have on top of that the couple um is now considered suspects in at least a dozen other

murder cases across the country really and and in europe that line up with their kind of nomadic travels um unfortunately there was no not enough evidence was ever found to confirm or deny any of those cases but there are definitely um deaths that line up with the way how they moved around america i wonder how many people they killed yeah so in december of 2015 that's the first time susan's eligible for parole she's quickly denied um and her next parole hearing will tentatively be in december of 2030 michael karsten um james karsten but michael karsten is supposed to be considered for parole in june 2005 but he waives his suitability hearing for five years so he doesn't seek parole for the first time until may 26 2020 age 69 um and among the people who

speak out against his release is his own daughter jen karsten wow and she has this to say yeah she's badass she says quote you don't address mass incarceration by releasing the less than one percent of prisoners who are serial killers my father yep right my father michael bear karsten hunted humans young beautiful innocent victims he's a predator who will kill again i oppose my father's parole whoa dude she's fucking addresses a mass incarceration while she's fucking or she's like yes mass incarceration needs to get solved right yes there are many people that need to get released from prison this motherfucker isn't one and he's my father and i loved him and keep him in jail he's a serial killer yeah there's a big difference which is amazing so michael karsten is denied parole

via a skype hearing due to covid 19 on may 27th 2020 and after afterward um jen karsten makes another public statement and here's what she has to say quote i spoke out against my father's parole because i believed he would kill again if released we may never know how many people were killed by my father michael bear karsten or where they're buried but today there was justice for three known victims karen barns clark stevens and john helier and future violence was prevented and at the end of that episode of couples who kill she is also um she's also quoted as saying this people don't think about the relatives of a violent offender but the child of a criminal is a criminal victim too and that is the awful story of the california witch killers wow that was great

good job i mean that's all horrible right good job thank you yeah pure insanity yeah good job uh thank you we should we definitely need some fucking hurrays don't we absolutely need it hey hey hey hey fucking hurray go georgia wow good one thanks thank you want me to go first yeah okay this is from instagram uh ziggy zamboni says my hashtag fucking hurray is that i'm finally escaping the clutches of my psychotic manager but moreover advancing my career path well this is yeah well this might not seem like much to some i struggle with taking a stand for myself i accepted the fact that i was not where i wanted to be and needed to risk the mental and emotional exhaustion of being uncomfortable for a bit if i was going to

ultimately get where i wanted to be so i started making noise to some higher ups and now my exodus is in motion i feel a huge weight taken off my shoulders and i'm looking forward to advancing my career stay sexy and remember you are your greatest advocate only you can make it happen yeah sometimes you gotta be uncomfortable a little before you're able to i would just like to do a very kind kindly correction to say um because because they said something about being like that hardly anybody else is uncomfortable in that specific way which is no everybody is everyone is they're just people are really good at faking it totally at any time in everyone's life we've been there yeah well it's weird you we're psychically linked georgia right now because

uh here's the one i picked i have to go first this is from a blanger a blanger this is from the fan cult form a blanger 94 says this is called why you should always go for it a few months ago a position at my company opened up and i hadn't really paid any attention to the job posting because it seemed unattainable and i wasn't really even qualified on the day of the posting a woman who i consider a mentor sent me a message who's saying you're a fucking idiot if you don't go for this well but and then it says she didn't use any exclamation points oh so the person did a you know fucking with like the asterisk and an ampersand and all that um but then she in parentheses wrote she didn't use any exclamation points because she's a badass business woman who doesn't need to

soften her sentences right on uh and so the day and so the next day i sent in my resume for consideration after what um feels like an exceptionally long process of interviews anxiety doubt more interviews and some crying i just recently found out that i got the job yeah it's an incredible opportunity for growth and it came with a nice pay bump too all of this is to say that i shouldn't have doubted myself so much because i'm smart funny and i work really hard and how often do men doubt their abilities when they apply for a job or speak up in a meeting hardly ever it seems like so i'm about to pour myself a drink and toast to my awesome accomplishment fucking hooray and here's the thing too yes fucking hooray and hell yeah and this is why we need especially in

business but i mean in real life it's great but in business you do need a mentor a person that has a little more experience than you and that sees things big picture because of course it's hard to know your own qualifications and believe that you you're just of course it's me like yeah a lot of people feel that way so it's so great to have that leadership and the guidance from somebody that can go oh no no i know i know you can do it totally because then you can trust that how would you know it's you and you've never done it before yeah don't trust your don't trust your brain that's that's been telling you you can't your whole freaking life like right find someone you respect and believe them right and also by that lady who said you're a fucking idiot if you

don't go for this a big bottle of liquor because that's the that's the stuff of life that's what we all need liquor cheerleaders oh cheerleading and liquor and liquor that's awesome um this is from elaney may times three on instagram my fucking hooray is that despite 2020 being an overall bullshit year for the world i got married bought a house and celebrated my third decade of life hmm it hasn't always been roses as i'm a social worker in a pediatric hospital and a black woman in this country whose government seemingly devalues black lives many days were spent in bed pushing aside my own grief in order to support families with theirs thankfully i had other rad women of color to debrief with and carry on regardless of everything i'm incredibly grateful

and so fucking proud for all that me and my sweet husband who i turned into a murderino uh yep have achieved during such crazy times beautiful i know right what was the name on that one elaney may times three this one says fucking hooray for my grandma getting her civic duty shit together this is from mad's hates also from the fan cult my seven-year-old grandma her name's gloria q laura brannigan gloria registered to vote for the first time in 2018 for the first time after the 2016 election i was so frustrated with my family members who voted third party didn't vote for either presidential candidate or in grandma's case did not vote at all in 2018 i made it my mission to get her registered after realizing her congressional district in our very

red state was competitive oh hey oh utahans uh we worked on the registration paperwork together and made sure she received her mail-in ballot this is something utah actually gets right as for alcohol laws don't get me started she mailed in her ballot and voila she voted in her first election and that candidate won his race yesterday i texted her to see if that she if she had sent in her ballot yet i planned to offer to drop it off for her but she replied yep and i dropped it off in a ballot box hey she she mentioned this was her first time voting in a presidential election something i hadn't even considered i'm very proud of her and grateful that mail-in voting is so easy in utah so fucking hooray for grandma and fucking hooray

for easy voting options amazing yeah that's amazing i can't even imagine like being 70 something and never having voted in a presidential election just like yeah well i guess i can being from it it just people have been very lackadaisical about their i i'll say it this way i've been very lackadaisical about my civic duties in that way where there's certain things i say oh yeah i'll do that of course i have to i'll do that but then there's other ways like you know i just read this big thing about jury duty that like i've always taken that as a thing to get out of or oh i have work i have the perfect excuse yeah jury duty is a very very important thing to participate in yeah and especially if you pay attention to stuff and you care about how things could go like so anyway

all that stuff is like if you've been bad you can start being good yeah like don't hold it against yourself just get just get in there and get at it totally oh god uh um cool this time we live in this weekend is halloween so spooky halloween right spooky halloween everyone spooky halloween have i'm we're all gonna have the spookiest halloween of all time so take care of yourself you know stay calm try to try to you know stay strong get yourself a 32 foot mike mires if it's if you need it right if you have that extra 3k laying around if that's self care to you then it's self care and you can do it if you have that money or you can just you could print up a picture of michael mires and just put it in a little heart shaped locket hold it right by your heart whatever

you need halloween style yeah to keep yourself strong that's right but um we're gonna get through this yeah we will be together and um and stay sexy and don't get murdered goodbye hi mimi you want a cookie