My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 291 - Welcome to the Comfort Zone

Episode Date: September 9, 2021

This week, Georgia and Karen cover the murders committed by Ed Buck and the story of drowning victim recovery experts, Gene and Sandy Ralston. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is exactly right. 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, and welcome to my favorite murder. That's Georgia Heart Star.

Thank you. That's Karen Kilgira. Thank you. We're back. There we are. We're back. They are the stars who are so kind. They sent us the kindest welcome back.

Heartfelt. Yes. When it meant to them that we were actually recording together again. It was really lovely. It was. It was really like, it felt like it was like reunion. This like lovely reunion. Yeah.

Yeah. That's so exciting. I missed it so much. I know. I had such a good time last week. So. I did too. I mean, I feel like with everyone, we have all been operating in the weirdest way.

world and we adjusted to it. So like, I didn't even think when we first made that plan, I think you're the one that was like, hey, we should record together. Yeah. And it was like, oh, are we allowed to? Like, I was, I was, I didn't even think to do it. No, we've just been like, it's been a slog that we've gotten so used to that we stopped realizing it was still a slog. Yes. And it's still like mentally fucking taxing to live in this crazy new world. So taxing. Let's find a little bit of happiness and brightness where we can, because we've all forgotten where we can get it. Yes. Well, right, because unless it's like sitting in front of your television, trying to discover some new Norwegian police procedural, personal

example. Like who? Who does that? I don't know, some weird girl, a woman. Yeah, it's just the difference. It's almost like these real actual, a real example of like normal life came back in the middle of the weird life. And I was like, oh, yeah, that was this is the way we used to do it. Yeah, like I never used to wear athletic slides. Maybe I can stop doing that now. I just took them off and realized like, that's my new normal. Those are gorgeous shower shoe that you're wearing and also representing your favorite athletic mega company. Oh, the one that sponsors me and my athleticism. Oh, so do you athlete around your neighborhood and get sponsored by what looks like a company called Nikkei? Nikkei. And their logo is swoopy. Their logo is check mark. I worked

out. You did it. Now I'm in the shower, but I'm not going to get a fungus on my feet. That's right. No, no, before this, I would not have been caught dead wearing athletic slides outside the house. Even inside the house, I've never owned a pair of athletic slides until Vince was like, what's the snobbery about athletic slide? There's some snobbery like leftover fashion, you know, victim snobbery going on. Not anymore. Yeah. Welcome to the comfort zone. Thank you. Vince to Georgia doesn't exist anymore. And I don't know if she's going to find her way back after this. What about because, you know, I've always been very interested in fashion design. I'm sorry. Do you're just like, uh, no, I feel like I've done a lot of time with

you and I've never, you know, you like fashion. Here's, don't worry about it. Here's my suggestion. I think we can have all the things because when I used to wear vintage dresses in the early 90s on drugs, um, very important part of, I never wore a vintage shoe because I have wide, I've large wide feet. No, vintage shoes were made to oppress women. Yes. Purely. And and some many current shoes as well. True. So the whole thing of like a grandma dress with combat boots. Oh, the cutest. I was like, this is made for me in every way. Yeah. Or like high top Converse. Ugh. Sure. Love it. Or a Nikkei Shower Shoe. Bring it around. Let the world know what happened to you. Listen, it's not ever happening again. The only time I'm ever wearing fucking heels is for

like a parade. I don't know. The one time you don't want to be in the table. You know how all those parades I like to accompany myself. So you have to park in the parking structure and then walk in your Louboutin's down the street. You know what I did? Just think of recently that I got so overly excited about is that this is going to be the first Halloween that I have a dog, which you know means costume parade. Yeah, I know. Is that part of you? I don't think you're, you'd ever be a person who dresses your dog. You know my stance that I feel it degrades the dog. But what about Cookie? Like think of, like your dogs are like fucking stoic and like larger and like have, you know, a presence where Cookie is just this like, she's basically an

exclamation mark. Yeah, true. In a fucking puppy form. Well, then, then since I know I can't do anything about it, I make some suggestions. You know, I've always been interested in animal costume design. You know this. So it's my favorite thing about you, right? Yeah. It seems to me that Cookie, because she's black and white, you could stick petals around the outside of her head and whatever flower has like black and white, you know, stamen, all those on the inside. I don't think that exists. No, I don't know. What about if you pulled open a tulip, what's in there? Right now we're screaming at the microphone. There's gotta be some kind of a black, like, because the first thing I thought it was like a sunflower and how cute that would be. That'd be adorable. Do you know what? Okay,

like a couple years ago when I don't remember her name, so I have to find it, a girl in a meet and greet after a live show gave me a knitted hat for Elvis and guess what it was? Well, wasn't I there? Yeah, but you don't remember. Wait, oh, then now I will guess what it was. If you remember this, I'm going to be in awe of your memory. The devil? Is that what you really think of Elvis? Yes, now that he's dead, I can finally say it. Georgia, stop. It's Cookie Monster. No, I don't remember that. Elvis was a Cookie Monster and now I have a dog named Cookie, so I can put the little knitted Cookie Monster cap on her. Oh, you're all set. You're all set. Oh my god, like life is, so please mess it, please comment

in, plug in Instagram or whatever on this episode post. Jesus words. Who you are that you made that because I need to tag you. The actual inventor. Yes. The knitter. The author of that costume. Speaking of authors, that was great. Segway. Depends on where you're going. I read a book. I read a book. Oh, okay. Perfect, right? We're not going to talk about that now. We can talk about Game of Thrones instead. Speaking of sitting on your couch watching Norwegian, whatever the fuck, I watched Game of Thrones. You can relate all of it to anything. I really, truly can. Okay, what do you want it to do first? First, I'm going to do the Georgia's Game of Thrones segment theme song. Skip, skip intro. Skip intro. Okay, there are people, there are hardcore people that get mad

when you skip the intro because they're different. Oh, they are? Yes, this is what someone told me. I've watched it over and over and I'm like, but they, there are those who say and again, we're going to hear from the Thrones arena. Professors. The Game of Thrones professors. The professors out there. But I heard and I've never witnessed it with my own eyes that there are different introductions. Like spoilers. Like different title sequences based on what's happening in the episode where it's like King's Landing's first this time. Remember this? Remember that? Like they, it focuses in on, but to me when I, and I swear I've tried to look for it, it seems like the most expensive title sequence I've ever seen. So the fact that there's a little bit

like an early 2000s video game opening, am I going to get murdered for saying that? Probably for lots of things in this area because these are passionate people. Okay, but I have almost nothing bad to say about it. Really? You won't believe this. But do or don't like the opening title sequence? Don't know because I skip it every time because that's what I do. I watch as opening title sequences when they have the option to skip. And when they don't have the option to skip, do I get angry? Yes, I do. True. I agree with you on all of that. But artistically, because you know I've always. Don't fucking say. No, go ahead, say it. Then open it. Then interested in opening title designs. That's right. Always. Just look at how and look at it and go, how would I do that if I

just start tomorrow? I wouldn't. Impossible. Impossible. I first of all don't want that job. So I quit. I just realized that's how I watch all TV. Okay, go ahead. Okay. Well, that's because you're actually working TV. I know it all feels like a job I was supposed to get done two weeks ago. And so like I watch that opening title sequence. I'm like, I can't do it. I don't know how to. I'm not a woodworker. I don't know how to do this. Let it go, Europe. Listen, I know you don't want to accept that you are a career podcaster. Huh. And the relief I feel because I've always loved podcasts. Big fan. Stab you in this big fan. Okay, now let's walk us through when you first turned on that episode one. What were you expecting? And what did you see? Well, let me tell you,

can we go pre that? Yes. This is an important part of it. And I would love to thank everyone on Twitter because I, okay, Vince was out of town this past weekend doing fucking wrestling podcast two things. Sure. We watch wrestling. We watch wrestling. Please watch it. Take a listen. Please listen to it. So I was like, this'll be great. He's seen it before. He's not interested, whatever it was. So then my dad was like, Oh, do you need me to spend the night? I know you get scared alone. And I was like, I wasn't scared. I was like, sure, dad, like I want him to feel useful or whatever. You know what I mean? Monday. So I was like, Hey, that's been the night. So then I go on Twitter. I was like, Hey, everyone is see episode one of Game of Thrones and okay, show to watch

with my dad because I remember some words of like, there's some sex stuff in it. And I just got 400 comments of people saying, God, no, please don't watch it with Marty. Do not do it. I still can't look at my father-in-law in the eye because we watched it together. Just don't do it. Incest. Everyone was like, just don't fucking do it. So we watched only murders in the building instead. And it was a great father-daughter show. So finally, Saturday, fucking no plans. Get on the fucking lazy boy. Yep. Three episodes. All in one. You said I can watch one, but I should try three. I did four. Yes. Because guess what? I don't fucking hate it. I can't believe this. I'll try it. I'll do some more. I'll try it. I want to know what happens. I like Khaleesi. Don't love the

storyline of Khaleesi and fucking MoMA. And all you got to do is hop on that dick and write it right and he'll be nice to you. Right? Right. You just got to face him. You just got to face him. All you have to do is just get that dick and suddenly this fucking dude who's horrible will be nice to you and you'll fall in love. Don't love that. Yeah. Although, you know. I'm sure it's been. It's, I, who knows if it has, but the feminist politics of Game of Thrones. Oh, yeah. But it is like, you know, they're this clan of like warlord horse worshipers. Yeah. So you're, I think it's just being set up that they're like, they're a little more maybe behind the times and tribal than say. You can tame that with that. Right. With that make him turn around and

look at you. Yeah. If you got that good post, you can. The other thing I, oh, I text you. First of all, you text me. Hey, I sent you basically all the research that's been ever done about Game of Thrones for me to follow along, which I really appreciated. And I was like, oh shit, Karen's really invested in this. I have to do this. Well, I'm definitely invested. And that visual chart, like it was, there's Pinterest visual charts of the different houses. Because when you don't actually have any reference, it's baffling. It's like watching, you know, days of our lives starting now. That's right. That's the other thing about it is you telling me last week that it's like a soap opera made me not take it as seriously. So I liked it better.

Otherwise it'd be like, that's not how things like that happen. And that's so stupid. And there's overacting, blah, blah, blah. I was like, this is a fucking soap opera. Yes. Loved it. Sent you a text of this bitch of a photo of a gif of what's his name. Joffrey. That's right. This bitch. And I wrote him, not you, because it sounded like. And then, yeah, I liked it. I'll keep watching. I can't believe I'm so glad. I can't believe it either. Can we talk for one moment about what a star turn this role is for Peter Dinklage? He is my favorite. Love him. He's like nice to hot John Snow, but he's like cruel to everyone else. Like, which one do you believe about him? Love John Snow by the way. Holy fucking shit.

When he said, he has these lines when he says things like, I'm a, I have a soft spot for broken and discarded things. It's just a beautiful, there's some beautiful storytelling and characters. He's such a little cat too. I love it. Yes. Yes. I'm obsessed. It's palace intrigue. I mean, like the most fun. It's, it's like, you can learn about how to deal with high school by watching Game of Throne. Okay. I could have used that. I could have used it because it's like, we all want to take Big Sweeney's outward. I needed it so bad. And instead, it's like, have some Dinklage, like, like self respect and then like turn the power in. Don't give them so much. However, I wonder if it was his creative input that the first, within the first few lines of him in that

show, we acknowledge that he's got a big dick. Do you remember that? Do you think that he was like, hey, director writers, can I get it? Can I get your ear? Well, I mean, let's talk about where power comes from. What? Yeah. Anyways, I'm going to keep watching it. Love it. Love it. Love it. I'm so glad. Now, did any of those charts help the visual charts? Actually, I didn't look at them. I wish I could lie to you. But thank you. I feel like when I need them, I'll know. Like, so far, I'm following everyone. Like, I think I get this person and that person. Like, I think I get it. They start like with the three basic houses. But then when they start adding is when I started getting panicky. Yeah. And I swear to God, every time they fucking talk about Stannis

Baratheon, I'm like, I don't know who that is. I don't know anyone's name. Yeah. Which one's that person? He's the guy that eventually he, I don't know if you've gotten to hit any episodes with him yet, because he comes in a tiny bit later. But he's that he's the head of the House of Baratheon that is with the red witch, that woman with the really cool hair, who's the night is dark and full of terrors. She keeps saying that. I don't know what you're talking about. But I'm only a couple, like, so you're the beginning of season one. I just started season three. Oh, so I can catch up with you. I will slow it down for you. Okay. And we can like, yeah, we could just start podcasting live watching Game of Thrones.

You know, when I used to steal from I survived, well, now we'll just do it with Game of Thrones. Okay. So this this week, the story is about a horse warrior. I don't know, a dragon slayer. Yeah, really. It's all one of the most embarrassing conversations that I've ever had was when I tried to ask a smart friend of mine in private that was Game of Thrones based on historical facts. No. Where I was like, is any of this stuff I should have known from like the history of Great Britain or something? And they were just that far from knights and fucking castles and how and how stark that can be to that far from like, it is. It's totally based on like the human reference point. So that

you were not just like, weirdly in some and look, we are fucking dragons didn't exist. They came from the moon according to the police. Dragons are just new dinosaurs. They were in a deep cave. It's like a unicorn. They existed. We just haven't found proof yet. But I'm so happy that you like it. Yeah, I am too. And I appreciate you helping me like broaden my horizons and like get out of my head of like my prejudices. Sure. You know, well, because at this point in quarantine, let's just admit we're kind of still in it in many ways. We can't we have to break down our biases about the entertainment we want to see because then we'll get surprised like that's the only way because I truly am at the end of Netflix

at this point. Like I am watching shit where I'm like, fine, fine, I'll watch it. If it's the first thing on, I'll click on it. So we can dig deep in things that we know are good. They just take maybe a longer to hook into. I just realized that when I said that about prejudices, I realized that I probably have always figured Game of Thrones was anti-Semitic. And that maybe this is one of the reasons I've never watched it, right? Is there a goddamn Jew in there? I bet there isn't. And guess how many Jews were in the Middle Ages? A lot. But it's not the Middle Ages. It's total fantasy. That's see the problem I had. It's all like you see this chain mail and then you're like, so was there a big wall in like Northern Scotland? Or was a single person not

white? Like, can we get some diversity? You will. Okay, you will. But there's not, there's not a ton. Yeah. Oh, also, have you, have you gotten far enough in that you've met the Hound, the really tall? No, I haven't met the Hound and I, I like know from, you know, ads or whatever that, that a fucking dragon is coming for Khaleesi. So I'm like, ready for that. Oh, yeah. For her to spread her wings. Oh, my God. She's about to in a real way. She's going to ruin her brother, which is exciting. Do you want breaking news? Always. So we'll, so we're coming back, we will revisit Game of Thrones later. Love that we actually did this and we didn't book club it. And we talked about a half an hour about it. Like, what more does one want? Everyone who's never seen it never will just

skip forward. Hi, we're back. This is, here we are skipper, a GOT skipper. Fair enough. This was a tweet that came in today. And this is from Laura Tavares on Twitter who let me know. The candy corn is turkey dinner flavored and it is vile. Did you get these messages? I did. Each piece is a different flavor. The coffee and pie ones are pretty good. Sure. Okay. So last week when I told you about broches, rocks, rocks, fucking disgusting, candy, corn, Thanksgiving dinner and we were like, that can't be Thanksgiving dinner. Everyone told us it's actually Thanksgiving dinner. So I corrected you. I'd never even had it, but I was like, there's no way they made candy corn. Oh yeah, you're right. There's no way. No way. I was entirely wrong. It's pretty brilliant

marketing on their part, right? Because I ordered us some. Did you really? So in the next two to three weeks when it arrives, we're eating it. Eating on, eating on podcasting is just, you're not allowed to, but I think for this special occasion, maybe we'll save it for Thanksgiving. Yeah, that's a good idea. For this special occasion, you're going to hear us chew. Maybe Steven can mute it a little bit, whatever. Yeah, we won't. We'll try to chew away from Mike, but then give our reactions into Mike, but I'm, my mind is blown. Laura, thank you and whoever else messaged us. So many people, poor people. Now I'm excited that I was wrong. I realized too that there's a lot of those kinds of things where I just take what I'm hearing and then I just go, that's not

possible. You put it through a filter of, can you imagine that? There's no way. What candy company would do themselves the disservice? But then thinking about it, we're like, brilliant. And also, how many flavors does Oreo have now? And they clearly don't care about how it tastes anymore. Because many people who buy it don't either. Also, fuck Nabisco. Fuck Nabisco. Fuck Nabisco to hell. Fucking unionize everyone. Workers' rights. Fuck Nabisco to fuck you. Not fuck workers' rights. Fuck corporations. Workers' rights. Well, you can't, if your company succeeded in quarantine because your workers busted ass and worked overtime and then afterwards you said, we're not paying you, we're going to take all that away. And not like they give you a fucking

living wage to begin with. Right. And if you unionize, you're fired. That shit's bullshit. Like let's take a real look at that and not support businesses who work that way. And that's kind of the beauty, to me, the beauty of these news stories that we keep seeing where people are like, guess what? Everybody at this drive through your quit. Yeah. If I get your hamburger somewhere else, the power has always been with the workers. That's fucking right. Always. I have a news article for you. Oh, yeah. That I just thought was really interesting that I found on the unresolved mysteries Reddit. Okay, let me just read you the quick part of it. And here's this old, see this old man? Yeah. This says in 1991, a man vanishes after telling his family he's going on a business

trip, vanishes without trace. 2021. So just now, a car stops in front of this man's house and drops him off. What? He's wearing the same clothes he disappeared in in 1991. No. He can't remember where he's been all these years. Convenient. Yeah, I don't know. And it looks like he was well taken care of. So it's the case of Mr. George's, G-O-R-G-O-S. So had new family, right? Had dementia. That's what everyone's theorizing on Reddit. That someone took him in because he was just lost and needed help? No, that he had a secret fucking family. He starts losing his memory and dementia probably. And they're like, let's get rid of grandpa. And how would they know where to bring him? Or maybe he had dementia, got in the car and was like, oh, here's my home

address. Things back to his old home address, they drop him off. But why is he wearing the same clothes? And also, why is he keeping a piece of paper with this home address? Nobody has his train ticket from 1991 when he was supposed to leave in his pocket. So he really was supposed to go on a business trip? I think so. But like, nobody can figure out what he was doing and where he was. Oh, we got to track this story. Yeah. That's fascinating. Back in mysterious, right? So does he currently have Alzheimer's or dementia? I don't know. All it says is he can't remember where he's been. So it might be amnesia. It could be dementia. It could be lying. I mean, that's one. What's the whole Schrodinger's cat? No, not that one. The dead cat in the box? No,

no, the one where the what's the most obvious answer and it's true. Oh, that's the, uh, that's the, it's like the, the knife, the, the so-and-so's scythe. What the fuck is it called? Occam's razor. Occam's razor. A knife, razor. Get down there on the right track there. I was a little close. No, no, yeah, you were on the right track. Drop me off at my old house, please. Yeah. So I think lying is the... It could be, but God, I mean, also same clothes? Same clothes. That's weird. That's a weird and crazy twist. Ticket in his pocket. Like it makes it seem like he went, hit his head, was hospitalized for 20 years, got up and came home. Right. And the staff's like, uh-oh, we lost another patient. That's a great example. What I just did was a great example

of Occam's razor of that's the simplest explanation, but it makes no sense. And who would pay that bill at the end of the day? Well, they're not in America. They're in a different country. So it's probably free. Socialized medicine? Romania. So it's like, well, we're not going to bankrupt you because you had to go to the hospital. God, we are getting political on this episode. We don't. Give up. We don't care. I have an apology to make to my dog, Frank. I posted a photo without lacking out his eyes or doing any kind of privacy scramble in his face, which he was very upset about after, but we got so excited to post that picture. Yeah. No, you're right. We should have. That would have been funny. Dammit. We really missed an opportunity. Oh, also in rural areas,

many male people, male carriers have to drive their own car. So people instead of being in an actual U.S. Postal Service truck that's customized. So you're sitting on the right. We talked about this last week. We talked about that. And I corrected you because I was like that the postal trucks you drive, you're sitting on the right so you can deliver next thing. That's not true. It is true. Oh, it's true in city areas. In rural areas, postmen, some postmen have to use or postal mail carriers have to use their own cars. So they literally sit in the passenger seat with their foot. No. Yes. Driving from the passenger seat so they can do that. Didn't we make a joke about that? That's not safe, people. But it's rural. So it's like way easier.

That's what I learned to drive. Anything goes. Well, I did that with my sister too. I learned to shift by sitting in the passenger seat and she'd be like, shift now, shift now. Yep. Well, I learned by my cousin Stevie yelling dead body and then slumping all the way over so that I had to jump over. He would still gas it and he would actually gas it faster. And then I had to jump over his body and start steering. And he would always go, I'm training you in case something bad happens. Oh my God. I told you about how my brother was in a car with his best friend on the freeway in traffic. His friend has a fucking seizure. He has my brother jumps over and fucking safely in like rush hour, not rush hour, but like fast

traffic pulls the fucking car off the freeway, like saved their lives. Wow, Asher. Asher kill. But Asher also is the person big brother fucking ask who will just turn on my windshield wipers, pull my fucking handbrake with my turn my lights off. Dude, like he'll just fuck with you though and just crack up whole time. It's like an asshole. Now I like him. Genius. Genius. So thank you for all the people who were representing rural male carriers. And yeah, I guess that's good to know. Hey, two books, super fucking fast. Here we go. No, you don't have to go fast. Okay. This book, okay, by Carol Johnstone. So J-O-H-N-S-T-O-N-E. Fucking, I just finished it. Spooky twists and turns that like when you shout when you're listening to a book, no fucking way.

You know, like that sort of like twins one is missing or is she is it murder who murdered her who done it but also in a fucking spooky house in the middle of Scotland. Yes. So she's this like Scottish author. She's like, I listened to it. So of course I've been listening to a Scottish accent for a week, which is so fun. Just like singing. And this is her first, this is her debut novel and it's like one of the best fucking books I've listened to in years. Great. I'm really excited and happy for her. Congratulations, Carol Johnstone. Is that her name, Carol? Carol with an E, I think. Yeah. Carol E. Johnstone E. Yeah. Nice. Mirrorland. Mirror, mirrorland. Mirrorland. And then the other one. And I can't not, I know everything about this case. So I think

and I can't not listen to a fucking book about the Oakland County child killers. Oh, yes. Which you've covered. Yes. Very well. I listened to like four books or like, you know, stories about it. And this one's called The Snow Killings by Marnie Rich Keenan. And it's just as awful. Yeah. The thing about that fucking case and why I'm obsessed with it, I think, is just how many fucking pedophiles were going crazy in the 70s everywhere. Yeah. There's so many suspects because there's so many fucking pedophiles that are never locked up or if they are it's for like eight months or statute of limitations. There's so many pedophile rings working in all sorts of fucking different like levels of the fucking industry. I don't know what I'm saying. I think what's fascinating

about true crime as a trend is I think it reflects the the continued fear and concern that everyone has where it's like when these things first started getting discovered, it was like, Johnny, gosh, there's no way he disappeared and was taken by a pedophile ring. That's crazy, quote unquote. That's crazy. And as time has passed, we've learned over and over, not only is it not crazy, these people are around. And it's someone they probably know. It's maybe someone you know, maybe someone you trust. Maybe they're in a position of trust so they can access your kids. Like it's all that the horror, like awakening discovery of like the 80s, 90s, 2000s is why, in my opinion, we have the true crime trend that we have now because that's people who grew up in

it and are like, wake up, everybody. There's no stranger danger. It's fucking Jerry Sandesky danger, Jimmy Saville danger. Yeah. All right, we we solved that. That's a good one. Oh, I'll say a TV show I purely stumbled on. And this is my this is what I live for in terms of finding a TV show. No one recommended it to me. I didn't hear any kind of an ad for it. I didn't nothing. Suddenly, there's a picture of a TV show called Chapel Wait, starring Adrian Brody. And everyone's friend Emily Hampshire from Schitt's Creek, Stevie from Schitt's Creek. Oh, yeah. It takes place in the early 1800s. There are hauntings. There are people with typhoid there. It's like this weird thing of this small town. And I believe I think it was Maine. They're kind of and they inherit

a mansion, but it's creepy. And what's it called? It's called Chapel Wait. You know how they do like chat the book Chapel Wait by whoever, whoever this one should be called Chapel Wait for Karen Kilgara. Literally, you couldn't have. It's like someone went into my brain. They're like, well, what we discovered about you is you love a period piece. You love people in a house away from everybody. Yeah. Yeah. Haunting the town being against the family. There's race issues because it's back, you know, everything's secrets in the town that they don't want outsiders to find out about. It's such it's a really good show right now. There's only four episodes, but I think more are coming. And it's really good episodes are coming. Like winter is coming. That's right. He looks so

confused. Sorry, what's this now? Okay, good. I want to watch I'm actually definitely going to watch that. Actually, definitely gonna watch that. Should we? Oh, should we ask everybody? We know you're going to get mad. But calm down. What are we talking about? We need more hometowns. Now, we're going to guide you through how to get your hometown read quickly and succinctly. We've never given you guys like guidelines to make it so that we actually will pick your hometown. And that's kind of on us. And that's not true. We've done it a bunch of times. We have. Okay. Like because it has to be short. There are people that are sending in hometowns and literally they go on for three printed pages. We cannot read that. We're like half a page. And please be

good at the paragraph breaks. Love a good paragraph. You have to break those paragraphs based on the action. Like get in there and really find the the spine of the story and tell us a story. But you know, shouting out your friends and giving us your grandmother's entire history, although we love it personally. Tell us her name. We got we got to we got to get to the point. So succinct. If you if you're one of those people that's like, I've sent it in three times and I never get read. It's a different character. It's a different girl. It's a different character. We beg you to try it again. And then just look back on what you sent in. Were there no paragraph breaks? What did it go on and on? Or was it like succinct? And like, because here's the other thing

too, people start writing like they enjoy writing. Yeah. And it adds so much character. No, I'm saying don't do it. Oh, it adds to the to the bulk. So make sure you're not trim the fat. Yeah. Be your own great editor. Be a great hometown writer design person. You know, I've always loved hometown writing design. And you know that about me. Just try like listen to a couple episodes before you start writing your own. And then when we go, like, you'll just see that there's like a pattern of people who are like, clever, but not super like, you know, cocky about their cleverness and know how to tell a story from beginning to middle to end. Yeah. Yeah. So send those to my favorite murder Gmail. I think there's a place on our website. And also, if you have heard all these

notes and you still say I wrote mine perfectly and it never got read, please give us another chance. Yeah. Just please resubmit because we're just starting to put an organizational process into the way we're doing like, guys, we just got producers. We just got producers. So we've been so busy trying to make our podcast network exactly right media, this like beautiful place where hosts are supported and given everything they need. And we totally forgot that we actually have a show too that needs those. We need a lot of support. It's only taken us five and a half years to realize that Stephen Ray Morris, although he does it really well and tries cannot do everything. Not for this size of a show. Cannot and should not. He used to have to. He used to have to. And didn't get

paid for months because I was doing the fucking accounting. Look, we started from the bottom. Now we're here. That's right. So yeah, do that for us. If you would, don't be mad. We love you. Thanks so much. Okay, everybody. Is it time to tell some stories to each other? I think so. And you're first, right? Wait, hold on. Before we start, can you poke the dog? Yeah. As you were just doing. And look at how offended he is. He's like, Frank is flat out asleep in the middle of the day. I just poked him and he looked around like, sorry, what? Well, he's like me when Vince is like, yeah, you snore. I'm horribly offended because he's lying. How dare you say such a thing. Frank's like, I don't fucking snore, actually. Frank's like, it is my right to eat and sleep

and not have a job. So you know, when you're first dating someone and they tell you that you either you snore or you fart in your sleep and you're just like, this relationship's over. I can never face you again, Vince. The one I always get is talking in my sleep. Apparently, I talk in my sleep a ton. What do you say? Not sure. I think it's not true. I'm going to say that you and I are both lovely. We look like sleeping fucking beauty. Oh my God. One hand is always up by our forehead. That's right. Tons of lip gloss. There's bird landing on our shoulder. Picking off the spiders that everyone else eats eight of every year. Not us. Not us. Beautiful sleepers. 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. While I 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 hellofresh.ca slash murder20 with code murder20. That's up to 20 free meals plus free shipping on your first box when you go to hellofresh.ca slash murder20 and use code murder20. Goodbye. Hey, I'm Mike Corey, the host of Wondery's podcast against the odds. In our next season, three masked men hijack a school bus full of children in the sleepy farm town of Chowchilla, California. They bury the children and their bus driver deep underground, planning to hold them for ransom. Local police and the FBI marshal a search effort, but the trail quickly runs dry. As the air supply for the trapped children dwindles, a pair of unlikely heroes

emerges. Follow against the odds wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad free on the Amazon music or Wondery app. So this week, I'm going to do the murders of Ed Buck. Okay. Now, you do you know this one? This is a Los Angeles murder story. And it actually just it's relatively recent. The awareness started in 2017. And okay, let me just tell you my head now. Okay, let's do this. But I'm like, I'm like, how do I not know about this? Let's fucking do it. So the reason the story ever really got attention is because of, of course, the victims families who wouldn't arrest right community activists and a journalist named Jasmine Kanek and her tenacity, her hard work, and her like, you know, her big heart and her care about this injustice brought this story

to the public. Her website is called I am Jasmine J. A. S. M. Y. N. E. Dot com and her social media accounts, like those together were the reason the story got coverage and it got the attention it deserved. Amazing. Other sources for the story include Los Angeles is ABC seven news, the LA Times, WeHoVille.com, which is a website for West Hollywood, The Guardian, The New York Times, Wikipedia, NPR, and Justice.gov. All the good ones. Yeah, all the greats. Okay. So it's the spring of 2017. And Jamel Moore moves from Los Angeles to Texas to live with his mom, Leticia Nixon. So Jamel had been living a very rough life in LA. He was struggling with addiction and homelessness. And he was trying to make money working as an escort. But it all had gotten to be too much for

him. And luckily he gets along great with his mom, Leticia. And he knows that moving back in with her would give him the news start that he so desperately needed. So he leaves Los Angeles and moves back home. A couple months later on July 27th, an old acquaintance reaches out through text and makes Jamel an offer that he can't resist. He is going to pay for Jamel to fly back to Los Angeles, basically to party. And later the same day. So Jamel takes him up on that offer. It made me think, and my heart broke thinking about when I was relatively the same age, a little bit younger, moving back home to my hometown, after flunking out of college, and there's no one like my age there. I'm literally hanging out with my parents, going to their friends' parties. It was

and any time I had the chance to go back to Sacramento to visit my friends or go into San Francisco, I would take it because you're just like a social wasteland at your back home because you flunked out. You feel terrible. You feel terrible. And if he was trying to say get sober, this is like four months in where right when it's like the hard work begins. And someone's like, hey, come back to LA for like a glamorous, sexy weekend or whatever. Okay, so that same day, the day that he flies back to LA, Jamel Morris found dead in a man named Ed Bucks West Hollywood apartment. When the coroner arrives, Jamel's death is immediately ruled an accidental crystal math overdose. When Jamel's family is given the news, they immediately express their concern

that there could possibly be foul play. But the Sheriff's Department makes the decision to not investigate Jamel's death. So the accidental overdose conclusion stands. But Letitia Nixon isn't ready to give up the fight. So she reaches out to local Los Angeles reporters hoping to get her son's story out to the public. She reaches reporter Dennis Romero, who then puts her in touch with a journalist and a political strategist named Jasmine Kanek. He feels Jasmine would be a great journalistic fit. And he's right. As Jasmine starts investigating, she uncovers some truly disturbing information about Ed Buck. And soon, more young black gay men come forward with harrowing stories about being victimized by him. So first, we'll talk about who Ed Buck is,

because of course, no one had heard him before, heard of him before. But when this basically, when this came to a head, it was near the end of 2019. And I think one of the main reasons this got a ton of press was because Ed Buck was, he was a billed basically, or he kept being mentioned as a democratic donor. He kept being called that. And this was, of course, like in the height of the reelection process. And it's all the news. So I think a lot of places ran with that. And it's the only way they describe this. Yeah, it's like fuel for democratic donor. Yeah. But you know, that's how it got out there. And whatever, whatever it took. So originally, Edward Peter Buck Melter was born on August 24, 1954, in Ohio, mostly grew up in Phoenix. At age 16, he comes out as gay.

And after college, he moves to Europe, he spends five years acting and modeling. And then in 1980, he moves back to Arizona, gets a job working for his friend's company called Rapid Information Services. So this business provides driver's license info to insurance companies. And it's not doing well. It's basically knocking on the door of bankruptcy. But Ed, despite his lack of business experience, sees potential in it. So after a year and a half, he buys this business for $250,000 and renames it go for career. And just five years later, he sells the company for more than a million dollars profit. So he basically, he's kind of made himself a bit. So he now tries other business ventures. He opens a restaurant, he dips into the pay phone business. Goodness, as he loses

money on both. And the next year, in 1987, he now finds his footing in politics. So at the time, there was a Republican named Evan Meacham, who was Arizona's 17th governor. And he is a racist. He publicly calls black children pickin' and ease. He revokes MLK day as a paid holiday for state employees. He blames the higher divorce rate of recent years on women wanting jobs. And he's allegedly misusing funds, including $350,000 in a campaign loan that he didn't disclose as legally required. So Ed Buck is registered as a Republican at this time. But he's very much against Meacham. He launches a campaign to impeach Meacham. The governor's defenders tried to tear down Ed's efforts simply by saying he's gay. But in the end, the impeach campaign is successful.

And this earns Ed some political clout. He winds up switching to the Democratic Party in 1988. And then over the course of the next few years, he holds a couple of political fundraisers for gay and lesbian political campaign funds and HIV and AIDS services. And then in 1991, at the age of 37, he moves to West Hollywood, where he continues participating in local politics. He even runs for West Hollywood City Council in 2007, but he doesn't win. He still shows up to public council and chamber of commerce meetings to push back on the quote unquote establishment and reform policies that he feels strongly about. He's also a big political donor, which is where this came in. So his donation records are long, totally more than half a million dollars to mostly Democratic

affiliated politicians and organizations. But fighting for gay rights doesn't automatically make you a good person. And Ed Buck's political resume is not convincing Letitia Nixon or Jasmine Kanek that he's in any way innocent. And after the LA Sheriff's Department refuses to investigate, Letitia calls up a friend of Jamel's to dig deeper for herself. When she asks this friend, if he knows Ed Buck, he reacts with horror. Like Jamel, this friend works as an escort, and Ed had been one of his clients too. According to the friend, Ed would have Jamel quote, go out to Santa Monica Boulevard looking for young gay black guys so he could inject them with drugs, see their reaction and take pictures of them. Oh my God. So when the police hand over Jamel's

recovered belongings, Letitia finds Jamel's journal in the stack and his entries seem to confirm the bleak picture Jamel's friend had painted in the entries, which are dated back to the end of 2016 and the beginning of 2017. Jamel explicitly writes about his addiction, issues and about Ed Buck. The entries read quote, I honestly don't know what to do. I've become addicted to drugs and the worst one at that. Ed Buck is the one to thank. He gave me my first injection of crystal meth. It was very painful. But after all the troubles, I became addicted to the pain and the fetish slash fantasy. My life is at an all time high right now. And I mean that in all ways. I ended up back at Buck's house again and got manipulated into slamming, which means injecting drugs again.

I even went to the point where I was forced to doing to doing it four times within just two day period. This man is crazy and it's sad. Will I ever get help? Oh my God. That's heartbreaking. Yeah. So with no other tools besides the power of public opinion available to her, Letitia Nixon posts a video on social media on August 10, 2017, demanding that the LA Sheriff's Department look into her son's death and investigate it as a murder to boost support. Jasmine publishes Jamel's journal entries four days later on August 14, 2017. And as the news starts to spread, more young gay black men start to come forward with similar stories. One of those men, 28 year old Demar Love sits down with Jasmine, the LA Times and ABC 7 to

tell his story. Essentially, Ed offers Demar a large sum of money to come to his West Hollywood apartment and quote unquote, hang out on the evening of July 3, 2017. Because Demar had been there before he knew the drill. He expects Ed will want to take photos of him. He shows Jasmine some of the photos and the videos of Ed Buck's apartment that he still had that further corroborate his story and Jamel's journal entries. Once Demar is there at the apartment, Ed gives him a glass of water and Demar almost immediately blacks out. When he comes to he realizes that his hands are tied. My God. Ed Buck is standing over him holding a taser that has a flashlight on it. Demar sees another taser nearby and grabs it to defend himself. After a standoff,

Demar escapes the apartment. He tries to get help from local police, but they don't believe his story and they just assume he's a drug addict who's just really high because he's been shot up with drugs. Totally. Demar finally finds some EMTs who believe his story and he's taken to the hospital. Just a few weeks later on July 27th, Jamel dies in Ed Buck's apartment. Demar Love, thankful to be alive, assures Jasmine that Ed Buck is nothing short of a monster. Demar's story is published and that along with the entries from Jamel Moore's journal make it impossible for the LA County Sheriff's Department to hide from the demand to take a serious look at Jamel's case. On August 15th, 2017, they finally launched a homicide investigation

19 days after Jamel's death. I mean, that's quick fucking work. Shit like this when the family and journalists have to get involved can take years. Absolutely. That's pretty incredible that their drive got it that quick. Definitely. Well, yeah, the action and what they were posting and what they were putting on social media and basically saying Jamel was not the first victim, they don't have proof of anything else except for this man victimized the perfect voiceless contingent of people, young, black, gay men who were either potentially already addicted to drugs or that he was addicting to crystal meth, which as we know and we've talked about on this podcast is the worst fucking drug. You're immediately addicted to it like it's so fucked up. So he,

yeah, it's horrible. So as the police begin their investigation relying almost solely on information and witnesses that Jasmine Kanek and Jamel Moore's family's attorney, Nana Jamfi have found themselves, they start reaching out to these surviving victims for official interviews. But wisely, these survivors all refuse to speak to the police without immunity. Many of them have used drugs and or engaged in sex work, both of which are technically illegal. So they want to make sure that they're covered. The investigators claim that they don't have the authority to give them immunity, which immediately makes me think of how the Sackler family was just given immunity for basically being responsible for pushing OxyContin on the

nation and the fucking opioid addiction issue that we have in this country. And so if you're rich and you're white and you made the drugs, you can have immunity. That's right. It's insane. A vigil for Jamel Moore is held in West Hollywood on August 18th. That same day, Representative Karen Bass, who once received a donation from Ed Buck, issues a statement denouncing him and then returns his $250 donation. And her statement reads, I am stunned by the news of Jamel's death and the tragic and sad circumstances surrounding it. Nine years ago, I received a $250 contribution from Edward Buck. I do not know him. But what I'm hearing and reading about this conduct with Jamel is deeply disturbing. If there are other

victims, they should come forward immediately. It is my hope that law enforcement is prepared to investigate and prosecute to the fullest extent of the law. My thoughts are with the friends and family of Jamel this evening. And what was her name? That's Representative Karen Bass. That's how you do it. Later after researching and publicly naming all political figures who have taken donations from Ed Buck, Jasmine Kanick calls on all of them to return any money they've received. They've received only a handful of them do, of course. Because we can all rationalize everything. On August 21st, 2017, Letitia asked the West Hollywood City Council to grant all witnesses who come forward against Ed Buck, blanket immunity. Some council members like Lindsay Horvath agree,

but the West Hollywood Mayor Pro Tem John Durran disagrees. He says no investigators nor city officials can grant immunity, stating, quote, transparency doesn't always work with the criminal justice system. Transparency can subject you to criminal arrest and prosecution. So before you do anything, you should seek legal counsel to advise you on how to proceed forward before you speak to law enforcement. Now, interestingly, Durran received thousands of dollars and donations from Ed Buck over the years. Well, shit. And even represented Ed Buck as his lawyer. What a coincidence. So on August 31st, 2017, despite Durran's efforts, and thanks to attorney Nana Jumfy, immunity is finally granted to witnesses and victims who speak with the police about their

encounters with Ed Buck. That's right. So it works. Now more stories roll in about young gay black men, a majority of them unhoused, who Ed Buck contacted via dating apps and websites offering to pay them to come to his apartment and do meth with him while watching porn. One young man who publicly goes by Blake describes how Ed offered him money for, quote, party and play unquote, which means doing meth and having sex. Ed injects Blake with far more method he can handle and forces him to model white underwear in his apartment while Ed takes pictures. Many men recount Ed calling them the N word and reacting violently if they tried to leave the apartment before Ed wanted them to. And they all described the same red toolbox where Ed kept all of his

drugs, coke, meth, heroin, pipes, needles, you name it, it's in the toolbox. So then on September 18th, 2017, Ed Bucks lawyer Seymour Ampster, who is actually the same attorney who defended Lonnie Franklin, the grim sleeper, well, criminal defense attorney, he attends a West Hollywood city council meeting to try and clear Ed Bucks name. He claims that council member Lindsey Horvath is targeting Ed Buck for character assassination and that Ed is grieving over the loss of his friend, meaning Jamel. Yeah. He announces his request for an ethics investigation on Lindsey Horvath. Holy shit. Yeah. So he went all out. I mean, he had to, right? That's what they do, the crazier shit when it's like, it's the evidence is piling up against their clients. So

then they're like, no, no, no, let's, let's all look over here. Join me over here while we're going to get this guy. But two days later, on September 20th, 2017, a witness going by the name of Brian comes forward to say that on September 11th, 2017, Ed Buck chatted with him on the gay dating site Adam for Adam and sent an Uber to pick him up and bring him to Ed's apartment. Text messages show Ed telling Brian that he's quote, into watching porn, kicking back, blowing clouds, showing off an underwear and gym clothes with lots of mirrors, cock rings, pumps, shit like that. End quote. Well, all of which correlates to previous witness statements. So Brian shows up at Ed's apartment around 1230 at night. And while he brings his own

drugs, Ed insists that they take his while Brian refuses, Ed becomes angry and pushy red fucking flag. Yeah, Brian starts to feel uncomfortable. The final straw comes when Ed asks Brian if he can call him the n word. Brian musters up an excuse to leave and manages to make it out safely. But the whole scenario shows that not only is Ed Buck not grieving for for the loss of his friend, he's still doing exactly what he did the night Jamel Moore was murdered. Oh my God. So on July 26, 2018, despite incriminating text conversations, photos, videos and more, District Attorney Jackie Lacey declines to bring criminal charges against Ed Buck, saying that there's insufficient evidence. So of course, Jasmine Kanek is outraged by this announcement. So she takes to Twitter and issues

a warning. If another young black gay man overdoses or worse, dies at Democratic donor Ed Buck's apartment, it's going to be the fault of the sheriff's department and LA District Attorney for not stopping him when they had the opportunity to. So guess what happens now? No. Sure enough, six months later on January 7, 2019, another black man, Timothy Michael Dean, age 55, is found dead in Ed Buck's apartment. And like Jamel, Timothy had died from a meth overdose. Oh my God. But this time, because of the good trouble that Letitia Nixon started on behalf of her own son, a cause that Jasmine Kanek then took up as her own. This time, the LA County Sheriff's Department are investigating Timothy's death as a homicide. Ed Buck's attorney makes a statement to the media

that at this point, Ed has not been charged with any crimes and claims that Timothy was just a friend of Ed's who had asked to come over that Ed had not invited him and stories that he was reluctant to let Timothy come over. But when he did, he saw that Timothy was acting strangely, so he called 911. But when the coroner report on Timothy Dean's death comes out on March 25th, it reveals that Timothy died of a combination of alcohol and injected meth. And that Ed Buck waited at least 15 minutes after the drug was administered to call 911. Oh shit, science. Right. So it's true that Timothy Dean and Ed Buck were friendly over the years. They played in the same gay basketball league together. But a friend and roommate of Timothy's named Atavio Tadi told the New York Times

that he's quote, personally never seen Timothy using drugs and never seen him in the apparent state of alteration caused by any form of drug. He went on to say quote, I consider this whole tragedy extremely controversial and I do hope the police department will dig into it. So this is Timothy's roommate going, excuse me, I'm telling you this guy didn't do drugs. Right. If anyone knows like you coming home or whatever you're fucked up, it's your fucking roommate. It's your roommate. Okay, so this time the police do dig into it. All thanks to the hard work of Jazz Mechanic, Nana Jumfi, and the team behind Justice for Jamel, which advocated for the victims of Ed Buck since 2017. So four days after Timothy Dean's death is becomes known, it's on January 11th,

about 100 people gathered to protest outside of Ed Buck's West Hollywood apartment. And this time it gets covered by the news. So this is where I first heard about this whole thing going down. And I will never forget it, because it was a big crowd outside of this apartment building. And what they were saying, it was like, two men have died in this man's apartment. And this second I heard that in the news, I was like, Oh, this is so bad. It's going to be so many more like something super suspicious and fucked up and not being fucking addressed. Yes, not being addressed. And this is the first time we're hearing about it. Yeah, there's already 100 people who've already been hearing about it that have to protest because no one's doing it.

The only way to get the attention. Okay, so Jamel's mother, Letitia Nixon, is in the crowd that night. She tells ABC 7 News, It's like my son has been killed all over again. How much longer are you guys going to turn your head and act like you don't see anything until another dead black man is in here? The crowd chants, Arrest Ed Buck. They're furious that a white man could have two black men die in his home, possibly more, but the authorities refuse to investigate the stories. And he's never faced any charges, and has been left free to do it again. Paul Scott, a member of LA Black Pride, who was also in the crowd that night, tells the press, if it was one of us and a white person was found dead in our home, the common sense would be

first that we would go to jail. This guy has yet to feel the steel of handcuffs. It is painful to us. So the media attention breaks the story internationally. And eight months later, on September 17, 2019, Ed Buck is finally arrested and charged with three counts of battery, causing serious injury, administering meth, and maintaining a drug house. And two days after that, the charge of distribution of methamphetamine resulting in death is added for the death of Jamel Moore, which was originally ruled an accident, but is now ruled a homicide. Okay, awesome. In an interview, Jasmine Kanek tells British newspaper The Guardian that authorities finally arrested Ed Buck because, quote, they were pushed by a community of people

who are tired of seeing their people dying. This was two years of the black LGBTQ community in Los Angeles, and beyond not letting it go. It was about damn time. Fuck, yes. So Ed Buck appears before a federal grand jury on October 2, 2019, where he's indicted on several narcotics distribution offenses, including injecting Jamel Moore and Timothy Dean with meth. He's arraigned on October 10, 2019, and pleads not guilty. His trial set for November 26, same year, but due to COVID-19, it's pushed to January of 2021. So these charges carry a minimum of 20 years in prison, but in the opinion of the Justice for Jamel legal team, they fail to illustrate Ed Buck's intent to do harm. So like Jamel

Moore's family, one year after Timothy Dean's death, his family files a civil suit for wrongful death on January 7, 2020. Attorney Hussain Turk, a member of the Justice for Jamel team, puts out this statement, quote, the wrongful death lawsuits fill in the substantial gaps created by the inadequate federal and state criminal complaints, neither of which directly addresses Ed Buck's racism or his alleged intentional killings of Jamel Moore and Timothy Dean. The civil lawsuits are important because they seek to hold Ed Buck specifically accountable for engaging in racially and sexually motivated hate violence against black gay men. These cases are not just about furnishing drugs that resulted in deaths and grievous bodily injuries. These cases are colored

by the racial identities and social positions of the victims and the perpetrator. Ed Buck didn't just hand out drugs that resulted in the deaths of Mr. Moore and Mr. Dean. Ed Buck deliberately and exclusively used drugs to commit disgusting acts of race based sexual violence against a specific demographic. He was a predator and he had an M.O. Yeah. And he's not being held accountable for that at all. Yeah. So when the federal court files are accessed, the testimony of Ed Buck's victims give light to a picture that is truly horrifying. So this is a partial quote from an article by journalist Sam Levin writing for The Guardian and it lists some of the victims' accounts. One victim said he learned about Buck when he was homeless and living in a park and

said that Buck was nicknamed Dr. Kvorkian. Oof. A reference to the pathologist known for helping terminally ill patients die. This victim said it was part of Buck's quote role playing in fantasy to inject people with methamphetamine and quote, and that although the victim had never injected meth before, Buck assured him that it would be fine. Oh, shit. He had never fucking done it before. No. This guy convinces him. Injecting drugs too. It's like, oh, it's, yeah. So Ed Buck allegedly ignored this victim's agreement to only do a small dose and he quote emptied an entire syringe into him and quote, another time Buck injected this person and he immediately lost consciousness and awoke to discover his anus bleeding and a third man filming him. The complaint said

another victim said, but when Buck injected him with a tranquilizer, it made him quote, unable to move. Adding that when Buck later wanted the victim to leave his home, Buck became frustrated and obtained a power saw from a closet, turned it on and approached the victim with it. That victim eventually escaped the apartment. In another case, Buck gave the victim what the victim thought was vodka, but he fell asleep or blacked out after consuming it. The complaint said this victim said he woke up to Buck injecting him with a syringe and panicked because he did not use meth, but he couldn't move when he tried to get up. He also felt quote, it's excruciating pain. And when he tried to remove the metal clips fastened to his nipples,

Buck just laughed. The most recent victim who overdosed but survives told authorities that Buck solicited him for sex and distributed meth to him quote, nearly every day during approximately a one month period. Holy shit, it's keeping him prisoner. Yes. And also it's like you, he's now hooked right these men on these drugs and now they have to come back to him for them. Okay. So on August 4, 2020, Ed Buck is brought before federal grand jury again, and they add another four charges to his list, including that he enticed victims to travel across straight state lines to engage in prostitution slash sex work. And this brings his total count to nine federal charges. Meanwhile, DA Jackie Lacey tries to rid herself of the blame by pointing fingers at

LA County Sheriff's Department. She claims that they searched Ed Buck's infamous red toolbox illegally, thus making that evidence inadmissible. The social justice groups on the ground aren't buying it though. And because of their organizing and informational efforts, Jackie Lacey is voted out of office on November 3, 2020. West Hollywood Mayor Pro Tem John Durant is also voted out of office after defending his longtime friend Ed Buck publicly. Yeah, dude. What are you doing? What fucking happens? You notice thinking too about evidence is that since in the very beginning, they didn't get a search warrant because they thought it was just an accidental death and like just completely ignored it, then he had time to get rid of all those fucking

evidence, the videos and photographs that would have proven what he was doing. Yeah. It's just huge. Yeah, it's like a perfect warning for a predator like that where it's like, oh, you better clean this up at least for a little while. Yeah, until charges are filed, if ever. So with ongoing issues of for around COVID-19, Ed Buck's trial is once again pushed to April 20 of this year. Several survivors of Ed Buck's cruelty testify against him in court, sharing their harrowing stories of being solicited for sexual gratification and having drugs forced upon them, sometimes even while unconscious. And when the trial ends on July 27, 2021, Ed Buck is convicted of all nine charges against him. His sentencing date hasn't been set yet,

but the 67 year old faces anywhere from 20 years to life behind bars. In an attempt to delay, Ed Buck makes a motion for judgment of acquittal, which the judge addresses on August 30, 2021, as Jasmine Kanick reports via Twitter, quote, Buck's attorney wants to toss the jury's verdict on the claim that the evidence at trial was insufficient for conviction, end quote. Ed also complains that he hasn't had contact with his lawyers for a month, which the lawyers come back and say, that's simply not true. The judge tentatively denies this motion, but grants Ed more time to confer with his legal team. His legal team claims they already briefed Ed on everything he needed to know, but even still the hearing to make a final call on this motion

is pushed to October 18 of this year. Holy shit. It's still not looking good for Ed, but sentencing won't happen until this motion for judgment acquittal is dealt with. As long as those guilty verdicts stand, which is likely Ed Buck will spend the rest of his life in prison. And while the harm he caused can never be undone, this case serves as a reminder of why the work of journalists like Jasmine Kanick need to be championed and protected. Without her compassion and dedication, it's likely that Jamil Moore and Timothy Dean's deaths would have gone unnoticed or would have been blamed on and explained away by people who want to point toward their quote on quote lifestyles and away from the cold hard facts. And it's likely that there would have

been many, many more victims. As Jasmine Kerrick told NBC News, quote, our stories aren't told and our lives are seen as expendable. It's very easy to write off someone who dies of a drug overdose who was working as a sex worker. But Jamil was as much a part of our community as the many other young men like him. It may not be pretty, but white gay men taking advantage of young black men in our community is not unusual. It's just not talked about in mainstream America end quote. And that is the disturbing story of Ed Buck and the murders of Jamil Moore and Timothy Dean. Wow, Karen, great job. That's a fucking banana story. Yeah, it's horrifying. Yeah, I'm so glad you told that.

I mean, that idea like the people that somebody is such a predator that they find people who will not be listened to, they know for a fact. Yeah, it's just like it's just like a pedophile targeting a kid with like divorced parents or something where it's like it's them strategizing how they can do it and how they can get away with it. They do get away with it. I mean, yeah, that's incredible. But it's also amazing the people who rallied around to fucking take this predator down. Well, and what I think is beautiful too is that West Hollywood, which is, you know, a lot of people know is the is the gay part of Los Angeles, but it's also a very fancy part of Los Angeles. It's a very fun popular, you know, like a lot of people go there just at night,

there's great bars, there's it's, it's a whole strip. It's like a whole community, but it truly is a community. And I think when once there was like a protest or it's like, sorry, what's going on, people knew they couldn't turn away anymore. And that, you know, I think West Hollywood as a community started to rally. It wasn't just about a different group. And it wasn't just about, you know, somebody else, it's like, it's happening here. Everybody needs to start paying attention. Yeah. Yeah. Well, great job. Thank you. Okay, so this actually, weirdly enough, comes mainly from an article that I found late one night in The Guardian. Oh, yeah. That I had never heard of the story before. This really great

article was written by Doug Homer. And so I used that this article heavily for this piece. And the article was called Bring Up the Bodies. And then the retired couple who find drowning victims. So it's this couple called Jean and Sandy Ralston. Okay. Ralston's. So I'm going to tell you all about them. Okay. I also got some info from the Ralston's website sonareflections.com and an Oregon Live article by Samantha Swindler and then a little bit off of Montana right now.com. So let's start here, Karen. When a body needs to be found in a body of water, there are many different ways to try to locate them. And this is a quote, I'll be quoting Doug Homer's article in The Guardian a little bit. Quote, there are scuba divers and underwater cameras, dogs trained to

detect the gases released by a body underwater. But none of these are good at searching large areas or probing deep water. So divers who do look for bodies often face dangerous conditions and most police departments don't have a ton of technology or the equipment to search large areas or deep water. And those areas are often obstructed by sediment. There's like trees underwater, all these crazy things. It makes me think of someone knows something. That's right. The first season of someone knows something. Excellent podcast. Everyone check it out. Yes. And so it just, there's even times when divers just have to feel around in the darkness. Oh. Or even sometimes divers just have to feel around in the darkness. Sounds terrifying. So some bodies will surface

on their own. It depends on the water. If it's cold, if it's salt water, if it's cold water, whatever, whatever. And in warm, shallow water, a body can surface within two to three days because the gases of course will inflate the body and it will rise to the top. But in cold water, a deep water body sometimes never surface because the weight of the water holds the body down. Like fucking nightmare stuff. If the body never surfaces and there isn't any suspicion of foul play, most authorities will only spend about a week or two searching for the body. You know, they don't have the resources. And after that, it's up to the victim's family to try to find the body themselves. Some are forced to pay thousands of dollars a day for commercial diving services,

and others try to find the bodies themselves. And most often they're forced to give up due to lack of resources. That's horrifying to think that you would be forced to go look for yourself. Totally. And then to give up and you can just look at this lake or whatever and know your loved ones in there. And there's nothing you can do about it. It's heartbreaking. But when all hope of finding a missing body is lost, this is where Sandy and Jean Rouse didn't step in. They're considered some of the best underwater search and recovery specialists in North America. So now I'm going to tell you about them. Okay, great. Did you see what I just did? Oh my God. It's going to end too quickly. I won't be able to.

Georgia just used George, my dog, as a desk. She didn't react. She doesn't care. She's down. She's sleeping on me. As long as you let me stay in here. I laid my paper down on her and wrote something. And then I did the whole, like, what's the thing where you take a paper and... You tap, tap, tap to even up all the sheets. Even up the paper on your dog. Is that an animal abuse? Not at all. It's animal use. I keep telling them they need to get jobs. They don't help. She's being very useful. Okay, we'll post a photo of that because it's just ridiculous. Okay, around 1970, Jean and Sandy Ralston, and they're like, of course, now this adorable white-haired couple that are so cute together. You love them. So they meet

on a two-month trip to Mexico that had been organized by the College of Idaho's Biology program, which they're both part of. And they start dating on the trip and married two years later on top of a mountain in Idaho, which happens to be called Heaven's Gate. So by 1979, Jean has a Masters of Science in Biology and Zoology. Jean's the man, by the way. Okay. I know sometimes. No, that's good to know. And Sandy has a Master of Science in Biochemistry. So fucking smart as fuck, people. Smarties. Smartie smarts. The couple start their own environmental consulting firm, which turns out they survey waterways for fish and evaluate the environmental impacts of proposed dam projects. So smart science people. Yeah. In 1983, Jean is asked by the Boise

Sheriff to help find a woman who jumped off a bridge into the Boise River. They are successful in finding the woman's body. And Jean later tells Oregon Live, quote, the thank you we got from the family really brought home to us, what it means to have someone missing and not be able to find them. For the next 16 years, the couple volunteers for Idaho's search and rescue operation. Wow. In the spring of 1999, Jean hears about the search for a man who drowned after his rowboat capsized on the Wolf Creek Reservoir in Oregon. The man's family had hired a search team who borrowed military equipment that was, quote, 100% effective at finding drowning victims. Jean wants to see the equipment. So he asks if he can tag along. The 100% effective equipment is a

side scan sonar, which has been around since the early 1960s. And according to the Guardian, the sonar equipment is towed behind the boat, close to the bottom of the water. And the sonar emits pulses of sound, which travel easily through the water, reflecting back off solid objects. Science. So rocks, human bodies, sunken treasures. Software then translates those reflections into images displayed on a computer aboard the boat. So it's basically like medical sonar. So it's basically like getting an ultrasound, like when you have a baby or whatever. So about this piece of equipment in the 70s, Jacques Cousteau used the technology to find shipwrecks. And Karen tried to capture an image of the Loch Ness monster.

He did try Jacques Cousteau. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. This is separate. This is separate about how elated I am that we had someone so legit. Yeah. Believe in it. On the Nessie team. Look, that's why I concluded it in this. Thank you. That was a little gift from me. Thank you. And also in 1985, the side scan sonar helped to locate the Titanic. Remember when we were in the fucking 80s, it was located? People don't like know that. It's crazy, right? I thought it was located right after the movie Titanic came out. And it was all kind of bundled together as a promotional tool. I think they used some kind of technology to actually go in it and like see it better. Yes. There was a whole movie like a

documentary James Cameron made. Totally. Or the same director. Yeah. James Cameron. Yeah. No, it's really good. So the Titanic was about 370 miles southeast of Newfoundland, Canada, more than two miles below the surface on the Atlantic. By the way, I had to do a lot of research because in the Guardian article, he uses like meters and shit. Oh. And I had to be like, well, we don't know how many fucking feet translate to you. I don't. We need the translation for America, the only country in the world that will not do the metric system. That uses the antiquated as fuck. Okay. No wonder where we are today. Truly deeply. Can't change. Jean is super impressed with this side scan sonar equipment, but he isn't impressed with the people operating it. Yeah.

So the team he went with to see how it works, he says that the first day he was able to see an image of the missing man on the floor of the lake. But the team members he was with who were operating it didn't fucking spot it, even though he did. On their fourth day, the team finds the body. And it's the one he saw. It's the one he saw and they charge the family $30,000. No. So did they purposely not find the body till the fourth day because they rack out more money? I don't know. That is, that's dirty. I mean, like, how do you sleep? Yeah. I mean, the equipment costs a lot of money. It's really expensive. Right. So you want to get in, get out? Right. That's true. That's not true, unfortunately. Oh, man. The Roustins, they already know that

the Roustins are totally aware that people who are desperate to find the body of a loved one that's drowned will fucking pay anything to do so. Of course. And so they are charged that. And that's why when the couple buys $100,000 worth of their own side scans sonar equipment, and this is in the spring of 2000, they decide to work for free, not charge anything. Oh, man. These victims, families who are desperate to find their fucking loved one. Because they're just fully disgusted. Like, we have to make a difference. Yeah. It's our duty. Like, they feel called to it. Like, it's their duty. They do charge travel expenses, but they travel by motor home. Like, they're the loveliest, most like down to earth modest fucking people. There absolutely should

be a biopic about absolutely amazing. That is amazing. This Guardian article is great because I'm so glad it introduced me to them. The couple's first search with their new equipment takes place in the fall of 2000. They're searching for 24 year old Brandon Larson, who six weeks earlier had drowned while swimming off his friend's boat in Bear Lake, Utah. And from the article, it's basically this guy who was this prankster jokester is with all his friends. So when that he signals that he's drowning, they think he's joking. I know. It's funny. Yeah. Within a few hours of searching for Brandon's body, the Ralston's find him about 145 feet below the surface. So like immediately. Within two weeks of finding Brandon, the couple starts receiving calls from families who had

heard about them on the radio, like they did a radio interview. The first was from a mother of an 18 year old girl whose body had been found already after she'd been abducted and murdered about a dozen years earlier. But law enforcement was still trying to bring like the known killer to justice, but they didn't have enough evidence. So the mother asks the Ralston's to help by finding the girl's car, which they believe to be in a lake in Wyoming. Oh, wow. Yeah. Hoping that would provide enough evidence. So Jean says, quote, I could hear a lot of pain in her voice. It affected us a lot. I couldn't wait to get out there. In the end, unfortunately, they're unable to find the car, but it only strengthened their

belief that they were needed and doing the right thing. Like they didn't even understand the detail with which they could be needed. Yeah. Yeah. Like it's not just bodies. It's important things like evidence. The Ralston's start taking on as many cases as they can while still operating their environmental consulting firm. So like, oh, you still need to make money. Yeah. During their first year, the Ralston's participate in 16 searches spanning from California to Maryland. Oh. And by 2004, the couple's receiving so many calls that they have to stop promoting their business because, quote, it interferes with how quickly they can respond to search requests. Yeah. Jean later tells the Guardian, quote, I would have,

I would have to tell a family that we couldn't come for two or three weeks and that bothered me. Yeah. So pure of heart. Well, because every person calling them is in crisis and in an emergency. Die or need. Yeah. In 2005, the Ralston's shut down their consulting business and conduct searches full-time. The couple spends the majority of their time traveling around in a motor home, which tows their boat. When they aren't on the road, they're living outside of Boise, Idaho, because they work for traveling expenses. Only the couple doesn't have a lot of money, but they're frugal with what they do have. Jean tells the Guardian, quote, what better use for what money you have than to help somebody else out when everybody else has given up on helping them.

Yeah. Their modest boat is named Kathy G, which they named after a young woman whose body the Ralston's found in a lake in Alaska in 2008. And then the family of Kathy G donated money that the Ralston's used to buy a much needed new motor. So according to the Guardian, the Ralston's are, quote, modest, unassuming people, but they bring a relentlessness to their often monotonous work. So when they're looking for a body, they do what they call mowing the lawn. They tow their sonar equipment back and forth through the water. Sandy pilots the boat in slow overlapping strips. It takes a long fucking time. It is like very slow, monotonous work. The boat doesn't go faster than 2.5 miles per hour, which is slower than walking. So they're just like, for weeks,

on the fucking water going back and forth, looking for this little... But think about it. Like, they're a retired couple who's essentially driving around like their kind of, quote, unquote, on vacation. And that's what if he was a fisherman, they would be doing the exact same thing. Totally. So they're like, these people are unbelievable. I know. I can't. It's so amazing. They search for up to 10 hours a day. And some searches last for weeks. Jean tells the Guardian, quote, after the fifth or sixth day of searching, you get almost zombie like. And then he also says, quote, searches consist of long periods of boredom interrupted by

brief moments of terror. Like to suddenly fucking come upon what you're looking for. You're looking for it, but you actually don't want to find it yet. Exactly. Yeah. So once they find the body, then a local dive team comes in and recovers the body. And other time, the Ralston's help assist dive teams with their remote operated vehicle. So it's said that they're not just good at what they do because of the equipment. They also interview witnesses in order to try to pinpoint search areas. So it's not just this vast lake they're looking. They have an idea of where to look. Like, they were the only people who thought to look at the GPS data of the houseboat that a man named Michael McGuckin jumped off of

before he disappeared in June of 2019. Because they checked the GPS, the Ralston's were able to find his body over 300 feet down in Utah's Lake Powell. I know. So it's almost like they're teaching themselves how to get good at what they're doing. Totally. Or they're just like, I guess it's me because they're not professionals. They're able to think outside the box and just, you know, have some more basic idea of how to find the body. And maybe because they're not professionals, it's not the thing they have to deal with day in and day out. They're not desensitized. Each case becomes their personal to them. Yeah. It's really personal. And so they're like, how are we going to, how do we solve this?

Yeah. And they're not a hurry too. So they're able to kind of like slow down and consider these things. Yeah. According to Jean, the quote point of last scene is crucial to a search because a person will sink to the bottom of a lake within a radius equal to the depth of the water. Oh, there's an actual formula to it. It's like an equation. Yeah. Wow. Sometimes Jean and Sandy are able to pinpoint a search area so accurately that they lower their sonar equipment almost directly on top of the body. Whoa. I know. One day in 2001 in Idaho's Hayden Lake, the couple lowered their sonar equipment down on the bodies of two men. One drowned 19 months earlier, the other drowned the previous week. So they were actually only looking for one of them

and they found both of them. They found two. Whoa. So let me tell you a couple. I can't obviously cover all of the cases. So let me tell you a couple of notes that I found interesting. Okay. In March 2002, the Rawlstons are tasked with finding their first homicide victims. They're recruited by the FBI to find four people who had been kidnapped for ransom by a group thought to be connected to the Russian mafia. The families of the victims paid the ransom 1.2 million, but the victims were still killed. The victims are thought to be at the bottom of the new Malonis Reservoir, which is east of Yosemite National Park. The Rawlstons are a bit apprehensive and they wonder if they're going to be targeted by the Russian mafia if they

try to help out on this case. Oh, yeah. So Gene reaches out to his cousin, who's a recently retired FBI agent, and his cousin tells him that the Russians, quote, aren't really into murdering people. So you don't really have to worry about them doing anything in retaliation if you go ahead with this search. They aren't into murdering people. I guess it's not their style. They keep them alive and do other stuff. I guess. They send them to jail. The Russian mafia is very... That's right. They're basically like bounty hunters. The Russian mafia. Got you, got you. So they take the case. Knowing the four murder victims will look different on sonar than a drowning victim, maybe because they're weighted down or like rolled in a fucking rug or something

like that, you know? Totally different than somebody just naturally drowns. It still takes two weeks to find all four victims. And as suspected, they're at the bottom of the reservoir. But because the reservoir is close to 300 feet deep in some areas, it's not safe for divers to reach the bottom. So the FBI has to fly. Okay. So you know, when you see on a TV show or like a crime drama, like the diver goes down, he comes up and he's like, found it or whatever. That doesn't actually happen because divers can't go down that deep. So what really happens is something like this, where the FBI has to fly in a small unmanned submarine from their dive team headquarters. And the submarine has a mechanical arm that hooks the bodies and brings them up to within

30 feet of the surface. Then the divers go down and recover the bodies. And they had been weighted down with gym weights. And they're able to use the evidence that is found to tie up the bodies to find the kidnappers. And actually, there's another murder by the same people with kidnapping and murder by the same group. Then they find that they're not fucking Russian Mafia at all. And the group had kidnapped a total of five people, held them hostage, and then killed them regardless if the ransom was paid. So these are bad fucking guys. Yeah. And they dumped their bodies in the new Malonis Reservoir. And they end six people are sentenced for their roles to them receiving the death penalty.

In January, 2003, Gene helps police search for Lacey Peterson. Oh, wow. Yeah. In San Francisco. And on the 18th, he finds what he thinks is a large plastic bag. But it's anchored to the bottom of the bay, so he's not sure. And he's unable to recover the bag, and he dismisses it as not being her body based on some other evidence. So then in March, he goes back to help the search again. And on the 13th, he finds an object that looks like a body. But unfortunately, the winds are super strong that day. And so divers can't go in to recover the object. When he returns the next day, he can't find that object. And based on where Lacey's

body is found in May, he believes that this object was Lacey's body. The second one that he found? Yeah. Okay. So he also flew to Aruba to help try to locate Natalie Holloway. Oh, wow. Right now. In 2004, the Ralston Search Priest Lake in Idaho for the body of 53-year-old firefighter David Lewis, it's believed he fell out of his boat and drowned in the lake. And because no one saw him drown, they have to search a large area of the lake while searching. They do find a body,

but it's not David's. The body has been in the lake for as long as 100 years. Whoa. Yeah. Isn't that creepy? Do you ever drive by bodies of water and lakes and shit and go? Are there bodies in there? Well, only current. I've never thought about the fact that obviously people have drowned throughout history. And obviously, they would just be sitting down there, especially 100 years ago. 100 years ago. And if it's super cold, it might be preserved. I didn't know that. Yeah. That's the other thing, too, is they don't fucking decay as fast. Right. Wow. I mean, fucking Echo Park Lake had bodies in it one time when it was

emptied. I bet. How about the Phoebe Judge? This is a criminal episode where they put a diver into the La Brea Tar Pit. That's right. If you haven't heard the episode of criminal where they talk to the LAPD dive team, which is like one guy who had to go down and search in the tar. That's right. It's unbelievable. It's such a good episode. When I was a kid, my grandma, that was my grandma's neighborhood. And so she used to take me to the La Brea Tar Pits all the time, which I wouldn't go fucking near. Even as a little kid, I was like, this is creepy. It's bizarre. Well, and also, as a little kid, you were looking at that wooly mammoth. Yes, hash submerged. The wooly mammoth is drowning

in the tar and the baby is upset. Yeah, why did I think children? We went there for fucking field trips. Yeah. Yeah. I bet you, I bet you that whole thing was built in 1977. It was like the peak of we don't care about kids. I think it was from the 60s. I think it was old. Stephen, when was the La Brea Tar Pits created? Well, it was created. 80 billion, 80 billion BC. In the medieval times. Stephen's working. Please, Stephen's typing. 1964. Oh, I should have made a friendly wager. Because I would have won. I know. I just love losing and winning money. I know, apparently. That's your favorite thing. We got to do more friendly wagers on this podcast. Yes, we do. Especially because we're always both wrong.

Yeah, I know. For real, we should also get an envelope with what some places call a kitty put in it, where it's like, we have $100 friendly wager money. And then we build up from there. And then at the end of the year, somebody wins it. That's a great idea. I love whoever writes the best hometown of the year. Oh my God, you could win $100 or more. Or more. How much we're wrong. Up to $200. That's right. It's incentive, they call it. Yes, that's right. My favorite writer at gmail.com. Okay, back to this horrible story. So 100-year-old body, to this day, it's the oldest body their Alstons have recovered. But sadly, they did not find David's body in June, which just has to be so disappointing. And when do you say like, when do you stop saying

one more day, one more day, you know? Right. I mean, I wonder if that's something they preset with the family of like, we will look for X amount of days or whatever. And they have like, they're probably totally backed up on their schedule. So they have to get to the next one. The other thing that's really sad about all these stories is the families are always waiting at the shore. Of course. Like the families come every day. Of course they do. They stand by the shore hopeful, but also, you know, dreading what's, if it's going to be found. It's just so sad. In June of 2003, their Alstons are asked to search, I'm going to call it, Francois Lake in British Columbia for the body of Sid Neville. Sid is presumed dead after a storm

struck while he was fishing on June 7th. And as the couple is searching, they find a body, again, someone else's body. It's the body of 33 year old John Mowat. And he'd been missing since July of 1984. Whoa. When his abandoned boat was found in the water. His body is found at almost 600 feet deep. Whoa. So deep. Yeah. It's their deepest fine. And they go back to the Francois Lake and continue looking for Sid Neville. And they find the original body they were looking for also at around 600 feet deep. Oh. So in August 26th, the Rousons are asked to search for this a 19 year old man named Blake Becker. Blake is an amateur stunt motorcycle rider. Oh. And on July 23rd, he had planned to perform a stunt where he rides his motorcycle, which he had designed and

modified himself. He's going to ride it across Montana's Canyon Ferry Reservoir. So this fucking jump across the lake. Yeah. Classic motorcycle stunt. Yeah. He'd done it before. It's a three mile jump. Only this time he's going to do it at night. I know. So unfortunately, halfway across the lake, the motor on his bike seizes up. And he would have survived this. But there's some complication where his when he hits the water, he doesn't realize that he had like snapped a cord that was on his bike in his life preserver like clasps. So he couldn't get out of his like get off the motorcycle. He was basically attached to it. And in his panic, he's not able to realize that. And the weight of it sinks him. The weight of the motorcycle sinks him to the bottom of the lake.

He's the only victim the Rousons ever recovered that was wearing a life jacket. Rousons don't just search for people. In 2003, they helped NASA find remnants of the Columbia space shuttle after it broke up upon its return to Earth. And in 2004, they helped the US military find the wreckage of two F 18 fighters that collided over Oregon's Columbia River. They also once helped for a person look for their prosthetic leg in Idaho's Lake Lowell, but they weren't able to find it. Oh, those things are expensive. That's why the guy was like, Hey, can you please help me? Today, the Rousons are in their 70s, and they continue to dedicate their time and resources to helping find victims in the US and Canada. A woman named May Sidlapase, who's aunt and uncle,

the Rousons helped find after they had drowned on the in the Sacramento River in 2013, said about them, quote, they don't save lives, but they save us from wondering and from the hurt, from the pain. They're like family to all these people. And of course, all the families of the people they found keep in touch with them. They talk to them regularly. They send Christmas cards. I bet they're like indebted to them. Yeah. Jean said, quote, I really don't like the word closure. It's terribly overused because things are never closed. The pain goes on forever. We've tried to come up with a better word resolution, perhaps, but people seem to think that there's closure. They can move on with their lives and forget about all the stuff that happened in the past.

There's no forgetting. It's always there. In 2020, Jean told Oregon Live, quote, my body is telling me, yes, we need to slow down. You know, they're in their 70s. Yeah. We need to think about not putting ourselves through all of this, the mental stress and physical stress. But my heart and mind says, you can't say no. And that is the story of Jean and Sandy Ralston, the retired couple who find drowning victims. Amazing. Wow. I love that. It's a mitzvah. It's a mitzvah. And it's like, it's so nice to tell stories about the good people in the world, you know, because there's these people that are out there with very little credit and very little attention just getting this work done. Yeah, quietly. Yeah. And also there's, you know,

because a lot of people have real issues around death and loss like that, where they just won't go near other people who go through it. And that's, you know, that's another aspect of it that's really brave. Is there going into those situations of, you know, loss and tragedy and just trying to make a difference? Totally. Yeah, they're seeing trauma all the time. And they talk about it in the Guardian article about like, how do you compartmentalize and like Sandy's better at it than Jean. You just see so much grief all the time. Yeah. How do you, how do you make it okay? But it's like, well, you're doing something to help. You're not, you know, even though it's still, the grief's still there. The grief's there. But what you're doing is, because it isn't your grief.

Right. It's you, we're not so delicate that we can't handle other people's grief. Right. It's, it doesn't actually take that much. But you have to do it because the story you'll, and I'm of course right now thinking of my own experiences where when something horrible happens like in your family or with relatives or whatever, there are, there, there are reactions to go like leave them alone. Yeah. Which is a very self-serving reaction. Right. Because you just don't want to be in a difficult scenario with someone else. It makes you want comfortable. And so you don't do it. And of course it does because it makes everyone uncomfortable. But that idea that there are those people who know and have learned or maybe because of their own losses or whatever, they know that

going in and sitting next to the person is not hard. And it's certainly not as hard as what that person's going through. And to even do anything to lift that burden is beautiful, beautiful work. Especially for some retirees in a motor home. I know. And they're so cute and white-haired and like adorable. And they're just fucking getting it done. That's right. Let's get them a biopic. Let's see who will play them. Well, of course, Dame Judy Dench. And then whoever can be on camera with her and not, and not mind being next to Dame Judy Dench. I'm thinking like a, what's, what's Indiana Jones' name? Oh, that's Harrison Ford. You don't know his name? Harrison Ford? I know his name. I just have no memory of names. You know that by now.

Oh, okay. Sorry. So Harrison Ford. That was snobby. That was snobby to shove that in your face. Truly was. But you have a passion for. I apologize. Now, I've apologized twice. What more do you want? Right. Wait, were you, were we all called, the call together when someone talked about their favorite band being named Thrice? Yes, it was, it was an Andrew. It was Andrew. I laughed so hard. That band, like I'm too old for that band. The idea that, that some emo kids sat around and were like, we're fucking going to name ourselves Thrice. Because it sounds old English, old English. Yeah. It's spooky. So funny. They're hardcore. Okay. Well, okay. So before we go, we haven't talked about how essentially the state of Texas has tried to repeal Roe versus Wade. They have passed

unconstitutional legislation. It's a horror show because it's not only making abortion illegal, but actually making, allowing people, citizens to report other citizens for any kind of abortion services. Yeah. It is. There's a bounty on women's heads. There's a bounty on women's heads. And there's a bounty on any kind of abortion service worker said the doctors, the people that work at clinics, the janitor, they can, it is, it's truly insane. And lots of things have to happen and change. And we're all very upset about it. We didn't want to start the show off this way. Because enough of us live in this stress. We all heard this story. We all freaked out. As, as a woman who prioritizes choice, you would of course naturally just be like, oh, it's end times. This

is absolutely insane. This barbaric, it's fucking unconscionable and it's a war on women and we will not fucking stand by idly and, and let this happen. No. And here's what's interesting is over a majority of Americans believe in choice for women's right to choose this idea that this is somehow in any way a majority is absolutely incorrect. It's like 80% of Americans believe that it is a woman's right to choose what happens to her body. And nobody intends to go backwards. We're not going to do that. So because of that, George and I are going to donate $10,000 to the fund Texas Choice Organization, which is very hands on active organization in Texas that enable, that basically are going to protect a woman's right and choice to get an abortion for whatever

reason she might need that. And then also, so we have in the, my favorite murder store, we have the black and white, my favorite murder logo pin and 100% of the proceeds of that always go to a charity of our choice. And so we're now going to change the pin charity to be the Whole Women's Health Organization. So they are helping to fight this unconstitutional law in court. So right now, all proceeds of the black and white logo, my favorite murder pin in our store are going to be Whole Women's Health. And obviously, we're going to continue talking about this and discussing it and getting into it because this is now, you know, one of the foremost issues for women that there is. I mean, bounty hunters, what the fuck is going on? Yeah. Yeah. So stay strong,

like many other situations that we have as women have found ourselves in. This is just another one that is an opportunity to get smart, to get strong, to come together, to join each other, and to protect ourselves and each other's bodies. I don't know, like actual people. Yeah, like autonomy. Exactly. Fuckin' patriarchy. Thank you guys for listening and thank you for supporting us. We are so, as always, honored to be here talking people. And thank you for your patience as you listen to our new talking getting better as every week. It truly is a real wonderment to sit down and try to podcast again after two to three months of a break. That's right. So it's been very fun to discover, to rediscover this with you. Yeah. And we really love you and appreciate

that. Some of the messages people sent us were so touching. Truly. And so kind, like welcoming us back. Yeah. And, you know, we're always braced for like social media nastiness. Of course, that's kind of this weird world. I know, I know. And instead, what we have are a bunch of very nice friends who support us in what we do. And so we want you guys to know we also support you. That's right. In a world full of Louis Vuitton's, you guys are our athletic slides. And we appreciate you for that. We really appreciate you not making us walk with our heels raised four inches above our toes. Leave our heels alone. It doesn't make sense. That's right. All right, everybody. Stay sane. Stay strong. Stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie?

This has been an exactly right production. Our producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton, associate producer Alejandra Keck, engineer and mixer Steven Ray Morris, researchers Jay Elias and Haley Gray. Send us your hometowns and your fucking arrays at my favorite murder at gmail.com. And follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at my favorite murder and Twitter at my fave murder. And for more information about this podcast, our live shows, merch, or to join the fan cult, go to my favorite murder.com. Rate, review, and subscribe.