My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 316 - Circle of Malice

Episode Date: March 3, 2022

This week, Karen and Georgia cover the attempted murder of Mary Jo Buttafuoco and the Box Lady of Benton County.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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And welcome to my favorite murder. That's Georgia Hardstark. Thanks. I'm Karen Kilgareth. And we're here to podcast at you. Are you ready? At you, on you, around you. Can you do it with us?

Yeah. Your aura is made of podcasts now. Yeah. And we're here for that. Hi. What's going on, Karen? How's your week been? I mean, you know, nothing stressful, nothing like cut, nothing brain breaking at all or

anything that just makes me stare at my phone all day long. Yeah. How about yourself? Same. Yeah. I definitely did a deep dive while Vince was sleeping next to me and I was insomnia, insomniac thing and then went online to buy disaster preparedness kits. So, you know, you could buy a bucket of fucking food, dried food, essentially, but it comes

in a bucket for some reason. Yeah. The great Jim Baker, Tammy Faiz X. Oh, yeah. He's been selling apocalypse soup on those religious channels for years now. Apocalypse soup is the best term I've ever. It's like a prepper concept, I think, and yeah, I don't... It's the bucket aspect.

Yeah. We can just, let's put everything else aside because, you know, it's upsetting and it's whatever. Yeah. Here's how I imagined it. Okay. It goes into that bucket in soup form, hot, liquid, and then it's slopped in there and then it gets shipped out to the people that watch Jim Baker's TV show over the hours,

days, weeks after it gets slopped in. Or are you telling me this soup is freeze dried? Okay. Yeah. It's not loose soup. It's not loose soup. These words we're using. It's not a hot bisque.

It's not a hot loose soup. Okay. It's like little... It's like little... This doesn't make sense though because it's like packages, individual packages of meals and soup and stuff. But then they put it in a... Like, there's no reason it needs to be all then put in a bucket unless, oh, I know what

it is. What? You use the bucket. Yeah. As your toilet. Shit. Pee that soup right back out. What?

It's all dark and horrifying. It is. And I don't want to be one of the many who are like trying to glorify or almost like social media defy this invasion. I do have to say the very first moment that basically kind of set the tone was an old lady walking up to the invading army and a soldier, which we all know this at this point. Now this is legend. And she said, you better put some sunflower seeds in your pocket so something grows when

your dead body is left behind in our land. Did you know that? I missed that because I was off everything over the weekend just for my own mental health and to not keep buying buckets of smart food. Yeah. For your mental health, you weren't checking Instagram, but you were buying populous food. But you know what I did, I go, Vince, figure it out, because you know, Vince will be like, I looked into every single one and here's the best one and here's why and this and that.

And so I'm like, you do it. Sure. But he's also like, chiller than me. So he's like, got it. I'm on it. And then like does. And then he buys a packet of Lipton onion soup and is like, yep, I did what I technically did what you said.

This will last us 72 hours. But I just want, I do want to celebrate that badass woman. And apparently this is what you Ukrainian people are like because she didn't give a fuck. And then when I first read it, I thought she was being nice to him because I didn't understand what she was saying. And then of course, then you learned Ukrainian. And then I studied it, but no, that message of a, of just a woman walking up to a fully armed soldier and being like, well, this is pointless.

We're going down and at the very least, you might as well stick some sunflower seeds in your brother's just like, this is pretty fucking unbelievable. Wow. Yeah. I mean, if that's what the old ladies are like in Ukraine, then yeah, fuck. Then my sister sends me a Tik Tok this morning of a young lady with she had gray fingernails and very hip clothing. And she was showing you how to drive a Russian tank that's been abandoned on the side of

the road. No joke. Okay. She's inside it and she's explaining to you what you, you flip this, you flip this, you do this, you put it into gear and she goes ahead and drives the tank away. Can I tell you how proud of myself up until this point I've been that like, I know how to drive stick. And then suddenly this chick comes along and she's like, I know how to drive tank.

There's always another level. This is some a genius man said to me, early days of working in television, he was a designer and he was so genius. And I was like, whoa, I didn't even know stuff like that existed. And he looked at me and goes, Oh, there's always another level. I was just like, fuck. Yes. There's always another level and matrix shit right there.

It's like the goal of life is leveling up. So yeah. Level up. Yeah. Learn how to drive a tank. That's the point. So what letter is that on the, on your driver's license class T class T is when you can drive tanks around.

Yeah. Um, no, it's, it's very scary. Let's do some escapism. The reason that, you know, I'm the one that fucking told Georgia, we shouldn't talk about this. And then I'm the one that's talking about it in that my classic manner, but it's because we don't want to pretend like it's not happening and it's not scaring the shit out of everybody. But you, you get onto these podcasts so that you can escape from it.

Escape into true crime, which is like, you're everyone who knows you is like, what is wrong with her? That that's her escape. But like, we're here with you. Yes. And that's our escape too. Yes, it is. Also, can I ask you, did you get a chance to enter into my favorite latest escape?

Uh, now I want to sing. Love is blind. Stephanie. Oh. What? The Tinder swindler. Oh, fuck. I've been like, not interested for some reason, and we were watching inventing Anna for the

past like week with the fucking, I gave you very clear homework and you, of course, in your punk rock style said, if you teacher and it's, I think you're going to enjoy, I know I will. It's beyond. Okay. I'm there. It's I'm going to make events. We do this thing.

We're like, I'm not going to like that. And then 10 minutes and we're like, either fuck this forever or we love this. But that, isn't that what all of TV watching is like now? Because you're, you're trying to control the, I'm not going to say vibe because I'm 51. But all right. It's like that though. You're trying to continue on what you're already feeling. Yeah.

Or level it up a little and like feel a little better. Yep. Unless you're depressed. And then you want to. Yeah. Like in these, in these dark days are difficult because you're like, Oh, is anyone going to do anything about this? Yeah.

But this one has a kind of a, there's kind of a jaunty sociopathy going on in this thing that, that is feels next level in the cookie, um, like brand name, you know, those people that just love brand name, I don't saw she and she and there is like, I have my, I have my Kate, my Versace purse that everyone knows is not subtle at all. No, no, no, no, no, it has like the letter of the brand all over it. It's the goofiest shit. I've always thought it was goofy. It's just style wise.

If you like stuff like that fucking God bless and I don't care, but when, but honestly, when you see it's driving this person entirely and there's all these like selfies where like he's wearing the latest quote unquote sunglasses, but it's, it looks like someone doing a bad sketch. Yeah. Yeah. Like, uh, who would it be? Like, uh, what's his name?

It has everything. Bill Hader. Bill Hader. I don't know. It's, it's kooky. Let's not spend too much time on it because I don't think it deserves it, but I liked it. Can I, can I actually say another one I liked, uh, please, I have to get, I have to look it up because the name is ridiculous.

So the Kristen Bell show, the woman in the house across the street from something, something, something reminded me of naked gun and that was really, it was really fun to watch. Oh really? Yeah. It wasn't like laugh out loud, but it was like giggle inducing and also the story itself like carried it through. So it worked. I mean, it's a, it's high time that people start making fun of that very specific genre

of like troubled lady. The first time, I think you and I talked about this cause the first time I read the, I think it was the girl in the window or the woman at whichever. There was one of those books and they talk about this girl drinking, like it's the craziest shit. Remember where it's like she gets on the train, but she already had a little vodka in her purse. Yeah.

She's like vodka in her like sports drink bottle. Yeah. And they're talking about it. Like she's shooting up where I'm just like, Hey, sorry, this is what I used to do every fucking day. And this is, she's barely putting in the time of being like a meaningful drunk and you're writing about her vodka straight like that to me is now you've got to make some Gatorade in there.

So it goes into your bloodstream faster. Oh God. That's okay. In high school. There's two friends of the podcast family in it, Mary Holland, the hilarious comedian who we love the best, the best. And then also Cameron Britton, none, none other than at Kemper, at Kemper on Minehunter. He's in a two playing essentially the same character.

Yeah. So Cameron Britton was in it. I, it's a fun little show to watch. I really did like it. Oh, great. Yeah. It like, it was very naked gun, like airplane style, who doesn't need that shit right now. Like yes, please.

Yes. Please. Yeah. I did for sure. I did. I would tell you to watch it for sure. Yes. You did and you have.

And I will. And everybody's hearing it and doing it. I can't, I keep trying to watch like shows on PBS, but that are from other countries that I'm like, ah, yes, I'm going to really dig in. And I truly can't keep my eyes off my phone to read the subtitles. I just keep doing that over and over again. It's very frustrating. I've said it before and I'll say it again.

I said it recently to fat ladies on YouTube, the cooking show is so highly enjoyable. And so like at the end of every episode, they're out sipping martinis and one of them is fucking chain smoking. Like they're just the best women. I love it so much. It's like, it's like a palette cleanser at the end of the night if you've been watching true crime all day. Oh yeah.

That's, we watched that show real time when it was on in the 80s because it was on PBS and my dad, those guys and there were some local chefs. We watched it. That just reminds me so much of like that early 80s, like cuisine, yes, cuisine and quiches and the trend. And it wasn't like a beautiful kitchen. It was like back and the cook station at a restaurant with like tons of stainless steel. It wasn't like, here's a beautifully manicured kitchen.

No. It was like, here's how you make it, you get to have this, you're going to be the front chef now. Yeah. You should plate it like this. And that's the end of it. It is. Yeah, I can't think of anything else.

I'm neither. Just doing a lot of staring. A lot of staring. It's that kind of time in our lives where it's just like a lot of staring, a lot of eating and staring. Eating, staring. Also, the weather changed and this is, it's so truly boring to talk about weather. But in Los Angeles, it has been like all over the map of what we're doing, what season

we're in. And suddenly today it was spring, the end 82. It was fucking 90 over here. It was fucking like 90. Yeah. Sorry, everyone. Yeah. Cold.

But you know, you should just move probably. You know, Vince has told me that like I was like, maybe we'll move to Ann Arbor one day or something like, and he's just like, Georgia, you will not be able to handle six months out of like, he, yeah, there's no way I could handle six months out of the year in Michigan. What, you know how you could do that? You start in Alaska and you get, you just go miserable. Yeah.

The worst, the highest level of it and then you bring it down to you. Oh, this is smile compared to fucking Alaska. No white nights in Ann Arbor. Great. Yeah. There probably are. What's a white night? White nights are that it's some time of year where this sun never goes down.

Well, I, you know, I went to Alaska once to Homer and it was daytime until 10 p.m. Yeah. It was the trippiest thing. Yep. Cause you're way up there by the sun. You're right next to the sun. Anyway. All right.

I think exactly right highlights Alex and Elizabeth of the true beauty Brooklyn podcast. They're continuing their discussion. So it's part two of all you'll ever need to know, Karen, about eyebrows. Yes. There's literally two parts to that, which like, I want to know what there is to know. Well these days there's so much more than usual because there's, I mean, I'm a little bit obsessed with it. Like people getting the, is it microblading?

Yeah. Yeah. They're getting those big old eyebrows tattoo. I feel like as, as a person who's really gone through almost every phase of eyebrow style and I know that those tattoos do fade, but not as much as they should. I feel like. Especially for the style. It's like the style won't last.

Right. The style was very large and also like very close together in the middle, which I almost, remember I asked you backstage once, should I get eyebrow blading and you were like apps of fucking Lutonaut. Don't do that. Thank you. Thank you by the way. You're welcome.

Yeah. I want to know about eyebrows. Only because, and, but here's why I say that because when I was 12 years old, I noticed that I had basically this starting of a unibrow and that by myself in the bathroom at Jerry Botanti's house because I was being babysit after school, I started plucking my eyebrows and that's how I plucked this one all the way back to the middle of my eye. Like I just kept going because I was like, oh no, there's too much. One more.

One more. And it was like, wait, my sister and I said to Nora every day from when she was eight years old on never touch your own eyebrows where we will take you to get them whenever you want to get them done, we will take and she would always be like, what are you talking about? Down. Because I was so afraid. Once you fuck your eyebrows up, once you pluck them like that, they come back in weird.

So like maybe that's just me, my old self talking, but if you mess with them in any other direction or whatever, yeah, but I guess I just mean making big swings in the eyebrow department. It gives me pause and I want other people to also have pause because you're not always going to be wearing mom jeans and a half sweatshirt. No, we shaved ours in the 90s. Can you imagine us walking around now? Look up Drew Barrymore photos from the 90s, who was the only person who looked good with

that style. Yeah. The shave drawn back on. The Clara Bow look was rough and for those of us on speed, it made perfect sense for what you did all morning long as pluck your eyebrows. But man, yeah, it was, it didn't hold up later. So that's our message to you is to listen to true beauty Brooklyn podcast. Well, they might have, you know what?

Are we estheticians? No. Are we professionals? No. I went to three months of beauty school. That's not enough. You didn't get that license. You're so close and you could go back with your credits.

I'm just saying. I don't think so. Okay. Is 20 years the limit? I don't know. What's the statute of limitations? Okay. On this week on that's messed up in SVU podcast, the guest is none other than Jacqueline Smith.

If you are anywhere near my age, you know, she was one of the OG Charlize Angels. She was a guest star on SVU season 11 episode 18 and she is on Cara and Lisa's podcast talking to them to their face about her career and her time on law and order. She's amazing. There's no way she wasn't on an episode of Love Boat, right? Oh, every one of those. Also every shampoo commercial. Like she sold me shampoo in my deepest, the deepest part of my subconscious.

She's there. Tressame. Was that it? I don't know. Sounds right. Tressame. Yeah. Something fake French.

She was involved. Chinatay. Tressame. Okay. Whatever. Whatever. And then on Lady to Lady, the ladies are joined by actor and the very popular food tiktoker, which I freaking love, Katie Molinaro.

She's at Eat It Katie and I, you know, I'm obsessed with food bloggers and peopleers. How are you a food tiktoker? How is one a food tiktoker? You make food on tiktok. Correct. I'm saying tiktok before very recently was all about real short clips, right? So like if you were going to do a recipe in 30 seconds, is that just a ton of editing as you cook?

I'm 41. Steven. Steven. Wow. That is tiktok work. Steven, you're 12. I'm 12 for this too. Yeah.

I'm turning 35 this year. Oh yeah. You're done. Okay. All right. Everyone let us know how the fuck tiktok works. I mean, I know first of all, go listen to Lady to Lady and I bet you'll find out. You'll find out through Katie Molinaro, but I also want to know.

Because I do know my sister sent me recipes where it really is like super sped up chopping and shit. Yeah. Well, I follow the Reddit page Stupid Food, which is just joyful and they just show a lot of bad tiktok. Like there's this trend right now where they, the kitchen island, you know, it's a beautiful marble. Everyone lives in beautiful fucking houses, all these influencers, and they make countertop

nachos. Yeah. They spread everything all over the fucking countertop where nobody wants to fucking eat it. I heard that was fake. I heard that was invented to get clicks and to get people upset. Yes. There's another one of those where they make cotton candy in the dryer and it is so disgusting.

It is heinous, heinous. And I think a lot of those where they'll be like the biggest fucking grilled cheese in the world. And those are like to piss people off. But that one specifically, it works. It's on Stupid Food on Reddit, the subreddit. Man. You know who else is on it a lot is Salt Bay, because people buy these like Tomahawk steaks

and they get it covered in that gold paper, edible gold. Oh. And so it's like a $3,000 fucking Tomahawk steak because it has gold, which doesn't taste like anything and you're just going to shit it out, excuse me, you're going to shit it out anyways, but it's like, but Salt Bay delivers it to your table. It's like so obnoxious. It's a conspicuous consumption, it's like they're like, look how rich we are that we're just being insanely, insanely rich and wasteful.

Yeah. Look, long time listeners, we've got some classic MFM logo merch for you in the merch store. So go check out all of that, the old stuff from back in the day. I feel like we do so much cool new stuff now that we just need the like actual logo and the cool fucking classic. We need to give everybody everything all the time. Every how any want should be absolutely met immediately.

But how insane is it that we're old, like we're old enough, we've been around long enough to actually have classic merch. It's like we could put out a best of album where you're like, you've only been around for fucking Britney, it's like however long and you're putting out a best of. Hell yeah, we are. Pretty cool. I mean, that's just about commerce. That's just about demand, supply and demand.

If people demand the old merch, who are we to say now? Whom are we? Who there but for the grace of God, go we. That's right, and our merch and stuff like that. Should we start this thing off and actually get my favorite murder.com. But yes, yes. Let's do it. Go.

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I'm Candace DeLong and on my new podcast Killer Psyche Daily, I share a quick 10-minute rundown every weekday on the motivations and behaviors of the criminal masterminds, psychopaths and cold-blooded killers you hear about in the news. I have decades of experience as a psychiatric nurse, FBI agent and criminal profiler. From Killer Psyche Daily, I'll give you insight into cases like Ryan Grantham and the newly arrested Stockton Serial Killer. I'll also bring on expert guests to dive deeper into the details, share what it's like to work with a behavioral assessment unit at Quantico, answer some killer trivia and even

host virtual Q&As where I'll answer your burning questions. Hey Prime members, listen to the Amazon Music Exclusive Podcast Killer Psyche Daily in the Amazon Music app. Download the app today. Let's escape into the 90s. Okay. This is a story that came up. I referenced it a couple of weeks ago and then I said to you right to your face, I'm

going to do this one. Now I'm doing it. Love it. I warned you and now it came back for vengeance. This is, and to have just read through it, I am shocked. I lived through this, I watched it go down in real time and then reading through it, I was just like, what? This is the story of the Long Island Lolita, the attempted murder of Mary Jo Budifuco by

the coward Amy Fisher. So 37 year old housewife and mother of two, Mary Jo Budifuco of Long Island, New York, answers a knock on the door and finds a 17 year old girl that she doesn't know standing in front of her. This girl tells Mary Jo that her name is Ann Marie and that her sister, who's a 16 year old, is having an affair with Mary Jo's husband, Joey. So Mary Jo looks and sees that there's a car idling out front and that there's a boy inside. So she asks quote unquote Ann Marie, who he is, Ann Marie says that that's her boyfriend

and quickly changes the subject back to this supposed affair. To prove this is the truth, she holds up a t-shirt from Joey's auto body shop, complete auto body and fender ink, and then she says Joey gave it to her sister. So she's basically holding that up like, here's your proof right here. Weird. Right? Mary Jo not only does not believe her, but she gets pissed of course and all told the two women talk on this front porch for about 15 minutes.

So she clearly listened to her, heard her out, you know, kind of indulged this a little bit. Finally, Mary Jo tells Ann Marie, get off my property, I'm going to go call my husband about this. And you know, if they're knowing that they're on Long Island and based on some of the interviews that I've seen, it's a good chance they told each other to fuck off. I would hope, I would hope Mary Jo told her to fuck off, but before Mary Jo can turn and go back inside her house, Ann Marie pulls out a 25 caliber semi-automatic pistol and

wax Mary Jo on the back of the head with it, stunning her. She hits Mary Jo with the gun a second time and knocks her to the ground. Then she aims the gun at Mary Jo's head and fires. Oh my God. This is so crazy. I have not read about this since it happened in the 90s because I was then too and I figured, I know the whole story, blah, blah, blah, I mean, it was a huge tabloid story. It was gigantic.

You couldn't get away from it. It was the only story around. You heard about it every single day, but everywhere. And it became, after a while, it became breaking news because then additional things happened. But this first initial attack, which from almost the beginning of this story, and there's a lot of, I don't, you know, there's a lot of very interesting things that I'm sure much smarter people than me can break down about, you know, basically the journalism piece of this and the media frenzy piece of this and the way it took both of these women

just, you know, took them for all they had basically and just it was while he kind of, well, the husband just kind of walked around and was like, Hey, what's the problem? And also, sorry, it's amazing. The 17 year old factor of it, I think would be treated very differently today, one would hope. Oh my God. I mean, like even just reading this and reading it and reading Jay's research, he did an amazing job.

But I was, it was just like this couldn't, like the way this was treated and the way this was discussed and the way it all went down is so disgusting and so, so not okay. And I mean, like, yeah, it's, it's pretty amazing, but, but the idea that this woman was shot point blank, Mary Jo Botanico shot point blank at her on her doorstep in an attempted murder essentially is fucking beyond that alone is beyond. Okay. So, okay. So then we'll call her Ann Marie for the time being, but we all know this is Amy Fisher.

Ann Marie drops the gun and the t-shirt that she was holding up and runs back to her boyfriend's car. The kid yells at her going, you left all that stuff behind. So then she has to run back up, grab the gun and the t-shirt and then get back into the car, speed off, leaving Mary Jo Botafuco bleeding out and as far as she knows dead on the front porch. So thank God, three of Mary Jo's neighbors heard this gunshot and they came running over to find that she is still alive actually.

They call 911, the ambulance arrives minutes later. She gets rushed to the ER at Nassau Community Medical Center. The doctors immediately take her into surgery. They work through the night. She's in surgery for eight hours. They cannot remove the bullet from her skull that's actually gone through and down and is lodged in her spine. Oh my God.

But they are able to stabilize her. When she wakes up, the doctors and she all discover half of her face is paralyzed and she is partially deaf in one ear. So in the meantime, the police find Joey, her husband Joey Botafuco, they bring him in for questioning. There's no evidence tying him to this shooting, but police want to know who might have done it and why and Joey points them to two people that he thinks might be involved. One is a man named Paul Makley and then Paul's girlfriend Amy Fisher.

Okay. Joey tells the police that Paul is in drugs. He owes dangerous people money and that Paul borrowed money from his girlfriend Amy. And because Joey claims to be a friend of Amy's, he's 36 and she's 16 years old. He advised her not to lend it to him. So he believes that when Paul heard that he, Joey, told Amy not to lend Paul the money, that Paul got mad about that and decided to retaliate against Joey's family. So let's take that from the top.

Okay. Paul. Oh, no, just kidding. But can you imagine the investigator that's sitting in that room with him like, okay, that's your story? Yeah, yeah. That's your story. Okay.

Yeah. So when Mary Jo regains consciousness the next day, it's May 20th, 1992, investigators ask her if she can remember what happened and she describes what this teenage girl and Marie look like and what her boyfriend with the car. She remembers everything. Oh my God. That's crazy that she still has her complete memory. Yeah.

In that moment. Yeah. She tells them all about it. And then when they show her a photo of Amy Fisher, she immediately identifies her as her shooter. Amazing. So now that they know that the whole Ann Marie, Ann Marie doesn't exist that, that because Joey Bodifuoco admitted to being quote unquote friends with Amy Fisher, they now know he's

involved in this somehow. It's starting to look like he is basically knows a lot more than he's letting on to the police. So let's do a little bit of history here about the people that we're talking about. So Amy Fisher, she was born August 21st, 1974. She was an only child. She was raised, born and raised on Long Island, very close to their mother, but has a strained relationship with her father.

According to Amy, he's a very angry man who scares her. She tries her best to stay out of his way. And she also would later go on to say that her upbringing was traumatic. She was sexually abused by an unnamed family member throughout her childhood. And then this is, this is very triggering. In 1987, she was only 13 years old when a contractor who had been hired to work on the Fisher's home rapes Amy in her bedroom. So a lot of trauma in her, in her childhood.

But despite all of this, she has, she is a very social person. She has tons of friends, several close friends she hangs out with regularly and by all intents and purposes is doing, you know, having a good time in school. Then one day in May of 1991, she's 16 years old. She's pulling her car out of the garage. She accidentally scrapes her rear view mirror against the garage wall and knocks it off. And she's so scared about how, how mad her dad's going to be. She decides she needs to take it to an auto body shop herself and try to get it fixed and

never, and try to see if she can not have to tell her dad about it. So she ends up going to complete auto body and fender ink, um, in the Long Island town of Baldwin. And that's where she meets the shop owner, Joey Butifuco. Wow. So she's convinced that, um, she can get her car fixed and basically that her dad will never know about it if she can just get it done quickly. But when Joey quotes her the price, she cannot afford it and she breaks down.

She explains that she can't go to her parents, um, for the money because her dad will lose his mind. Joey calms her down and tells her to, to just say that someone else sideswipe to the car and then it won't be her fault. It'll take the blame off of her and then her parents will pay for the repairs. Yeah. So that's exactly what she does. She goes home and tells her parents that lie, um, her dad buys it.

He agrees to go back with Amy to the shop to pay for the repairs. And while they're there, um, Amy starts to notice how smooth and charming Joey is dealing with her very uptight, angry father. Um, so she takes an interest in him. Um, so over the course of the next couple of weeks, Amy dings her car several times on purpose. Oh, I mean, if they had been a great couple, that would have been cute, right? Yes, but doesn't this remind you of the sociopath test?

Which part? The, the thing where it's like some, I'm going to see this person again, if someone else dies, she's wrecking her own car so she can, maybe she's just scratching it or whatever. It points to the, the unbelievable ability of this story in the first place. If she's so fucking scared that her dad's going to lose his shit on her, which is her story, then why would she keep dinging and to, and taking it back? Why wouldn't she just go back and figure out some other non-risky reason? Here's why.

She's 16. Yeah. But yeah. But I think that I think she's, I think it's a lie. I think that like there's a bit of, I mean, who knows, but what I'm saying is, it's the storyline, you're setting it up that she's so scared to death. And then suddenly she's now doing the thing that she was quote unquote so scared to do because she's actually not scared at all.

That's my pure editorialism. But anyway, the point being, Joey doesn't mind the attention. They start flirting and basically beginning an incredibly appropriate borderline pedophilic relationship because she's 16 and he's 36. He's 36. Yeah. So then on July 2nd, Amy goes to the auto body shop once again to have a new stereo system installed in her car because she has money now.

After the appointment, Joey ends up driving her home. He goes inside with her and this is the first time they sleep together. She's 16 years old. So this qualifies as statutory rape because New York's age of consent is 17. So for the next few weeks, Amy and Joey are meeting up at motels to have this affair. And of course, no one knows but them. So about two weeks after this first encounter, Amy gets a rash. She goes to the doctor, finds out she has contracted an STD from her new lover, Joey.

But because it's this medical issue, she tells her parents about it. And so at this point, she doesn't say where she got it though. She just tells her parents about it. She's not like, hey, remember that mechanic? So at this point, she's completely under his spell and she's very afraid. She knows that he could get arrested by having this affair with her and she's trying to protect him. Okay.

So the next month, August, Amy is going to turn 17. So now this illicit and illegal affair is now at least legal, although exploitative and gross. So Amy gets a job at the Sunrise Mall in Massa Piqua. She's fired after a month. So she goes to Joey to confide in him about how she needs money to finish up paying her car. And according to her, he convinces her to look into starting sex work.

Oh, wow. He hooks her up with an escort agency called ABBA escorts. She didn't particularly want to do it, but she is desperate enough for money that she ends up joining this escort service in September of 1991. So basically, as you would expect, this kind of lifestyle change to do, she's basically consumed with this affair she's having with Joey. She's consumed with like her sex work. So her grades are dropping.

She's not talking to her friends. Like her life is changing. She also starts fantasizing that she's going to end up with Joey, right? But she knows he's still married to his wife. And he often complains about Mary Jo to Amy and tells her that he's unhappy in his marriage and that he loves being with her, being with Amy. So by November of that year, she's sick of waiting for him to come around. Really it's been like three months, but she's already like enough.

She gives him an ultimatum and says it's either your wife or me and Joey chooses Mary Jo. So Amy has a breakdown. She attempts suicide and basically she tells her mother that it's about a boy her own age and that's what happened. Her mom helps her pick up the pieces and she basically decides to continue on. During the winter of 1991, she starts a new relationship with a man named Paul Makley. He's a co-owner of a gym in Massapiqua called Future Physique. And even though she's dating Paul, she's still obsessed with Joey.

So she starts reaching out to him again. And even though she went through a really horrible thing over him, she basically gets back together with him. So by January of 1992, they're back together. She tells Joey that she's dating Paul and Joey gets jealous. But since Joey's still with Mary Jo, then Amy feels like that's her counter to that. But whenever the subject of Paul comes up, Amy assures Joey that he means nothing to her, that she really only wants to be with her 36-year-old boyfriend who got her into

sex work. God. Yeah, it's dark. So basically, Amy becomes obsessed with the fact that Joey will not leave his wife and chooses his wife over her. So on May 13, 1992, Amy and her friend Jane are at a salon. They start talking about, Jane is talking about her boyfriend troubles and saying how she knows her boyfriend's cheating on her with this girl and that she wishes she could

just, quote, get a gun and go blow that girl's head off. And that's, with that, Amy tells Jane that's what she's going to do to Mary Jo. So that's like, they can pinpoint it to the day that she first started thinking about this. Amy asks her friend, Jane, if she knows where she can get a gun. And Jane suggests they're a friend and mutual acquaintance, an auto parts salesman, PDG. His name is Peter Gugenti. Gugenti. Okay.

But they will call him PDG. PDG. PDG. So according to Amy's later account, she goes to Joey and tells him about her plan to kill Mary Jo. And Amy says that he encourages this plan. He would later deny that that conversation ever took place. But according to Amy, she went to him with this plan and he agreed and liked the plan.

What do you think happened? I mean, it's really hard to say because I feel like the story, I feel like Amy Fisher was a pariah from the second, like this started. So nothing on her side of things will ever look genuine or like she was trying or she's never going to seem like the innocent victim ever. So if he tells some story about how she was obsessed with him and she told him she was going to do this and all this stuff, or other people do, her friend Jane made money by going and being interviewed by, you know, some someplace and tell that story.

I mean, like who knows because it's hearsay, right? They're both unreliable narrators. So it's like, yeah, but neither are believable, which makes it really hard. And it's kind of like, it reminds me of the second season of Dirty John, which was about the woman, the 80s woman whose husband left her. Her name is like synonymous with like, thank you, Betty Broderick, you know, that one. Oh, it's so good. But it makes me think of that where like, when we first heard about Betty Broderick,

she was just a lunatic woman who murdered her ex and his new wife. And then when you watch like season two of Dirty John, you're just like, oh my God, she was driven. She was driven insane. She was, you know, there's, there are steps before someone does that. So like, there are steps before Amy Fisher as a 16 year old was standing on that porch shooting Mary Jo Badafouco. But does that, it doesn't always mean that that means they're innocent or that they were

driven to that. Like, it's just, I would never know. I would, I don't know. It doesn't mean they're not culpable for their actions, but I feel like living through a news event like this, you judged this story like on day three and never looked back. I did. Sure. Yeah.

I mean, I was, I was 22. So I wasn't paying a ton of attention to anyone besides myself and I was 12. So I didn't understand a lot of it, but yeah, it's pretty mind blowing too, because it, it's a level of obsession where you're just like, oh, you just went and as a teenager, murdered, attempted to murder someone in cold blood to their, like on their front porch. With children, who has children. Yeah. A mother of two and like other than, as far as that woman knew, just an average wife and

mother like took so innocent. Yeah. Yeah. It's really awful. Yeah. So two days after that discussion, Joey Pages, Amy, and according to Amy, they get on the phone and he asks her whether or not she got the gun yet or not. Oh.

So she says she hasn't, but then two days later, she hears from PDG and he says he's got a gun for her. He tells her to steal license plates from a random car and then she and PDG put those stolen license plates on his Thunderbird and then she and PDG are the ones who drive over. I love that they change the license plate, but they bring the most obvious car. Like get a fucking Oldsmobile Thunderbird, but I bet there are a dime a dozen in Long Island. So yeah, maybe that was just what was there.

But also it's, this is not a well thought out plan by any stretch. I'm giving them too much credit. Because if it wasn't the Thunderbird, it would be every other thing they did. Right. Including her dropping the gun and the t-shirt, like nothing about this. All the things. Is a good smart plan or anything. And you can, like we can keep flipping that card where it's like, so either she was obsessed

with this man who got her into sex work and basically said, yeah, you should, you should go kill my wife, go get a gun and like pressure into it as according to her or the flip side of that, which is that she was obsessed and, and was basically wouldn't let it go and wasn't going to let anything stop her from quote unquote having her man, even though she was at this point, literal 17, her man because she was she was 18, 18, she was a teen. It's correct. A teen. Yeah.

I mean, all of this is like, it is that it just is like, we're talking about statutory stuff or whatever it where it's like, you don't mess with teenagers. They're not, they don't know how to be in the world. This is a girl who has, if nothing else we know has been through serious trauma and can't handle shit. Yeah. Can't handle this. It reminds me of the podcast teacher's pet that first season that was so incredible.

It was just like, oh, this guy is manipulating every situation he's in. Yeah. I mean, Jesus Christ. Yeah. Horrifying. Okay. So, so then they do their license plate thing and then the morning of May 19th at around 1130, they drive to the Butifucos.

So that's basically what kind of got us there. What led it up? Yeah. What led up? So, we're back in the hospital with Mary Jo. It's May 20th and Mary Jo has identified Amy Fisher as her shooter. So the police stake out her house and to go arrest her, but they surveil it for a full day.

They see no sign of Amy. They get impatient. So they ask Joey to call her and to see where she's at. He's hesitant at first, but then he does it. She tells him she's actually at home and that then basically police know that they can go in and they basically go and arrest her at her home on May 21st, 1992. So during her interrogation, Amy finds out that Joey's the one who told the police where she was.

She's of course devastated by this betrayal. So then she tells police Joey's the one who gave her the gun and that she didn't want to shoot Mary Jo and that the gun just went off by accident. She reveals that she and Joey have been having an affair and she claims that Joey wanted Amy to get rid of his wife for him. So after she names Joey as the one who gave her the gun, the police bring him in again for questioning. He swears up and down that Amy is lying about his involvement.

Investigators have no evidence that tied Joey to the shooting, but they are digging around into his history with Amy. And of course he fears that it's only a matter of time before they find out the proof that this was a statutory rape because he was sleeping with her before her 17th birthday. He denies any illegal romantic involvement with her. And at this point, Mary Jo believes him and is solidly in his corner. Oh. Yes.

Sweet baby angel. Because what else is she supposed to do? Like how easy is it for her to believe this crazy girl just walked up and shot me in the head at my door? Yeah. So, and if my husband's looking me in the eye and going, I have no idea, I never slept with this woman, then she's there in the hospital like with a bullet in her neck going, either you believe him or your whole world is a lie.

And the only evidence she showed was a shirt that anyone could get probably from his mechanics office. I don't know. Yes. Totally. I don't know anyway. Yeah. Because a lot of people get upset, of course, of course, as this story unfolds, people judge

Mary Jo Budafuco and like, you know, have all kinds of shit to say about her when she's the fucking one who got shot in the head. And had no idea about her husband's character or had, if she did like who the fuck knows, but none of it, she's the fucking innocent goddamn victim. She's the innocent victim on top of which, you know, this is a teenage girl. So it's not just your husband's having a affair. Right. It's your husband is like having a fair breaking law and is exploitive creep.

A predator. He's a predator. Yeah. And you have to admit that about. That's tough. And she has two daughters, like you don't want to think that your husband is a predator. I mean, Jesus. Okay.

So on May 29th, Amy Fisher is indicted by a grand jury for on multiple charges, including attempted murder in the second degree, criminal use of a firearm in the first degree, armed felony and assault. She pleads not guilty to all charges and her bail hearing is scheduled for June 2nd of that year. So of course, to say there was a media frenzy is an understatement of the century, local national news, they call everybody's calling Amy, the Long Island Lolita, right? It's just like known and friends and acquaintances of Amy's, they're all interviewed by local

and national news over and over again. No one paints Amy in a good light. They highlight her history of poor grades, reckless behavior, sex work, et cetera. But who among us? Who among us? It's just like, I will never hold up in a looking back on her life report ever. My God. Can you imagine?

I mean, it's just ridiculous and it really sucks and it's what happens to women every single time. Yeah. Meanwhile, they're not talking about the guy that had the affair with the 17 year old. She has a fucking nickname, why doesn't this motherfucker have a fucking nickname? And like, I mean, unless she was like the underage person's name wouldn't be put in the news today unless it was, they were being tried in this adult. I mean, in a, in a perfect world, obviously that doesn't happen, but.

Right. Yeah. You know. Yeah. No, no, it's mishandled is one way to say it. Yeah. And then can I just say also calling her Lolita, like Lolita was a fucking victim of a fucking pedophile, you know, that character in the book.

Right. So, but you're, here's a catchy name and you're calling her that without even realizing that she's a fucking victim of a predator. It's all dirty, gross and salacious and absolutely what sells all newspapers. Okay. So then on June 1st, the night before Amy's bail hearing, an old John of Amy's, oh, releases a sex tape that he recorded during one of their nights together. Do you remember this part of it?

No, I don't remember. I think my mom was like probably realized what was happening and I was 11 or 12 and it was like shutting off the TV. Yes. This story is so, it's so salacious and so crazy. And again, we're talking about a teenager that this, this sex tape got released. Child pornography. It's yeah.

So then when Amy's bail hearing comes around the next day, the prosecuting attorney tries to convince the judge to deny Amy's bail altogether. They end up setting it at a whopping $2 million for at that, at the time that, that was like crazy high. Yeah. Amy's defense attorney tries to get the bail amount lowered, managing to get a second bail hearing a couple of days later, but the judge will not budge on it. Amy Fisher is unable to afford the record breaking amount of bail that has been set.

So she is now behind bars until a trial data set. So as she sits in jail, her reputation completely ruined. Joey Butifucco walks around a free man in June of that year. He even goes on the Howard Stern show. Oh, yeah. Yeah. After Amy's bail hearing to talk about how he had never had any type of affair with her whatsoever.

Oh, shit. Yeah. He also claims to be a completely innocent man. And at this point, no one has any evidence to prove otherwise. But a little over two months into her imprisonment, Amy gets a lucky break. A company called KLM Productions teams up with International Fidelity Insurance Company and they raise Amy's $2 million bail. Wow.

Right. What? They bail her out in exchange for exclusive rights to her story. She agrees her bail's paid and she's free to live at home until while her legal process continues. And at the same time, the police investigation is continuing. Authorities now setting their sights on Paul Makley. They believe that Paul may have been the getaway driver.

But when eyewitness accounts rule Paul out, further interviews lead police to PDG. Our boy, PDG, PDG admits having supplied Amy the gun and they later find that gun in a gutter near Amy's house. So Amy's defense attorney works with the prosecution to come up with a plea bargain. They are confident that Joey Butifuco, despite his claims of innocence, committed statutory rape with having that relationship with Amy. So they agree that if Amy cooperates with the investigation into Joey, she can plead to a lesser charge of first degree assault and face five to 15 years in jail.

So on September 23rd, Amy takes that deal. And of course, the Butifuco's are furious, especially Mary Jo Butifuco. So now PDG is in legal jeopardy because now he's pulled into everything and he sees that Amy cut a deal for herself. So he releases yet another newer sex tape with Amy. Yeah, he releases it to the show hard copy. And in that tape, Amy makes statements that further damage her character. Yeah.

Basically, the video, it was taken exactly in the time between her being released on bail and her accepting the plea bargain. And in it, she's heard saying that she wants to marry Peter so they can have conjugal visits and that she wants her, quote, name in the press. She says, I want my name in the press. Why? Because I can make a lot of money. I figure if I'm going through all this pain and suffering, I'm getting a Ferrari is the

quote. Damn. Hey, what's up? I'm 17 and the things I want are Ferraris. And yeah, and all of this is like a weird made up fake thing that I'm just kind of trying to get through. Or your sociopath, but who the fuck isn't at 17? I mean, or yeah, or just this is worst case scenario for a person like that.

It's so crazy, but a person is smart by trauma. Yes. Um, so of course, this is yet another betrayal Amy is traumatized by. She attempts suicide again. This time, uh, she takes an overdose of tranquilizers, but, uh, she's found in time. She gets her stomach pumped and she survives. So her sentencing hearing takes place on December 1st, 1992, and she's sentenced to 15 years, but she winds up serving seven and was released in 1999.

PDG is tried and sentenced to six months, um, for getting the gun for Amy. And as for Joey Butifucco, the DA makes an announcement in October of 1992 saying they're not pursuing charges against him in relation to the shooting. So, um, Joey goes basically flaunting his freedom in the press and on TV every chance he gets, but his victory is short lived because in February of 1993, the DA reopens the statutory rape case against him. Amy testifies before a grand jury that spring and her words coupled with hotel receipts dated before Amy's 17th birthday, they basically all point toward Joey's guilt.

Um, but even in the face of this damning and hard evidence, Mary Jo Butifucco defends her husband. She believes that Amy's lying. She claims that she's lying and she believes Joey never, ever cheated on her with Amy. When the grand jury disagrees, Joey's indicted for statutory rape, sodomy and endangering the welfare of a minor. At first he pleads not guilty, but then reality sets in and by the time his trial, um, starts in October of 1993, he pleads guilty to the statutory rape charge and is sentenced to

six months in prison. Hmm. So, and this is where this story, I think for a lot of people, it was like, it was all in like everything you would read about every day, Long Island, Lita, and then these twists and these turns. And then finally when it got to this part, it was just like, oh no, like I don't want to hear about these people anymore. Yeah.

So after Joey's release from prison in 1994, um, and at this point he and Mary Jo are still together. She stood by him through him serving time, um, for statutory rape. They moved to Los Angeles, um, because Joey wants to parlay this fame and infamy into a TV or acting career. Um, he gets some work on cable television, but a year later in 1995, he gets caught trying to solicit sex from an undercover cop. So this arrest and then, and also this consistent cheating, it points to basically opens Mary

Jo's eyes to the fact that her husband is, as she will later say, a sociopath and she divorces him in 2003. And a year later in March, 2004, Joey Bodifuco is arrested again for committing insurance fraud. He spends a year in jail and is on, uh, sentenced to five years parole for after his release. In 2019, there were rumors that he was working on a movie about his life. Um, and according to his daughter, he is quote in therapy and he's healing. Um, but she says, hopefully he's quote, not using it to justify why he made so many poor decisions.

So after her prison release in 1999, Amy Fisher, um, works as a columnist for the Long Island Press, she also goes on to publish a memoir in 2004 called, if I only knew then, um, the, although there's a, the writing credit is given to a writer named Robbie Wallover. In 2003, her parole officially ends. Um, she marries a man who's 24 year old, years older than her, um, and is also a New York police officer. They have three kids before they are divorced in 2015. So they, they make it for about 12 years.

Since her release from prison, Amy has given conflicting statements about, uh, her shooting Mary Jo Bodifuco. She's written articles in which she expresses remorse for what she did and acknowledgement that she's paid her debt to society and a desire to move on and grow from that experience. But then in other instances, she's also said that she feels quote, no sympathy for Mary Jo. She's also made a number of her own TV appearances and even she reunited with Joey Bodifuco in May of 2007, because there was an idea that they might start a reality show together.

No, one wants to see that would never materialized instead, Amy goes into the adult film business for a while, but she got out of it in 2011 and she has since reportedly changed her name and her appearance. So she's trying to put all of that life behind her now. Okay. So after the Bodifuco's 2003 divorce, Mary Jo did the rounds on all the TV talk shows herself. She was on Larry King Live.

She did Oprah. She did all of them. And in 2009, she wrote and released a book called Getting It Through My Thick Skull. Yes. That's clever. It's amazing. It is. But here's the full title of this book.

Getting It Through My Thick Skull. Why I Stayed, What I Learned, and What Millions of People Involved with Sociopaths Need to Know. Girl. Yes. And I know comics who have met Mary Jo Bodifuco because she likes to go to comedy shows. No. And they say she's super cool, really funny, really nice, like a really normal, regular,

cool person. Amazing. So she had a facial paralysis for a while after in her recovery. She had, and she had surgeries all along to like slowly repair that. But in 2017, she had what's called a reanimation surgery after all the reconstructive surgeries that basically repaired the nerve damage in her face. And it reversed a lot of the facial paralysis. And she basically can smile fully again because of that surgery.

I mean, imagine having, every time you look in the mirror, it's like a reminder of this horrible time in your life. And so is not looking in the mirror, but just the fact knowing you have a bullet lodged in your spine, which is still there to this day, they can't remove it. Oh, shit. And just as a little kind of disgusting cherry to top off this very upsetting story. Because Mary Jo Badafouca referred to Joey Badafouca as a sociopath in her memoir. He sued her on grounds that she had, quote, made Mr. Badafouca a pariah in the community,

causing him not just public embarrassment, but the loss of business. No. Yeah. Yeah. The woman who stood by him all the way through. She shouldn't use that as proof. Your honor, he's suing me for this. Clearly.

He's actually a sociopath. I mean, yes. Exactly. Like that's the evidence, all the evidence you need. Yeah. Oh my God. Insane. Then that basically it's such a skimmed out version.

Yeah. But in terms of chronology and in terms of remember when this crazy should happen in America. Yeah. That is the story of the shooting and the survival of Mary Jo Badafouca. It feels like a Shakespearean tale. Yes. Yes.

So, so much drama, so such a nightmare also with just like somebody walking up to your door in the middle of the day. Like there was so many things triggered in this story and it just like the more you talk about it, the worse it gets and it was handled. I mean, just even slightly thinking about how awful everything was handled around it in the media. It was just disgusting. Well, that's what the fucking 90s were like, man, like there was no privacy and everything

was up for grabs. Well and exploited. Exploited and these takes, these angles on women always, like it just was, there was so little, not even a quality, but just even like care. It was just like, yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Sorry.

I never read my sources. Go ahead. Go ahead if you want to say something. I was just going to say, if you're watching Pam and Tommy right now, which is hard because I feel for her so much, but they're really showing what, how horribly she was treated and that, you know, this reckoning of like what the public and, you know, lawyers and tablets did to fucking Pamela Anderson, it's like heartbreaking and it's, it reminds me so much of this story of like, you're, you are game and you are fodder and that is all

you fucking are. That's right. A woman, you know. Yep. And God forbid that you're like a really gorgeous sexy woman like Pam Anderson or, well, I mean, like the quote unquote Long Island Lolita, which is like, you mean a minor, a minor, even when it was like, even when it was statutorily, okay, she was still under 18. Yeah.

Yeah. And he was 30 fucking six, like, gross nightmare. The sources for my story today, an article from the true TV crime library by a journalist named Rachel Bell. There's an article from Good Housekeeping by Kayla Keegan. There's a New York Times article by Diana Jean Seimo. There's a Time Magazine article by William A. Henry III. There's a two Wikipedia, there's three Wikipedia pages, Mary Jo Badafoucault's, Joey Badafoucault's

and Amy Fisher's. And there was a Time article by Jennifer Latson and an Associated Press article. And sorry, I just read this, this, the title of the Associated Press article is Amy Fisher taped saying she deserves a Ferrari for pain. Yeah. And an article from the Associated Press. All right, so my story today is a little short, partly because it's a cold case without a ton of evidence, but I'd never heard of it till it was scrolling on Reddit late at

night and it's so bizarre that I just really wanted to cover it. Cool. So today I'm going to cover the case of what's known as the box lady of Benton County. My sources are multiple journal and courier articles written by Sherry Brown and then one by Dave Banger, a UPI staff article, a blog post from this really cool website called The Dead History, and then the DNA DOE project. So October 8th, we're in 1976, a man named Norman Scoog is in his combine, do you know what that is?

Yes, I do. Would you like me to tell you? I really would. Combines are those big, gigantic, and this is going to be farm. It's farm. Yeah. In terms. No, it's going to say like farm, farm arenas.

Let us know. Let me know how wrong I get this, but from what I know, you know, a tractor is like grinding up just like the thing here. The combines are those big, wide ones that like do, you know, like a bunch of stuff at the same time. Yeah, sometimes they're like hay balers, sometimes they're like, they turn up everything at once, but it's like a big old piece of farm equipment. Okay.

Big, heavy, rusty thing. Yes. So Norman is harvesting corn in one of his cornfields in his combine. In the combine. Say it with me. Combine. Combine. It's out in rural Benton County, Indiana, which is less than 100 miles outside of Indianapolis,

but I'm guessing back in 1976 was probably really rural. And like a, like a farming area, just no, no seven 11s for miles. You just like, you couldn't get a Domino's pizza to save your life out there. God, a fucking $5 fast and easy from Caesars would save your life. You wish. Dream on. Dream on. Maybe if your mom drove you into town, make no crazy bread for you.

No crazy bread for you, baby. So, so he's out there, he's driving to the ninth row of his corn area. I'm from suburbia, by the way, the ninth row, the ninth row of his cornfield. Okay. I don't know. Got it. Okay. It's around 15 yards from the main road and he stumbles upon a white box.

Always bad. And it's in the middle of nowhere. You know what I mean? It's like not like off the side of the road or whatever. So it's around three feet long, two feet wide, one foot deep. It's the kind of box that's commonly used by moving and storage companies, you know, just like a basic moving box. One end is stamped with wardrobe bottom.

And the other part has other box says hall closet written on it. So like not an easily traceable kind of packing box. Okay. It's sealed with gray furnace tape and tied with a clothesline. And it must have been dumped there within the last 12 hours because it had rained before then and the box isn't wet. This is a real very disturbing opening to a story because out in the middle of nowhere and then out in the middle of nowhere in the middle of nowhere.

So like you're in the ninth row of the cornfield. The only person going out there is the farmer that works that land and whoever else works on that land except for the person who put this box out there, which can make it's weirder. So Norman, he rolls the box aside thinking someone dropped it. Maybe it was some kids playing, but it's still there later on in the day. So he asks his father-in-law to help him load it in the truck because it's too heavy for him to carry on his own. So when they pull up to Norman's house with the box in the back, his 16 year old son notices

that the box is, quote, drenched with a cheap, heavy perfume. So Norman starts opening it up and finds a, quote, massive object wrapped in heavy sheets of plastic. It's similar to clear plastic runners used to put over carpets so, you know, they wouldn't get dirty. And it's also bound by rope and tape. And Norman gets a weird feeling about the box and this is how you're supposed to fucking function in life.

So he stops and calls the cops. Yep. That's right. So even in 1976, Norman was like, you know what, fingerprints, not dealing with it. When also, I think Norman probably being a very level headed, farming type of person was just like, what could this come to in the end, me opening it up and seeing something I'll never be able to deal with or, you know, like some shocking awful thing, like get the authorities in.

Yeah. Like wrapped in carpet runner, you know how thick that rubber is on carpet runners? No. Hardcore. Get away. And also it's like Indiana. So he's probably like, Hey, our state motto is mind your business. Yeah.

This is not my business. It's not my business. This is someone else's business. Yeah. Look, Indiana, if that's not your saying, then just let me know. Mind your business. Mind your business. State motto.

We should do some state motto updates that are more helpful to people. Mind your business. Yeah. Put that on a fucking license plate right now. All right. So the sheriff named Donald Steely shows up and cuts open the five layers of the plastic sheeting. Of course, immediately the smell of death permeates out of those sheets, which they

hadn't been able to smell because of that crazy strong perfume that had clearly been like dumped all over to cover the smell, right? Yeah. The sheriff Steely automatically recognizes what the smell is that it's a dead body. So he also fucking minds your business and he calls the state police before going deeper. He's just like, also not my business. Let's go higher. Yeah.

Which is like so rare. I feel like for back in the day, then it was just like, let's touch everything and put cigarettes on, lit cigarettes on everything, you know. Right. No, that's great. It's all great. Everybody's doing a great job so far. That's right.

The state police arrived. They transport the box to the coroner's office. The rope and tape are undone. And there, of course, they find the body of a woman in the fetal position with her hands tied behind her knees. Her head is wrapped in a, quote, smaller than average white cloth towel and two, quote, light colored plastic bags similar to the type used to line small trash cans. And she'd been shot in the back of the head at close range with a small caliber bullet.

And then the plastic had pressed against her face, leaving kind of her face distorted. So it was kind of hard to tell exactly what she looked like. The autopsy shows that the woman had been left for dead around seven to 10 days. However, the body shows little sign of decomposition and it appears that her killer or killers knew what they were doing because the woman had been shot at the base of her brain in such a way that the bullet didn't enter and get lodged in her brain or in her spinal cord like your victim. But it actually exited the soft tissue, meaning there was no bullet left behind to help authorities

identify the killer. So it's basically a professional job, like someone who knows. Yeah. It's like a hit, you know, to me and it seems like that's possible. So the woman, her description is that she's white. She's around 55 to 65 years old, five foot two, 160 pounds. She's wearing light green slacks and a green white checkered blouse, which just sounds like the 1970s grandma, like a uniform, right?

Like the elastic way slacks matching like a JCPenney special for sure, totally, which is like who like in her clothes besides being covered in blood, of course, were like clean. So why who is this woman? Why would she, you know, what on earth happened that she would be murdered? You know, the outfit is quote indistinguishable from that of any other woman her size and age. It's like a fucking typical outfit, according to the journal and courier. Her clothes are quote unfrayed and relatively clean, besides all the blood and she's not

wearing any pantyhose, shoes or jewelry, which I feel like pantyhose were pretty standard back then. So that is. Absolutely. Interesting. Yeah. The woman's face is quote plain, unblemished with makeup. And she has quote an upturned nose with a bump beneath the bridge portion and abnormally

large ears for her small face. Her nails are trimmed short and quote ragged. Her hands are calloused, leading investigators to theorize that she may have been a cleaning lady. She has faded and graying red brown hair, heavy bags into her eyes and few wrinkles. Her eye color can't be determined, but the coroner believes them to be brown. Hmm. Oh, the woman had undergone many surgeries, including a quote radical mastectomy on her

right side. She'd also undergone dental work, but quotes still needed much more, which is like insulting. For days, police keep the county roads surrounding the field cordoned off while they scour the fields for evidence. They don't find anything. Investigators try to figure out how the box got in the field. A few tipsters reported that they saw strangers in the area around the time of the box being dumped.

But according to all the farmers living in the area, they would have noticed a vehicle driving on the gravel. Like I feel like it's the kind of town where you notice what's, you don't mind your business, you keep an eye out for your neighbors, you know what's going on, right? Like any unidentified cars would have been noticed. Well that's the thing about like where I grew up, because we were five miles out of town. Yeah. You, you noticed every car that went by because they only went by once every four hours.

You could hear them coming. You could like, I always knew when my dad was coming, when he was really far away because you could hear a Volkswagen engine. Like when you're that far out in the country, it's quiet and cars are rare. So people do pay attention, like especially if a car drives by twice, that's when like everyone's paying attention. So there is a, it's very easy to pay attention to cars because they're like a rare thing. If that's how it was, if it was comparable to where I grew up.

And you also probably know like when you kind of have it, you know, in your, in the back of your mind, an idea of when cars come and go, like this person gets home then, this is three o'clock. So kids are coming home from school. So if there's a random one during the day, you'd probably notice. I think people, they look out their window a little bit, see what's going on. Yeah. Sure.

Yeah. So, but the area is very secluded. It's miles from the main roads and is only reachable through a series of twists and turns. And then also there aren't any broken stocks of corn leading up to the body, which means a vehicle didn't drive the nine rows into the field to dump the box. Yeah. It was walked in. It was maybe, but it was very heavy.

So cause Norman hadn't even been able to carry it himself. So it'd be weird if it was just one person. Hmm. Right? Yeah. So none of the farmers saw a vehicle before the box was found, but what they had seen, Karen, was a helicopter. No.

Which was quote, highly unusual for the area and the time I would think too, according to the journal and courier, three farmers, three different farmers, watched a helicopter fly in from the Northeast, swing to the Southwest, lower to hover near the ground where the box was found, then swing back to the West and then disappear into the Northeast. I don't know why I'm telling you these directions because I don't even fucking know, but I like it because it basically, they came in and did a big loop and they basically, they came and dropped something off and took off. They hovered, man.

In a helicopter. That's nuts. Helicopter. It's also very obvious. Yeah. It's like, it is. Yeah. It's not subtle.

No, it is not. Okay. Anyway. So one of the farmers happens to know a lot about helicopters. So he's able to tell the investigators about it, which is it's a golden white bell jet ranger and it's typically owned by corporations or rich people. So the plot thickens. The helicopter tip seems crazy to the investigators.

They're like, that's not possible, but they look into the lead anyways. When they review aerial photos taken of a crime scene, they see in a regular circle of exposed black dirt surrounding the dump site. And according to the journal and courier again, quote, just before corn is harvested and after it's picked, brittle and dried stocks litter the ground and cover most of the soil. But it turns out the powerful updraft created by a helicopter could have caused the stocks to scatter. Got it.

The ground exposed. Amazing. Yeah. There are no other irregular circles of exposed dirt anywhere else in the photos. So the investigators aren't sure if the body had been dumped there via a helicopter or car. They're like us, like this is weird and curious. Yes.

They put together a sketch of the woman and take her fingerprints and they send them to nearby states. I mean, people don't come forward saying they knew who she was, nobody. But the sketch is so rudimentary of her. It's like there's no, there's no defining characteristics. It's a side profile of her. I mean, it'd be hard based on that to identify anyone. Right.

So no leads come up and it also shows that the woman had never been arrested because her fingerprints aren't in the system. She'd never been in the military. She'd never immigrated to the US or worked in a civil service based on her prints not being found anywhere. Sorry. This just hit me and I know this is very JV of me, but it just kind of hit me how because they know that the percentage wise, the odds of someone of you being killed by someone

that you know, a family member or whatever, the highest, right? The Venn diagram of people who would report you and who would kill you are entirely one big overlapping circle of malice and here that I just sorry that it's so obvious. It's what everyone already knows and but it just hit me or just like that's how things like this happen. The people who would report are the people who may have been involved. And I feel like back then it's like, well, the friends would have believed the husband who's like she moved to be with her sister in, you know, wherever and no, and they wouldn't

have meddled and said she's missing. They would have just believed the husband or, you know, the son or whoever. Yeah. Back then. And then wouldn't I mean, it's so rare to see it to like actually look at the newspaper and see that photo and be like, oh my God, that's my friend because in your mind, yeah, she's away and fucking right with her sister. Yeah.

You wouldn't be suspicious or you wouldn't be looking. Right. So yeah. Yeah. So they published a sketch. No one comes forward and two weeks after her body is found, the box lady as she's known is buried in an unmarked grave in the Fowler Cemetery. Investigators continue trying to solve the case.

They are unsuccessful. All they have is theories and Sheriff Steeley's theory is that she was killed in the Chicago area. He has many reasons for believing this. People are killed more often in the big city, of course, but and it would be a really kind of quick drive from Chicago to Benton County or a very fast helicopter ride. Very fast helicopter ride. We know like, you know, some people theorize that maybe she had witnessed something that

the mob was doing and was set to testify, like who the fuck knows. And like, I feel like the mob would have access to a nice helicopter pretty easily, probably. Yeah, but I mean, you know, my opinion of involving the mob in these things. How dare, it's how dare you, how dare you, how dare you approach my people with this? No. It's an easy pat scene. You don't appreciate it.

Well, but I think the mob is smart enough to know you can't, you like going, it to me, the move of if it were the helicopter, the move of going and dumping a body in a helicopter and racing away is a city person move thinking, oh, out there, that's just a bunch of cornfields. No one's going to see. When it's like, no, no, you don't, you, what you don't understand is there's people all around that you're just, they're just low key. That's why I don't totally believe the helicopter theory is like, well, why didn't they just fucking, they would have just dropped it in a body of water, not in a place that people

farm and like regularly fucking drive their combines. True. Although what body of water would be near there big enough like you mean like Lake Michigan, the one right by Chicago. Why are you asking? There's some great. Why are you asking us this? I know.

I wish you wouldn't. Why do I think questions up, well, I just, I mean, yeah, yeah, what's driving me crazy is you're, there's going to be no answers to these things that we're realizing. I know. Yeah. I mean, that's why I don't love cold cases, but that's why I'm so fascinated with cold cases. And it's just like the answer is right fricking there and like, we just need a few more details

but we can't grasp them and I just like drives me crazy. So the other thing is that the box she was found in was manufactured in Melrose Park, Illinois, which is a suburb of Chicago and was distributed to moving and storage companies in Indiana, Chicago, Southern Michigan and Wisconsin. So in January of 2019, so that was back in, what did I say, 76, that was back in 76. So finally in 2019, Benton County investigators reopened the case, well, yeah, they're hoping to identify the woman at least. Luckily they still have the evidence from the investigation like, when does that happen?

It's always like, there was a flood, there was a fire, we threw it away. But if there's anybody that you can rely on in this scenario, it's these Benton County investigators from 1978, they're like, we got this, we're going to put it, that's right. We're going to put it somewhere safe and we're going to respect evidence and we're going to try to make sure that this gets solved one. That's right. They cross their T's and they cross their eyes. Okay, luckily they have the evidence, they have the rope, the plastic and the box still.

The coroner, Matt Rosenbarger, tells the Journal and Courier, who's like so involved in this story, obviously, that it really bothered the initial investigators that they couldn't solve the case. He says, the quote, previous investigation deserved the extra effort now that science has caught up, they worked so hard and I wanted to carry that torch for them, I guess. So, I know Coroner Rosenbarger tells our friends at the Journal and Courier that there's currently a wide variety of theories, it could have been a mob hit, as Karen refuses to admit, it could have been that she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And then he says, who knows for sure. And obviously, finding out who she is is the first step. Yeah. He just says that he knows that there was no missing people cases around the time and that someone went out of their way to go to the middle of Benton County to leave her, which is so curious, like why there. So in the summer of 2019, authorities exhumed the box lady's remains from her popper's grave and sent them to the labs at the University of Indianapolis.

And according to the DNA DOE project, the remains are still undergoing testing as of February 6th, 2022. And that is the cold case story of the box lady of Benton County. So this is something that could potentially in the next couple months come back up. Absolutely. And I feel like these cases are, these cold cases, mostly like a lot of identifying missing people has been happening a lot lately. You know, of course, we have these incredible new DNA investigation techniques.

And you know, that's obviously the first step to finding out who did it is to identify who the person is and then look at the people in their lives. Right. Wow. It's just fascinating. I hope we hear about something that would be also I just like thinking about the clothes, thinking about the description, thinking about the like the possibility of who it could be.

So I really, really hope that they are able to track and trace her. Yeah. It just also seems like an unusual victim, you know what I mean, like it sounds like a grandma. Right. She had no makeup on. She had her nails weren't like, it's just very, very simple seeming woman. Yes.

So you wonder what on earth could have happened. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Oh. Yeah. Say it. Well, also just the, the rap, her being wrapped up and all the stuff wrapped around her and

then the smell and everything like that, then it's like how long, how long since had she been, where she kept somewhere. Right. Like was this. Yeah. I just want to know the story now. Real bad. Too.

Sorry. No, that's a good one. But also what an intensely bizarre, a helicopter dropped a box with a body in it. I mean, what if that turns out to be true? Well, but because you're right, like if we're nine rows in and the corn and away from the road, right, there's no way someone's going to go be able to get away because I was like, what if it's a neighbor would a neighbor walked it in there, but that's a 160 pounds that someone has to carry.

And if they had like wheeled it in on a thing, then there would have been broken stocks around it. The other thing too is that if it was a helicopter that dropped it, then that two people were involved because someone had to fly the helicopter and hover and someone else would have had to push it out. So like that to me is a little more mobby too, where it's like multiple people were in on this and no one's ever ratted up those people out, you know. Yeah.

But you know, if it's rich, if it's just plain old rich people, like a privately owned helicopter, and that's someone that's got their valet slash manservant that's just working for them and like being paid off. I mean, who knows? God damn. Yeah. Bananas. Amazing.

Good one. Thank you. So we wanted to end real quick. We talked about how just awful the Russian invasion of Ukraine is and we are absolutely horrified by it. And so we're going to donate 10 grand to the Ukrainian Crisis Relief Fund, which is part of global giving. And so basically they provide long-term support for survivors of conflicts like this Ukrainian

conflict. And if you want to give to that or any fund to help Ukrainian refugees, just make sure that the place you're giving to is legit. There's lots of things going on on social media right now. There's lots, obviously everyone's paying attention to it and everyone's involved. So just take a moment to verify where you're sending. And there's lots of great, like I've seen tons of tweets of like, here's the verifiable places where your money actually goes somewhere.

So just be careful and thank you for thinking of also helping because I think there's a lot of women and children caught up in the middle of this and now a lot, a lot of refugees just trying to find somewhere, just trying to find, you know, a place to go. Yeah. So this is globalgiving.org is where we're donating. Yeah. All right. Stay strong.

Focus on the positive. Allow yourself to escape into true crime because that's what you like. And that's what we like. Right. Don't blame the mob. Obviously. They're just not involved as much as people want them to be. It's just like, don't blame the mob.

Look into the human psyche and what is wrong with so many of us. That's right. And the way we treat each other. We want, everything is a mob's fault. Yeah. Scapegoat. Karen is calling scapegoat right here right now. Look to yourselves.

Look to yourselves. Judge thyself. Let the be judged by... Not judge the mob. By mobs. They're just the mobsters. There's just not that many of them. And other than that, stay sexy.

And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? This has been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton, our producer is Alejandra Keck. This episode was engineered and mixed by Stephen Ray Morris, our researchers are Jay Elias and Haley Gray. Email your hometowns and fucking hurrays to myfavoritmurder at gmail.com.

Follow the show and Instagram and Facebook at myfavoritmurder and Twitter at myfavoritmurder. Listen, subscribe and leave us a review on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Goodbye. Bye.