My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 320 - Gurl, Slow Down

Episode Date: March 31, 2022

This week, Georgia and Karen cover "Grindr Killer" Stephen Port and the survival story of Joe Simpson and Simon Yates in the Peruvian Andes.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We at Wondery live, breathe and downright obsess over true crime and now we're launching the ultimate true crime fan experience, Exhibit C. Join now by following Wondery, Exhibit C on Facebook and listen to true crime on Wondery and Amazon Music, Exhibit C. It's truly criminal. Hello and welcome to my favorite murder. That's Georgia Hardstark. Thanks. That's Karen Kilgarev who does now a lovely flourish with her hand, not just to pull straight down our hand gestures when we start. You know what it is? I watched on, I can't remember what channel it was, but I watched a fancy ballet show that's almost like ballet euphoria. You know what I mean? It's New York City ballet dancers, but living on the edge. Some are strippers, some are on drugs,

some are competitive. You mean rent? He watched rent. And I just noticed that because I always love to watch shows like that and go, did they go to and with ballet? I think you have to because it's very difficult to fake if you don't have ballet training. It's so specific. Oh, I'm great at air ballet. I can fake it. Just fake it. But I kind of can't fake it with the, because it's the same hands as religious statues, which I've been staring at all my life. So you always do like a, do something extra with your middle finger, you know, just kind of fan them out, right? But this ballet show was very, everyone was so good at ballet that I was like, oh, now, now just everybody's good at show business. Like we've all learned, especially the youngsters have learned. Yeah,

they've been watching screens their whole life. If they go into ballet, it's like, well, would you like to also star in a series? It's like, sure, that's if I can do ballet, I can act. It's not exclusive to like ballet companies. Like you can do your ballet on TikTok or whatever they do. Yeah. And be incredible at it and have a TikTok ballet career. It's not like you there's like one choice of exclusive ballet or choreography, you know, in general or art. It's like you don't have to be renowned and like plucked out by the important people who say that this is good and this is bad. You can fucking do it yourself, which is so awesome. Very true. You can kind of get to a spot, at least a fakeable spot from TikTok. Although, yeah, I think that your number would come up

pretty quick if you were faking it. Or if you were kind of like great on TikTok, but then you that got you to Juilliard. And it's like, right, right. But now that the 30 seconds have passed, can you stay on your toes? We can all get up on those toes. Well, or we can all we can all Photoshop us ourselves on those toes. That's true. But this show is actually, there's a British actor in it. Ben, I never every week we do this podcast. And every week I haven't written down last names. Okay, what's it called? I'm going to look it up. It's called Flesh and Bone, I believe. Oh, yeah, yeah. And there's a girl who's bent all the way over at the waist, like, oh, yeah, she's putting her forehead on her knees, which is like my lifelong dream. I don't know. I'm I think I'm

going to go what I think I'm going to settle set that as my that's your dream to be that bendable. When you have big boobs, you let go of folding in half like a piece of paper. Yeah, the way tiny girls do you have to let that go in like seventh grade. Yoga is not the same when you have boobs. It's really twisting. Twisting is hard, like twisting is okay. It's kind of like folding or any kind of like bending or like when you lay on your stomach and you're like supposed to lay your head down to one side and it's like, well, you have the like in yoga, I mean, yeah, or like child's pose where it's just like this is just I'm just a weird lump right now. But God bless, because it also maybe and I'm sure there's plenty of people with big boobs who can do it just fine

and are like, yeah, why don't you just try. But let me argue this, like people who aren't arguing with me. There's also the if you never do it, you get the tension in the back of your legs that keeps you know what I mean, that kind of like heel to butt level. Oh my God, tension like yoga. I just am jealous. I maybe you should be a tiktok yoga, yogi, and you don't even have to fucking go to yoga school and become a yoga professional. You just do it on tiktok and you're like, boom, I'm just like, look, okay, look, I am sitting on a chair in front of a computer, but you should be. I just tell everybody what they should be doing. Yeah, well, you know, I did go to this yoga class at the YMCA in Hollywood years ago. I don't know if the dude is still there,

but he was my favorite one of my favorite yoga instructors I've ever had. He looked like Dan Harmon. He just exactly like Dan Harmon. Okay, he's just, you know, got the pot belly and in no fucking way it looks like a yogi at all. And he wouldn't do yoga at the front of the room. The room was packed. There was like at least 50 something people as a very popular classroom. He just fucking played heavy metal the whole time and walk around the room telling everyone what to do. Hmm. Didn't didn't show it in the front. Didn't fucking just was so good. It was so good. Was the good part the the guiding and leading you verbally? Yes, he was a master like he said it with such intentional force. And now you breathe, you know, like he was really involved and into

it. He just wasn't doing it. That may have been an acting class. I learned a lot. I learned a lot. And it was like lead doing fucking yoga to lead zipline and like ACDC is like so powerful. I'm sure the yogis are like, that's not how you're supposed to do this. But I like that though, as a kind of CrossFit combo idea where you're you're moving your body in a very specific way, but you're also getting pumped and jacked. You felt powerful. You felt like a jock and it was jock jams. And you're having some jock jams in yoga. That's me. You know, I'm the jock jam influencer. Can we just for one second say that today is the Monday after the Sunday of the Oscars where Will Smith hit Chris Rock in the face during the Oscars? Yeah. It's almost just like we're

dropping the Google map pin here. Yeah. To say that happened yesterday. It's definitely like before and after in our life. Where were you? Because I bet you were watching it with a group like you are into the Oscars and stuff. No, you were like, I can't watch awards. I don't like award shows. I love the outfits. I always, I follow lots of people on Twitter that talk about outfits or do outfits. Yeah. And I love that part. But I can't watch the actual show because I have left over anxiety and stress from writing on award shows and watching posts go out with stuff. You help them write and either eat it or win everything. Get all the accolades of your joke. It's something I'll never get over because the first time it happened when I wrote a thing

and somebody walked out, I truly laid on my couch. I'll never forget it was my old apartment. And I just laid on this brand new couch that I bought that was green like green velvet because it was 2003 or whatever. Just laid on this couch like stiff as a board and I couldn't like look, I had it on, but I couldn't look at the TV and I was like so stressed out because it was like, well, this is it. This is where they find out you're a fraud. This is where they find out they shouldn't have been listening to you this whole time. But no, it's not like it says at the very bottom like this joke written by Karen Kilgareff and you'll be fucking roasted in Hollywood. But in the movie of my life, it is okay. It also equally freaky news. It rained so hard today in

Los Angeles that the Los Angeles River made it a grand return as it does every couple of times a season. And then a dog had to get rescued out of it. Did you see this? No. But listen, so there's a dog down there and it's like white water rapids crazy. Yeah. So apparently a lady had the dog down there. The lady got rescued. The dog did not get rescued. So then a guy jumped the fence and tried to rescue the dog himself and he got caught. He had the dog and then the dog bit him because the dog was so scared. It was a big old dog. It was a big old dog. It was a big old dog and the guy had him anyway and was holding him but he was holding this like one tiny rope and then the dog just kind of slipped out of his arms. Then the helicopter had to come and get the

guy and then they finally cut back to the dog and everyone's like, oh my god, is this dog gonna drown? And the dog literally looks like it's walking like this. No. It's the funniest thing. The dog is like, can I have a fucking moment to party in this pool please? And they actually, they think that the dog got freaked out because the news helicopters were getting so close. He said he was just like, don't like helicopters. That's like, no, I, no, not in that scenario where they're having like kind of a, they're being washed downstream. Did you watch dog, the movie dog? No. Well dog, it's with the, you know, what's his face that everyone, what's his name? Janet Tatum? Yeah. Oh no, I haven't seen that. It's cute. You'll cry. You'll cry. He kind of sucks. His character kind of sucks. Let's say.

Channing Tatums? Like, he's such a jock, like a, you know, he's such a jock, but it's cute. That's our Channing now. It is. But he could talk about dance. He can, he can do all that belly. He could be on flesh and bone yesterday if you wanted to. Instead, it's Meg Ryan, right? And Dennis Quaid. Wait, no, no. Am I looking at something else? What are you looking at? James Kahn? Oh, it's a 1993 romance movie. Shush. TV series. What? You know the new, the new Dennis Quaid, Meg Ryan series? Who are divorced and probably don't like each other that much? So sorry. Okay, I see it. All right. No, no, it's called flesh and bone. Oh, it is. Okay. But 2022. The newest. Who cares? Just watch it, everyone. This is the gritty reboot. If you like ballet and all the trappings, I just,

I also just love watching people do some plies where it's just like, wow, I should do that. You should plie more, Karen. Everyone's always says that about you. Everyone says I'm stiff. I have a corrections corner. Apparently MSU, which I mentioned on my last, last week's story about Carrie Swenson. I said her dad worked at MSU, which I called Michigan State University. Look, sometimes there's colleges and places that aren't there, like in the place that they say they are. When you said it, I thought her dad commuted and I didn't think it was that big of a deal. I blame COVID. I don't have it, but I blame it. Were all the fighting Timberwolves of whatever college that got offended coming at you?

No, I think people think it's funny at this point when we get something so obviously wrong. I said they moved to Missouri and her dad got a job at Michigan State, got a job there. They moved there so her dad could get a job there at Michigan State University, you know, in Missouri. Was Montana involved at all? Montana. God. I meant Montana. Which one? Montana. I meant Montana. Look, how am I supposed to keep track of so many M states? Why are there so many M states? And why when we pitched this bit to sell to the Oscars, they didn't buy it. It's so hilarious. Can we talk about our friend, Wanda Sykes, fucking killing it and what a talent. They were all three. That's the thing.

It was actually very entertaining. Yeah, they should have been more. They were in the beginning, then they had a couple of bits and then nothing. Yeah. And it was bummer. Because I actually didn't, I didn't watch it. I do it the same way every year, which is I watch something else and then I just look at Twitter to see what's going on. Yeah. This is the first year I watched it and I saw it all live. And I was like, Vince, look up from your phone. You saw it happen live. Yeah. Yeah. I do have actually, I just remembered a show I started watching and I don't think I've brought it up. Maybe I did. Have you been watching Our Flag is Death, the re-starby pirate show on HBO Max?

No. Okay. Re-starby plays like a rich British Lord who wants to be a pirate. That's all he wants. So he makes this really fancy pirate ship, hires a crew and then goes out to be a pirate, but he doesn't know what he's doing. What year is it? Like, is it old timey? Pirate timey. Yeah. 1700s, I guess. And then eventually Taikawa Titi comes along. Oh, beautiful. He is a pirate and I won't spoil anything else, but it's truly a delightful, I just, re-starby is just the most delightful performer and personality for a situation like that. It's just so, it's so funny. What's it called again? Our flag means death. Okay. Should we do exactly right corner? Sure. Hey, as you guys know, we have a podcast network.

It's called Exactly Right Media. And man, there's some good shows on there. One of which is the film podcast, I Saw What You Did. And this week's episode, hosts Danielle and Millie cover a double feature, as they always do. But this time, it's the movie Psycho from 1960 and Psycho from 1998. Yes. Which, yes. Vince Vaughn version. Oh. Gotta hear their take on them. I will absolutely be listening to that one. Also, over on the True Beauty Brooklyn podcast, Alex and Elizabeth are discussing laser hair removal and skin care this week. I have so many questions. I'm excited.

Yeah. Also, episode four of the new season of Tenfold, more wicked, is out now. It's called Blood Feud. I mean, Kate Winkler Dawson is a pro and, you know, she's a true crime legend. And I believe in about a month, season six is starting to take place. The woman doesn't stop. She doesn't stop. Every time we have like a, you know, a roundup of like, what's going on with the new season of this and that. And it's like, well, Kate Winkler Dawson is 80 episodes ahead. Yes. Like we're chasing down someone for the like, the episode this week, aka us. And then Kate Winkler Dawson is like, I've already finished season 26 of this show. Now I'm going to go to my lecture because I'm a professor.

Yes. I mean, I'm literally a professor and we're like, we don't want to record this week. Yeah, exactly. It rained. Why do I have to record? It's cold. Also, in the MFM store, we're starting him young. There are several designs of onesies and toddler tees available right now. So if you are one of those murdering parents that's pulling your children into your disgusting pastime, well, then get some merch so that everyone knows that that's what you're doing. If you're the cool aunt or uncle, this is your time to shine and make your siblings question your sanity. That's right. So you know how we have the MFM black and white logo pin and all proceeds from that always go to a really good cause and a charity. And the most recent one

since September has been for the whole women's health, which believes that everyone must be at the center of their own health care decisions and are committed to de-stigmatizing abortion and creating safe spaces for all people. You guys have raised with this logo pin alone, 20 grand for whole women's health. Amazing job. Whole women's health, making sure that abortion access is there for people who need it and also that there's support online. And now that we have raised that money and we're going to give that money to whole women's health, which is you guys raised that money actually and you're giving that money to whole women's health, but we'll do it for you. We'll do the errand. Don't worry about it. We're going to now switch the charity and we've decided

that going forward, all proceeds from the logo pin are going to go to the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU, as you know it. The ACLU works to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all of the people of this country, including trans people's right to live freely, people's right to vote and abortion care for all. We were so tired of suggesting to each other different charities to give for all these crazy things that seem to be going on politically right now and the extreme laws that are being passed in the middle of the night and these very scary extremes that are happening. So we decided we're going to take all that energy and all of that need to give and we're going to center it at a place that's actually going to

help stop and fight a lot of these very unjust laws. So it's the ACLU. If you haven't gotten an MFM logo pin and you would like to give, buy one now and all of the proceeds go to the ACLU. That's right. This pin is 10 bucks. If you've been wanting to give money to ACLU, you don't have a ton. You just want to give it a little something. You get this pin. If your friend has a birthday and you don't like them as much, you don't like the $20 worth, I'm saying, you don't like them $20 worth, go ahead and slap them at $10 worth. And then be like, but I gave money to the ACLU for you. But we're turning this country around together, you and I, and then they'll be like, oh, she likes me. Fine. It's fine. And then you're like free to

ghost their party after that, right? But don't forget to go through their drawers first. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Drink their wine and go through their doors. Okay. Okay. Looking for a better cooking routine? With meal planning, shopping and prepping handled, Hello Fresh has you covered. Hello Fresh makes home cooking easy and affordable so you can stay on track and on budget in the new year. Hello Fresh meals are convenient, seasonal and delicious. Stay cozy all winter long with classic comfort foods available weekly. Why stop with just dinner? Now you can enjoy Hello Fresh's expanded menu of quick lunch solutions, weekend brunch, simple side dishes,

and amazing desserts. Karen, January is going to be my month for Hello Fresh. I am so sick of takeout. I miss cooking so much I haven't lifted a knife or a pan since like early fall. So I can't wait to get back in the kitchen and Hello Fresh makes it so easy and also makes it so that my food tastes good, which is hard to do on my own. It gives you everything, everything you need. So get up to 20 free meals with purchase plus free shipping on your first box at 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. What makes a person a murderer? Are they born to kill or are they made to kill? I'm Candice

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. On 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. Here's a terrible one for you that I saw recently. There's a BBC documentary about it and I was just horrified. So today I'm going to talk about Stephen Port, known as the grinder killer, and the police failures in systemic homophobia that allowed him to become a serial killer. So the sources I use today are a heavily used in-depth BBC article written by Daniel DeSimone, that BBC doc called the grinder killer, an ITV news staff article, AMI London news article by Ella Bennett, a Belfast telegraph article by Ryan Hooper, an A&E article written by Indrani Basu, some other BBC articles, a Guardian staff article, and of course Wikipedia. So on June 19th, 2014, at 4.18 a.m., a man calls authorities to report

that he found a young man outside his apartment building on Cook Street, which is in a working class neighborhood of East London called Barking. He tells the operator, quote, there's a young boy, he looks like he's collapsed outside, he could have had a seizure or something, or just drunk. When authorities arrive, the caller's no longer there, but they do find the young man. He is prepped up against the wall and he's already dead. He's identified as 23-year-old Anthony Walgate. This kid, he's a bright, charming young man. He's described by his mom as, quote, the life and soul of the party. He's an openly gay fashion design student at the University of Middlesex. He has these grand plans to become a famous fashion designer, and no one in his life doubted that

because he has this enormous passion for both his career path and life in general. You see all these photos of him in the documentary and he's just this smiling, happy person, kind face, had so much potential. Basically, authorities determined that he had died of a drug overdose, a GHB overdose, which is also known as the date rape drug. So Anthony's friends and family are baffled by this and are adamant that he wouldn't have died of a drug overdose. That's he doesn't, you know, use drugs. In fact, the police constable who was in charge of the scene found it suspicious right off the bat as he saw bruising and blood on Anthony's torso and noticed that his shirt had been hiked up as if someone had dragged him to that spot, not that he had died, you know, sat down

and died of that drug overdose. Also, his phone is missing, but authorities tell his mother that it's too expensive to bother tracking the phone and they end up concluding that his death isn't suspicious and it's just he overdosed on drugs he had used and they refuse to look into it at all. How is it too expensive to track a phone when that's literally a one line of collecting evidence in police work? Also, in England and especially London, there are CCTV footage everywhere. I can't imagine that also tracking a phone or pinging your phone is that complicated. Or I don't know, like to, you know, take a percentage out of some other thing and do the thing that actually solves the crime. Right. But they don't think it's a crime, so they don't bother.

Oh, because it's an OD. So it's like, it's almost like saying everything else is too hard and we've already made our decision. Yeah. Like there's nothing suspicious here. Why would we bother, right? Except for the detective thinks it's suspicious. Yeah. Yeah. That should count. Right. And then one of his friends comes forward and tells authorities that Anthony had actually gone to baking to meet up with an escort client named Stephen Port, who just so happened to be the caller who had notified authorities of Anthony's body, the one who said, hey, there's someone outside of my flat, whatever. And it turned out that it was his apartment building, the guy that Anthony had gone to see. So let me tell you a little about Stephen Port. He's born

in 1975 in Essex. Growing up, he's quiet. He's a loner, all that stuff we've heard a million times. He's bullied. He's described by his friends as having strange childlike qualities, like he collects toys, he watches children's cartoon, and there's just something a little odd about him. In his mid 20s, he comes out as gay, and his mom wasn't comfortable with it. According to his sister, the reason was that she wanted grandchildren, which doesn't add up, you know. But at 31 years old, he works at West Ham Bus Depot, where he cooks for drivers and staff. He's a cook there. He moves out of his parents' East London home and into a small apartment in Barking. And now that he no longer lives under his parents' roof, he's kind of free to do

whatever he wants. And he parties. He's able to have partners stay the night for the first time. But he also works as an escort and eventually a pimp for other young men that he's dating. I was trying to figure out how to describe what he looks like. And then I looked it up, and there is a BBC TV show called Four Lives that's a fictional show. And Stephen Merchant plays him. Oh, okay. And it's like spot on. Wow. Yeah. I might watch that. Yeah. Four Lives. So Stephen Port eventually develops a habit for the drug GHB, which, as we know, is referred to as the date rape drug. It's a lot of times when it is used as the date rape drug is put into people's drinks because it's a tasteless powder. And, you know, it can lead to euphoria. But if you take

too much, it can very quickly cause unconsciousness and death. Well, I mean, this is not, I'm just interested in like the use of personal GHB, because I've only ever heard it in date rape drug stories. So that idea of where it's like, Oh, I'm just going to do a little toot and go out to dinner. I mean, like, is that a club drug? Is it just? It doesn't sound like, like, I understand Molly, you take it and you're still like understanding what's going on around you. But it doesn't seem like GHB is the way to go with that. I'm going to have to ask some of my drug contacts. Do you mind if I make several calls? Would you make a text to your sketchy friends real quick? I'm going to text a friend and say, Have you ever done GHB? Yeah, purposely done it.

What's it like? Yes. Just send this real quick. Listen, we're doing it. We're boots on the street. What do they call it? Boots on the ground. We're investigative journalists. We're trying to find the real stories and to deliver it to you. I mean, this is just my journalistic side. I have to get down. Okay, I'll let you know if there's an answer. Thank you. Sorry, I already got a yes. You did not. Oh my God. Whoever that is has been waiting by their phone for decades because they did it in the 90s waiting for that someone asked that question. Yes, why? The cops are here. The cops are here and they wanted me to give them some names. Yes, why are you doing GHB girl? Are you doing it? He wrote girl slow down. Oh my God, slow down.

Oh, I wrote what's it like recreationally and he wrote yes. All right, so these two middle-aged white ladies now know what it's like. The answer is yes. To do GHB. Oh, he said people used to do it in clubs and they would fall out. Okay, so it's basically like, you know, it's what it's like a club drug to basically be high out of your mind. All right. Okay, I have to write. Okay, we're recording. I'll have to call you later. Okay, so when social media networks start becoming popular, Stephen goes out less so he can stay online. He's got multiple profiles. You know, he's fucking sketchy. He makes up fake profiles. He has real ones. He uses fake pictures. He makes fake stories about himself to like draw people in.

And then he starts using dating websites and he seeks out slim men in their early teens or 20s that look really young, often referred to as twinks, which they mentioned in the BBC documentary. Also during this time, he starts regularly searching for quote, drug rape porn. He's open about his fetish online, one time telling someone that the last quote young guy he had sex with was high on GHB. So having sex with him was like, quote, a rag doll as he was so out of it. And that's what he's into. And he looks up all kinds of porn like that. And he eventually moves on to drugging the young men that he takes back to his apartment. And the neighbor of his did see a huge amount of GHB or like some power drug, like too much for personal use and was very

concerned about it. So Stephen eventually moves on to drugging the young men he takes back to his apartment, which leads us back to the beginning of the story to June 13. When Stephen goes to an escort website and use the profile of 23 year old fashion design student, Anthony Walgate. So on June 14, Stephen messages Anthony and asks if he's available to come to his place for a quote overnight. And he says there's 800 pounds in it for him, which is more than a thousand dollars in the US here. Anthony agrees. But he, you know, he's afraid the booking isn't legit. And also he's, you know, tries to be safe about these things. So he tells his friend the details and where he's going. And then he says, in case I get killed to his friend. So on the night of June

17, Anthony rides to the train in Barking meets up with Stephen. It's unclear what happens over the next 30 hours. But on June 19th at 418 a.m. that call comes in about the unconscious young man outside this flat. So once those things are put together that he was the caller and who was going to see Stephen Ports brought in for questioning, he sticks with his story at first, but then eventually admits to hiring Anthony. And he says they went back to his place and that Anthony took all the drugs on his own. He had nothing to do with it. Eventually, you know, they had sex and eventually Port found that Anthony had overdosed. And so afraid that he would get, you know, arrested for his murder, he just brought him outside and called authorities.

And the police believe him. So he's released on bail. Authorities are trying to figure out if he can be charged with perverting the course of justice because he lied about it initially. And of course, the fact that he's just let go and none of his, you know, stuff is searched, which really upsets Anthony's friends and families. They're adamant that he wouldn't have died of an overdose, especially self-inflicted. They ask officers to search Stephen's laptop, which they had confiscated, but the police ignore all of this. But had they searched his laptop, they would have found all the internet searches that Stephen Port had done for rape porn, along with other suspicious searches. And it's more than likely that Stephen wouldn't

have been able to go on to kill any more victims had they just done some basic background checks. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. So on August 23rd of that year, Gabriel Kovari, a 22-year-old Slovakian man, he moved to London in hopes of becoming a translator, and he moves in with Stephen. And he just has this, he looks so young and sweet and just, you know, like he needs to be care taken in a way. He's just looked so sweet and young. Gabriel thinks he's going to be Stephen's roommate, but when he gets there, he realizes that Stephen has other ideas that he wants him to sleep with him in his bed and be his boyfriend. And Gabriel's a little creeped out by him. And so Gabriel stays on the couch and is not interested.

But within a couple days of moving in, Stephen tells a friend that Gabriel had already left to go stay with another man. And then on the morning of the 28th, like less than 500 yards from Stephen's apartment, a woman named Barbara Denham is walking her dog near the graveyard on the grounds of the Church of St. Margaret of Antioch. So she's older woman. She likes to go, you know, this lovely old cemetery walks her dog every day there. And she finds Gabriel's dead body sitting against a wall in an upright position. And she can't believe it. She's interviewed in this BBC documentary. He's disheveled and there are two bags next to him full of his possessions, although his phone is missing. And even this, you know, civilian is like, this looks suspicious.

This isn't right. And just like the first victim, Anthony Walgate, Gabriel's shirt is pulled up, showing his mid-drift, like he'd been dragged there. Again, officers consider Gabriel's death to be a GHB overdose. Like Anthony, Gabriel's loved ones have a hard time believing this conclusion, and they start doing their own research when authorities won't help at all. And before the month of August is over, Stephen starts messaging a 21-year-old named Daniel Whitworth, who's a young, hardworking chef who lived in Kent with his long-term boyfriend. And on September 3rd, Stephen sends Daniel a message to see if they can get a drink before they had planned to have dinner. He says, you know, to come over to his apartment for a drink,

quote, just so you can get to know me a bit so you know I'm not some psycho. On September 18th, Daniel leaves work after telling his coworkers he's going to meet friends in Barking. And then after never making it home to his place that he shared with his boyfriend, Ricky Daniel is reported missing. So on September 20th, okay, again, Barbara Denham, this woman takes her dog again for a walk. Same older British, you know, classic lady that you'd meet in a pub or something, walking her dog through the fucking cemetery. And she finds another body. No. She finds Daniel sitting in the same position and the same spot as Gabriel. Can you fuck and she's interviewed at this and she's just like,

I didn't believe my eyes. I did not believe what I was seeing. Yeah. You would think you were having like a triggered reaction from the total time PTSD of seeing a dead body and that you were hallucinating. That's what I would write or someone's playing a trick on you or some. Unbelievable. Awful. I know. He's sitting against the graveyard wall on top of a blue bed sheet. His shirt is pulled up revealing his midriff, his phone is missing a small brown bottle is found with his body found to be containing GHB. Okay, but here's the thing. They find with Daniel a handwritten note that's alleged to be a suicide note. Like he had purposely overdosed and killed himself. In part, it says, quote, I'm sorry

to everyone, mainly my family, but I can't go on anymore. I took the life of my friend Gabriel, the guy had been found in the same place right before him. We was just having some fun at a mate's place and I got carried away and gave him another shot of G. I didn't notice while we were having sex that he had stopped breathing. Basically, he goes on to say in this note, allegedly, that he blames himself for Gabriel's death. So he doesn't want to go to prison. So he's overdosing on purpose because of the guilt he feels about it. I'm sorry, I must interrupt you to say that's the most suspicious bullshit I've ever heard. The idea that someone would sit there and list out the technical like beat by beat events and reasons is so bullshit and so fake. Okay, that is not the

most suspicious thing you've ever heard. Here's the last part of the fucking. Oh my, excuse me. Please continue. Get ready for this. Okay. BTW. This is how it ends. BTW, please do not blame the guy I was with last night. No, he only had sex. Then I left. He knows nothing of what I have done. Love always, Daniel. I'm sorry, the letters BTW are actually on that note. Yeah. And then says, don't blame that guy that you're going to see on fucking CCTV footage with me. Just forget about him. Forget about him. Don't blame that guy. Oh yeah, that's very irritated right now. Yes, I guess who looked into it at the at the Met police. Nobody. Nobody. Not even this one. Not even this one. Not even this one. And there's just we're going to get

into the clearly homophobic reasons why they just didn't give a shit and didn't look into any of it. But partly it's that they had this preconceived notion that yeah, these gay men like to party and do a lot of drugs and have sex with each other. And so this is all normal day to day stuff. Why would we look into it? Right? You know, right? Well, and also if it's the same thing that happens to sex workers, which is yes, if the some cop standing there kind of projecting all of his shit onto the scenario and going, well, if this is the life you so choose, then you deserve it. I am. Right. Judge Jerry and executioner, you deserve it. Right. That high risk lifestyle that to some people just means that you don't deserve a actual, you know, to be treated like

a fucking human, essentially. Which is also just if we could turn around and get the chemical analysis from everyone's bloodstream, who would be in the group surrounding, it would just be like, who isn't on drugs? Who amongst us isn't coping in this day to day nightmare life without some pharmaceuticals here and there, whether they be recreational or prescribed like, holy shit. Well, no wonder it's like a shamed thing in our society that like, yeah, I've, you know, I've done very fucked up narcotics in my life. I've had anonymous sex before. I've had one night stands or whatever it is that people have that are just like normal parts of the human experience. And it doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean you deserve what what's coming to you. And also,

hazard to say that for straight men, it's not just a normal part of life. It's an absolute celebration. It's a high five party. Right. Right. Congratulations to you. Another not in your bed post, but God forbid, some young gay guy do it. And then it's like, well, well, you asked for it. What did you expect? What did you expect? Fuck you. Yeah, it's a very big fuck you. Yeah, it's all about shame and shame based and keeping it that way. So it could be us versus them. It's going to get worse right now, Karen. Ready? Yeah, it always does. But wait, yeah, I was just saying four bodies total, four lives total. Okay, so there's just one more. Yeah. Okay. So an autopsy shows that Daniel has sleeping pills in his system and then he died from a GHB overdose, which

just looking for confirmation, you know what I mean? Like he did die from the thing he said in the alleged suicide note, but that's as far as they went to look into it. Sorry, no one in a suicide note is going to put BTW. Like they take the time. If these are your last words, you'd write the words out and don't blame the guy I was with. Who the fuck? Just really. And then there was another thing I didn't read about him being like, oh, I lost my phone. It should be back there in the grass. I mean, okay, how you mentioned the missing phone. Yeah, that all the other men also had. He's covering all them bases. He just put it all in that note. And it's the idea we've said this multiple times. People, when people add in 1000 details, that's when you know they're lying.

Right, right. It's just that's the unnecessary details that have nothing to do with it. It's me when I'm 20 minutes late and it's like, oh my God, I was at the gas station and the craziest thing happened. You're not going to believe what happened to me just now. People are just like, Karen, just admit it. Just say sorry. That's all you have to do. Say you're blow-drying your hair and it wasn't working. Just say you once again hypnotize yourself blow-drying your hair. I do it so often. So relax it. But the pathologist tells police that, quote, there was bruising below both arms in the armpit region, which is unlikely to have been caused accidentally. And they have resulted from manual handling of the deceased most likely prior to death. So another example

of someone being dragged, like the fucking amount of things that were in common in these murders, which weren't hard to find. The families of all these young men are putting it together on paper. And thank God for these families, or I don't think he would have ever been brought to justice. Oops, spoiler alert. Okay. I get the police don't investigate Daniel's death as anything more than an overdose. They never look into what Daniel had been doing leading up to his death or try to identify the man he spent the night with. They don't even test the sheet he was found on or the bottle of GHB for any DNA. And his family refuses to believe that he had used drugs to begin with, let alone taken someone else's life. That's not the person they knew. Meanwhile, the news of

another body found in the same place as Gabriel Cavari is shocking to his friends and family. They're still doing their own research. They're putting everything together very easily. It's like page one of Google, if you look of like the cemetery in that area and suspicious death, it comes up. Gabriel's loved ones continue pressuring the police to investigate the deaths as more than overdoses, also as related, and they're like unwilling to even accept that they're related, the authorities. In January of 2015, Stephen is charged with perverting the course of justice for lying to the police about Anthony Walgate's death. He's not charged with murder because, quote, there is no suggestion that Stephen bore any criminal responsibility for the death

of the young man. He sentenced to eight months in prison. So in June of 2015, Stephen's released after serving half his sentence. There is some good news. The coroner is about to hold an inquest into the deaths of Gabriel and Daniel. She has some concerns around the investigation and the handling of their deaths. Unfortunately, it doesn't bring an end to Port's killing spree. And in the early morning hours of September 13th, 25 year old Jack Taylor, who's a forklift driver, leaves a club and heads home where he lives with his parents. And at around 2am, Jack is contacted on grinder by Stephen Court. And so he meets Stephen at 3am at the train station in Barking. And 36 hours later, a trash collector finds Jack dead on the other side of the graveyard wall where Gabriel

and Daniel had been found. Oh my God. So three bodies in this little area and less than 500 yards away, another body supposedly overdosed outside left against a wall. He's propped up against the wall. His shirt's pulled up over his midriff. He has no phone on him. And in his pockets are syringes and GHB. Police conclude that they have another overdose on their hands. Jack's family knows that he's not a drug user and they start their own investigation. They figure out about the other two young men who had died in the exact same area. And Jack's sister Donna later tells the BBC that Jack was not a drug user. And that she knows he wouldn't have gone to this like, you know, kind of rundown cemetery sat down and like shot up. And she's like, what are the chances that the

other two men had done the same thing? It's just unbelievable. Yeah, to civilians. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous and offensive. So Jack's sister starts doing all this research. They're like, you know, putting these graphs together of all the similar points of all these deaths. They keep trying to get the police to pay attention to it and they won't. They're just like, they're not connected even though it's just so obvious. They meet with the police and Jack's family is told that they found CCTV footage of Jack walking down the street with a tall, blonde man hours before his death. And the Taylor family insists that they put the picture of this man he was walking with up in the newspaper to see if anyone could identify him. And after the

police realized that they had misidentified another man walking off on his own. As Jack, they realized their mistake, thankfully, and put the picture in the newspaper on October 13. And they almost immediately receive a tip from a barking police officer who's like, that's Stephen Port. Like, he is connected to all of these. He realizes it. Thank God. On October 15, Stephen is finally arrested on suspicion of killing all four men. He's charged with four counts of murder. It's a very complex trial, but there's all this evidence to get to him, including DNA, the fact that the blue sheet that Daniel had been found on is from Port's own bed. Yeah. An old cell phone Stephen had is found to have 83 homemade sex videos. Some showing Stephen raping unconscious men

on his bed. I mean, it's, it's very, very dark. And then eight other men because of the media coverage come forward and say they'd been drugged and raped by Stephen as well. They have the same story. They met Stephen online and after meeting in person, he spiked their drinks or injected them with a small syringe. They lose consciousness and wake up with Stephen raping them. At Stephen's fall 2016 trial, the prosecutor paints Stephen as a, quote, voracious sex predator who appears to have been fixated with surreptitiously drugging young, often vulnerable men for the exclusive purpose of rape and that he's a highly devious, manipulative and self obsessed individual. So 41 year old Stephen Port is found guilty of all four murders and numerous offenses involving

seven of the eight rape victims who came forward. He's later sentenced to a, quote, whole life order, which means he'll never be released. And in December 2021, there's all this press coverage about how the last three victims could have been saved, had the investigators done any fucking basic research into these murders, you know, yeah. So in December 2021, a jury rules that police failings, quote, probably contributed to Gabriel Daniel and Jack's death. Probably. Yeah. Had they investigated Anthony's death, they may have found Stephen killed him. An inquiry into how homophobia and the Met police played a part in the investigations found that the jury had been told by the coroner, Susan Monroe, like to not even consider homophobia and discrimination

as a contributing factor. So like you're not even allowed to say that, obviously to save your own asses. The Met say the failure to catch Port sooner wasn't because of homophobia, but a lack of, quote, personal curiosity by the officers. So it had nothing to do with homophobia. Yeah, but if it's your job to be personally curious about the crimes that happen in, like, on your watch and on your beat, you don't get the option of not being curious. It just shouldn't come into play. It's not then quit the job. It's so obviously bullshit that it wasn't about curiosity and being bored at their job or whatever. It's like, there's four murders that are so like every family member has put it together and you can't put it together. That is

purely bias. Yeah. So Helen Ball, the head of the Metropolitan Police's professional standard says, quote, we don't see institutional homophobia. We don't see homophobia on the part of the officers. We do see all sorts of errors in the investigation which came together in a truly dreadful way. So like won't even cop to the idea that there was homophobia involved. If they don't see it, maybe they shouldn't have their job since it's blatantly obvious and everyone else can see it. That's a great point. You still don't see it? Oh, you still don't see it? Well, you got to go to then. Yeah, because it's right fucking there. It's right fucking there. So following Stephen Port's convictions and inquiry into the original investigations is ordered and 17 police

officers are investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission. As of this recording, it doesn't appear that any of the 17 officers involved in the Stephen Port investigation have been held accountable for their actions. And it doesn't seem like they will. The family and friends of four young men murdered by Port are relieved he won't hurt anyone else. And my God, these people are so strong and so they were so determined to get action taken. But of course, they're all left with questions about who would have been saved had the police done their job from the beginning. And that's a big part of this case. And more so, if the systemic homophobia that's rampant in the police force hadn't been a factor, it's obvious that Gabriel, Daniel and Jack would still be alive

today. And that is the murders of Anthony Walgate, Gabriel Kovari, Daniel Whitworth and Jack Taylor. That's just so frustrating also because it's like Stephen Port didn't just murder them, but then was trying to like defame their name. Yeah, after the fact, like the idea of accusing one of the victims of being the murderer himself, just as this really cynical way and really clunky lame way to get out of it. It's just like it was clunky. He wasn't smart. He didn't do a great job. He didn't have to. He didn't have to. Right, which is the worst. It's awful. I hope I did that story Justice because it really is just like it sounds like a story from the 1990s of how the LGBTQ community was treated. But it's from 2016. Well, also, you know what it sounds exactly like? It's a British Ed

Buck. This made me think of it because this Jasmine Kanek, who is the reporter when I did the Ed Buck story, most of the research was her journalism and her basically chasing the story when no one else would touch it because Ed Buck is a rich white man. And he was basically luring gay black men to his apartment to like quote unquote party. And he had the exact same thing that this guy had. And he was into basically drugging and raping and murdering these men. And it took so many of these men to die before anyone would even like turn an eye to it. It's horrifying. God, these poor families and what they're put through constantly because these megalomaniacs won't just fuck off. I don't know. Yeah, it's really rough. It's an important story to tell, though. I think you did a great

job. I think you did a great job with it. Because also, I think I've heard bits of that story, but to hear it all together. And the fact that it was so recently is you're right, it's really disturbing. It's not 1979. Right. And he's a serial killer. Like I had heard bits of it too and didn't put all the people together who he had killed. He's a serial killer that's dumping bodies like 100 feet from his own goddamn apartment. That's in front of his apartment and then admitting he fucking put him there. Yeah, it's awful, awful, awful. Great job. Thank you. Thank you. So I'm going to tell you a story that you've probably already seen a documentary about touching the void. Have you seen that documentary? Don't remember anything. Oh, you know that from this

afternoon back. So this is a story of two guys trying to climb the Peruvian Andes and getting themselves into a bunch of trouble. Trouble that it seems like there would be no coming back from and yet it is a survival story. So let's do it. Right. Okay. So classic. Karen Kulgarov classic. A classic and really a true Karen Kulgarov classic in that I'm taking what somebody has already put in all the hard work and dedication into making and I'm just going to retell you like a 28 minute version of the thing that's already been executed perfectly that you could just go directly and watch. But have we? We haven't. And we give them all the accolades. So it's okay. Maybe I'll be the stepping stone for you to finally go watch this. If I tell you a partial version. And then

when you watch it with your significant other or your roommate who doesn't listen to this podcast for some reason, you can say, oh, my friend Karen said this part's exciting. Oh, my friend Karen right here said this. Yeah. I mean, I would love to be folded into more couples. Yeah. Conversations because there's nothing better. That's true than to be brought up by the girlfriend to the boyfriend. They love it. Boyfriends love it. Let them know you have a friend, at least one friend. How many times have you met a guy where it comes up to you and goes, Hey, are you from my favorite martyr? And you're just like, uh-huh, where's your girlfriend? Where's your girlfriend that you want to come over and say hi that you're doing it for? The one hiding in the corner.

And then you're like, get the fuck over here. So the sources for this are of course the touching the void, the documentary, which you can watch on Amazon Prime and should there's a Wikipedia page about Joe Simpson, the Mountaineer. There is an article by Oscar Gorgosa from the El Pay, El Baiz. I don't know. I actually don't know, but it's a newspaper. There's a Washington Post article by Desson Thompson. There is a Rich Roberts LA Times article. There's an Elaine Williams article from the TES newspaper via TES Connect. And there's an LA Times article by Kenneth Turan talking about the documentary. So it's 1985. And there are two British climbers, slash Mountaineers, their names Joe Simpson, Joe's 25, and Simon Yates, and Simon is 22.

And they have set out to make the first ever ascent of the west face of the Swila Grande. There's no way I said that. There's no sound. It's a mountain in the Peruvian Andes. Okay, so it's as yet unclimbed. We know a lot about the Andes because that's where our alive plane crash took place. Another great retelling of a film that I did for a survival story. I won't ever stop. Okay, so both Simon and Joe are fairly experienced climbers for their ages, but the nearly 21,000 foot first ascent, especially given the frigid conditions towards the top of the mountain and the fact that they're doing it alpine style, which means they're doing it all in a single go with most of the belongings on their back, right? So they're doing it old fashioned, basically.

It is a huge dangerous undertaking for even the most experienced climbers. Joe and Simon, however, welcome and crave the challenge. So they're like, no one's done it. This is really hard. We're up for it. We're young and we're strong and we're British. Oh, if only. Right. If only I could bend at the waist. After a two day walk from the nearest road, the guys get to the foot of the icy mountain. And there they meet a camper named Richard Hawking, who agrees to look after their tents as they set out for their climb. So Richard's like, yeah, I'm down here. I'm not going to go do the thing you guys are about to do, but I'll watch your shit for you. Okay, cool. I mean, that's an important job, all right, watching someone shit. As the girl who will absolutely sit with all

purses while my friends dance or ski or ski or whatever. It's just like there needs to be people that are willing to hold down the fort and it's me and it's Richard Hawkins. And it's the thing a cocoa and some whiskey in it. And I don't need I don't need to prove myself. Okay, I can prove myself over here with that socializing with a bartender. You go do your thing and try to prove to your dad that he should have paid more attention to you. God bless. Oh, okay. Knowing that their stuff is all secure, they set out for the climb early in the morning. They've got ice picks, they've got spike shoes, the whole outfit. Sure, sure. But they find the climb is even more intense than they'd anticipated, although they're making good time and they're having fun doing it.

Jay made that up. This is one of Jay's last pieces of research for me. And he left in, they're making good time and they're having fun doing it. And it may be left so hard. I dated a guy once that used to come home from the gym every day and do a character, like a trainer character that he goes, he had to tell me every day about different parts of his body that he worked out. So he'd be like, Karen today, I did my Delta did my glutes and I had fun doing it. He would do like a whole speech and it always ended with and I had fun doing it. Oh, I love it. And so that just kind of made me laugh. Okay, so workout guys working out in the snow. So they have a successful first day climbing. That night they set up camp on the mountain,

they melt snowed for drinking water, right? Sure. Classic. It's the classic snow climbers. Classic water. I mean, here's the thing, you and I, Georgia, as I look at her on Zoom right now, is sitting in a lazy boy recliner. Yeah, I'm wearing the same like this, right? And she can lift one leg slightly above her head, which is true. I've been wearing the same set of pajamas or at least the same looks like the same pajamas for three years in a row. The idea of climbing to a place to then get into thin air freezing temperatures to melt snow to drink it for water is just like Words fail me. Like, you know, there's water in your sink, right? Like, you don't have to go up a fucking mountain. Look, I get it. People like hiking, people like outdoorsy shit, you and I are

particularly like, not outdoorsy. No, whatever, whatever. But like, just pushing yourself is a thing on that. Yes, that's what it is. There's challenges. And then there's like, I want to go be as uncomfortable as I can. And also in the way I just, I really don't like being cold. Oh, my God, it's the worst. You know what it is? Death defying. If those words are involved, I'll hide Griffith Park all day long. Yes, right? No, I won't. I actually won't do that. But not at all. Let's say I would. Death defying, though. That's where I, that's hard stop. It's kind of agreeing to a thing casually, like looking at a person like we should totally do this. And in your mind, you know, one false move, and you're going to tumble to an icy death. I mean,

that's just like, it's real brave. Okay. So that's, that's the word. Okay, go on. But they're having fun doing it. But they're having fun doing it. So the next day, they start climbing again. So here's an important detail. Joe and Simon, as they climb are tied together by ropes. So Simon would later say, the rope can be something that rather than save your life kills you. If you're going to do that climb at some point, you're going to have to rely solely on your partner. So the surface that they're climbing is so slippery. The snow is covering huge holes and cliffs and think like they think they're walking on a straight path, because it's all snow. But actually, it's just like one false step and everything beneath them falls away. I mean, that's just like

how it is in this part of the mountains. It's why no one climbed it before. Right. It's why you're the first. Yeah. So as they get closer to the summit, the weather, of course, what happens to the weather? Does it get better, Georgia? No, not in the mountains. There's no better weather in the mountains. No, it's snowing really hard. The men are freezing. They're, of course, their visibility is limited. Yeah. The winds are blowing at high speeds. It's making it both colder and harder to move quickly. So also, they can't like sit around, right? So they can't like so that you have to keep a break, right? Yeah. You have to keep moving. You have to keep going upward. But the more you do the harsher the environment gets. Yeah. That's a mountain. That's

what a mountain does. That's mountains, baby. Like let's get real. That's like a mountain's job. That's what mountains do to you. So it basically, it took them five to six hours just to climb 200 feet. So like almost the day, basically. So as darkness sets in, they call it a night. They dig themselves a cover in the snow and they go to sleep. In the snow. In the snow. So they wake up the next morning for the third day of climbing. The snow has led up a little bit, but the fresh snow has completely changed the landscape. So they thought, they kind of thought they knew where they're going and what it looked like and everything like that. And now it's all just one big white patch. So yeah, it's snow. They don't know if they'll be able to grab onto steady holds

for the rest of the journey. This is also that like, you know, you've seen Alex Honnold, the guy that like free climbs half dome, like with his hands and feet. No, but I picture it. He's like, got the thing there and the thing just getting little. So no, those guys do it with their hands. These guys do it with like ice picks and yeah, spiky boots and stuff. Yeah, they still have to find those same pieces of rock and whatever to hold on to to get upward. In the snow with ice. Damn it. Okay, sorry. No, I mix. I'm just re explaining alpine climbing to you. Right. It sounds terrible. Well, anyway, they don't know if they can find their handholds, but what do they do? They press on anyway, because that's where they're because they're 22 and 25. Never give up, never surrender.

Vagging always play Brian Adams as loud as you can. So by 2pm on day three, they actually reached the summit and they're the first mountaineers ever to scale this climb. So they stand there, they take in the sites, they're like, it's us, we did it. And then they get ready for their descent. So they're both nervous about this because 80% of all climbing accidents happen on the way down. So the descent is the dangerous part of a climb like this. They've mapped a route down from the north ridge of the mountain, which they believe should be easier than the way it was coming up. But as they begin walking along this ridge, they find the journey is much more difficult than they anticipated, given these extra layers of snow. It only takes around an hour and a half

before the guys get so lost in a whiteout from the blowing snow and the cloudy skies that they just have to wait for a break in the clouds, essentially. So Simon is leading the way at this point. And he sees what he believes to be the ridge. So he heads for it and he's right. He is heading toward the ridge. But as he moves forward over a patch of ice, that ice just gives way underneath him. And he nearly falls off the side of the mountain. He doesn't. But now Simon and Joe have to like stop and collect themselves and continue along this ridge path that they realize the ground can just fall out from under them anytime. Cool. Ice and coal. Yeah, exactly. So it's very slow going. And by the time they pack it in for

the night, they're still 20,000 feet up the mountain. So they haven't really descended very far at all. So on day two of the descent, which is day four total, Joe looks back at the path that they took the day before and figures that they have already passed the worst part of the journey downward. He thinks they're going to be able to finish the descent by the end of that day until they come to a surprise vertical wall in their path. Yeah. So suddenly they're completely blocked. Joe heads down the wall first. So they have to basically use their pickaxes and their spiky boots, rappel down this wall or scale down the wall. Yeah, things start off smoothly. But as Joe moves one axe with one hand, the ice holding the other axe breaks and sends him crashing

downward. So he has a nasty fall. Now, here's a trigger warning for what happens to him in terms of his injury. That's kind of a bummer. It's a bone break. And it's a bummer one. So if you don't like stuff like that, we don't want to upset anybody. But Joe crashes on the ledge below and breaks his tibia. Your tibia is the big bone in your, it's like your shin bone, the big bone in your lower leg. It's driven up through his knee joint. Yeah, I knew it was coming out somewhere. I don't, I knew it. I knew it. Yeah. It's bad. It's bad. So up on the mountain, on the ice, icy stormy mountain, now he's fallen and it's bad. It's bad. Yeah. Yeah. So so in normally when this happens, a climber this high up on a mountain with a broken leg, this bad

is as good as dead and Joe knows it. Oh yeah. He looks up to Simon with terror and tells him his leg is broken. Simon throws Joe some painkillers and he silently weighs his option. So essentially he can save himself and leave his friend. Yeah. Or he can try to help Joe out and risk both their lives. And imagine being in that position. That's one of the many things you've been rolling the dice with, not just with your own life, but then with this almost like a horrible moral situation to try to figure out what to do. Totally. I'm thinking about it right now. I'm like, hey Vince, you stay behind here. I'm out. Like I would never be like, well, here we go. Hold my hand. If you were the person with the bone break, you'd be like, don't you dare fucking leave me

down here. When I say you, I mean all of us. And then if you were the one at the top looking down, you'd be like, man, that's rough for you. Oh well. No, you wouldn't. Good luck. Okay. No, you wouldn't. And actually Simon takes a moment. He calms down. He stops panicking. And he's like, of course, I have to help my friend out of there. Yeah. So they come up with a plan. They basically, they've got their two ropes and each of their ropes are 150 feet long, which means 300 feet altogether. So they tied the ropes together and there's a knot in the middle. So the entire length obviously is 300 feet. Simon can anchor himself into the mountain side and then use this rope to lower Joe down 300 feet at a time. But because of the knot, every 150 feet, Joe has to stand on his

good leg and give Simon enough slack to unclip and then reclip the rope around the knot. So then once they reach the end of the 300 foot rope, Simon scales down by himself to join Joe. And then they repeat this process again. So it's essentially figuring out the way to get a man with a fully horribly broken leg, like down this mountain and out of this situation. And it actually works. It goes, it's really slow going, but their plan is working. But then another storm kicks in. Now they don't have time to stop. They run out of gas to melt snow for water or heat their food. Like they basically can't stay there anymore. They have to keep going down the mountain because there's no, there's no living on this mountain or surviving on this mountain. So Joe reaches a

particularly steep part of the mountain. He yells to Simon to slow down, but Simon can't hear him because of the storm. Joe slips and falls over a hidden ledge. And when he finally comes to a stop, he's hanging above a crevasse in the mountain side. And that's not the last time I'm going to say the word crevasse. I'm going to say it about 25 more times. You have to get comfortable with it now. I am, I am. Okay. So Simon, meanwhile, is up above and has no idea what has happened, right? He doesn't know that he's fallen. When he reaches the knot, he tugs on the rope to let Joe know he has to stand to give him some slack. But when he tugs on the rope, nothing happens. And he doesn't get any slack. And that's because Joe's dangling above the crevasse. There's nothing for him to

put his good foot on. There's no way to get anything. He's just hanging there. So now Joe's only chance at getting out of this situation is climbing back up the rope to get to solid ground. The broken leg guy has to climb back up the no. And he tries several times, but he doesn't have the strength or the energy to do it. Meanwhile, Simon's in this desperate position. He's freezing cold. He's holding Joe's full weight as best he can. And he does this for a full hour. And he finally comes to terms with the fact that something is terribly wrong with his friend Joe at the end of the rope. He realizes he only has one choice if he's going to save himself, and that's to cut the rope. So he pulls out his pen knife, and he cuts the rope that connects him

and Joe. And by doing so, he seals his friend's fate. But for Joe, although Simon assumes this means sudden death for Joe, but he doesn't, he assumes, he like thinks he's already dead or something, like something terrible's happened. And he can't just sit there and hold on forever and like hope for the, you know, it's a horrible situation. But meanwhile, on the other end of the rope, Joe is not dead. And this basically is the next part of his adventure is just beginning. So sure. So let's talk about Joe Simpson for a second. He was born on April 13, 1960, one of five kids growing up a British Army brat in Malaysia, where his dad is stationed. His family moves around a lot during his childhood. When he's eight years old, in 1968, he starts school at

Ampleforth College, which is a prep school in North Yorkshire, England. And this is where he meets his chemistry teacher, Richard Gilbert, who introduces him to the sport of rock climbing. So Gilbert takes Joe and his classmates out to the mountains like Peek Scar and Whitestone Cliff to teach them how to climb. And Joe stands out of the pack as a natural talent. So this spurs Joe's love of the outdoors. He joins the school's venture scouts group. But because of his stubbornness and his disdain for authority, treats, he attributes to his tough military dad. He isn't allowed to join the student mountaineering expeditions that the school organizes. He can't be tamed. Oh, good for him. Yeah, he's a rebel. So this rejection only spurs Joe to go on his own

expeditions by himself. Because he's an Army brat, and he's actually maladjusted, as we all are. In 1978, Joe graduates from Ampleforth. He goes on to study English literature and philosophy at Edinburgh University. And up until Joe was 14, he was very religious. He even wanted to become a priest. But then he questions aspects of Catholicism, finds answers, he's given unsatisfactory, and he ends up turning away from religion and instead focusing on climbing. So it was going to be the church or the mountain, and he picked a mountain. He also is inspired by reading the climbing book, The White Spider by Heinrich Herrer. And he spends his summers climbing in the Alps. So by the time he graduates from Edinburgh University in 1984, he's less concerned

about starting a practical career. And he's more concerned about finding his next great adventure. Amen. Right. So what he can't know is that one day he will find the biggest adventure and all the danger and risk that comes with it. So we're back on the mountain. Okay, so Simon has just cut Joe loose. Simon's doing everything he can not to be consumed by thoughts of his dead friend. He makes himself a snow shelter. He tries to get some rest for the night. It's impossible for him to get warm. His thirst is so overwhelming that in touching the void, he actually describes it as being able to smell the water in the snow. He's so thirsty. And he just is trying not to think about what he just did or had to do. And that his friend is lying dead somewhere. Meanwhile,

little to Simon know his companion isn't dead. Joe awakens to find himself between two slanted surfaces slowly sliding downward into the darkness. He's fallen about 150 feet and has somehow miraculously survived that fall. Holy shit. Yeah, he's fallen very far and yet didn't hit anything except for he must have hit that leg. He must have hit that leg. I mean, God damn it. Okay, he looks around at the narrow icy chute that he's stuck in because he's wearing his headlamp still. And although the battery is dying, he can still see a little bit as he's looking around. So he he's able to clip himself into one of the walls of ice right before his headlamp battery dies. And that keeps him from sliding any further. Joe notices that his rope is still stretching

upwards towards the opening of the crevasse. He's thinking Simon is still tied to the other end and maybe Simon's dead from falling over the other side of from where he felt like that they basically both fell on either side. So thinking he might be able to use Simon's dead body as a counterweight to pull himself up out of this hole that he's in, Joe starts pulling on the rope. And soon the end of the rope falls down towards him with no one on the other end. Oh, how did he feel when he saw that? He saw this rope's been cut. I mean, like, and then you're just down in a weird ice chute by yourself. Yeah, a luge. A real slow, scary luge. Yeah. Okay, so Joe starts to wonder if the cut rope means Simon's still alive. So he starts to yell for his friend calling his name.

No one answers. All he can hear is the wind and the ice of the crevasse cracking and settling, horrifying. Of course, loneliness and fear set in. It looks like this may be the end of the 25 year old's life. So he starts crying. He cries himself through the night. So sorry, really quick. It's cold. You're just hanging in the middle of an ice chute. Your tibia is smashed up through your kneecap. You're thirsty. Your friend might be dead or cut you loose. Or cut you lose. But either way, you're feeling pretty goddamn rejected now. Sure. Just like when they wouldn't let you join the St. Martin's Mountaineers or whatever the hell that thing is called. This is rough. Let's start. Cancel. Please no, thank you. Let's start. Okay, so morning finally comes. This is now

day five. Now Simon, he's basically going to start his way down the mountain again from his, like, where he camped for the night. On his way down, he sees the crevasse that Joe must have fallen into. He considers looking down into it, but he's afraid to see his friend's dead body. And he's positive Joe must be dead if he got cut from that rope. So he can't look and he just keeps walking. Well, meanwhile, Joe wakes up in the morning and he comes to the realization that if Simon is descending the mountain, he will pass this crevasse where he's hanging. So he starts yelling Simon's name and calling out for him. Simon can't hear him, of course, because the wind, it's like constant wind. Yeah, I imagine that's editorializing on my part. It is constant whistling

wind. Yeah, screaming. So Joe doesn't give up. Instead, he tries to scale the ice and get out of the crevasse. It would be nearly impossible for a person who had two fine legs. So like he's trying to basically scale upward and he can't do it. But he doesn't want to quit. Then he realizes he has a choice. He can sit there and wait hoping that someone's going to come and save him, which he knows is very unlikely. Or he can lower himself deeper into the crevasse in the hope that maybe he can find solid ground to stand on down there and then somehow find his way out. Oh my goodness. So basically, he decides to plunge deeper into the abyss. He steadily repels lower, relying on his good leg. The climb is impossibly long and he has no way of knowing

what's waiting for him at the bottom. So Simon, meanwhile, reaches a glacier along his descent. So they're dangerous to cross, especially when you're alone. Normally, you'd be roped to other people and it would be, you know, there'd be a whole system to do it. He just has to walk across it by himself. The snow on top could be covering more hidden crevasse, like pitfalls everywhere, but he has no choice. So Simon has to walk out across the glacier alone and he ends up being able to do it. He ends up crossing without incident. So in a few hours, Simon is nearing the bottom of the mountain. And that's when he realizes, oh my God, I have to go and I have to explain to everybody what happened and what I did. And he starts, of course, freaking out. And so he already

had this kind of like, you have to get through it, don't think about it mentality when it first happened. But now he's like, oh, I absolutely have to think about it. And he's like, is everyone going to hate me for what I did? And then he's thinking, maybe is there another story I can make up to tell them what happened so I don't look bad or selfish? And he's just freaking out. He's thinking, will anyone understand the impossible position I was put in and the awful decision that I had to make? Because in the climbing community, it is completely taboo. It's just not done to leave anyone behind. That's just like rule number one. But if you think they're dead, then you can't, it's like that. Remember, I did the bodies of Mount Everest. And it's like,

if you don't leave someone behind and you stay with them, even if they're still alive, and they're clearly not going to come out, then you're going to die. And you just have to keep going. Right. Exactly. So the, so the self preservation, of course, makes sense. Because it's like, don't, everyone shouldn't just sit there and die together. But right. That doesn't keep the surviving person from being like judged and, you know, like talked about or whatever. So he's starting to realize, oh, no, I have to, now I have to talk about this. So he gets to the bottom. He gets to the tents. Richard's there waiting for him. Richard asks where Joe is, and Simon tells him everything. He just tells him exactly what happened, the complete truth.

And he tells him that Joe is dead. To his surprise, Richard does not judge him for it, doesn't say anything bad is like, that's so horrible. It's kind of best case scenario for the first person that is hearing this horrible news for Simon. Also, quick reminder, Simon's 22 years old. Jesus. 22. Child. Yeah. Child. Horrifying. So, okay, back inside the crevasse. So after repelling on one leg for a really long time, basically down at an ice chute, Joe reaches a part of the crevasse that opens up into a sort of dome shaped cavern. So at the bottom of that cavern, he's relieved to finally see a snow covered floor. He gets himself down onto the solid ground for the first time since his fall. And then once he's there, he sees a

small slope upward that has sunlight shining on it. And he realizes there's a way out of this spot that he's in. Joe crawls toward the sloped exit on his stomach. But as he does, he hears a cracking sound underneath him. And he realizes he is not on solid ground. He's on a cracking sheet of ice. And he has to, if he doesn't get to that upward slope quickly, the ice beneath him could break and he could fall into further down at crevasse or, you know, fall to his death. He scrambles and just makes it up onto that slope. Scrambles. Think of the leg. Think of where the leg and knee are positioned. So once he's on that, he starts climbing upwards, he's sliding on his stomach while pulling himself forward with his pickaxes. But at certain times,

he's forced to use his legs. He just has to. So anytime he pushes off with his broken tibial leg, he's screaming in pain. Slowly and painfully, he makes his way up the slope out through the opening and onto solid sunny ground. So he somehow makes it out of that crevasse. I think that's the second to last time I'm going to say that word. Okay. But now Joe's got miles and miles to go to get to base camp, but it doesn't take him long to find Joe's footprints leading across the glacier. He's exhausted. He has no food, no water. And he actually considers just sitting down, like, because he's sitting down kind of looking around to see, oh, this is where I go next. And then he's like, I think I'm just going to stay here because he's just like beat. I mean, yeah, that's what your brain

says to you. Yes. After all that, after all that work, you're just finally like out in the sun. You're like, it's fine. I'll stay here. All right. But instead, he steals himself and begins to make his way across the glacier and down the mountain. And he does this by scooting himself across the snow so he can stay off his injured leg. Just imagine how irritating that is. Like, you're sliding on your ass, basically, trying to hold up your broken leg. Oh my god. So it's not like dragging and hitting the ground in such a fucking nightmare. Okay. So Simon stays at the base camp for the next three days. He's resting. He's gathering his strength. And he's basically getting ready to make the trek back out to the road to head home. Still has to walk a bunch.

Jesus. Yeah. Yeah. It's so much walking. It's so much walking and climbing in snow and almost dying. So the night before he's about to leave, he and Richard are asleep in their tents and they wake up to the sound of someone shouting. So they get up and they're like, what's this? Put their hand to the ear. That's again, I'm lying. I made that up. They get up, they listen closer and Simon recognizes the sound of his own name. He looks into the distance and he sees Joe somehow still alive crawling over the rocks toward him and Richard in their tents. Oh my god. It took him three full days in blistering cold conditions. And even though he lost Simon's tracks in yet another snow storm. Dude. Joe was somehow able to find his way down the mountain and get his ass back to base camp.

Yeah. So with no water or food, Joe managed to survive three days on snow only. Richard, that's not warmly melted snow with a Bunsen burner. That's just snow in your mouth. Richard and Simon left Joe in their tent where they hunkered down for the night. Joe immediately thanks Simon for trying to help him down the mountain. When Simon begins to apologize for cutting the rope, Joe stops him and tells him he did the right thing. So now imagine the relief of that. Yeah. Like thinking you killed your friend and now he's there and going, don't even. I mean, just such a relief. When Joe's finally rescued and given medical treatment, doctors find that he's lost a third of his body weight.

Holy shit. In like a couple days. In a couple days with just, oh yeah. You know, men, how they burn fat. It's so easy for them. It's so easy for them. They have to do is almost die in a mountain. Oh my God. Okay. So Joe undergoes six operations on his leg over the course of two years. Doctors tell him he'll have trouble walking and they will certainly never climb again. But of course he starts doing physical therapy. He makes a full recovery and he gets himself back into climbing shape because those guys don't know the word quit. As for Simon, when he gets back to England, he's met not with a hero's welcome, but with a huge amount of criticism because the climbing community is like never leave a partner

behind. No. It's an unforgivable sin. But Joe comes forward and defends Simon whenever anybody tries to disparage the decision that he was forced to make. Yeah. Yes. They all would have made it. Like they, of course, an hour of someone hanging there that he thought was dead. It's like you can stay there and die too. Or you can try to get out and get help. Right. If you, if there's dead weight, if you waited a full hour, it's not like it happened immediately where he was like, I can't do this with you, man. It's like he did everything he possibly could and then went, okay, if there's a dead body hanging at the end of the rope, then I have to cut this. There's just no choice. Right. Yeah. Unfair. So in 1988, Joe writes a book about his experience and it's called Touching the Void.

And then in 2003, a documentary by the same name is made interspersing reenactments with commentary from Joe Simon and Richard Hawking, the guy who watched everyone's purse. The film, I'm sure that guy is like some super, super climber that is like, oh, dude. Yeah. He's like, fuck you. For sure. You couldn't even get to the parking lot of this mountain. You're right, Richard. The film wins the Alexander Korda Award for best British film at the BAFTAs that year. No one has ever tried to climb this mountain again since Joe and Simon's fateful yet successful, technically successful climb in 1985. And that is the unbelievably nail-biting story of the survival of Joe Simpson and Simon Yates in the Peruvian Andes. Oh, no one's ever tried to climb it again. That tells you everything

right there since the 80s. It's it much in the same way that no, you know, no soccer team has ever tried to crash a plane and then survive for three months. Get out of the Andes, everybody. No, no, no, no, it's terrible. Holy shit. Yeah. Oh man, this lazy boy is so comfortable right now. Right, it's not warm. Even more so. Yeah, it's warm. My heater just kicked on it. But truly, if you haven't seen the documentary touching the void, this was nothing compared to these guys telling the story themselves. You just have to see them. And also, there's really amazing like the detail in which when Joe Simpson was basically trying to get back to camp and trying to force himself to keep going. There's a really funny part of it where he tells the story about getting this song

stuck in his head that was a total like early 90s song. You have to watch it, but it's really Chombo Wamba. Was it Chombo Wamba? Kind of. It was Boney. I want to say Boney Moroni, you know, would know is Dave Holmes. But you have to see it. You have to see it. And he basically just, he basically gets a delight style maddening almost like, you know, retro disco song stuck in his head as he's trying to climb. Which really helped distract it. Like being annoyed is a good fuel. Yes, that's right. Doing something. It's energy. It gets you going for sure. That was intense. Good job. Thank you. I'm going to cancel all my mountain climbing plans for the near future. I just did this because you wouldn't listen to me about the mountain climbing. And

I'm trying to give you examples of what could happen to you. I appreciate it. If you keep going to Mount Wilson the way you insist. You know what our fucking array this week should be? Jay Elias. Getting a writing job? Yeah. Oh, yes. Jay has worked with us. On our behalf. On our behalf. And it's been very hard for him to do all of those things with us for three years. I think it's more than that. I think so too. It felt like the very beginning of exactly right. Yes. And we would not be where we are today without him. He is an incredible person. We are so lucky to know him to have had him work with us. And he changed everything with exactly right. And we just are so proud of him. When I first interviewed him to be an assistant, he was the assistant of three

Disney executives. And I knew I was like, oh, then you're fine. If you can be three executive assistants at one time, then you can come and help us. Well, yeah, easy for me to say because I'm not the one that actually has to do it. But Jay went from being my assistant to basically being an executive assistant to running our calendars to then becoming the development coordinator. He basically just kept moving up. And he did it all. He did ads for us. He did all kinds of stuff. He basically did so many more jobs than his job. But all along, he wanted to be a TV writer. And he just got his first writing job. And so, Jay, we will miss you dearly. Thank you so much for everything you gave us. And oh, also, sorry, by the way, he just started doing my research

because he wanted to be a writer. And he's like, it'll be good practice for me. So and I've mentioned it many, many times when I've done my stories. But he was also my researcher. He really did it all. Yeah. And every single person I'd exactly right is like near and dear to our heart. And Jay, what a beautiful person. We're so lucky to know you and have you on our team. And God, he's off to make history. And we're so proud of him. Yeah, it's very exciting. And it's really cool to see someone get something like that because it's a hard thing to achieve in this town to get a writing job. So it's very cool. And he gets to do it now. And now we have to look after our own calendar. So onward, Jay, and thank you so much for your loyalty and

kindness. And I mean, the whole stressful thing with a smile, a beautiful smile. Yeah, he was a true pro. And thank you all for being true professional podcast listeners. You're good at it. Here's what I like about the way you do it. You just keep it's like once one's over, you'll listen to the next one, you don't give a shit. No, professionals, you'll binge or you'll listen week by week. But either way, you're here doing it here and there. That's right. You're reviewing your rating, you're subscribing, you're downloading, you're being a part of the conversation. We love it. Yeah, we love it. We couldn't do it without you. Thank you. Obviously. Yeah. And 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 on Instagram and Facebook at my favorite murder and Twitter at myfavemurder. Listen, follow and leave us a review on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget you can listen to new episodes one week early on Amazon Music or early and ad free by subscribing to Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Goodbye.