My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 329 - The Last Telephone Booth

Episode Date: June 2, 2022

This week, Georgia covers the murder of Lisa Kimmell and the Great Basin Serial Killer and Karen tells the story of Larry Ray, the "Sarah Lawrence dorm dad."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 Hartstark. Hi, that's Karen Gilgariff. And this is the podcast that you pressed the button for. If you're not looking for true crime slash a solid guaranteed 20 minutes of chit chat about nothing that you're interested in, if you hit the button about true crime, then you might want to go look for other buttons. Yeah. Did you butt dial this podcast? Hello. That's embarrassing. It's me, your Aunt Marie.

My dad butt dialed me last night and I could have sworn that didn't happen anymore, right? Or is it just that boomers still can't figure it out? I feel like, yeah, dads can do anything that isn't happening anymore. That's gonna figure out a way. That's the gift of dadding. My fear one time my dad butt dialed me and I didn't understand what the sound was. And then, and it was like just a bunch of weird sounds where I was like, oh no, I was like, stop listening to this. You don't know what it is. Yeah. Yeah. And then later on he goes, I think I accidentally called you while I was playing golf and I was like, thank God. Yeah. And you know, maybe he had like fallen and can't get up and was trying to get a hold of me, but he wasn't butt dialing me. He was

like, help me, but I can't talk. I can't talk. Instead I was like, oh no, I don't want to hear my dad on the toilet and just hung up on him. I should call him later and see if he's okay. Yeah. Just do a quick check and just see if anyone's on the floor in a way they don't want to be. Just swing butt. Did you see that? It was all over social media today that they removed the last telephone booth. It wasn't even a full booth, but the last public telephones off the New York City streets. No. Yeah. Seems like a long time coming, right? Now that no one has a landline, it kind of, that's what it made me think of. It's like that kind of telephoning is from the past now. Can you imagine picking up a thing that's been on the street for years and years and putting it

onto your face essentially? Just giving it a nice rub. Yeah. Like where someone else's millions of ears in various states of decay and mouths, putting your mouth near another person's whispers of a mouth have been. And all the things that go in and around mouths. It's pretty hilarious. Also, I wonder, I feel like I've seen it in movies where people unscrew the mouth part on a phone. I guess those public ones, they made it so you couldn't do that. That's only the ones at home where you can unscrew the bottom part and mess around with those wires. I think I'm thinking of the scene in Manhunter where the guy playing Hannibal Lecter and it's not our man. Anthony Hopkins, I think it's the dad from Succession. What's that, guys? I don't know,

Vince Lebsib and always Brent, Brad. Brian Cox. Brian Cox. Thanks, Steven. Steven, will you look it up and see if I'm wrong that Brian Cox played Hannibal Lecter in the movie Manhunter? He did. Yeah, he did. He knows. He knows. That's a good one. It's a real good one and there's one part where he asks to use the phone to talk to his lawyer and instead he takes a piece of the foil off of like a stick of gum also from the past and unscrews one of the caps on the phone and starts tapping stuff and basically gets an outside line. So he saves a quarter. This was, Manhunter was mostly about different ways you can save money in the 80s, coupons. Probably a dime at the time, even, too. A dime, actually, yes. With inflation. A call today is

$7, but minimum wage. I was talking to someone about being in a place with bad phone service and I'm like, yeah, maybe we should just get to put a landline in. And everyone's like, what? Who would you call to have them put in a landline? I don't know, man. Kids these days, they don't even... What if there's an emergency? Have you started the staircase thing? I have not. I will tell you why because I'm still in the mode of like, I want to be lifted up. I want something funny or whatever. And so I will tell you this. There's a series on Hulu, which was written by an Irish comedian who's, I think she's lived in lots of other places since that time named Ashling B. And it's called This

Way Up. And there's two seasons of it. It's her and Sharon Horgan, who was from the Rob Delaney series, Impossible. Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan. Stephen, will you look that up? He's so fast with Manhunter. So fast with it. Delaney show. Stephen, if I get up before you, you're in trouble. Catastrophe. Damn it. Stephen. I was just there. Well, that was a catastrophe. If you liked catastrophe starring Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan, who plays his wife, Sharon Horgan plays Ashling B's sister in this series, This Way Up. And it is so good. I really, because I love Sharon Horgan. So I was like, oh, this has got to be good because she's like the co-star of it. And she's a badass. And she's made great television for

so long. Ashling B has been on a bunch of stuff. I believe she started as a comic, but she's been on tons of stuff. It's basically it starts with her sister picking her up from being in rehab kind of like rehab, but like, but for mental issues. So she's not. And it is just one of the most delightful, hilarious, real and kind of beautiful TV series I've seen in a while. I love those. Those like one sibling is the troubled one in the family and the dynamics around it, those shows or like movies. Like what was that Anne Hathaway movie where she the one about the wedding, Rachel getting married where like she's the one like the outcast or the one to tiptoe around or the like black she I love those kinds of shows with that dynamic because

it's so real. So real. But this one is like the comedy version and the sister dynamic between the two is so real and so fucking funny. Like it's just so it's so good. It's a really good show. All right, but I bet it doesn't have what the staircase has, which is the most awkward ass eating scene I've ever seen in my life. What for real? Yeah, between Colin Firth and Tony Collette, like two huge actors out of nowhere ass eating scene kitchen in the kitchen. Wow, inappropriate. It's really come into its own these days, you know, like it's been completely yes. Oh, I thought you meant the show. I was like, no, I've watched the show. Okay. I'm just saying just as a kind of cultural phenomenon, we've really we've really gone from the highly repressed even 2000s to today

where it's just like slap it up there on Netflix. Everyone's ready. No warning at all. That's crazy and hilarious. Yeah, but I still stand by it. It's a fucking great show. Let's see. The other thing I've been watching is gaslit on Amazon Prime, which is oh, it's about the Watergate scandal. And it stars Julia Roberts, who's amazing in it, and Sean Penn, who's literally unrecognizable. Really? And then a cast of people, Dan Stevens from Downton Abbey, and Betty Gilpin, who's so good. She's great. Just everyone, like it's a series of actors you love and every time somebody else, because it's like the Watergate. Martha Kelly plays the president secretary and it's so funny. Oh, I love her. It's so funny. She has the funniest hair and the way she talks is like

she's it's just so delightful. She's really good. I was I had to DM her when I saw it because I was like that was so funny and out of the blue. She's on an episode, a couple episodes of hacks. And the moment you see her, you know, of course she plays the HR boring person. And the minute you see her, you know, you're going to be fucking delighted by her acting skills. She is so funny. She really is. We have Zach Galifianakis to thank for the discovery and super stardom of Martha Kelly. Wow. Thanks, Zach. It's really good. If you asked me, do you want to watch a show about Watergate? I'd be like pass, hard, Pasadena. It is really funny. It's so fascinating. And every person, there's just like person after person, you're like, I love them. They're hilarious. Oh my god. I can't

believe that person's in it. Oh my god. This person, Pat Noswald, Adam Ray, like all these people where I'm like, how is this? Oh my god, this is the best cast of all time. I love it. So good. Let's see. Oh, I am reading something. It's called The High Desert. It's a graphic novel by my friend James Spooner. And it's about basically his like formative years. He is a punk, but he's living in like the California desert suburbia, you know, and dealing with all of that. So it's just like this really cool coming of age story about him and how he's like found himself. And he later created Afropunk, which is like a really cool documentary and movement. And he's just like a really talented person. And I love a good graphic novel. So I highly recommend it. It's called The

High Desert. Nice. Should we move it on along to our exactly right highlights? This is the first episode where we've got to talk about our new show on exactly right. That's right. Which I'm really excited about. It's very exciting. So as you heard in the trailer that we put up in last week's episode, our newest show, Adulting with Michelle Bouteau and Jordan Carlos comes out on Wednesday, June 8th on my birthday. It's special. And it's just going to be an amazing podcast. So excited. Everybody heard Michelle Bouteau. She was one of our most talked about guests when we did our celebrity hometowns. She actually did this podcast with Jordan Carlos a while ago. And then they wanted to bring it back because they had such a good time doing it. But it was like,

you know, five years ago, maybe or something. So they decided to bring it back and they decided to bring it back on exactly right. We're so honored to have Michelle and Jordan on the network. Absolutely. So funny. So excited. We just got the first episode and it's going to be real good. This is going to be a banger. It's going to be the hit of the summer podcast, I feel like. Everyone's summer. Is that a thing? Summer podcast, like summer songs, you know? Absolutely. It's going to be the Lizzo of summer. It's really, because it's an advice show, but then also just their two hilarious comics that are fun to listen to, talk. And they're talking to great people. They get great guests. It's going to be really good.

So please subscribe to Adulting wherever you listen to podcasts. If you do it now, even though it hasn't started yet, it's really helpful to them and we really appreciate it. Please and thank you. Also this week is the season finale of Tenfold More Wicked Season 6. The season is called The Echo of Murder. It covers the murder of Dorothy Simons on the Texas coast in 1931. If you haven't listened to it now, you can binge all six episodes. Then also on this podcast, we'll kill you. This week, they're covering snake bites. Freaking rad topic that Vince will cry if he hears one second of, but what a cool outfit. Can you actually suck the venom out of your friend's leg if they get bitten on a hike?

Can you? Yeah. Perhaps I'll let you know. I just made that question up. I haven't heard the episode yet. Sorry. But I mean, this is the first thing I think of is, I feel like that is such a universal fear getting bitten by a snake. Oh my God. You know what it's like? It's because they're like a surprise snake. You know what I mean? Like it's out of nowhere. Like a surprise spider. I can deal with a spider that I can see across the room, but spiders aren't like that. And neither are snakes. You look to your right and suddenly a snake is there. Camouflage, I guess is what I'm saying. That's right. Yep. In the wild.

They're very good at just blending in and then suddenly someone's and also just that idea of, I just would panic so bad. Even if they're like, people are like, it's a garter snake. Don't worry. It's like a snake's a snake. Yeah. We have brand new. This might be luminol mugs and tumblers in the MFM store. You might want to look at those if that's the kind of thing you like to drink out of. Sure. And that's at my favorite murder.com. Shit, man. Is that it? Yeah. We're clipping along. We really are. Yeah. Let me tell you how I met your hairdresser yesterday, by the way. Oh yeah? Yeah. What's his name? Brian. Yeah. I met him at brunch. He was like, are you Georgia? I do Karen's hair.

It's like, hi. He was lovely. I love him. He's the best. He and his friends were being so funny. I was just listening to them talk the whole time. And then he just came over to the table. No, he like yelled from across the courtyard. There was like nobody there. That's hilarious. Yeah. I mean, they had an open bottle of champagne. You know what I mean? Yeah. Oh no, he's great. He's really, really funny. I like him. And he cuts a good head of hair. Your hair looks great. Thanks so much. What else? Well, also, I have gotten my dog Blossom to come on command even from a distance. Oh, that outside and everything? That's the hardest one, right? Yeah. From a distance. And I just have to whistle one time. Which I've never, that has

kind of nothing to do with me. I think it's her aptitude because I've had two dogs for years who literally, Frank might as well figure out a way to flip me off when I call him. He is, he absolutely starts walking the other direction. He's such an asshole. So it's not like I did anything. It's just that she's kind of like a listener. And I really love her for that. Have you done the DNA test yet for her? We got to get you one of those. No. I want to know what kind of dog she is. She's a hero dog. That's her breed. She's a hero, a true hero. And when, if she hears, I can't remember what we're talking about, but we were sitting at the table over there and then somebody said her name and her ear, she was laying down, but then her ear just goes

up the one ear. She's just like a cartoon. It's really funny. Cute. Except for, I will say this. Sometimes when she gets excited and I'm bending down to time I choose, she jumps up and like basically nips at my face. And I'm like, you cannot do that. But she's doing it like almost to be like, Hey, come on. And it's not, but it's like she comes like really close to my face. No. And I have to like yell at her and she just kind of smiles and wags her tail, but it's not like she's not being vicious or anything. I think she thinks it's a good, a good way to really get my focused attention, which is true. At least it's a dog and not a boyfriend that does that. You know what? Way to find the silver lining in that one. At least I don't have an abusive

boyfriend. Yes. We did it. Oh, we overdid it. I think you're first this week. I think I am. 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 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. Okay, so today I'm going to talk about the 1988 murder of Lisa Kimmel, also known as the Little Miss Murders and the potential Great Basin serial killer. The sources used in today's episodes are

a Strange Outdoors article, a Wyoming public media article by Sarah Hosseini, four Casper Star Tribune articles, one by Ellen Gerst, one by Victoria Avis, Greg Tuttle, and another by Tara Westerker, an Investigation Discovery article, two Billings Gazette articles by Greg Tuttle and Chris Casey, three staff articles by ABC Denver, a Ranker article by Rachel Sourbury, and a Runner's World article by John Billman. And these stories have also been shown on Unsolved Mysteries and the show disappeared. So I'm going to start with Lisa Kimmel. She's the eldest of three daughters born to her parents, Ronald and Sheila, July 18, 1969 in Covington, Tennessee. And as a child, Lisa's nickname Little Miss by her grandmother and the name sticks and

it becomes her nickname. By 1972, the Kimmels moved to Billings, Montana, where Lisa grows up. And those who know Lisa, Describer is a fun, outgoing person, and she also loves collecting teddy bears, but she's also driven and independent. And Lisa's mom works in a senior management role at Arby's based in Denver. And so Lisa at 14 gets her first part time job at the Arby's in Billings. And when she graduates from high school in 1987, she decides to stay working at Arby's and she takes a manager's role in the Aurora, Colorado location, which means she commutes between Billings and Denver with her mom. So the women drive up together during the week and live there and then travel back to Billings on the weekends, which they both love because it

means they get to spend a lot of time in the car together. So Lisa works really hard and she saves enough money to buy her own car. It's a brand new black Honda CRX and she gets the personalized license plate Little Miss. On the weekend of March 25, 1988, instead of driving home with her mom, Lisa, who's now 18, instead goes to Cody, Wyoming to see her boyfriend Ed. And the plan is for her to leave from Cody to Billings the day after for the Easter weekend. And she's going to bring Ed, who her parents haven't met yet. It's kind of a new relationship. She's really excited to introduce him to her family. So she's never driven to Cody before on her own, but the drive is a seven and a half hour drive. So, you know, she thinks, you know,

she can make it. No big deal. Yeah. That's long though. It's a long drive. And I guess, you know, from what everyone says, that drive is like boring as shit and desolate and just like nothing. So at around 9 0 8 that evening, after Lisa has been driving like five or six hours, a Wyoming highway patrol stops Lisa east of Casper and she gets a speeding ticket. And this is so weird. I don't think I hope they don't do this anymore, but it's called an on the spot ticket, which means when you're from out of state, you have to pay the ticket right then and there. It's very odd. It has nothing to do with it, but like they make her go to an ATM to get money. And it's just, oh, that's weird. Weird and not safe. And I hope it's not a thing anymore.

Eventually the highway patrol lets her go. And after this, Lisa disappears. The next day, the Kimmels receive a phone call from Lisa's boss saying he hadn't heard from her. She had never arrived to her boyfriend's house also. And so everyone worries that maybe she ran into car trouble somewhere, like remote or worse, she'd been hurt in a car crash. They contact the police, but Montana law at the time, of course, specifies a 72 hour waiting period has to be in place before someone can be classified as missing. Just so absurd. Like what if she was out in the middle of nowhere with her car broken down, having gotten lost or something? I mean, we always talk about that waiting period. Yeah. It's also 72 hours. Is that standard? I thought it was shorter than that.

I don't know. I think it just depends on where you're at 24, 48, 72. 72 is three fucking days, like the amount of shit that can happen. Three days when they say the first 48 is the most important. That seems like that should get standardized to- I think it is. I mean, this is the 80s. And she's 18, which like it's technically an adult, but we know 18 year olds are still fucking children, essentially. Well, and also just if you're saying it's like a long desolate drive, it's like what can't you just send people out right away? Just to check it out. Well, what happens is the Kimmels obviously are frantic. They fucking charter a plane immediately to do a flyover of the route. They also drive the route that she had taken looking for her car. They print flyers and

distribute to all over where she might have gone through. People report seeing her in her car, but none of them are confirmed sightings. A week goes by with no word from Lisa and no sign of her or her car. And then on April 2nd, eight days after Lisa had been last seen, two men are fishing at the North Platte River near Casper, Wyoming. And floating in the water, they find the body of a young woman. She's only wearing underwear and socks and it's confirmed that the body is Lisa's. And then on the nearby old government bridge, the bridge that went over the river, investigators find blood smears, which are later matched to Lisa. Lisa's autopsy finds she's been dead for around 36 hours or more, although she could have died three to seven days prior. But either way,

it means she'd been kept alive for some amount of time after disappearing. It's difficult to determine exactly when she died because the water's super cold, but the medical examiner determines that Lisa's died of both internal and external bleeding, secondary to six stab wounds to her chest and abdomen. But just before she'd been stabbed, she'd been struck in the head with a blunt object using lethal force. So she would have been unconscious when she was stabbed. It's at least a slight consolation. Like the parents would know that she didn't suffer. Right. It's those little things that you need to grasp onto. Right. It's also determined that Lisa had been killed on the bridge before the killer threw her body

into the river. Seaman is found and a rape kit is taken, but unable to be tested because of limitations of forensic testing at the time. And her vehicle remains missing. The Kimmels, of course, are devastated. Investigators follow every lead they can to find out who killed their daughter, but there's not much progress and there's little to go on. Six months after Lisa's murder, a cryptic handwritten note is found on her headstone, which reads, Dear Lisa, there aren't words to say how much you're missed. The pain never leaves. It's so hard without you. You'll always be alive in me. Your death is my painful loss, but heaven's sweet gain. Love always. And then it was signed Stringfellow Hawk, which is a pseudonym from a character

on the TV show Airwolf. Did you watch that? It was for boys. But I do remember the guy that was the star of it. It was just basically about a guy that flew a helicopter. Right. Jan Michael Vincent. Jan Michael Vincent from the 80s. Good time. Heartthrob. But the pilot in it is like withdrawn. He lives in a remote cabin. And he flies the secret military helicopter searching for his missing brother. So clearly there's some kind of egotistical sort of thing going on. Yeah, whoever wrote it. A year after the murder, Lisa's case, including, and I think especially her car with its distinctive license plates, is featured on Unsolved Mysteries, hoping someone would have recognized that plate, you know, but there's no breakthroughs. And Lisa's case goes cold.

Okay. Cut to 14 years later. Still no answers. I know. It's mid 2002. And her case, along with a bunch of other cold cases, they're routinely reviewed by cold case detectives to see if any advances have been made enough for, you know, for some kind of breakthrough. So investigators test the semen originally recovered, and they run it through the national DNA database. And there is a match, which is so, I feel like so rare with these cases these days. Yeah, after that long. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. And then it being that old. Yeah. I mean, what a relief. The DNA belongs to 57 year old Dale Wayne Eaton of Manita, Wyoming. I think a very rural place. At the time, Dale is in prison in Colorado, doing three years for being a felon in possession of a firearm. And

investigators look into the background of this man whose DNA matches that found with Lisa. So just a quick little, some info on him. He's born February 10th, 1945, second oldest of eight children. You know, it's this typical story of they move around frequently. They live in poverty. They struggle financially. Father's abusive, drinks heavily. And Dale shows signs of learning disabilities, doesn't have a lot of friends. When he's 17, his mother develops what's suspected to be schizophrenia. Dale becomes a welder. And around 1986, when he was a little older, his marriage falls apart. His wife leaves and takes the kids. And Dale's gifted some land in Manita, Wyoming by his cousin. And so the property is around 75 miles from Casper.

And Dale creates what he calls his hideout. So he basically lives on this huge rural property in a school bus. There's no running water. There's no toilet. There's no any of this stuff. He lives in squalor. And so he's living this isolated life in poverty. And so that's around in 1988, around that he's living there when Lisa disappears, but no one suspects him of that. Nine years later in 1997, now 52 year old Dale is arrested for kidnapping. Okay, listen to this fucking story. This family's car breaks down on the road. Then Dale shows up, asks if they need help, they get into Dale's van. And the wife, her name was Shannon, he tells Shannon to drive. And then he fucking pulls out a shotgun and points it at Shannon. Her husband is like in the back

with the baby. And instead of driving where Dale told them to, she accelerates and turns in a tight circle. The husband Scott grabs the baby and jumps out of the car while it's fucking, it's fucking, what's it called? Turning Tokyo drifting right there. Oh yeah. So then the husband Scott grabs Dale and hits him over the head with, he grabs his own rifle, hits him over the head with the rifle. And meanwhile, Dale's trying to stab the wife who's in the car driving, get a hold of the knife and stab Dale with his own knife. Oh shit. These motherfucking badasses, she'd had a baby five months earlier. They have a baby with them and they fucking take both of his weapons and fight him off with it. Good. I mean, unbelievable. God damn. So scary. Also, someone pulling a shotgun

in a car is so wildly scary. Oh my God. Yeah. I think that they got away unscathed and were able to injure him. So he got caught is like, just, it's a movie. It's above and beyond. Yeah. Unfortunately, he's only given a short prison sentence for this offense, which is the 80s again. Yeah. And then pretty quickly moved into a halfway house because of prison overcrowding. And he eventually takes off and breaks his parole, but he's recaptured in Shoshone National Forest. And since he has a gun on him, it's a violation of his parole. So he goes back to prison. And this time when he goes back, he's required to provide a DNA sample. So if these couple things hadn't happened, his DNA would not have been in the system. So it's pretty remarkable. Yeah. So by this stage,

his mental health diagnosis includes explosive disorder, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder. And he's also diagnosed as having moderate to severe brain damage. So back to 2002, and the DNA from Lisa is matched via CODIS to Dale Eaton. Detectives look into his movements back in 1988 and soon receive a tip from one of Dale's former neighbors over in Monetta. And the neighbor tells investigators that around the time Lisa's murdered, Dale is seen digging a large hole in his property. It's so crazy to me. And I think this is what grabbed my attention, this headline. He had buried her entire car in his backyard, including that little miss license plate. Wow. Who buries entire cars? People that live way the fuck out in the country that are trying

to hide shit. I mean. So they fucking get a warrant. They excavate the property and they find the car. Oh, wild. Can you imagine like, how did they find it? And then digging and fucking it's right there. Like that's got has to be these detectives, like biggest win. Yes. Well, and it feels like that's the kind of thing. It's hard to get out of it. If it's your property, it's out in the middle of nowhere, and there's a buried car in it. It's like very difficult to try to say someone else could have done it or, you know, like without your knowledge. And I feel like them finding that little miss, you know, personalized license plate. Some listeners wrote in about this story because it's their hometown. And I guess

at this time when she went missing, it became this thing that you can't in this area. No one has personalized license plates anymore because they thought that it might have had something to do with her disappearing. Like maybe, you know, it's this cute license plate. And so maybe a, you know, predator targeted her. So like no one got personalized license plates anymore. Yeah. The logic of that makes sense to me. Yeah. Why did she get picked if this was part of a reason? Right. Don't open up that door. Right. And like we need a reason. So we feel safer. And let's just have it be this, which is right. Yeah. And then also Dale's handwriting matches that of the note left on Lisa's grave 13 years earlier. So Dale Eden's charged with the first

degree murder of Lisa, along with aggravated kidnapping, aggravated robbery, and first and second degree sexual assault. So investigators kind of put the puzzle pieces together and they determined that on the night of Lisa's disappearance, she most likely pulled over into a remote rest area in Waltman, Wyoming to use the bathroom. And she's kidnapped by Dale, who's known to use this rest stop to take showers. He takes Lisa back to his secluded property, holds her captive for several days, repeatedly rapes her before taking her to the bridge and killing her and throwing her body over the bridge into the river. Disgusting. I know. And then so concerned about her vehicle being traced to him, he buries it on his property. So Dale's found guilty in all charges

on March 20th, 2004. And he sentenced to death with his execution scheduled for early 2010. Then Lisa's family files a wrongful death lawsuit against him, and they win and the court awards them this property where their daughter had been killed. And so I know on what would have been Lisa's 36th birthday in 2005, the Kimmels have the buildings on the former property burnt to the ground. Wow. Now it's just empty. Well, and I think it's just like significant thing for them, more of the symbolic thing for them, you know, right? Yeah. But then four years later in December 2009, a state of execution is granted for Dale Eaton. And then basically, you know, all these legal things. And then in 2021, he is removed from death row when the state of Wyoming decides

not to reinstate the death penalty. And he's actually the last person on death row in Wyoming. He's ordered to spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole. So this isn't the end, though, of questions about Dale Eaton's criminal activities. Investigators, of course, wonder with such a brutal murder if he's responsible for committing other similar unsolved killings, which take place before and after Lisa's murder. So from the 1970s to the late 1990s, a predator is targeting young women across Wyoming, Nevada, Idaho, and Utah. And these killings become known as the Great Basin Murders, which for some reason is the creepiest name to me. It's a remote area, which in and I think in and of itself, and especially the idea

that Lisa was like on a road trip by herself, which we've done plenty of times driving to like meet a boyfriend driving to go home or whatever. And you're like, I'm fine. I'm a young independent woman. And then she is just taken and murdered. And so yeah, the idea that then just in this desolate area that there's somebody going around doing that at will is bone chilling. It's terrifying. Yeah. The murders occur between the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada, which is why they're called that. And then during this period, at least nine women between the ages of 18 and 35 are killed by what investigators believe may be one or two killers operating together possibly. At least four of the victims still haven't been identified. They're all raped,

strangled, shot and stabbed. And many are found naked. And the four years prior to Lisa's murder, two young women are murdered in the Casper area in the same area. In 1982, a 21 year old woman is found naked and strangled along the I-25 north of Casper. And that woman hasn't been identified. In August, the same year, the body of 20 year old Belinda May Grantham is found in the North Platte River in Glen Rock, Wyoming. Belinda is last seen at the Natrona County Fair in Casper. And when she's found, she has a rope tied around her neck, which has been weighted to a rock and she's been strangled. In September, 1982, a rancher finds the body of 19 year old Naomi Lee Kidder in Natrona County, Wyoming. She had disappeared from Buffalo, Wyoming three months

earlier and she'd been strangled to death, but she's not identified until March 1993. In the spring of 1983, the body of 23 year old Janelle Johnson is found south of Shoshone on a county road. She's been missing for two weeks after hitchhiking back to Riverton from Denver. And then on November 16, 1993, a motorist stopping for a break on the I-80 near Shaftburg, Nevada, finds the badly beaten naked body of a young woman. She's thought to be in her mid to late 20s and she'd been shot twice in the chest and back and sadly, she remains unidentified, but she's known as the Shafter Jane Doe. In mid August, 1997, the naked body of 18 year old Tanya Teske is found beside US Highway 20 in Eastern Idaho and she had been last seen on August 13th near a truck stop

in Belgrade, Montana and has previously hitchhiked rides with long haul truckers. Most of the victim's bodies are found out in the open. Some are posed on their backs in a crucifixion pose and some have been exposed to the elements for weeks. So it's just these serial murders happening that could be, have done by, you know, many different men, but it's possible there's one serial killer. Many believe Dale Eaton is the great bass and serial killer. When he's arrested in 2002 for Lisa Kimmel's murder, police find women's clothing, purses and newspaper reports about other murdered women inside his trailer, which is so fucking creepy. Investigators go back through their records and they find that in 1997, so following the July 24th disappearance of a 24 year old woman named Amy

Roe Bechtel, who had disappeared from Lander, Wyoming while jogging along a remote road in Fremont County. When Amy disappeared and it was this big thing, she was this, you know, lovely, lovely, well-known, like athletic woman in this small town and she went for a run one day, you know, left her car in the normal parking lot with all her to-do lists and everything in it and then just disappeared. And when she disappeared, one of Dale Eaton's brothers contacted local police to say that Dale may have been involved and was in that area when Amy went missing. So he fucking ratted his brother out and what did they do? Detectives completely ignore this information because they are hell-bent on pinning Amy's disappearance on her husband Steve. Mainly because

after four interviews, he got a lawyer because he didn't, you know, obviously the husband's a suspect. He can tell that they're zeroing in on him. He gets a lawyer and they refuse to do a polygraph test. So that to them means he's guilty. Yeah. Yeah. If they had followed up on this, maybe the murders that happened after Amy's might not have happened. Amy's body has still never been found. After Dale's arrest in 1998 for kidnapping, that crazy kidnapping, the Great Basin killings stop. An FBI profiler who examines Lisa's case says Dale's behavior is totally consistent with that of a serial killer. He disposes of her body in public places, likely keeps the Honda as a trophy. Many people suspect there could be more victims of the Great Basin murders.

So for Lisa Kimmel's family, at least Dale is in prison where they know he should be. In March of 2022, when Dale is resentenced, Lisa's sisters and mother deliver an emotional victim impact statement. They say, quote, our pain has spanned the minutes, the hours, the days, the weeks. You not only took Lisa's life away, you took part of our lives away. We have had to experience this piece of our lives over and over again. Here we are again. And it just feels like there has been no justice because he kept trying to appeal his conviction, then trying to appeal the death penalty. These resentencing happening all the time. So every time it just revictimizes them. Yeah. And so even though the death penalty no longer applies, Lisa's mom, Sheila says that the

family feels they have a sense of finality, saying, quote, this just closes another chapter of a long book. Hopefully this is the last chapter. And that is the murder of Lisa Kimmel and also the Great Basin serial killer. Wow, I've never heard of the Great Basin serial killer. Yeah, there's not a lot of info on it out there because I think some people don't think they're connected. So there's not like one place where you can get all the info. Right, you know. When you hear those stories and it's a death that you can, like it's a situation you can relate to, you know, like it just makes it so much more personal. And you really think about it where it's just like, yeah, how many, I've driven to San Francisco from LA. Totally. 50 times.

And then a little at night, and then you have to peace. And there's no, there's no fucking gas stations for miles and miles. What do you do? And then, and then some predator is just there and it has this opportunity and takes it and it's just devastating. Yeah. And the little miss thing, I don't know, there's something about that that just like picture the girl in silence at the lambs driving around singing American girl and then pulls up. There's a real innocence to it. Totally. Yeah. And also kind of a real personality. Yeah. Where you, it's like you kind of know her. Yeah, it's sad. Yeah. Good job. Thank you. That was really compelling. But then it's also just like, God, serial killers, like in Wyoming,

where there's just nothing. It's like really, we really have them in every, every single state of the union. And we do. There's something about the seclusion of it that's so scary too, especially like living in LA or so used to this dense population. Like when it's super quiet out and I'm way more freaked out than and they can hear the freeway, you know? Yeah. Yeah. No, it's true. You got to keep the spirit of that couple with the baby in mind. Oh my God. Jesus. They fucking beat the shit out of him. It's almost like they have a couple of ESP where like she takes the hard left, sends them into a spin and he's like, we're going out the side door. Like they know. They planned

it before. Oh God. It's really another yet, you know, there's the good parts of these horrible stories. Yeah. Yeah. And they really like did save the day because that led to him having his DNA tested. You know, he wouldn't have maybe ever been caught and maybe would have kept killing. So yeah, it's really wild. Okay. So the story I'm about to tell you about, I have been waiting since the spring of 2019 to tell you because I read this article that was, it was on the website, the cut.com, which is from New York magazine. And the article is called The Stolen Kids of Sarah Lawrence. It's written by two writers Ezra Marcus and James D. Walsh. So I read it and I really

wanted to cover it, but there hadn't been a trial. And so, you know, it's not a good idea to be talking about everything being alleged when, you know, you can just wait a little while. But don't you hate that? You're like, if Georgia does it before me, though, I'm going to kill her. Like I have those stories where I'm like, now Hannah can take care of it. I'm like, Hannah, this is my story. If it can't do it right now, but if Karen fucking mentions it, tell her no. For real. I have another one of these coming up where like the trial, the trial just happened, but then like, I think it got pushed because of COVID. There's a lot of that kind of thing where just like, oh, I can't wait to do this one. But this one is so crazy. So this article is from

April of 2019. It is now, when you go to look at it, there's an update at the top that says on March 8, 2022, Larry Ray went on federal trial for sex trafficking, extortion, conspiracy, and a string of other crimes. On April 6, he was convicted on all counts. So I'm giving away the ending at the beginning. Authorities began investigating Ray in response to this article. Yes. So congratulations to Ezra Marcus and James D. Walsh. Their journalism actually got what I believe based on this, what I've read a true psychopath to be investigated and convicted. Amazing. So the sources for today's story are of course, and first and foremost, the stolen kids of Sarah Lawrence by Ezra Marcus and James D. Walsh from the cut. There's a New

York Times article by Andrea Salcedo. There's another New York Times article by Sharon Otterman. There is an NBC New York article, heavy.com, listicle by Janet Winikoff. There is an article from the New York Times by Colin Moynihan. There is people.com article by Greg Hanlon, Washington Post article by Shana Jacobs, New York Post article by Ben Feerhard, and a Yonkers Times article with no byline. And there's a ton more because now a million articles being written about it now that the case has actually been covered. This story is so unbelievable and so disturbing. And okay, so I'm just going to tell you about this chronologically. And because it's really, it's a very odd story. And there's a lot of pieces of it that don't make sense. And they

still don't make a ton of sense. So I'll just tell you about the people involved and we'll kind of just do, you know, we'll just do it that way together. Yeah, because I think if it were five years from now, I'd really be able to spin this yarn. But this is basically all based on this trial. And since the cut articles come out, obviously, there's been a bunch more stuff written about it. But it's not the kind of why of this story, which is the most fascinating part about it is not entirely there. But you can you start to get a sense of who this person is as the story goes. So Larry Ray is born Lawrence Greco in Bayridge, Brooklyn in 1959. He later takes his stepfather's last name of Ray. And there's not much known about his childhood or his early

adulthood. The only information that starts on him comes in 1981 when he's 22. He serves in the US Air Force for 19 days. After that, he works on Wall Street, even though he's never gone to college, but he's smart enough to make friends with powerful people around New York and New Jersey, like politicians, military officials, higher ups and law enforcement, the mafia, business owners. So in 1988, 29 year old Larry, he marries a woman named Teresa, they have their first child named Talia in 1989. And then he moves into what he calls business consulting. And he also is the co owner of a nightclub in Scotch Plains, New Jersey nightclub capital, you know, you love to go to Scotch Plains when you want to just go out on the town. Yes, please, can I have a party?

If you are from Scotch Plains, and you'd like to tell us about your town, please write to my favorite murder at gmail.com. That's right. We're all ears. In 2041 year old Larry is implicated in a high level case of securities fraud along with 18 other people. He pleads guilty to accepting a bribe. And in 2003, he sentenced to five years probation. The next year, his wife gives birth to the couple's second daughter, Eva. But by this time, their marriage is kind of on the rocks. And when Teresa files for divorce, Larry and their now 15 year old daughter, Talia, allege that Teresa is both physically and sexually abusive. When these allegations are proven to be unfounded because it's discovered Larry coached his daughter into making these

claims, Teresa is awarded full custody of the girls. When Larry refuses to turn them over after one of his court mandated visits, he spends six months in jail for contempt and interference with custody. In 2006, Larry's arrested for trapping his then girlfriend in their apartment, pinning her down and putting his hand over her nose and mouth. But before any further action can be taken against him, the complaint is withdrawn. So that brings us to 2009. So Talia, his daughter is now 20 years old. And she is enrolled as a freshman at the renowned private liberal arts college, Sarah Lawrence in Westchester County, New York. So just a little bit about Sarah Lawrence. It was founded in 1926 as a college for women. It's now coed college for women for

women typing and nail filing. They have around 1700 students. The educational model there is based on the one on one student faculty tutorials like they use at Oxford and Cambridge. It has a reputation for producing highly successful graduates in humanities, the performing arts, and in writing. One of their school slogans is, we're different. So are you. And another one is, I know you are, but what am I? That's not true. In March of 2010, near the end of Talia's freshman year, Larry's arrested and jailed over another child custody dispute. At this point, Talia has firmly taken her father's side. She believes he's done nothing wrong, that he's being unfairly punished by her mother and conspired against by corrupt politicians. So in the fall of 2010, Talia and

seven of her friends, they get into a lottery for on-campus housing. And they actually get one of the 11 co-op living units on campus. It's a two-story townhouse style dorm known as Slonam Woods. So this place was built in 1977. It's basically has eight single rooms, a common area bathroom, small kitchen. And Talia is kind of like the head, kind of the leader of her group of friends, because she's a year older than most of them. So the other students that go in to live in this house altogether are her boyfriend Santos, then some students named Daniel, Isabella, Claudia, Gabe, Max, and Juliana. So most of them are 18 or 19 years old. Talia's 20. And almost all of them are very introverted. They're very focused and serious about their studies. Isabella is one of

Talia's closest friends. She's there on a full academic scholarship. Claudia is intelligent and creative, although she's struggled with depression, as has Santos. And they're all, you know, they all get along for these reasons. You know, they're all very similar people, and they're all very close to their families. So they're basically just in this house enjoying college life as their sophomore year begins. Late in that September, Talia explains to her roommates that her dad's getting out of jail, and he needs a place to stay. And because she's talked him up so much, and she's gone on and on about him, they know that he's a big part of her life. So they're fine with when she asks if he can come and stay with them in the townhouse.

She tells the story about how he fought for custody of her and her sister against this abusive mother and how she's talked about all of his important friends and that he was in the CIA and all this stuff. So they know that she's, you know, she loves her father and she thinks he's great. So they really don't think much of what would otherwise be a very odd situation. I can't imagine it's the rules allow for something like that at the college. But I think because, even though they're dorms, because it's like, it's a house, almost, you know, like it's like a townhouse that they kind of have this space to themselves. So they're fine with it. They also assume it's temporary. So they're fine with it.

So when Larry gets there, he sleeps on an air mattress in Talia's room, but he soon becomes a constant presence in the common room. He ingratiates himself to the household. He does all the cleaning. He cooks for them. He cooks some steak dinners. He orders expensive takeout. He organizes movie nights. And he regales them with stories about how he worked as an international operative for the CIA. The other roommates find Larry charismatic and trustworthy. He basically begins to position himself as like this father figure. He's giving advice and becomes a shoulder to cry on when they go through tough stuff. So like Isabella had just gone through a breakup. So she confides in Larry and he comforts her and he gives her advice about

the relationships. And soon they all just come to trust him as a mentor and a role model. And so he starts to talk to them about a personal philosophy he's developed called quest for potential. Oh, dear. The cult enters the chat room. I mean, for real, I had an ex-boyfriend who was so funny. He was a lunatic, but he was so funny. And he would do that all the time. He pretended he has it. He would call it his system for success. And he'd be like, don't forget my system for success. He would talk about it all the time. And it was like a bit, but Larry's doing it for real. And he's doing it to people like, you know, these are kids that are in their late teens. They couldn't be more impressionable away from their families for the first time. Total high

pressure gigs, especially to have a full scholarship. You cannot get shitty grades. Yeah, every little thing seems impacts them greatly. He basically tells them he can teach them mind control techniques that he learned when he worked for the government. I think that that's part of the quest for potential controlling your mind. And he also is just telling them these big stories about how he controls and influences New York City politics. But then he also has crazy stories of talking about how certain famous politicians like tried to have him poisoned. There's a lot going on, as my friend Bradford says. He basically, Larry is a dominant psycho. He's come into a social situation. He's like, I'm going to tell five stories in a row and you

have to listen to every single one. But it's so funny that it's like, you're a dominant psycho and you're super convincing to 19 year olds. Like when we're 19, oh man, we are so sweet baby angels, like impressionable. Oh my God, you could have told me anything at 19 and I would have believed you. Yeah, except what? I don't know, that I could get a full scholarship at Sarah Lawrence. And I would have been right to not believe you. But also, I think about the kind of kids who would get a full scholarship to Sarah Lawrence. Yeah, yeah, a little naive. You spend a lot of time studying so you don't have as many big life experiences in high school as other burnouts like us did. Yes, they're getting picked up and dropped off everywhere. Right, extracurricular

activities. Yes, they're like high pressure, 4.0 hours. And now they've got, now they've got a guy who's ex CIA hanging out in the common area. And he's safe because he's your best friend's dad. Like that's not some stranger. Yes. So as this trust in Larry grows, these kids start confiding more and more about extremely personal and intimate matters with him. He's having these long, private conversations with them. And he's like letting them know that this is a form of therapy. He starts to kind of set himself up as a therapist down to the point where he convinces Claudia that she has schizophrenia. What? Yeah. And he then tells the rest of the house that she has schizophrenia. Oh dear. He's now getting into exploiting them. So he's tricked them into confiding in him.

And now he's going to use that against him. So he does it to all of them, exploiting the roommate's vulnerabilities and this trust that they now have put in him. We're still in the first couple months of him living in this house. It goes quick. And this is the thing, like part of the reason I find this story fascinating. This is the thing with people like this. And I don't know if he's a sociopath, if he's a psychopath, what the deal is, but the pattern of lying and the stories around what he does, the way the behavior just builds and builds. It seems to me, the untrained, unprofessional, that he's a psychopath. Yeah. Well, it reminds me of like a relationship where you're inundated by this person. Like if he didn't live with them and

they didn't see him every day, then he might not have such easy access to their, you know, psyche. But it's like in a relationship, like abuse of relationship, when you're just constantly telling the person you're right and making them rely on you, it's hard to get out of that cycle. And he's doing the love bombing thing here, where he's making sure they eat really well and they're having a great time and there's a lot of fun times and they're kind of, he's building this kind of false bond with everybody, then he's, which allows them to feel comfortable to talk to him the way that they can't talk to their parents about these private things and these worries and concerns. And then that's when he's got them.

He's basically made them roll over and lay on their back and he's now going to exploit that in a way that they don't even probably think is possible. They would never think a 50-year-old man would be dead. A dad. Someone's daddy. Yeah. So basically, he starts holding house meetings and family dinners where he explains to the students that they're broken and only he can help them heal. Yeah. And then he starts sleeping with Isabella. Oh no. She's 19. He's 50 years old. He's been in the house for like around two months. It starts to escalate. So just before winter break of 2010, Larry calls Isabella's family and tells her mother that she was sexually abused as a child by a family friend. And he explains that if she goes home for winter break,

she could be at risk of taking her own life. Oh my God. And then Larry says to this mother, you're the one that let this happen to her. Oh my God. So then Larry gets this apartment. It's a one bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. And he invites the kids to come and spend winter break with him in this apartment. So Isabella goes and of course Talia, Larry's daughter and her boyfriend Santos. And this apartment's owned by an old friend of Larry's. So Talia and Santos sleep in the living room. Isabella and Larry share the bedroom. So they all know that they're sleeping together. Yes. Larry runs the household like a controlling parent. He decides when they eat, how they spend their time, when they go to sleep. He tells Santos to stop taking

his antipsychotic medication. Oh no. And Santos is deeply troubled by the amount of Larry's influence. So he ends up breaking up with Talia near the end of winter break. Oh wow. But when school starts up again, all of the roommates go back to the townhouse on campus, including Larry and Santos. Oh shit. So they're all back in Slonam Woods and their world then begins to revolve around Larry and his influence just increases. So at this point, the roommate's parents are becoming concerned that Larry, a father, is still living on campus. Yeah. So when Claudia's parents speak to the college dean, he acknowledges they've gotten complaints about the fact that Larry's living on campus, but they say their hands are tied because parents have a right to visit their

children on campus so they don't do anything. So by the end of the school year in 2011, Larry moves back into that Manhattan apartment and he invites Talia, Isabella, Claudia and Santos to come and live there again rent-free. And at the same time, he begins to focus his attention on their other roommate, Daniel. So Daniel is just out of a long-term relationship. He's questioning his sexuality and he confides in Larry about this. They end up having a six-hour conversation at Starbucks. Daniel pours his heart out and basically says things to him he could never tell anybody and he truly trusts him and feels like he can because Larry isn't telling, he's just hearing him, accepting what he's saying, not lecturing him, not anything like that, just like

there for him. Then Larry starts telling Daniel about how he worked for the CIA and how he helped negotiate the end of the Kosovo war in 1999. Basically, at the end of the conversation, Daniel feels validated, he feels seen and heard, and he feels like he's talking to a very powerful man. So when he tells Larry he doesn't want to go home to New Jersey for the summer, Larry invites him to move into the apartment also. But this is when Larry's behavior goes from bizarre and controlling to downright sinister. He takes the bathroom door handles off the doors so no one has any real privacy. He continues his therapy sessions which are now so intense they're much more like an interrogation. In the fall of 2011, Daniel and Claudia go away, they go to England

for a semester abroad. That's when Santos introduces Larry to his older sisters. He has a 23-year-old sister named Elitza who's an undergrad at Columbia and he has a 29-year-old sister named Felicia who graduated from Harvard and has a medical degree from Columbia. They meet and then Felicia moves to LA to start her residency. But Larry starts calling her regularly and he eventually convinces Felicia that people are after her. What? I'm getting Keith Ranieri vibes from this guy. Yes. Maybe it's just because it's in New York, but... Keith Ranieri and also did you watch Bad Vegan? Yeah. They're real bad vegan vibes as well where you're kind of like, wait, what? Why? Yeah, I would never and it's like that you haven't been tested yet, you probably would.

Right. These very special, sparkly people who make it their business, it's what they do, is entrancing vulnerable people. So now Larry begins using overtly abusive measures to control the group including sleep deprivation, psychological and sexual humiliation, verbal abuse, physical violence, and of course, alienating and distancing from their families. And he also, of course, exploits anyone who has any kind of a mental health issue or vulnerability at all. And then he starts getting into making the roommates confess to things that they haven't done. Oh my God. This totally sounds like the vow. Yes. So he starts accusing them of breaking stuff around the house, doing stuff to him personally, and then he interrogates them and then he basically

like has them all keep a notebook of what they've done wrong. Oh my God. In 2012, because of the storyline that Larry has been feeding Felicia over the phone, she quits her residency, she moves back to New York and she moves into the apartment with everybody. Holy shit. Now they start sleeping together and Larry starts referring to Felicia and Isabella as his wives. Yeah. It's not good. So he's playing with power now because he's seeing how far he can go. He just got somebody to quit being a doctor. Totally. Totally. Purely by his like storytelling and whatever. Now he coerces Felicia to have sex with strangers in public places. What? Yes. It's control. This is all these people and they're weird. Like that's all they care about. Totally. He is starting to work

on her trying to convince her to become a sex worker. That's like the next thing because he wants the money. He wants to take that money. Yeah. By the end of this year where Felicia moves back in, she tries to take her own life. Oh my God. Now while that's happening, he's also accused Daniel who's come back from England. He accused Daniel of sabotaging his daughter Talia's application to Stanford Law School. So as a punishment, he subjects Daniel to this very extreme and very disturbing interrogation. He fashions a noose out of saran wrap and aluminum foil and puts it around Daniel's scrotum. What? And then yes. And then does this interrogation and if Daniel responds incorrectly to a question, he tightens the noose and is basically torturing him. Yes.

Kind of sick fucking mind comes up with something like that. Like sadistic. Like truly. Sadistic and has free reign. He has now a collection of followers. This is turned into a cult. It totally has. Oh. In the shortest amount of time. Like you think it takes years and years. And it's like if the situation is right, it doesn't take that long at all. So Daniel's parents are trying to connect with their son this whole time. They're worried about him. They're very worried about the strange loyalty he has to Larry, but they don't want to intervene because they don't want to be cut off entirely. Right. And Claudia's parents are in the same situation. Then Larry starts making the kids have sex with each other while he watches.

Oh, God. Yeah. And the physical abuse is escalating. He of course then exploits Daniel's previous disclosure about questioning his sexuality. And he makes Daniel put on a dress to go get the mail. And then everyone's laughing at him. Oh, humiliation. Yeah. Humiliation and degradation. And then it's really bad. He starts taking sexual photos of the kids. I keep saying the kids, but because they're only like at this point, they're 20. Yeah. They're so young. And he's doing stuff like it's sadomasochistic and it's psychosexual weird shit. So he's doing stuff making them do stuff and then taking pictures and then keeping the pictures for black male. Totally. And so by this point, Claudia's parents moved to New York. They can't get a hold of her.

She rarely contacts them. In early 2013, Daniel goes back to Sarah Lawrence for his final semester of his senior year. He's trying to get away from Larry after all of this abuse. He wants to get away from it. Yeah. But he's really scared that he's going to see him on campus. And he also doesn't know which one of the roommates have broken away or are still loyal. And he's really scared because such crazy things happened in that apartment that he now kind of doesn't know who to trust or what's going on. Larry, meanwhile, seems to have a bunch of money because he's buying the roommate's gifts that he's getting them shoes and clothes, taking out to expensive dinners. He always has cash on them. By 2013, Larry's manipulated his own daughter and Isabella into

participating in these crazy interrogation sessions against their friends. And then he's also extorting money from the roommates by grilling them for hours over alleged infractions, like damaging the apartment, stealing his personal belongings, harming his family or friends. And they're all made up. But of course, because they're so entranced by him, they start admitting to things that they never did. And he ends up extorting hundreds of thousands of dollars for these alleged damages from the kids. Yeah. So they keep the transgressions in their journals. They have to email him. He keeps copies of everything. And these kids don't have money of their own. So he makes them get it from their parents. He makes them open lines of

credit. He makes them ask other friends for money or sell their belongings. And he threatens them physically. He says, I'll dismember you if you don't do it or report you to the cops and take this. They're basically their diary of transgressions that they have admitted to on paper. He'll just give it to the cops. At one point, Santos tells his parents that if they don't give him money, he will take his own life. So Santos's dad tries to go to the apartment to see what the hell is going on and who this guy is. Larry won't let them in. Santos eventually robs his parents' business and pays Larry $100,000. Holy shit. So they have to sell their house to cover these costs. They go to the NYPD three different times to report Larry, but the police tell them because

their son is an adult, there's nothing that they can do. That this is him choosing to do this. Right. Or they could probably press charges against their son for stealing, but then why would they want to do that? They can't prove that Larry is truly the one responsible. Now it escalates where Larry starts accusing them of poisoning him with ricin. And he gets them to falsely admit that. So if anyone denies these accusations, they're punished by the interrogation. Sometimes they last hours and they're all videotaped. He mind fucks them. He keeps urging Santos to jump out a window. Oh my God. It's so crazy. Okay. So by the spring of 2013, Daniel Talia and Isabella all graduate. Santos does not graduate from Sarah Lawrence. He drops out of college and is now

spending all his time with Larry. So this is how you know it's a true cult situation because the abuse is escalating. It's really bad. They can't get away from him. They can't bring themselves to leave the situation. So in May of 2013, Larry, Claudia, Isabella, Santos and Nalitza, they go to Pinehurst in North Carolina because Larry's stepfather Gordon has a property there and they're going to go down there and renovate it. So basically over the next couple months, Larry forces them to do backbreaking, unpaid work on this property. They landscape, they install an irrigation system. He makes them get up at three and four in the morning to do some of this work. They'll do anything he says. And he puts a lock on the refrigerator so no one can eat. He makes

them sleep outside. And despite all this, he accuses them of doing bad work and damaging the property. And he threatens to report them to the police for that. So they stay there until December of that year. By the time they return to New York, Claudia's lost 40 pounds. They're all breaking down. And I believe Talia, his daughter, ends up staying in North Carolina and staying on that property. So Claudia graduates a semester late in the winter of 2013. And Larry goes to her commencement ceremony, but she makes it clear that her parents aren't welcome. This is how long this is going on, three years of college and now she's graduating and she makes her parents feel like they shouldn't be there.

Yeah. She, after graduation, enrolls in Columbia and gets part-time work at a data analytics firm. And she actually starts to talk to her parents again. And sometimes she's at their apartment, most of the time she's at Larry's. Around the same time, Daniel stumbles on a website that bullet points the characteristics of a cult. That's when he realizes that that's what Larry is doing to all of them. Does he call his dad? He's in a cult. No, I think, no, I think, no, he hasn't seen any of the merch. So around 2014, Larry tells Claudia that she owes him some astronomical amount of money because of what she did at the Pinehurst property and for poisoning him. So to repay him, she has to become a sex worker. And this is sex

trafficking. He forces her into it. So they charge and Isabella is kind of also forced or has been coerced into being the madam in this situation. So she coordinates Claudia's bookings. They're priced at $2,000 an hour. Claudia has to record the encounters with the clients as quote unquote proof for Larry. That's so wild to take this girl who's going to college, yeah, sex trafficker like that. And she's accepting it because she's not going to question it. She's been brainwashed by this person. She's fully been brainwashed. And she's being threatened constantly. Right. Right. He takes the beginnings of the sensitive information he has about them, uses it as blackmail and then just like just keeps on doing that and building it. Yeah.

Yeah. And so at this point, the sexual encounters that she has with clients, he's recording and he's using them as blackmail. Right. And also, of course, she has to give him all of her earnings. Right. So Claudia attempts to take her own life in 2014. She's rushed to Mount Sinai hospital. Her parents go there, like to be by her side. She will talk to Larry. She won't talk to her parents. Oh, it's so sad. It continues through 2015. All the humiliation stuff escalates, all the sex trafficking. It's insane. There's just detail after detail that are disgusting and bizarre. It's just a person who has absolute power to make people do anything he wants. Yeah. So basically, Santos realizes that he has to escape. So he moves into a homeless shelter

to get away. Wow. Around that same time, the guy that owns the apartment evicts Larry because he's really disturbed by Larry's treatment of the kids that are still living in the apartment and by all the modifications he's made to the apartment without this guy's permission. Larry responds by countersuing his friend who owned the apartment. And he also lists Felicia, Isabella, and Talia as co-plaintiffs on the lawsuit. So this is a guy that's been letting them live their rent free. Yeah. And he's now countersuing this guy. Oh my God. Larry, Isabella, and Felicia move into a house in Piscataway, New Jersey that's owned by a guy Larry met in prison. Talia is down in North Carolina with her relative. But Claudia's parents now go to the police. Again,

they're told because she's an adult, there's nothing they can do. But in 2017, they conduct a wellness check on Claudia. When that's over, they determine she's acting of her own free will. So in October 2018, Claudia finally escapes Larry, but it's after a final horrific episode of abuse. On October 16th, he decides to punish Claudia for getting too close to a client that he's making her have sex with. So he strips her naked, ties her to a chair, chokes her with a leash, puts a plastic bag over her head and almost suffocates her numerous times. Oh my God. He cuts her hair off. Isabella is recording the whole thing on video. The next day, Claudia flees New York with the help of her former employer and finally reconnects with her parents.

Thank God. Oh my God. So in the end, Larry has trafficked Claudia for four years. She saw three to five clients a day, seven days a week, and he has made $2.5 million off of her. Holy fucking shit. Yeah. And he's found different ways to like launder that money. And it's so beyond. Make a mastermind. He's like a mastermind. Yeah. So this is, it's 2019. And this is around the time that the two reporters from New York Magazine hear about this story and they start looking into it. So they track down Santos and they, they try to talk to him about the story. So he calls Larry to talk about the article getting read and soon he falls back under Larry's spell. No. Yes. Pretty soon he's withdrawn all the money in his bank account and given it to Larry.

Wow. Wow. So now Felicia and Isabella's parents, they visit this house in New Jersey to try to rescue their daughters. The girls won't leave. They're entirely brainwashed. They're fully in this cult. So in February 2020, Larry's arrested at home in New Jersey. So it's only now that the full scale of the sexual and psychological manipulation and physical abuse against this group one time just innocent students and roommates emerges. Larry's charged by Manhattan prosecutors with conspiracy, extortion, sex trafficking, forced labor, racketeering conspiracy, violating the Travel Act for counts of tax evasion and money laundering. Bail is denied. In January of 2021, Isabella is indicted as a co-conspirator. She's described by prosecutors as Larry's trusted

lieutenant. She's charged with extortion conspiracy, sex trafficking conspiracy, racketeering conspiracy, money laundering, and she's released on $100,000 bail. She pleads not guilty and she's going to go to trial this summer. But I will remind you, Isabella was an innocent girl in college before this man moved into her dorm and into her space and exploited every possible vulnerability that she had. Yeah. I mean, it just makes you wonder, at what point are you a consenting adult who's doing this on your own free will? There's no way to really measure that. So, right. But based on evidence of what he is capable of, one can conclude that she's also been manipulated. Yes. Well, I mean, it's just that thing of would she have done these things

if he hadn't moved into her space? Right. I don't, I would say no. I mean, it's because, and I think it really goes to, this is a person Larry Ray knew how to brainwash people. Clearly, he knew. It's by the book. Yeah. The steps he took. So, Larry's trial begins on March 10, 2022. So, it's a couple months ago. This is hot off the presses. He pleads not guilty to all charges. On day four, the court starts late because Larry has a seizure. So, it gets canceled for the next two days. Then on March 22nd, he has another seizure and he has taken away an ambulance. So, trials canceled again. When the proceedings resume, some of the witnesses include the men who paid to have sex with Claudia while she was being trafficked. Larry never goes on the stand. During

the proceedings, the judge finds sufficient evidence to name his daughter Talia as a co-conspirator as well. I find it very interesting that Talia stayed behind and lived in North Carolina. Yeah. Somehow she got broken out of that in some way. Yeah. She convinced him to trust her to get out. Right. Get out. Yeah. And also, I think she might be in this scenario the first victim. Right. Of course. Because those stories where he is basically brainwashing her to testify against her own mother. Totally. Obviously, she was probably first and worst in terms of that. Absolutely. Just based on what we know from the story. April 6th, 2022, the jury takes less than a day to deliberate and 62-year-old Larry Ray is convicted on all counts.

US Attorney Damon Williams says of the verdict, 12 years ago, Larry Ray moved into his daughter's dorm room at Sarah Lawrence College. When he got there, he met a group of friends who had their whole lives ahead of them. For the next decade, he used violence, threats, and psychological abuse to try to control and destroy their lives. He exploited them. He terrorized them. He tortured them. Let me be very clear. Larry Ray is a predator, an evil man who did evil things. Today's verdict finally brings him to justice. This verdict would not have been possible without the victims who testified in court. We are in awe of their bravery in the face of incredible trauma. Wow. And Larry Ray's sentencing is scheduled for September 16th, 2022. He faces life in prison.

And that is the insane story of the Sarah Lawrence dorm dad. Oh, my God. I had heard a little bit of this. I knew there was a dad involved, but Jesus. Yeah. I didn't know how far it went. Because as I do with everything, I read three quarters of that article and went, this is great. And emailed it to myself. And that was like the last of it. And yeah, it is mind boggling. Well, I'm looking, I'm scrolling real quick on some photos. Just wanted to see what they look like. And there's like a photo of one of the women being choked. And it's just like horrific. Yeah. Like the things, it's like above and beyond everything you just explained. It's like, it's horrible. Horrible. Well, the double-edged sword of all of the black male quote unquote

evidence that he kept was that then was used as evidence against him. Right. And so I think it made it very easy for that jury because it wasn't conjecture and it wasn't, he said she said or anything like that. Yeah. It was right there. And all those, yeah, all those victims, they had to get up there and talk about this horrible years of their lives and how it was literally life-threatening. Many of them attempted to take their own lives because of how horrible things had gotten. It's insane. Trauma. Like what a fucking sad traumatic story. So disturbing. So disturbing. I mean, great job delivering a very disturbing fucking story. So disturbing and so long. Like those when those ones come out of just like, but really every piece of that, the evolution of occult,

the evolution of a person having that kind of control, mind control and brainwashing, it's important, I think, to hear this step by step because it's that kind of thing where people feel like they get trapped or the mindset is like they're getting so much from this part of it, like Nexium, they're getting so much from what they're learning and growing and they're a part of things. They're a group. They're a part. They're a clip. Yeah. They're like, you know, part of this, the bigger, something bigger than them, but also part of an integral group of friends and family, you know, chosen family and you feel very loyal. So when shit starts going bad, the people you feel loyal to are going along with it, you're not going to stop and question it,

you know, you'll have nobody. They'll have nothing. Right. Right. And with this extra special evilness, this man has your secrets. So he can expose you. Yeah, totally. Let's just each do one fucking hooray to end this on a higher note. Let's do it. Cool. Want me to go first? You want to go first? Okay. So this one is from Caroline. She, her, I wrote my senior thesis on how the legal system fails victims of sexual assault and domestic violence because the law is written by and for white men. I had a whole chapter ripping apart in my school's title. What's IX? Title nine. Title nine procedures because they basically told me to suck it up or leave when I said I was scared to come back to school because of

my abusive X. I was so insecure and traumatized I could barely talk when I got out of that relationship. And now I got a fucking award for my 84 page fuck you to my abuser and the system that let him get away with it. Fucking hooray and fuck the patriarchy. Caroline, she, her. Wow. Caroline clapping back. Wow. Yeah. She got an award for it. She got an award for telling someone to fuck right off. That's awesome. That must have been a really well written fuck you. Congratulations, Caroline. Congratulations. You channeled that rage into something that actually other people might be able to read and use. Totally. On a lighter note, this says fucking hooray for Nick Terry. It's probably been said before, but fuck it. I'm saying

it again. Fucking hooray for Nick Terry. I realized today that I was behind on his videos and I laughed like a loon catching up. Then of course I spent the next hour rewatching my favorites, aka all of them. Who needs to go to the grocery store when you can have a laugh instead? Stay sexy and watch out for baby pedestrians and go to you little shit. Go to your room. Shanika rhymes with Monica because even though it's spelled the same way, I'm constantly having to explain. I got it. Oh my God. Nick Terry. Honestly, we just got an email today of the new one. We got to watch it before it comes out and I got so mad that my phone, the browser wouldn't work on my phone because I could not wait to fucking watch it. We have a YouTube channel exactly right media and all the incredible

MFM animations by Nick Terry is on that. I can't tell you how many times and Georgia you know me well enough now to know how much I'm not on board with the self-congratulatory shit like this. I can't tell you how many times I have caught myself making groups of people watch these videos where if you're standing far away, it just sounds like I'm making people watch a video of me and you talking and because like isn't this good? But it's what he does. He truly is like a comedy genius and he is the fact that he makes those for us. Like this was kind of a labor of love. I think because his wife was the real fan right first. She liked it first and he did it for her, which is also beautiful. It's just one of those another one of those things in the past six years

that have been this like weird fortuitous you know beautiful things that have happened out of this podcast and it brings me so much joy. My dad comes over, oh that new cartoon is so funny. People love it. He's so good at it. We're very lucky. Thank you Nick Terry. Thanks Nick Terry for doing that for us and being a part of our lives. Definitely and thank you guys for also being a fortuitous part of our lives. That's right. Big fans of yours. You guys are rocking it. You look great in this outfit and and we just appreciate all of your emails and all of your listen. Even if you've never lifted one finger toward this podcast, you just listen and turn it off and walk away. You know what? Personally, I like you the best. You're really low maintenance.

You just don't even participate. Did you buy all of it? You're too lazy to turn it off for the past what two hours? This whole six years. Yeah you are our people. It's really nice of you to just kind of withhold and participate. That's my style. Yeah so thanks for coming along for the ride guys. Look who's here to kind of be loud and obnoxious. Oh are you done being loud? Awesome. She's like did you see how quiet I was for 20 minutes? Look how good I did. You're nice. All right everybody thanks. 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 researcher is Gemma Harris. Email your hometowns and fucking hurrays to my favorite murder 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 Wondry Plus in the Wondry app. Goodbye.