My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 345 - Congrats to Australia

Episode Date: September 22, 2022

This week, Karen covers the murder of Carol Jenkins and Georgia breaks down the investigation surrounding the Ford Pinto car.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We at Wondery live, breathe and downright obsess over true crime and now we're launching the ultimate true crime fan experience, Exhibit C. Join now by following Wondery, Exhibit C on Facebook and listen to true crime on Wondery and Amazon Music. Exhibit C. It's truly criminal. Hello. Hello. And welcome to my favorite murder. That's Georgia Hard Star. That's Karen Kilgara. God, my volume was up super loud for that. Just an eardrum buster at that intro. Just a real earful. I'm just giving people an earful up to 5.5, bordering on six on the zoom. Wow. What's new with you? Well, we saw each other at that party. Oh, yeah. Which we were at the Lady to Lady 10-year anniversary party, which congratulations, we've said it, I think already,

but it's still such a huge accomplishment. Congratulations to those guys. And they threw a big fun raucous party that I actually had to walk in alone myself, which is my nightmare, because Vince was out of town, so I walked in by myself and you know how fucking hard that is when you're alone at a party? But then immediately I see people, I know it's not a big deal. Right. I do that all the time. I tell myself, you'll only be alone for like 30 seconds. It's not a big deal, but it's the walking in. That's the hardest part. Right. Yeah. You know what I compare it to? So when I take Cookie to a dog park, she gets really, she gets anxiety and she has to come and sit on my lap and just look around the dog park,

take it all in, see who's there, and then she can get out. If any dog comes up to try to like say hi to me or her, she growls and snaps at them. She's like, give me a fucking minute. She's a total diva about it. And I feel it the same way at a party when I have to go alone, where I just need to sit in the corner for a minute, take it in. On someone's lap. On someone's lap, then I can start sniffing butts and saying hello. Especially now that we're all so out of practice, like, you know, people are just starting to get back into like public socializing and all that. So it does, it is really hard. Later on, this was just a hilarious thing to happen. So it was my first party party in a very long time that I didn't have like

something to do with just going out to a party. Yeah. After years. And it was, you know, you just fill your mind with a bunch of weird ideas when you go to walk into a party. Oh yeah. For sure. All the pre-party anxiety and weirdness. Yeah. So the first person I see, the first two people I see are Roz Dresfales, who's a hilarious comic and person that we know, and Sam Pancake. And I look at Roz and she's like, hey Karen, I'm a Kai, nice to see you, super fake. And then she goes, it's Roz. And then I was like, oh my God, because normally she's all dressed up at shows with very high hair. And at this party, she had a very summery, low-key look. So I was like, okay, I didn't even recognize you. And then, so then I had that in

my head of like, oh, I'm not wearing my glasses. There's going to be people I don't, that I know, and I'm not going to recognize them right away because I haven't seen them. It's out of context, whatever. Yeah. So at one point, like later on in the party, this girl comes up and she's like, Karen, hi, just wanted to say hi. I'm Jodi. We haven't met before. I'm Jodi. And I was Jodi. I'm Jodi. And I'm like, oh shit, I did stand up with this girl. She looks so familiar. I know exactly who you're talking about. She looks so familiar that I'm in a full panic where I'm like, anything I say this is going to seem fake because if I like lean too far one area of specificity, I'm going to be wrong. And she seems so nice. I can feel that we have a bond.

I just don't know what it is. And she starts saying that she loves this podcast and blah, blah, blah. And I'm looking at her like, how do I know? I know this girl. And then like, three sentences in, I go, wait a second, are you Jodi sweeten? And she's like, yeah, it starts laughing. And I'm like, what the fuck? Why would you act like you're just a person at this party that I know? Obviously, it was so hilarious. She's like, well, I'm not going to assume people know who I am. And I'm like, Oh my God, I grew up watching you. I grew up with you. We know you. We know you. It was really hilarious. And then I got to tell her that Nora, that I a little too old to have been like a fan in the full house days. Yeah. See, I'm her exact

age almost. She's a little younger than me. But so that was she was my like touchstone. And I watched that show religiously. So when I found out she was a merino, I was just like, what the fuck is life? When Nora was little, she was the number one fan of Fuller House and used to memorize the episodes and then come and tell me she would say the lines. She would come and be like, okay, so they did this and this and then tell me and say the lines. It was every day. She loved it so much. So then she made a video for Nora to say thank you for being a big fan of Fuller House. God, did Nora freak out? That's so sweet. Yes. She genuinely was like, it was like nine all caps responses of, oh my God. Oh my God, this is amazing. When you can wow your niece or

nephew who's like cooler than you now, you know, like my nephew, Micah's 12. And I sent him a video of Vince's because he's like, he does like school of rock drumming so that he knows like Slayer and shit had a drum too. And I sent him a video of Vince's hardcore band. He responded, that's actually awesome. And I was like, thanks. Micah, Micah's a drummer. I know. That's very cute. I know it's adorable. They're light years ahead of us now. They really are. They really are. It's disturbing. Speaking of, how's your TikTok life? Mine is stalled completely. You stalled out on TikTok? I can't. It's too hard. I've given up. I'm only, yeah, I don't, the only thing I do is watch videos. I don't interact. I don't do anything and then send videos. Okay. And it's just, I love it

so much. I feel like first of all, and I should send you this picture, I bought, which is like so not me. I started buying kitchen organizational, like things like little circular containers that you put all different things in airtight. Oh my God. The organization influencer movement, I'm here for it. So satisfying. So hardcore. So satisfying. Like I would say, oh, that's not my personality. But then people explain how to do it really easily. And then you go, oh, I could do that. And then I just, all I did was just order six of these cylindrical things where I'm like, yeah, now I know what, I have pretzel things and I have those crackers and whatever. Don't, don't buy more until those are gone. Right. Or buy them in bulk and just have them whenever you need

them because you're going to forget and buy three of them anyway. So you might as well purposely do it and like be a responsible shopper unlike me. And then also remember if you're going to refill those first in, first out, do not, do not dump right on top of the old stuff. You got to like take the old stuff out and then put the old stuff on top. All right. That's, that's one step too far for me. I'm just saying it used to be so many steps too far for me. And now it's like, I'm explaining it to you. That's how TikTok works. Like the children are, and not just children, I always say that, but it's like all kinds of people on there educating you, giving you tips. Literally, I had a pain that was going from my, kind of like my jaw down my shoulder, like across

my clavicle to the outside of my shoulder. And I literally found a threat of like what it could be because it's, I'm probably grinding my teeth. So there's kind of, it's like repetitive strain in the same area. It's hilarious. TikTok doctor, Dr. TikTok told you how to fix yourself. But remember that literally anyone can make a video. So you could be getting like clavicle advice from anybody. Yeah. And there's no experts. You have to really be shopping around for the experts. Okay. I'm on. I'm in. I'm around. Just if you figure out something that you want solved and see if, yeah, do the TikTok can, can help you. What are you up to? Nothing. Reading. I have a book recommendation. It's called Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Jillian McAllister. And it's like

a who done it murder story. But the who done it, the way she finds out is like, she goes back in time. So it's like a time travel murder, who done it. And the murderer is her son. So she wants to, the mom wants to solve her son's crime. It's kind of like a little bit of different twists. And it's a really cool thing of like, what are you not paying attention to in your life that you should be, it's really cool. It was really cool. So I read that wrong place, wrong time. And that's it. I'm not up to that much. Oh, have you watched the show Bad Sisters? Yes. Did you mention it recently? I can't remember. I may have because it's a Sharon Horgan joint. Yeah, we love her. Very famous Irish actress. And then there's a bunch of other, the woman

that was in the Dublin murders, who was kind of an Irish name that I can't remember. She plays a sister. There's four sisters. It's really good. Are you talking about Ann Marie Duff? No. Ann Marie Duff was the oldest sister in shameless and she's in it too. And she's so good. The person I'm talking about is, oh. Is someone who looks like you? I said she has a pretty Irish name. Her name's Sarah Green. It's really not at all. I was thinking of someone else, I guess. Who's the one that looks like you? There's one that looks like you. I think it's Sarah Green. Yeah. It's the one who has, she has short hair and she's the one that's like kind of mad. She totally looks like you. Yeah. I like her. She's good. Also Eve Houston is great.

Yes. I like that actress a lot. She's been in, I'm looking at my phone. I'm not going to try to take credit for remembering this, but she was in the nick. She was in the nick. And she's so good in that. She was good. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That's a really good show, Bad Sisters. I'm in the middle of it and having like a lot of fun watching it. So good. Also, I just really, I don't think Sharon Horton gets enough like credit for how much she writes and stars and produces. She's executive producing as well. Sure. She was in the new, that Nicholas Cage movie that I love so much called the unbearable weight of incredible talent. I think it's called something like that. Yeah. It's crazy and great. Like honestly, if you have a night where you're just trying to fill some time,

that movie is great. It's like a movie about movies and it's really, really funny and he's good in it, but she plays his wife that's, I think they're divorced and she is such a grounding, real personality. She is. She acts in such a likable way that you think that she's barely even acting because it's so casual and like, and she's so relatable. Everything she does, I adore her. The unbearable weight of massive talent. If you haven't seen that movie, that is one of my favorites. I rented it when someone was in town and I just bought it instead of actually renting it because it's a tax write-off. And I'm always like, well, I'll probably want to watch this again. I've rewatched that movie like five different times with different people because it's that funny.

Oh, nice. Okay. I'll watch it. I really adore it. Should we do Yaram highlights? Sure. Unless you want to talk about the queen dying. What I would want to talk about is Irish Twitter coming together with Black Twitter because the queen died and one of the most epic, amazing combinations of all time. Team ups. Love it. Love it. So good. Did you see the Highland dancers that went out into the front of Buckingham Palace and did a Highland dance to another one by It's the Dust? It was fucking wow. Truly badass. Wow. Because, you know, England's been oppressing Ireland for 800 years. So. And among others, among many, many others. Among many others.

All right. So let's see. We have some highlights from our podcast network, namely, wait, I'm so sorry. I have to interrupt you because this is the one I was trying to think of last time we recorded. The fucking. Oh yeah. The husband, Chris Dawson, from Teachers Pet, which is such an incredible, it's from the Australian. It's the podcast from the Australian. So good. From like several years ago that we both listened to and is such a good podcast. That guy was finally arrested, tried and found guilty for the murder of his wife that that podcast is about. Go listen to it. It's incredible. And there's no way it would have happened without this podcast. I feel confident. I mean, it's my opinion is I feel confident saying that he brought

attention back to this crazy case and this injustice that happened with this Chris Dawson not getting arrested for his wife's like obvious murder. So the podcast is great. Not even being looked at his, that investigative journalist's name is Headley Thomas. And it's the Australian newspaper, The Australian, and they have podcasts. So that one is Teachers Pet is great. But also if you look up the Australian, they have a ton of amazing podcasts. Yeah. They have a con man one that's amazing. They do great podcasts. Yeah. So congrats to the Australia. I don't know. Yeah. The whole goddamn place. I was going to say the whole, the whole island, but it is, it is a

con. Sorry about your bugs, your insects, but congratulations on this one, on this win. Your snakes are from the devil, but you know what? You got a little justice and we congratulate you. Those spiders. All right. So ERM highlights. At long last, we are so excited that the first episode of our new show Buried Bones is out now. Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes are the hosts and they explore historic true crimes through a 21st century lens and new episodes drop on Wednesdays. Please, please, please rate, review and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. That's such an important thing for new and upcoming podcasts, even though they're already charting, which is awesome. So we really appreciate you guys rate reviewing and subscribing.

Yeah. You guys are supporting that trailer like mothers and we really appreciate it because that's, it gets it done. It's very cool. Those guys deserve it. I've heard several of the episodes. They banked them early there. It's really a great listen. Like it kind of covers everything. If you like tenfold more wicked, you know, who doesn't like Paul Holes? Like it's a really, it's the beautiful marriage of all the things that we love on this network coming together. Yep. That's Buried Bones. Also on this week, our podcast, this podcast will kill you. One of the OG podcasts of the Exactly Right Network. Erin and Erin have been doing it on this network for us, for you, since the very beginning. They're going to talk about mumps this week.

Yes. Also on our wonderful podcast, Adulting, hosted by Michelle Bouteau and Jordan Carlos, the absolute hilarious standup comedian, Solomon Giorgio, is a guest. This guy is a force. He is so funny. So make sure you listen to Adulting this week. Truly one of the best standups around right now, but also just, he's a person I love standing next to in the back of a room at a comedy show. Yes. He's so funny. Yes. And then if you need it, you know, fall is right around the corner. So you can go over to the MFM store and get yourself a cozy sweatshirt. There's a bunch of them featured. You know, go shopping. Take a look. Check it out. That's myfavoritmurder.com in our store. Boom. Boom. We did it. Good. That's it. Thanks, guys. Thanks for listening. Goodbye.

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As the air supply for the trapped children dwindles, a pair of unlikely heroes emerges. Follow against the odds wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad free on the Amazon music or Wondery app. Okay, I'm first today. Let's see. Oh, this is a story I've never heard. And I was looking, I was basically Googling for new stories and kind of just doing general random searches. And this was an article that was linked on the side of another page that I was on. And so I looked up, it was a 2001 New Yorker article by a writer named Mark Singer about this case. And it just so happens timing wise that the 54th anniversary of this murder is tomorrow. So it's the perfect day for me to tell you about the murder of Carol Jenkins. Okay. So the main sources for

this story today are the New York article that I was just talking about is called Who Killed Carol Jenkins by Mark Singer. And then there's a ton of reporting by Indianapolis reporter Sandra Chapman at WTHR 13 Indianapolis. And then there's a book by James W. Lohan called Sundown Towns, A Hidden Dimension of American Racism, and a Chicago Tribune article by Don Terry 34 years later, Sad Secret Surfaces. So and the rest of those sources are linked in our show notes. So look those up if you would like to. Okay. We're starting out in Rushville, Indiana. And it's the morning of September 16, 1968. And 20 year old Carol Jenkins is trying her best to get a little more sleep before she gets up. But her little brother Larry will not let it happen.

It's his big sister Carol's first day at her new job selling Collier's Encyclopedia's Door to Door. Oh, wow. And he wants to make sure she gets up and is there on time for her first day of work. So he just keeps coming back to her room again and again until she finally gets out of bed. So Little brothers. Yeah. Trying to be helpful. So she gets ready, throws on her big brown coat, and she goes out the door. She has to commute from her hometown of Rushville, Indiana, into Indianapolis for a training session. And then after that, she can go out into the community and start selling Encyclopedias for the first time. Children who are listening Encyclopedias were this series of books that we had back in the 80s. And it was like the internet on paper.

It was like Google in like 26 books. Yeah. Nothing dirty, no predators. No, it's terrible. Oh, I knew you were saying predators. That part was not, that was not what I was saying. It didn't open you into a dark world. There was no dark Encyclopedia. It was just the only catfish were in that C to CH volume. So Carol's about to turn 21 years old. She's shy. She's polite. She's always smiling. And she dreams of one day moving into Chicago to become a model. She's the oldest daughter in a very tight knit African American family that includes her five younger siblings, her mother, Elizabeth, and her stepfather, Paul Davis. And Paul's her stepfather, but he's been in Carol's life since she was a toddler. They're very close. She's a daddy's girl

for sure. So planning on being a door-to-door salesperson, but her job on the assembly line at the Philco Ford factory is on hold because of a strike. So she decides to sell Encyclopedias to kind of hold herself over. She's heard that door-to-door salespeople work on commission and that she has the opportunity to earn really good money. So she goes to her training session and around 4.30 that day, same day. She's completed the training and then she and another new hire named Paula Bradley, who is also a young black woman from Rushville. They meet up with two of their white male colleagues, John Burton and Stan Julian, and the four of them carpool together to Vincennes, Indiana to start selling Encyclopedias. Remind me what year this is?

1968. Okay. Five months before this, Martin Luther King Jr. has been assassinated. It's the height of the civil rights movement. There's a lot going on, obviously, in the country, race-wise, and there's movement because of the leaders and the protesters. There's real social change in the air, but at the same time, it's America. It's 1968. And they're in Indiana, which is kind of renowned for KKK membership. They're a lot of shit. So they're supposed to carpool to a town called Vincennes, but they're on the road for like an hour and they realize that if they still have far to go, the timing's way off. So if they keep on going to Vincennes, they'll get there after dark, and they were taught there's a good time. The most valuable time to be selling is the early

evening hours when people are just home kind of before dinner. So they scrap the original plan and they decide to stop in a closer town. So just a few miles down the road, they hit the small town of Martinsville, Indiana. So Stan, who's driving, does a quick drive through the neighborhoods of Martinsville. They all look, get a lay of the land, then they come up with a plan to divide and conquer and then meet back up after they do their sales at 10 o'clock at night at the gas station. It's kind of like in the center of town. So Carol and Paula and John are all dropped off one by one with all their sales gear and the stuff that they have to take with them. So scary. Like today, the thought of doing that is it's unthinkable, especially like

till 10 o'clock at night. It's scary. 10 o'clock at night, both women of color walking alone. Like there's so many things about this that like you can kind of chalk it up to a more innocent time quote unquote. And also I think women coming into their own, this is like we talked about, this is the H.H. Holmes thing where like women being empowered and coming into their own, it enables you to kind of like go out and seek your fortune and do whatever. But that doesn't mean the world respects you, is going to be good to you. It doesn't, just because you're unable, you can do it. Yeah. Doesn't mean it's going to be okay. It does give predators more opportunity. And especially in a time where people, as we will discuss, people can't admit

there are predators and there is this violence kind of waiting. Like this was that time where it's like a little after leave it to beaver where it's like, no, we're still, you know, baseball, apple pie. Yeah, exactly. Stan goes and parks the car, then he himself goes off to sell. And at 10 o'clock, they all meet back up, except Paula, John and Stan get there, and Carol does not. So, a lot of people first learn about this idea of Sundown Towns, either from watching the movie Green Book, which came out in 2018. I should say a lot of white people. A lot of white people know about the idea of Sundown Towns. They first learned about it from Green Book or watching Lovecraft Country, which there's that amazing scene of them realizing the sun is going

down and they're in a diner and everything starts to get real weird and unfriendly. And they have to literally make a run for it. In this way, man, that scene was like unforgettable. If you haven't seen Lovecraft Country, it was on HBO. Really amazing series. Yeah, check it out. So many good stuff. But a lot of white people are not familiar with it because this doesn't get talked about. It was never taught in schools. It's unless you know about it, unless your family was somehow involved in it or whatever. It's like a family secret type of shit at this point in time. Of course, black and brown people have long been aware of Sundown Towns. There's maps of places you can and can't go that are tourist maps, but for black and brown people.

I tell you what counties are Sundown counties. It's so chilling and awful. Right. And written by black people for each other, which is basically like, if you're going to drive, you cannot stay in this place or you are in danger. And can you imagine factoring that into your vacation of like, we can drive this many hours, but we can't stop here. You have to just like, circumnavigate this racism, this racist country. It sounds fucking terrifying. It's, it is, it's crazy. It's terrifying and it's, uh, and it is horrifying. And it kind of makes sense when all this stuff, you know, you see, you hear in the news of like the critical race theory and they're trying to ban it everywhere. It's like, right, you want to ban it because you don't want this history of how fucked it's been

to actually come out. Right. Because that, that actually, it gives everyone a sense of why things might be the way they are. Right. Right. It's, yeah, it's so crazy. So, so what's very interesting is it wasn't until the early 2000s that anyone began collecting like data on Sundown Towns. So this sociologist, Dr. James W. Lohan, finally did it. And you wrote the book, the Sundown Towns, A Hidden Dimension of American Racism, which is one of the best resources that you can read on the subject. So read that if you're interested in it. What Dr. Lohan calls the Sundown Town movement started in the United States at the end of the 19th century. And it continued through the 60s as white people attempted to drive anyone of color, black, brown, indigenous,

Mexican, Chinese, Jewish people out of their all white communities using intimidation and violence. So if a non-white person was seen in a, in, in a town after dark, they might be denied services, they could be harassed, they could be attacked, they could be killed. So Dr. Lohan estimates that across America there were perhaps as many as 15,000 independent towns, plus another 2,000 to 10,000 suburbs that could be classified as Sundown Towns. So many. And he also found this is what I blew my mind, because when I was watching Lovecraft Country, I thought suddenly they were in the South. And I was like, what, why, I thought this started in Chicago, what's going on? There were ironically no Sundown Towns in the South. Wow. Because the population, the black

population was too big. Yeah. It couldn't work. It's like it didn't work that way. There were too many people that worked in the South that were black. Like it's ironic and you make a lot of assumptions and then it's like, oh no, they didn't do it there. They did it everywhere else, where basically where it was white, predominantly white, and they could get away with doing it. And there were some towns that put billboards out like at the city limits on the highway that declared themselves to be Sundown Towns and had like racial slurs on the billboards, like basically warning people, like stay away from here. And it's on you if anything happens, because we warned you. That sort of disgusting thing. Yeah. In the 60s in Carroll Jenkins'

home state of Indiana, there are hundreds of Sundown Towns. And there's actually, Dr. Lowen worked at Tougaloo College, which is a historically black college, and they have a database of Sundown Towns across the United States on their website. So you can actually go and look up in your state or near your town what towns were Sundown Towns. So you can go to justice.tougaloo which is spelled T-O-U-G-A-L-O-O dot E-D-U forward slash Sundown Towns. And did you know Glendale was a Sundown Town? Glendale like are the town nearest? Glendale with the Americana Mall. Glendale. But I mean, like that kind of thing where you, in our minds, I think most people want to just be like, oh, that's in the deep horribly racist cells. Right. Right. No. No. No. California,

the Midwest, the Northeast, like everywhere. So there's, of course, nothing official that states what a Sundown Town is comprised of. There's no, like the only official documentation is this Dr. Lowen's book. And basically all the, he went and looked at the data and basically it was data-based study. But the qualities that make up a Sundown Town are the presence of discriminatory local laws, an almost entirely white population, intimidation tactics and threats of violence against black and brown people. That's usually what, you know, how you would define it. And by 1968, Martinsville, Indiana has earned a reputation for harassing black visitors. Very few black people live there. And in fact, according to a 1960 census, there are eight black residents in all

of Morgan County, which is the county where Martinsville is located. So this is a very white population. And then on top of that, as I said, the Cluclux Clan has historically had a large presence in Indiana. In the early twenties, 30% of registered white male voters were Clan members, including the then governor and half of the state legislature. And the year before in 1967, the year before this murder, the Clan held a rally in Martinsville. And a spokesperson told reporters that they had picked that city because, quote, there is a strong local chapter. So it's unclear of whether or not Carol Jenkins knew anything about this, about Martinsville, or what she thought when they decided to stop there. But it's later reported that she and Paula,

her new co-worker, had talked about buying tear gas guns for protection. Oh my God, just to go do their job. Right. And what's frustrating is what it made me think of is it's their first day of work. It's a job Carol needs and has to have to hold her over. And so when Stan is deciding to pick this town, even if she knew that it was a town that was generally hostile toward black people, and Carol's father, Paul, had had a couple experiences in that town when he was in high school. And then when his son was playing sports in high school, they had had racist attacks while they were in this town. So there's a very good chance that she knew it wasn't a great place. But is she going to tell the white guy driving, no, we're not going

there? Right. Or the boss who sent them there, like, I can't go there, then you're fired immediately. Yeah, she would have to assert herself and be like, hey, there's a threat there that you guys don't know about and have never experienced and will never experience. Could you do us a favor and not go there? But like, could they even say that at this point? Yeah. At like, basically the beginning of civil rights. Totally. This is, I just, it's so frustrating to think of that where they would just kind of have to go along with this plan that puts them in danger. Yeah. So they go out, they go into the town to start selling and they do it. And Carol works on her sales route until 7 30 that night. So for several hours, she's walking around trying to sell encyclopedias.

The sun sets, then it starts to rain. And as Carol goes door to door, she notices that there's a black car following her. And at first she thinks, you know, maybe she's just, it's just a car on the street, but everywhere she goes, any block she is, there's this car behind her. And she sees it in her peripheral vision. So finally she goes up to one door, rings the doorbell, there's no answer when she walks back to the sidewalk, the black car pulls up, the two men inside start harassing her, they're screaming, shed at her. She tries to lean down and look and see their faces, but it's dark outside and she can't see them. And she's terrified. So she just runs to the next house and starts knocking on the door in a panic. Lucky for her, a young couple named Don and Norman Neil answer

the door and she, Carol apologizes, tells them what's happening, says she's being followed and she's being screamed at and she's scared. They invite her into their house. She sits with Carol while Don looks around outside. He doesn't see the black car, but he does see an unfamiliar tan sedan that's idling nearby. So he looks at the license plate and he tries to memorize the number and as he's trying to do that, the car takes off. So he goes back into the house, he calls the police, a cop comes, Carol tells her story, nothing illegal happened. He takes her statement and he doesn't offer Carol any assistance. He doesn't say, get in the car and I'll take you to the gas station and stay with you. He doesn't do anything. He takes her statement

and he leaves. He's a 50% chance that he is a Ku Klux Klan member himself, right? I mean, the odds are not in his favor ever. So Norma basically does the cop's job for him. She drives Carol around Martinsville. They're looking for her coworkers just so she can be with one other person that she knows. They can't find anyone. They don't see anyone. So Norma drives back to the house and she invites Carol to stay for a while saying, you can stay here and then I'll drive you to the gas station a little closer to 10 o'clock. But Carol politely declines telling Norma that she quote, had been a bother long enough. So it can't have felt great to be the only black person in this scenario. And then to have a cop come and basically tell you your

complaints are meaningless and don't warrant me doing anything for you. Like after a while, I'm sure she felt like she was, like she said, a bother. And so she left. She went back out into this hostile town alone. So at eight o'clock, she thanks the Niels for their kindness and she leaves an hour passes. By nine o'clock, the rain has turned into a downpour. And later people who live near Martinsville's busy East Morgan Street will call the police to report hearing a struggle and a woman screaming. And when the police arrive at the scene, they find Carol laying on the sidewalk. They aren't sure what's happened. She's still wearing her brown coat. There's no blood. It almost looked like she's fainted on the sidewalk. So she gets put in an ambulance and taken to a

local hospital. And minutes after she arrives at the hospital at nine 26 p.m. Carol Jenkins is pronounced dead. Oh my God. And she's 20 years old. Wow. So it's not until she's pronounced dead that someone removes her rain drenched coat. And that's when they see there's blood on her white sweater. And suddenly they realize this was not an accident or an illness that she's been murdered. So Paul Davis, her stepfather, is called the next day to the Morgan County Coroner's Office, where he's told that his daughter Carol has been killed by a single stab wound to the heart. So it's no surprise this investigation into Carol's murder doesn't get off to a great start, as we can tell by the police's disinterest in her issue in the first place. They don't

immediately secure the area. They assumed Carol was sick or had fainted. So they didn't even know it was a crime scene. So they didn't treat it like one. It was raining, of course. And the sidewalk where Carol was killed was immediately contaminated by about 50 onlookers, some of whom actually even touched important evidence that was on the ground, like Carol's notebooks and her glasses that were strewn along the street. There's no murder weapon. There's no eyewitnesses. There are very few leads. But what they do have is that indication of a struggle. Carol's notebook is 170 feet away from where her body was found, which to them signifies that she was being chased. They also have the statement that Carol gave the officer at the Neil home about the black car

following her and the two men inside. So before long, those two men that were in that car reach out to the police themselves, telling officers that they saw Carol that night, they deny harassing and following her. Instead, they claim that they thought she was acting strangely and they thought maybe she needed help. And that's why they were near her. And both of these men are cleared as suspects. All of that is so frustrating to hear after the fact. And also just that their word is taken. Like, yep, that must be what happened. The difference between somebody asking, are you okay? You're acting strangely and whatever would happen that would make you run up and knock on a stranger's door and beg to come into the house is there's a big difference. So I felt like I

needed to explain that. So the Neil's hear about Carol's murder. They feel horrible that they let her leave their house that night and they want desperately to help find her killer. So they start working with the police. Don Neil had written down the plate number that he thought he memorized when he walked outside and saw that tan vehicle. But when he gives that to the police, they look it up and he's told he's incorrect. So that one lead that they even possibly have is gone. So police start coming up with theories about what might have happened to Carol with one officer actually saying based on seemingly nothing that quote, I don't think her race has anything to do with it. I personally feel that the person that killed her probably made a pass and she gave him

the cold shoulder. A little victim blaming for you. I think her race was least the least likely motive. Based on what? I mean, come on. Based on him the second he's done giving that quote to the reporter, he just turns and puts a hood on and walks away. It's like, what the fuck? That just seemed so, you're going out of your way to say it wasn't what it wasn't about. Right. Right. Which means that's what it was about. Right. Obviously that's bullshit. Especially keeping in mind that after the Neil's start to work with the police, they start getting harassed incessantly. Then they start getting death threats. It gets so bad that they eventually just leave Martinsville altogether. Yeah. Sounds right. But it had nothing to do with her race. Of course.

So the police interviewed some suspects. They polygraph a couple of others. Nothing comes of it. Carol's family waits for new leads or any new information about their daughter and their sister's murder. Nothing comes. After a year, a Martinsville cop tells reporters, quote, there's little hope that the Jenkins case will ever be solved. Cool. Thanks. Yeah. So that's that, I guess. So according to them, that's that. But not according to Carol's father, Paul. Right. He talks to reporters and he tells them, and this to me in 1968 is a really big deal, that this black man is going to reporters and being like, this isn't good and this is not okay. Yeah. He basically tells them that he thinks the police are, quote, arbitrarily withholding

information from him. And he's basically generally dissatisfied with this investigation. But what can he do? The police control the investigation. And on top of that, there's justified fear in dealing with Morgan County police officers. Sure. Carol's mother, Elizabeth says, quote, sometimes I think I ought to just get in the car and go down there and see whether I could get something done. But then I think about having three other daughters and maybe somebody might follow me home and harm them. God. So the intimidation tactics are working as they're supposed to. This case goes cold. But Carol's friends and family never stop thinking about it, working on it, trying to do something about it. For years after the local

and state police give up, Carol's family does everything they can to make sure her death is not forgotten. And at one point, her family reaches out to the Indiana chapter of the end of the NAACP. And so they, the NAACP, send a letter to the Justice Department asking them to investigate Carol's death and to investigate the police work around the case. Unfortunately, the DOJ just decides not to intervene. But the letter that is sent on the family's behalf really effectively verbalizes the frustration and the grief around this case. How can someone just murder a young woman on the street like that? And because of the color of her skin, face absolutely no consequences and walk free. 30 years pass. 30 years. 30 years pass. This case

has long gone cold. But in the year 2000, her father, Paul, has managed to save $10,000 so that he can hire a private investigator. He tells reporters once they figure out who committed the crime, I don't know what they do about it, but once I find out, then that will bring the family and me closure. And it's around this same time that the Indiana State Police roll out a new initiative to start re-examining cold cases. So two new detectives are assigned to Carol Jenkins' murder case. A year later, in 2001, a journalist named Mark Singer writes an article for the New Yorker called Who Killed Carol Jenkins, which then again puts Carol's murder into the national spotlight kind of for the first time because when it actually happened,

it was not a national story. So that November 2001, the police in Indiana receive an anonymous tip identifying Carol's killer as a man named Kenneth Clay Richmond. So police start looking into this tip and they see that Richmond has a long and violent criminal history. In 1985, he was tried for a murder in Indiana, but he was acquitted. Two years later in 1987, he was charged with attempted murder in Florida, but he was found not guilty by reason of insanity. He also has affiliations with the KKK. The tipster also mentions that there is a seven-year-old eyewitness that saw the murder take place that night. So police basically look into it. They do the math and they figure out that that seven-year-old eyewitness is very likely Richmond's daughter.

So in December, a month later, they go to her door. Her name's Shirley McQueen. She's now around 40 years old and she's actually already been talking to a local reporter that's Sandra Chapman out of Indianapolis about the Carol Jenkins murder. Sandra Chapman's reporting on this, she is one of the local reporters that really took this and ran with it and wrote a ton about it for the local news. So great job, Sandra Chapman. So when Shirley talks to these new cold case detectives, she tells them that she hasn't spoken with her father nearly 25 years. She says he's a violent, racist man who once threatened to kill her and her sister if they ever dated a black man. She says that she is very sorry that she hasn't come forward sooner. But what happened, and she

tells police what she remembers from the night of September 16th, 1968, is that it was raining and she was sitting in the backseat of her father's car as he drove toward their farm that was just outside of Martinsville. And there was a friend of his in the front seat passenger seat, a guy she didn't know. And she remembers seeing a young black woman walking down the street in the rain. And her father and the friend start yelling slurs at her. And this caused the woman to walk faster. So her father pulled over, got out of the vehicle and began chasing the woman on foot with his friend alongside him. The two men caught the woman and seven-year-old Shirley watched as the unknown man restrained the woman. Her father walked back to the car, grabs a screwdriver, and walks back

and uses it to stab Carol Jenkins in the heart one time. And Shirley says that when her father and his friend got back into the car, they were laughing. Oh my God. The fear. Seven years old. Seven years old. And then also the, yeah. Horrifying. Just, just horrifying. Yeah. So Shirley tells police that watching Carol fall to the ground is an image she's never forgotten, which God. And then when they got home that night, her father told her not to tell her mother what happened and what she saw. And he gave her $7 because she was seven years old, one for every year of her life. That was like her hush money. So when this story comes back into the news, things started kind of happening again. Shirley first tells her former sister-in-law Connie McQueen

what she witnessed that night. And Connie is the one that ends up sending the anonymous tip to the police. Ah, cool. So the tip leaves out one very specific and one very important detail that they end up being able to corroborate with Shirley when the cold gaze detectives are at her house. Shirley tells them that Carol was wearing a yellow scarf and was killed with a screwdriver. And she basically said she was wearing a yellow scarf, she was killed with a screwdriver, and my father could be the killer. And, and those details were never released to the public. So that's when those detectives knew that they were talking to the seven year old eyewitness of this murder. Holy shit. After three decades of nothing, there is finally real movement in this

case. So in May of 2002, the police tracked down Kenneth Clay Richmond, who's now seven years old, living in an Indianapolis nursing home. He's arrested and charged with first degree murder. He maintains his innocence. And then he dies of cancer while while in jail waiting for trial. He never names his accomplice, which means that person, if they're still alive, has been walking free this whole time and is just as guilty as Kenneth Clay Richmond. It's not documented officially anywhere. But so take it with a grain of salt. But the Indiana State police claim that Richmond did confess to killing Carol Jenkins right before his death. So for Carol's loved ones, this is good news. And of course, also it's horrible because after

years of knowing nothing about her final moments, they finally learn everything that they've never known about her murder. And although Kenneth Clay Richmond will never be tried in court, and his accomplice is still at large, the fact that he is arrested does provide a sense of relief. In 2014, Carol's family is contacted by Don and Norma Neal. They want to work with Carol's family so they can put up a monument in Martinsville to Carol Jenkins that Don has designed. It's a black granite statue with Carol's portrait on it. And it clues, it clues scripture that says he will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain for the old order of things has passed away. So Carol's family and

the Neals make a proposal to Morgan County officials specifying that they want the monument placed in the town square. And initially, the Morgan County officials are on board, but then locals start complaining. Right. Basically, the complaints start and then a commissioner tells the Neals and the family that they're not imposed to the monument, but that the town square should be reserved for notables. Don Neal tells them, I don't want her hid where nobody can see the monument. Yeah. If you read anything on this case, there's lots of comments, editorials, posts from the people in Martinsville who basically feel that this story about Carol's murder has cast their city in an unfair light. And they point out that her killer

isn't even from Martinsville. Local historians claim that they deny that the city was ever a sundown town in the first place because there's no quote evidence to corroborate that it was, except of course, Carol Jenkins fucking murder in their town. Right. A great way, yeah, a great way to shed that, that, that unsavory light is to put up a monument celebrating her life. Wouldn't that be great? Do something about it. Yeah. And also just that idea, it kind of just makes it so clear in a way that it's hard to conceptualize where if you're waiting for official record on a thing that was never official, but it was absolutely happening, it was like an open secret, then you'll always have the excuse that, oh, well, you can't prove that because. Right. Was it proven in

court? And it's like, well, that's not how this, it always works. Wouldn't that be great? It's not how it works at all. Like that's just it. Paul Davis actually had a beautiful response to all of this. He said, this is not about Martinsville. This is about my daughter. Much like Carol's harassment that day, which the police reminded her wasn't against the law. There was nothing they could do about it. White residents feeding and maintaining a culture of persecution, violence, and discrimination, resulting in a dearth of diversity and a community that tolerates hatred and violence is usually not on any official record. Right. At the same time, it isn't actually about Martinsville specifically. This is, as Dr. Lowen says in his book, Martinsville is not unusual

for the most part precisely what is so alarming about sundown towns. Their astonishing prevalence across this country has made them not newsworthy, except on special occasions. Murders sell newspapers. Chronic social pathology does not. Which is like, yeah, if you just have like just a seething hate, then nobody can ever prove it. Right. So even if the thousands of sundown towns and communities have done away with their overtly racist ordinances or billboards at the edge of town, there's still obviously communities in this country, especially wealthy and predominantly white ones that are flagrantly exclusive and hostile to black and brown people. This is the thing everyone learned when they first got the next door app and they suddenly realized that

the bad people were all around them. It's like a Jordan Peele movie when I fucking first opened next door and was just like, what in the hell are these people talking about? Old scared white people watching so much Fox News and freaking out. At the very, very least, the lingering effects of sundown towns are often evident in the breakdown of local populations. As recently as the early 2000s, Dr. Lowen identified many former sundown towns that still didn't have a single black household. Holy shit. Nonetheless, Martinsville has worked to confront its past as well as its prevailing reputation. In 2017, the mayor apologized to Carol Jenkins' family on behalf of the city and a maple tree and a memory stone, not the monument the Neals designed, but another one,

were placed outside of City Hall in her honor. And despite some apprehension, Carol's co-worker Paula Bradley, who was there on her first day of work with her, she attended the dedication ceremony saying, quote, 50 years have gone past and hopefully there are new mindsets in this town now we need to heal. Carol's also been commemorated in her hometown of Rushville. They named the Carol Jenkins Davis Memorial Park after her. And there's also a walking path that was created in Carol's honor that has 21 shrubs, one for each year of her life that goes along the path. And luckily, Carol's father, Paul, was able to see this outpouring of love and support before his death in 2019. He passed away at the age of 90, leaving behind a legacy as a devoted, loving father who

was ready to do anything to get justice for his child. And as Paul Davis once said, quote, as long as God gave me breath and a dollar in my pocket, I was determined to never give up. She was my oldest child. I wanted her to be able to rest in peace. And that's the story of the murder of Carol Jenkins, which happened 54 years ago tomorrow. Wow. I've never heard that before. That is powerful. Great job. Yeah. Thank you. All right. I'm going to go in a different direction. I'm going to tell you one of those stories that are like murder adjacent that I've always had this eerie fascination with. Sure. That you might remember. Today, I'm going to talk about the Ford Pinto and how this car

prompted unprecedented investigations into corporate negligence. So a little different direction. I mean, it was almost a full U-turn on the highway. A little. But can I just really quickly tell you, my friend Patty Leone in high school had a Pinto. This just came to me as like the huge just recovered memory. And we would joke all the time about if she gets her ended, we're all going to die. That was just like a, we just knew it. And that was just kind of like totally hoping for the best as we drove to Wendy's after school. Yeah. That was the folklore. Like everyone kind of knew. And like you'd be on the road and you'd see a Ford Pinto and you'd be like, don't rear in that car or it'll fucking literally explode. It was just like a known thing about a

car that was fine because it was like the 70s and 80s. There's we weren't into safety. No. In really any meaningful way. No. And neither was Ford. So let me tell you a little bit about this. Oh, the sources I used in today's article are a mother Jones article by Mark Dohey, an article from moral issues in business by William Shaw and Vincent Berry, a motorbiscuit article by Maeve Rich. And then you can look at the rest in the show notes as well. And so let's start in the mid 1960s, Karen. The US auto industry is largely unregulated, which is a great industry to be unregulated. Really? Is that true by the 60s? Uh-huh. But in 1966, a huge national safety overhaul means new federal standards are introduced

under the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act. The new regulatory agency enforcing the standards is the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which I'm going to call the NHTSA from here on out. Okay. The new laws cover a range of specific safety standards. Like, did you know that seatbelts aren't mandatory until 1968 is when seatbelts are mandatory and new cars? You mean to be put into a car? I'm into new cars. You don't have to build it. Not even using them. No. They didn't have them at all. No. They didn't have to have them until 1968. The end. Wow. And in 1967, the first standard relating to fuel system safety has passed. This is known as section 301 and says that any auto fuel tank systems must be able to withstand

a collision of at least 30 miles per hour to prevent gas tanks rupturing and posing a fire hazard. I was just going to say that seems logical, but you would really, if you're going to fill a metal box with gas and then drive it fucking around, the assumption that they thought of that already is kind of scary. And like, who said 30 miles an hour? At least 30 miles an hour has to withstand that collision. It's like, can we do any fucking speed? Yeah, let's not limit it. Don't limit it. Go for it. The other thing about this story that I think is important to remember is that everyone from infants to old people smoke cigarettes constantly at this time. Yes. So everyone's smoking in their car and if the gas tank explodes or the gas leaks, people are

smoking in their cars. So it's a total fire hazard. I distinctly remember when we would go to Aegis's grocery store, which was at the corner of our street that had a gas tank. My mom would pull up and then just roll the window up because there would be a guy that pumped gas there. She would just roll the window up so she could keep smoking. Oh my God. Do you know that Vince, this is one of Vince's anal retentive things. He will not let me roll down the window or open the car door when he's pumping gas. He's so paranoid about fire. And I'm like, Vince, I've been pumping gas since I was 16, left the car door open, left the window down. Remember there was when cell phones started getting really popular and there was that

rumor that you could have a spark off a cell phone while you were pumping gas and you should leave your phone in your car. Oh, he won't let me text too when he's pumping gas. He's like, don't plug your phone. I make fun of him so hard for it. But then the day that you're there at the exploding gas station, you have to be left alone. And he'll rub it in my fucking face for sure. All right. The audio industry isn't happy about the new level of proposed regulation, obviously. They're not like, they're not all about fucking human safety and all that. No, they're not. Manufacturers take steps to delay the regulations being enforced, like filing objections and lobbying the government and asking for further complex

and time consuming testing. So they're doing anything they can to not have to enforce these new regulations. The delays to the process mean that until everything is addressed and signed off by the NHTSA, nothing is legally enforceable. So way to go. Nice try. Go home. Can I just add one thing real quick, which is this just made me remember when I was like, I think I was 10 or 12 when the Mothers Against Drunk Driving campaign began, because I don't think drunk driving was either illegal or very heavily enforced. No. So Mothers had to come together and start getting real political because their kids were being run down in the street by drunk drivers. And they were like, can we not have this be

happening anymore? Can this not be a slap on the wrist offense? Can we prevent it to begin with by not letting people drive drunk? How about make it a really serious thing since truly people are being mowed down and slaughtered by drunk drivers? To me, that's so unimaginable now. Whereas back then, it was like, I remember there was a made for TV movie about the woman who started Mothers Against Drunk Driving because her children were literally just run down in the street by a drunk driver. Guys, don't drink and drive. And tipsy driving is drunk driving. Remember that. Uber, baby. Uber, baby, or walk. Get a little exercise. At the same time, Japanese and European subcompact cars, so like small cars, are gaining popularity in the US. American manufacturers

like Ford want to regain their foothold in the subsection of the market. So they're like, we need a little baby car too. How about? But a real ugly one. A real ugly one in avocado green. So in 1968, Ford begins product development on its new four cylinder subcompact car, the Pinto. The company president, Leia Koka, wants the Pinto to weigh under 2,000 pounds and cost consumers less than $2,000, which today is around $15,000. He's so invested in the project, the Pinto becomes known at Ford as Lee's car. That's like his baby. It'll only be four inches longer than a Volkswagen, and its 86 horsepower engine will be made in Ford's European plant to minimize costs. This car is all about minimizing costs, so it can be cheap. That's all they give

a shit about, so they can sell a lot of them. And as a standard with subcompact cars at the time, the Pinto's design has the gas tank positioned at the rear of the car between the rear axle and the bumper. I don't know anything about cars. Do I sound like I do? You do. No, it sounds very official and legit, but I'm just thinking as a designer of anything. Well, I guess it's like, which is the lesser of two vehicles? Because I'm like, why would you ever put the gas tank in the back by the back bumper when that's really what gets hit? But then so would the front bumper, so would the sides. You know what the solution is, is an electric car. In 1969, the NHTSA expands the fuel system safety regulation to reduce fires in rear end collision. Ford basically starts

crash testing Pinto prototypes, making sure the new car complies with section 301, aiming for all cars to withstand a crash at 30 miles an hour by 1973, so they're not in a huge rush. Just do your best. But none of the prototypes even withstand a crash at 20 miles an hour without a fire, let alone 30. So they're already fucked. Also, think about how slow 20 miles an hour is for a crash. For us, it's like a fender bender at the elementary school pickup line, right? And it explodes. In 1974, engineers crash-tested the finished Pinto over 40 times, but the gas tank still ruptures and leaks a dangerous amount of fuel. It's clear that the gas tank placement reduced rear crush space and lack of rear structural reinforcement since the Pinto is so small,

make the Pinto vulnerable to fuel leakage and fire in a rear end collision. So they 100% before this car even came out knew about this. It wasn't like this surprise and then this joke that comes out that everyone makes fun of the car. They fucking knew about it. They knew. Also, it would be funny if they were just like, you know, we tested this 40 times and 40s are limit. So we're just going to go with it from here. Right. When you don't like the test results, when you're a big fucking corporation like this, you just stop testing it, right? Yeah. Or then they also did some like modifications on it and it did work. These little plastic devices that they put on it and the structure, blah, blah, blah. It weighed a pound and only costs a dollar per car to put it on these

cars. And they were all inexpensive fixes, but Lee Iacocca is uncompromising about the weight and pricing limitations. He refuses to do a $1 per car fix, even though it would save lives. I mean, he says it's not justifiable. Yeah. It's not justifiable because lives are look. I mean, there's more, there's always more lives that can buy cars. Right. Exactly. Ford argues that people aren't killed or injured by burns, but by the kinetic force of crashes, which isn't true when it's a 20 or 30 mile an hour crash, right? Especially if you're wearing a fucking seat belt, which always wear your seat belt people. Also, what if you're almost killed? You're like right up to the end and then the burning starts. That's not their problem. It's not either or Lee. No, no.

This despite showing many victims of rear end collisions, which result in fires have no broken bones or blood loss. So it's just not even true. The company argues that the risk of any such fires is low and that the rear end collisions are relatively rare. They say rear end collisions are relatively rare. I'm sorry. Isn't that what bumpers are all about? Like they're so common that you put a bumper back there. Yeah. At the time, car fires from accidents are five times more common than building fires. And rear end collisions are 7.5 times more likely to result in fuel spills than front end collisions. So it's all just a bunch of fucking bullshit. Can I just say this also? Lee Iacocca, it just sounds like a name from history. He was such a

big part of 70s culture because of the gas crisis and all this kind of stuff. I think someone did him on Saturday Night Live. He was a character on Saturday Night Live. That is a known name if you grew up in the 70s and 80s for sure, Lee Iacocca. He was a big deal. Yeah. So nevertheless, despite all of this, the Pinto rolls out to great fanfare on September 11th, 1970 with the tagline, the little carefree car. Radio ads reassure the buying public, I know, that quote, Pinto leaves you with that warm feeling, which is so foreboding. Is that like a fart reference? What do they do? No, but like the fact that they secretly light on fire is such a creepy thing. Oh, Jesus. Oh, yeah. Oh, no, they regret that.

They're so economical on fuel that they outsell the Chevy Vega, the AMC Gremlin, and overseas competitors. It's just a big fucking hit. Yeah. As your friend from high school knows. Patty Leone. Yeah. By January of 1971, there's over 100,000 Pintos on the road. The entire production run that year sees over 352,000 cars roll off the assembly line. A station wagon model comes out. Three months later, on May 28th, 1971, 52-year-old Lily Gray leaves Anaheim in her Pinto to drive to Barstow to meet her husband. I'm going to give you a couple examples of these crashes and the lawsuits that happened. Yeah. Besider in the passenger seat is 13-year-old Richard Grimshaw,

who's the son of Lily's neighbors. The Gray's Pinto is six months old and has only done about 3,000 miles. After setting off, Lily stops in San Bernardino for gas before getting back on Interstate 15. And as Lily approaches the Route 30 off-ramp, she's doing about 60 to 65 miles per hour, but traffic is heavy. So she moves from the freeway outer lane to the middle lane, but soon afterwards, the Pinto stalls, going 60 to 65 miles per hour, and comes to a stop in the middle of the freeway. Oh, that's my nightmare. I know. It's so scary. A driver in a Ford Galaxy brakes hard but can't stop in time. And when the Galaxy hits the back of the Pinto, it's doing at least 28 miles per hour. So on a stopped car, that's a hard collision.

Yeah. The Pinto's gas tank ruptures upon impact. Gasoline vapor floods the passenger compartment and is ignited by a spark. The Pinto explodes in a fireball with Lily and Richard trapped inside. Their clothes are almost completely burned off, and they're both rushed to the hospital. Lily has severe burns to her entire body and dies of congestive heart failure a few hours later. I know. Am I getting lightheaded thinking about this? Richard barely survives and remains hospitalized for a long time. He has burns over 95% of his body. They're so extreme in disfiguring, he loses his nose, his left ear, and portions of the fingers on his left hand. 13-year-old boy. He also faces at least a decade of painful skin grafts and

ongoing reconstructive surgery to his face and body. By 1973, insurance companies are encouraging survivors of burns, resulting from low-speed rear-end collisions in Pinto's to investigate Ford's liability. The company's internal recall evaluation team reviews field reports as per standard procedure, but finds nothing they feel they need to address. Okay, can I just tell you, that's how bad it was that an insurance company is telling people you should look into this? Those people, I mean, that's going, that is extreme, I think. Right. And another thing I think about, this is a low-cost economy car, so people who are driving these are low-income people. It's targeting low-income people once again.

Well, and also, the insurance company is saying, hey, you need to look into this. Right. You need to try to do something about it. And it's like, to the Ford Motor Company, good luck. Right, right. Exactly. And there's no provision under existing laws for any car manufacturer who knowingly places an unsafe car in the market to be at risk of criminal charges. Can you fucking believe that? Wow. It's a corporation, so they're not liable. More and more Pinto lawsuits are filed against Ford. When the company takes these cases to juries, plaintiffs are consistently

awarded millions of dollars. So you'd think that that alone, right? Like, if it's not because they don't want people to die, it's because they don't want to lose money, they'll make some fucking changes. And you'd think that this would be a huge financial problem for Ford. But when the company crunches the numbers, it basically realizes that redesigning the car and making the necessary safety adjustments to the Pinto's already on the road would cost more than having to pay out the personal injury claims to survivors and victims' families. Can you fucking think about that? It costs more to change everything and make it so people don't die and are scarred for life than to recall these cars and make it so people don't keep getting

fucking hurt and killed. So they decide to do that. That's evil. That's fucking evil. Well, and it goes kind of right along with that whole, you know, that theory about how sociopaths are the ones that rise to the top in companies and stuff like that, because you have to make decisions like that. So you're basically, there's just a human lizard that's just sitting there, cold-blooded as possible, being like, nope, we'll take option to be crunch the numbers. It's not about human lives. That's why, yeah, that's exactly right. If you're interested in knowing how much the NHTSA determines a human life is worth in 1972, it's $200,725 per individual. So that's how much a human life is worth based on

how much each person would get. Wow. How much it would cost. So the analysis becomes known as the Pinto memo, and it compares the extended costs and benefits of required repairs with the cost to society for deaths and injuries caused by the Pinto fire, and that's Pinto fires, and that's $200,725 per individual. Ford suggests the amount of people killed by car fires is 180 per year, and they also say the price of the fuel system modifications to reduce fire risks in the Pinto is only $11 per car, but the required design changes will prevent a loss of human life totaling $49.5 million, but Ford argues the cost of making the modifications based on annual sales comes to just $137 million per year, so that money isn't even worth it to them. Wow. By 1977, the Pinto is

the biggest selling subcompact car in the country, and Ford is turning a huge profit, even though section 301 is in place at this point. More than 3 million Pintos without these modifications are on the road, so basically in the new Pintos they're making, those modifications are happening, but there's 3 million unrecalled Pintos on the road without it. Pinto is also passing NHTSA rear end crash tests because the little modification that they used in the test in the 1970s is now a standard feature, so they're like, see, it's not true, but it's like, but all the cars before that are exploding. In July 1977, 19-year-old Richard Grisham's case, the 13-year-old boy, he's now 19, it finally begins in court. By this time, Richard's undergone 52 surgeries for his injuries.

It's a high-profile case because the following month, the NHTSA starts an investigation in DeFord following an intense campaign by the Center for Autosafety and the public who are now also scrutinizing the regulator. So people have figured it the fuck out and are making jokes about it, but are realizing it's a real fucking thing. Yeah. That Fall Mother Jones magazine publishes an expose by investigative reporter Mark Doe, and the article makes public the details of that Pinto memo saying that the human life cost is smaller than it would cost to recall the cars, as well as Ford's knowledge of the fire risk way back during the production planning and the decision not to do anything about it. And the article accuses the NHTSA of pandering to auto

manufacturers and reveals that the modifications cost to Ford is not $11 per vehicle as they originally thought, but they crunched the numbers and Mother Jones says that it would have cost only $5.08 per car, but they refuse to do it. Mother Jones claims that between 500 and 900 people die due to Pinto fires, but it's not clear how the magazine got that number. And it's never totally determined how many people have died of Pinto fires. Ford dismisses the allegations made by Mother Jones, but the NHTSA takes them seriously. In February of 1978, a verdict is delivered in the Grimshaw case. The jury believes Ford went ahead with producing the Pinto despite knowing the fuel tank design was dangerous. So it's kind of this, it's one case, but it's the

sweeping acknowledgement that they just went ahead. Sorry, it's one case, but it's like one, it's you, it's a life, it's a human being. So it's like, yeah, you can conceptualize and just be kind of like a number cruncher and be really whatever about it. Here's a boy who, when he was 13, basically had his, had all of his skin burned off. So what's the value on that? What kind of number do you think you're going to be able to pull down about that? Right. Or like go, door to have a fucking door door tour where you meet the families and the mothers and fathers and the sisters and brothers of, of the victims who you knowingly allowed them to die because you wanted to crunch some numbers and save some money. It's absurd. In total, the jury awards

127.8 million in damages. 125 million is punitive damages. And in terms of compensatory damages, Richard is awarded $2,841,000. And Lily Gray's family received $665,000. That's a 1978 money. At the time, it's the largest award in the US for product liability and personal injury. The total figure equates to Ford's monthly profit. So that's all it is to them. It's what they're monthly. It's one month. It's one month of profit. The jury foreman describes the pinto as, quote, a lousy and unsafe product and justifies the figure by saying, quote, we came up with this high amount so that Ford wouldn't design cars this way again. So they actually, they had a conscience. Yeah. Well, they're regular people. Right. Exactly. On May 8th, 1978, the NHTSA concludes

through its own rigorous crash testing that the pinto fuel system is indeed defective. In the three years since 1975, 53 people have died and dozens of others injured in accidents involving pinto fires. The NHTSA begins negotiating a recall with Ford. On June 9th, 1978, the company voluntarily recalls 1.5 million pentos and Mercury Bobcats, which was their Canadian version of the pinto, made between 1971 and 1976 to conduct modifications. Ford disagrees. The fuel tank issue is a defect, explaining that the recall is simply to, quote, end public concern. So they won't even take responsibility or credit for what's going on. Well, you'd have to have a conscience to do that. Also, I think, I mean, we're being very

jokey about that or the people that work there or whatever. It doesn't necessarily mean that you're a sociopath if you do stuff like that. But once you're in a system like that, and it's like, well, then you have to keep your job, and your job is to keep those numbers down and make the shareholders happy and all that stuff. Right. Ford won't reveal how much it costs to recall all the cars, but some experts estimate it's anywhere between 12 million to 20 million in those days' money. But of course, by this time, many of these cars have been sold secondhand, so recalling them isn't completely foolproof. It's impossible to track down every current owner. On August 10th, 1978, 18-year-old Judy Ulrich is driving her 16-year-old sister, Lynn,

and their 18-year-old cousin, Donna, to church volleyball practice. The girls are traveling in a 1973 Pinto along US 33 in Elkhart County near Goshen, Indiana. They stop to get gas, then continue on their way. But when Jodi looks in the rearview mirror, she sees the gas cap cover open. And remember, she's left the gas cap on the car's trunk, so she turns on the hazard and moves the car over, but is still doing about 30 miles per hour. And behind the Pinto, 21-year-old Richard Duggar is driving a two-ton Chevy van in the same direction. He tries to light a cigarette while driving, but drops it on the floor, and he reaches down to pick it up, taking his eyes off the road for a second, and the Chevy slams into the back of the moving Pinto at around 50 miles per hour.

It sends the Pinto into the air. It lands some distance away. Gasoline vapor fills the interior of the car as the gas tank ruptures. And Richard jumps out of the van, and he runs towards the Pinto to try to help the occupants. The Ulrich girls are alive, but trapped due to the doors being crushed shut from the impact because they're not reinforced against crumbling. The Pinto suddenly explodes before Richard's eyes. The force of the blast causes the car to spin. Richard can hear the girls bang against the doors and screaming, but there's nothing he can do due to the heat. I know. Honestly, this makes me fucking light-headed. The horror. Well, you know why? Because it's so possible. I mean, not this specific situation, but just that

idea of like, we're always on the 5 going 80 miles an hour and just being like, good luck. Did you do? Yeah. So true. So scary. So the car explodes again and is consumed by a fireball. Donna and Lynn burned a death inside the car within minutes. Judy is pulled from the incinerated wreck, but dies in the hospital the next day from burns. Richard Duggar isn't charged by police, but you know, it's clearly an accident. But the investigation focuses on the Pinto's gas tank instead. A month later in September 1978, a grand jury indicts Ford on three counts of reckless homicide and one count of criminal recklessness because of this crash. Wow. Reckless homicide is one of the most serious charges to

be brought against a corporation, but criminal recklessness is a new crime under a 1977 revision of Indiana law that allows corporations to be charged criminally, as it should be. This is a landmark case in terms of corporate responsibility and product liability. It's the first time in US history, homicide charges are brought against a corporation for knowingly manufacturing a product which would cause death. Having said that, if there's a conviction, no one at Ford can be sentenced to jail time and the maximum fine applicable to the company is only $35,000, which in today's money is $153,000, which is fucking an hour of like profits. Yeah, right. It's shitty. It seems like it's more of just like a slap on the wrist,

but also a message. In February of 1979, while all this is going on with this case, Judy and Lynn Ulrich's parents receive a recall notice on their Pinto after their daughters had died. By June the same year, at least 75 lawsuits are filed against Ford since the Pinto's release onto the market. The negative publicity over the car has cost the company more than $50 million. But despite all the bad publicity about the Pinto and Ford's efforts to contact everyone, 64% of recalled Pinto's still haven't been brought in for repairs, which is like, yeah, people don't. If you don't know what's going on, if you hadn't heard about the risk, you wouldn't just like rush your Pinto in to get recalled. When do you fucking,

I never bring my car in for those recalls that it gets, that I get notices for. Yeah, the idea over recall, I think they were so new at that time. Yeah, I think people were probably just like, sorry, what? What is this? Not realizing the actual danger. And people are still buying the car. It's been fixed, but Pinto sales for the first five months of 1979 are up 22.5% from the same period the year before. So people are still buying them despite what's been going on. In January of 1980, the criminal case begins against Ford over the Ulrich's deaths. Engineers testified that had Ford changed the fuel tank position to over the axle, 95% of fatalities would have survived.

It's also said that no one had told Lee Iacocca about the issues because if they did, they'd be worried they'd be fired. So apparently they, he didn't know about it, which I call bullshit. But he knew about the, he knew about not adding the plastic piece in the beginning. Right. So he just didn't know what the results of that bad decision were. He probably didn't want to know all the details. And in fact, a quote attributed to him is quote, safety doesn't sell. That's so 70s. I know. So of that time. It is. On March 13th, 1980, Ford is found not guilty on the charges of reckless homicide. The jury claims there's insufficient evidence to support a conviction. Plus Richard Duggar was doing around 50 miles per hour well

over the current impact threshold in terms of section 301. So it was 30 miles per hour, not 50. Yeah. But the impact threshold on that fucking car has nothing to do with what people do on the freeway in reality. Like that has nothing to do with anything. That was their stupid planning. Your car shouldn't fucking explode at any fucking speed. I'm sorry. It just shouldn't happen. It's no speed at no impact level. None. Nothing. None of it. Later that same year, a civil suit is settled for $7,500, which is $33,000 each for Judy, Lynn, and Donna Ulrich. It's highway robbery. Yeah, literally. Finally, the pinto has discontinued in 1980. If you believe Ford, 23 people died in fire-related deaths in a pinto between 1971

and 1978, which is, I call bullshit, on 23 people. It's Mother Jones found it was like, what was 500 to? 500 to 800? Yeah. Mother Jones found it to be 500 to 900 people dying. So that 23 number is probably real bullshit. It's bullshit, but still. Sorry. What's the good number? Are they acting like 23 is okay? Yeah. That's an okay thing to have happen. Three sisters died in a car together. Yeah. During this time, around 117 lawsuits in total are brought against Ford in connection with pinto rear end accidents, and $100 million is paid out. These days, the pinto is extremely collectible. Hopefully they're talking about the ones that have been fixed. During its production run, over 3 million cars are manufactured, but by 2016,

there's fewer than 10,000 still around. They're currently worth a little under 10 grand, but in 2021, one sold online for 17 grand. However, this doesn't stop the pinto from regularly appearing on listicles of the worst cars of all time. In the aftermath, regarding the lawsuits, Lee Iacocca said, quote, the suits might have bankrupted the company. So we kept our mouths shut for fear of saying anything that just one jury might have construed as an admission of guilt. So protect the company, protect the company, protect the company. Winning in court was our top priority. Nothing else mattered. That's end quote. Because of this, he never worked again and died penniless and shamed. Just kidding. Right. I was like, no. He went on to work at Chrysler

and have a long and distinguished career as a high-powered executive. He died at his home in Bel Air in 2019 at 94 years old. And so lucky for him, he never drove a pinto. Didn't have to. And that is the story of the Ford pinto and how this car prompted unprecedented investigations into corporate negligence. Wow. What a great idea to talk about that. What a great idea. It's like, yeah, on a listicle, you'd be like, oh, that car's ugly. And oh, that's crazy. It exploded or whatever. But the reality of it, where they were churning that thing out and being like, don't get a Honda. Don't get that super affordable, you never have to fix a Honda from overseas, get an American car. Right. Hey, poor people, we've got a car for you too. And but we don't

give a shit about your life. Congratulations. Man. Just horrifying. Yep. I don't think that's adjacent. I think that goes right into that is true crime. It's an absolute crime. It completely counts and those people were murdered. Yeah. Good God. Should we bring back the fucking hooray so we can end this on a high note? Let's do it. I have a pile right here. Okay, great. This first one says, fucking hooray, I took myself on my dream honeymoon. Dear MFM, ever since I was a child, I've dreamed of traveling to Greece on my honeymoon. God, I'd love to go to Greece. Me too. My friends are my friends are there right now, Don and Adam, and they're sending me pictures and it is like the most gorgeous. Okay, fast forward several decades. And although

I've built an interesting and fulfilling life and have amazing friends, I've never come close to marriage or a trip to Greece after a challenging couple of years, serving overseas in a country with very restrictive quarantine measures. And as I approached the age 39, I decided to stop waiting around for a marriage that may never happen and take myself on my dream honeymoon. Yes. I love this. Following many negative COVID tests, I traveled to beautiful Greece where I explored ancient ruins, relaxed on empty beaches, met up with foreign friends, listened to MFM while visiting 12th century Byzantine monasteries and stayed solo in a romantic hotel in Santorini. I had the most amazing time. It was a great reminder that I don't have to wait for anyone.

It's up to me to live the life I want to lead. This is an especially important lesson as I prepare to embark on the journey to solo motherhood this month. Wow. So fucking hooray from making my own dreams come true. All the best, Kate. Oh my God, Kate. Fuck. Yes. Fuck. Yes. That's amazing. What an incredible message. This one is just says 80 days sober today, 80 fucking days, eight zero. I did that and I am fucking proud of shit. Sarah in Chicago. Sarah. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. High five. Get them chips. Add it up. That's right. Feel it. Live it. Rock it. Do it. This says fucking hooray duplex edition. My fucking hooray, that says that in all caps, is that four years after my divorce, three years after paying off

thousands of dollars to set divorce slash debt, I finally achieved my ultimate goal and purchased my own home. And I did it as a single independent badass woman living in LA. I also decided since I was achieving one goal, why not start another? So I bought a duplex to start building some generational wealth for my Latino people. Stay sexy, Amiga's V. Yeah. I love this theme. I do too. It's very empowering. Here's my last one. My fucking hooray is that after being told I will never be able to read by teachers and classmates, I'm finally overcoming my learning disability. I have really bad dyslexia and all through elementary school and middle school, I was told that I will never be able to read above a fourth grade reading level and I will never be in normal

classes. I'm now a junior in high school and I'm reading at a 10th grade reading level and they're taking me out of special ed English and into general ed English classes. I love reading and I'm finally proving everyone wrong. Yes. No name. How fucking cool is that? God, I love that. Not only do I love that so much, but to that person, no name. I just want you to know and remember that once high school is over, reading is just a private thing you do. So it doesn't matter how you like- What level? That weird cold reading a lab bullshit they force you to do in school, it all but ends unless you do something like this, which we encourage you to do because if it's your podcast, you can edit it all you want. Stephen, you can take as long as you want to read,

but ultimately reading is a very personal, private thing. And if you do it slowly or you have to reread lines over and over again, same fucking here. This is a gift you're giving yourself for your entire life and getting to read. And listen, if you get sick of it, you could be like me and just listen to audiobooks all the time. It's pretty great too. Yeah, that's very- There's so many options, but also the fact that you're a passionate reader is all you need to qualify yourself as. Totally. Just a passionate reader. You care enough to do it. It's so good. That's so true. It's beautiful. Amazing. Thanks for sending these in, you guys. We appreciate it at the end of a long, depressing episode to be able to read your fucking hurrays and we appreciate you listening

and being part of our rad little life. Um, yeah, 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 Marin McClashen and Gemma Harris. Email your hometowns and fucking hurrays to myfavoritmurder at gmail.com. Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at myfavoritmurder and Twitter at myfavemurder. Goodbye. Listen, follow, leave us a review on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, Prime members, did you know that you can listen to my favorite murder early and

ad-free on Amazon Music? Download the Amazon Music app today. You can support my favorite murder by filling out a survey at wanderie.com slash survey.