My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 70 - Live at the Moontower Comedy Festival

Episode Date: May 25, 2017

It's a new My Favorite Murder, live from Austin, Texas! Karen and Georgia cover the infamous Yogurt Shop Murders and America's 'first' serial killer, the Servant Girl Annihilator.See Privacy ...Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 This is exactly right. We at Wondery live, breathe, and downright obsess over true crime. And now we're launching the ultimate true crime fan experience, Exhibit C. Join now by following Wondery, Exhibit C, on Facebook and listen to true crime on Wondery and Amazon Music. Exhibit C, it's truly criminal. Hi Austin. Oh my God, me too.
Starting point is 00:01:01 Just do that for a little longer, I'm trying to finish my mint. You don't mind? They love it. They love it. Spit it over there. What's up, Texas, we're finally here. I wore my cowboy boots for you guys. Take a walk. Walk those things around.
Starting point is 00:01:29 Then said, yeah, yeah, yeah. Scared. Then said that they're culturally appropriating. Yes. I'm culturally appropriating. This is definitely a problematic way to start the show. Sorry guys. And I also wore my hair closer to God.
Starting point is 00:01:50 I guess that's the thing. Yeah, they love that. See, I know how to. Pander. Yeah. Yeah. What about, what are you wearing tonight, Pander? I'm wearing a dress that's a little too tight.
Starting point is 00:02:04 And so it's got, I've got like a reverse bank situation where kind of like, you can't tell if it's a big stomach or a flop of material and neither can I. I'm not sure what's happening down here. And I don't care anymore. Show everyone your fancy things. I really wanted to put my microphone next to that microphone. Do you know how much the sound guy would hate me if I did that? Just like, what do you think?
Starting point is 00:02:34 Oh, no. So obnoxious. This place is haunted, I heard. Steven sent us this long text that I got after like, we got off the plane and it was like, it was like the fat, like the history of this place. And here are all the ghosts. There's a projectionist that worked here when this was a movie theater and he died while showing Casablanca, which everyone thinks is beautiful because he died doing what he
Starting point is 00:03:00 loved. I agree. I didn't mean to say, I didn't mean to say it like that. It sounded argumentative and bizarre. So stupid. You guys think that's nice. What you don't know is. Okay.
Starting point is 00:03:16 I was going to tell you on stage that. Saving it for this. Yeah. So Vince and I were on the airplane today and I couldn't like, like get into wifi. So he was like leaned over as husband will do and was like, let me figure this out. And so he like figures all this stuff out and then he goes to click on a website just to see if it's working and he pulls down my favorites page. But you know, most people are like Facebook and Twitter and like Craigslist or whatever
Starting point is 00:03:40 the normal things are. Yeah. And then he stares at it for a minute and he goes, are these all serial killers? And I was just like, yeah. Yeah. And then we moved on. Serial killers are my Google. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:03:57 It's just the given. Yeah. I had a kind of fascinating thing happen. First of all, I was the last person on the plane. Oh my God. You give me a panic attack. I know. That's how different George and I are.
Starting point is 00:04:11 I was standing in the security line like, oh, this sucks. And George is like, text, text, text. I'm on the plane. Where are you? So I walked right on last. Then a guy who looked like he was, it could have been, I mean, he was on his way to the city, but I was like, is he coming to our festival? He was really big and had a ton of tattoos and many on his neck.
Starting point is 00:04:41 Yeah. My friend used to call those the job stoppers. Just something to consider. But these guys look like, they look like they were at a band of like, it could have been Lincoln Park, I'm not sure. I'm really old. I'm incredibly old. And he didn't have like tattoos that are like, oh, he's like, he just like pays a lot of
Starting point is 00:05:01 money and gets tattoos. Like they look like prison tattoos. They look like defensive maneuvers the way a cuttlefish changes into a different thing in the ocean. They'll be like, don't get me. He was totally like, beware of me. I'm very scary. Well, he stands up and he's like, I got to get off this plane.
Starting point is 00:05:19 And he fucking takes off. He had to go. He couldn't handle flying the plane. I think he may have had a teardrop tattoo, but he couldn't. A three hour flight was not going to happen in his life. Just like he was panicking. Yeah. Oh, I know.
Starting point is 00:05:37 That's sweet. You should have cradled him the whole flight. Can you come down here a second? You're going to love this. Hold your hand. I know it's a weird time for you. And it's probably very shaming to be a very large, mean looking man that's literally like, get me off this plane right now.
Starting point is 00:05:54 Bested by a panic attack. Yeah. Love to bummer. I mean, I've had it. And on a plane, I've actually had a seizure on a plane. No brag. No brag. Oh no.
Starting point is 00:06:05 It's pretty cool. I was, I had been bumped up to first class because they screwed up my ticket. Yeah. And I was flying home from England. Oh my God. That's amazing. I was sitting next to, I was sitting next to this man who was like, he was like a silver fox and he had like really expensive clothes on from what I could tell, like not target.
Starting point is 00:06:27 And I was like, I want to touch it. And he was like kind of being charming and talking to me. And I had the thought in my head of like, why can't I have a sugar daddy? Why can't I be one of those girls? I would be the, I would be the best kind because you wouldn't see it coming. It'd be like, oh, is that your assistant? And he'd be like, yep, that's my assistant. I had this whole fantasy in my mind of how we were going to do it.
Starting point is 00:06:54 But then I had a seizure. Oh my God. That's the worst possible. It was. And then. Yeah. Not cool. Like, it's not how you want a guy to see you foaming at the mouth with blue lips.
Starting point is 00:07:10 Um, the last thing I heard was him go, excuse me, I think this young lady needs help. Like he was already, it's like we were no longer even close anymore. He was immediately distancing himself from me just because I was having a seizure, like a common drug addict on a plane. Oh, that makes me. That's scary. I know. Sorry.
Starting point is 00:07:33 I just dug that one up from deep, deep down inside. I've only done the normal throwing up thing on a plane before, which like everyone here has probably, right? Uh, nope. Excuse me. Well, I think they have some questions like I do. Was it in the aisle or in the bathroom? No, no, no.
Starting point is 00:07:50 It was in a receptacle. Like, not it. Where? In your lap though? Uh, I don't. Yeah. Say. Yes.
Starting point is 00:07:58 Uh, what? And did one of them begs? Yeah. Did you use a barf bag on plane? Are you from 1955? This is amazing. Yeah, that happened. That's what they're for though, right?
Starting point is 00:08:10 No, totally. Sorry. The tone is wrong. I'm a little nervous. So everything I'm saying isn't how I mean it. It's all coming out super weird, but did you have to? This is a question I've always had because it's barf. I mean, it just comes out.
Starting point is 00:08:27 So do you like make your own thing at the top so it doesn't come out the side? Yeah. Hopefully it won't be like overflow and you don't have to grab your neighbors. Right. But then they have like, it's like you're at like the grocery store getting vegetables and it has a little like twist tag. No. And it's like a bag of cookies from Trader Joe's or something.
Starting point is 00:08:46 Oh, I don't want to eat these all at once. I'm just going to wrap it down, put it aside. I'm a good, I'm a like good controlled barfer though, so like it was fine. Yeah. Real. Oh, from practice? Well, yeah. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:09:01 Eating disorders. Teenage girls. Don't deal with them. Junior high. Go to therapy. Very difficult. Time. Just got real deep, real quick.
Starting point is 00:09:10 First of all. God, I wish I'd, I, I, knowing that about you. Cool. Lots of anorexics in the house tonight. Emblemics. Hey. I actually had my dentist when I was in college, my dentist who, Dr. Brown, who's my dentist all my life since I was a baby.
Starting point is 00:09:31 And I was like, baby teeth, baby teeth. I opened my mouth and this is probably sophomore year in college and it goes, oh no, are you vomiting? Oh, Dr. Brown and I were the only ones that knew. Oh my God. I was like, it's still not working, Dr. Brown. This isn't the diet they promised it would be. He was like, don't drink 50 beers every night, Karen.
Starting point is 00:09:56 I was like, sorry, I have no control over that part, Dr. Brown. None of this is real. None of that part of the conversation happened. It's called ad-living. That's right. We love it. We love it. Thanks.
Starting point is 00:10:14 What a historic place to perform in that gorgeous song that I choose. I mean, I miss so much. And what a historic place to talk about barfing. Yes. It's pretty beautiful. This is the most beautiful place I've ever talked about barfing before. Now I want to see you do it myself. I have to say.
Starting point is 00:10:35 I'll let you know next time. At some point on this tour, I want to see it. Okay. I had too much red wine, you know, sort of thing. That would be a bad one. I know. Because that's going to stain me as well as you. Wow.
Starting point is 00:10:48 Yeah. This is clearly my favorite murder. Hi. Hi. Yeah. I'm a little nervous about this show. I don't know why. Because Austin's cool people?
Starting point is 00:11:02 Austin's cool people. You know that. It's comedy people. That's very important. Yeah. But it's also Texas, you guys have been showing up for this podcast since day one, like big time. Thank you.
Starting point is 00:11:17 Yeah. I feel like when we were in New York and I was like, this is big at the weekend. I know the same way where it's like, oh my God, don't make them hate you. This is the moment where it's all click, click, click. I saw him live. That was it. I got it out of my system. Oh no.
Starting point is 00:11:37 That's what happens sometimes. Yeah. We'll think of something else. We'll make croissants or something. It'll be fine. We'll be fine. Oh, we got cookies backstage too. Oh yeah.
Starting point is 00:11:45 Thanks for the cookies. Yeah. They're so pretty. We love them. No. It should be... Very good state. Somebody who clearly studied theater was like, you're welcome.
Starting point is 00:11:58 I used my diaphragm. Project your voice. There you go. Do you want to know a trick about song performance? Yes. This is one of the only things I learned in college. Because I took a class, it was stage performance for musical theater singing. Wow.
Starting point is 00:12:20 Stage performance. We got the musical theater crowd. I heard them. What up, nerds? So you guys already know this, so don't get bored as I tell you this. As people in musicals sing, you just always have your arm going in a different direction. Oh, my God. And the thing is, if you're going to sing about the horizon, you don't point to the
Starting point is 00:12:43 horizon. You sing about the horizon, but you point down there. And then suddenly you're like, oh, my God, I love that. Is it because someone's going to... You point at the horizon, and then people are going to be like, where's the horizon? Is there a horizon in here? Is it really a horizon? Okay.
Starting point is 00:12:57 So it's just really... It's just kind of go opposite of what you're talking about, and it creates a bit of a cognitive dissonance in the mind, and then the performance seems more important than it actually is. And you're not just singing about Oklahoma. I get it. Wow. That's really great. Thank you.
Starting point is 00:13:17 I also need to learn how to sing and not just hurt people's ears when I sing. But I'll do it this while I'm doing it. Just give it a whirl. Yeah, I will. Next time at karaoke. Okay. Do you want to be under here? No.
Starting point is 00:13:29 Steven's at home watching my cats, and he keeps sending me the cutest photos. Like really cute photos. I feel like if there's anyone that was ever born to be a cat sitter, it's Steven Ray Morris. Like if you don't know him, and maybe some of you don't, you're like, who's this guy? It's just if you picture a cat sitter in your mind just as fast as you can, that's him. Out of my sash. Boom. It's so funny, because sometimes I get depressed when we're out touring because I miss my cats,
Starting point is 00:14:02 and I'm like, are they okay? I don't know if they're feeding them. I wonder if they miss me. Yeah. Oh, they're too far. And I drink too much red wine to forget it. But knowing Steven's there, I barely thought about that. No.
Starting point is 00:14:15 I'm just like, no, they're actually, they like him a little better than me. Yeah, and he loves them more than you. Oh, he loves them way more than I love. Yeah. You're just taking so many selfies with the cats. And I gave him my Instagram cat, my cat Instagram password. Whoa. I'm just like, go crazy, dude.
Starting point is 00:14:31 That's real commitment. Get me some followers. What's up? Work it, Steven. Work it. Yeah, let's get it together. Yeah, let's hear it for Steven Ray Morris. He makes it.
Starting point is 00:14:40 He makes it all happen. We recently got asked if we were really as mean to him in real life as we are in the podcast. We are. But it doesn't matter because now he gets anything that we get sent. People send things to Steven now too. Yeah. So he's just, he's on the bandwagon. I think the dream is to start making enough money that Steven not only is able to come
Starting point is 00:15:06 on tour with us, but he is lower down on a half moon at the top of the show. For sure. Wouldn't that be good? Oh my God. Holding a live, hairless cat. Oh my God. Immediately that needs to happen to me. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:15:21 Should we sit down? Look at these nice seats. I know. These are some good, young. I think these are kind of the nicest ones we've had in a while. Yeah. They look like executives. I'm going to do this though.
Starting point is 00:15:30 Last time I really felt like something rated like NC 17 was happening while I was on stage. So I just like to do a little less of the direct, like you didn't pay extra for those seats. Did you? You don't get to have that. Everyone look away real quick. Uh-oh. There we go.
Starting point is 00:15:49 These might be more form than function. All right. How's that? Did you hear that? I do. You can make it far. Farfy. So it feels a little unstable.
Starting point is 00:16:02 Like, you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. So one of us might fall. Someone in the back that works here is crying. They're like, those are my good stools. I thought they would love them. I'm just like, yeah, just a little. Oh, this is perfect.
Starting point is 00:16:20 I'll sit like this. A three-quarter. And then when I tell my murder, I'll just do this, and I'll do that, and I'll do this, and then down over here. And I'll do this. And I just want to even look at you the whole time. You're going to Sharon Stone this thing? I thought that's what you were doing.
Starting point is 00:16:39 I didn't mean to put you in a bad place. No. I mean, no. I might as well. So I can't sing, and you don't want to see my underwear. Those are the two. Those are my two rules in life. You've got to have at least two rules when you go on stage and not showing people your
Starting point is 00:16:56 underwear. Maybe you should be in there if that's your thing. Sure. Probably if you're a podcaster. Right. Right. Yeah. Because, man, I don't spend enough money on lingerie because who cares?
Starting point is 00:17:09 Who's going to target, again, by mine from Target? Not like rich people. I mean, look, it works. Target works. And so we work it. Yeah. I mean, I need to get, look, I need to get eye drops, bananas, and a brand new coat. Where am I going to go?
Starting point is 00:17:26 I'm fucking going to Target. Should we do our murders? Yeah, you want to? Yeah, you guys want to do murders? Do you want to hear some? Oh. Bye. Now I'm ready.
Starting point is 00:17:42 Well, Karen, let me tell you a tale of murder. That was cool. It's like when you get your hair cut last year and you're like, why, though? Yeah. Why? Come back. Oh. Are you staying there?
Starting point is 00:17:59 Why? I don't want to be up as high as I was. Okay. Yeah. So how do we? Boop. Uh-oh. Boop.
Starting point is 00:18:07 This is the part where I break my own nose with a chair. You just got to boop it a little. Can you tell I've worked at an office for like 10 years because I know how to boop boop these chairs perfectly? Oh, you did it real subtle? What? You mean you did little boops? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:18:18 Boop. Boop. Nice. Good work. I'm new to chairs. This is the listening arm. Yes. Oh, interesting.
Starting point is 00:18:31 Okay. I'm first, right? You're first this time. Yeah. Okay. Right now. Thank you. Right?
Starting point is 00:18:40 Okay. I can see. I don't want to. Oh, oh, oh. You start reading mine. Stop it. Georgia always does that anytime her paper is face up near me backstage and I go anywhere near, she'll go, don't read it.
Starting point is 00:18:53 And I'm like, I am blind. I can't see anything with no glasses on. I just love when it's a surprise. I don't know why. It's like doesn't make a difference, but I love it. It's our thing. It's our thing. Just like the underwear rule.
Starting point is 00:19:06 It's ours. Ours and ours alone. Okay. And one of the other reasons I'm nervous is because this murder, like when we knew we were coming to Austin, I like a baby brat said, I get this one. Like called it to Karen so hard and she was like, go ahead. And then I took it on and I was like, this is hard. Shit.
Starting point is 00:19:26 You know? What were you? Yeah. Wait. Is this the one you told me you weren't going to do? I said I was going to do it. And then I said, never mind. And then I did it.
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Starting point is 00:20:55 In our next season, three masked men hijack a school bus full of children in the sleepy farm town of Chowchilla, California. They bury the children and their bus driver deep underground, planning to hold them for ransom. Local police and the FBI marshal a search effort, but the trail quickly runs dry. As the air supply for the trapped children dwindles, a pair of unlikely heroes emerges. Follow against the odds wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app.
Starting point is 00:21:30 This is the Yogurt Shop right now. We've got to figure out a way to explain to people who like work here or might just be passing through the room accidentally. What that moment is about. Yeah. It's not what it seems, it's not what it appears. That's a good point. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:21:57 And whatever. We'll worry about it later. It'll say there may be cheering for murders. But it's not that exactly, not really that. Yeah. But we don't. Okay. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:22:10 Whatever. Not our problem. Okay. So in Austin, Texas, the early 90s, it's still a relatively small college town feel where violent crime was fairly rare. And that all changed on December 6, 1991, when 13-year-old Amy Ayers, 15-year-old Sarah Harrison, when they went to I Can't Believe It's Yogurt in a strip mall, it's like a really unfortunate name.
Starting point is 00:22:36 No. Listen, I wanted to laugh too, but I'm a professional, so I didn't, but I heard a snicker and then I was like, do we do that? No. Well, there's a whole run of yogurt. We could just visit this for one second. Yeah. In the 80s and 90s, frozen yogurt was like the penicillin of America.
Starting point is 00:22:58 It came so hard for us, and we all bought it totally. 100%. Totally. Or like, in my mind, I was like, well, this is, this is a diet. I'm going to eat this only. It's yogurt. Yeah. And this is, and now I'm going to have like John Hughes high school experience.
Starting point is 00:23:15 It didn't turn out that way. But I still, I would get carob chips on mine, because I was a hippie. You are a big hippie. I'm not a big hippie. But the names also, so there was, I Can't Believe It's Not Yogurt, it was, I Can't Believe It's Yogurt. I Can't Believe It's Yogurt. I had one across through my house called Frogan Yozer.
Starting point is 00:23:35 It's just like, you just can't name it, like my frozen yogurt. I worked in one in high school called How Sweet It Is. Got it. And then it was almost like a subtitle of We Have Yogurt. You think that since I love puns so much, I'd love like a play on a name. Yes. You know, sometimes it's, it's got to be simple. There's also the country's best yogurt, which if it's a chain, how can that be?
Starting point is 00:23:59 But that's not our gear right now. Is it a franchise or no? Okay. I Can't Believe It's Yogurt in a strip mall off West Anderson Lane to visit Sarah's 17 girl sister, Jennifer, and their friend Eliza Thomas, also 17, as they closed up the shop around 11 p.m. Remember when you could just work at places by yourself until 11 p.m.? Sure.
Starting point is 00:24:22 Just like hanging out, closing shops by yourself? I totally did that. Hey, I'm a sophomore. Of course I can do this business. Yeah. I'm a, of course I should have the keys and work the safe. Totally. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:24:32 That's definitely something. Makes perfect sense. Well, so the girls were going to have a sleepover afterwards, so Amy and Sarah came by to help clothe what? Just that they're like closing a business and then going to a sleepover. Yeah. That should be the, hey. Like half of them can't drive and then they're, so they're helping to close up, which is so
Starting point is 00:24:51 sweet. They're like, we'll help you mop so we can go hang out sooner. And so this was close to 11 p.m. when Amy and Sarah showed up and let's cut to midnight about an hour later after the closed sign had been turned, the front door was locked and the man who owned the shop next door called Party House spotted flames and smoke and called the fire department. Let's do the first picture, please. That's, I can't believe it's yogurt exclamation mark, fucked up, right?
Starting point is 00:25:26 I mean, we really couldn't believe it was yogurt at the time and it just tasted so much like ice cream. It's like, am I a dairy queen? This is insane. My life is so much better now. And yogurt's healthy. I eat it all the time. And you're hippy.
Starting point is 00:25:40 I mean, all these things. That's such a 90s crime scene photo. Yeah. It's like such a bummer. It should have like the digital date down to the bottom, like your mom took the picture with her camera. Oh. This is, okay.
Starting point is 00:25:55 This is bad. But I think what's so crazy about it is that this is a really like almost suburban area and there's like the strip malls and like it's pretty safe and you don't normally see 17 fire trucks at a spot. So I think everyone knew something was up. Yeah. Okay. You can take that off.
Starting point is 00:26:12 Thanks. Burn it. Oh. I didn't mean it like that. I didn't. Sorry. No. No.
Starting point is 00:26:23 That does not count against me this time. Steven. Cut that. Steven. That never happened in reality. Fuck. Sorry. Okay.
Starting point is 00:26:37 You can take it down because I want everyone staring at me and not that horrible photo. Oh. No. Today's the day she turns into a diva. I've been waiting till Austin to really come out and that's right. You all. No. I love you all.
Starting point is 00:26:55 Well, or we can leave it up. As they worked to put out the flames, the building was of course trampled by many firefighters because I thought it was just a fire. And then one of the firefighters went in the back door, spotted a human foot inside the back door of the storage room like sticking out. And then shortly after that, they realized what was going on. The bodies of Sarah, Jennifer, and Eliza were all found together in the storage area. They'd all been stripped.
Starting point is 00:27:24 This is so good. They've all been stripped, and two were bound, and three girls were shot in the back, and the three girls were shot in the back of the heads with 22 callavers. Eliza and Sarah had been stacked upon each other, and Jennifer was lying next to them, possibly having been moved by the high powered fire hoses that had swept the scene. And then 13 year old Amy was found a few minutes later lying alone. She was barely alive, and she was near the bathrooms. She had been initially shot with a 22 as well, but had survived that, and was shot again
Starting point is 00:27:56 with a 38, and she died shortly after. Some of the girls had been raped, but it would be years before DNA testing would become available. So investigators concluded that the fire was set to cover up the crime, and the culprits had drenched Styrofoam cups with lighter fluid and set them on fire. Investigator was about $540 missing from the register, but investigators didn't think the motive was robbery because there was also a bank bag underneath the cash register, and it had money in it, and nobody took it. So I've been reading the book Who Killed These Girls by Beverly Lowry, which is a new
Starting point is 00:28:33 book simply about this crime. It's really good, and don't read it before you go to bed. And so she says that some of the shortcomings of the less than experienced Austin PD, they talk about that a lot, fire and water damage, the lack of multiple victims, the amount of people traipsing through the scene, all should have been handled by investigators who had experience in these kind of crime scenes, but they weren't, because Austin at the time didn't have that. Well, so when you think it's a fire, you're not treating it like a crime scene?
Starting point is 00:29:05 No. It's the exact opposite of how you would treat a crime scene. Right. But as soon as that happened, it should have been locked down, they should have gotten someone in who was in, you know, in any ways. The bodies weren't swabbed for traces of an accelerant, the bathrooms weren't dusted from fingerprints, the trash bags weren't combed through, the metal shelves and mops that were next to the girls when the fire started somehow ended up in the alley and
Starting point is 00:29:28 then they disappeared, most likely taken to the dump. So that's what happened. During the investigation, Daryl Croft, who seems like a badass, he's a former cop who ran a security company now and he had been in the yogurt shop around 10 o'clock that evening buying yogurt and while he was there, he told investigators that he was approached by a man wearing a military fatigue style jacket and he was telling the other customers to go ahead of him for some reason. And he asked Daryl if he was a cop because he saw his car that had lights, the security
Starting point is 00:30:06 lights on it. And he said no, he offered Daryl to go ahead of him and I think like a normal Texan man, he was like no, you know, like Croft is go ahead kind of a thing. So Daryl said that when the man did go to the counter in front of him, he ordered only a can of soda and then after he paid, he moved around the counter and went to the back of the store and when Daryl asked where he'd gone, Eliza told him that she'd allowed him to go to the back to use the bathroom so she didn't know him. Daryl hung around that for a counter for a few minutes to see if the man ever returned
Starting point is 00:30:39 but he didn't. He stayed in the back and then Daryl said there was just something that didn't feel right and when the man just didn't return, Daryl left the store. That was around 10 p.m. He's got to have some guilt. I didn't know what was up. What's everyone doing? There was a hubbub.
Starting point is 00:30:58 Well, also that's the thing of if he stays in the store, now he's the weird guy in the store. Totally. Like small town, he knew them. Even weirder. He knew them for the gym, so that would be weird too. Fair enough. There was also an older couple that visited the store closer to closing time than Daryl
Starting point is 00:31:21 on the same night of the murders. They saw two men sitting in a booth acting strangely. The woman said they made her uncomfortable. The couple left around 10.45 as the girls began to close up shop. They closed at 11 and they left the two men alone in the shop. The policy of the store was to lock the door 10 minutes before actual closing time but you leave the key in the lock so everyone who's finishing up, you can just easily let them out but nobody new can come in.
Starting point is 00:31:52 The door is locked. These two creepy dudes were the last customers in the store last night. About an hour later, the fire was first noticed, so that's okay. Eight days after the murder, however, Jennifer, Eliza, Amy, sorry, eight days after the murders, investigators picked up a 16-year-old kid named Maurice Pierce, the North Cross Mall which is just a couple blocks from the crime scene. He was carrying a.22 caliber handgun. One question he said that he'd lent the gun to a friend, Forest Wellburn, who was 15,
Starting point is 00:32:31 and that they'd use it to commit the yogurt shop murders. Wellborn denied any involvement, but told investigators that he and Pierce and a pair of Quintinces, Robert Springsteen and Mike Scott, had taken a joy ride to San Antonio in a stolen SUV not long after the crime. It put these two other boys, Robert and Mike, on the radar as well. I have a photo of it, you can put it in the next one. No, that's not it, here we go, that's them. It's like, it just reminds me of Paradise Lost, kind of, what do you think, guilty or
Starting point is 00:33:11 not guilty? Oh shit. You're just saying that because of the mullet, that's not fair, anti-mullet. It made sense back then, other people were doing it. Yeah, that's right. So Wellborn's brought in for questioning by the detective. He passes a polygraph test, the ballistics of the gun didn't match up to the bullets that had been used.
Starting point is 00:33:40 There was no evidence to link any of them to the crime. And detectives noted that Pierce seemed to have a mental illness, but anyways, they were dismissed as suspects and the case stalled. So it was Pierce, the one that said he didn't, and that has the mental illness, so that's almost exactly the crime you just named. Paradise Lost, yeah. I was like, innocent, something. It just happened, and we can't remember.
Starting point is 00:34:09 That's right, that's right. So five years later, and around 342 suspects and 50 false confessions, or confessions that didn't pan out, a new detective, Paul Johnson, takes over. And he, okay, obviously it's one of those, the city's freaking the fuck out, why haven't you caught the murders, you guys are inept, that sort of thing, and so the cops do the thing that they always do, where they're like, it's this guy, you know, because they're like, we caught someone. So Paul Johnson did that.
Starting point is 00:34:41 He focused on the boys, the four boys. Let's see, he brought in Pierce Scott Springsteen and Welborn for questioning five years later. All of them did any involvement in the murders at first, but after a series of intense interrogations, Scott broke down and admitted that he helped carry out the murders, saying he shot one of the girls in the head at Pierce's insistence. The police theory was that the four guys, the four teenagers, planned to rob the yogurt shop, three of them would go in, one of them would wait in the car, but that something went right and the killing started, then the detective that had originally dismissed the
Starting point is 00:35:17 boys as suspect was never consulted by the new cop. So in 1999, all four men charged with capital murder, Springsteen admitted to shooting one of the girls, but Pierce and Welborn never admitted to killing, and they were let go. So the crazy one who started it all was let go. Despite having nothing but confessions to use against them, which by then they had both recanted, saying that police had, of course, coerced their statements, and there was even a photo of Paul Johnson holding a gun in the interrogation room to the back of one of their heads.
Starting point is 00:35:50 What? Yeah. Who took a picture of that? It's like a... It was a selfie. It was surveillance video over the fucking thing. Oh, shit, yeah. So like, that's kind of coercion. Did he not know?
Starting point is 00:36:11 I mean... Jesus. Well, he had already put people away for false confessions that later were exonerated by DNA and people admitting to it, so this was kind of his thing. And here he is now. Paul, you get to say your side of things. No. I wonder what his hometown murder is.
Starting point is 00:36:35 Okay, so, but they're sentenced to, so Springsteen sentenced to death, Scott sentenced to life in prison without parole in 2001 and 2002. Then in 2007, so that was 2001, new DNA evidence not available during the original trials revealed a male's DNA on the youngest victim, Amy. When the DNA was tested, it didn't match any of the 14s. Convictions were overturned. The cases were thrown out more than 10 years after they were arrested. So they were in jail for a decade?
Starting point is 00:37:12 Yeah. All right. So what really happened? So it wasn't until 2011 that Carlos Garcia, the lead defense attorney for Mike Scott, put the crime scene photos into sequence looking for details that he might have previously missed. This is fucking bananas. When he looked closely at a specific crime scene photo, when he looked at a specific
Starting point is 00:37:45 crime scene photo of the dining area of the store, which wasn't that badly damaged by the fire, it showed the room mostly clean for the night. Tables had chairs stacked on them. The napkin holders were full except for one table. A booth in the back, barely visible, and also the booth that the elderly woman told the investigators that the two sketchy men were sitting in close to closing time had no chairs on top of it, and the napkin holder was empty. Okay.
Starting point is 00:38:13 Let's get the phone out. What? For real? Yeah. Right back there. Oh, no. And that fucked up. I got chills like in the weirdest way of my neck when you said that.
Starting point is 00:38:26 Look at the napkin holder. It's fucking empty, man. Yeah. Dude. Every table has a tear on it. Also, look at that picture. I can't believe that's yogurt. I fucking can't believe it.
Starting point is 00:38:41 Oh, my God. So like, yeah, that's okay. Close and lock the door while these guys finish up. But that cop in the office, he flips down that picture as he's like screaming aloud by himself. I think everyone kind of went, oh, fuck, we really missed something. I think everyone kind of lost their minds. So good for this, dude.
Starting point is 00:39:00 Keep fucking finding it. It's pretty amazing. So clearly they had been sitting there at closing time. The girls were cleaning up around them. They let the last stragglers stay. And at 11 o'clock, the no sale button was pressed on the register, so that's when they think everything started. They asked for change.
Starting point is 00:39:25 They did something. They put like, gun up to their faces, probably, and I was like, give me all your money. That's true, too. One of those. Change for the meter. They started off nice. What the fuck am I talking about? Can I get some quarters for the meter?
Starting point is 00:39:35 It's 11 o'clock at night. And I love yogurt. Oh. I still can't believe it. I cannot believe this. This is crazy. I need change. So the defense lawyers believe that's the table where the killers sat.
Starting point is 00:39:59 He was still in the door when the fire started, which means the last customer had never been let out. There was a rag on the counter of someone who had been wiping down the counter, and there was also an unopened can of Coke sitting near the register. Remember, he ordered a can of Coke, the guy who ate that gun. And the register had no sale at 11 o'clock, and the money was stolen. So that's when that probably started. And the killers likely escaped out of the back door after they started the fire, so
Starting point is 00:40:26 they had an hour to do all of this. Neither Daryl Croft or the older married couple were called to testify at the teen's trial, so it's not known exactly what they saw, because there's no testimony. So who killed these girls? The book has a fucking detailed bananas theory, and it made me sick and not be able to sleep, so if you're a creep like me, go read it. Not if you don't like crime scene photos. There's not a single one in there, but it's like reads like, okay.
Starting point is 00:40:56 Yeah. Oh, no. You talking about this before the picture came up, I was like, oh, I want to go home. It's like something about that that's just so fucking, it's like the thing that's there that people cannot see. How did, you want to say like, how did they not say this, but like, I don't, would any of us? No.
Starting point is 00:41:14 Like it doesn't, it doesn't necessarily mean anything unless you put all of this stuff together. Like there was two guys who were there at the end of it, and like, and they didn't let people, you know, it's just. Well, also you have the shock and horror of a town like this, and then four teenage girls being brutally murdered in a way that's just, there's so much grief, there's so much horror and loss that like, I think details always get missed in that situation because it's everyone's just going, fix it, solve it right now.
Starting point is 00:41:44 This has to be over. And everyone in town, and I think a lot of, I've read a lot of like hometown murders that people wrote and they're like, this is when we stopped being able to go out. This is when the town wasn't the same anymore. And I remember it being this age and it happening and it's just, it is such a horrible, I mean, I've kind of followed it since it happened. And I remember seeing that recently, and it's just one of those things that keeps unfolding and getting more and more gross and horrible.
Starting point is 00:42:11 So many people think that the serial killer, Ken McDuff was the one, the men, and was one of the men in the yogurt stores that night. He had kidnapped and killed Colleen Reed on December 29th, 1991 in Austin with an accomplice that's 23 days after the yogurt shop murder. He had a history of multiple murders involving teenagers, but he was soon ruled out of the crime and I literally couldn't find anything more on this than someone saying, he flat out said, had I done it, I would tell you, because I'd be proud of it. And then they're like, so it probably wasn't him.
Starting point is 00:42:47 Goodbye. I feel like that's a trick. I feel like that's a trick he would use. Yeah. It's just, and if you read about his, and I was scared that maybe you were doing that murder and I was like stealing your, whatever, so much fear around me, I know, listen, but this guy is a fucking monster animal. And from the other crimes he's committed, he is absolutely capable of the details that
Starting point is 00:43:12 I read about in the book. It's not, this is a crime that is not for teenagers, you know, in my mind, it could be wrong, but it's the sadistic serial killer who got let out after 11 years as a known serial killer because there was overcrowding in Texas prisons. Well, yeah, let the serial killers go first because there are people who smoke potty legally. So you've got to, you've got to teach them. You've got to teach them. It's so easy to have the answers when you have a pretty dress on and a great stool.
Starting point is 00:43:47 Yeah. So this Ken McDuff motherfucker is crazy. Well, that's incredible also that like a suspect that big would be in town, I mean, in town. And he killed this other girl with an accomplice. So he works with two people, like the two of them regularly. It just, it fits and he's a rapist and he's just sadistic, so it doesn't, it adds up. But it's rumored that he admitted to, the day he was put to death, he, some people say he admitted to the, the yogurt shop murders.
Starting point is 00:44:22 So they think he did it, but jailhouse gossip, like no one can confirm it. Yeah. Fuck. Yeah. Ken. Detectives are, I know, this guy's a fucking creeper too. If you see his photo, you're just like, Oh, I would never like let you in my store. I don't have it.
Starting point is 00:44:40 Sorry. And I was trying so hard, there's like, this guy, Darryl has a description of what the guy looked like. And I was taking, I was looking for photos of him and I was like, please have a pointy nose. Please have a pointy nose. And he didn't. And I was like, well, I'm not showing that photo then.
Starting point is 00:44:52 He could have punched himself in the nose. He doesn't line up with what I want it to. So I'm not going to even acknowledge it because I don't have to because it's our podcast. That's the way. So detectives are still working on finding more evidence in the murders, but for now, it remains an unsolved mystery. And I have the photo of the girls, if you want to see them, I know I'm sorry. That's Amy right there.
Starting point is 00:45:18 That's Jennifer. Sister Sarah. And that's Eliza. Sweet baby angels. Isn't it horrifying? They're sisters. We love sisters. This one hurts me bad.
Starting point is 00:45:26 I know. I'm sorry. No, I mean, I hope yours is funny. Now pull us up. It's just like that's what everybody looked like at my high school. I know. We worked in the yogurt shop. We worked at it was because the Knowles sisters worked there.
Starting point is 00:45:47 And so we, it was like, Oh, do you want to work at the yogurt shop? Suzy Knowles can get a job. Well, that's what happened with these two girls. They were best friends and she's like, let me get you the job at the yogurt shop. And I wasn't going to post the photo because it's so sad, but I'm like, that's not fair to them. You got to like acknowledge. We got to power through it.
Starting point is 00:46:05 It's just, um, yeah, it could be all of us and any of us. I know. Yeah. So that's the other shop murders. You're not as excited as you were in the beginning. I can tell. I can tell you how fucked up these live shows are that guy's leaving. He can't fucking take it.
Starting point is 00:46:22 I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. You too. Oh. We're fucked. The whole fucking front row. This is bullshit. They're like, actually, we could just see George's underwear and it's freaking us out a little
Starting point is 00:46:35 bit. So we're going to go stand in the back. We're fine with the murder. It's just that. Where, where are you getting those stripes? Yeah. Those are clearly from four years ago, at least two years ago. I don't want to pick up a pair that's literally there's like weird shreds coming off of them
Starting point is 00:46:51 where you're just like, well, first of all, A, where did I buy these? And secondly, did I only pay 99 cents for them? And why won't I throw them away? Everything, everything you're saying. And then I think about like friends who like buy expensive lingerie and then I pull out underwear and it's got the target. You know, you rip the tag off and it has the threads still in it. I don't cut that out.
Starting point is 00:47:12 It's just like, it's all of my underwear have a little thread from the tag. I pulled off on it and that's just what I do. I want to know that people who wear like fancy lingerie around. So what kind of day do you have where that's, that's something that you can make work underneath until the night time. I don't. If I lived alone and when I did, oh, they would just be, I would wear them, like I wear somewhat not, I have to throw them away sometimes because I'm like, this is going to think I'm
Starting point is 00:47:44 this person, but I totally am that person who just wears seven year old underwear. I don't know. I mean, sometimes it feels like a victory to have a seven year old underwear because you're just like, you pick it up and then you're just like, oh my God, remember when you had fucking purple hair or whatever? Yeah. Oh, thank goodness, he's nice. Moving on.
Starting point is 00:48:07 That was a sidebar. Yeah. Well, because we're in Austin, I'm going to do the servant girl annihilator. Yeah. Right? It's the one that, listen, if you Google Austin serial killer, that's what comes up. It's like the first seven results. And this will lighten the mood a little, I feel like.
Starting point is 00:48:32 Would you say? I think this will lighten the mood a little bit. Yes. For sure. Yeah. Vintage murders, everyone's like, okay. Vintage. Vintage.
Starting point is 00:48:40 It's what everybody likes. Yeah. All right. Sometimes when I'm writing this and I'm under pressure because it's 505 and we have to be here at six because the show starts at seven. I emailed this to Vince at like 545 and was like, can you print this for me? Do you find that you're more, you let yourself be more flowery and interesting as you write your, as you put it together?
Starting point is 00:49:08 No. I wrote it like two weeks ago and I was like, this is going to be so detailed and interesting. And then I kept going back and be like, I don't have as much stuff as I thought I did and like, fuck and like copying and pasting it. Oh, okay. No. Oh, because I get, well, my only point was just, I do stuff like the year of 1885 was a difficult one for Austin, Texas.
Starting point is 00:49:34 Now that guy leaves. It's fine. It's fine. He was just here with his girlfriend anyway. Never been into it. Now she has to watch football. It's a trade-off thing. Oh.
Starting point is 00:49:49 It happens a lot. Or wrestling, maybe. Yeah. Maybe some wrestling. Professional wrestling. Okay. In 1885, here in your beautiful town, there was an unprecedented axe murder crime spree that had the entire city in a panic.
Starting point is 00:50:07 By the end of the year, there was a city-wide curfew. Strangers were forced to identify themselves or be run out of town. Georgia. You're just like, I can't. I can't. Did my middle name's Lynn? No, out, out. We don't know you.
Starting point is 00:50:24 Citizens formed a vigilance committee to patrol the streets at night. Downtown saloons were being forced to close at midnight. What? Insanity. It's slur. It said saloons and other raucous businesses. What's that, you guys? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:50:42 It's like whorehouse. We're talking about whores technique, I mean. Sex workerhouse. Sex worker's apartment building. At one point, the city hired Pinkerton detectives to come and try to find this man, but they couldn't do it. If the Pinkerton people can't find it, yeah, fuck.
Starting point is 00:51:05 If the Pinkerton's can't find it. 400 men were arrested. No one was ever officially charged for all the crimes. To this day, no one knows for sure who the servant girl annihilator was. So it all started on the night of December 30th, 1884, at 901 West Pecan Street, or Pecan. I don't know how you guys do it, but Pecan.
Starting point is 00:51:27 Pecan. Pecan. Pecan. Pecan. Pecan. Pecorn? It's Pecorn. OK.
Starting point is 00:51:34 It's actually said Almond. Oh, Almond Street. Sorry, I'm from California. 901 West Pecan Street. A 25-year-old woman named Molly Smith, who was working in that household as a cook, was attacked with an axe while she slept. Then the intruder dragged her unconscious body out
Starting point is 00:51:59 of the house, into the backyard, raped her, and then murdered her in the backyard. Why? Fuck. I mean, why do a lot of that? No, just, yeah, philosophically, but also emotionally. Yeah, OK. And then also just stay inside.
Starting point is 00:52:19 Just stay inside. That was my main why, but that sounds shitty. Is that the main why? I actually really wanted to, but it turns out I had to take a shower. I wanted to do a thing where I looked at when the full moons were, because there's a lot of theories about that part of it.
Starting point is 00:52:37 When this gets really bad and this axe murderer in your town repeatedly kills a ton of people, everybody goes nuts with the theories. And it's kind of awesome, OK, so we'll get to it a little bit. So Molly was the first victim five months later on May 7, 1885 at 302 East Cypress Street. Dr. Lucian B. Johnson has employed a cook named Eliza Shelley.
Starting point is 00:53:00 Eliza is a 30-year-old mother of two young children, one is six years old, named Georgia, and one is six months old. Eliza's husband is in prison, and she lives in Dr. Johnson's home working for them with her children. And she is described later as an excellent woman. On the night of May 7, an intruder breaks in and attacks Eliza as she sleeps, murdering her with an axe.
Starting point is 00:53:33 So two weeks later, on May 23, at 302 East Linden Street in the home of Sophia Whitman. So basically, Sophia had her house up in the front, and then there were apartments in the back. And back there, a widow named Irene Cross lived with her son Washington and her nine-year-old nephew Douglas. And like, Douglas Washington?
Starting point is 00:53:55 No, Washington was the other son's guy. Sorry. It's OK. We've got to be able to talk about stuff like this. So that night, same intruder breaks into Irene's apartment, murders her in bed with a knife. Her son Washington, who was adult, I think he was 24, was gone. He was out for the night.
Starting point is 00:54:21 Douglas, the nine-year-old nephew, is one of the only real eyewitnesses of the servant girl and I later. And when he talked to the police, he described to the police the person he saw was, quote, a big, chunky Negro man who was barefooted with his pants rolled up. What?
Starting point is 00:54:42 So three months go by. Now we're at 300 East Cedar Street, and it's the home of a man named Valentine Weed. It's all one wants for Valentine Weed. I mean, only great things are happening in that house with Valentine Weed. She's so pissed. A block, so this is, and this house is exactly a block
Starting point is 00:55:08 north of where Eliza Kelly was murdered. So a woman named Rebecca Raimi, who was a 50-year-old widowed mother of three, got her job as a domestic servant for the Weed family. She lived on the property with her 11-year-old daughter, Mary. And Rebecca actually came from a very prominent Austin family. Her brother, Edward Carrington, ran the Carrington grocery store, which was one of the first black-owned businesses
Starting point is 00:55:36 in Austin. And she also had another brother who ran the nearby blacksmith's shop. I couldn't drag and drop this picture to give it to Stephen to put in our thing. Oh, I bet I have a picture, too. You can throw up really whatever you have. Oh, look, there's your town.
Starting point is 00:55:52 Remember when it was just a grid? Where are we? It was so easy to ride your bike around with your big beard or whatever. Well, but there was a picture of Rebecca's family, and they all had these amazing, like the Coke model lady. They all had those tiny waist, high neck dresses with a big hat, and they all looked super like,
Starting point is 00:56:25 don't fuck with me. It was awesome. Yeah, don't fuck with me. I'm about to faint from my organs being fucking smashed. Seriously, please don't fuck with me, because I will pass out. OK, so when she is widowed, she has to start working for herself, so she gets this job, and she works for the weeds.
Starting point is 00:56:50 So dumb. OK, so. I have a horrible pun, but I'm not going to do it, do it. An intruder breaks into her bedroom window, beats her until she's unconscious, then goes into 11-year-old Mary's room, drags her out into the backyard, rapes her and murders her with a fucking ax.
Starting point is 00:57:10 All right. Fuck. So this is when the rumors begin, because people start talking about this must be a supernatural being, because everyone's saying that the night these attacks occur, no dogs bark. So there are dogs in the next door neighbor's yards. When he pulls people out into those yards,
Starting point is 00:57:30 no dogs are barking, and they can't figure out why. You gave a mistake. Oh. You made a mistake. Well, hold on a second. Just solve the motherfucking crime. Well, good night, everybody. Thanks so much.
Starting point is 00:57:45 I mean, you guys have seen cartoons, right? Where they try to sneak in, and they're just like, you just get a t-bone, you know? The steak, and then the dog eats it, and pulls out a cat skeleton for, I mean, fish skeleton, forget it. All right, OK. OK. So among those, because also, there was many nights,
Starting point is 00:58:05 it was either a full moon, or there was just a lot of moonlight. So people don't understand how this person is getting away with it. A lot of people think he might be invisible. There's an invisibility factor to it. Look, I'm going to, here he is now. OK.
Starting point is 00:58:22 Nothing. Come on. Moving on. Why is every page upside down? I don't know. It doesn't make sense. I'm trying to do this right. On a month later, on the night of, is that right?
Starting point is 00:58:39 Yes. Yes, just three months went by. So a month later, and this is also that thing that they're spaced out in this really interesting way, where he has a bunch of murders, then rests for three months, and has a classic serial killer. On the night of September 28th, at the residence of William B. Dunham's house, it's at 2408 Guadalupe Street.
Starting point is 00:59:01 Do you live there? Guadalupe? I'm not talking to you anymore. So, man, this is why I'm nervous about Texas. Oh, this is nothing compared to what we had before. That's true. So in this house, in the back, there's a cabin in the back of the house,
Starting point is 00:59:25 where 25-year-old Orange Washington and his girlfriend, 20-year-old Gracie Vance, are sleeping. And the intruder, once again, breaks in, and he murders Orange in his sleep, and then drags Gracie into the backyard, rapes her, and murders her. Three months later, Christmas Eve, a 203 Water Street. It's the home of Moses Hancock.
Starting point is 00:59:50 So 41-year-old Susan Hancock, who is the mother of two girls. It's Christmas Eve. They're out at a Christmas party. And she is asleep in one of their rooms. It's not a happy marriage. Moses is asleep in the other room. Well, let's not talk about it. It's none of our business.
Starting point is 01:00:09 So an intruder breaks into the house, into the room, grabs her, drags her into the backyard. What the fuck is up with that? Right? He wants to be outside. He wants to be under the moon, like a fucking werewolf, which brings us back to the supernatural element I'm trying to introduce into this podcast.
Starting point is 01:00:30 In two months, we're going to be all werewolves. I can't wait. And no one ever listened again. OK, so her husband, Moses, is sleeping in the other room. He wakes up, because he hears a noise, goes outside. There's a man murdering his wife in the backyard. He tries to attack the man. The man turns around, starts hitting him with the ax,
Starting point is 01:00:54 and then runs away. So he's very badly injured. Four days later, Mrs. Hancock dies from her injuries. So then when he recovers, Mr. Hancock is arrested for the murder of his wife. Yes, yes. He got a fucking hatchet in the face. Yeah, but anyone can do that.
Starting point is 01:01:13 His daughters both come to his defense. They say he's never been, he's a lovely father. He's never been bad to any of us. But a family of Susan Hancock attests that Moses was a vicious drunk, and that Susan was about to leave him. And later, they find this letter that she wrote to him, but never gave to him in her belongings that read,
Starting point is 01:01:36 dear husband, I've lived with you for 18 years, and I've always tried to make you a good wife and help you all I could. I've loved you and followed you day and night. You won't quit whiskey, and I am so nervous I can't stand it. You know, it almost kills me for you to drink, and Lena is almost crazy and will lose her mind. She fucking puts it on her daughter.
Starting point is 01:01:54 Lena is a nut, and it's your fault. If I was to do anything to disgrace you and our children, you would leave me. You would have quit me long ago, which is a good point. And then she says, take care of yourself. Write me at Waco. I will answer every letter, your wife until death, Sue Hancock. But then she doesn't leave him.
Starting point is 01:02:15 She stays. Oh, honey. So everyone's like, oh, how convenient. But now your wife has been murdered in the backyard. But Moses Hancock is never convicted for the murder of his wife. On the very same night, Christmas Eve, at 302 Hickory Street, Eula Phillips,
Starting point is 01:02:35 who is a 17-year-old wife and mother of one. What the fuck? Oh, you want to hear about it? She got married off in an arranged marriage when she was 14 and then had a baby a year later. And so strangely enough, it turned out she wasn't that happy in the marriage because she had to marry a guy that was, I think he was 21
Starting point is 01:03:00 when she was 14. I mean, it doesn't matter what age. Sex. Sex. Yeah. Yeah. It does matter a little bit. Yeah, that's right.
Starting point is 01:03:12 That's right. You're right. We've gone into an area where when you're 14, you probably have a retainer. Yeah. You won't stop talking about Skittles and you shouldn't have your own baby. Maybe.
Starting point is 01:03:30 Some do it and some do it great. Anyway. So she had actually already taken the baby and left her husband, James, because he was also a huge drinker. What's going on, Austin? That's all anyone did in the 1800s. And still do.
Starting point is 01:03:51 Rock on. Then single-sad tear for me not being able to. I had all mine already. Not me. Barf's red wine. Pull out a drink from down here. OK, so she left him. And while she was gone, she ended up
Starting point is 01:04:11 having an affair with a wealthy, well-connected man named John Dickinson. Got it, girl. But then James, that's right. But then James got a job. He stopped drinking, got his whole act together, and he went and found her. And he was like, please take me back.
Starting point is 01:04:27 I want to make this work. Are you wealthy yet? Yeah. And she's like, well, I'm 17, so OK. So she goes back. But then this night, on this night of Christmas Eve, she had snuck out of the house. And she had gone to one of the, basically, the 1800s version
Starting point is 01:04:46 of a no-tell motel. And no one knows who she was going there to meet. But she went there, asked for a room, and the person that ran it said, no rooms tonight. And so she went back home. And within an hour, she was dead. She was attacked with an axe while she was sleeping. She was dragged into the backyard.
Starting point is 01:05:07 She was raped and murdered. Her husband heard her being attacked, runs outside. He's also attacked. And he's very badly wounded. But he is arrested, tried, and convicted for her murder. Do we think he did it? It do. OK.
Starting point is 01:05:22 No. The prosecution painted him as a violent, jealous, drunk. But eventually, the case is overturned because his lawyer argues that he never knew about her affair. So how could he be jealous? Hey. All right. Wrap that up.
Starting point is 01:05:41 Nice little easy peasy, you old drunk. OK. So here's a couple things, a couple interesting trivia facts. All of the victims that were left behind, that their husbands didn't come upon them, they were all posed in the same manner. I could not find what that manner was on the internet. Maybe someone knows.
Starting point is 01:06:06 I liked to picture it was kind of a beachy thing like this. But that's more of a defense mechanism because this is fucking horrifying. This is worse. Six of the murdered women had a sharp object inserted into their ear. The worst. Oh, ear.
Starting point is 01:06:24 The worst. Ow. Have you ever like, yeah. It's not the same thing as stabbing yourself with a cute tip, Georgia. Just don't even say it out loud. But it's so bad that that's as bad as you want to imagine it being.
Starting point is 01:06:36 That's how bad that is. Yeah, that's how I can even go, too. Here's my favorite. At several of the crime scenes, bloody footprints were found. And the right foot was missing a left toe. Ooh. No, that doesn't work. The right foot was missing a big toe.
Starting point is 01:07:00 Shut the fuck up. Oh, my god. Perfectionism with the words and the details. I didn't catch it. I was like, uh-huh. It's right there. I wrote it right there on the page. Do-do-do.
Starting point is 01:07:14 I'm a little bit missing a left toe. I can do it whenever I want. Even 20 minutes before, left toe. Send, print, record forever. If you guys hadn't made a collective Austin-based groan, we would have been like, great, no left toe. Sounds good. If you're new to the podcast, this is basically what it's
Starting point is 01:07:36 like, what happened just now. If someone's saying something wrong, the other one not knowing it, and then moving on. It's like living Twitter. But the best kind. Yeah. OK, there were lots of quote, unquote, eyewitnesses during this murder spree.
Starting point is 01:07:53 So the killer was variously reported to have been a white or dark complexion or yellow man, wearing a lamp black to conceal his actual skin color, which is because there were so many lamps around. So you were just like, did it do so many murders. He was also described as a man, a woman, wearing a mother-hubbard-style dress. Oh!
Starting point is 01:08:24 Why are you so much worse? It's, yes. This is your kind of story. Is mother-hubbard, now that's mother goose is the one with all the kids underneath. He's like, I'm an axe murderer, and I have children under my dress. Oh, no.
Starting point is 01:08:40 How fucked up is that? They're into it. They're into murder, too. They all come out, and they're like, they love murder. Fuck. He was also described as being a man, wearing a slouch hat. That's pretty hip. I don't know what that is.
Starting point is 01:08:55 What if it's just a cat in the hat hat? That motherfucker, he's always up to no good. It's just a cat in the hat. Like, I did some murders in the 1800s. No big deal. Whoop, fishbowl. Also, a man wearing a hat and a white rag that covered the lower part of his face.
Starting point is 01:09:19 That's the elephant man. Get it together, eyewitnesses. There is also a story about a Malay cook. I'm assuming that means Malaysian, but I'm not sure. And it's fun to walk the line of this could be intensely offensive and racist. But I found it on Wikipedia. There would have been a huge Malay response by now.
Starting point is 01:09:44 Malaysian. So the story was that there was a Malay cook calling himself Maurice and had to, can't not. He had worked at the Pearl House in 1885. And he left sometime in January of 1886, which is exactly the time frame of these acts murders. And the last, in the killing of Miss Hancock and Miss Yula Phillips, the former occurred on Christmas Eve.
Starting point is 01:10:16 That was just before the Malay departed. And then that's when the murders ended. So they think he did it. And they also think that he went, he got on a boat, and he went to England. And he became Jack the Ripper. Oh my god. Shut up.
Starting point is 01:10:40 Don't you love it? I love it. The Malay that you never saw coming is actually the star of the show. Oh my god. Just a low-key Malay named Maurice that's like, guess fucking what? My name's not Jack.
Starting point is 01:10:57 But people love to theorize. Don't we? Especially when we don't know anything that's real. OK. I also introduced the idea that the servant girl annihilator could also be the ax man of New Orleans. Yeah. Remember that?
Starting point is 01:11:13 That was my very bold and brave theory that I pulled off of Wikipedia. Because he was in, he was doing it in 1914, 1916. Who knows? All competing theories, anything's possible. Here's the most interesting about it. Love it. In February of 1886, at a saloon in East Austin,
Starting point is 01:11:36 a 19-year-old cook named Nathan Elgin was verbally and then physically attacking a woman in a bar with such viciousness that it scared the rest of the patrons of the bar into silence. Oh my god. He then dragged her out of the bar and down the street to his sister's house and inside. What?
Starting point is 01:11:58 Can you? Oh my god. Right? So many questions. Yeah. Of how are you just sitting there? Yeah. Right.
Starting point is 01:12:05 And OK, go on. But also how scary was that guy that everyone's like, I've got two guns right now. And I'm still too scared to go after you. I'm made of guns. It's what I do for a living. I'm a cowboy in Austin, Texas. You go ahead and take her.
Starting point is 01:12:21 That's fine. So the barkeeper and another man chase him. And somebody else goes and gets the sheriff. They all end up at this house. And inside, he's attacking this woman. He's on her. He's got a knife. And they start to tussle with him.
Starting point is 01:12:42 He basically, essentially, brandishes the knife and the sheriff shoots him dead. I think I have a picture of that sheriff if you want to skip ahead. It's pretty epic. OK. Let him? No.
Starting point is 01:12:56 It's not. There he is. Oh, shit. We saw him walking down the street today. Remember? Now he roasts coffee beans for a living. But he used to be the sheriff. Wow.
Starting point is 01:13:11 I love him so much. The Austin vampire? The hip vampire that's been alive for 10,000 years? Just doing right by everybody? Anyhow, here's the thing. He shoots him. I had his name on here somewhere. It's long gone.
Starting point is 01:13:31 The sheriff shoots this guy. And then when they take off his shoe. No. No big toe on his right foot, motherfuckers. Yes. No, it was him. It's totally him. Well, they don't know.
Starting point is 01:13:44 And they couldn't prove it because the guy was dead. But there were no more ex-murderers after that day. Formal Asian guys, like, they kind of drove me out of Austin. I really wanted to stay here. I never killed anyone. And this guy is like beating people in public. Maurice. Maurice is like, it's freezing in London.
Starting point is 01:14:03 What the fuck, you guys? I was a really good cook. Yeah. It's rude. Wow. Yeah. Do. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:14:13 That's it. Sorry. Thank you. That's great. Is it happening? I think we're, yeah. Yeah. You guys, we don't have time to do a home-down-vartar.
Starting point is 01:14:28 And we're so sorry. I know. You can't yell no. You're not allowed to. And I'm so bummed because I know from Twitter that we have a crime scene investigator on the hook and off this. I'm so in the office.
Starting point is 01:14:38 Can we bring the house lights up for one second just so we can look at a crime scene investigator in real life? Can we turn them up? Just slightly, slightly. And then don't stand up if you're not a crime scene investigator. Where is she? There she is?
Starting point is 01:14:49 Hi. I'm going to call you. We're sorry. She's wearing a toxic masculinity shirt. But she can't wear that to work, almost at school. Can I just ask you a quick question? Don't answer for her. Do you steal crime scene tape and take it to your home
Starting point is 01:15:07 like we do post-it notes? Do you just read? No. She's not talking to me. We're very excited you're here. Thank you for sending us that message. It's always very exciting when actual professionals are like, we don't hate what you're doing.
Starting point is 01:15:30 It's very fun. But we're going to be back here a lot, I feel like. We really love Austria. Texas. How can we not? You guys have so much murder in this state that we could do the rest of our shows here. And we'd be fine.
Starting point is 01:15:45 It'd be very cool. And you guys are awesome. And our numbers are so bafflingly high in Texas that all the people that work at Farrell are like, is one of you from Texas? Like, what, why? And we don't know, but we love you for it. Yeah, thanks, guys.
Starting point is 01:16:01 Thank you so much, you guys. Thank you. Stay sexy. And don't get murdered! Bye. Thank you. Bye. Thank you.
Starting point is 01:16:12 Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

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