My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 70 - Live at the Moontower Comedy Festival
Episode Date: May 25, 2017It'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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Hi Austin.
Oh my God, me too.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It was in a receptacle.
Like, not it.
Where?
In your lap though?
Uh, I don't.
Yeah.
Say.
Yes.
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?
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.
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.
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.
Eating disorders.
Teenage girls.
Don't deal with them.
Junior high.
Go to therapy.
Very difficult.
Time.
Just got real deep, real quick.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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,
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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?
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?
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.
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?
Why?
I don't want to be up as high as I was.
Okay.
Yeah.
So how do we?
Boop.
Uh-oh.
Boop.
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.
Boop.
Boop.
Nice.
Good work.
I'm new to chairs.
This is the listening arm.
Yes.
Oh, interesting.
Okay.
I'm first, right?
You're first this time.
Yeah.
Okay.
Right now.
Thank you.
Right?
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.
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.
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.
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.
And now you're about to do it?
And now I'm doing it.
Okay.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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
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?
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.
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.
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.
Thanks.
Burn it.
Oh.
I didn't mean it like that.
I didn't.
Sorry.
No.
No.
That does not count against me this time.
Steven.
Cut that.
Steven.
That never happened in reality.
Fuck.
Sorry.
Okay.
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.
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.
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
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
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?
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
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
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
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.
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
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.
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,
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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?
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.
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?
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Pecan.
Pecan.
Pecan.
Pecan.
Pecan.
Pecorn?
It's Pecorn.
OK.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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?
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
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
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.
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,
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.
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.
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,
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.
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,
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.
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?
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.
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,
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.
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.
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.
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,
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.
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,
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.
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.
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,
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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,
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?
Can you?
Oh my god.
Right?
So many questions.
Yeah.
Of how are you just sitting there?
Yeah.
Right.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
What the fuck, you guys?
I was a really good cook.
Yeah.
It's rude.
Wow.
Yeah.
Do.
Yeah.
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.
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.
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?
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
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.
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.
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.
Thank you so much, you guys.
Thank you.
Stay sexy.
And don't get murdered!
Bye.
Thank you.
Bye.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.