Rotten Mango - #127: The Hammer Man Strangler (Case of Harvey Carignan)
Episode Date: January 2, 2022The wife of high-powered influential Harry Piper was kidnapped. A random note was left - “We want $1 million dollars to be paid in 50,000 unmarked $20 bills.” The family paid it. It would be two f...ull days till Virginia was found chained up to a tree. Alive. She never saw the kidnapper’s face. After three long years, the police presented her with a few audio clips. She perked up. “That’s him! My kidnapper! I’m sure of it! I remember his voice.” If this were true Virginia was lucky to be alive. She was listening to the voice of the Hammer Man- who smashed women to death with his bare hands. Full Source Notes: rottenmangopodcast.com To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Butta being Butta Boom
Welcome to this week's mini-sode of Rotten Mango. I'm your host Stephanie Sue and we're
just jumping right into it. One of the strangest crime stories in Minnesota takes place when
a woman named Virginia Piper she vanishes from her house.
She's kidnapped from her house actually. Now this is important to everybody because Virginia Piper
is the wife of wealthy influential Harry Piper. He's the chairman of the massive brokerage firm called
Piper, Jeffrey and Hopwood Incorporated. So Rich Man Harry comes home and he realizes my wife is missing their signs of a struggle
I think that she's been kidnapped so he's frantic the police are on it and that is when they receive a ransom demand
We want one million dollars to be paid in 50,000
Unmarked $20 bills the kidnappers did not give the Piper family confirmation of life. They did not send a video of Virginia or a picture of her holding up the latest newspaper.
Nothing. They just had to have faith in the kidnappers. So they gather up all the funds. They needed their Virginia back. They gather the $20 bills. They drop it off at that location. And for two days, they hear nothing. They get nothing, they see nothing, hear nothing,
and then a call is made.
Virginia Piper was found, unharmed, alive,
tied to a tree in the woods.
So the police immediately are like,
we'll tell us about the kidnappers.
You were with them for how many days?
What did they say?
What did they do?
She said she didn't see their faces,
but she knew it was two men,
and there were some strange things.
I saw the guys choose. You know, I was was looking under the blindfold and I saw that he had
on red-wing shoes.
Well, you were thinking, what does that even mean?
Like, Jordans?
No, apparently, red-wing shoes in Minnesota.
It means that the kidnappers are ex-convicts.
So when you get sent to prison, you're giving these red-wing shoes, and you wear them throughout
your prison sentence, and when you're released, you know, they're like, keep your stinky shoes, we don't want them back.
So that means this guy has been in prison at one point. She also stated that one of the kidnappers
were wearing his pants rolled up at the bottom. This is important later. The man with the shoes
also kept talking to her about the hardships of children. She thought it was weird, I mean,
he just kept going on and on about how children who are abandoned by their parents are traumatized, their abuse, their mistreated. Parents have
to be better to their kids and choose like what is going on right now. None of this would
be important to the police. None of this would even help solve the case of catching these
kidnappers until three years later. The police are working on a completely different case.
By chance, they ask Virginia, hey, why don't you come in, listen to some audios,
a voices, we've got a couple different guys,
it's like an audio lineup, instead of a visual lineup,
like a photo lineup, it's a,
you listen to these five men's voices,
are any of them, do any of them sound like the kidnapper?
And she listened, and she listened,
and she said, wait a minute, this guy, this is the one,
that's him, that's the one that came after me.
She got good memories.
Yeah, and if this were true, Virginia,
not only had good memory, but she had amazing luck
because she was listening to the voice of a serial killer.
As always, full source notes are on RottenMangoPodcast.com,
but there is a really good book on this called The Want Add Killer
by one of
the goats of true crime books and rule. This is what's a one add. Want add, it's like a
Craigslist listing like a want add. A want add. Yeah, like a position wanted house wanted,
right? Employee wanted. I mean, and rule.hl. This is so well researched, meticulously done.
Her information is actually just countless interviews
for practically every book she's ever written.
I mean, she's the queen of true crime.
You can't get more thorough, well researched,
and honestly, more of a compassionate true crime book
than one that comes from Anne Ruehl.
I highly recommend picking up this book.
There were so many points in there
where I was brought to tears
just how much the victim's families went through just to just to read it
It it's different like there's so much that I can't put into this podcast little details
This is the best deep dive that you're gonna get on this serial killer and he's not even that well known
And I'm not saying he should be but the victim's lives should be no this crime should be talked about in a sense
So let's jump into the main beef of the story. We have a woman by the name of Kathy Miller. To understand Kathy Miller,
we got to know about her mom. Her mom's name is Mary Miller and she was actually born in Latvia.
Now she was born at a very crucial time where there was a lot going on. They were invaded by the
Russians. Then later the Germans, I mean Latvia was not even getting a second to breathe.
It was horrendous. Mary didn't understand what was going on.
She just knew that her family was bouncing around, searching for a better life.
They walked all the way to the border of Sweden. They were turned down, so they decided to leave Latvia on a boat,
and then the boat sank like it was bad. They barely had food.
Mary said that people think hunger hurts, but it doesn't.
After a while, you don't even feel hungry.
Finally, when you have something to eat, you actually get sick.
So for years, they were struggling and finally they were able to get a sponsor to bring them
to America.
Mary started studying English.
She moves to New York City, gets married, and
gives birth to her very first child, Kathy Miller. So she's this beautiful, healthy, blonde,
baby girl. Now Mary was happier than ever, right? So for the first four months, she's
doing her motherly duties, she's kind of getting into the swing of things, she's loving it.
This is her American dream, just coming true, right?
And then she has a dream that she had a daughter with long, dark hair.
She was 14 in the dream.
Mary's daughter, okay?
And someone had hurt this daughter.
She didn't know who, she didn't know what happened, but she knew that her daughter was
looking at her with blood all over her face.
She couldn't even tell if her daughter was even alive at this point, but she knew that
this daughter needed help and she tried and she tried, but she couldn't help her.
She wasn't coming back alive.
And she wakes up just drenched in sweat.
And this is when her daughter is four months old.
Kathy is four months old.
Mary would never forget this dream for over a decade.
But she was relieved because as Kathy is growing, so a lot of babies, they'll be born blonde,
but as they age, their hair turns more brunette.
Right, so she was very pleased with the fact that Kathy stayed incredibly blonde because
that means, oh, maybe she's not the daughter in my dream.
Maybe this is a different daughter.
Maybe I won't have any more daughters and maybe that would have been a sign.
Don't have another daughter. Maybe that's a daughter from a past life. I don't know. Okay. Maybe it's just one of those
stupid dreams. So she kept, you know, trying to feel better about it. Later, the millers, they moved
to Salt Lake City where Mary would have a second child by the name of Kenny, a son. Right. So she
feels okay. Well, this is good. I'm not having another daughter and it can't be Kathy.
Maybe I'll just forget about it.
Eventually the family moves to Seattle, where Mary divorces her husband,
and she's struggling to raise these kids.
Now Kathy and Kenny, they were good kids.
Like, they were not causing her trouble.
They were not troublemakers at all.
But Mary was not making as much money as she needed to.
So there was kind of like that type of stress.
And then in the back of her mind, anytime things were going good, she'd be sitting there.
Sip in some tea.
Sip in some tea in her living room, reading a magazine, and boom, the minute that she feels completely serene and content with her life,
that dream would just pop up.
Like a little taunt, it's just tickling the back of her brain and she's like, what is going on?
So she starts talking to Kathy non-stop about stranger danger.
So Kathy is like maybe 10.
She's like you got to stop talking to strangers.
Don't even think about hitchhiking. I know people go hitchhiking Kathy.
What did I say about hitchhiking?
Remember when I read on the newspaper to you about that girl that went missing because she was hitchhiking?
So what does that mean Kathy?
I get it mom. No hitchhiking. So what does that mean, Kathy? I get it, mom.
No hitchhiking.
I'm not even, I'm 10, mom.
So Kathy was like, I get it, I get it.
Mary would read her articles about women being murdered, women going missing, just to show
Kathy how scary the world is.
You can't put trust in people, Kathy.
And when Kathy finally turned 15, Mary let out a big sigh. The dream was when
her daughter was 14. I don't know how that was implied in the dream, but she knew it.
Her daughter was 14. Kathy is now 15. She has a long blonde hair, not dark hair like the
dream. She's not even 14 anymore. And Mary just feels like maybe maybe I did something in my life
Maybe I lived it like a good person and God has said you don't need that to happen to you
Maybe this was a warning for me to live a good life and be a good person
Maybe that's what it was maybe it was just a stupid dream and it's not even an omen
But either way 14 years of pure torture honestly with this dream in the back of her mind had passed, and she was finally a bit relaxed.
Mary still nags her daughter, though, because she's still a mom, okay? So she would constantly tell her. Did you know recently, a young girl, a college student named Laura Leslie Brock, went missing while hitchhiking?
Kathy?
Remember what I told you? Yes mom, you know, I'm not going hitchhiking.
I'm gonna be responsible.
Don't worry mom.
And that weekend Kathy gets home and she's a bit upset.
What's going on Kathy?
Mom some guy followed me from the pool when I was taking swim lessons.
Like, he was tailing me, okay?
He was in his car.
Whenever I turned, he turned the car.
He followed me to the bus stop. He followed the bus. I was so scared
I was so scared mom that when I got off the bus I practically ran home
Mary's like what?
Okay, well I'm gonna go to the pool with you next weekend just in case he comes back
Kathy says yes, I would love that like I'm those really creepy, but next weekend would never come
Kathy would be dead by then.
What?
She would actually be murdered by the same person
that murdered Laura Leslie Brock. The girl that Mary was warning Kathy about, saying,
hey, there's this new college student, new news, a college student went missing while hitchhiking.
So on the other side of the country, let's go back a little bit.
So Fargo North Dakota, a guy by the name of Harvey Carrigan was born.
I mean, I guess it's a baby at this point, and he was said to be a legitimate child.
Gasp, I know.
Okay, this was a huge thing back then, not so much anymore, but essentially Harvey didn't
know his dad.
Like, didn't know anything about him, never really met the guy, all he was told was that
his father was a very smart man.
A medical intern, perhaps a doctor, but nothing more.
If he asked and he'd be like, what kind of guy was he?
Was he nice?
Was he this?
They would tell him, his relatives would tell him.
It would hurt too many people to talk about your dad now. So honestly, we have no idea about the sky.
We don't know what happened.
We don't know why he's not in the picture,
but Harvey himself also has no memory of his dad.
Harvey's mom, on the other hand, was very young
when she had him, barely 16.
So by the time that he's four, she's struggling.
She can't afford to take care of herself,
let alone her child.
There were just not a lot of jobs in that area.
So Fargo, North Dakota is really even as a man with like a,
cause you know, back then, misogyny,
even as a man with a skill set, like a special trade,
whether you're an electrician or a plumber
or maybe you're a farmhand, it's still difficult
for you to get a job.
So imagine how difficult it was for her.
Now I think Harvey as a kid, as a result of all of that,
he's dealing with a lot of adult problems.
He knows the stress of unpaid bills,
he knows what it feels like to not have food on the table,
his mom has never around, his dad left,
he feels unloved, he's like nobody wants me.
So he starts exhibiting some weird behavioral issues.
So at first, he starts twitching when he gets stressed
and then he consistently
What's the bed even after being potty trained?
He remembered that when he was around four his mom gave birth to another son a half brother
And that didn't help the situation at all. This is what he had to say about his mom
I mean she was pretty mean. I don't like a lot of the things that she did
But I guess it won't hate her but she was mean And she hated the fact that he kept peeing on his bed.
To the point where she would ship him off to other relatives, she would call a persistence,
say, hey, you need to take my child because I can't handle him.
So he got moved to live with his aunt and uncle, and he got along with them.
Like he really loved them.
He was like, wow, I'm settling down here.
We're getting along.
We're like talking during dinner.
They have the same sense of humor as me. And then out of the blue, they sat him down and said, yeah, you gotta go!
You guys stop peeing the bed, you gotta go!
We don't really want you here.
We never really wanted you here in the first place, but we got stuck with you and now, now
you gotta go.
He's like, what?
I thought we were bonding!
We traumatized with that.
Yeah, so he goes home for a few months and then he shipped off again to live with his grandma
who again, he thought he was getting along with.
He's like, we're having a blast.
I gave grandma a massage the other day.
You know, I was helping her set up her iPad, but she's like, you're 11 Harvey, you guys
stop paying the bed or you got to go.
So she ships him off to live with another one of her kids, so like a different aunt.
And again, Harvey doesn't really remember, like all he said he has huge gaps in his memory,
but he was adamant that he was sexually abused when he was young by a babysitter.
He said that the babysitter had rubbed herself all over him, and he couldn't understand
what she was doing, but he felt gross.
He knew it wasn't right, it just made him feel anxious and confused, and he felt like all women did in his life, whether it's his aunts, his mom, his grandma,
was just confused him. And then he started stealing. So you're thinking, wow, this kid's
self-esteem is probably not doing well with all of this going on, right? Oddly that wasn't
the case either. He thought that he was a prodigy. Harvey straight up said, I was always mentally ahead
of my companions. I didn't really like talking to them. When I did talk to them, usually
it was an anger. I like to be mean. Harvey was also a bit of an intention seeker, he said
and I quote, if I couldn't have friends, I would at least have a reputation that they couldn't
ignore me, even if they didn't admire me, they would notice me one way or another.
I mean, this is like peak player Waldorf, gossip girl.
Why be liked when you can be feared type energy?
He also went on to say,
all my life I've been this way.
People will notice me one way or the other.
All my life when someone didn't give me the attention
that I thought that I deserved.
I would reach out and slap them, either with my words or with my hands.
That was my way of making sure they didn't ignore me.
Treat me like I didn't exist.
If they couldn't or didn't love me, I made sure they hated me.
I had to be on the fourth thought of their brains.
He wanted to be the center of attention, the
main character. So obviously this guy is a fantastic joy to be around. You want him at
your dinner parties. He's just spectacular. I think a lot of it stems from the fact that
his mom did not want him and all he wanted in life was to live with his mom. Eventually,
none of his relatives would take him in and his mom decided, yeah, I got to put him in
a North Vintage. Then she found out that none of them had space. So would take him in and his mom decided, yeah, I got to put him in a North Venge.
Then she found out that none of them had space, so she threw him in reform school.
He would stay there for another seven years, and it was rough.
The worst part of all of this is that his mom didn't even throw him in reform school because she couldn't take care of him.
She straight up just didn't want him. She had remarried and the stepfather even said, hey Harvey, I really would like to try to raise you as my own.
But the mom was like, no, we can't.
He's gots to go.
She just insisted.
People speculate.
It's because psychosis and mental illness
ran in the mom's family.
And she might have seen Harvey's twitching
as when he was stressed as a sign that he was, quote, crazy.
So maybe she was like,
oh, I'm scared. I don't think I have the capabilities of to take care of him. I don't
know. Or maybe the stigma attached to it. Maybe she was just a horrible person.
Maybe she's a sh**. Yeah. In reform school, they tried to treat Harvey for all of this,
the constant twitching. It's called childhood Korea, which manifests itself with spasmic
jerking movements that are out of the person's control.
The pathology of the disease is really difficult to determine. It might be psychogenic in nature.
I'm not really sure. I just know that it shares similar symptoms as Tourette's.
So he's in this reform school and he's being bullied. He's just always been this really tiny kid.
He was really small for his age and the other kids bullied him for it and the people running the reform school, yeah they weren't any better. A lot of
women were in charge and Harvey said a lot of the times they would punish you for no reason.
They were just gonna kick out of it. They thought it was hilarious. So you're like, how
did they punish you? Did they beat you? He said that they would hold you up against their
boobs and their stomachs and try to choke you, choke your face and their boobs, I think.
So I don't know whether or not this is true, but Harvey felt like because he was so small,
he was smaller than most 11 year olds at the time, most likely because he was malnourished
when he was with his mom.
He felt like these women were controlling his lives.
They were these seductive, sexually abusive, giant tesses, these giant women because he's
tiny, who could use him for their own purposes
and trash him whenever they were done.
He just had a very weird relationship with woman.
That's what I'm trying to get at, okay?
So at 18, he graduates and he gets released
from the reform school, but he immediately signs up
to join another fantastic institution,
the United States Army.
At this point, Harvey is no longer malnourished or swanny.
I believe the reform school, their whole diet was just bred so he was
big like he was Hulk. He was powerful six foot two inches weighing 190 pounds of
probably pretty lot of muscle in the beginning when he was young. The army was
like welcome in dude you got a temper too great let's go. So they ship him off
to Anchorage, Alaska.
And this is where he would start his reign of terror as a serial killer.
Sunday, July 31st rolls around, and it was a day of full light in Anchorage.
Yeah, the summer solstice had begun.
I know, you're looking confused.
Living in Alaska, I feel like must be so confusing at times because they're light schedule.
They have something called summer solstice.
And during the longest daylight day, they have 22 hours of full daylight. On their shortest days,
it's said that Anchorage gets about 5 hours of sunlight. And the rest is 19 hours of
just darkness.
Do we go on an experience that?
Right. The more north you go, the less light you get during winters. There was a myth
that was perpetuated that Alaska had 6 months of all day, day light, and six months of all day complete darkness.
But it all started because there's this super small town north in Alaska that goes through periods during the winter, like two months, where they don't get any sun during the day.
No sun.
Crazy.
Due to how the earth is tilted, so they just don't get the sun rays, it's completely blocked. So during the day, it's just dim.
And then during the summer, there's like two months
where the sun seemingly never sets
and it's almost always bright outside.
I mean, it's just so fascinating.
Like, what is that like?
I wonder how seasonal depression works over there.
Everyone's like, yeah, I haven't really bad actually.
So, okay, July 31st was a long sunlight day in Anchorage, Alaska and a guy
named John Keith, this is a fascinating name, was walking home 9 p.m. full day light like you couldn't
tell the difference if it was noon or 9 p.m. that day and he's walking and he's walking by a park
and he hears some strange noises what is that? Is that like a sound like what is that a scream?
What is that? Is that like a sound? Like, is that a scream? A cry for help. Grunting? What is that? So he starts kind of peering into the park and he goes out of his way to go a little bit deeper into the park and he sees a couple, a man and a woman lying on the grass.
You see, wait, did the woman just call out for help? And he's, you know, trying to be a good citizen, he starts approaching them trying to understand is someone being hurt right now.
But the man of the couple gets up and screams, move on!
The woman doesn't say anything, she stays laying down. So John's face turns bright red.
That's when it hit him.
Oh my god, I just tried to watch a couple having sex at the park.
He probably thinks I'm a freaking creep.
Like, I just kept getting closer and closer and then he was probably like, oh, now I gotta say something because he's gonna see what we're doing. Oh what do I do? So he runs all the
way home, but when he gets home he starts feeling uneasy. A public park at 9 p.m. during summer solstice
is no more private than just doing it out in the street. It was weird, but if the woman needed help
she would have called out again for me right when I got closer she would have been like, wait help
right? But she didn't.
Oh, God, I wish I had gotten a good look at the guy, at least.
All John remembered was that this guy had a receding
hairline, he was burly, maybe in his early 20s.
He wakes up the next morning, and John is still thinking
about it.
It's the first thing on his mind.
OK, fine.
Before work, I'm just going to stop at the park.
No big deal.
OK?
I don't know what that's going to do for me,
but I'm just going to do it., no big deal, okay? I don't know what that's gonna do for me, but I'm just gonna do it.
So he goes, and the man is gone.
But the woman is still there.
Lying in the grass, motionless, and dead.
John got closer, and the woman was over 40 years old, perhaps older.
She was partially nude.
It looked like her clothes had been forcibly ripped off.
Her face was purplish black and swollen.
I mean, part of her face was completely smashed to bits.
Her whole body was rigid so she was in rigor mortis and he rushed to call the police.
The victim would later be ID'd as Laura show-walt her.
She was 57 when she was murdered.
It speculated that she had died earlier that night around the time that John was walking
home and her cause of death was severe brain damage from
Ludgeoning her face had been virtually destroyed from the chin to the forehead like her bone and tissues
They were crushed to a pulp where it wasn't just like broken bone. It was like completely mush the murder weapon was something big and strong
Right? It's got to be like a batter a hammer and axe to do that type of damage to a face
The coroner said that the murder weapon were human hands
No way someone had pummeled her face
But their hand will probably be scar two. Yeah, just pure brute force
She had bruises on her thighs indicating a attempt, but no seamen was found on the victim.
So it seems like it was an attempted attempt. And the investigation got really nowhere.
Even with John's description of what he saw, there were so many men moving through Alaska.
I believe we've talked about this in the, I think it's titled The Real Life Hunger Games.
It's essentially about a serial killer in Alaska that got away because there was like the booming
business in Anchorage. There were a lot of sex workers moving down to Anchorage or being
forced to go to Alaska.
Like a lot of even trained dancers from Russia were essentially being trafficked into Alaska
because so many men were moving through, specifically looking to make it rich or being
stationed at Fort Richardson.
So there's a lot of people in and out and the police had no
good leads. Then a few months later, a woman named Dorcas Callan was confronted by a soldier
on the Anchorage Street and the soldier seemed really drunk. It's like 11 in the morning,
he was in his soldier uniform but it was weird. He kept asking Dorcas, hey, can I take you
on a ride and she refused and you would say, hey, I think I may be I know you from somewhere, yeah? I know you, right? Come on, let's get in the
car, I know you. She said, what do you? Yeah, no, you don't know me, so please go away,
okay, I don't know you at all. And she was getting scared. She knew that a woman had been
bludgeoned recently, so she starts trying to make a run for it. And he grabs her, drags
her down the street, throws her into a ditch on the side of the
road, and immediately she said he was all over her, tearing off her clothes, groping her
in at the same time, just pommeling her with his face.
Punching every part of her body, she's frantically screaming, crying for help.
She felt like this guy was inhumanely strong, it was confusing too strong.
But somehow she managed to climb out of the pit.
She ran across the street to the tavern, she was bloody bruised, but she hadn't been assaulted
or murdered.
Well, she hadn't been raped or murdered.
She immediately called the police and she gave them an in-depth description of the man
right down to the deep dimple on the guy's chin, and they were able to locate a few soldiers
that fit this description.
They bring them in to be questioned. There was a lineup of five soldiers given to Dorcas
and she immediately pointed at one of them.
It's not guy! It's him!
The police then brought in John Keith and he says,
Oh, it's not guy! That's the guy at the park!
He's the one!
Both of them had pointed at Harvey.
What?
He was arrested, thrown in jail, and he admitted to the attempted rape of Dorcas.
He refused to talk about anything related to Laura's case, and the police were getting
frustrated.
I mean, they know that this guy killed Laura.
Why won't he talk?
So, they bring him to one of the best interrogators at the US Marshall's office, who sits him down
and still with him, Harvey refuses to talk.
He says, I want to talk to a Catholic priest in private.
Okay, they get him as priest.
And something must have happened
because Harvey says, I'm ready to make a statement.
But I don't want to say it out loud.
I want to do it on pen and paper
in the privacy of my own cell.
And it's going to take me a while.
Okay, it took him the whole weekend.
He was allowed to stay in a cell.
The cops checked on him periodically.
They were not threatening him.
They were not pressuring him.
He had already said he was writing in statement.
He just kept writing and writing and writing.
And on Monday morning, he told the interrogator,
I've got the statement.
It was lengthy pages on pages
and the interrogator scanned it.
Excited almost to get this guy.
There was nothing.
Harvey just went on tangent
It's about what he did July 31st.
Most of it was random about how much he drank that day
And how he was bar hopping.
He never mentioned Laura.
He certainly didn't write anything about any murder.
Nothing of attempted rape.
There was just nothing.
Nothing of value.
Nothing of importance.
It was the most bland day ever.
Harvey, this is not a diary.
You need to tell us what happened. This is not complete.
We asked you about Laura's show-altern. You only wrote about how you got drunk that day. And Harvey said,
I was afraid to say more because you might not believe me and I'm afraid of the death penalty.
Harvey starts asking the interrogator about the local prison. Do you think I'll be sent to the
federal one? Do you think I can learn a trade while I'm there? Maybe I can graduate college? The interrogator
and Harvey, they start bonding about how they were both raised in orphanages.
They were both raised Catholic. The interrogator told him,
listen Harvey, you can only set yourself right in the eyes of your maker and the
eyes of God by confessing the true facts. All of this will bite the interrogator in
the ass.
And Harvey says, alright, I'll tell you. I was drinking that day in July and I saw Laura.
She looked good to me, and he stated so misogynistically. I was so drunk that the alcohol
made her seem younger. I didn't even want to know her name. I just wanted her. I dragged her
into the park, and I tempted to have sex with her, but she refused.
So I beat her with my fist until she stopped moving. This old confession took 30 hours.
Why would you break into these apartments? For money, for drugs, whatever was in them.
Why aren't you afraid of getting caught at doing this? No. Who's going to catch us?
No, who's gonna catch us?
What a police.
It was the height of the crack era, and instead of locking up drug dealers,
some New York City cops had become them.
I would suit up in my uniform
and we're gonna want some drug dealers
and I know how to do it really well.
This is the inside story of the biggest police corruption scandal in NYPD history and the
investigation that uncovered it all.
Did you consider yourself a rat?
100%.
I saved my soul just like everybody else does.
Listen to and follow the set, an Odyssey originals documentary podcast series available now
in the Odyssey app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your shows.
I'm not a big guy man, but I love being a dirty mother f***er.
And Harvey signed the statement for the brutal murder and the interrogator he was stoked.
They got him, justice would be served.
But for some strange reason, he felt bad for Harvey.
He looked Harvey in the eye and said, you can still destroy this if you want.
It hasn't left this room.
What?
What kind of...
Exactly.
Harvey shook his head and said, no, it's done.
What's done is done.
And he goes to trial.
He was sentenced to death.
Harvey was surprised.
He said, wait a minute.
Yeah, I mean, I murdered someone just because I wanted thanks and I wanted to be people.
But like the audacity of the court system, you guys made it seem like I was gonna go to federal prison and graduate college and then be paroled and then get a job with my degree that I got for free in college, because you know, I was in prison when I got it.
Doesn't I thought that's what I thought happens when you murder people?
Who's so confused?
Who stunned the audacity
of Harvey.
He was truly stunned that he was sentenced to death for murder.
He was like, wow, I thought I was going to get paroled and get a job.
So for the first little while in prison, I mean, he was just so shocked, he couldn't
really do anything.
And then eventually, he loyered up and he appealed his sentence.
They argued that there was no way to tie Harvey to the murder, and the confession was inadmissible because the interrogator had pretended to be Jesus, had
pretended to be a higher, more ethical, religious figure that set him up as the father confessor
to help the innocent trusting man.
They just come up with anything, huh?
Oh, yeah. And after two days, the appeals court deemed his confession in admissible.
This one decision, I mean decades later,
would come to haunt all of the judges
in the appeals court because what?
Harvey won his appeal.
His case went to the Supreme Court and they agreed.
We can't use the confession, and you can't even
try him again for this murder
because then it would be double jeopardy,
which is against the Constitution.
So he was convicted of attempted assault on Dorcus and he went from death
row to 15 years in prison. He would only serve nine years of a sentence before being
paroled at 32 years old. So he gets out of prison, which by the way, he was in alcatraz,
so that's weird. He gets out and he joins his half-brothers in Minnesota And he stays out of trouble for like four months before he's arrested for burglary with his salt with intent to commit
So this guy is trying to burglary's homes
But also the homeowner some assuming and because he was out on parole
He gets another six years in federal prison, but he only serves four
So this guy never really serves his full sentence like ever and he moves on to Seattle to live with his mom and his stepdad, and at this point, young
Kathy, Kathy Miller, is only six years old.
And her killer has just moved into town.
Then eight months later, this guy is arrested again.
Second degree burglary, he was sentenced to 15 years in maximum security prison.
He starts studying sociology, psychology, while he's in prison
he wrote papers about sexual psychopaths, paranoid personality disorders.
He studied journalism, he studied a lot, all of his teachers were impressed because Harvey
has a smart kid.
He had a violent temper, but he was very smart.
So you know, the world is fair.
Either way, he was released early, again, for on good behavior, he only served four years.
So by the time he's 41, he's back in Seattle, and I think what's interesting is that at 41,
he's never been in a romantic relationship, and seemingly out of nowhere, the guy gets
married to the first person he falls in love with.
Ashila Moran, she was a divorcee, she had children of her own, and Harvey moved into her house
and wow, there were a lot of red flags from the Gecko.
Harvey started inviting all of his former cellmates to their private home.
Like people with really intense criminal records, like I'm not talking a weed charge, like
I'm talking attempted murder charges, they were just showing up at her house.
Harvey always used her car, and with less than one year
She had put more miles on it than she had in five years total
He did yeah
He would leave in the middle of the night and he was gone
Should say where are you going? Why are you putting so many miles in the car?
And he would just get so mad
Just like how dare you question me
One time he brought his uncle all the way from Canada to visit them in Seattle and they're
just catching up at Harvey's house and Harvey springs up from the couch and starts attacking
him out of nowhere, just pounding him with his bare fists.
And then Harvey was arrested for burglary and soliciting sex workers.
That was when Sheila decided, okay, I have a chance to leave.
Like I was terrified of this guy for so long, but now he's in prison, I can get out of
this relationship.
Yeah, I gotta leave my own house, but I gotta do what I gotta do.
What's wild is that Harvey, for the life of him, claims that he has no idea why the marriage
didn't work out.
I mean, this is what he said.
I was working two jobs.
I was a construction worker by day, a musician by night.
I was always working, but my wife didn't think I made enough money.
Oh yeah, that's why. And then he goes on to say that I don't know why my marriage ended.
Like I just worked really hard for her.
I just feel like I was never enough for her.
She's a little bit greedy, but oh, here's a funny story.
One time Sheila asked me to take the kids to the pool.
Her kids to the pool.
And I told her, well, I got to go to work, but I can't afterwards.
It'll be dark outside though.
So when I get back home early, I pulled all these strings. I gotta get home. I gotta take the kids to the pool. She's gone with the kids
She's taking them to the pool. I
Weighted five hours until they got back from the pool. Now, so mad. I told you I was gonna do it after work
And then you just left me. I could have gone to the pool with you guys. Oh
So mad. I didn't even need dinner with them. I said no, you guys eat dinner alone. I don't want it after work and then you just left me. I could have gone to the pool with you guys. I was so mad, I didn't even need dinner with them.
I said, no, you guys eat dinner alone.
I don't want dinner with you guys.
And then 30 minutes after they ate dinner,
I was so hungry.
So I said, she like, can you make me a sandwich?
She refused.
She said, if you don't want to eat then,
I'm not gonna feed you now.
Harvey, the full grown man,
instead of making his own goddamn sandwich,
he claims that he blocked out,
doesn't remember what he did, conveniently.
But the next thing he remembers is she lay on the kids running out of the house in sheer
terror, screaming bloody murder.
He said, I sat down, I was seeing red.
Things were shooting out of my eyes and I closed my eyes and I said, God, God told me I had
to kill her.
So I waited in the basement with a hammer all night.
Just waiting for them to get home.
I heard the footsteps the next morning, and I waited behind the steps and I was ready
to attack my wife and beat her killer with a hammer, but instead it was my stepdaughter,
who was 17.
And I just felt like a fool.
I didn't hit my stepdaughter because God told me not to kill her, but I would have hit
my wife.
I would have killed my wife.
Besides, I was always more attracted to my stepdaughter than I was to my wife.
But, you know, still such a mystery why this marriage ended. Like, he just doesn't understand,
like, for the life of him. He just wishes he had closure, you know? Just, she let. Tell me why.
What went wrong? I did everything. He wanted Sheila to be softer, a sweeter person.
He wanted her, him, to be the most important thing in her life.
He wanted her to cater to him.
But her attitude was just not great, he said.
She wasn't even his first choice.
He wanted to marry her because he thought that she would become this slave for him.
He wanted to control her.
So he was upset.
He was single again and you know I know looks
are nothing and I hate to poke fun at someone's looks but come on Harvey wanted woman to
fall at his feet and do whatever he told them, drop everything in their lives to comfort
him, take care of him, feed him, massage his feet and you know rub his toes until he falls
asleep. Meanwhile this guy's got a violent temper, no redeeming personality traits whatsoever
and he's said to have a
hairline that went as far back as the Stone Age.
He had a receding chin, a deep scar over one eye, he could easily be nicknamed Mr. Very
Hard on the Eyes.
He would have to make a concentrated effort to smile.
Like this guy never smiled to the point where he almost forgot how to do it, so he'd have
to sit there and think after a joke, like wait wait how do I smile again? I mean this guy was
always in a grimace. So it's hard for him to get woman to find him attractive right?
So he starts learning okay I need to hide my temper. I need to use my fairly well built
body at this age to make women feel safe when they're with me. And with all of this,
with all of this training that he did, he meets an Alice Johnson.
She was freshly divorced and...
It's not me saying it, but some of her friends say that she was kind of desperate to prove
to her ex-husband that she could still get it.
She was very vulnerable.
She was in her early 30s, never finished high school.
She worked multiple cleaning jobs.
She had no social life.
And she would only just go to a small tavern on her off days and that's where she met Harvey.
So she meets Harvey and she was impressed by him.
He had owned gas stations when in reality he leased it.
I mean, it's still impressive.
Where did he get this money?
A lot of people think maybe it has to do with Virginia Piper.
That has not been proven, but it's a speculation.
Very impressive.
So he's this successful, hardworking man
and she's very quick to let him move in
into her home with her kids.
11 year old Billy and 14 year old Georgia.
This is important, but those who knew Harvey said this about him.
He was the type of guy that would never even glance twice
at an attractive woman his age.
Wow, this guy so devoted to his wife.
No, no, no, it's because he loved teenage girls.
He would approach them in restaurants,
he would really ask them gross things like
you wanna give me a job?
Like just really disgusting.
Alice, on the other hand, did not notice any of this.
She didn't even notice that Harvey clearly favored Georgia over Billy
and maybe even herself.
In fact, Harvey beat Billy on so many occasions
that he just was so mad, he was so fed up
that he begged his biological dad,
can I please go live with you?
I don't wanna live with mom and Harvey anymore.
Georgia wanted to go to, she hated it here.
She felt like Harvey was always looking at her
in a creepy way, not a fatherly way, it made her nervous.
But just as much as this made her nervous,
she was also worried for her mom's safety. With good reason, the longer their relationship,
the more the real Harvey Alice was seen. He started turning on her. He would smack her in the face,
he would throw her across the room. She had to get five stitches on her lip because he had beat
her so badly once. He would give her black eyes. She would have to hide from the rest of her family
until her wounds healed, and Alice was truly abused. She blamed herself. She felt like it was her fault. If I just stop
nagging him, this wouldn't happen. If I just stopped arguing back, this wouldn't have happened.
And Georgia was just heartbroken. She was even more grossed out that her stepfather was asking her
constantly to go on these late night drives together. She would always turn him down,
but there was one point where he was so insistent she couldn't say no. She gets into the car,
and he keeps suggesting, scoot closer, scoot closer to me. I just want to talk. And he told her,
I'm jealous of your boyfriends. Not because, you know, you've boyfriends, but I love you so much.
You know, I really feel like a father to you, And he gave her the most fatherly touch of all by putting his hand on her upper thigh. Not fatherly at all is what I'm
trying to say. Like what is wrong with him? Please can we just go back home Harvey like I just want
to go back home it's late, I'm tired please. He takes her back. But it's not like she was safe at
home, he would stare at her, he would just never break his stare. It felt like she was naked.
That's how she described it.
It was so intense, it was so invasive, she felt uncomfortable.
One time when they were alone, he was staring at her.
Usually, common occurrence.
But this time he gets up from his chair, picks her up and starts carrying her towards
the master bedroom, not saying a single word.
She's begging him, slapping him, please stop please.
She starts beating him with her fists. Think about what you're doing. What would my
mom think of this? Please, please, please. And I guess her words got to him because he
put her down, apologized, and that was it.
Not long after, Georgia ran away from home to go live with her dad.
So back to Kathy Miller. She's excelling in classes in high school, but she wanted more.
Sure Mary, her mom was making enough money at her new bank job, but Kathy wanted to take on a job of her own.
She was gonna work at a nursing home to take care of elderly patients, and her boyfriend Mark was looking for a job too.
So she starts looking in the paper. Just going through the want ads, anybody wants an employee, and she finds the perfect part-time job.
Oh my god, this is great!
It's too good to lose the opportunity.
She rushes the phone, calls the number.
Nobody picks up.
Oh man.
I guess the gas station's closed.
I'll try again tomorrow.
The next morning, Mary, here's her on the phone talking.
Wait, how old do you have to be?
Wait, you take girls? Okay, yes. Uh, no.
So she's like saying yes, no, to a ton of questions she's being asked. She gives her
telephone number and even her address. And Mary is listening to this in the next room,
getting upset. Like, what are you doing? Why are you giving that to a stranger? Why are
you giggling? After 10 minutes, Kathy hangs up, runs thermal, mom, mom, mom.
Guess what?
He practically interviewed me right on the phone.
He said that I was very mature,
that he wants to give me a job at the gas station,
and he asked me all these questions.
I was honest, I told him I had no experience,
but he said that I sounded smart,
and that I get good grades,
and he's willing to teach me.
What?
What kind of job is this, Kathy?
It's a job in the gas station.
He's gonna pick me up in front of series
right after school at like 230, and then take me to the gas station. He's gonna pick me up in front of series right after school
at like 230 and then take me to the gas station
and we're gonna fill out the application.
Kathy, you know nothing about cars,
let alone pumping gas.
And I don't like this idea of you meeting
with a stranger without me.
I mean, this is strange, Kathy, think about it.
If you're applying for a job,
why don't I just drive you to the gas station
and you can just apply there?
Why are you getting into a car with a man you don't even know? Mom you just don't trust anyone. It's because like I don't I don't
have a car so I can't get to the gas station. Cathy don't you remember what I read in the
newspaper? The girl that was picked up for some job but it wasn't a real job and she was
ripped. Do you remember that? You're not going. I don't want you to go. Okay. Okay. I won't go even though it sounds like an amazing job.
No, I mean it, Kathy. Don't even think about it.
So Kathy promised she would not go.
Mary leaves.
She's got to get to work.
She's waiting for the bus to pick her up,
but something was just bothering her.
She's like, no, I can't do it.
If I'm late to work, I'm late to work,
but this is more important.
She, you turns, walks back home, and she beats the idea more into Kathy's head.
You promise me you're not gonna go?
You promise me.
Don't meet a mess here.
Don't even think about meeting a mess here.
Okay, my- I promise.
I promise.
They walk to the bus station together and Mary lectures her a third time in the bus.
Do you even know this man's name?
No. What- the gas station?
What's the name of the gas station?
I don't know.
Do you know where it is?
No.
What?
What did the ad say?
I don't know.
Just service station hell-blaw-nid and a number with an LA area code.
Come on.
You don't think that's weird, Kathy.
If the gas station's in the area, why wouldn't it have a Seattle area code?
Why would it be an LA area code?
Is he using his personal phone?
That's weird!
Regardless, you promise you're not going to go.
Yes, Mom, I promise.
I gotta get off.
This is my bus stop for the school.
So Kathy gets off.
Mary watches as Kathy waves goodbye.
And she goes to work.
But this time her anxiety didn't get better as the day progressed.
It just got worse and worse, and she knew she had to do something.
She knew that she had to make sure Kathy didn't go back on her promise.
She picks up the phone, calls the Seattle Police Department, and tells them everything Kathy
told her, and asked, should I be worried?
The sergeant told her, the sergeant of the Sex Crimes Unit said, yeah, it's a bit strange.
I would say, yeah, good, good call.
Don't let your daughter go.
It could be all right, but at the end of the day, you just want to make sure you're cautious. He didn't ring the alarm
immediately. He didn't say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. So Mary felt a little bit better. She felt
like, okay, maybe this has something to do with the guy that followed her home from the pool last week.
I mean, these are completely unrelated, but it's just kind of giving me an anxious vibe,
and I'm over thinking it. So finishes her work day and when she gets home
Kathy's not there. I mean she's not that worried Kathy mentioned stopping by the nursing home to still apply for her job
But around 6 p.m. Mary starts getting anxious her hands started shaking by 6.30
Mary is shuffling through the newspapers and Kathy's rooms looking for that out
But the ad isn't there. There's just a hole where Kathy had torn it out.
Kenny?
Kenny, sweetie, can you go across the street and borrow the times from the neighbors?
She gets the ad from the neighbors' newspaper and called it.
A man answered.
Hello, is this the ad for the gas station?
Yes.
Did you happen to talk to a girl named Kathy Miller this morning?
Yes, I did.
Just wait a minute. Let me get her slip.
He came back and said, ah, yes, Kathy Miller.
She was supposed to meet me at the gas station at 245 this afternoon, but she didn't show up.
Anyway, glad I could help. Goodbye. He hangs up.
Now, Mary's confused. Did Kathy go?
Why did she not show up if her plan was to go meet him at the gas station?
But also, how did she know where the station was when she didn't know this morning when
she was on the bus?
Oh, the story is different now.
Yeah, this guy saying she was supposed to meet me at the gas station at 245, but she
didn't show up.
But this morning she didn't know where the gas station was, so she magically found it out
and then why wouldn't she go if that was her plan?
I mean, none of it makes sense.
By 8 p.m.
Kathy Stone on home, she's never it makes sense. By 8 p.m. Kathy still not home.
She's never been this late.
Mary calls 911.
Two cops show up and they tell her,
yeah, we could try to run that number and see who it belongs to,
but probably not till the morning.
I mean, think about it.
We're not that worried.
Kathy's 16, it's only 9 p.m.
At 10 p.m. Mary calls Mark and gets the worst news of her life.
So this is Kathy's boyfriend.
And he tells her, oh yeah, after school, I waited at the corner in front of Sears for her
to get picked up by the guy.
And the owner was like running 10 minutes late and I asked her, do you know where the gas station
is?
She said no.
All she knew is that he was going to pick her up in a wine-colored car.
I told her that's not really professional.
On top of that he's late.
And she said, well, he sounded okay or the phone. which kind of reminded Mark, oh shoot, I gotta go. I don't know, I can't
wait, I gotta go to my paper route. So he said, buy the Kathy and left. He started choking
up later when he was talking to the police about this because he remembered at the end,
he told her, hey, maybe he's picking you up for something else and not a job. And they
both kind of giggled and shrugged it off. That they were being paranoid.
So Mary gets no updates from the cops that night.
The next morning she gets a call.
The number is to a man named Harvey Carrignan, and the gas station address is blank.
So Mary rushes to the gas station, she finds out that Harvey's not there.
Nobody knows where the boss is, and none of the employees ever saw a girl resembling Kathy.
A police officer goes to Harvey's house and Harvey agrees, yeah I'll go to the station
with you.
He was cooperative.
He was even willing to talk about Kathy Miller.
He said, yes she never showed up.
I don't know what to do with that.
So there was no reason to detain Harvey and that's all the police could do.
Mary obviously was not content with this. Her sister started driving
slowly by the gas station. They saw a maroon purple Pontiac parked outside. She took down the
license plates numbers, days passed, no signs of Kathy, and Mary even used her position at the
bank to run a credit check on Harvey, literally jeopardizing her job. And I mean, he was not in a
financially dire situation. None of this helped their case, but she had to do job. And I mean, he was not in a financially dire situation.
None of this helped their case, but she had to do something. And then a few days later, Mary gets a call.
The homicide department is now taking over the case. The cops think Kathy's dead. Thankfully,
the lead investigators in the homicide department, Billy and Duane, they both had teenage daughters at
home and they were actually, um, Kathy's age. Duane's daughter could have actually passed as Kathy's doppelganger.
They looked so similar.
So these guys are serious.
They look into Harvey's criminal past and it was bleak.
Their heart sank.
He had been convicted of murder 23 years earlier.
The conviction was reversed on a technicality, not an acquittal because he was innocent.
There were three more arrests for sexual assaults,
several for burglary, he spent most of his life in prison, or out on parole, and the police
tracked down Harvey's parole officer who said, yeah, he has periods of extreme violence, his wife
and his ex-wife are terrified of him. One time in prison, he beat up a guard so bad it took
six guards to control him. He spent a year in solitary because of that.
He spent a year in the hole.
When things are going right though, Harvey's a pretty good person,
but when things are going wrong, he just turns into an animal.
Hey, you guys are cops, right?
Well, if you have to arrest him, he's gonna be dangerous.
He won't go down easy.
That's what the parole officer had to say.
Tell me why again?
He's not on parole?
After a few days, because the police couldn't even really question Harvey,
they made the choice that they were going to go public with Kathy's disappearance.
And on Tuesday, a call comes in, not to the detectives, but to Mary,
which was creepy because her phone was not listed in the telephone directory.
So she picks it up and she's like, how did you guys get my number?
Huh?
About what?
Oh, I don't know what you're talking about.
We're all calling because someone left
their algebra book in the parking lot of our workplace and this is the number on the
book.
The book, it says Kathy Miller on the book.
What?
There's no idea how important this was.
She's like, where are you?
Where did you find her things?
The caller was a business owner in Seattle.
They own like a logging company.
So this is not like outside of TJ.J. Maxx or Trader
Joe's. This is outside of a massive warehouse where there's in the parking lot, there's just
stacks of logs, there's plywood, there's shipping containers, there's crates everywhere,
like this is one of those businesses.
And there's just a textbook?
Yeah, just a stack of textbooks in their parking lot. It was an algebra book, a German
book, and a social security card for Kathy Miller was there. So the homicide detective show up and they searched the entire place.
They were so dedicated that Bill, one of the officers, had fallen while searching the logs. He had
snapped his ankle. Like there was a loud crack. It wasn't even sprained. It was broken. His bone was
shattered, but he kept searching. He kept searching. His ankle was three times the original size.
He immediately had it checked on and went back to the case. They did not find
Kathy there. They couldn't even pull prints from Kathy's books because it had
been raining when the employees had found it and they wiped the books dry.
They were trying to be good civilians. So they were back to square one and things
weren't looking good. A lot of colors just wanted the reward out from Kathy's
grandparents.
Some guy called and said, I'm holding your daughter captive, and I will only release her
a few find me $36,000 of unmarked bills.
He never called back.
Then Mary gets a call from a woman named Georgia Johnson.
Alice's own daughter.
To give her sympathy, but also to tell her about Harvey, it was not a comforting call,
but it confirmed to a lot of people and to marry that Kathy might be dead.
Other women came forward who were interviewed for the job at the gas station and they said
it was weird that like the guy would call in later and ask to take them out to dinner and
it's like, wait, I thought this was a job interview. Sometimes he would say, hey, come on
by, stop at night when I'm closing up the gas station and I'll give you a free tank of
gas.
Some customers came forward and said that Harvey
would offer to get them a buy one get one tires
and they would look around
and nobody else is getting buy one get one tires.
It's not like a promotion that they're doing
and so they'd say, what's the catch, Harvey?
It's not a sale, right?
Why are you offering me this?
And you would say with a creepy grin,
you know what the catch is.
So they bring in Harvey again and they question him
and he says, nope, I never saw them.
She was supposed to show up at the gas station
and I think one of my employees said
that she came in with some hippie-looking guys.
Like, she actually did come, but I wasn't there.
I had to leave, you know, I'm a busy man.
I did stop by Sears.
I waited about two to three minutes to pick her up
but she was late.
Like I said, I'm a busy guy.
I'm not just gonna wait around for some kid
to show up to a job interview.
So you never saw a Cathy in person.
Never.
Would you be willing to take a polygraph?
Yeah, I would.
Then as the detectives are leaving to get the polygraph,
he asks what, so if I take the test and I pass,
would I be eliminated as a suspect?
Yes. Okay. What if I don't pass? Then I guess we'd be more concerned about true Harvey and the investigation would kind of steer towards your direction. Oh. Then can I talk
to my Laura first? Suddenly Harvey was nervous, too nervous. But they couldn't force him into a polygraph or anything, so they had to let him go.
They interviewed the rest of his employees and they said that he would always just do
creepy things.
He would offer them cars, like to just buy them cars.
They're just gas station attendants.
And he'd say, yeah, I'll buy your car.
If I can make love to you, he also bragged about how much he would fill up the tanks of
woman and take them into the back and have sex with them.
He bragged about how many women he had sex with.
Employees also said the day after Kathy went missing when the police came to talk to him,
the rest of the day at work he was so jumpy.
He just kept saying that the police are shady and they're trying to get him for something.
Alice also was a little bit concerned.
That night that Kathy went missing, he didn't come home. The next morning when he finally made it
home, he was nervous. His face was twitching and it was just weird. He asked her
the next day, can you take my pickup truck and get it washed? I need to make
sure that the interior is perfectly vacuumed. Very, very well. Got it, Alice?
Now she didn't want to pay for it so she did it at
home. Of course she didn't tell him that because he'd be very angry but even Alice's family was saying
you don't think that's weird. You don't think that's weird. Why would he need a vacuum? So well,
why did he make it such a point? Why didn't he go? We just think he's guilty but she kept denying it.
No, he's nice. Most of the time he's hardworking,
he's amazing, he's good to me, he takes care of me." Another friend came forward and said that
Harvey had kept asking him to do an alibi for him to say that he was with him that night that
Kathy went missing and he asked, why don't you just tell the cops the truth? What were you actually
doing? And Harvey said, well, I was, I was being Batman. I was being Robin Hood. You
know, vigilante justice. That's what I was doing. I was killing two ex-convicts. They were
just menaces to society. They were like being woman and shit. So I killed them both. I
stabbed one and I shot the other. I put them in the trunk of a car that's not traceable
because I'm like the mafia. I took them into the woods. I buried them. But while I was
burying one, the other one got up and they ran away. So that's why I can't tell
the truth. Okay. That's why I need your alibi. Because no, I wasn't at home baking
cookies with my wife, but I was out there being Batman. I was saving the world.
One step at a time. So do you want to help me help the world? Or what? The
friend was like, no, I want to go with Or what?
So no.
Then another friend came forward and said
that they were talking to Harvey about the missing girl
and they casually stated, oh, the girl probably just ran away.
She's going to turn up alive and all of this is going to go away.
And Harvey said, I'll kiss your ass if she turns up alive.
Alice was also starting to get nervous.
She had to stand by her husband, though, right?
Because that's what a good wife does. There were questions though, that were haunting her. Like, why did
you throw away a perfectly good pair of new work boots? It burnt them. You didn't even
just throw them away. He said they weren't good anymore, which I don't know, that's strange.
They were in perfect condition. I've only seen them more at a few times. That's weird.
When the police questioned Alice, she wasn't fully covering for her husband,
she also wasn't ratting him out. She noted a few strange things. She said, for one, I recently
found a button in his car and I asked him, where's this button from? It's not my button. I'm not
missing a button on any of my clothes. Oh, it's probably one of the employees I give rights to.
Here, give it to me. I'll get rid of it. And he got rid of the button.
Well, when did you find the button, Alice?
I think it's the weekend after the girl went missing.
Okay, well, is there anything else that worries you, Alice?
Well, my husband won't let me out of his sight, which is weird.
Ever since the girl disappeared, he just wants to be right next to me.
I mean, it's strange because he was never like that before.
He always needed his alone time, but now, we're together all the time. A few nights later, Alice calls
the police to let them know that she left him. She was in hiding with her brother and she was
terrified that Harvey was going to track her down. Alice now believed her husband was a killer.
She even showed the police the vacuum bag that she used to clean his car, but they got no evidence from it.
Meanwhile, Mary, she was distraught.
Kathy was still not found.
To make matters worse, police were starting to connect Harvey to other disappearances, a girl named Laura Brock.
Harvey was in the area when she went missing.
This is the 19 year old girl that Mary had read the newspaper article about and warned Kathy on the dangers of hitchhiking.
I mean it's chilling because Laura Brock was one of Harvey's first victims.
Well, her first one of his first known victims in the area since he was released from prison.
She was bludgeoned to death.
Her whole left side of the face was crushed.
But in the meantime, Kathy was found.
Two sixteen year old boys were riding their motor rikes through Tuvalip reservation and they were going to pick some berries off bushes
and they were in some pretty dense vegetation when they get this whiff of an awful smell. They said it was unfamiliar.
They've never smelled anything like this before. They couldn't compare it to like a fart or a poop or anything.
They didn't know where the source was coming from so they just started going deeper and deeper into the woods until they saw a figure wrapped
in black plastic sheeding and they freaked out.
They rode their bikes to the sheriff's office two miles away,
and when the police get there, they said it was so eerie.
The body was positioned in a way.
It looked like the hand was under the chin,
and they were about to take a nap.
Like, you know, when you use your hand
to kind of support your face on a pillow,
that's how the body was positioned in the field. There were also two apparent bullet holes near
the skull. A large area of the skull had been crushed. Evidence of intense blunt force trauma,
and her cheekbone was completely fractured. It was clear that she was not murdered at the scene,
but disposed of. The body was ideal to belong to Kathy. What made things click for investigators is that Harvey at one point at own to house in
the Tulip Reservation, and it was only 42 miles from where he picked up Kathy. But still,
this is not enough to arrest Harvey, and they're turning up the heat. Those around Harvey
said that he was getting so nervous, he was picking at his face nonstop, he was twitching
as badly as they'd ever seen, and he was forever wiping his forehead that was just always
Drenched, caked, and sweat, everything irritated him. He had a short temper shorter than before
I know it's hard to imagine but he did at one point
He exerted his superhuman strength picked up the front end of his trunk and slammed it down onto the ground in just sheer anger and frustration
He picked up his car? Yeah, the front end.
The police were terrified that he was going to try to leave and skip town, but Harvey had
other plans.
I mean, well not really.
He did want to skip town, but he wanted to take all of his things with him, you know?
He packed his sweaters, his socks, and now the only piece of property he had left was,
oh yeah, his wife Alice, because this guy is a misogynistic soul who believes his wife is his property
And how are you gonna leave without your property without your valuables? That's just dumb
So he keeps writing letters to her
He believed that he could convince Alice that the sky was green if he wanted to
But she wasn't having it so eventually he does skip town and he's constantly writing to her to this point
She's like the more he writes the more she's having trouble remembering
why she was divorcing him in the first place.
His letters were so filled with love and tenderness and drew love that she wanted to take
him back.
She was so confused on her feelings.
Harvey had gone to Minionapolis with his family.
She moved back into her house with her children and the cops kept trying to convince her to
file assault charges against Harvey and later she would, which is pertinent.
In any case, though, Harvey's gone.
He's given a speeding ticket in California, so not only was he not in Minnesota, he was
kind of just traveling.
He was going up and down California, and this is pertinent, because Harvey is later
known to have murdered five people, but it's considered and deemed possible that he
kind of killed as many as 18 people.
Because a lot of bodies were showing up in California, very similar to how he disposed of his victims
when he was getting speeding tickets in the same towns in California. Then he traveled from California
to Minnesota, and it was there that he had run into a Meryl's Townsend. So Meryl's was waiting for
a bus at a quiet street corner, and she had heard this heavy
footsteps behind her heavy breathing.
And before she could turn around, something slammed into her head, she fell unconscious,
next thing you know, she wakes up in a pickup truck.
She's in pain, and the driver keeps grabbing her hand, placing it onto his genitals while
he's driving and screaming, touch me.
She pulls away, and she frantically tries to get the door open, but he's driving and screaming touch me. She pulls away and she frantically tries to get the door open but he's pissed.
So he curses her out and grabs her hair to grab her head to force her to perform
filatio while he's driving, but what he did not expect was that she was wearing a wig.
So he yanked the wig off and he was so shocked that she had just enough time to open the
door and hit the ground running.
They were not going fast enough where she had hurt herself.
So she ran away, Harvey was pissed.
His life was miserable.
He had found a job in many anapolis, but it didn't pay nearly as well as the gas station.
He's got this sh**ty apartment.
This woman just ran away because, God, I didn't know she was wearing a wig.
He had a clean for himself, he had no woman here, and these goddamn apartments,
they had to come with woman too. You know, a buy one get one special.
I got a clean for myself, I got a cook for myself, are you kidding?
Every time he did a dish or folded his own laundry or cooked his own meal, he would ferociously
pen a romantic letter to Alice.
Alice dear, you are seeing dragons that don't exist.
I'm actually a really good person, people are lying to you about me.
Alice, I am the same person now that I was then.
I've been changed a tiny bit.
If you're having second thoughts because I beat you up,
well, fear no more.
I won't do it again, I promise.
Unless you sleep with another man, because technically we're still married,
and we haven't finalized your divorce, and that would be cheating,
and I would have to beat you up and kill the man if you ever slept with another man.
But other than that, Alice, I promise.
I'm different now.
I'm never going to hit you again.
Also, do you know how much the furniture and my apartment costs?
I'm only making $7.60 an hour now, but it's just hard.
I was beaten up when I went downtown.
I was robbed.
They used a claw hammer to attack me.
I have four large lumps on my head.
I might lose my right eye Alice
I've no money. I don't know when I can work and I just I miss you
When Alice didn't give him the response that he wanted he would write to Alice about all the hot girls you are seeing
There was one particular restaurant that he would go to and the server was so smoke-and-hunt
Guess what her name is Alice. I guess I just like Alice's huh
He also bragged about how much he insulted other men
at the bars.
Like, he would literally write his little dishes.
He'd be like, so then I said, no fuck you.
Yeah, I mean, I don't know.
And then he would talk about how he was a loving father figure
and he watches TV with his nieces and nephews.
But it was sad because one time they turned on this show and wow, it was a snake dying in the wilderness and the
kids were laughing at the TV, they were laughing at the snake dying. I just can't imagine
such evil, how can someone, anyone, so intensely enjoy the sight of a killing. I'm just
an empath, you know? It's really hard being an empath.
Listen, free advice from Stephanie Sue, stay away from anyone whose personality trait is
being an empath because they are most definitely not an empath.
September 8th rolls around.
That's when 13-year-old Jerry Billings was hitchhiking in Minneapolis.
She was headed to her boyfriend's apartment.
She had actually recently ran out of home, like she was around away away And this was the only way she could afford travel was getting free rides
Thankfully a pickup truck stops to give her a ride and she happily climbed in the driver introduced himself as Paul and he was very nice
Except for the fact that he was driving in the wrong direction than when she had instructed
He was headed out into the countryside out of the city
So she starts to argue he refuses to listen and he keeps driving.
They were going too fast for her to jump out.
Before she could even think about what to do next, he unzips his pants and with one hand
while he's driving, with the other, he forces her head down and forced her to perform
Felatio.
She tried to move away but he was very, very strong.
After what felt like centuries, he let her go.
But he wasn't done.
He demanded that she take off her pants
and lower her underwear,
and she felt something between her legs.
She looked down and she was traumatized to find out
that he was pushing the handle of the claw hammer
inside of her.
And he forced her to perform filetio again.
He screamed and I quote,
now give me a blowjob again, and he shoved her head down and she just felt so hopeless.
Nobody could see her in the passing cars. They were going further and further into the countryside.
All she saw were giant six feet tall corn stalks on the side of the road.
When he finally lets her stop, she gets up and then she felt an earth shattering blow.
She felt like her head was going to explode. She saw flashing lights, she started to cry and he would scream at her
shut up. She tried to use all of her strength to memorize what the truck looked
like, but she was like, what's the point? I'm never even gonna get the chance to
tell anyone about this truck, and after a while he turns into an empty, deserted
cornfield and yells at her to get out. She hesitated, but he picked her up, carried her into
the cornfield, far away from the road, dropped her onto the ground, unziped his pants, and
tried to sawdemise her. She was screaming in pain, and pleading with him to stop so he
gave up, and forced her back into a kneeling position, and forced her to perform filetio
for the third time. Jerry thought that he was going to kill her, but instead he let her
get dressed, walked her back to the truck, and they were headed back into town. He stopped in a random small
suburban neighborhood and said, get out and don't tell anyone ever. She was terrified.
I mean, she had no wrong, she had no home, she was run away, her parents didn't approve of
her decisions. She felt like if she reported this to the police, she would surely be arrested.
That's what she believed.
So after two days of wandering around without a home, just relieving her trauma, she decided,
I gotta go back.
She goes to her parents, doesn't tell them what happened, and I guess her luck just got worse,
and maybe that's why she ran away because her mom forced her into a juvenile detention center for running away.
Not knowing, she was just retraumatizing her daughter.
So after a while in there, she finally decided to tell the police everything.
And none of it really helped because the police had no idea who they're looking for.
Meanwhile, Harvey went on continuing to be a menace to society.
One day he was on his way home, a late cold night, when the car in front of him turned
on his hazard lights and he slowly drove past and guess what?
What do you know it?
Three women inside.
So of course, being the gentleman that he is, he stopped and asked, what can I be of
assistance?
There was an older woman driving and two younger woman as passengers.
According to Harvey, one of the younger ones was very, very pretty.
Her name was Eileen and Harvey just thought, wow, this girl is hot.
So they get in, believing this
is a gift from God to help them, you know, and he drives them to their place and everything
is going well. He says that they're crazy, they're fanatical and they're stupid, but
he likes them. He likes one of them. He would actually end up dating one of them and she
would end up dead. He started dating Eileen and she believed that Harvey was a
very nice person. I mean he stopped to help them. He didn't. If I'm nothing
happened that night he dropped the woman out of at home. Even helped them fix
their car. This was a gift from God. He looked a little bit lost in life but
she thought with her guidance, with her ability to convert him into their
religion, which is they were Jehovah's Witnesses, that she could
make a husband out of him.
They started going to church together and months into dating, Eileen started noticing the
red flags.
Harvey would stay out at night just driving, what was he doing?
We don't know.
He had a temper, the man wouldn't stop drinking, and she did not believe that she could be with
a man that was not obeying the Lord.
So she decided to break up with him.
Let's be friends, she said, and this sent Harvey into a flying rage.
The next Sunday, Eileen failed to show up to church.
Then, to work on Monday, and what made her employers even more confused was that a guy named
Harvey was trying to collect her most recent paycheck.
Like what the heck, what are you doing?
They checked her apartment, all of her things were there nobody had heard from her and they never would. A while
later there were two hitchhikers 16-year-old Lee Sun 17-year-old June. A nice
older balding man stopped and said, Girls if you're not in a hurry I can take you
to where you need to go because you're hitchhiking but you can also make
$25. Do one of you guys have a license? My son's truck ran out of gas and he
left it up in the corn fields up there.
We need to get it back, but I need someone to drive it down because my son's not with
me.
I can take you up there, follow you back, won't take long.
I'll give you $25.
So they hop in, they start driving towards the wooded area and he stops the truck in the
middle of the woods and he gets out and they're confused by this.
Like why would the truck be here? Why would it have naturally stopped here?
You'll, they also see that this guy's huge, very tall. He takes out a hammer, a screwdriver,
a five-gallon gas can from his car and says, you come with me, you stay in the car.
So June follows them in into the woods and she's confused, okay? But she's not asking questions.
Suddenly he turns around and hits her head with the hammer.
She screams, loud enough for Lisa to hear.
Lisa runs out of the truck, finds June on the ground,
bleeding from her head, and the man is gone.
So Lisa finds a farmhouse and the sheriff is called.
June was taken to the ER, she had been hit on the head seven times,
and she suffered a severe concussion.
Then we have 19-year-old Gwen Burton.
She was in the Sears parking lot and her car refused to start.
As she stood there contemplating what to do, a man approaches her and he checks out the
car and says, oh shoot, I can fix it but I don't have my tools on me.
Why don't we run over to my place and get them and I can bring you back with me with the
tools and I'll fix it for you.
Oh sir but I don't have money to pay you for it.
Oh, it's fine, don't worry about it.
And he starts guiding her to his truck by her elbow.
So she's just thinking, wow, it's really nice.
I'm like, I guess because you're so assertive,
she's going with it, but the minute that he opened the passenger door,
she kind of hesitates a bit.
She's like, what a minute?
And he looks at her and his whole face changes.
And he says, I said get in.
And he's so mad.
She's confused.
I mean this guy was so nice. So nice that he wants to help me out for free and go out
of his way but now now he's mad. What's wrong? What's going on? She looks around the parking
lot and they were alone. She couldn't even scream for help so she froze. Didn't know
what to do. She felt the man's fingers tighten around her arm and he shoved her into the
car. Guan was terrified. He started driving incredibly fast out of the arm and he shoved her into the car. Guan was terrified.
He started driving incredibly fast out of the city
and he kept saying, slide over and sit by me.
And he would say, you know, I'm an expert.
In judo, karate, come on over and sit by me.
I said, my wife and I aren't getting along too well.
She said, no, I'll pay you.
You said you're short on money.
I'll pay you $30 a week if you'll meet with me.
I could make a hooker out of you. I don't want to sit by you. I want you're short on money. I'll pay you $30 a week if you'll meet with me. I could make a hooker out of you
I don't want to sit by you
I want you to take me back to my car or let me out. I'll get my own ride back and you grabbed her forced her across the seat and said
You come here bitch and she felt like it was pointless fighting back like this guy's so huge
She said it felt like with one swipe of his hand if he wanted he could kill me
He ripped off her pants and she felt his hands
wrap around her neck and she would pass out each time she passed out she woke up again
and he would do it all over again. She couldn't help but cry and this only pissed him off
more and he would slap her around and when she finally came to she found herself sitting
on a blanket on the ground in the middle of like a field. So he demanded oral sex again
and he assaulted her with the handle of the hammer and she started to bleed. He told her, I like to see you suffer.
She said, you're going to kill me aren't you? And he smiled. The most ugly, disgusting
vile smile and said, you know, you shouldn't say things like that. Because you'll give me ideas.
And he punched her in the stomach. And he said, now I'm going to kill you. You
And he punched her in the stomach and he said, now I'm going to kill you. And she just felt this like bang, bang, bang on her skull and she knew that she was dying.
But to her surprise, she wakes up in a pool of her own blood alone.
She survived.
She survived.
Her head hurt.
She was weaker than ever.
She's so weak she could barely move.
She just wanted to go back to sleep.
There was no reason to get back up.
Sure, she knew that if she goes to sleep, she's going to die. Like, she's conscious. She's aware of
this, right? But it just feels like the easier option. It just feels nice and pleasant. Just go
back to sleep. But then it came to her. Gwen had gotten a phone call that morning from her sister.
And her sister said, Gwen, you'll never believe it. I'm pregnant. And Gwen thought to herself, if I die,
I'm never gonna see that baby.
I have to live.
So she stood up and her legs give out
and she falls back so hard she hits her head again.
And oddly, she said she felt no pain.
She knew she had to drag her body back to Earth
like where people were because she was at the bottom
of a ditch.
It would take all of her strength
just to get to the top of the ditch.
There was a field and nothing else at the top. She would have to go another quarter mile to see the low like a
local road. She didn't walk. She crawled through harvested crops and the sun is setting. At one point there was a barbed wire fence that was toppled over and she had to crawl over it.
She crawled for two hours until she kind of reached the road.
So she's not at the road yet, but I mean she can see the road very clearly.
There's cars, tractors, she's screaming, nobody's stopping, they just breathed past her.
She started pulling her body closer to the road, that took another one and a half hours,
and every car just drove by.
She tried to wave, she was too weak to stand, Her voice was so weak, sometimes the car would stop,
stare at her, and wave back.
And then drive off.
I don't even know, she was so frustrated.
I mean, it's clear she has blood all over her,
like this woman needs help.
She knew she wouldn't be alive by the morning,
so she debated, I'm gonna crawl into the middle of the road.
But before she could, she tried one last time, she screamed.
She heard the tractor slow down, and a farm farm boy a young farm boy ran out to help her
She was rushed to the hospital in critical condition. She was operated on for hours
She her school fracture was so bad that some of her school bones had shattered and they were embedded into her brain tissue
And they had to take it out there to pick those brain fragments out
brain tissue and they had to take it out there to pick those brain fragments out. Or those bone fragments out.
And Gwen Burton, she, lived.
But for months, she'd be paralyzed in her right arm and leg.
Her balance will forever be not stable.
Her ability to concentrate was compromised.
When she was tired, she is unable to speak.
She was forced to drop out of nursing school.
She's no longer able to do the things that she loves, like swims, ski, play football.
She told the police everything, and all of them noted, this is so similar to what happened to Jerry Billings and the woman who was saved by her wig.
A few days later, a body was found. A corpse was badly decomposed. There was a tree branch sticking out of her private part.
She had been bludgeoned with a hammer. Her face was smashed to bits. It was the body of Eileen Hunley, who the police found out was dating a Harvey Karrigan.
Harvey's last victim would be another Kathy. Her name is Kathy Sheltaus and she was attending
the work opportunity school. She was very hardworking, she was beautiful with long blonde hair, she
was a happy girl that loved life. And it's kind of odd because she loved life so much,
but she always felt like she was gonna die. She wrote poems about her imminent death,
it would say, when I go away, maybe today or tomorrow, I'll just fly away, so I won't have to say
so long. Put a white rose on my grave and talk to me of good times. Don't cry but be brave for we only have one lifetime.
One day just like Kathy Miller, she doesn't show up and her family, they're so concerned
they call the police, they check her room and a little while later, hunters were creeping
through a field of grass hoping to get lucky and they find the body of a woman laying in
the corn stalks.
So finally, it was time to arrest Harvey.
There was just too many coincidences, which again,
like what's going on right now, right?
So they arrest him, he's read his Miranda rights,
which like cocky as ever, he literally waved them off
while they're reading him his rights, and he says,
yeah, yeah, I know all that.
Listen, you guys made a mistake.
So the police said, I'm done. They questioned him.
Do you remember picking up two girls last week
and driving them out into the woods and
having an argument and just leaving them there?
So we had done that before and he said without thinking, I never got into an argument with
any girls and I've never been to Moira and I've never hit a girl.
So the detective never mentioned Moira nor did he say anything about hitting a girl.
So it seems like Harvey was getting a little too loose.
So he starts playing half guilty, half innocent.
He denied any responsibility in the deaths,
but he did mention, yeah, I did pick them up.
And I dropped them off.
Maybe it was a different person that picked them up.
Just in case the prints were found in his car.
A photo lineup was brought to Gwen in the hospital.
She ID'd Harvey, the police dug into Harvey's life
and they found, you know, Eileen is missing.
His car and apartment are remarkably
clean in a very creepy way. They also find a map. From Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California,
Montana, Wisconsin, and Kansas, and there's small 181 small circles all around the maps,
all in isolated areas. What does that mean? They tried to search some of those areas. If
something did take place, a body would have decomposed a while ago. So it's kind of like a terrifying thought that each circle marks
potentially another victim or an assault or a murder. There was a circle around
the Tulalip Indian reservation where Kathy Miller's body was found. Another red
circle was searched, then they found the body of a 14-year-old girl decomposing.
There were times of Harris found in Harvey's truck
and none of them matched the known victims.
So does that mean could it belong to other unknown victims?
So the trial starts for the Gwen Burton trial starts first
and he just, he pled not guilty by reason of insanity
and he went on to the stands to talk about
how God told him to kill women because they're whores.
I mean, it's clear that this guy just came up with this
because he's very smart and he's trying to use his brains
to get out of prison for murder.
He already got away with it once
and he was dating this woman named Eileen
and she was very religious.
So he starts kind of using it to his advantage.
He's like, no, no, God wants me to kill them
and I'm a good person.
I fixed the girl's hair before I beat their faces
to a pulp because I want them to look nice
when they go to heaven. He said that what he did wasn't wrong because God's law is above the girl's hair before I beat their faces to a pulp because I want them to look nice when they go to heaven.
He said that what he did wasn't wrong because God's law is above the man's law.
Like he was going full-on religious fanatic type vibe and he knew what he was doing.
But the prosecutors, they were one step ahead.
They said, oh yeah, is that so?
Is that why?
I mean, you wrote while you were in prison once about sexual psychopaths and personality disorders and how people can be so manipulative and so intelligent to come up with these excuses for their crimes to get away with it.
Why did you try to conceal your crimes? A lot of religious fanatics, when they kill, they'll try to show the world that they didn't for God.
Would a mentally ill person ask a victim for sexual favors in exchange for money and then only per when he was rejected.
That sounds like a normal person's thinking.
Well, not a normal, but you know, like a regular.
This thinking, not a crazy like your psychotic at this point, your undergoing psychosis,
your seeing things, hearing things, you see God.
So he was found guilty.
Then he was found guilty on all accounts against Jerry Billings and then the murder trials
of Kathy and Eileen Hunley took place.
He was never charged with Kathy's Miller's murder.
There was never enough evidence to extradite him to Seattle.
And during the murder trials, the judge commented once, your crimes are so gross that there's
no point in commenting on them, and Harvey yelled at the judge, well then don't comment
on them then!
He was sentenced to 100 years plus life in prison.
And in prison he started working on an autobiography of his life.
He had an interview with CNN that said, I'm not dangerous now, but I won't say that
I wouldn't be tomorrow.
He is thriving in prison.
They call him Harv the Hammer.
He's currently 94 years old and still alive.
He just won't freaking die
Hard to hammer. Yeah, but I guess there's some happy endings or maybe happy beginnings
Jay Billings the 13 year old runaway. She was adopted by a sheriff. That was working on the case Oh my god, and she grew up to be an exceptional woman
Gwen Burton was able to make a near full recovery
She was able to walk again and she's good with speaking.
She's good with her concentration again.
I mean, it's kind of like a medical miracle, which is great.
And Mary's spent most of the rest of her time just volunteering,
working to help families of other victims
and change the prison system so that Harvey or people like Harvey
would never be really, really least and free to commit murder.
Because what? How does that even happen?
And that is the story of the Want Add Killer.
I hope you guys enjoyed this week's mini-sode and I will see you guys on Wednesday for the
main episode.
Bye!