Small Town Murder - #157 - Every Step You Take... in Jefferson, Wisconsin

Episode Date: February 6, 2020

This week, in Jefferson, Wisconsin, a quiet town is rocked on a serene Easter Sunday, by a vicious murder in a rural home. No one can understand how this could have happened, until a truly odd, twisted and unexpected plot begins to emerge, complete with unexpected liaisons, and bold threats. The details are shocking, and the only question people have is just how many people were involved? It's a seriously crazy tale! Along the way, we find out that some people are very enthusiastic about sheep, that there is no such thing as a "good study hall teacher, and that there are some things that you just shouldn't hire a teenager to do!! Hosted by James Pietragallo & Jimmie Whisman New episodes every Thursday! Donate at: patreon.com/crimeinsports or go to paypal.com & use our email: [e-mail] Go to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things Small Town Murder & Crime In Sports! Follow us on... twitter.com/@murdersmall facebook.com/smalltownpod instagram.com/smalltownmurder Also, check out James & Jimmie's other show, Crime In Sports! On iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You're listening early and ad-free on Wondery Plus. What if you married the love of your life and then stood by them as they developed 21 new identities? What would you do? This Is Actually Happening is a weekly podcast that features extraordinary true stories of life-changing events told by the people who lived them. Listen to the newest season of This Is Actually Happening on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. This week in Jefferson, Wisconsin, where the first murder in 20 years takes place in a quiet rural home on Easter Sunday and makes everyone wonder just who could do such a thing. Welcome to Small Town Murder.

hello everybody and welcome back to small town murder yay yay indeed jimmy yay indeed my name is james petra gallo i'm here with my co-host i'm jimmy wissman thank you folks so much for joining us on another crazy wild it's just a downhill slope yeah known as small town murder we have a crazy one for you today too it's one of those like where you're like gee what what how does that happen somewhere like this it's one of those cases i hope you guys enjoyed last week and you know what every damn week since then last week we gave you new ways to go boating yeah new ways to sail new ways to turn women off yeah new ways unbelievable new ways to have people not want to be any part of you or be near you so it's a hell of a dating website yeah you should really if you're wondering if there's men out there wondering what not to do

listen to last week's how can i just you know i've been how can i repulse everyone working too well how can i change this repulse the X chromosome completely. How do I do that as a scientific thing here? I'm going to make them like magnets and push away. Thank you guys so much for everything this week. Your reviews are so appreciated and so helpful. Thank you for those. If you haven't yet, get on that purple icon, Apple podcast, whatever the hell that is.

Give us five stars. It doesn't matter what you say. Say you're following instructions, directions. Doesn't matter. But it helps the show. Really does. It helps drive you up the charts. And it makes everybody think that, hey, look at them.

They have people that care. There they go. It helps. So thank you for all that stuff like that. Head to shutupandgivememurder.com for all of your merchandise, everything for small town murder and crime and sports, which if you're not listening to crime and sports, man, are you missing. You're missing a party.

There's a party going on. You can hear it. You hear music. You hear like that. A couple of thumbs. You're like, that's a day. Something's happening. Those are ladies' glasses.

Yeah, it's fun. I'm going to go over there. There's glasses clinking. It's good stuff. Go over there and repulse that. Head over there. Do that. Also, get your tickets to live shows coming up.

We're going to be in Denver tomorrow. tomorrow tomorrow night if you listen to that salt lake city after that but those are sold out don't worry about those february 15th and 16th though still get your tickets for indianapolis and louisville get them right now and then march 13th and 14th come out and party with us in san francisco right too late shows which is awesome and they're almost sold out so come check them out a lot of fun we're gonna have a blast with you guys we have new new episodes and if you're wondering what we do for a live show we don't just come out and sit there and go aren't you happy that we're here right that's not what it's about you know we're gonna bullshit about nothing we have a show we come out how's it going blah blah blah here's the story and we go and it's

a comedy show that will we try to try to you know the alternative is for people who like themselves we don't do that because we don't no we don't like ourselves we'd like to entertain you exactly enjoyable night absolutely so uh with that said it's time for the disclaimer right this is a comedy podcast it's a comedy show i mean it's that's what it is with we're comedians so you know we kind of have to make a comedy show. We have no other choice. It's murder. There's murder that happens. We can't help that. People kill each other every day in the world.

I didn't do it. No, we didn't do it, and we don't want anyone to feel bad about it. But we also are going to make jokes about it because there's a lot of stuff around a murder that you can make fun of. Crazy situations lead to murder. Absolutely. It's not usually just Ozzie and Harriet, everything's great, and then Harriet stabs Ozzie in the face. That doesn't usually

happen. There's something that leads up to that that's crazy that you can talk about. That's funny. So we're going to do that.

We're going to have a good time with it. We're going to have fun. We're going to go out of our way not to make fun of the victims or the victims' families.

Yes, but why? Because we're assholes, but we're not scumbags. Now you get it. That's how it works. So if that sounds bad to you, you think, you know, never jokes around murder, that's bad. That's understandable.

You shouldn't listen to this show. No, you shouldn't. I'm going to tell you that right now. Because then later you're going to complain, and then I have to tell you that I don't care. And it's a circle. It's a whole thing. Neither of us need to get into it. We could end it now as a bad blind date.

You gave it a shot. We gave it a shot. Nice to see you. But if you want to have a good time and listen to a crazy story, then this is for you. It is. And it's time for you to sit back. What are they going to say? Sit back and shout, shut up.

Give me murder. Let's do this, Jimmy. Okay. Let's go on a trip. Uh-huh. Shall we? I'd love to. It's time.

Yeah. It's time. We've got to get it. It's cold. We're coming from Massachusetts. That's what it was. Salem. Yeah.

Massachusetts out by the shore there. It's chilly. It's chilly. We're going to go somewhere even colder. Oh, boy. But we're going to head to the Midwest. Okay. We're going from Massachusetts. That's what it was. Salem. Massachusetts, out by the shore there. It's chilly. We're going to go somewhere even colder. Oh, boy. But we're going to head to the Midwest. We're going to Wisconsin. Oh, boy. Oh, baby.

We love Wisconsin. Yeah, we do. Madison and Milwaukee, both of them. Good cities. That's right. Excellent cities to have live shows. Jefferson, Wisconsin is where we're going specifically. It is in southeastern Wisconsin.

Jefferson is. It's about 50outheastern Wisconsin. Jefferson is. It's about 50 minutes to Milwaukee. It's just west of Milwaukee, which, by the way, will be there November 6th at the Pabst Theater. And then 50 minutes the other way, the other side, to Madison. It's right in between Milwaukee and Madison, which, by the way, will be there November 7th at the Barrymore Theater. Don't know how that just worked out perfectly. And it's about three hours and 45 minutes up to Crandon, which was our last Wisconsin episode. How long ago?

Episode 114. Oh, Jesus. Almost a year ago. It's been a while. So Jefferson County, by the way, well, it's in Jefferson County. It's Jefferson County, and this is a good time to tell you there's also a smaller town of Jefferson inside this town of Jefferson. Yeah, inside, which is all inside the county of Jefferson.

What? So it's a little confusing. It's one of those Russian dolls, this town. Yeah, you can live in a Jefferson that's in a Jefferson in a Jefferson. Yeah, that's gross. So that's your address. It's triple Jefferson. Jefferson cubed, okay, and you send it.

Fuck it off. What the shit? Six square miles. It small kind of a small little town there's a lot of rural stuff around it the outskirts are bigger properties woods yeah wisconsin's very wood it is you get outside of milwaukee it's the woods yeah you're in the woods um the motto here there's several mottos actually uh one is quote we're going outside all right it's cold out though then what is that real that's their real motto we're going we're going outside they love the outdoors yeah there's not a lot else going on in this town we're going outside that works for what two and a half months

out of the year but what about the rest of it when it's frozen solid then what i feel like that's uh then where do you go that's like we're going the basement. No, the we're going outside is like threatening that you're going to kill the whole family. We're going out there. We're going out there. I'll take all these kids outside. Everybody. Everyone's going in the snow. Put your fucking coats on.

Heads first. Let's head first in the snow. Let's go. So the other one is the, and I'm going to butcher this because I don't speak German, the Gemmelt... Yeah? Gemmeltlichkeit City. Oh, boy. Can you... You're careful with those words.

You're German, anything? What does that say? It's got an umlaut in there. Gemulictit. Really? Lichit? Lichit? Lichit City. Yep. The Gemulit City? Rolls right off the tongue, doesn't it? Or, the other one's a little below the radar quote nothing says

warmth and friendliness like german yeah so that's perfect come on in everybody we're going outside where there's germans the the gemelictite yeah tuken flocken is uh it's in german is used to convey the idea of a state of feeling of warmth and friendliness, which really, I didn't know that existed in German. That's a good point. A feeling of warmth and friendliness. Everything's quite cold. That's probably why I've never heard that word before.

Germans are like, what now? It's from hundreds of years ago. Oh, that makes more sense. Yeah, we haven't been... No one's cracked a smile here since the 14th century, so it's okay. This is all pre-1300. Yeah, oh, I get it now. This is a very old word. Everyone was happy century so it's okay this is all pre pre-1300 yeah oh i get it now this is a very old word everyone was happy now it's bad okay uh other qualities encompassed encompassed by the term and include coziness peace of mind and a sense of belonging none of these things have any anything to do with germany not anymore and social acceptance as well which again social they've

had problems with that back then so uh history here jefferson was they made this a city because there's water around it so there was water there's a the rock river is nearby and uh it was the furthest point a steamboat could navigate the rock river in 1839 oh it's a big river so yeah yeah it's a big river that yeah yeah it's a big river that runs through it there this was the furthest point uh the earliest they held they have a earliest record of like a a town meeting where you could see that say it would be a gathering of people it's actually a town was in april of uh 1845 population was 75 people 75 in the whole town 75 uh the topics of discussion where they wanted to raise funds to uh

to build a school and they needed to raise a hundred dollars to build bridges across the rock and crawfish rivers okay so a hundred dollars we'll build two bridges 50 bucks a bridge or 75 25 we don't know now it's like 20 we need 400 billion dollars to build a bridge over the Rock River because that's what it costs for some reason. But yeah, and it'll fall down probably in 10 years, I'm sure. And also appropriating a $50 allotment for a ferry that will be at the fork of the Rock River as well. Sweet. Yeah, but later on. 75 people.

That's a quick census. Yeah, and we think about it, too. That's a lot of money you're trying to raise from 75 people.'s a quick census yeah we think about it too that's a lot of money you're trying to raise from 75 people that's more than a buck a person yeah moving out to back then right that was a lot of money in 1845 whole dollar it was something i guess if you're going to start a town yeah you want to get across the river well you can either a swim right or we could build a goddamn bridge across it you could pony up a couple bucks maybe open up that person let's let's do that so later on they built bridges that made it so you couldn't have ferries down there the settlers here were from new england mainly a lot of connecticut people massachusetts vermont new hampshire maine you

know the rest of new england but uh also a few upstate new york people people came here kind of they started to trickle into the area after the the american revolution from the east and of course they were yankees everyone called them yankees and uh yeah they were they were big farmers though they came into this area and wanted to farm it all the people from new england yeah because that's what they were doing back there so they wanted to come here and farm it it was just more available land yeah i don't know if they realized that it was frozen right most of the year but all the time they got to like like september hit and they're like, is it chilly? Normally, I wear the light, but I need a parka.

It's chilly for September 15th, right? A little cold. The air, when it comes off the water, seems a lot colder, right? A lot colder, right? It's sure as shit. It doesn't stop snowing? No. And it all is drafting in from the water area.

Have you noticed there's no spring right spring was three days long this year it's very strange it's frozen then we sweat our asses off for two weeks then we're back to frozen back to frozen so yeah it's a little humid for a while and they're they're like that uh so they've the uh they had uh they were big the new england people brought in the kind of a an education were big the new england people brought in the kind of a an education emphasis because in new england education is a big thing it still is the schools they're good it's it's it's known as that so they got a uh they brought a lot of uh established many schools and also this area was big uh big supporters of abolition of slavery right as

the new englanders kind of brought that with them as well. And they were all religious, obviously, as we know. A lot of them converted to Methodism at this time and some Baptists in this area because they were apparently Episcopalians at first. Now, during World War II, Camp Jefferson was a prison camp for German POWs. Really? Friendly, warm, inviting. German Guggenflicken freaking or whatever the word is um yeah uh they erected the prison camp at the county fairgrounds wow sorry kids no fried dough this year we fritz who fucking fritz immigrated here to be safe we gotta lock him up we brought

him here actually because he's a war criminal but we gotta put him where you were gonna put your blue ribbon pig we're gonna put that in place of that ring toss because that's a ripoff anyway so we're gonna put nazis there instead so uh the jefferson county fairground fairgrounds hosted a horse and buggy race uh prior to renovations and then they made new fairgrounds. You know, you got to get the stench of a prison camp off of a fairground before you can go have fun again. Come on, kids. They were all war criminals?

War criminals, people suspected, or possibly whatever. There were some American living Germans who they thought. They put Germans, they put Japanese, Italians, everybody. Everybody they were fighting. We were fighting, they put Japanese, Italians, everybody. Everybody they were fighting. We were fighting. They put in there. Site says, this is the Jefferson, Wisconsin website. This is how they describe themselves.

Jefferson, Wisconsin is a quaint Wisconsin community. Main Street shows off its vintage buildings and steepled churches built by German craftsmen. Wow. Two picturesque rivers flow through the middle of town our rivers rivers will be a focal point for visitors and residents so they can float up and catch a concert meal and even camp along the riverbank we know what we have is special because people from the big cities keep moving here it's also because we're close by comfortable easygoing hard-working genuine and fun-loving. And really modest, apparently. Let other people tell you that, Jefferson.

Relax. We are everything. Calm down. If the great outdoors are important in your life, then Jefferson should be, too, because, quote, we're going outside. That's on the website. Oh, boy.

I found a couple reviews here. This town is so middle-of-the-road, the reviews, you couldn't get any more tepid than these reviews. They're all just like, all right. It's hilarious for that person, except for that. But this is amazing. Review.

These are all three star reviews. Averages, quote, extremely small town. Not much to do besides the annual county fair and go to the seasonal ice cream shop. Very quiet and suburban. That's not an endorsement, nor is it a trash in it the county fair slash uh x fucking prison camp yeah go down to the prison camp let's not forget that you dig around see if this shit used to be where people died yeah well no they didn't really die i'm sure they did yeah they were the prison camps the german ones were weird because we the americans treated the germans way different than they treated the japanese

because they were white um really that's presumably i'm not sure but that's all i could think of well i guess the german prison camps were like they were i mean it was a prison they couldn't leave but they had their own little society in there they were allowed to do whatever they wanted i mean they were they were free in there to do what they wanted also the the germans didn't necessarily uh kill our soldiers like on our on our dirt yeah well it wasn't andersonville or anything you know what i mean the germans did plenty but i mean yeah they were no it's not they aren't great people americans traditionally treat people differently that we're in war with depending on who they are right and depending on

their aggression of where they did it or their uh skin color also i don't mean i'm not trying to be like ultra whatever but it's kind of true i mean in vietnam they were literally like they're fucking insects we need to exterminate them and in germany they were like you know they're proud people and uh when we make contact with eye contact with a rifle and we both knew that this isn't right like that's literally listen to people talk about world war ii they talk about shit like that you never hear vietnam they're like i cut his fucking ear off and i put it on a keychain it's just different raped his wife yeah right in front of him just to look whatever it is and we're not trying to trash we're not saying vietnam whatever but it's just a there's a little we treat people differently that was the government afghanistan just recently they're like i don't know fucking all kind of racial names go fuck her yeah that

was very common yeah yeah we're in german they're like i think if we met on different circumstances could share a beer i think we get along with these fellows i don't know what it is you like brats i like who doesn't like brats yeah you know fucking beer so we can get down to tax on this here's another three star okay quote this is the most fucking tepid thing ever quote it isn't the best but it isn't the worst yeah could be better okay i love the trails and all the hiking that's available there aren't many places that can say that can say that biking trails too i see this area becoming a major hub for a bunch of different things dealing with sports, biking, cross-country skiing, running, etc. Could be good.

I don't know. Number three. This is a good one, too. Three star. Quote, very temperate where we are. Everybody's right up the middle. No one is just very. Everyone's just.

Nobody goes one side or the other. Just a shoulder shrug. Here's another one. I don't want to piss anybody off. Here's another one. Quote, average employment. The jobs available aren't the best, but at least there's something. Everyone's just like. We got stuff. I don't want to piss anybody off. Here's another one. Quote, average employment. The jobs available aren't the best, but at least there's something. Everyone's just like.

We got stuff. I don't know. We got a little. Shoulder shrug Wisconsin. Welcome. Here we go. Three stars. The businesses are generally good, but some customer service isn't on par.

It's a little good. Everybody's Tim from Steven. It's amazing. Like, nobody knows. Who knows? Only two people there. It'll be all right. Just the people. Like, nobody knows. Who knows? Who knows? Only two people there. It'll be all right. Just the people in Jefferson, the people not in Jefferson.

Even if it doesn't work out, it doesn't matter. That's it. It'll be all right. Well, that's this person here. Two stars. This is the worst review. Quote, there is little to no options for most people. That's it.

Okay. Okay. Not a lot of passion. It's not enough to get by yeah there's no passion nobody has like a four paragraph screed for or against this town they're all like look it's all right yeah it'll do it'll do for now if you can't get over to milwaukee i get it consider it a howard johnson's yeah it's you wish it was better but it's not but it ain't right but you know what though free coffee in the morning so ain't all bad it's got four pillows you know beds suck but okay coffee free i mean beds are shit there's four

pillows free coffee you'll be okay i mean that's all right you'll wake up in the morning that's right you'll be pissed about it i mean someone might be in there you know with you robbing you or something like that our doors don't lock too good but still somebody you don't know because he's standing next to your bed when you wake up people in this town population 7,975 people which is up 31 since 1990 people have come from the city to here because it's only an it's less than an hour outside of either wisconsin literally i mean you could commute if you really wanted and if you're an hour outside of Milwaukee, then you're only two and a half outside of Chicago. Exactly. And it might even be less because it's not north of there.

It's west of there. Oh, shit. It might be less time even to get to Chicago. You might be able to commute. Yeah, maybe. That would be a pain. It's a long ride. It's a long ride, especially with snow in the winter and shit.

But you could go to Madison. I mean, if you worked there, because that's the capital. There's a lot of shit going on in Madison. Do some things. So the average age is around 40 here, which is a few years older than normal. And all the ages are normal, except a few more elderly, a few more babies.

So you got that sort of thing. Everything else, it's pretty average as far as all the numbers go. Married, single, all that kind of shit. It's a little small family average town. Not that great, not that bad. One of those things. Racially, racial makeup. White is about 87% white in this town. little small family average town not that great not that bad one of those things uh racially racial

makeup white is about 70 or 87 percent white in this town it's wisconsin and what did you expect and that white is a different white yeah it's oh boy is that white well the sun doesn't shine right so it's tough they're like uh they're like a fish one of those species of fish at the bottom of the ocean where like if you shine a light you'll you'll miss them because the light goes right through them. Well, because in May, they open their, they creak their doors open and they peep their heads out and they're like, oh, gee, their eyes are closed like a mole

and they're trying to adjust to it. Going, my pupils are burning. It's hard up there. It's a long winter, man. It's not their fault. They dry, they dry. It's hilarious up there. It's a long winter, man. It's not their fault. They try. They try. It's hilarious. 1.6% black, 0.5% Asian.

Not a lot there. 10.4% Hispanic here. So this is pretty white. Religion, people are pretty religious here, actually. 64% of the people here are religious. It's a small town. It's actually Catholics and Lutherans are running the thing here. Lutherans are at the top of the list here.

And Catholics are below it. Lutherans, as we know, are the Baptists of the North Plains. The North Central, I guess. The Baptists of the wheat. Of Minnesota and Wisconsin. Is there wheat there? Of the Scandinavian states. Lutheran, the Baptist of the Scandinavian states.

So there's that. There's got to be wheat there right like barleys and such because they make so much beer clear the weed out we need cheese making room uh 0.0 percent jewish 0.0 percent islam here uh this is a conservative county here outside of the cities last election 38 democrat 54 republican about seven percent independent and as we know wisconsin was all sorts of weird last election uh they uh this county though is voted republican four out of the last five elections uh 2008 being the exception uh now the unemployment rate here is super low because it should be because you have madison you have milwaukee there's a lot of places to work 3.1 which is like right yeah economically not good like it's too low almost people won't be able to find what they need into worker wise average household income median

household income 51,071 dollars a little below the average but not too shabby. A lot of $30,000 to $75,000 median household incomes. A lot in that range. Middle class. 0.3% of the people make over $200,000. Not even 1%. It's usually about 4%. Here it's 0.3%. So it is middle class, period.

That's the way it works here. Jobs here. Three times the manufacturing jobs there normally is. 30% of the jobs are manufacturing jobs which is are they making dangerous because that shit comes and goes and then what happens so that's this is one of those towns that just you know they they they need that sort of thing they need it yeah it's that sort of deal also some health care and that sort of shit uh now cost of living 100 is average regular par. Here it is $86,000. Everything's about pretty normal.

Housing is $76,000. That's a little low. Median home cost here, $176,700. Most of the houses are between $100,000 and $200,000. Like 70% of the houses. Just from my experience in Wisconsin, it's reasonable. Exceedingly affordable.

It's affordable. Everything's reasonable. Itceedingly affordable. It's affordable. Everything's reasonable. It's very reasonable. They're like, look, we know it's tough to live here. So we'll work it out with you, basically.

We'll take a little here. You take more there. We know it runs a little choppy. You know, you're going to have to take it to the shop, probably.

So we'll knock a couple hundred off. Runs a little rich. There's going to be some black out of the tailpipe. It's going to be fine. If we've convinced you to run a little rich, we have for you the Jefferson, Wisconsin Real Estate Report.

Your average two-bedroom rental here is about $847, which is pretty much on par with the cost of living. I found a few things. I found a.57 acre lot that is right on a lake, pond, whatever the hell it is. Half acre on a lake. Right on the water, $49,000. That's a deal. It's not bad, actually.

It's a good deal. I found a two-bedroom, two-bath, 1,248-square-foot trailer. It's one of those trailers that has like uh like the metal around the bottom so it looks like it's attached to the ground but it's not it's not those uh 34 500 bucks for it so you own the land too i doubt it no i doubt it you got it's a lot for you right i'm sure yeah four bedroom two baths 1765 square foot vinyl siding wonder uh baby blue baby blue vial said more totally said sided in 1986 it looks like 189,999 for that bad boy then i found a five bedroom four bath 4200 square foot uh nice on uh three quarters of an acre nice yard everything 425 grand for that bad boy which compared to a

lot of the places in the country yeah that's not terrible honestly now things to do we have uh oh there's some interesting ones here uh things to do uh good gloom and glock and cleat days i knew it you knew that was coming gloom and schlop and gleat days that word right yeah it's german lupin gockham cleat that day that one was started in 1971 here to celebrate the German heritage of most of the people that live here. Oh, boy. And they held the first festival

under tents in the downtown area, which sounds classy. And then it grew in 1975. They moved it over to the fairgrounds to party at the POW camp, baby. Woo! It's too fun not to do it where the Germans were held captive.

That's fantastic too fun but uh entertainment is what we need to do i can't wait here uh it says quote check out this year's music lineup that will help you get your polka on what get your polka on baby no oh yeah there is uh wow they think that that's gonna attract people get your poke on oh my god it's awesome yeah they're gonna poke up there oh jesus uh also they have a window decorating contest the ceremonial tapping of the first keg uh-huh that's yeah that's a big deal that's some german shit there today a sauerkraut eating contest of course followed by the sauerkraut farting contest directly after vomiting jesus christ an ethnic costume contest

which seems like it could be that there could be some dangerous social media shit floating around after that one yeah that's that's you're just asking for trouble there there's a lot of people losing their jobs someone's gonna run for office and this this competition is gonna completely it's gonna ruin everything wipe him off the map right there. A bunch of people dressed like Obama. Yeah, it's not going to be good, dude. Not going to be good at all. Ethnic costume, Jesus.

A car show, of course. There's always a car show. Big wheel races. Oh, really? Just what you think it is. It's little kids on big wheels racing. I want adults on them. Oh, you want adults on them.

Oh, you want adults on them. After drinking the first half keg. Oh, that'd be hilarious. Full of sauerkraut. Jamming sauerkraut down your fat face. You want to see some pale guy puking off the side of a big wheel? Or spilling off of it. Puking four pounds of sauerkraut out on the side of the road. I want to see him run that shit into an oak tree.

Jesus Christ. Also, a chainsaw competition oh which also sounds dangerous there's a lot of beer around now this will be a timed event making one cut down and uh one cut down what is this making one cut down and one cut down within six inch area this year will be a friendly competition between friends this year will be a friendly competition between friends because last year be a friendly competition between friends because last year it was a real fucking problem last year guys attacked each other with chainsaws so we wanted to be very friendly when bill got stabbed let's not do that again this time only

friends only it says will you have bragging rights bring your stock chainsaw safety apparel is required ah they gotta emphasize stock you can't have like some- Don't you fucking soup it up. Some crazy juice stock fucking- Somebody lights it up. There's- Flames coming out of it. There's lights in the room. It's playing fucking- It's playing ACDC.

It's playing Hell's Bell. Yeah. Big cloud of exhaust coming out of the back of it. He's got a ceremonial above his head. Take down a whole tree in one swipe. A 200-year-old oak in one swipe. It's like a lightsaber. Can't bring that thing.

Now, if that's not... Let's say that's not your cup of tea. You're not a big polka guy. You don't like sauerkraut. Well, I have something that is for you, Jimmy. The Wisconsin Sheep and Wolf Festival. Let's get it on. Spend the weekend at the Midwest's

premier sheep and wolf festival. That's how many more are there? Are they doing like speed shearing? Celebrate the diversity of sheep. Of sheep. There's a black one, there's a white one. There it is. That's it.

Well, the fiber they produce and the renewable products they provide. Three days filled with entertainment, shopping, and education at one of Wisconsin's finest fairgrounds. Guess where? Prince's old place. That's right. Then it says, quote,

come for the sheep. 600 sheep and 40 breeds, it says. Shopping, education, that's it. Just come for the sheep. Entertainment includes... That's gross. Entertainment includes stock dog trials. What? You got a souped up dog?

I thought of as a dog on the stand, like accused of something. Like a mock... I thought of a mock dog trial. Yeah. The dog just like, I know you did it. Some dog turns around with a mustache and a suit and tie. There's one on the stands up there. You didn't make me out of a lineup.

There's pop on the Bible. Like, I'm not doing it. It's a golden. They all look the same. Ma and Pa and their history. Yeah. Okay. Walk and knit and sheep to shawl competitions.

Also the Hall of Breeds. Oh. So there's like a Hall of Fame for sheep breeds? There's that black one we were talking about. There it is. Admission is $8 per person. That seems steep. Yeah, kids in eight and under are free, though.

And there's free parking, because everything in Wisconsin should have free parking. You guys have nothing but parking spaces. There's so much room to park there. Hull State, parking. Here it is. Plenty of it. Arizona, same thing. You should never charge for parking.

You know how much free space there is? It is annoying. Go park somewhere. It literally, to my core core makes me shake with rage when they're like that'll be 20 bucks yeah are you out of your fucking mind we're surrounded by desert it's all space it's all talking about uh crime rate in this town what we're interested in uh property crime little bit high not much 10 15 but violent crime murder murder, rape, robbery, and assault, the Mount Rushmore of crime is about half the national average. Wow. It's a safe little town, man. It's a

very safe little town. It's known as just kind of like nice little idyllic. It's very family-oriented. You got your kids, and you raise them, and you have a yard, and they go to school, and they're presumably aren't going to get stabbed on the way home and

shit like that that's the type of place this is okay so people might move here from milwaukee who are just tired of the city and then they had to they saw the propaganda we gotta go join the ss yeah absolutely so uh let's talk about a murder though that's the important thing that we need to discuss here welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, available exclusively on Wondery Plus, religion and crime collide

when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group.

Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. With an all-star cast led by Emmy nominee Sanaa Lathan and Star Wars' Kelly Marie Tran, Chinook is available exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

In May of 1980, near Anaheim, California, Dorothy Jane Scott noticed her friend had an inflamed red wound on his arm and seemed unwell. She insisted on driving him to the local hospital to get treatment. While he waited for his prescription, Dorothy went to grab her car to pick him up at the exit, but would never be seen alive again,

leaving us to wonder, decades later, what really happened to Dorothy Jane Scott? From Wondery, Generation Y is a podcast that covers notable true crime cases like this one and many more. Every week, hosts Aaron and Justin sit down to discuss a new case, covering every angle and theory, walking through the forensic evidence, and interviewing those close to the case to try to discover what happened. And with over 450 episodes, there's a case for every true crime listener. Follow the Generation Y podcast on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Generation Y ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus.

First of all, there's some facts that weren't in anything else, including court documents, except for a good article in People, actually. People magazine. Kathy, she's got to have a German last name, Breitenbucher. And Barbara Sandler wrote a piece. So there's just a- Adam's mom. Yeah, Adam Sandler's mom.

There's a few pieces of information that they only had, so I wanted to give them credit for that. So let's talk about a young man here. Let's talk about a fella, shall we? I'd love to. A guy named Ruben. Yeah? What about Ruben?

Ruben Borchardt. Oh. Ruben Borchardt. Is that German? I believe so. B-O-R-C-H-A-R-D-T. Oh. It's something.

It's something Austrian-German. It's something in there. It's certainly European. Yeah. He's not ethnic. I'll tell you that much. So as of 1979 here, in February 1979, he is a married man. He has two small children. He's doing well for himself.

He's early 20s. He's in his early 20s. He's got a wife named Susan. He's got a daughter named Brooke, who he's got a uh daughter named brooke who's three you're saying it's susan and ruben susan and ruben borshart the two of them with rhyming names yeah that's nice too bad she's not a sandwich name too that'd be great how great would that be whenever anyone's name is ruben i want them to be married to like somebody else with a sandwich at least patty at least give me a patty at least you'd be married to somebody else with a sandwich. At least Patty. At least give me a Patty.

At least you'd be married to Patty, please. Just give me something. You know what I'm saying? Give me something. Something you can turn into milk or something. Yeah, I can make it. I can make it a sandwich. Then I can file out of my brain away.

Right now I have this Reuben, but there's like your turn signals on. It's just bong, bong, bong. It's waiting for the other half of the sandwich name, and my brain won't shut it off. It's going to be there forever. She was blinking. Right. Ding, ding, ding. I do like that Susan, because it's as close as it gets to rhyming with Reuben.

Reuben and Susan. Yeah, that could be something here. Reuben Sue. Reuben Sue. There you go. Reuben Sue. And they get along great. Everything's great.

They have, like I said, a daughter named Brooke who's three years old and they have a one-year-old son named Chuck yeah so I mean it's it's small town Wisconsin idyllic life here you got married grew up got married young had two kids right away he's got a good job as we'll talk about later on he's a carpenter but like a specialty one he makes cabinets and shit like that so those guys do well for themselves they can you know they can't anymore yeah if you're if you're very good at doing something like that not just a general person but if you're not buying custom person yeah and if you're not buying cabinets at goddamn home depot or low prefab ones you just bolt to the fucking wall yeah they're expensive have somebody go build them for you, holy shit. They're amazing.

Yeah, they're gorgeous. They're also expensive, yeah. It's crazy. I've been in houses where you can tell they have custom cabinets. It's like, Jesus. Look at you. You're doing well for yourself. Good for you.

I spent eight grand on cabinets. Wow, that's crazy. I went to Ikea. I stapled mine up. They're probably going to fall. It's good if I don't put glasses or dishes or anything in there. I put paper in them. Paper plates.

It looks good. It looks better than an empty wall. fall it's good if i don't put glasses or dishes or anything i put paper in paper plates it's well it looks good it looks better than an empty wall it's paper plates and those plastic fork sleeves it has like the napkin and salt nothing else i don't put yeah the ones you get for the fast food they give you i'm not gonna put weighted anything in there at a hotel and you get uber eats put that in my bag i'll take that home those weak forks that don't stab anything like you won't stab lettuce why Why do I have this? I'm going to use that fork to eat yogurt lately, later. And that's going to be the fucking biggest test that it should have.

If we get Uber Eats at a hotel and get meat and they send you those things, get some form of meat. No. And then they send you the plastic fork that doesn't stab lettuce and a plastic knife. Like, come on. How am I supposed to? I'm going to be picking this one up. Yeah.

I've done that before. Cleveland. Sitting there in a bed with a bar and nothing to hang yourself with. Cleveland, 1 a.m. Eating a pork chop holding the bone. Terrible, terrible hotel room eating an Applebee's sirloin with my hand. Picking it up and gnawing it off like an animal because they didn't give me fucking silverware. And the home two sweets wouldn't provide me with a knife as well.

So I got two. I hope you at least went all in like not just like held it with your i was disgusting and i'm like ocd with my hands and i was that weekend was so long and my my grandmother was sick and i'm trying to wanted to get back home and just fucking miserable and i'm just eating a steak at 1 a.m with my hands hands. An Applebee's steak. It wasn't even good. It was just all that was open. I didn't even give a shit. Just walked there. I walked there. I walked the middle of the road.

Double yellow to the fucking Applebee's. That's how it just hit me. I dare you to hit me with a car. Dragging like that ribbon of fat in the middle of the steak. Just dragging it through your teeth. Two bites and swallow it. I don't even care. I don't even give a shit.

I hope it chokes me. Good. Two bites and swallow it. I don't even care. I don't even give a shit. I hope it chokes me. Good. Good. Deserve it. Unbelievable. So, yeah, Ruben's got an idyllic wife. Susan, wife, Brooke, daughter, Chuck, son. So they're all there.

One day, Ruben is home with Chuck and Brooke, and they're waiting for Susan to get home. Ruben is home with Chuck and Brooke, and they're waiting for Susan to get home. And there is some commotion in the neighborhood, and they go outside, or Ruben goes outside to investigate and see what is going on. And it turns out his wife, Susan, has been in a car accident. Oh, my God. Right by the house. Right in front? Like, right by the house. And she is killed in this car accident.

What the shit? So this is just brutal to Ruben. I mean, as you can imagine, there's anybody losing their spouse unexpected like that. That's insane. But especially if you're in your early 20s and you have two small children

and that's unfathomable. It's crazy. Worse is you happen upon it just because you heard the noise and you just walked outside and you're like, well, that's no, that's the rest of my life fucked up.

Whenever anybody gets killed and their spouse is left with like two young kids when somebody died, it's always like, oh, that's the worst because no one ever planned. No one planned that. There's no, it's, it's brutal, man. That's happened to a guy I knew in high school. I saw on Facebook, he had, uh, his wife had died in childbirth with like their second baby. They were like 28.

I was like, Oh my God. I think it was their third kid. Yeah. So I was like, Holy shit. He's got a couple there. Yes. And I was like,

what? That's just so brutal to be able to move on. And, and that's, that takes some serious, you gotta, you gotta, I don't even know.

I want to say character, but it's not even character. Just, that's one of those things where you just have to be able to pull yourself out of bed every morning. And I don't know how you do it. That's crazy. I guess the kids would help because they kind of drag you there.

You have to. Exactly. You don't really have a choice. Otherwise, the house will burn around you. They probably wake you up and they're like, dude, would you get the fuck out of here? We're low on Cheerios. I need shit, man. Get the hell out.

You got to bring me places. My sock's got holes in them. God damn. So, yeah, Ruben is is devastated as you can imagine by this um he he puts his life back together somehow uh he does over some time uh over the next 10 years or so uh he put over the next couple years i'm sorry he puts his his life back together a little bit and uh he gets a different job he gets a job working as a foreman for a schweiger industries which is a furniture

manufacturer locally and uh because it's like like i said he's a cabinet maker this is his profession uh there he meets a young lady all right which is good his wife's been gone a couple years and uh if you're this guy you've got to be lonely yeah you go home at the end of the night the help not only that yeah you go home at the end of the night it's two little kids and then you put them down and it's like like, all right, now what? So I feel like if you're young, and it's not like you got divorced, and you're like, fuck her, that probably won't sit here, I'll find somebody else. You're depressed.

You're sad. Right. There's a difference between this and leaving a relationship and having the responsibility of the kids, because this adds in the added fucking horrible atrocity of grief. And there's never going to be mom. Which is crippling. Right. It's not like, well, you'll see mom on Saturday. Right. There's no mom. There grief. And there's never going to be mom. Which is crippling. Right. It's not like, well, you'll see mom on Saturday.

Right. There's no mom. There's nothing. Mom's not going to be seen. So you have to then deal with the, it's the other thing, you have to deal with the grief of your children, too. Luckily for them, they're so young, it's a pretty quick, they're just where's mom, where's mom, but after a little while, I mean, a one-year-old doesn't know the difference, and a three-year-old

forgets after six months. So it becomes a little bit easier for the kids. If they were three years older, it would have been really hard. So he's a foreman there. He meets a young lady, a young lady named Diane Pfister. Okay. Okay. Meets her.

I'm going to leave the jokes alone. Leave the jokes alone. Well, you make your own there. Yeah, yeah. Just whatever. Yeah, do it on your own time. Yeah, yeah. Very easy.

She barely knew her. Whatever whatever it's all good so uh she's a secretary at schweiger and she is recently divorced from her first husband as well okay so uh she's she's kind of had a rocky road up to this point she's uh she's about 23 24 years old here she's born in august of 1949 um she grows up uh she grows up very independent she's always got an independent streak in her and uh she wanted to join the military which is odd for an independent person with an independent streak so there's one thing they cut out of you quickly military it's that independent streak there's no independence they'd like you to be very dependent you know what you're gonna do the same thing everyone else is doing that's exactly what you're gonna do just like them too what you're fucking told not even at a time it's gonna be

you're just a cog in a machine which is fine but if you're a real independent person who wants to do your own thing that's might not be the best course of action for you. Another point is in the 70s, that was not really a thing. Not a popularity thing. Women being that young wanting to do that. Yeah, this was the late 60s. So this would be like peak Vietnam. Yeah. She wanted to join the military.

This is crazy. Yeah. What a thought. Not a lot of girls came out of high school in 1967 and go, I'm going to go over to fucking Nam. Right. I'm going to blow up some Viet Cong. God damn it.

That's what I need to do. Unless they got like a spitting fetish. I will burn a village to the ground. 1967 go i'm gonna go over a fucking nom right i'm gonna blow up some vietcom god damn it that's what i need to do unless i unless i got like a spitting fetish i will burn a village to the ground so when you get off that plane you're gonna get all you can handle sugar yeah so not not exactly a normal uh regular i should say usual path that she wants to take but her father would not let her do it and basically kept her from signing up which i don't blame him because a lot of people did everything they could to keep their kids out of them out of war like i remember there's uh if you read hunter thompson's books the ones that are all his correspondence and letters basically him and his other brother

were paying for his younger brother to stay in the university of kentucky even though or kentucky university even though the kid had did not want to be in school and had no interest. They're sending him letters going, fucking one more semester. Maybe the war will be over, but you're not going to fucking go over there. Don't be the last guy killed. They were literally scraping money together. Hunter was borrowing money from people so he could send his brother

a hundred bucks to be able to stay in school. Writing his mother concerned that his brother's going to get kicked out of school because then he'll have to go get school and shit you know writing his mother concerned that his brother's gonna get kicked out of school because then he'll have to go you know get drafted and shit like that boy so the parents did this to keep their kids out and some parents were saying that's good for you yeah some of these guys were you know world war ii vets that were saying was good for me it'll be good for you yeah different situations obviously yeah yeah there was a little different sentiment different yeah that's i mean it didn't work out like that but at first they thought of it as the same thing oh this is what happened when

i was a boy too so that's what you'll do and it'll be the same thing it's weird cyclical generational yeah and some of them said that was horrible those were i don't want my kid to see those horrors that's what some people said so it depends stormed beaches yeah this is that's crazy i don't want them to have to do that no shit so uh what she did since she couldn't join the military she instead eloped eloped with a guy for revenge for her on her dad that's one thing well you won't let me join the military and make a big deal out of it so guess what i got married you can't do anything about that now what now what uh so but not you know not she doesn't last long no usually spite marriages don't last long no it's a bad reason to

get married like if anyone asks you is that you know you two want to be together you want to get married or you love each other mainly spite right mainly spite my dad's a dick so i'm gonna suck his yeah my dad kind of made me feel like i didn't have a lot of control over my options so um i feel like we should work out fine for 50 60 years right to that one yeah there he is my option well he was the first one i saw when i went outside but you know yeah it's just he's just that's just people wanting to get away right and back then very common back then that was a common way for women to get away from their families that wanted to get out boys in a situation yeah that was it you go you now i'm out right uh luckily now there's other

options which is good yeah so uh there's a college wasn't brought up in here as any kind of a thing that's weird it's just a military or married you know so uh maybe college maybe try that both of those are answering to someone else there you go terrible so uh doesn't last long though when she ends up getting a divorce from her first husband. And she bounces all around the country, kind of looking for one city to the next city, trying to find herself. She's trying to find somewhere she fits in, somewhere where she can put down some roots. She's got no kids? No, no kids yet, or anything like that. Good for her.

Yeah, she didn't have any with her first husband. So she's just trying to find herself. What a life. Finally, she ends up settling in Jefferson, Wisconsin here. That's where she ends up settling in. And that's where she takes the job as an office clerk at the Schweiger Furniture Lumber Mill there. And that's where they meet. Ruben and Diane Pfister meet.

So, now, they end up getting together, and it's pretty quick. It happens quickly. That's the other thing, is a guy like him in his position is like, he doesn't seem like he's like, I want to date and screw around on the side. He is interviewing for wife and mother.

That's what he's doing. This is what's available. He's like, look, I'm looking to fill this position in my house. It's a fucking mess in there, number one. It's got a 401k. I don't know what to do with that girl's hair. I don't know what she says, braid it? I don't know how to do that.

I have no fucking idea. So I need that. There's a lot of stuff I'm looking for. I feel like more than love, it was I need help. There are things that you need yeah you're gonna need to because i can't nowadays guys can figure it out but for some reason back then it was just standard operating procedure where guys were yeah guys back then though were just like well i mean there's no woman in the house i don't know what

i'm supposed to do you know if it weren't for youtube i wouldn't know what to fucking do with my daughter's hair oh yeah running running brushes through it is one thing but yeah she's got a shitload of it you didn't know anything about detangler before holy shit james do you know that you can't use uh oh i know i'm a daughter myself you can't use old spice uh body wash on that hair no we'll fuck everything up you need conditioner it's gonna sit in there for a minute well it's a spray-in conditioner i'll leave it the tangler yeah i'll put in a spray spray brush brush and a wet brush glides right through it don't use some cheap shit no you gotta be good yeah what's wrong with you yeah it's good you gotta get the one with the little tips on it it's crazy so he uh she they get together and she even says that

she this wasn't like a hot romance this wasn't like some like hot affair where he's like and you can come to my house and like change my kid's diaper too and my kid's diaper shitty like it was nothing like that or you know once you're done sucking that i got some other things it's a little less sexy but just as necessary and just more even honestly just as disgusting just as disgusting so uh he maybe not. I've changed a diaper. So, you know, like I've done that voluntarily. Cool. So, I don't know if just as disgusting is the way to put it.

So, now, she also, Diane even says that the reason she was kind of attracted to being needed in this way. She says that she wasn't in love with him or anything like that. It was more like an arrangement. And she says, quote, I wanted to help. I wasn't interested romantically in Ruben. I was interested in the kids. Yeah. So it's a weird kind of like on Deadwood when you haven't watched it.

But Seth Bullock there we call him Seth Bullock because it's a long story anyway the Tim Olyphant oh he's great Tim Olyphant

he he marries his dead brother's wife oh that's fucked up no it's normal back then that's what you did his dead his brother died

oh I guess yeah his brother died in the war or in some war in the military and then so it was his duty then to marry his brother's wife and take care of his brother's wife and kids. That happened all the time back then. Because people died young all the time, tragically, in this way and that way, disease.

So if you had like a younger brother, so this guy, you know. What if she's a pain in the ass? Doesn't matter. You have to marry her and then take care of the kids too. And it's your job to support them. You're supposed to make sure they have a life and that's your job so i mean it was a different thing that's the 1800s obviously it's a different deal but a lot of uh brother sister-in-law marrying after the civil war fascinating so many people died a lot of

that shit going on it's like how about diversify your genetics you already have genetics from one of those find someone else yeah i don't know maybe a black guy now they're on the market yeah you know how about that hey there you go that's a whole different thing yeah i don't know put some something so you got options here come on so uh after eight months uh eight months later this is uh eight months they're together about six six seven months after they meet this is eight months later this is uh eight months they're together about six six seven months after they meet this is eight months after susan's death they get married oh wow so within a year oh that's fast yes it's it's really crazy yeah it's very fast but people were actually happy for him because they they wanted to see him move on and have something with the kids and kind of just keep

in rhythm basically because they didn't want him to just sit around with these kids for years being depressed. So everyone was like, oh, good. He found someone who moved on. That's so fast, though. Like, yeah. Insurance hasn't even paid off. That's so fast. That's so quick.

I wouldn't if something happened. I wouldn't be able to do that. No way. I wouldn't be able to meet anybody. I don't even know. Forever. It would be crazy. With death.

That's nuts. It depends, I guess, probably. I don't mean to say it like this, but circumstance, it probably depends on how much you actually liked your spouse, too. Because some people are married and they love their spouse and everything, but they don't really like them. I mean, they're sad, but that sadness, there's a difference between being sad for a month and being sad for 10 years.

There's a difference between her backing out of the driveway and like a fucking UPS truck. Exactly. That's so sudden. Right. There's a difference between that and then like you coming home and finding the guy that she's cheating on you with standing over her dead body. That's a different thing. There's a different.

Yeah. Those are way different. I think you'd be over that one a little bit quicker. Or say cancer. Yeah. One of those. That one would crush you. That one would crush you.

Yeah. Because it's over time. All right. I think you'd be over the guy that she was cheating on on you with that scenario you'd be you'd be like maybe i can fuck tomorrow yeah there you go maybe it's not so bad yeah so this one though they uh move on fast it's just a quick move on and uh the reason maybe why they got married too because uh a daughter is born eight months after they're married so i feel like that's probably why hey i'm pregnant.

So we're going to get married this weekend? I think it was one of those things. The church is free. Yeah. So I guess let's do that. Regan is her name. She's born eight months later. So now he's got three little kids, new wife.

He's trying to start just a new life in general. I don't know. Like I said, I can't judge anybody for their, because I don't know what the hell kind of emotional state that would put you in, losing someone like that. I can't imagine. That's nuts. I can't imagine what that would do.

So I don't know, in a tragic way like that, I don't know how quickly or slowly you're supposed to move on from that. I'm not sure. I wouldn't judge anybody for anything. He definitely didn't kill her. Right, right, right. Whatever he does works for his brain, so I guess it's good. That's how he grieves.

Exactly. But to get married, that's a strange grief. You know what I mean? Well, I mean, if you knock somebody up, though. That's not a strange grief. In a small town, Wisconsin in 1983. And you do what you gotta do. You do what you gotta do, which is you put a ring on that finger.

Boy, oh boy. And you, yeah, you up the health the health insurance i guess that's what you do by my count there were 60 more holes though yeah you know what i mean yeah yeah no shit that don't make babies yeah so that's uh boy my goodness i don't know why why you would that's crazy why would you do that i don't know so i guess uh they're it didn't go well no it's no because they're not they're not in love with each other or anything like that, so it's kind of difficult. They fight a lot. It's more like they're running a small business.

I've said many times, having children is like running a small business that you know will never make a profit. It's basically what you're doing. So that's kind of what they're doing here. It's just a shitload of overhead. Yeah, it's just a lot of overhead. It'll'll never make a profit the product might go on to be something good right it's like someone who makes like the first technology technological thing like the first the first laptop or the first whatever that didn't make shit because someone took that and went great idea if only it was better and then they fixed it made it better and then five generations

later of laptop those made a fuckload of money. That first person didn't make shit and they put everything into it, so it's one of those deals. So Brooke, who is his daughter from the first marriage, the oldest, she says, quote, I remember in the third grade when I wished they would get divorced

because they were constantly fighting. She just argued about anything, whether the sky was blue, anything. So yeah, apparently everybody says that she's way more quick to fight than him. She likes to start fights and she's, you know, whatever. She's got a lot of energy. She's a chick who was willing to go to the military. Yeah, she's got a lot of energy. We'll put it that way. So everybody said Reuben, though, was very different. Reuben's a very gregarious guy. Always has a big smile on his face, that sort of thing. Yeah, he's just one of those guys.

A friend of his named Raymond says Ruben was always very social. Diane was always very antisocial and very anti-Susan. She did everything she could to obliterate the memory of Susan. Oh, no. That's one thing that she was not okay with him having any sort of pictures or feelings oh and absolutely not wow any sort of feelings are left over anything for a dead wife he she was having none of that shit uh she would be very kind of uh possessive that you know it's she tried to uh she tried to hide from brooke and chuck that she wasn't their mother she tried to hide for a while that susan was actually their mother because by the time they

were older they didn't they didn't know that right they didn't remember it so that's how she was she tried to actually hide that from them which is a little weird she just pretended that she's mom yes which is very strange you can't do that yeah brooke here uh the daughter says quote she was jealous she wanted us to think she was our real mother she would get furious when i uh when she even heard i looked like sue oh so yeah they would be around and a family member or something would tell you look just like your mom and that would make her fly off the handle wow she'd be mad for Brooke for two days over. The fuck? Yeah, it's a little, it's possessive.

For somebody that's not really that interested and emotionally attached to him, what's your problem? Well, I mean, you don't have to be emotionally attached if something's yours, it's yours. We've dealt with this a lot of times. It's usually the other way around. It's usually the male that has this attitude of possessiveness of, it's a weird weird thing it's like females will have that but male have a male men have a way more

they acted out they acted out and we it's just more common for them to have this possessive thing like like this so we've had we've covered it how many goddamn times in this in the show it's a lot so um this is all very weird she also by the time they got a little older she had no interest in her step kids at all everyone said she treated them badly she'd be nice to them one minute and then mean to them the next minute and just like if they were inconveniencing her at all she didn't want to hear it from them basically and now uh ruben what he does is he buys a farm for them to live on. He buys a farm, and Diane couldn't have been more miserable on this farm. Yeah, not okay with this farm.

She's a city girl. She's just not a farm person at all. And to be honest, if you're going to run a farm and be like a farm stay-at-home mother. A whole family? Dude, that's a job. That's hard, man. That's a lot of responsibility. It's a. A whole family? Dude, that's a job. That's hard, man. There's a lot of responsibility. It's a life that's not for everybody.

It's really not. You have to be either born into that or that has to be something you love or whatever, but not everybody's cut out for farming. The majority of it is just putting shit somewhere else. Putting shit places and do all this. It's a matter of time. You have to be up early

so you can do all the shit that you need to do with animals. And you stay up late. And then you have your kids, time. You have to be up early so you can do all the shit that you need to do with animals. And you stay up late. And then you have your kids too and you have to take care of the house and everything. It's a lot.

And you're just scooping shit all day. So much shit. You're putting food at mouths and then pulling it off the ground when it pushes it out. Ranching. Moving shit from one place to another.

That's what it is. It is. It's crazy. Constantly. So she told Ruben that she was overwhelmed by everything she didn't want to help run a farm and have three kids at the same time i'm more sympathetic i could not be yeah both of those sound like way too much i certainly understand definitely she told uh she told her husband at one point uh quote i don't think this will work to do this and then she said

roy it's just a very overboard situation i see you said this just isn't going to work and he's like oh come on come on sweetie this is how we always did it you like it like this i'll bet you don't even remember our oldest name you sleep on the couch remember because your back's messed up yeah so uh jesus christ roy so for years uh brooke and chuck and and ruben everyone in the house just tries to avoid fights with diane that's the that's the the goal of everyone is don't don't piss her off don't piss her off so everybody tries to be cool and calm and not put shit on her and that sort of thing. Diane ends up after a while. Years go by.

She ends up getting a job at Jefferson High School as a teacher's aide. And that's she has to two things that she does. She works during the day as a teacher's aide. And then she also owns a like a shirt silk screening store shop in downtown Jefferson. Mrs. B's sport screen store. Got it. So Mrs. Borshards, whatever. So in downtown Jefferson.

So she's, you know, she's doing stuff and she's not just farming. So that's good. She's gotten out of the house and all that sort of thing. But the marriage is a mess, though. It's of course, it's rocky. It's it's they're fighting. They're not they're not a couple that's, you know and and neither of them picked this as no thing that's the thing good point and they're not a unit no they don't work together they don't you know they're not

they don't like oh let's just get a vacation just for us you know they didn't get together and like have hopes and dreams and aspirations and common goals they were just like i'm pregnant fuck i'll fix it yeah they basically were like, well, I got the peanut butter. Well, I got the chocolate. Well, we should start a business. And that's what it was. Like, great.

And they put them together. Peanut butter cups, let's do it. Yeah, it doesn't mean they're compatible on a personal level is the thing here. 1993 comes around. Yeah, they've been married for 13 years or so. And it's never been great. And now's it's just the same thing it's just rocky they're not close um 1993 diane finds out uh that or she believes that ruben's having

an affair okay she thinks he's having an affair and uh the way she puts it she tells all her friends that okay now he's gonna go out and find some woman. And they had just built this house that they lived in. He says, now she's going to find some woman. And now he's going to want me to move out so then they can have some life together. And that's her thing that she's saying here. And the thing is, she's right. Because he does meet a woman and he is having an affair.

Oh, Ruben. He's having an affair. He met a woman named Judy France while he was installing cabinets at her house who can resist the cabinet maker i mean come on his ass crack as he's reaching up to drill the shit into the ceiling his ass cracks hanging down he's got his gut on the other side that's irresistible man but no i'm i don't know what kind of sweat on the counter yeah but apparently i'll put a couple extra bolts in here. You can put your good china in here. That's right.

So apparently Ruben's a very nice guy and a very personable guy, gregarious dude that everybody likes. And I'm not sure about his ass crack. I'm not positive. I'm sure it was out. I mean, it could have been. Probably. Judy didn't mind.

No. So they ended up starting out talking about their problems and then, you know, it takes a while to install cabinets. a long while over the course of that they end up uh getting a little closer than that and end up starting to have an affair right and ruben his deal is he doesn't really go out of his way to hide it is the problem what uh it's it's widely known in the town he go he like he's seen with her they go out places together and shit like he's not like we'll go to the next town so none of that shit like we've had this ruben we've had this everybody like they usually go to the next town so they can't be seen this is just different no no you

don't go to your bar no she's he's at the tgi fridays downtown right across from mrs b's sports screens god that's cool she doesn't fucking screw her yeah that's what i mean just pounding a budweiser going it's that she's doing t-shirts or something she'll never know it's not great so yeah she's uh she's around his age 30 years old she's a homemaker uh here she's a stay-at-home person and um diane is not happy about this we're talking apoplectic it's embarrassing fucking pissed and she has a right to be pissed about this. We're talking apoplectic. It's embarrassing. She's fucking pissed, and she has a right to be pissed about this. No matter how shitty the marriage is,

if he's going to go around kind of openly... Throwing it, yeah. Openly, not only hurting her on a personal level, but openly embarrassing her on a public level. I mean, that's just,

that's not a polite thing to do to your spouse, to just be gallivanting out in the open, carrying on with somebody. Even politicians usually do it in a hotel room. That's what I'm saying. This is a little bit aggressive. They're, like I said, just sitting there, sitting at the bar at happy hour going, is that right? Yeah, no problem.

So she starts to get very upset about it, and she's upset. She tells people about it. she's she's upset she tells people about it's like an open secret so she's telling everyone i'm pissed at reuben because he's fucking around on me with this you know cabinet slut over here he's not doing that yeah they're right there that's right they're sitting at the booth next to how often did diane call judy a cabinet slut how often let's be honest honestly a woman losing her mind, yelling at her friends, telling about it. She's like, that fucking cabinet slut. You just know it came out of her mouth a lot.

Probably cabinet other things, too. So, yeah. Carpenter. Yeah. Things like that. So, what she does is not only does she complain to all her friends and anybody she can, she even complains to her students at school. What?

She teaches. Well, I don't know if you can call us teachers. She sits in the room during study hall. Okay. You can't say you're teaching study hall. You're babysitting. I'm teaching you to sit in that chair and not talk to anybody for 45 minutes until we move you on to the next room.

That's not teaching. It's not necessarily a professional job, but it's whatever. But that's why you hire a professional job, but it's whatever. That's why you hire a teacher's aide and not a teacher. Here's an adult that'll watch, keep an eye on you, make sure you don't kill each other. She's here because she's older. That's it. She was born a little before you.

If you start killing each other, she'll tell on you. That's why. That's the only reason why she's here. And her husband's cheating on her, so don't piss her off. Yeah, don't piss her off. She's a little bitter right now. You sure he's cheating on her? He's right there in off. Yeah, don't piss her off. She's a little bitter right now. You sure he's cheating on her? He's right there in the hall, fucking woman, right there. That's right.

She gets so much talking to these kids. She tells them about her problems. She actually, at one point, asks two of her students to spy on him while he's having an affair. Why? You already know. But she wants the proof of it. She needs the words from a high school student. That'll make already know. But he wants, she wants to. She wants a kid to know. She wants the proof of it. She needs the words from a high school student. That'll make it better.

You don't want that. No. They have slang words that you don't understand, and they probably hurt to know that your spouse is doing these things. And they just tell you everything. I'll tell you everything I saw. Oh, my God. First, he had her like this.

Then he had her like that. All over her face. It was crazy. Fingers here, fingers there. Oh, my God. Whole hand over here. I wasn't even going that. All over her face. It was crazy. Fingers here. Fingers there. Oh, my God. Whole hand over here. I wasn't even going to tell you what I saw. It was wild.

I didn't even know that was possible. I did not know that. I did not know you could put both genitals in both mouths. That's weird. It was weird. That's strange. But one looked like a six. So I get it now.

I know why they say that. People have been giggling. People have been giggling for so long. Every time they say that page number, I'm like, I giggle too. Like, I'm just like, yeah, I know, right? And I just give a little elbow. But now I'm like, oh, shit. High five somebody over this.

God damn it. I done seen it. Woo. So this is a student named Doug V vest yep doug vest yeah eight letters eight letters very simple and a friend of his probably seven d-u-g yeah d-u-g-v-e-s-t no vowels d-g-v-s-t efficient he's an efficient young man doug vestest. So she gets him and a friend to spy on her husband and kind of,

you follow him and just see what he's doing. So this is ridiculous to do shit like that. And you give him $20 to go spy on your husband. That's not professional. Teachers don't,

first of all, teachers don't tell your students about your personal life when it comes. Like you can tell them something good. Yeah. You know, hey.

I've been in a hot air balloon. Isn't this great i'm going for another degree in college oh don't tell me you're 69 in a fucking yeah hot air balloon my grandma my grandmother's died i'm a little bit sad don't be like my husband's banging this cabinet slut she won't fucking stop and he's taking her goddamn downtown showing her off to everybody no so she gets this d. And he's taking her goddamn downtown, showing her off to everybody. So she gets this Doug Vest. He's a junior, by the way. Doug Vest Jr. Of course he is. He's 17 years old.

He was voted sweetest boy in the yearbook. The sweetest boy at Jefferson High. Oh, good kid. And he's going to go do this for her? He's going to go spy. So that's what she's doing. God damn it, Doug. January 1994, Rubin files for files for divorce okay he's had enough

now he finally figured out how to be a mature adult i was gonna say he should have done a long time ago yeah that was the thing don't don't have an affair carry on i don't know what you're talking about not not file for divorce and everything's thinking just leave her if you don't like her and whatever take your chance versa yeah the problem is take a shot that's the thing right i want to hedge their bets right take a shot what if what if then it doesn't work at least i got this at home still no that's not okay that's not how it works no please don't do that anybody don't do that stop hurting her bad stuff so uh 94 here january ruben files for divorce he moves into the basement of the house until all of the

divorce shit can be settled okay so he moves downstairs in the basement and uh he probably that was probably the greatest sleep a night's sleep on a cot anyone's ever had in their life down there that first night he's hearing like the hot water heater go on and off and there's dripping and shit and he's just like this is fantastic we've said it many times there's nothing better than a good divorce. If it's a divorce that you really want, there's nothing that's as satisfying. People that smoke crack

go on a mission all day and they have to scrape up money and they finally get crack. That first hit, nothing compared to the rush. Everything was worth it. Of the first lay down on a cot that's yours. Or a futon that's only yours or an air mattress in my case it's so close to the furnace you can hear the rush of gas yeah yeah when it

turns on that you're like i'm gonna die from carbon monoxide poisoning down here absolutely the cat won't even come down here it's fine he gets lightheaded and stumbles i don't know still better still better so uh diane would not she said she's not leaving the home because they built this is a home that reuben had built this farm uh yeah but she says she will not leave and you know she's his wife so they're gonna be there's gonna be some contention over this this is gonna be he can't just go i'd like you to leave and have a girl that i like to have sex with more move in like that's not how divorce works no if he did think that he should have thought twice it's all a light-hearted

nightmare on our podcast morbid we're your hosts i'm alina urquhart and i'm ash kelly and our show is part true crime part spooky and part comedy the stories we cover are well researched he claimed and confessed to officially killing up to 28 people with a touch of humor i just like to go ahead and say that if there's no band called malevolent deity that is pretty great a touch of humor. I just like to go ahead and say that if there's no band called malevolent deity, that is pretty great. A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing. This mother lied like a liar,

like a liar. And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal, or you love to hop in the way back machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crime, you should tune in to our podcast, Morbid. Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. I understand that anybody who's paid attention to the media would have to come to the conclusion that I killed my wife.

Hi, my name is Zach Stewart-Pontier. I'm one of the filmmakers behind The Jinx, and I'm excited to bring you the official Jinx podcast. We'll be revisiting all six episodes of part one and watching along with part two as it airs on Max, starting April 21st. Bye-bye.

The official Jinx podcast. Listen on Max or wherever you get your podcasts. It's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid. We're your hosts. I'm Alina Urquhart. And I'm Ash Kelly. And our show is part true crime, part spooky, and part comedy. The stories we cover are well-researched.

He claimed and confessed to officially killing up to 28 people. With a touch of humor... I'd just like to go ahead and say that if there's no band called Malevolent Deity, that is pretty great. A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing. This mother****er lied. Like a liar. Like a liar. And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale

of the paranormal or you love to hop in the wayback machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes you should tune in to our podcast morbid follow morbid on the wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts you can listen to episodes early and ad free by joining wondery plus in the wondery app or on apple podcasts so uh they're in the middle of this divorce uh the affair is now kind of really out in the open and uh she you know it's he she's using this as a major leg of her divorce proceeding with him too saying well he's cheating on me i'd like to be compensated i guess yeah she also tries to get and this is strange she tries to get custody of chuck who's not her fucking kid yeah what that's her stepson would you do that i get that

he was like a year old when he came around but it didn't come out of you no i'm sorry you can't you can't go for custody of people who aren't you that don't belong to you you just can't right that's not how it works that's his kid sorry like that shouldn't be on the table even what would a judge even say? What are you, out of your fucking mind? Stepmom fighting for custody. No. No.

You don't belong here. Have a good one. Here's my gavel. Case closed. Fuck out of here. I don't want any arguments. What is this case even here? That's the real dad?

Oh, end of fucking story. Goodbye. Wait a second. Who's representing her? You, attorney. Come here for a minute and hit him with the gavel, you dumb shit. Why'd you bring this here? Why would you bring this to me so that doesn't work though uh she becomes increasingly angry uh just increasingly angry oh i got it james chuck

is an extra bit of child support that's why well maybe that and also i think that would hurt ruben yeah so i think it's one of those there's a couple things in there there's a few things in there uh now ruben brooke chuck all the kids here uh are urging diane to seek counseling because she's becoming very unhinged as far as uh flies off the handle a lot and i mean jesus christ divorce is one of the most stressful situations you can be involved in especially when you're not even living in separate houses it's stressful enough if like she texts you and you go blah blah blah and you go back and forth that's stressful enough but if you're if everything's on the table and you're living in the same space incalculable stress going on there i can't even imagine that shit so um yeah uh a friend of ruben said quote ruben felt she needed help and he tried to get her help.

She turned it around and say that he needed help, which that's you're not going to. That's not your position, dude. No, you got to stay out of that. If you're in the middle of a divorce with somebody, you can't say, I'm telling you, you need help for your own because I care about you. I made you an appointment today. Yeah, they're saying, no, you're the crazy one. Not me.

Fuck that. Let her lawyer tell her to go get help because that's going to help her in the case. Exactly. So they just keep fighting and keep fighting to the point where Brooke, the oldest daughter, moves out and moves into a friend's home because she can't take the bickering anymore. How old is she? At this point when she's 18, 17, she's, you know, she's close to adult anyway. Yeah. Yeah.

She was. Yeah. I think she was three in 79, 76 to 94. Oh, Jesus. Yeah. So, yeah, she's 18, 17, 18. She moves in with a friend just because it's too much. Too much for her. Chuck stays at home.

He's a little bit younger. And he says, though, quote, mostly I stayed at a friend's house because I didn't want to be there. Oh, boy. So this is just the tension. Yeah. Think about something. And as a dad, like your kids are leaving because of the tension. Yeah.

You got to you got to be able to get this together and be a better dad. Think about every time someone walks into that house, just the way it feels. That thick tension with a knife. Oh, it's a nightmare. You up to get uh ruben for a boys night to go bowling or whatever and you're just like i'll stay in the car why don't you just come on out uh because i'm not i'm gonna beep from the street you can come on out when you want there's no cell phones this is 94 yeah it's 94 there's no way to just call him and be like i'm out front bro you gotta beep yeah beep. Did he hear me?

I'm not coming in. I'll lay on it. I mean, I'll lay on the horn. Once it gets past the point when it's time when I should have been here, he'll start looking out the window. He should. And he'll see me. And if he doesn't, then I'm going to leave in five because there's no fucking way I'm knocking on that door. Maybe they're fighting.

I don't want to see that woman's face. Yeah. So Brooke says that more than once, Diane even threatened Ruben in different ways. But he took the threat seriously. She would just fly off the handle and they would be in a huge fight and she would say something crazy that would scare him. Or something he considered crazy that would scare him. To the point where at one point when he would go to bed, he would line up empty mayonnaise jars in a hallway that led down to the cellar door. That way, he says, in the dark, if anybody was walking there, they'd trip on the mayonnaise jars, send them down the steps, and that's his alarm system.

What? This is clever. Broken glass is his fucking... That's his alarm system. Somebody kicking a mayonnaise jar down basement steps will wake you the fuck up, though. That'll wake you up. So that's smart, actually. I like what he's doing. But that's his alarm system. You're will wake you the fuck up. Yeah. So that's smart, actually. I like what he said.

But that's his that's his alarm system. You're never snoozing that one. No. So, yeah, that's that's fucking that's clever, man. I don't know what that's that's like when you hear about totally off the subject, but like how Aaron Hernandez hung himself and he did all these precautions and put like detergent and all this crazy shit. And you go, that's pretty fucking I would have never thought of that.

Like, that's the first thing I thought, obviously it's tragic well yeah it's crazy i'll just have somebody in a mental state like that all that aside i would have never thought of all that that's really clever i really had to think about that for a mental state being so goddamn uh what is the word i don't know for forethought ish what is that what is the word forethought ish he had so much planning preparation so much goddamn the creative ingenuity that's what it is i would have never had that ingenuity i just wouldn't have especially like where's a fucking nail stuff especially if my brain was mushy i would be like no so uh march 24th 1994 is the divorce ruling comes down from the judge, and this ruling decrees giving the home to Ruben.

So Ruben gets on because I guess he built it. So he gets the home. She is ordered. This is March 24th. She's ordered to move out by April 15th. Okay. So she's got three weeks to get the fuck out of Dodge, which is now. That's now.

That's rough. She was super pissed. pissed also he won physical custody of chuck and uh basically they said you have to give him the kid and get the fuck out of the house by april 15th so she was not happy with this ruling at all as you might imagine anybody wouldn't be just take the other baby with her the other one that's hers yes yeah she's gonna have primary because she's the mother of yeah whatever so ruben uh like i said he's he's still putting mayonnaise jars out of now he's even doing it even more because now he's really worried he tells his friends that he's worried that she would quote

come down and stab him that's how he's worried he's like you know very very worried about he has uh other comments too he said she quote may try to bob at me oh yeah she's gonna take my dick yeah if you don't know that reference that is john and lorraine abobit it was a woman in the 90s who cut her husband's dick off it's very famous because he was uh one way or another abusing her and cheating on not only cut it off took cut it off and drove it somewhere and threw it threw it in the weeds she dicknapped it so that's that's something did you see the picture threw it in the weeds. She kidnapped it. She dicknapped it. So that's something. Did you see the picture of it, by the way?

No, I don't like graphic shit like that. There's a Netflix documentary about it, and they flash a quick picture of what they found. Oh, yeah, I actually did see that. James. That was rough. How did they find that? I don't know. Impressive that they found it, yeah.

Wow, unbelievable that they found it. I got it. Because there's nothing to it. How are you going to swing a dick? You can't swing it. I found it.'s nothing to it how are you gonna swing it you can't swing it i found it it's between your thumb and forefinger it's just a strange thing is that a mushroom oh my god it's a dick it's a strange thing to find yeah it's a very weird scavenger hunt one of the guys stepped on it yeah oh boy oh boy i stepped on your dick then they put it on ice they ran like a 7-ele put it on ice, and then hauled ass to the thing where they

got it back on the guy. Oh, shit. He's so lucky. It's amazing. How many mayonnaise jars does this man have, by the way? It's a lot. How much has he eaten? How often are you going through mayonnaise?

Did he just go to the store and get mayonnaise and then pour it out? Scraped it all out and threw it in the garbage. This jar will do. I don't know what it was, but he's got a lot of empty a lot of empty mayonnaise i'm worried about his mayonnaise consumption at this point so uh now ruben while she's getting super upset and mad all his friends said that he became increasingly more happy again and more like himself he told one of his friends quote uh or one of his friends said quote divorce is bad but it but it can mean a new life. Ruben had lived in a coffin, and now he was going to get possession of his life. He was in the basement before that.

And so he's very happy, and now he can even more openly be with Judy, and he's excited. Diane, on the other hand, spinning out of control, livid. Yeah, really noticeable in school, especially. The kids all said she she kind of went before she was always nice one of her students though uh one of her female students from study hall said at that point she was she became quote either real nice or a bitch so that's uh yeah that's one of the which sounds like a total 16 year old i don't know she's either real nice or like a fucking bitch sometimes i don't fucking know and then they wander away somewhere okay got it mood

swings great thank you yeah so said she seemed depressed a lot which i mean yeah her i can imagine she's going through it and i don't blame her yeah i mean no matter who she is that's no matter even if she's difficult to deal with or whatever her husband did marry her and then he ends up having an affair on her which hurt her and then divorced her and then she ends up having to leave her house and all of this is understandable that she would be fucking upset with this uh one of her students said quote you could tell she was stressed out then uh she'd be crying in class and everybody knew it was about the divorce oh shit yeah this is oh no this is rough man that This is very rough. And there's always a dick in there going, ah, it's because that dude left her. That's right.

But the sweetest boy, Doug Vest, he talks to her and hangs out with her. And also a friend of his named Tim Quintero. They hang out together and they talk to her a lot. She talks to them. They're also friends with a couple other people that will come up later. A guy named Josh Yank or Yankee. I don't know. Y-A-N-K-E. Yanka? Yankee? come up later. A guy named Josh Yank or Yankee. I don't know. Y a N K E.

Yeah. Yanka Yankee. I hope it's Yank. Yank. Josh Yank. And, uh, Michael Maldonado, who are also, I think vest is cousins with Maldonado and Yank is a friend. I don't know.

Whatever. They're all close. Yeah. They all vest Quintero and Maldonado are all cousins. And then, uh, the Yank guy is just a friend from school. We just like having him around. We just like having him around. Make fun of his name.

It's fucking hilarious. Call him Yank. Call Dave. This was so fucking funny, man. Adds to every situation. God, it's funny. Every time, I just like introducing him to people. That's his name, dude.

It's my boy Yank. That's his name. Yankin'. So April 2nd, 94 comes around. And she's got to be out in 13 days and things are really ramping up as far as the aggression goes this is to a boiling point to hopefully diffuse as she leaves so uh charles who's now a teenager he says that he witnessed an argument between diane and ruben on april And, um, he said that his, I guess she was leaving,

had a bunch of her shit in the trunk. She's moving her stuff out. Chuck, Chuck saw this. I guess Diane is moving her stuff out incrementally in car loads as you do. If you have time, she had a bunch of stuff in the car. Apparently she had some,

she had Susan's sewing machine that belonged to Susan and Chuck and Ruben was not having that. No, he said, that's Susan's sewing machine that belonged to susan and and ruben was not having that no he said that's susan's sewing machine singer put it back went out to try to get the sewing machine from her car she was in the trunk of her car and uh i guess diane basically he got her keys and then she like tried to wrestle the keys out of his hand she jumped on his back and like was hitting him on his like she was you know feet off the ground hands around the neck hitting him on the head trying to get her keys and all that sort of shit and then she ended up getting the keys and driving off and taking regan and the dog with them with her okay they have a fan they have a schnauzer that's tiny that fucking barks at everything every time there's a noise if a leaf

hits the front door this dog is going to bark until somebody picks it up and moves it away from the door right it's one of those dogs so yeah uh she takes it with her too and she takes that too takes the dog takes the daughter and the sewing machine and drives off okay so uh ruben says that uh he told his daughter brooke that he said just something strange is going on with her man i don't know what the hell's wrong with her but something's going on and uh i don't know man that's i can never figure it out that's why i got a divorce i don't know why i'd be able to figure it out any better now right one of those deals so uh judy france his girlfriend also said that she told or he told her the same thing ruben told judy that she thought diane was

up to something because she was going out of town which was weird for her and it was just strange basically apparently that uh ruben and diane had met up at a park that day and they were talking and uh they met up at the park because judy said can you meet me at the park i really have to talk to you because diane had showed up on her door at her house pounding on her front door. They have no reason to talk. You don't get to do that. No. So obviously, Judy didn't come out and she said Diane just pounded on her door for a while.

She said, quote, I was afraid I didn't answer the door, which I don't blame her. I mean, that's not a conversation that you really need to have. her which i don't blame her right i mean that's a not a conversation that you really need to have so diane that same day she leaves uh she leaves judy's house pounds on that door and heads straight to the sheriff's office heads to the sheriff's office reporting that she was uh she was assaulted in an incident with her husband she says that we were wrestling around he hurt me he bruised me in this attempt for the keys uh She also says that, you know, she can't basically you need to go talk to him, to the cops, but I won't be around. I'm driving up to Tomahawk, which is in northern Wisconsin, to visit her ex-husband's parents.

Why would you do that? Which is a weird thing to do. I don't know. So, yeah, this is a guy. Yeah. No, no. No, yeah. The elope guy. Yeah. No, no. No, I'm sorry. This is, it's not even, holy crap, I'm sorry.

It's not her ex. This is Susan's parents. What? This is. This is his ex? This is Ruben's ex's. Parents. Yeah, ex-in-laws.

Or dead in-laws. I'm really ex at that point. I don't know. They'd still probably technically be his in-laws. They'd probably call him technically probably calling that yeah she's going up there she's going to visit them the kids grandparents she hates susan yeah so it's very strange very strange that she would not just her the whole fucking memory yeah i guess she had visited them once in the last few years she had visited them before for some reason i don't know if it was dropped the kids off or whatever but they hadn't seen her in a long time so they were like this was weird she just

popped up very strange she just popped up with her daughter and uh and and ruben schnauzer so dog is his it's his fucking dog he's like great she took my goddamn dog now so by the way this is 200 miles away this isn't like an hour up the road this is far like through the woods of wisconsin so uh when i have three hour ride oh it is yeah you're driving up there it's very strange and also uh to take the dog was very strange and i guess she had never uh taken the dog on a trip before ever so this is like the first time she ever took the dog somewhere so like what is happening a weird thing to do what a weird thing to do so april 3rd 1994 uh is easter morning yeah can you hear the the i can smell the peeps like the cartoon morning music the classical shit there yeah it's a you can hear that birds

are chirping right the easter bunny's hopping away i see white chocolate my mom knows i fucking hate it and she still bought it why are you doing this stop it god damn it it's on sale because nobody likes it i like white chocolate i don't like it my mom always with the fucking white chocolate bunny nobody likes that no that's too much no a bunny has got to be chocolate chocolate yeah i agree with you and hollow. Stop with the fucking hollow one. Dude, useless. Yeah. Useless.

It's nothing. It's shit. It's always shit. And in Phoenix in April, it's 90 degrees outside. I want to say, yeah, the whole head is all melted in. It's all fucked. It's all concave. It's all garbage.

No, you need a, it looks like he's been shot with a 12 gauge. Right. You need the solid that you have to get a knife to cut the ears off. Absolutely. That's what you want right there. And if it's got the crunchy stuff in it with a 12 gauge. Right. You need the solid that you have to get a knife to cut the ears off. Absolutely. That's what you want right there. And if it's got the crunchy stuff in it. Oh, baby. Listen.

Come on now. I'll clean the whole house, Mom. I'll pretend I believe in Easter. You blew it, Mom. No, I won't. But I'll almost pretend I believe. That's not crazy. With your white chocolate bunny, you wonder why my room was a mess.

Yeah. So it's Easter morning. And so obviously he's still in the basement yeah ruben's still in the basement because she still technically has access to the house and lives there and uh chuck the 17 year old he's in his bedroom on the first floor of the home and everybody's sleeping it's early morning we're talking four o'clock five o'clock in the morning and chuck is uh awakened by a noise he doesn't know what he heard but he woke up like you know when you wake up after you hear the noise not in

the middle of hearing a noise yeah yeah here's something you wake up and you go did someone wants to woke me up what happened there so he listens for a second he said you know must have been something and then he hears what he said sounded like a cow mooing oh like a noise that sounded like a cow mooing so like a noise that sounded like a cow mooing so he's like what the fuck is going on here so who let a cow i mean it is wisconsin i get that there's cows everywhere probably but nobody let it in the house also i don't know is it in the yard wisconsin the thing that people eat there the things that people eat there it will make your butt sound like a cow that's well there's all kind of cow noises going on up there

they have a sauerkraut eating festival they do or a contest at a festival they jam cheese curds down their face for deep fried ones that are amazing by the way in milwaukee the one thing i do love is a lot of places have enormous oversized oversized soft pretzels oh yeah they're like the size of a fucking table yeah and they're amazing they go on like a hubcap. Oh, they're bigger than that. Yeah. One's like, it was huge. It was the size of like a semi-steering wheel. It was enormous.

It was awesome. For like 95 cents. It was like 10 bucks or something, but it's like a whole meal. It's enormous. You get like beer cheese with it. I'm like, this is great. I like it here. Pretzels are so good.

Oh, I could always eat a pretzel. It's soft. Anytime. Soft pretzel, I'm full, but all right. I'll i'll just i'll pick at it i'll eat at it later yeah i'm gonna put it in my bag yeah i might have it on like two hours every time we go to philly i go because philly in the airport they have those like it's like three for five dollar pretzel lady like the asian ladies who sell pretzels in the plastic bags it's like that kind of oval shaped pretzel not our pretzel shape you throw in your bag i buy like six of those and i survive on them through in philly i'm just gross i just eat wawa sandwiches and fucking airport pretzels for like two three days

love it so uh and then i go down and get one of their quote-unquote original cheesesteaks and i'm sick for two days oh yeah i can't eat that not supposed to eat that much Cheez Whiz. What the hell is wrong with anyone? But those people are tempered. They know how to eat it. Their body's conditioned for that shit. You can't just introduce that to whatever the fuck I have here. It's not a cheesesteak factory.

No, it's not. I don't digest those. You need half a can of Cheez Whiz in a sitting, usually. It's hard to digest. I can't introduce that to my ahi tuna salad digestion track. Maybe you should. It could be good with Cheez Whiz on it. It will ruin you.

Oh, yeah. A cheesesteak in that environment. They're delicious. They are. I choose, if I do get sick, I choose to say something else made me sick. Not the cheese. I refuse to admit it was that. It's too good to admit to.

I'm like, yeah, it must have been that pretzel. I don't know. Maybe five pretzels next time instead of six. Is it a gluten thing? I don't know what it is. Meanwhile, I ate fucking three board feet of cheesesteak. What fucking cheese on the line. So that's my fault.

So Chuck hears a cow mooing is what he hears. He approaches the living room. Dark out, Easter morning, looking around. Was it the Easter bunny? Is that an Easter cow now? Imagine the thought of, is there a fucking Easter Bunny? Like if you're 17 and you like you haven't believed it

then like you hear this thing and you're like is it am I going to go out there and find a basket? How crazy would that be? Do I get Cadbury eggs? Alright well

fuck it. Are there fucking eggs all over this place now? Are they everywhere? Do I find them? Is that the gunshot that I start looking for now? That's the starter pistol it says is it game time game on where are they should i get a splunking helmet and a flashlight let's go so what if you open the door and find a six

foot bunny that moves that's what i mean that was always my thing as a kid too i was always like so the easter bunny is like a rabbit right and they'd be like yeah and i go but how does it carry a basket well he's big and i'm like there's a giant that scared the shit out of me the thought of a six foot five rabbit in my room really frightened me and made me not well i was like this that's even worse wait a second so i was like how does a little rabbit carry an easter basket and they were like wait so he's big and i'm like wait a second well now you really fucked me up and he's waking up and he's hearing these noises he's like cows moo really does the easter bunny just picture the easter bunny like a big freaky six foot tall placing a basket looking away from you and you're like staring and he turns to you

slowly and says and then puts the basket down and walks away i mean right then it would legitimately you'd be like that's how they got it so big he's like obviously like one of the things in the shining right like looks over at him all creepy but then it moves and he's like what the fuck and then obviously rabbit's been fucking cows around here and now we've got an easter bunny and it's horrifying well he's laying eggs so why not he's been fucking chickens too so right through those big teeth he just moves at you he's a bunny that fucks cows and then lays eggs it's a weird it's a weird it's a weird holiday thing to tell your kids that's all i'm saying that's horrifying as chuck approaches the living room now i will say one thing in wisconsin every it's the woods everybody has been around hunting, hunters, something. Everyone up there knows what gunpowder smells like after it's been shot in the woods.

So when he comes out, he smells burnt gunpowder. That's what he smells, Chuck. So he's like, I know that smell. What's going on here? So he runs downstairs. The only other people in the house are, he knows his dad is downstairs. He runs downstairs to tell his dad this is going on here. And he runs downstairs and finds Ruben bleeding and slumped over across a chair.

Oh, boy. So, not great. He is apparently, from the looks of it, shot in the chest and the back. Oh, no. Twice. With a shotgun, too. Oh, Jesus. It looks terrible.

Yeah. If you've ever seen a shotgun wound it's not a mess one little hole it's a big mess so especially a close range tears should open bad stuff uh he is alive though he's alive um and uh he's moaning and he's still conscious even yeah so chuck goes over calls 9-1-1 you know holds his dad's hand and all that. It's going to be okay and whatever. Oh, God, he's in so much pain. He's in a ton of pain, and they call 911 and all that, and Reuben looks up at his son and says,

quote, I can't believe she would do this to me. Yeah. And then he passes out. Oh, no. Who, motherfucker, who? Yeah, so Chuck brings him upstairs to the police, carries him up there and all this type of shit. Chuck tells the police everything he hears, everything he heard and everything he said.

Unfortunately, though, he goes to the hospital and he dies at the hospital. Two shotgun wounds to the torso are wrong. Yeah, it's insane. So this town, this doesn't happen, number one. And number two, in someone's home it's just crazy so right away uh brooke is accusing diane of this whole thing right away brooke is like it's fucking diane i can't believe it um the reason was was for two days after the murder uh she does not contact the children really she doesn't contact her stepchildren to talk to them

for two days not even to check on them check on them are you okay yeah anything nothing even where are you logistics and nothing oh nothing um so it's really weird uh her her she even got mad that the this is the obituary had a mention of susan in it oh she got him angry and yelled at ruben's sister barbara who wrote it telling her that uh she threatened to uh cancel the funeral she literally threatened to cancel the funeral and cancel all the services and have him buried in a pauper's grave somewhere uh if the family didn't show her respect as quote the grieving wife at the funeral so she wants to be shown a certain amount of deference apparently here now uh she i mean fuck man is the divorce final well the settlement is yes i mean i think it's going she's not.

I don't know how she would have, but apparently she's dealing with the arrangements. Yeah. And also, Diane also says that Diane's attorney contacts Barbara, Ruben's sister, to tell her that also she will cancel the services if Judy is not kept away from the funeral. So she's not allowed to go either. So she wants to control this thing. But yeah, that's weird anyway. By the way, this is the town's first homicide in 20 years.

20 years. They had never had a homicide since Nixon was in office. Yeah. Like, that's crazy. And this one's happening in somebody's house. Yeah. On a holiday morning in a 65 religious town this is a it's weird shit uh ruben's friend here says quote this is a town where you can walk in the dark

without any concerns well it sounds like it except for the mayo thing well yeah watch your step watch your step yeah so the district attorney um is trying to uh you know ask around get the get the get the police to gather the facts here because he's interested in solving this people are freaking the fuck out uh he was a well-liked guy well-known guy uh he finds out there the police find out that in february 1994 uh judy relays to them that ruben had come to her and said that diane in february apparently grabbed him by the head and kissed him hard on the lips and then told him you're dead. Wow.

In like a, you know, Michael Corleone, Fredo type of way. Like, you broke my heart. It was that sort of thing. Grabbed his face and kissed him hard. I knew it was you, Fredo. So, police are trying to figure this whole thing out. Police are trying to figure this whole thing out. There are some anonymous tips here that lead, and we'll find out who they're from in a minute here, but there's some anonymous tips that lead the police to want to talk to Vest.

Yeah. The Vest. Doug Vest. Yeah, they want to talk to Doug. And yeah, Doug doesn't take too long to have a story here uh yeah doug says that um basically that uh um she started bringing up that you know maybe uh maybe i can get rid of my husband and then maybe maybe you can help me get rid of my husband and he kept saying he didn't want any part of it but she kept saying saying that she would come at him with money.

Say, I'll give you money. I'll give you from the insurance. I'll give you a 20 grand. I'll give you a car. I'll give you my, I got my jewelry. You can have my engagement rings and all this type of shit. Offering him money to try to help. And he said he didn't want to.

And he said after that, she and she had basically what everybody everybody's what the court kind of has been calling her enforcer she has a 19 year old woman named shannon johnson who's a former student who is like her mini me i guess she just worships the ground diane walks on we'll do anything for her we'll talk about exactly how dedicated she is to diane it's next level dedication it's okay like wow unnatural level no one would be that dedicated to their fucking mother never mind the study hall teacher i can't wait to find out why very weird so uh apparently this this doug says that vest he says that johnson threatened to kill him if he didn't go through with holy shit yeah to have him killed she said she knew like she had gang connections and something and she was going to have him

killed. The bad bitch said that. Yeah. That's Shannon Johnson. So he also said that he never agreed to kill Ruben. He never asked for any money and he never wanted anything to do with it. Okay. He said that he only went to the home that night.

He does admit he was there. He said because of pressure from her and pressure from Shannon Johnson. Wow. They said they threatened to kill her. They threatened to kill his mother, is what they said. We'll kill your mother if you don't kill Ruben. So now if they're willing to kill his mother, why don't they just kill Ruben? That's what I would have said.

You're willing to kill my fucking mom? You're going to kill people. It'd be way easier for you to kill Ruben. My mom doesn't even know you. But I can see the distancing of themselves. It's a throw mama from a train situation i guess at that point if they killed both it would be a it'd be silly yeah so yeah crisscross crisscross that's what it is that too but it's cross crisscross crisscross like in the movie so so uh cross cross oh my god vest talks to the police uh saying he just the only he wanted the prosecution they have to paint that vested this for money because they can't say he's a good

guy yeah but they also he's saying she offered him a fuckload of money he's just saying he didn't want to do it he said he rejected uh rejected these suggestions he said that he would change the subject when she would bring it up he said there were at least five occasions when she said she wanted her husband killed he said he mostly took the con the conversations all took place at study hall during study hall hiring a hitman she's studying study hall which is a bad place to find a hitman not the best if you're looking for a hitman and i don study hall which is a bad place to find a hitman not the best if you're looking for a hitman and i don't i don't suggest it or recommend it but look farther than fourth period study hall please i'm sure one's been found there i'm sure it's worked

out for somebody somebody but it's not common no no it's probably not it's not the best place you find the best murder uh veteran murderers that are gonna to know what to do. It's usually not Doug. Yes. Jesus Christ. This started coming up, I guess, about eight weeks before the murder. So two months she's been talking about this. Doug said that, quote, she started crying and said she hated her husband, Ruben, and she didn't know what to do. She asked me if I would kill him. I didn't want to hear about it.

She offered me money, rings, her cars, everything here. So he said he didn't want to he didn't want to do it but think about that he said he ended up he he recruited his cousin michael maldonato uh who is 16 at this point he's a high school dropout who loves cars he likes cars apparently here he's doesn't know any of these people no he's never met diane doesn't know who the fuck ruben is doesn't know anything he's just his cousins like hey we gotta go fuck this dude up and we're gonna get cars and shit and he was like cool all right that was that um and uh so apparently basically doug vest this is the way

i look at it doug vest is a 17 year old kid he's got this adult telling him look i want you to do this this and this we'll give you money he feels important for a minute because he's from Jefferson, Wisconsin. He's from a small town. He's a kid that's probably leads a pretty boring fucking life. Nothing happens. He probably felt cool. So he while he was putting together a murder squad, like I'll get my friends and we'll do this to him. At the time, he said he thought he was a fuck like he felt like a gangster.

I'm recruiting people to put together a hit squad. so we're going to get paid on this pit. Like he felt like I'm a badass. You know what I mean? God, Jesus, that's fucking wild, man. But I feel like that's the feeling he had. I can see it, yeah. But he also says when it got to the point of it happening, he didn't want to do it anymore. No.

He backed out because he just wanted to talk about it because that would make him feel like a tough guy. He doesn't actually want to kill anybody. He's got to go take a man's life. That's a different story. So I guess he apparently, his cousin Michael is the one who had the shotgun and they came into the house. It was about 3 a.m.

By the way, with a hand-drawn map that she made for them that he saved for later, which is helpful. Cold-hearted bitch. Oh, yeah. And went into the house and uh basically they said they left yank outside yank is the lookout yeah uh there and uh they said that you know he he said that he attempted to back out but that michael was going through with it because he wanted to get paid and all this type of shit so uh he followed Michael Maldonado through an unlocked door because she had left it unlocked for him.

It's about 3.30 a.m. He says, this is Vest, quote, I ran after him because he didn't want to go in alone. I saw a gunshot flash and I saw Ruben fall down. That's what he said. He said he didn't shout to warn Ruben. He didn't want him to be killed, but he didn't shout to warn him because, you know, if he did, then he said, quote, because somebody because I might wake somebody up and we shouldn't have been in there. Well, it's probably better than someone dying. So a shotgun blast is louder than, hey, Rubin.

Yeah. Hey, Rubin. That wouldn't have stopped anything. So he's saying that she hired me. So the police go and they arrest doug vest they arrest maldonado as well at first here this is september 29th 1994 apparently uh she had offered twenty thousand dollars from insurance her wedding and engagement rings and two cars which is uh interesting how are you gonna explain that shit yeah what they bought those from you yeah i just my my study hall teacher

gave them to us because we're good study hall students we work real hard we do other classes homework in there really well so uh finally he said doug says quote i can't explain how i how he got involved about his friend uh about his about michael uh he says the money must have looked good to a 16-year-old. So according to this, Diane gave Josh a $600 down payment. $600. $600. 20 grand, but here's $600 for now. No.

Which never works out, as we've covered many times. You're never going to see 19-4. Yeah, that's the thing. So he recruited Josh Yank, and everybody says, this is a quote on Josh Yank that everybody agrees with with he's quote very shy a chicken he stutters a lot when he's scared oh my god what one of his friends said he pisses his pants sometimes that's the thing he's got a loose valve that's our guy that's the third member of the hit squad blowing snot bubbles when he breathes this is why in crime and sports we have a rule yeah

never have a teenager in your hit squad because it gets you caught every time never have three teenagers as your entire hit squad because that's always bad and one with like everything including peanut allergies and asthma yeah he's in there he's out there with the inhaler all right let's go get him okay guys let's go all right on. My psoriasis is acting up. Wait, let me scratch for a minute. Does anybody have a clarinet? I feel like I can't breathe. Did somebody bring a peanut butter sandwich?

Who's... Is that around? Somebody got... What is that? It's like a sweater. It's allergic to... Is that cashmere? I'm allergic to...

Yeah, that's a mohair. I'm allergic to it. Every time. Ah! I should... All right, let's get him. On three, I'm a bad motherfucker. Let's do this, yeah.

On three, I'm a bad motherfucker. I'm a bad motherfucker. Okay, go. Let's break. Can't breathe. This isn't exactly like the Gambino squad, John Gotti, Paul Castellano hit squad here, you know, gangsters. It's a fucking mouth breather. No, literally, Michael Maldonado lives close by. Gambino squad, John Gotti, Paul Castellano hit squad here.

Gangsters. It's a fucking mouth breather. No, literally, Michael Maldonado lives close by. So they thought that would be... There's a house with its light on. Do you want to help us? All right, sure. Why not? So, Jesus Christ.

After it happened, all of her students, she gets arrested. Her students are surprised, the ones who she didn't ask to kill her husband anyway they said quote no one thought she'd be involved in it and everyone's surprised she asked students to do it uh she uh then somebody else this is a i could just you picture this resident of the town quote she was mingling with children act as acting as if nothing happened and she had just blown away her husband she's cold as ice you can see that guy right there he's cold as ice tough fella and he walked away right didn't have anything else to say brought with some sauerkraut on it and waddled away that's it more kraut please another student uh student named heather said quote she's helped me through a lot of personal problems sometimes when i was up in study I'd just start to cry and she'd come over and talk to me.

And sometimes we'd cry together. It's a lot of students saying shit like that. October 2nd, 1994, Josh Yank turns himself in because they're looking for him here. Well done, Yank. Well done here. October 10th, 1994, Diane's looking for bail. You know, because when you hire teenagers to murder your husband, you should get right well she does uh and she makes bail what 150 000 from an uncle in indiana wow he gave her that much gave her that much 1.5 is that what that is i guess so yeah 150 grand

150 or just 150 000 cash no no fucking cash pawn yeah they'll do that so but she gets it and she gets out on fucking bail. She never thought she was going to see the outside. She's up on murder charges. Yeah, and worse to hire people. It's even worse. It's just because you could do that from anywhere. Right.

You could be in a wheelchair, and people can die still. You could have no use of your limbs, and still you could have people killed. That's frightening. If you did it yourself, at least if we put you in a box then you won't kill any more people but if you're just hiring people to do it jesus so uh they say october 18th she's going to stand trial but she's going to remain free on bail uh but she doesn't stand trial then she ended up postponing it uh october here october 19th they decide that michael maldonado will be tried in adult court as an adult oh he was 15 when this happened oh no i have a hard time with that that's tough i have i know that i know

that this country goes through periods where we hate kids yeah we go through periods where kids are kids are our biggest threat and they should be put in jail at the rate we go it happened in the 60s when a kid watched crime wave and then when we were kids in the 90s it was just you do anything we'll throw you in jail how you like that you little fucker like treat you like an adult there was no do big boy crimes you'll do big boy time yeah there was no thought of hey this kid's 14 maybe we can turn him around it was just like criminal put him away that's what we get now like a tire this with all these drugs and kids and it was it was ridiculous it was ridiculous honestly they would criminally charge kids for anything when we were kids just to they're getting

away from that a little bit now where they're trying to be a little more reasonable and try to figure out what helps but did that it's it was the it was just the scariness central park five was one uh which turned out to not even be fucking kids doing anything but that was the that was the thing of it and it was just the 90s general and it was from memphis three it was from the 80s so that was later but it was from the 80s it was the crack epidemic and these kids now 16 year olds are killing each other over jordans and it was from like 88 when that whole fucking people get shot over jordan shoes came out yeah 88 to like you know basically columbine yeah once columbine happened everyone went hey oh white kids in suburban america murdering each other maybe we

should talk to them that's what happened so very weird maybe we should stop throwing pills down the throat and have a chat whoa did we get did we we gave him adderall and he still did this. Wow, weird. Strange. So the next day, Josh Yank is ordered to adult court as well. And then the next day, same thing for Doug Vest. So everyone's getting tried as an adult here. Obviously, Diane is because she's 30-something. Now, November 7th, 1994, Diane pleads innocent to murder. December 15th, 1994, just in time for the holidays,

all three teenagers plead innocent for murder as well. That could have been a carol. Could have been a very sweet carol. We're innocent. Innocent. We're innocent. We have not killed a man. We're innocent.

Lord Christ has risen innocent in my... That's hilarious. Sing it in my garden. Christmas songs for a murder on Easter. I want to see you harmonizing. I'm innocent. I'm innocent. Yeah, like the judge.

He's innocent. He's innocent. Waving each one on. Conducting with his gavel. And you, bring it in. Prosecutors like... and you bring it in prosecutors bring it home bring it up prosecutors like you know what we're gonna we're gonna make a deal here this is just i feel like these three have a future it's obvious that the three of these uh were in cahoots because they figured this part out listen to the harmony they get along so well like a three-man white boys to men over here. What are we talking about? So January 11th, 1995, Josh Yank pleads no contest to murder because he's got no leg to stand on. And he's got the least involvement.

So he's the guy you can get to plead the easiest here. Five years out of this, hopefully. He agreed to plead no contest to a reduced charge of second-degree intentional homicide with a dangerous weapon in exchange for his testimony against anybody all any and everybody that they want him to testify against and a recommendation by prosecutors that he'd be sentenced to no more than 13 years wow so that's the deal which 13 would get you about six and a half you'd have to do it's a lot though it's a lot for a 17 year old so he says josh says in court quote I just wanted to say to everyone that I'm sorry for what I've taken part in. I just want to go on with the rest of my life and do what I can.

I'm sorry for it all. So the judge told him, quote, Mr. Yankee, whatever you and your ilk created an atmosphere of fear in this community. Atmosphere of fear. Mr. Borshardt's children will experience his loss as long as they live his death was just a means of personal financial gain for you you sir may fuck off yeah 18 years so the judge said you can agree to whatever you want i'm giving you an extra five uh means will be out in about nine is what his lawyer says you gotta do about half the time there at that point

so i mean could have been worse he did participate in a fucking murder so anybody participates in a murder i'd say a decade is not not out of the question yeah it wasn't like it was an accident or something a lot but that's that's still that was an intent to you did it you were there like it was like you didn't tell him don't you didn't get in a fight with some guys in a parking lot like you went there to a man's home. Where he was asleep. Asleep on a Saturday night. That's disgusting. That's pretty scummy. That's as bad as you can do, I think. So February 22, 1995, Doug Vest's trial begins.

Now, he agreed to plea guilty, but then he pulled his guilty plea back and said, no, no, no, no. You want the trial? I want trial. Oh, boy. He's going to say, say well it makes sense though think about this all right think about this let's go with like uh let's flip this yeah he's a 17 year old boy youth let's put let's say at the time horny youth a 34 year old teacher 34 year old male teacher talked a 17 year old girl into killing his wife who's the asshole there we bought

a fuco you motherfucker who's the asshole thereey botafuco you motherfucker who's the asshole there you know what i'm saying people are coming down way harder on him than her you know you're right so they're trying to basically because they wanted him to plead a like second degree murder and they're like they wouldn't make a girl plead a second degree murder so they're trying to play it like he's a child who's manipulated by an adult in a position of control over him yeah this he shouldn't be this shouldn't be on him but i don't know man but jerry's not gonna buy that yeah you're 17 year old can do that the girl it would be different if it wasn't for financial gain if he was like we're in love right me and diana been having an affair and we're in love and we're gonna go get married and she told

me that if if i killed her then we could be if i killed him we could be together i go oh that's fucking horrible right she's even more of a monster but he was like i get 20 grand in a car that's cool like that's totally different yeah totally fucking different so yeah he he backs out of his agreement they uh jesus christ they're the prosecutors are a little bit pissed off about this because they thought they had him uh you know, going to testify to against everybody. His big thing is that not only was she pushing it on him, but that he was threatened by Shannon Johnson. Her henchman there, who was 20 years old, he called her Diane's lesbian lover. Well, quote, lesbian lover, lover and henchman.

That's how she was characterized in court yeah um now we don't know what's going on behind closed i have no idea who cares but uh that really doesn't fucking matter it's really irrelevant whether they were fucking or not sure makes the story fun i mean it makes it a little salacious but it's it's it doesn't in terms of murder yeah really doesn't matter it's pretty awesome that she's like threatening a boy yeah and then she's like you don't believe me this bitch used to go to school here yeah and now she's munching my box she'll kill your mom and she'll and she'll kill your mom how do you like that that's does that's threatening that's horrifying kill your mom

anybody killing your mom i don't think the i don't think the munching made a difference i think that would make you fear her more. It's horrifying because then it proves right there that they have zero use for you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's those two and you're on the outside looking into that. I got you. All we want you to do is kill a man. We want nothing to do with you.

No shit. The defense said, we tried to negotiate the lower charge with the state, but they would not agree. So he said that he had to back out. This is what the lawyer for him says. She offered him sex, but he turned her down. She says that at one point, he says that she kissed him at one point, trying to be like, I'll fuck you, too. And he was like, that's OK. Yeah. he says that she kissed him at one point trying to be like i'll fuck you too and he was like that's okay um yeah uh so she says uh he the lawyer says quote he rejected her sexual overtures in fact he cringed at the idea she's like you're 17 you didn't cringe at the idea you were like uh later

i got i'll be right back i mean i've got fifth period but then i mean wide open after that free day dick just rock hard swinging in the wind, wide open. All day. All day long. So they said, why would they be afraid of Shannon Johnson, some chick? She's a teenager just like you. What are you afraid of her for? And he said, quote, they knew of her reputation.

She was involved in gang activity and could carry through with her threats with gang retaliation. So that's what they said here. The lesbian gangster. Yeah, this is a lesbian gangster. So apparently so. That's a thing. Well, yeah. I mean, yeah, I'm sure it's a thing, but it's pretty salacious in the newspaper.

I think that's where they're going. Lesbian gangster couple hires teen hit squad to murder husband in basement on Easter morning. That's a fucking headline. it's a big one but jesus people are like whoa what's going on here you're cracking that paper open if you live in a small town holy shit it's a lot of wild facts we didn't know we're going on never mind never mind the sheep and wolf festival this is way more interesting jesus christ so uh uh yeah he said that he told him the thing about stopping by the shirt, the store to get the print shop, to get the sweaters that he had,

the sweatshirts. And he said that she told him that the sweatshirts weren't ready yet. So, uh, she also then said, you're going to kill my husband. And he was like, no,

but I'll pick up the shirts later. He said, just every time. So how's it going? Are you going to kill him? No. All right. Well,

here's your shirts and I'll see you tomorrow. It's very weird. Yeah. He said he returned a few hours later to get the shirts and she gave him an envelope while he was standing there. He said he knew it was money, obviously. So he said then after she handed him the envelope with the money, then Shannon Johnson walked over and threatened him.

This is the quote. Johnson said that, quote, i better do this or she was going to kill me and my mom there was that um here's your six sweaters here's your sweaters so he said he left the shop scared where he went to his car and that's where his other two friends were waiting yeah and he was like look this is what's going on right i got this money and she wants me to kill this girl and just got her husband and they're threatening to kill my mom and all this shit so they were like all right cool cool yeah he says quote there was a discussion and we ended up at the borchardt house he said there was no planning and at all and he said at the last minute the josh yankee guy tried to back out

yank tried to back out and he said that's when maldonado grabbed the gun from doug vest and said quote let's just go do this that's the that's what they're all saying here um he insisted that it wasn't planned at all he said even on the car on the way there he said uh there was no discussion of duties or anything like that like you do this and i'll do that none of that shit so they asked him quote you mean this all just fell into place and he said yes it's not too hard to just shoot somebody, I guess. That's why the dismounts, the part where you got to plan for. So he said that he relayed information from Diane that included which door of the house would be open and, you know, a map of the house all drawn and all that kind of shit. Josh, apparently Josh's job.

He was he unplugged one of the phones uh which he was supposed to unplug the phones but apparently he josh unplugged one of the phones and then ran away to the car got scared um so yeah uh everyone's saying it's kind of not disputed that maldonado was the trigger man everybody Everybody says that. But he's saying, not my fault. You know, coerced. March 4th, 95, the verdict comes in. The jury has their say on it. And they say, guilty as fuck.

Yeah, you're guilty, dude. Everybody? Just him so far. That's just him. March 13th, 95, Diane is put in jail. She's actually jailed. Her trial is postponed three days later. They yank her bail. Never could figure out why they yanked her bail.

It was something she did or if they were thinking that maybe she was a threat on the outside to witnesses or something like that. It was an intimidation factor. Not sure. But they also arrest Shannon Johnson for conspiracy to commit murder and for perjury for lying in a hearing about shit. This bitch. So, yeah. April 19th 1995 michael maldonado's trial starts and uh this little asshole his trial here he says he was nowhere near the scene he was home in bed sleeping he's innocent okay um so that's that's his his not a good story it's a

story i don't know i was in the bathroom is that that someone he's going to go with? It never works. So April 22, 1995, there are custody battles here for Regan, the daughter. Regan, I guess, in Ruben's will, he had a couple of Steve and Barbara Kulo was supposed to be their guardians, according to the will. But she said she didn't want to live with them. So she says that she's still saying her mother's innocent and all this uh she says that the culos believe her mom is guilty and that she doesn't want to live with them because of that um so her lawyer she has a lawyer too regan asked the judge to you know take regan's wishes into consideration and uh she had been staying with a couple called the shilers uh since june and she would want to stay there.

So the lawyer said stability in this girl's life is what she needs right now more than anything else. And the Shilers are the only people that she trusts, and it's a stable environment for her. So they said, yes, good. Okay, good. Stay with her. I was about to say, the judge right now has a responsibility to make sure that that girl's fucking head stays okay. Yeah. And forcing her to be somewhere where she doesn't want to be is crazy. The judge right now has a responsibility to make sure that that girl's fucking head stays okay. And forcing her to be somewhere where she doesn't want to be is crazy.

There was also another couple, John and Vicki Roth, who were also trying to get custody. So there was plenty of people willing to take them in, which was supportive and great. And they all had sought guardianship, and they all said they wanted to reunite her with her siblings as well, who they are not talking right now. Really? They think they're sure diane killed her dad and regan's saying mom didn't kill dad so it's getting a little weird oh so regan's sticking with the fact look dude a dude shot him yeah not my mom exactly so she doesn't understand the how this works she's in denial it's her mom her dad's dead now her mom's going you know like the other kids they already lost their mom so it's one of those things. Now, Maldonado, back to his case.

April 28th, he is found guilty of murder here. For his sentencing, a lot of his family's there. Also a lot of Ruben's family's there. And it's a tense situation. We'll put it that way. The judge says, quote, the defendant did it purely and simply for money very little money and i believe for the thrill of it this person acts without emotion

only by greed and contract yikes they let the uh they let some of the family members talk here one here uh michael culo the guy who was uh there he says quote you're going to have a rough rest of your life here michael but I think you deserve it. He said that, you know, Maldonado deprived Ruben of being able to, you know, to see the birth of his grandson that Brooke just had. Brooke just had a baby and named him Ruben after his father there.

And he said, quote, Mike might be one of the youngest three juveniles, but streetwise. And I think the smartest of the three is what he says. And the judge says, I agree with that. You, sir, may fuck off 49 years in jail. Wow. Yeah. He banged him good.

That's a lot. What was the other guy's name? Kulo? K-U-L-O-W. Got it. Okay. Kulo. Kulo. Kulo. If you don't want that spelledanish ass it's not gonna work that's tough stuff it is that's rough man what's his first name uh steven steven spanish ass that's not good at all so uh yeah maldonado is gone 49 years the

prosecutor wanted 50 to 75 oh the judge stopped just short of 50 with the 49. So there you go. Now, May 2nd, 1995, Doug Vest is getting sentenced. He tried to really fight it hard. And you, sir, may fuck off. Life in prison for Doug. Oh, my word. Doug set that old thing up.

He struggled so hard, and they still got him. Life. That's crazy. So May 8th, 1995, Diane's jury selection begins here. Now, May 12th is the trial starts. One of the first things we got to talk about is the fact that he said, Ruben, as he was dying, I can't believe she did this to me. Okay.

Now, this is what can be called an excited utterance okay there's this there's a certain way that you're allowed that the dead people's words can be allowed and it's it's very specific in terms of um let's say let's say you're you're shot in the street and you're dying yeah okay and a cop comes up to you and he's trying to help you and paramedics are coming and you say tony shot me yeah he fucking shot me walked right up to me and he fucking shot me and then you die five minutes later right that you that's not admissible in court not admissible not admissible but yep if you said i'm dying and tony killed me admissible in court really if the paramedics told you there's a good chance you're going to die

and then you said Tony did it, that's admissible in court. Oh. You have to, the person who's dying has to know they're dying and know that this is like a last declaration.

Solve my murder. Avenge me. Avenge me. That's the only way that that's allowed. It's called an excited utterance. Interesting. They're calling this an utterance, though, and they're letting it in that part okay they're saying he knew that's what they're saying so but there's so that's always a fight because that's always a gray

area but all he said was she it could have been i don't know the lesbian gangster who know or his girlfriend or the lady at 7-eleven who knows i mean was just a female. That's all we know at this point. The cashier at aisle four at the Piggly Wiggly. I don't know why she did it. I know I got 12 items and I come to the 10 line all the time, but I didn't think it was to this time. I didn't think it was going to come to this. I thought I just put back the

Trident. Oh, Christ. So, one of the witnesses here is Charles, the son. And Charles says he was home. He says he witnessed an argument the day before where the sewing machine thing, jumping on the back and the kicking and the punching and the whole deal. And also the fact that she took the dog with them, with her. And she said it's weird because she's never taken the dog anywhere before.

And they said, let me ask you a question. When someone comes to a door, is the dog quiet? And he goes, never shuts the fuck up. So if you were going to let somebody in, you wouldn't want that dog around waking everybody up. She disarmed the alarm. Absolutely. She did. And because she wasn't there, he didn't put his mayonnaise jars up that night because she wasn't around.

And she hauled ass four hours away. Exactly. I'm good for the night, thank God. here exactly so vest refuses to testify now now as he refuses to testify um he's saying no why would you you got life in prison reads from a card claiming his rights against self-incrimination refusing to answer questions um it's fucking amazing he just uh uh he had claimed though that he was paid basically six hundred dollars in cash because they say okay fine they just let a statement in from the police and they read it so they're like good you don't have to testify we have your whole statement fuck you sit there asshole while everybody looks at you and it's it's you've been convicted already so go away so the six hundred dollars cash twenty thousand dollars

everything we've said before um you know they read in that he brought the other two in the whole deal uh um so he it's weird that he would like refuse he basically said i'll cooperate and then said never and then just wouldn't do shit shannon johnson has to testify they They call Shannon Johnson. Oh boy, this is an interesting one. Shannon Johnson, she said she calls her Miss B. She calls Borshard here. She tells the jurors here that she met with

Vest two months after Easter Sunday murder to get the details of the murder so she could put them in a suicide note along with a confession to prevent the arrest of diane okay she was gonna kill herself she was gonna kill herself she says quote i was going to leave a note and kill myself i didn't want miss b to get caught she had so much more to live for than i did i didn't want regan to be without a mother or father, she said. So she was planning.

She said she was basically, she asked the location. She asked where the murder weapon was so she could go get it and put her fingerprints on it. Because she said she wanted to seal the plot and tell them where the gun was. And here's my note. And divert police away from Diane, who she characterized as a mother figure. And someone that she would quote do anything in the world to protect yeah including kill herself wow so maybe the you I have a hard time feeling that you would do this with like a with like a a motherly figure that you knew from

high school this is either a relationship or or a mother One of the two. She's incredible in bed. Something. She's got to be. It's the only way people do shit like that for each other. Like I said, unless, I don't know if Diane, when Shannon was four, Diane rushed into a burning house and took her out. That's the only other way I could think. Did Diane get Shannon off of fucking meth or something?

That's what I mean. What did she do for her that was so great that you'd kill yourself and take the rap for a murder? She said that she did threaten to kill Vest if he didn't carry out the murder, if she told on Diane because she didn't want Diane to be arrested. Daniel Vest said that Johnson told everybody, she asked, quote, are you really going to do it? Johnson told everybody, she asked, quote, are you really going to do it? And she said he responded, quote, I won't get caught. At which point she said, you better not rip her off. That's what Shannon said.

Like, you better fucking do it. You better not take her money and rip her off. I'll kick your fucking ass. Wow. Steal the $600. Yeah. So Vest's attorney, though, attacks her, saying that her statements came only after a proposed plea agreement that would dismiss her murder charges against her. The district attorney says it was dropped because there's no evidence that she actually participated. She still faces perjury charges because she lied during a probe hearing earlier.

Now there's a non-murderer witness, which is what we really need. Someone who never threatened to kill anyone or participated in this murder. Okay. Somebody there. Somebody with some credibility. Yeah. This is a kid named tim quintero we talked about him earlier he's a guy who she had uh she had asked him about it earlier too uh he's not a convicted killer and he hasn't lied about anything so his testimony here he says that uh she had asked me to do it too uh she said he said uh she had asked him quote to do something to. He said she had asked him, quote,

to do something to her husband because she wanted to get rid of him, and then she drew him a map of how he could get to her home and fulfill the request. He says that he was told by his cousin, Doug Vest Jr., that, you know,

the details of the murder later on. He didn't do it, though. He says that he told, he said he knew about the money offer made to vest about a month before the murder and um you know he said he knew about the map the map was drawn about a month before the murder uh she drew it on the back of a study hall excuse slip yeah while he sat and watched which is insane so uh he he said there's no mistake she wanted there's something's hard harm to come to her husband she wanted to get rid of him he said that he kept he they said well why'd you keep this map

if you weren't going to do anything the defense tried to paint it like you were in on this and he said quote for the protection of my family oh boy he said he kept the map just so it knew they knew that she couldn't just say i don't know what happened those kids did it i had nothing to do with it when asked what he meant he said quoteado and Vest, could get in trouble for the whole thing. And she, Diane, would get away free. I don't think that's fair. Yeah, it's not. It's smart of him to keep that shit.

May 20th, 1995 is the verdict. Now, the jury goes into a sixth hour of deliberation, returning for its second day on a Saturday morning. So the defense feels pretty good about that. They feel good it's not a quick conviction. They're like, they're talking about it. This is good shit. But they come back after a few hours and say, you are guilty. Guilty.

She started crying in court. Diane did. She sat with her head buried over here and uh you know being upset there was a loud cheer from the uh other side the borchardt section here but across from there they have all of his families over there cheering and hugging but on her side all by herself is regan yeah who is not there she's now not part of that not part of that anymore not that they don't want her to be but she by choice taking her mom's side so i mean and i get it she's a 15 year old kid she doesn't want it to be true that her mom killed her dad holy fuck more understandable

i could not be i feel terrible for this young kid imagine being that age i can't and not only that you're in a small town and there's all this publicity and it's your mom killed your dad and your mom is she a lesbian was she fucking fucking teenage kids too this one that one what was that like that first murder in 20 years that'd be a nightmare for this poor girl i feel so bad for her man so she um oh christ she's there she said she had a neighbor trying to talk to her she's been estranged from her family members for supporting her mother and uh she says, quote, I believed in her. I knew she didn't do it.

She was not involved in the killing of my dad. She's still saying that news for you. Yeah. Brooke here, though, sister Brooke said that she's going to she make it her goal here to reunite the family. She says about Regan, quote, she's my sister. Diane stole her from all of us by doing this. She said, quote quote i know dad

would have forgiven diane he was a very religious man and knows that god is all forgiving myself i don't know if i can forgive her i don't know my feelings i just know that i never thought anybody would do this to my dad very honest um now uh his mother richard ruben's mother, Sadie, she also made a statement. She said, all the family can rest easier now, and then sobbed her way away here. So Steve Kulo, his friend, said, quote, the mastermind has finally been put away. Now Ruben can rest.

Makes sense. And then his sister, Ruben's sister, said, quote, she can't hurt anybody else anymore. So everybody's pretty happy. Even the Anita Vest, who uh doug vest's mother yeah the one that's lucky to be alive yeah she said quote justice has been done she wasn't upset by this actually uh they said that uh you know she said i guess that's what it is it is what it is man i mean you got fuck you man this is just so many people's lives how long did she get tragic we're not there yet oh okay don't worry um wait

what we're getting okay so uh uh she ruined this is uh here quote she ruined four families and stole my dad from me is what brooke said and uh she uh she at point, was holding her newborn son, saying that, named Reuben after her dad. That's very nice. She never got to see the kid. They said she had no regrets. Diane didn't testify. No? And the lawyer says he has no regrets in not having her testify.

She will later on say she had a lot of regrets that she didn't testify. If you lose, you always say that. The lawyer said, quote, it was my decision, and if I had to do it over again, I would do the same. She wanted to testify, but felt the state had not met its burden of proof to convict her. She said that they talked briefly after the verdict, and Diane hadn't said anything. The lawyer said, quote, she was crying and upset about her daughter. Yeah. said anything the lawyer said quote she was crying and upset about her daughter yeah um so the uh prosecutor said no i or the prosecutor said yeah i was nervous that they were going to acquit but

she said they had a lot of they had a lot of evidence to consider it was a bit nerve-wracking but i figured they would make the right decision um they said well what's what's the what's the uh what's the recommendation going to be for sentencing? And they said that the final recommendation will be, quote, it will be long, longer than Doug Vest. She faces life in prison plus 10 years for hiring a child to commit murder and for the involvement of a gun in the murder. And the judge has the right to set a date

when she'll be eligible for parole. In Wisconsin, life means life. That's the law there. So the judge can set a thing if I recommend parole. So there's no... Yeah. Right. It could be life, but I recommend parole in 40 years.

Right. You can look at her or whatever. So February 8th, 1996 is the sale of their home. And she's upset about this. She protests about all this. A judge ordered her home sold, and half the proceeds given to Brooke and Chuck there, and the judge says the home will be sold to somebody

for $186,000, 50% given to Ruben's children, and 50% held in an escrow account for Diane because it's half hers. Oh, and she's still alive. She's still alive. It's half her house. It's fucked up. She opposed the sale of the house saying she wanted Regan, her

daughter, to live with her daughter to receive the entire share of the proceeds along with one third of the other half. What? She wanted her to get one third of the other half what she wanted she wanted her to get one third of the kids half and and then put all of her stuff in regan's name that's what she wanted basically uh but they didn't do that which i mean what are you gonna do whatever it is yeah so uh but that request was actually opposed by the attorney saying that uh you know we're not

gonna do that basically and by the way if it's not paid off you're only getting whatever the fucking yeah whatever you don't know but he built it it's paid oh he built it yeah unless he's got uh you know yeah no i i just i just know from the case that he didn't but he could have but i know this case he actually was paid off uh so the prosecutor said quote diane borchardt has been manipulating her stepchildren and her own child throughout this murderous plot. Obviously, she manipulated one teenage boy to commit the murder. Her last bit of manipulation since her conviction has been to prevent the sale of the bare hole road property to a bona fide buyer and apply the proceeds to the needs of those children. those children doing her dirty work from i guess that's a prison name that i can't pronounce she cost the estate and the children a great deal because they still have to pay taxes and all

sorts of more shit like that fees and crazy shit he said that each day the each day um there was delayed it was costing money and he argued that taxes utility mortgage payments on the home are running more than a thousand dollars a month that was just being drained out of the estate, basically, which is crazy. That's expensive, and that's money that's just going away. No, it's fucking nuts.

So they're being set aside for her further negotiations to divide the money. Some of those funds could go to his family members because they recently also won a wrongful death suit against Diane. Yes, they did. Now, Diane, on the other hand, she has got to get sentenced here.

Diane sits her down. Now, the judge is like, you killed a husband who's a nice guy and you hired children to do it. That's crazy. It's not looking good for you. Judge says, you, ma''am may fuck off life in prison no parole possibility for 45 years oh jesus 45 years to a 35 year old woman right 80 in the 90s in the 90s so she isn't eligible for parole till 2035 so she's still in there for at least another 15 years wisconsin and then she's going to get

out and go these assholes find the show now what they did do to i guess immortalize her was uh i'm tired of the whole situation in 1996 they made a cheesy tv movie about the situation a two-parter to three hours and 20 minutes what oh yeah two part two night wow blowout network miniseries you know they used to do i don't remember what it was uh called the name of it too quote seduced by madness the diane bar chart story who was seduced though they tried to make it out like she was like trying to fuck the boys said she was offering the boys like that she yeah she was using sex as a thing which she wasn't even the like, OK, she might have been fucking, you know, may have been. She might have been bumping with the other one, the chick.

But she definitely wasn't. May had some Wisconsin scissor action. Maybe. So this movie is it gets six point five stars out of ten on IMDb. Oh, my. It's it's stars. Let's see. Diane is played by Anne Margaret.

What? Anne Margaret's like she's a diane is played by ann margaret what and margaret's like a she's a sex symbol from the 60s like she was known as like one of the most attractive women in the country and everyone loved her and all this she plays in the 90s she's playing that yeah even in the 90s though she was still way too yeah i mean she was attracted she's uh isn't she the one in the in the first fucking grumpy old men oh yeah that's her yeah that's her yeah yeah yeah she is hot so i mean yeah she was pretty back then too so she's about probably 15 20 years older than sex selling and then diane was then though they used this was the this is the time

of the salacious miniseries every network had a joey buttafuoco amy fisher series every single one and this is just reversed so this is fucking wild ruben was played by peter coyote who the fuck is that you'd know him if you saw him he's one of those guys you'd be like oh that guy holy shit ruben played by peter coyote all right i'll google it shuck yeah son the little guy no he's played by who toby mcguire get the fuck out swear to god toby spider-man yep uh freddie rodriguez played the michael maldonado that was the big complaint was they made uh michael maldonado yeah he's just a kid from wisconsin just whatever they made him look like a gangster in the movie like they had him like have like a

backwards hat that was like all but they just made him act like all gangstery and shit they're like he's just not like that at all he's just a dumb kid oh my god peter coyote yeah you know him right that's the guy that they had get killed? They had him get killed and Tobey Maguire find the body. He was in fucking Aaron Brockovich. Yeah, yeah. The DVD is on Amazon of that movie, the TV movie. It is $58.99 on Amazon.

$60? Not a lot of them exist. I'm not sure. $60? $60. For a made-for-TV movie? There's none of them exist. That not sure but 60 60 for a made for tv movie it's all there's no none of them exist that's why it better be amazing can you imagine buying that like i need to see this ann margaret tv movie toby mcguire it's got toby mcguire please take my 59 right now jesus got

peter coyote in it honey peter coyote's in this movie give me my credit card quick jesus free spider-man we gotta get this i gotta see what it was like so uh diana peels this and basically her appeals are on a couple of things very quickly one was by the admission of the excited utterance that was a big deal um that the court ends up ruling that that's fine he'd been shot two times and was wounded and this qualifies as a startling event or condition and the second element element was also met as his statement was way made while being under the stress of excitement caused by such a startling event condition uh so yeah there's a a death thing in that too i won't read the whole thing so ineffective assistance of counsel as well.

She says by not eliciting testimony. This is her ineffective assistance of counsel. Try. Okay. I usually I'm not going to get that detailed into appeals, but this is so fucking stupid and enraging that I want to fucking drive to Wisconsin and punch this lady. I've never hit a woman. I'll punch this lady right in the forehead for doing that.

Just for this. Yeah. She says. Okay. I've never hit a woman. I'll punch this lady right in the forehead for doing that. Just for this. She says, okay. Her attorney was incompetent because he didn't take the strategy to blame Charles for the murder. Wow. She said, well, Charles was in the house with him. Why didn't you say Charles killed his dad? Why didn't you try to pin a murder on an innocent 17-year-old who was sleeping in his room when his father was killed

why is she so mad she's not a good person um it's ridiculous nothing that the court decides that uh you know charles was a schoolmate and co-defendant or charles was a schoolmate with vest and yank and knew them and so they said why didn't you use that he knew them why couldn't he if i've been hacked why yeah we'll get together and kill my dad even though i love him um and also that because uh he was jesus christ nothing in the record they also say indicates that charles had any kind of a strange relationship with his father they got along great no evidence to connect him with anything uh i don't know the doug vest who confessed to the whole thing never mentioned him once that's a fucking thing also never said oh he was involved in it too uh he was uh he was outwardly sobbing at his father's funeral he's done everything right here uh she also contends

that uh deficient performance was demonstrated because he informed her that presenting charles as a co-conspirator was not an option in presenting her defense and he testified the trial counsel here that this strategy was discussed with her and that she expressed her belief to her attorneys that charles wasn't involved they said do you think we should try to put charles in and she said i don't think he was involved and they said okay then he's not part of it and now she's like why didn't you fucking say that so So, yeah. And then they also said in the end, the jury would have had sympathy for a teenager who lost his dad.

And who the co-conspirators weren't even saying was involved. And they would have taken that as even harder on Diane. And the judge might have said no parole at all. So maybe you'll get out when you're 80 now. But either way, she is going to be sitting a wisconsin prison until she's at least 80 years old unbelievable what a story till 2035 that is uh jefferson wisconsin and the borchards and uh poor ruben toby mcguire toby mcguire and uh and brooke and regan the poor i feel bad for all these kids man yeah and peter coyote he's a tough times and margaret sitting in the in the joint unbelievable and margaret in the clink it's not good jack lemon can't get to her there

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And then after that, what the hell? The 27th and 28th of March, Detroit. And then Cincinnati, come see us. Cincinnati, we just got a low ticket warning for that. So they're just about gone. You want to get those tickets right now. So close. So close.

Get those before they go. Come see us in March. Come see a live show. All that shit. If you want to follow us on social media very easy to do that we are at uh at murder small on twitter at small town pod on facebook and at small town murder on instagram and get in there follow us for all of the newest updates on not only show stuff when bonus episodes are released uh live shows new live shows that might pop up low ticket warnings all

that sort of thing and uh speaking of that next week we're going to put up a patreon show i had my schedule wrong and i because we were on the road but i thought we were on i messed everything up we want to be in town to do that yeah we want to be in town to do we got to go like get on a plane so we can't do that but next week we will have a bonus episode for you as well of the on patreon be on the five dollar or above like everything is nothing's ever going to be more than that we're not going to be like you need to pay extra to hear this it's we're amazed you want to pay anything to hear anything so thank you guys a ton for all that shit uh and i need to hear this list jimmy we've talked about them enough we've gushed now i need to hear them and

fully praise them jimmy hit me with that list this week's executive producers are tracy mitchell and her friend lq lq's ex is a a dickhead i'm told uh i'm fucking i don't know what happened but i guess he's a piece of shit so shit dude yeah uh thanks for listening lq uh he didn't give us money so he can fuck off justin mangum uh tonya volanek and j Jordan Bennett. Thank you guys so much for everything that you do for us. Froilin and Amber Olivo. Olivo? Olivo? Yeah. I think it was Amber's birthday.

Happy birthday. Something? I don't know. I wrote their names down because it was special, and I don't know what I was supposed to say because I'm an idiot. So thank you, Froil. And then Kelly Cook's birthday is this week, and her friend, I think, he may have been a special friend.

I don't know. Who? But he wanted us to tell her that. Well, happy birthday. And then Tigran Minotsicanion, I think that's right. Sure. Brandon Massey,

Elena Stochich, Stochadge. No, it's a J Leanne Fennessy, Josh McIntyre, Allison Morris, Bobby Colorado, probably not, but I wish it was, Emily Tran, Nicole King, Sydney Wilmington, Piper with no last name Joseph Stafford Matt Stafford's little brother obviously Brian Callen's brother Sean Tater Nuts Fleming Oh that's

Who is that? This is the second time That's Corn Tits brother Tater Nuts I thought you actually knew him I couldn't get Corn Tits's right i thought you actually knew i couldn't get corn tits out of my mouth for some reason hannah hart josh uh now nowakowski uh daniel harper phillips uh kale kale or kale ludwig uh allison collins mary kate uh ashley's uh right right uh actually

cheap bitch pony up soma sant uh denise anderson carlos lopez jackie sukup uh donated twice thank you jackie uh carrie snodgrass uh brandon finn i wrote down snodgrass and i remember there was a kid in high school named jesse gardens and uh some some genius uh realized that his last name spelled backward was snot rag that's what we called him for the rest of the time that i ever knew realized that his last name spelled backward was snot rag. That's what we called him for the rest of the time that I ever knew him. That's pretty solid shit there. Christy Inez Franklin, Phoenix Fire, Rashab Shaw, Jennifer Baker, Stacia, or Stacia, Ann Loading, Stacey Waller, Don Dickman, I am sorry, brother,

Chad Johnson, because he listens to this. Oh, Joe. Amelia Jones, Brady Thompson, Mindy Beaver, no, Deaver, Hammond, Jesus. Kristen Jazduduski, no, it's not. Jazduduski. Mike Sanders, Andy Cox, Jason Fuller, Jay Fuller. Jay. Thanks, Jason.

Clayton Stanek, no, Stanek. Leanne Hatch, Ryan O'Halloran, Joy Looper, Roseanne Bartley, Angela Hayes, Jessica, Wade's daughter, Jessica, Wade Boggs' daughter, Ed Reed's daughter, Alexandra, Taylor Clark, Danielle Webb, Jennifer with no last name, Ryan and Tristan Tisdale, Wayman's family. God, everyone today. Jennifer Pointer, one of the Pointer sisters. Wow. One of the Pointer sisters. Kazuka Dragon, Sarah Hanchett, Cody Rhodes, Dusty's son.

Dusty's son, who's a WWE star now off on AEW. I think he started it. Becky Gardner, Mitchell Herring, Amanda Mitchell, Jenny... Kevin's daughter. Right, obviously. Earl Scheib's daughter, Jenny. Wow, that paint money. Thanks.

Jess with no last name, Whitney Booza, Nora Seward, Shannon Wick, Marion, yes, Marion, Derek and Lavinia Adams, Jen with no last name, Jamie with no last name, Kristen Reiboldt, Brooke Dovers, that's Ben's sister. Ben's little sister, yeah, clearly, obviously. Samantha Krieger, Cindy, no, Cindy Bittner, Jamie McDonald of the old McDonald fortune. Well, clearly. Obviously.

It's from the Hall of Fame. We're getting the farm money. Get that big time farm money. Samantha Mayer, Crystal Walker, Robin Anderson, Jacob Dameron, Smokestack Matt, I think, because it said Snokestack, but I think Matt just misspelled his...

Yeah, I think he's just high. His little trucker handle there. I'm like the Smokestack, bro. Marcus Foldo, Bill Sosinski, Laura with no last name, Tara Louise, Janice Hill, Senora Feinstein. Hey, Senora. Tracy Renninger, Kwisatz Hatteratch. I don't know what that's supposed to be. Whoa.

Is that a joke or is that a real name? Kwisatz? No. It sounds like a weird store in the mall that closes down in a month. Kwisatz Hatteratch. That's Kwisatz Hatteratch. That's where you weird store in the mall that closes down in a month. Quazats Hatterats. That's Quazats Hatterats. That's where you get all your hats. Like Persian rugs and shit.

I don't know what's going on in there. Chris Crowe. Steven Rude came through. Thank you, Steven. Thanks, Steven. I wrote a weird name here. What did I do? Is that a pan?

No, it's not. What is that name? I'd show it to you, but you'd be like, what are you doing with your life, Jimmy? I can't read your handwriting either. Is that Ryan? If you can't read your handwriting ryan what do you expect from me i'm gonna figure that out uh diane dooley adam eudany pierce de courcy aaron ray matt butini uh or botany no it's botany isn't it that's italian i think dylan irish david decant uh sarah carpenter alexis saltzman craig cole uh michael ryan john heron, Bradley Spielman, The Gentleman Gamer, spelled like G-A-Y.

Cool. A gay gamer. I hope that he's beating the shit out of eight-year-olds that are calling him a homo. They're calling him the N-word. I am. Fuck you. Not yet. Bradley Spielman, I said that.

Nate Sage. Jason with no last name. Jenny Smith. Susanna Platt. Jude Kendall. Amanda Cassidy. Liz,man. I said that. Nate Sage. Jason with no last name. Jenny Smith. Susanna Platt. Jude Kendall. Amanda Cassidy. Liz. No.

Lisa Gallo. Not Callow. Gallo. Jerry Callow. Callow. Kate Graham. I believe that is. Obviously.

Right. I don't know who that is. Thank you. Steve Schnell. Thank you. Thanks, Steve. You fucking. See you in Philly.

Thank you. Peyton Meadows. Liz Vasquez. James Marder. Rachel Peterson, Justin Noe, Joshua Hust, Caitlin Mason, Gary Howard, Benjamin Hill, and Katie Baby. Obviously, Katie Baby. Thank you. Thank you guys so much for everything you do. And then also, big shouts to the Chiefs and all their fans for enjoying a win this week.

Congratulations. We are going to take credit for our moment of silence during the Kansas City live show. At the moment, at the time we were there, Patrick Mahomes had an injury that was literally the concern of Kansas City. Every car we got in, everywhere we went, people would be like, you hear Mahomes is practicing today? I don't know if it's a wise move he threw around. I don't know

though. It's all they have there. So we're very happy for them. We had a moment of silence before the small-time murder show to pray for Patrick Mahomes' injury. And guess what? It worked. You're welcome, fuckers. Enjoy it.

Thank you, everybody, from the bottom of our hearts. Honestly, we could not do this without you. And for reasons we won't get into, it's just been brought to our attention how important you guys are to us even more this week. brought to our attention how important you are you guys are to us even more this week because we as long as you guys support us we can do anything and the show can go on as long as we want it to and as long as you guys want it to because that's all really all that matters and uh and we'll keep doing it so thank you for for for always being there for us and and everything like that jimmy what if they wanted to thank you for being there for them how might they do that you can find me at wisman sucks w-h-i-s-m-a-n sucks on twitter instagram and snapchat it's uh

it's really great to hear from you guys i have a shit pile of messages that i've got to go through i have one that i'm trying to find and i can't find it uh but it was a it's a birthday thing that i'll get to next week it doesn't matter where can they find you it doesn't matter it doesn't matter doesn't matter uh you can find me at me at Jimmy P is funny or just copy and paste my name from the show description and make it easier on yourself because you're not going to spell it right. So do that. Find us. Keep coming back week after week because we have to come back week after week.

And damn it. You know what? We want to see everybody in Denver and Salt Lake City. And I can't wait. Can't wait until next week, everybody. It's been our pleasure hey prime members you can listen to Small Town Murder early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus and Apple Podcasts.

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