Small Town Murder - #160 - Trust Me, I'm A Murderer in Festus, Missouri

Episode Date: February 27, 2020

This week, in Festus, Missouri, a small town police chief gets a little too big for his own good, and seems to get mixed up in some things that aren't such a good idea. Like helping find someone to kill a former deputy's wife, at that deputy's request. But who end up dead? And why? This one has too many twists to count, including a seriously surprising conclusion! Crazy stuff!! Along the way, we find out that glass making seems pretty boring, that there is seemingly no end to small town corruption, and that two shotgun blasts to the head are considered very much intentional!! 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.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Small Town Murder early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. 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 Festus, Missouri, some seemingly ideal lives are shattered when affairs, lies, and small-town cops mix together to make a deadly cocktail. back to Small Town Murder.

Yay! Yay, indeed, Jimmy. Yay, indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I am Jimmy Wissman. Thank you, folks, immensely for joining us this week. We're so excited for this week. Another crazy edition. Hope you enjoyed last week's,

I don't even know what to say about last week. It was insane. It's a story. It's real. One of the strangest stories we've ever encountered and anyone's ever encountered, honestly, because it was just nuts. If you missed last week, don't skip that one.

Go back and check it out because it is bonkers beyond bonkers. But thank you, everyone, for all you've done for us this week, especially your reviews. If you haven't done it yet, please give us five stars on Apple Podcasts, that purple icon, or Stitcher, wherever you listen. It helps. Just say something.

Say you're following instructions or whatever. It doesn't really matter. It helps drive you up the charts, so do that. Head over to ShutUpAndGiveMeMurder.com right now for everything small-town murder and crime and sports. And if you're not listening to crime and sports, listen to crime and sports. We're going to tell you it's hilarious. If you would like to hear Jimmy throw up from laughing, listen to this week's crime and sports because it got really off the rails.

And we almost lost Jimmy there. He was having some problems. And the cause of it wrote to us. And he did. It's amazing. It's hilarious. Yeah, check out Crime and Sports. It's a nutty, nutty affair.

All sorts of new merchandise up. And especially, though, get your tickets to live shows. Live shows coming up March 13th and 14th. We are in San Francisco at Cobb's doing the Late Show. It's a Friday, Saturday night late show. And the Friday night's just about sold out, and the Saturday night is moving quickly. You better hurry up. Get those tickets right now.

Then we're in Detroit, and those are almost gone, too. And in Cincinnati, which are also almost gone, on March 27th and 28th. And then in May, we're going to be in Austin and Oklahoma City on the 8th and 9th. Portland, that second show in Portland, is almost sold out. Last I saw on Monday, it had like eight tickets left. So I'm not sure if there's any left now. Get those right now if you want to there. And all the other ones, please get your tickets.

They go fast. There's a show in December in Minneapolis that is like 70 sold out right now which is insane so thank you guys for getting those tickets but i love it we love it thank you we're so excited to come to all these places and see well we're happy to see you we're not excited excited to come to a lot of these places because let's face it you don't like it either you live in awful places we all do no one wants to come to phoenix either trust me so uh especially not in august not in august but thank you guys for that and uh that is by the way way, the show, the new Small Town Murder will be in October. Right.

We'll give you the date next week, October at the Tempe Improv. It's beautiful out there. Yeah. We're going to do a Crime and Sports Small Town Murder one night. Right. Get your tickets to those and check it out. And come see us there. We cannot wait.

If you want to be a hero of ours, a producer easy to do head over to patreon.com slash crime and sports or head over to paypal and use our email address crime and sports at gmail.com and every dime is well amazingly so appreciated we can't even tell you and on top of that uh this week tomorrow fr, we will be releasing another Patreon episode for Small Town Murder. Another bonus. It's a wild one, too, of course. As they all are. As that goes. But let's do the disclaimer. Get it out of the way and get right into the story.

Because it's crazy. This is a comedy show. It's a comedy podcast. We're comedians. So we're going to make fun of things. And there's murders involved. That's Small Town Murder. So you can expect that. And there's going to be jokes all around that stuff. We're going to make fun of things and there's murders involved that's a small town murder so you can expect that and there's going to be jokes all around that stuff we're going to joke about you know small towns we're going to joke about like a police force that can't get their shit together to you know convict a murderer or at least arrest a murderer we make fun of murderers for doing crazy things yeah that's what the show's about that's that's all fine but we go

out of our way not to do though so we try not to make fun of the victims or the victims families because we're assholes but we're not scumbags that's right that's how it goes there we think that makes everything wonderful and okay and uh otherwise we're just here to have a good time yeah these things happen they do murders happen in the world and we can't stop them no and if we stop doing the show tomorrow, people will still die. Yeah. That's the thing. And then some people, this is how they, this is how people relax.

This is how people unwind. If you have a dark sense of humor, this is it, man. And it's sorry. We're not going to apologize for having a dark sense of humor and you shouldn't either. No. Some people,

some people will try to make you feel guilty for enjoying something dark and you shouldn't. Enjoy what you enjoy and live your life because someday you might also be murdered it could happen so do you want to not have enjoyed your life or do you want to just have a good time so with that said yeah if you don't think it's you never want jokes and true crime together then you should probably take a hike now yeah let's get out of the car man i don't want to hear you complain but if you think that you want to have a hike now. Yeah. Get out of the car, man. I don't want to hear you complain. Yeah.

But if you think that you want to have a good time and hear a crazy story. Yeah. Then I think it's time to sit back and shout, shut up and give me murder. Let's go on a trip, Jimmy. Great. What do you say? Let's do this. Let's get out of here.

We're coming from Arizona. Yeah. So this is where we are. Packing up the home base. Yeah. Getting everything going. That was a nice short trip last week for us. Get in the car.

Come on, Benny. Get in the car. Get your barrel ass over here. Let's go. He hops right up in there. We're going to go all the way to Missouri this week. Checking it out in Missouri. Going to Festus, Missouri.

Never heard of it. Which sounds like a type of sore. I have a Festus on my arm. It's weepy. It's a problem. I've got to see the doctor. I can smell it. Can you smell it? it's not good i can't see it it sounds like an infection it's wet infection missouri it doesn't sound good it's in central missouri on the eastern border over there

yeah it's near st louis it's about 40 minutes to st louis about three hours and 45 minutes to memphis if you go the other direction, take it south. And then it's about 30 minutes to Bonne Terre, Missouri, which was episode 109. Our last Missouri episode. That one was fun. March of 2019. You believe that was a year ago? Wow.

Insane, right? So this is in Jefferson County, Missouri. It's 63028 is the zip code. 636 area code. A lot of threes and sixes in there six square miles it's just all sixes it's about that is not you don't want that many sixes around yeah it's dangerous it's a lot of sixes everything i've heard religiously that's not lines all up here yeah especially in the bible belt there's got to be connotations i'm not sure uh town motto yeah they're trying to they to, they know this doesn't sound good.

No. So they're trying to make it sound better. Motto, quote, not as gross as it sounds. That's not bad. Yeah. I got to say. Right away, you're got to diffuse the problems, I feel like. Maybe that's it.

So the history, I'll give you a brief kind of a history here. It used to be under Spanish authority back in the 1700s, this area. And then settlers were allowed by the Spanish to have a certain amount of land here and there. Kind of most of it along the Mississippi River there. And most of the earliest settlers, this was originally the Louisiana Territory. Got it. Obviously, this is what Thomas Jefferson purchased. Part of that purchase.

Lewis and Clark went and just check out the new shit we bought. The equivalent of going up in the attic of a new house. Let's see if anything got left up there. See how far it stretches. An old newspaper. Look at that. Look at that. It's from when Kennedy got shot.

Anything say anything historic that's worth some money up there? Let's check it out here. Now, many people here the the uh there's a lot of french people in this area yeah uh to begin with for some reason all sudden not a not a razor in the place just hairy and stinky everybody could use some germans i don't think we have many french listeners so fuck off we have a lot of british listeners now that are like yeah fucking baguette eating cocksuckers there's white flag waving fucking angry as shit over there hating the French nothing I love more than the English than the English is just derision of the

French I don't know what it is and I don't know if the French are fine they don't do anything to me I don't have anything against the French but the fact that they hate them so much is hilarious to me it's just so funny it's so funny it's it's like and they much is hilarious to me. It's just so funny. It's so funny. And they're right next to each other. It's like one state hating another with vehemence. It's Alabama hating Mississippi. Yeah. For what?

For what? But they're like so different in terms of countries. You don't get states that are right next to each other that are so drastically different. Except for like maybe Arizona and California. Right. Possibly. So I guess it does happen sorry about that never mind french you're waving your waving that white flag we can see your hairy pits yeah yeah france oh france they do get a bum they take a beating get a bum rap on the military thing they do actually meanwhile they make some pretty decent food.

Everything's so sweet. Well, the cuisine is everything. Everything in cuisine is all from French cooking. They figured out how to do shit, basically. To apologize. I'll make you dinner. All fancy cuisine is, I do not like you. I have been rude this entire time.

You will eat my cheese and it will be delicious. And that's it. And we will make up. You will enjoy. Okay. Okay. So Festus got a post office in 1883. So the Festus Post Office.

Sounds wonderful. Festus and Crystal City are known as the Twin Cities. No, they're not. Yeah. I was going to say. Maybe in this area i know better a lot of other twin cities but they're gonna we're the twin cities festus and crystal city gross so in 1843 a michigan company did a search to find land with a lot of minerals in missouri and a mineral a mineralogist found silica sand on the east side of the Platten Creek in 1868. And they analyzed these samples in England, and they determined them to be of superior quality for glass manufacturing.

So they have it all here. And now we can ship all your shit in these little packets. Yes. That's what that is, right? That's that shit that says, do not eat? Yeah, that's the shit that keeps your mold out of your... your yeah but this is a sand that they would make into got it yeah okay so they can crystallize it yeah they make good glass here okay so a captain ebenezer ward a guy from detroit founded the american plate glass company in a in a town he called

new detroit oh on the mississippi river because he has no imagination yeah and he called New Detroit on the Mississippi River because he has no imagination. And he called his company Detroit Glass Stuff. So, yeah, they had to clear away brush and build homes for employees and family. It was just an area of forest and things like that. And they said, clear it all. We're building a factory and we're making glass here now. So it was a whole thing. They they said, clear it all. We're building a factory, and we're making glass here now. Oh, boy.

So it was a whole thing. They had to get it done now. Yeah. So in 1877, they sold the glass plant to Crystal Plate Glass Company of St. Louis. And the town grew into basically reputation as the Glass Town. Got it. The other town there, Crystal City. They changed that town's name to Crystal City from New Detroit.

Is this where all the best crystal comes from? I mean, I guess so. You gotta assume so. Crystal Plate Glass, yeah. It was a company town. Basically, they named it Crystal City. And Crystal Plate Glass was, you know. Fascinating.

Owned the town. No saloons were there. They had no saloons, non-employee homes or private enterprises. The town was just glass owned and run by this company. And they were the Green Bay Packers. That was it. But I mean, they were the law and everything. You weren't allowed to have a you weren't allowed to move to this town if you didn't work for that company.

That's wild. It's fucking insane. You weren't allowed to move to this town if you didn't work for that company. That's wild. It's fucking insane. So the Festus was first called Tanglefoot. Oh, that's no good. Which sounds awful.

It does. Tanglefoot? I don't know which one's worse. Tanglefoot. Is it? Well, I don't know. Festus? I feel like when you get Tanglefoot, then it develops into Festus after a while.

It's one of those things, you know those things. It's turning Festus now. Oh, shit. I had Tanglefoot last week. You know how those things go when you don't treat it. Now it leaks. It's turned into Festus. Shit. I should have seen the Crystal City doctor.

Yeah. Well, Tanglefoot, I guess they said the residents wanted to have a more dignified name. So this isn't Tanglefoot. This sounds like it doesn't sound dignified. So the legend has it, which means it's probably not true, but usually funny. Legend says a woman named Elizabeth Posh, who's a local business owner, opened her Bible and declared that the first proper name that she would come upon would be Tanglefoot's new name, and that was Festus for Acts 25.1. I know nothing about the Bible.

I wonder what that is. What's that verse? I don't know. Festus. That's the beginning word, I imagine. If thou don't use Neosporin, thou shalt develop thy Festus. Thine Festus, I believe, is how it's stated biblically. I don't know if that's a metaphor.

I'm not a scholar on this type of thing, but I believe that's how it goes. For a while. If thou foot tangled. Yeah. So, yeah, festus in 1887, they became a town. And most of the people here, they still worked at the glass plant. They just worked over. They lived over there instead.

In 1895, the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company acquired the factory and the town and everything like that. And Crystal City was basically wasn't allowed to people weren't allowed to purchase private lots and you know turn into a real town until 1906 my christ what is that 20 years owned and run by this company yeah it was it was absolutely nuts and uh yeah so it's it's this is where we're coming from it's an industrial town that then once that kind of goes away yeah you know more people move in they have to find another identity yeah that's kind of goes away, more people move in. They have to find another identity. That's kind of how it works. That is a real bummer about tying your identity to a fucking industry.

To one company. You don't know if that's going to die. Yeah, you don't know. You don't know shit about it. Well, Jesus, someone could manage it poorly, and then what? Your whole town's going down. Yeah, forget about new technology coming through. Just poor management.

Who's your CEO? Sometimes businesses suck because they're run by people. Enron? People suck. That's what I mean. businesses suck because they're run by people. Enron? People suck. That's what I mean. So I found some reviews of this joint here. Nothing terrible, terrible, but, well, no, they're pretty bad. Okay, let's get into it.

Okay, one star. Found two one star reviews. This is amazing. Quote, stupid, period. Lamest, in quotes, city ever another that's another period it's another sentence steer clear period yeah seriously period so this motherfucker is he's not kidding yeah is what i get i'm getting out of this uh people here are incredibly rude they are mean to you for no reason whatsoever and there's nothing to do unless you go to church, do drugs, or drink.

If you don't do any of these things, good luck finding something to do. There's always a bad smell of some sort, and you can hear a traffic noise no matter what you do. No good restaurants, either. Your choices are either McDonald's, Captain D's, or Chinese takeout. He's bummed. It sounds fucking bleak there. It sounds bleak.

That's that seafood joint, Captain D's, right? Is it? I don't know what that is. I think it's like Long John Silver's. Oh, is it? I think so. Is it Captain Bill's? It is.

Is it generic Long John... I think it is. Captain Bill's is a sandwich shop in Phoenix. Okay, then Captain D's is the one. Yeah. That's the one that has... Captain Bill's has like the... Captain Bill's is delicious.

It's delicious because it's a bunch of 19-year-old girls in scantily clad outfits delivering a mediocre sandwich to people. For some reason, it tastes better. I went there once. I had no idea of that. And I'm like, why are all these girls half naked? Shut up, James. It was just weird. And then I realized that.

And I looked around at the clientele. I'm like, oh, that's what they do here. It's a bunch of guys. This is like a sandwich shop Hooters want to be. A bunch of dudes in construction hats. Yeah, it was like this. I just thought it was a sandwich shop. No.

Okay. And it was not a great sandwich. And I'm like, why is this place so packed? Very weird. It's delicious, James. He's like, stop saying it's bad. I like it the most. You're going to cause an issue, and you're going to make it close.

Yeah, it's just bologna on Wonder Bread, but I don't care. For some reason, it feels like it's made with love. I don't know why. That's awesome. So here's another one. That's what it is. I think it's the knockoff Long John Silver. Jesus, that's terrible, man.

It's not good. Mr. Pibbs of grassy food. Right. Fuck me. So here's another one-star review. My family has lived here for 20 years. This is a very racist town. Okay?

So stupid, lame, and racist we have. It's super racist, and I've stuck around. So what does that make me? 90% so-called entitled white people the rest is variety okay variety of so-called so-called entitled white people i don't know what that means a lot of meth addicts and other drugs extreme amounts of registered sex offenders jesus christ that's not good i have experienced a lot of racism here and double standards this is a place you stop and get gas.

You never make this your home. Theft is rampant here. Mostly white meth addicts. I swear it sucks. One star. White meth-y chomos are here. Yeah, this is a cry. Both of these are cries for help.

They're like, please save me. They're like hostage fucking messages or something. Please, you can leave anytime you like. Yeah, you can. Please go. You live in Festus. No one. We get it.

How terrible is that? You've got. If you. When you say I live in Festus. Yeah. You put the word in in front of Festus. And it's even grosser. Even more green and bubbly.

It's not good. People here. Population 11,910 yeah it's up 47 since 1990 because it's drivable to st louis so there you go uh females is about average it's a lot of average average married population average age about 38 average uh average average average average basically uh race it's a little not quite average. Race is down 93% white. Yeah. 30 minutes outside of St. Louis.

Yeah. There's a few black people in St. Louis. There are. A couple. Yeah. There's at least Nellie and his family. At least a few. Yeah.

That I know of. There's the Cardinals and the Rams. It's a pretty. The Rams don't play in St. Louis. You're right. Maybe it's because there's not enough black people. That's like look we're not gonna do this if you won't do this is terrible no one no one's gonna get on board then we're gonna leave so i forgot about that they've been gone for like five years oh yeah they have a new stadium and everything they're

doing great in la they're thriving they almost go to the superbowl yeah they're doing fantastic they're thriving i don't give a shit super bowl and everything they went to the super bowl from another city sticking them there so uh 92 93 white 3.2 black so not not very black 0.6 asian uh 2.6 hispanic it's pretty white it's a white town uh that person that said 90 percent uh so-called entitled white people i don't know about the entitlement of them but 93 white people they weren't far off at least so-called that's so-called anyway 36 you know post 9-11 you know it goes 37 percent of the people in festus uh are religious uh uh there uh by the way post 9-11 is a callback it is other show if you yeah don't yeah if anyone's

like what are they talking about listening yeah you'll get that go back you'll hear it more so uh religion in this town 37 religious well baptists and catholics are about equal it's the middle of the country so it's you're going to get a mishmash with some pentecostals a couple of presbyterians a lutheran or two in there 0.00% Jewish, 0.0% Muslim. The last election, they were really up and down on their politics here, too. It's weird. They go like kind of every other election. They'll go, they voted Democrat in 2000, Republican in 2004, Democrat in 2008, Republican in 2012.

It's like they all come together and they're like, you know what? Let's flip the script on them. They figured it out now where they are, though. 2016 and 2012, they vote a Republican both times. And last election, 65% Republican. They went hard on it. Yeah, they went hard on it. Unemployment rate here is about average like the rest of the country, a little under 4%. Median household income is a little bit low.

Normally, it's about $57,500. Here, it's just about $50,000. So, not too far. A lot of people make $, it's about $57,500. Here is just about $50,000, so not too far. A lot of people make $20,000 to $60,000, also a few over $100,000 here and there. A lot of jobs in retail trade for some reason. I see tons of jobs there. I don't know why. It's tough living here. I guess so. Cost of living here, $91,000 out of $100,000, $100, 100 being regular or average. But the lowest thing is housing. The median home cost here, $170,200, which is low. That's a 73 out of 100. At 20 grand, you can't afford it.

No, that's why there's almost 30% of the people here are renters. Really? So, yeah, it's a lot of rentals here. That reflects in the income. And if we've convinced you that Festus is the only thing for you, then we have for you the Festus Missouri Real Estate Report. Your average two-bedroom rental here is about $810 a month. That's a bit high. It seems a bit high, but I think it's in line with the average.

It's a competitive renting market because so many people rent. Yeah. I found a three-bedroom, two-bath, 1,500-square-foot trailer thing. Yeah. I don't know what it is. It's pretty fab. It looks like a trailer that they tried to stick on the ground and make it look like a house, but it's not. Did they put it on like a...

It's got a lattice thing under it. It's a trailer, basically. They didn't put it on a concrete foundation because they do that sometimes. Beats the shit out of me. That's kind of cool. Do you get concrete for 97 grand? Because that's how much it costs. I found a foreclosure.

Everybody, pounce on someone else's misery. I found a four-bedroom, two-bath, 2,128 square foot. Need some work, though. but $104,900. Okay. That's a lot of house for that. It's affordable. And then I found a five-bedroom, five-bath. You've been successful at the glass plant.

T-holes and B-holes, they all match up. They all match up for everyone. 3,441 square feet, very nice stone facade. Whole deal. 525 grand. Unreal. For that. That's your top of the market there. Fantastic. Not too bad.

If you have the cash, it's not bad to live. You could buy a nice house there. I don't know if you want to have it there, but you can have it. It's available. They are there. Things to do in this place. Oh, boy. I found, first of all, the Firecracker Festival.

Oh, I'm in. Yes. We've got nine left. I found, first of all, the Firecracker Festival. Oh, I'm in. Yes. I've got nine left. Sounds amazing, right? Jimmy's already done that festival. I'm chopping my fingers. I've got nine left. Let's do it.

Friday night, there's a band called Dear Darla with fireworks. And then the Jonathan Brady Band is on Saturday night, and there's fireworks. So everybody sign up for that and then finally the annual festus missouri traditional music festival yeah this is what i'm talking about traditional music oh yeah with mc george ports who is the national open fiddle champion so everyone bow okay great food and drinks will be available during the festival with a huge craft show on both days yeah the event is sponsored by the festus Missouri Parks and Recreation Board. Saturday's features.

Here we go. Emceeing, of course, George Port, said fiddle champion. Right. And then we have Eric Thompson, a bluegrass harmonica champion from Ironton, Missouri. I will watch those. Yeah, he's going to. Frank Ray, who's a WSM, which sounds like some sexual thing. WSM Grand Ole Opry.

I don't know. He does shit at the Grand Ole Opry. WSM, I don't know what that means. Joel Blonde and Cajun Aces, accordion extraordinaire. Oh, my God. I want to see someone get down with an accordion show. They're finding the worst instruments. Lil Miss Country.

Uh-huh. What does she do? Ruby Pearson is her name. I don't know her act. How old is she? It doesn't say. Oh, boy. I feel like she's like 63.

Okay, it's either that or she's six. Yeah, I feel like if JonBenet lived, she'd become this woman. She'd become Ruby Pearson, still in the same outfit. Oh, man. In some short shorts, and she's six,

and making everybody uncomfortable, but her grandfather's just cheering her on. Oh, come on. You can do it, Ruby. So fiddle champion George Ports will also perform with his Friends of Bluegrass band. The Bronx Boys Celtic Band will be here. Some Irish guys from the Bronx, apparently,

which is an odd thing in here. It's strange. The Howling Brothers, the Thunder and Lightning Cloggers, who's a champion clogging team. James, I feel like if we went to this, we would have so much fun laughing. I would laugh so hard. If you got me stoned enough before this, I would have a ball. We would have a great time. I would have a fucking great time.

Screaming, what the fuck is this? Let's go, Potts. Let's see those fiddle chops. Call yourself a champion. Nice shoes, fucker. Clog it up. Clog it up. I want to hear them.

The Worthington family will be there. Family Bluegrass Gospel Band. Can't wait for that. And then Sunday, there's more, buddy. Sunday, Fiddler's Frolic will be there. This is a multi-day event. Oh, it's a weekend. It's a whole thing. George Pllic will be there. This is a multi-day event. Oh, it's a weekend. It's a whole thing.

George Plotz will be back. The Ophalian Irish Dance Troupe will be there. Punch's family. They sing Bluegrass Gospel. Sean Flanagan, who's a Scottish bagpiper. You're damn right. Standing there bagpiping. Southside Creole Playboys will want to be there those guys are

fingering people everywhere come on over here now no one can understand what they're asking uh the baker family bluegrass band uh quote a fantastic up-and-coming bluegrass band apparently uh there's going to be a craft show both days free parking eight dollar admission though fucking better be free. There's camping, but no RV hookups. It's not fucking settle in. What are we talking about here? And they even list the motels available to go to.

The Comfort Inn, the Holiday Inn Express, the La Quinta, and the Quality Inn. The La Quinta. I like that. Usually a hotel is really nice when they say the Darcy. The La Quinta. The Brown Palace. The whatever. Darcy. The La Quinta. The Brown Palace. The whatever. Unless it's the La Quinta.

They say the La Quinta because there's only fucking one. In town? Yeah, I would believe so. Or the Comfort Inn. You have to apply to camp, by the way. There's a camping application on here. Well, James, it is overrun with pedophiles. That's true.

They all want to look at Ruby fucking Pearson. Ruby Pearson's little cowboy outfit. I'm going to go there. I think it's the Southside Louisiana, Southside Creole Playboys I have to keep away from Ruby Pearson. We're going to be camping.

We've got to have a gander at her for three days. Them damn Creole Playboys. We all fingering Ruby Pearson again. We can't have that. They fucked up the last festival with all the shit and I ain't going to have it again.

Sons of bitches, God damn it. And George Ports is running the whole thing so you can contact him if you have any complaints or bitches or moans. He lives there,

doesn't he? Oh yeah. That's his joint. He lives in, apparently, by his address on here, Shiloh, Illinois. Illinois is right next door.

He has been hired and he is coming to run this festival. This is like on the border of Illinois. So we're right. It's not Southern Illinois. This is like on the border of Illinois. Yeah. So we're right. It's the face of this. This is some hickey shit down here.

It's interesting. It's a goddamn bluegrass festival, I believe. George's Jack. Traditional music festival. It's not even bluegrass. I don't even know. Apparently, real hardcore bluegrass hillbillies get offended if you call their shit bluegrass. Really?

Hunter Thompson wrote a big thing about it back in the day. You're playing bluegrass in your kitchen? They don't like it. They don't like it. They don't want it to be called bluegrass hillbillies get offended if you call their shit bluegrass. Really? Hunter Thompson wrote a big thing about it back in the day. Playing bluegrass in your kitchen? They don't like it. They don't want it to be called bluegrass, apparently. They say that's the commercial shit is bluegrass and what they play is fucking hill music or whatever. Traditional music. Exactly. It's traditional like hill folk music.

It's our legacy music. God damn it. Ruby, get over here. It's our heritage. Jesus. Crime rate in this town, what we're here here for what we're interested in property crime right about average um not anything abnormal so i mean people complaining that it's very meth and stuff it hasn't affected the crime rate that's one thing violent crime murder rape robbery and of course assault the mount rushmore of crime is about average here also so whatever problems they are having with a meth-y population is not affecting. It's on par with the rest of the country.

Seems, yeah. You're no more or less meth-y than the rest of us, everyone. Calm down. Calm down, Festus. You're no more infected than anyone else here. So with that said, let's talk about a murder. Fantastic. I think we should do that.

I think it's murder time. 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 f***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. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, available exclusively on Wondery+, 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. Let's do this. First of all, a lot of the good information from this came from

the St. Louis Post-Dispatch from like 30 years ago. But still, good job, St. Louis Post-Dispatch. I hope you still exist. You know how newspapers are. Yeah, I'm sure. Online, I'm sure. I'm sure online. They must have a copy of it that goes out. I don't know if this is their main paper or not. I've only spent about a day and a half in St louis when these aren't one of the papers that are like that have been around for a long time like the boston globe or whatever the fuck when they exist online yeah and you click it and then you go to another article and then it goes you've exhausted all of your clicks please donate it all and i'm like fuck you i'm gonna pay you you just have to clear out your cookies from it and then refresh it what do you? I pay for all these newspaper sites?

Are you kidding me? It's crazy. I feel so terrible when I do it. I'd be asking for Patreon 14 times a show. But listen, you guys don't understand. I read so many newspapers today. I'm in for four grand a month on newspapers and fucking article things and everything. I've been verified shit and verify background check sites and everything

please help me i feel terrible not to do it because these people i do too a couple of them i actually give i actually do uh if they're really good and i use them all the time yeah i'll give money to them i'll actually uh subscribe subscribe to them and create an account yeah so st louis post dispatch good job on you maybe i'll add you to the list. We'll see. For now, though, I just cleared your cookies out and kept going. Actually, I don't know. I think you can have as many. Oh, I use an old newspaper archive site to get these, so I don't even know if they exist anymore. Anyway, let's talk about a guy here, William Nick Pagano.

Got it. Let's start with him. Bill. Yeah. Billy Pagano. Yeah. Oh. Like the coach.

Fucking Billy. Yeah, like Chuck Pagano. Right. Yeah. Billy Pagano. Yeah. Oh. Like the coach. Fucking Billy. Yeah, like Chuck Pagano. Right. Exactly. Bill was born in 1947. Uh-huh. He's from this area. His parents are William and Martha Pagano.

So he's a junior? William J. Got it. So it's a different middle name. So- But Martha and her sweet ass. Fucking everybody- So many Marthas.

Half the people we talk about, if you were born between 1930 and 1960, there's a good chance your mother's name is Martha. Your mother's name is probably Martha. Just is. Now, they owned a market here in Crystal City's business district. They owned the Old Pagano's Market, which was a little grocery type market. It's theirs. Strange. Now, they also had a daughter,

so he had a sister as well. And they're part of, there's an Italian community here from, because of the, there's a lot of Italians here because of the glassmaking industry. So back, turn of the century and shit like that,

that's when people italians started coming they would find out there's factory work here and they'd go there for it and there's st louis wherever they found out there was factory work that's why there's these pockets of italians in pittsburgh and cleveland and all these factory towns that which there was just work that they could do you could be an immigrant and still do that's why there's pockets of us everywhere in there and especially with glassmaking a lot of italians from the old country actually had skills in this sort of thing when it came to the catholic churches and buildings themselves there was glass and like the marble people and all the specialists when they were building all these

skyscrapers in manhattan back in that time period the italians were all like the special they all had like the specialty good job yeah because they well because they did that shit in Italy so a lot of them a lot of them were laborers too but a lot of the designers and shit were Italian guys it's awesome so you get uh you get a bit here a bunch of immigrants coming to to find jobs in the industry and that's kind of what they were part of a big part of this community especially back then Italians will will will really cluster up. They'll really cluster up. And especially if they're in a place that's totally different, like Missouri.

If you're in Missouri, you're going to find your shit and cluster. I mean, they did it in New York, but the Italian culture kind of permeated. It collects. You know what I mean? It pools. It pools, Jimmy. That's what it does the grease finds the grease up it pulls up plus i can't imagine it would be fun to be an italian in missouri in 1950

god jesus no i was in north carolina in like 2000 and they'd be like what's your last name you ain't from around here are you and i was like this is uncomfortable what are you mexican yeah it was not comfortable and it wasn't like oh where are you from like i wonder if it's interesting it was like he ain't from around here are you fucking like why and why are you here right so it was uncomfortable so i imagine you'd really want to cluster make me a quesadilla petrogio that's what it kind of felt like do you think they would notice no no they if i was mexican they'd pronounce it gallo anyway just to be a dick make me a quesadillo yeah make me a quesadillo petrogillow jesus christ so they uh they lived near the store when he was a child so his whole

life kind of revolved around this little business district and his store family store and seems like kind of an idyllic little you know idyllic little life for this kid. Not a bad life. He worked at the market there. He also went to St. Pius High School in Festus, where he was a good student. He was on the track team. Old Billy here, Pagano, he's on the track team. He was in Latin.

He took advanced mathematics, whatever that was back then. He's like an outgoing Gilbert Graith. Yeah, he's doing great. He also played on the football team and was the punter, place kicker, and a tackle. Oh, so he barely played on the football team. I mean, yeah, I guess. Punter, place kicker. He did better than I did.

I was going to say I didn't play at all, so that's fine. Hung out at the Crystal Hornet. Okay. Crystal Hornet's a hamburger joint. Oh. So you can definitely picture like Greece, basically, like this is, because we're early 60s, kind of a hamburger joint. Oh. So you can definitely picture like grease basically like this is because we're early 60s kind of a hamburger joint here. This place was owned

by the parents of a guy who will come into his life and play a very prominent role in it later on. Owned by the parents of a guy named Mark Todd. Mark Timothy Todd. They call him Tim Todd.

Oh boy. Now his sister, Terry Todd. Oh Timothy Todd. They call him Tim Todd. Now, his sister, Terry Todd. Oh, my God. It's a lot of T's. It is. Said that she or I'm sorry, that's a that's not a woman. That's a guy. Terry Todd is the brother.

I'm sorry. I don't know why I had that mixed up in my head for this whole time. I was researching Terry Todd in my head was a woman. He thought it was a girl. So Terry Todd said he he remembers seeing Pagano hanging out at the family restaurant back then and uh you know they were all you know it was a small town so everybody kind of knew each other and the kids all knew each other and it was that sort of thing you knew everybody from the other high school right the rival high school oh that's hated over there. And especially if you were on the football team, he's walking around with his letter jacket and all that shit.

Uh, three of the, uh, there's a, uh, three people that come out later on too. They talk about Pagano friends of his from high school that said that you could kind of see as in high school. Pagano kind of had a,

he was a boastful kind of guy. He was a very prideful, larragant, boastful. I mean, he's a fucking, he's a jock and i don't know there's also kind of a there's this especially back then there was a swagger the italian guys would put on too and it was just a you know a dick grabbing kind of a hey look at this fucking guy type of type of thing smacking everybody on the ass yeah it's a weird thing i don't understand it so a little boastfulness and also um he wanted to he was always trying to make friends with like

influential people and around town and whoever's in charge he's going to try to get next to him and figure out how he can influence them and shit like that yeah he's he's he's working shit here uh he would he would also like to, you know, he rode around. His parents had like a nice car and he would drive around in it and kind of, he was showing off. He's a little flashy, that sort of thing here. One of his friends said, a childhood friend said, quote, I don't know that Bill ever really knew how to make close friends, but he knew how to cater to people and cultivate them. He always saw himself in a higher position in life than he was uh later on when he became wealthy it was a power he used to influence people so this is uh

and i develop a kind of a narcissistic thing developing with him and uh also uh but other people said the opposite other people say he was a great guy like fucking bill was a great guy one guy said quote if you were around him he was extremely genteel and deferential to people's feelings so but that can also be yeah cultivating them that's how con artists are also you know what i mean i mean you know when a pimp meets a girl they don't say like i'm gonna beat you up and make you do drugs and give you me all your money they say nice things when you first meet them it's called grooming the mark that's what i mean it's it's grooming is exactly what that is whether you're grooming a a child for something horrible or you're grooming a another

human it's still for your own purposes you're looking to make your own you got to get the mark for your own yeah purposes so uh he said you know so so people liked him, but they also, and it was a thing where a lot of people who liked him said that some people didn't like him because they were jealous of him. You know, his parents did pretty well, and he was on the football team, and people liked him, and he was an easygoing guy, and so people were like, oh, this guy thinks he's hot shit. So there's a lot of that. There's a lot of people like that in this world, too.

Some people go, eh, they're just haters. Where you see them and you go, yeah yeah but if you get to know them you'll you're actually gonna like the guy exactly yeah exactly that happens a lot with a lot of different people yeah it's i know too many people where i'm like that guy's a douche why do you hang out with them a lot if you hang out with them you'll get to know them i'm not gonna get through this i've had to explain that a few times yeah about me in comedy in comedy yeah i've had to explain that a few times yeah about me in comedy in comedy yeah i've had to explain that a couple times i'm like no you don't know jimmy all right okay you gotta know him and then you'll love him he's fine he's great but if he says horrible things about you it means he likes you

that's a good thing yeah you're an idiot so if he doesn't then you should worry yeah i've had that a few times too people have like especially in comedy people just thought i was an asshole without ever talking to me right just like oh he thinks he's hot shit i'm not really i just don't like you i'm just i'm really miserable actually but i hate me too yeah i do if we get together we might hate me at the same pace yeah you're just mad because i high five each other over just mad because i do better on stage than you and that's basically how comedy works i hate myself as much as or more than you i just got better laughs tonight so chill the fuck out so uh uh he started dating in high school he started dating a young lady named mary eileen workmeister um He starts dating her, and eventually they get married in November 1965, which is five

months after graduation. This is some small town, idyllic shit right here. I shouldn't do it. Let's do it. In 1965, that's what you did. Get this life going. You had your high school sweetheart, and you graduated high school, and you proposed to her right after graduation, and you got married a few months later, and that was and then you have a kid by next summer you betcha let's get this going man

it is crazy uh so uh they uh they end up having five children all together that's a lot it's a lot of kids yeah it really is oh my god whole lot of children so um a little bit here i can't imagine it's a lot five kids is a goddamn lot of kids more than that man is fucking what are you doing well i would think i get it i know that there are people that do that shit on purpose yeah i mean it just seems fucking nuts to me if you have two you can you can control them yeah especially if there's two parents you can you get one i get the other once you have three you're still trying to keep it together as far as like okay i'll grab one and let him wander off a little then you grab the other and we'll pull that one in and you still try to keep it all together once there's four or five

i think you just go fuck it i don't let them destroy the fucking house i don't even care anymore here's the way i see it anymore i've seen people juggle with three objects you know yeah i can it's possible i can see that being done and understand the logistics of it. When there's like 19 fucking things happening and a dude throws a chainsaw into it, they're like, no. And something's on fire. That looks like 10 kids to me. That's five at least.

Five looks insane. Yeah. Looks like there's a chainsaw being drug around somewhere and I can hear it. I can't see it. When I see people with two kids just like less than three years apart, I'm like, oh, Jesus, how do you do it? Oh, my God. You poor son of a bitch.

I can't imagine even that. I just imagine. Too close together. Their house always smells like something's on fire. On fire or someone just pissed it out. Yeah. Was something burning and then urinated out is that what happened here that's what i need to set a new breaker somewhere what happened five kids

and you're lucky you're like five kids you'd be like i don't know maybe there's a fire somewhere go looking for one fuck i don't know if the fire department comes i'll say there's a fire i have no idea at this point fucking insane to me i don't understand wanting that. There are people that go, I want eight kids. Yeah, oh God, I want as many as I can. What are you doing with yourself? Funny. My little brother, his wife wanted five kids before they got married. And now they just had a kid.

And I think they're updating their total. I think they're updating the possibility. I don't think five's on the table anymore. They're like, this is hard. Maybe five isn't right. I don't think this's on the table anymore. They're like, this is hard. Maybe five isn't right. I don't think this is going to work. Granted, as they get older, they may help. And then you can be like, take your brother somewhere.

I can't do this shit. Get him away from me. But yeah, you got to spread them out then. That's the thing. In the event that that doesn't happen, then what? Oh, man. Every time you just restart the clock again to when you're going to have any time to relax. Zero hour ends.

Starts over. Just starts over, man. So Billy becomes a police officer. He's a young guy. They start having kids right away. So he needs something steady to support his family with, obviously. And police officer's a decent job for that. Becomes a police officer at a pretty young age in manchester missouri which is right

nearby and another little small town too he worked for a little while and then uh by the by 1974 he's 27 years old and he becomes the chief of the festus police department so yeah at 27 he's the youngest police chief in missouri at the time and at the time and all of Missouri still who knows 27 is very young for a police chief I mean Jesus Christ that's not a lot of time at all and you don't have to be voted into that right it's just a job that you can it's a hiring it's a hiring basically job I mean different towns and that essentially relies on timing anyway I think when this guy's going out and what's next I think the mayor hires I think they work for the mayor kind of not work for them but I think the mayor hires. I think they work for the mayor, kind of.

Not work for them, but I think the mayor or the mayor's whatever council that does something staffs this. He's in charge of hiring. Police chief, yeah. If you watch, kind of like on The Wire. Oh, God damn it. There you go. See?

Or in Batman. Mayor Gordon is hiring the police chief. Yeah, they're trying to push Burrell out and Karketty wants somebody else in there. They got to have a black guy because it's Baltimore and they need to offer more salary, but they can't because the council won't approve it because they're in with the old police chief with Burrell. It's a big mess. It's a big mess. So it's a

say you got to go through councils and politics and all this shit. So within that guy can essentially get the mayor fucking toss to if he's a piece of shit and he represents him. That's the other thing yeah it works both ways they kind of all it kind of has to be a simpatico between mayors and police chiefs i feel like grace each other's palms they have to they're there because if one does if the

police chief does something crazy makes the mayor look like an asshole so you know then he has to fire the police chief and then the police are mad at him and it's a it's a whole circle so within a few weeks of being hired uh pagano starts cleaning house he fires nine of the of the city's 12 police officers so then i have right away yes right away charging incompetence and even corruption wow so he gets he says it's a small town little shitbag police force that's been too comfortable for too long and i'm getting these slack jaws the fuck out of here i like it we're We're going to modernize this police force and bring this up. He's very ambitious, Pagano.

Streamlining. In 74, I'm starting an app. Starting an app, goddammit. Hopefully it'll work. In the 2000s, we're going to get phones that'll handle it. Oh, it's going to be good, but I can see into the future. He said,

the people said that he had a relationship as a tough cop. He tried, he rid the town of a motorcycle gang that was around. And he also, he was very proud of cracking down on young motorists cruising the city's main streets. Oh, God. Oh, Billy. Jesus Christ. God forbid.

You asshole. And the old people there were like, good God damn it. Wow. Really? Oh, they loved him for it. Yeah. Cleaning up the town. Get those stinky motorcycle guys out of there. people there were like good god damn it wow yeah really oh they loved him for it yeah cleaning up the town get those stinky motorcycle guys out of there who knows if they were even a fucking gang

yeah probably just like three dudes that ride motorcycles three dudes that are kind of dirty that rode motorcycles and they're get that gang out of here on my way to work these kids cruising around you know down at the fucking mulch how dare dare they go to the old drive in or whatever the fuck they're doing. He liked to talk about the garage, ridding the town of the motorcycle people, though. That's his friend said he would gloat about that everywhere. Remember when those people were here?

Yeah, that's right. Got rid of those sons of bitches, didn't I? They said that he also loved to drop names of people that he knew in high places. People around him would actually have to say at some point okay i don't want to hear about people anymore i don't want to hear about people you know anymore that's

enough i get it i get it you know you know the county attorney and this guy and like a big fucking deal like yeah he's a big name dropper he's a he's like a once again putting it back and he's like an asshole comic yeah he's like i went to the comedy store and this person was there i talked to him for 10 seconds and you're like that's great i don to the comedy store and this person was there i talked to him for 10 seconds and you're like that's great i don't fucking care they're like i'm buddies with them now they'll take me on the road no they're not shut up conversations and they're like you know chris told me one day and you're like who's chris and they're like dalia duh oh yeah oh fuck you yeah just say my friend you're a dildo it doesn't matter to the conversation no who said

it don't care fucking jerk don't care that you met somebody for eight seconds one time and they pretended to like you right so you wouldn't talk shit about them because that's what it is and now you're out here being their pr guy how shitty can i be to you to have you still not talk shit about me to all the other people that's that's how comics are that's the exact level of love that you get basically from any comics unless they're your good friend right it's how shitty can i be to where they won't be like oh he's a dick yeah so it's yeah it's sad seems like that's how it is here uh one of his favorite buddies was the jefferson county sheriff walter buck burger burger is his last name b-u-e-r-g-e-r

buger yeah burger i'm gonna call him burger i'm calling him buck burger fuck this guy uh so pagano and buck burger were tight yeah they were like that i mean professional friendship they you know he would uh pagano would donate to burgers sheriff campaigns and we're gonna help him get elected and shit like that long time friendship starting out in the 70s um there now uh a lot of people say he did improve the department it was a bunch of slack-jawed yokel dildos sure he came in there and started to do that um he even persuaded the city council to start increasing salaries so he could get better police officers uh lobbied for better equipment for them and shit like that surprise

surprise that shit makes somebody want the job that's what i mean a little more money they give you like a you know a vest so they don't want to get killed a new gun they give you a gun that works not one that we fished out of the river well this one i mean we cleaned all the prints off the old shit he's in prison forever now he's't gonna need it he's just gonna sit in the room i mean we could either get rid of it or you could put it on your hip that's fine put some oil on it we're out of bullets so when you pull the gun i'm up on your own when you pull the gun just act real confident like just or make loud noises with your mouth they'll just be like freeze bang and then they'll be like you know hold it up in the air and go bang and then they'll run away hold it up in the air and slam your. And then they'll run away. Hold it up in the air and slam your car door. That's how you do it.

They'll think you're going to run. It's going to be perfect. I think we can pull this off. They'll think you got a suppressor on that thing. You're dangerous. It's going to be dangerous, man. So a circuit judge here that was friends with him said he was an active and aggressive in his job. Talking about Billy.

He had a knack for finding talent, locating talent for police work, for hiring good people. The former mayor said that he, DePagano, quote, did an outstanding job as chief, even though you sometimes had to rein him in. He really upgraded things and usually got the council to go along.

One time he wanted riot gear, talking about sort of a SWAT team, and that was one of the few things we didn't agree on. Because, you know, it's a small town. How many people live here? Jesus. We don't need a SWAT team, probably. We need riot gear.

Yeah, we'll just send you over to knock on the door, probably, is what we're going to You evicted Fat Mike and his band of thieves on their motorcycles. Now what do you need riot gear for, in case they come back? In case those three come back? In case there's an uprising from the kids that want to cruise yeah so he also does things on his own in 1975 he a year after he became chief he uh he had to ask for permission from city officials and he did get permission to start a security company on the side private security company no they call he called it scientific security inc ssi and uh yeah so this starts to do very very well to the point where in march 1980 he and his family billy and his family move into a 15 room home wow with a

big pool and uh i've seen that like the aerial of it it's backed up against the woods it's a huge beautiful home it's gorgeous it's like it looks like tony soprano's house okay that's that's the best way i could describe it if you've ever watched the sopranos so it's got that it's that style of house 15 rooms james it's a big fucking house big ass house so uh yeah he does that um but it gets it gets dicey too at, at some point here. In 1981, he shot a guy named Ray Dill after a high-speed chase here. A real Dill. Dill, yeah.

A real Dill. Yeah. So I guess Dill was arrested the previous night on a drunk driving charge, and so Pagano ended up somehow for that in the next day shooting him really and uh he tells pagano told a reporter that he had seen dill speeding the next day and he started chasing him he said both cars went off the road and then pagano said he tried to arrest dill but dill pointed a gun at him and said then the chief fired seven shots and killed Dill. Really?

Seven shots. He got him. He got the pickle. Got the pickle. Pickled him up good. Suffered wounds to the chest, his right side and his left arm. And yeah, so this is not a good deal here for him. Not a good Dill.

Yeah. But Dill survives, though. He did? He survived. He didn't kill him? He didn't kill Dill. Wow. It's not a kill Dill. Yeah. But Dill survives, though. He did? He survived. He didn't kill him? He didn't kill Dill. Wow. It's not a kill Dill situation.

Holy shit. He survived this, and he actually enters an Alford plea to a charge of flourishing a deadly weapon. Really? So, yeah. He avoided, you know. He got shot almost as many times as 50 Cent, for Christ's sake. Yeah, he got shot the fuck up. Wow. So, now Pagano keeps going on as police chief and he gets a uh he gets a no-bid

contract three years in a row with the missouri department of conservation to guard three river access areas in jefferson county with a security company from 80 to 82 he was paid a total of 100 800 by the state for those contracts alone. Yeah. So his political connections are helping him in this way. He also is contracted to provide security for Jefferson Memorial Hospital in Festus, where he's kind of well-known there as the chief of police. Yeah. In 83, this goes on. He's doing very well for himself, by the way.

Is this the security company that he owns? Is it him doing the security or is he hiring it out? No, no, no. He's still the chief of police. So he's hiring it out. He's got, his wife runs the business side of it out of their house and he runs. Just extra cash. It's just a shitload of extra cash and he's doing all the police work and that's that.

And he has so much money that in 83, he reported that $100,000 worth of guns had been stolen from his home in a burglary. He had? In 1983. Wow. Think about what that's now. That is an arsenal, James. That's over half a million dollars worth of guns now. That's so many guns.

That'd be a shitload of guns. You'd need 15 rooms for that. You'd be on an FBI list with that. Even if you're the chief of police, they're keeping track of you. That's too many fucking guns. That's a lot of fucking guns. Unless you're starting an army. There even if you're the chief of police that's too many fucking guns a lot of unless you're starting an army and for that no that's too many guns i don't care if you like guns jimmy likes guns i love guns do you don't need a half a million dollars worth of guns to yourself that's a little much god that's so many guns uh he reported 27 shotguns a riot gun and between 40 and 50 handguns were taken along with five walkie talkies belonging to

the security company. That's why you can have it for a security company. 10 to 15 men's and women's rings, a camera and about $1,400 cash rings rings. I don't know. That was stolen out of his house. So yeah, this was a 22 shotguns, 27 shotguns. Why do you I got listen, I love guns. I got two and I'm like, I have too many shotguns. I think shotguns 27 shotguns why do you i got listen i love guns i got two and i'm like i have too

many shotguns i think shotguns yeah i this must be for the security because 40 to 50 handguns a lot of fucking that's a lot yeah so wow that's so weird so from the summer of 83 um the ssi had a contract for security uh at a at at Times Beach which is a ghost town because it's dioxin contaminated it's one of these Missouri towns that you're not allowed to go in really because it's poison yeah these companies that they would just let them do whatever they want

and they they so befouled the fucking earth that for a hundred years no one can be there that's amazing to me it was totally fine not that's cool yeah yeah let's roll back regulations no one will do there that's amazing to me it was totally fine uh not that's cool yeah yeah let's roll back regulations no one will do that again i'm sure so uh yeah so the department of natural resources paid eight hundred thousand dollars to the company to guard that shit uh so his security to his security company so he's making he's making dough here uh by 1984 he showed that they the security

company had taken in four and a half million dollars so that's what they've grossed so he's doing pretty well and at the time he resigns as the festus police chief yeah why would you why would you why bother that's what i mean he said that he uh he made 26 000 a year as police chief yeah and he said quote right now my police work consumes 90% of my time, but it's only 10% of my income. So and I bet 10% is even low, even a low ball. Yeah, it's funny, too, because high people are starting to complain that he was, you know, only in the job to boost up his security business.

It got to that point. So when he took it as like, hey, you know what? I job to boost up his security business it got to that point so when he he took it as like hey you know what i don't need this shit you know this is this is too much time out of my schedule as it is yeah so he uh they gave him a big dinner when he retired though of course to but a great celebrate what a wonderful guy he is by the way he's 37 so not even 40 not even 40 yet and he's like oh i'm retiring let's have a big dinner and a gold watch and the fuck man he brought out a bumper sticker at that point uh that and he put it on the lectern when he was talking that said i don't get mad i get even i don't know why he'd put that out in the dinner yeah it's a weird thing to put out in the we're celebrating celebratory

dinner i'm gonna get even with you sons of bitches how dare you give me this dinner so fuck man so uh mark timothy todd is uh is the guy the other guy we talked about tim todd his parents own that restaurant terry's his brother and uh you know acquaintance of pagano from back in the day. Tim's a few years younger. Tim was born in 1956. Nine years younger. And Tim comes up. Tim marries a woman in 1974 as well. And once again, 1956, 74, 18 years old. So that's the style. No, it was Patricia Winfrey.

Patricia. Patricia. Patty, she goes by. Patty's also very. I like it better with trisha because that's another t yeah yeah trisha and todd and terry and all that and tim tim tim terry todd trisha trisha tim terry todd so patty winfrey he marries april 12 1974 now tim todd is really into working out later on he's a big fucking guy six six first6", first of all. Oh, God. Wouldn't that be great?

Well, yeah. It's not bad. No, you'd be very uncomfortable, but yet you still can't make money just sitting on a bench in the NBA, so that 6'6 is worthless. That's the point. 6'6 is worthless.

Trust me. It's bad. Anything between 6'2 and 6'10 is just trouble for you. It's just a huge pain in the ass. Believe me. You don't need it. Maybe 6'8? Maybe. You still't need it. Maybe 6'8"?

He still has to have skills at 6'8". 6'9 is pretty fucking impressive. But you have to have skills at 6'9 to do it. But if you're like 6'11", they'll be like, we could teach him to just rebound. If he stands still and just puts his arms up. We teach him to put his hands up at the right time. This could work. So you got a shot at it.

At least a free college education. Some college will come bring you in if you you're 6 11 so uh he's also later on he's very into working out he weighs over 250 pounds he should uh he's uh into steroids later too when he's working out this is tim todd this is tim todd good lord he gets all jacked up and Tim's a big guy. So now Tim Todd also begins as a police officer. He gets a job with the Festus Police Department in the 1970s here after he gets married. He again needs a steady job just the same way. And he starts in the mid-70s while Billy is chief. And yeah, so he's a police officer and festive festus for a few years and then todd

reports being shot with a 357 while investigating a uh suspicious vehicle at a radio station okay uh he said he went there he was 23 years old at the time he said he was saved by his bulletproof vest um and so there was a huge manhunt. Somebody shot. The guy got away. Todd didn't get a shot off. Shot in the chest. Ambushed.

Wow. Ambushed at a radio station just investigating a suspicious vehicle and got shot. And the guy ran away. So you can imagine the complete manhunt for this. I mean, they can't have a cop killer out there or whatever. No arrests were ever made, though. They never found the person that did it uh that's the the problem with that is because todd ends up resigning three weeks later from the force uh because he recanted the story about being shot oh he didn't actually get shot what happened um he just made it up he shot his own shot his vest and was like somebody shot me wow that's what he did he shot his vest and was like, somebody shot me. Wow. That's what he did. He shot his vest and then put it on.

It was like, somebody shot me. What a dickhole. Crazy, right? Now I get attention. And yes, so he quietly resigned after that. Because that's pretty embarrassing shit. Yeah. But the chief, Chief Pagano here does not hold it against him.

No? He, in fact, hires him for his security firm. Because this sounds like a reliable guy. Yeah, getting a raise. Yeah, he stages his own shooting. That this sounds like a reliable guy. Yeah, getting a raise. Yeah, he stages his own shooting. That seems like we need him on the team, I would imagine. I need that guy from the police force. Oh, puts him in a management position, too.

Wow. I mean, one of his top people, he is. Right-hand man, basically. This seems like a scene from Police Academy. It's very much a scene from Police Academy. Like the early ones, like in the academy academy they haven't even got their badges yet they still don't even know how to hold their guns bobcat goldthwait's still a thug clown screaming and shit yeah it's it's crazy so let's go have some fun oh my god i love that movie so it's a great

movies okay it's all 14 of them i think it's actually eight there is i think they might have made nine they're oh my they started making them in like the 2000s again they kicked the dog shit out they made like you know in russia even gutenberg stopped being in and his career was fucked it's over and he even was like you know what even i'm above this it's a bit much i was in three men and a. I cannot reprise Mahoney one more time. We can't do it. I'm just too sad. It's just too sad.

Can you guys just write in that Mahoney shot himself? Can you do that? You know what? That's what I'll be in the movie if I'm allowed to shoot myself. If I'm allowed to just take one glance around and put my gun in my mouth. Can I kill Mahoney? Can I do it? Just put my gun in my mouth.

How's that? Opening scene. Have Tackleberry shoot me with his.44. Have that blonde smother me with their tits perfect so uh todd is working there uh and todd is very much uh kind of a kind of a protege of pagano pagano looks at him as like i'm his mentor that's how he's kind of looking at him i'm going to take him along here because he's a younger guy, like we said, too. Now, Terry Todd, we've talked about these. He's he's Todd's older brother. Right. He's the older brother.

He called Pagano a control freak. Yeah. He said he was a bit of a control freak. And I mean, he's the chief of police. He owns a security company. Twenty seven. And the chief of police. Yeah.

Well, now he's thirty seven. Right. But now. Yeah. Right. Now he's retired. Yeah. Retired chief of police. He's making big money. Yeah. Everything he's yeah right now he's the retired yeah retired chief

of police he's making big money yeah everything he does works so it's easy for him to feel good about himself he's got the most money in your town of course he feels like the boss he's doing well uh he said that he uh uh he said that uh the picano engendered a huge amount of loyalty from his employees he was very much that his employees looked up to him very much he had a good mystique about him terry here said quote my brother once thought pagano was the greatest thing since floating soap never heard that one before oh boy i've never that's tim is it terry that said this is terry terry you just invented floating soap float no soap floats that's good oh i see on floating soap yeah so if you're in That's good. Oh, I see. On the tub.

Yeah, so if you're in the tub, you don't lose the soap. That's wonderful. Yeah. But the expression is normally sliced bread, obviously, which is a little better than floating soap. Did soap usually sink? I don't know if soap ever sank or if they had to invent, like if someone was like, this fucking soap, how can we make soap better?

Well, we can make it float. And then we can put it on a rope. I'm not sure exactly how that goes. Or if that's just a... It would have been better with soap on a rope. Because that sounds... Best thing since soap on a rope? Yeah, that floats together better.

You know what I mean? Probably. Two words. I don't think he's going for rhyming here. I don't know that either. I don't think he's going for... He's like... But saying best thing since floating soap or since...

What is it? It's the best thing since soap on a rope that floated on a boat he's not what is he fucking don king now out here you're doing so much better but since so since soap floats yeah i don't know what he's getting at it makes you sit you sit there and go is that a saying before you understand what the fuck yeah that's what i was that's right away i'm like best thing since greatest thing Before you understand what the fuck you mean. Yeah, that's what I was, that's right away. I'm like, best thing since, greatest thing since floating soap. Who the fuck is this guy?

And honestly, when you hear that, the person loses credibility just a little bit. I don't know why they shouldn't. They don't deserve to. Instead, I'm thinking of soap floating in air. And I'm like, does it float? Oh, that would be amazing. Now, that would be incredible. In fact, that would be an invention.

Weightless soap. You don't need it on a rope because it would be an invention. Weightless soap. You don't need it on a rope because it just stays on a level. Zero gravity soap. Now we're talking. Well, that's what I saw in my head because I'm an idiot. I didn't even think about a goddamn tub. Jesus Christ, are you kidding me? I swear to God.

Wouldn't that be flying soap? That be a different it's the best thing since flying soap i'd be like okay what the fuck but floating soap i didn't know what the fucking levitating soap yeah i can't tell you the last time i used a bar of soap in a tub that's why yeah i've been in a tub since i was fucking nine i take baths all the time but i use bath fizzy okay fucking a bomb or whatever you know yeah i rarely i don't use that to scrub my fucking body yeah i guess you're saying i suppose i just kind of soak drink a bottle of wine then i get in the shower and get that shit off of me. You got to wash all the soap you've been soaking in. Fuck that. So when you said floating soap, I was like, doesn't happen. Hope not.

So Terry Todd said, whenever I'd see Tim, it was always Bill says this and Bill says that. So that's, yeah, it's all about best thing since floating soap. What do you want? Back to Paganoano here he left the police department and uh he became big into politics over the next couple years he donated he gave

more than 34 000 to missouri attorney general william webster uh and a few over a few year period he also uh he gave five thousand dollars all the way up until the late 80s. In 1988, Webster's opponent pointed out Pagano's contributions and said that Webster had withdrawn an opinion by a previous attorney general, who was John Ashcroft, the ex-attorney general of the United States. Yeah, that fucking lunatic who covered up the statue of fucking justice is fucking tits because he's insane. Right. Said that the sheriff's department couldn't use moonlight. I couldn't. The sheriff's deputies couldn't moonlight the security guards.

That was a really. Yeah. He caught. He passed that law. And then this attorney general withdrew it based on for what they're saying. Contributions from this guy that would help him a lot. So Pagano and Webster diedster denied any connections between contributions and getting what you want, obviously. It's like if I go to McDonald's and I deny any connection between giving you $2 and getting a fucking cheeseburger.

Those things are not connected at all. I said I wanted a cheeseburger and i gave you the money but you know you were under no obligation to do it and if you did it wasn't a quid pro quo as far as that goes obviously the cheeseburger for two dollars so he's literally saying that like yes i gave him money and told him what i wanted and he did it that doesn't mean i bought it it has nothing to do with anything it was also he did it because it's the right thing it happened to also be the right thing to do which is amazing fucking i love when those things line up it's fucking great it's incredible when fucking idiots say shit like that wild shit man like when they think that soap floats yeah

no shit so pagano's got a son-in-law ed Eddie Page, and he worked in Webster's office also. So he's got a son-in-law working in that attorney general's office in St. Louis as an intern. He'll later on become a judge, Page, by the way. A spokesman for the attorney general's office says Page worked an average of 12 hours a week and was like a school intern type of thing, college intern. Pagano also contributed to Buck Berger's sheriff campaigns. He employed sheriff's deputies at his security firm, and Berger's wife worked as his bookkeeper for his security firm for a while here. So he's all interwoven and finger-fucking with the sheriff and everything else.

People making money all over the place from each other. From each other. and finger fucking with the sheriff and everyone else. People making money all over the place from each other. From each other. Pagano and Buck's wives were listed as officers in a fire extinguisher company that they were running out of Pagano's home. I don't know what the fuck.

Wow. Fire extinguisher company. That's brilliant. You know what everyone needs? Fire extinguishers. But businesses fucking pay so much money for that shit and it's a write-off, so they don't give a shit. That's one of those things where you go, someone's got to be making that already, right?

Who decides to make those? I don't know. You go, someone's making five. Everywhere I go, I see them. They've got to be being made somewhere. It's like saying, I'm going to make forks. But as many as I see of them, I go, they've got to be overwhelmed with how many they need. But they also never get used.

It's one item that you buy and you put it somewhere for 20 years. Yeah, but after a while, it's no good. So you got to get a new one. You don't, though. Who gets a new fire extinguisher? It's still there giving you peace of mind that you're a smart person who's covered your losses, possible losses with a fire extinguisher. And when it doesn't operate, you grab a garden hose and shut the fuck up. You're like, whatever, I'll just wait for the real people.

Who cares? I'm not going to put it out anyway. So Pagano also had a bunch of real estate. He and his company were listed at or his company were listed as owners of nine parcels of real estate in the county, including a cinema, like a movie theater on Main Street in Festus, where he's where Pagano will go hang out and take tickets on the weekends so he can schmooze with the locals. Oh, yeah, yeah. He'll be a fucking ticket ripper. Yeah, just, how you doing, everybody?

All right, come on in here. Yeah, he's showing off his movie theater. Now, in 1986, Rick Earls, who was the son of the former mayor, Mayor Earls, who was buddies with Pagano, this kid, Rick Earlsls killed a man outside a bar

in festus using a gun that had been issued to the mayor by pagano oh shit pagano had given him a gun and it gets to end up shooting someone in a bar parking lot here so uh this guy pleaded guilty to second degree murder rick earls and and Charles Earls resigned as mayor shortly afterwards because, you know, letting your kids out there killing people. Near-to-well son, kill people with city-issued weaponry is probably not a good look for you in the election coming up. So the new mayor reported that he had found that while Pagano had been police chief, he had issued more than 50 guns to people he commissioned outside the police force as like, quote, reserve deputies. Yeah. Basically.

Basically, all of his friends, he'd just give them a gun. He co-signed on their ability to handle a weapon? To handle not only a weapon, because you can go buy one, but a government-issued, a city police-issued weapon. That's psychotic. Here you go. Be a sheriff's deputy. But it was basically just, or be a reserve deputy.

But it was basically just, here's a gun for you for free type of thing here. So now Tim Todd, we'll get back to Tim. I'll get back to Todd. Todd, uh, he's at the, we go up to about 1990.

Now he's been off the police force for 10 years. Right. And he's, uh, been working for SSI the whole time. He's Pagano's right hand man. He's his protege. Right. They're all, you know, everything's all lock time. He's Pagano's right-hand man. He's his protege. Everything's all lock-stock.

Todd's still married. He's been married for 16 years. To Trish. Trish Todd. He has two children here. Him and Patty have two children. The marriage hasn't been going too well, though, lately.

No, it's been going kind of lukewarm and uh you can tell that by the fact that as of 1990 pagana todd has been involved in an affair oh you son of a bitch for over two years wow with a girl named stephanie uh stephanie is at this time 22 years old in 1990 She was 20 when they got together. Stephanie, oh, by the way, her last name is Pagano, because that's Bill's daughter. Oh, no. He is hooking up with Bill's 20-year-old daughter. You can't do that.

Okay, so, no, Pagano was aware of the relationship and fine with it. Huh? Okay. Well, he's 6'6". Sort of fine with it. Yeah, well, yeah yeah that's the thing tell his wife she's a nursing student okay and uh you know they'll fight she says by the way stephanie said that she was infatuated with todd since she was a child so this is creepy as fuck

gross yeah he's 13 years older than her right and she's been like yeah that's creepy yeah if you're coming over you're 20 and some seven-year-old's like, you're going to be my boyfriend. You're like, hey, that's cute, kid, whatever. You don't be like, I'll take a note of that. I'm going to take you up on that in a while. I'm going to jot in my day planner when you turn 18. Hey, don't talk out your ass, kid.

I'm writing this fucking down, all right? I'm writing this down. This is all going to be documented. I'm going to hold your seven-year-old ass to it when you're 18. It's going to be soon. He did, too. I mean, to hold your seven-year-old ass to it when you're 18. It's going to be soon. And he did, too. I mean, right away, he was all over that. So she said that she was infatuated with him since she was a child.

And they had some conflicts in there going out. Number one, he's married. So that's an issue. That's tough. That's a tough one. That makes it hard. It can't be too comfortable. She goes to school.

And they fight about whether she should stay in school or not, and they fight about a lot of things here. 1990 comes around, and by then there's a lot of conflicts in their relationship. And these are complicated relationships anyway when you're dealing with an extramarital affair, but then on top of it, when you add in the fact that it's your boss's daughter and it's all intertwined like that. And 13 years is a lot man it's a lot it's a lot big age it's a big age gap when the girl is enough when one of the parties

is barely an adult right that's a lot she's still going to college if she was 30 and he was 43 it wouldn't matter it's fine if he's 50 and she's 37 who gives a shit but 33 and 20 and at the time it was you know that's that time, that's a lot. Your lives are in way different places is what I'm getting at. Anytime over 25, I feel like everybody's equal. It doesn't matter. But under 25, you don't have a life yet. Your brain isn't even, scientifically, it's not even done yet. Well, it's not developed, and you haven't started anything.

You know what I mean? 33, you should have a life established. You barely even had an opportunity. 20, you should be building one. Yeah. You barely had an opportunity to make a mistake that can ruin you for a while. Yeah, barely. Barely.

So she had said that she was possessive, that Todd was being possessive with her. And there's different things going back and forth of people saying that she says she wants to break it off. But Todd also says he wants to break it off. But yet they don't break it off. You're not married. You don't have any kids. You're having an affair. Neither of you are enjoying it.

Break it off. What the fuck are we talking about here? Right? What are we doing? This odd couple that doesn't, there's no reason in the world that they should be dating in the first place. Why are you continuing this shit? You're going against God and nature.

What is wrong? Whatever the fuck. You're going against society and opportunities. Just everything. Everything is saying that you two should not be together and you're just ignoring it and forcing it. Stop forcing shit, people. That's the problem.

I have a new rule with everything is don't force it. It should be so easy. I won't force anything. If we're going to go get some food and something happens, it becomes a pain in the ass, I'm not forcing it. I'll just honor something. I don't care. I'm not going out anymore.

Fuck it. I'll fix it. I'll fix it now. I'm not doing this shit. Don't force it. Bad things happen when you force it. You end up sitting in airports for two days when you force it or eating a greasy hamburger or eating a shitty hamburger so uh the problem is i think the

reason why they're still together possibly is that no is that bill uh bill wants them together really bill wants todd to marry stephanie as a matter of fact really yeah bill has got this well at that point then he kind of of needs a son-in-law. He sort of owns him then. So now he's got one son-in-law. He's going to be a judge. He's going to be a lawyer, then a judge. Right.

He's got this son-in-law. He's a big, giant guy. He's going to work for my security firm. He's almost like he's making a team. Yeah. Like a weird little team. Like a little militia. Yeah.

It's very strange here. The problem is Todd's married and has two kids, though. Yeah. So it's going to be hard for him to marry your daughter. It's very strange here. But the problem is Todd's married and has two kids, though. So it's going to be hard for him to marry your daughter. It's very strange. Like I said, Todd has been working for SSI, the security company, for 10 years. He is the vice president of SSI. Really?

Todd is. Yeah, he's doing well for himself. And, of course, Pagano was president here. The company is technically on paper owned by Pagano's wife. Now, Eileen. was president here um the company's technically on paper owned by pagano's wife and now eileen now uh they were also both reserve jefferson county deputy sheriffs as well because buck buck burger there's yeah you guys are reserve sheriff it doesn't mean shit i mean it's but it's you get to carry a gun and cost anything yeah they give you a little badge and you're all happy so uh uh now probably gets you out of a speeding ticket or

two oh yeah yeah you got your badge in your wallet there when you open up hey officer let me get my license out here oh what's that my badge sorry about that shiny oh no just it's in my wallet you know how that is that's the definite cop move there so now 1990 comes around here and Todd begins apparently having discussions with Bill. They start having talks about maybe hiring someone to kill Todd's wife. Maybe we'll kill my wife because this is a lot. You know, I got these kids and she's a pain in the ass and I kind of want to, I guess you want me to marry your daughter and whatever. So let's, let's kill, let's kill my wife.

What do you say? Let's do that. So they have a bunch of conversations about this. This is wild. Yeah. Let's kill my wife. Yeah. And Pagano here, he says that he.

I want to know whose idea it was first. That's the thing. Well, I wish I was on this, a fly on this wall. I don't. You want to see how that conversation progressed? Look, I'd love to keep hammering your daughter's sweet gash, but I got this wiping out. You know how that goes. She's a real pain in the ass. You want my daughter's sweet gash.

I'll take care of it. I'll do it. Tell you what. Hold on a minute here. Now, listen, never, don't let anybody tell you that I'm not a guy who makes things happen. I'm a guy. tell you that i'm not a guy who makes things happen i'm a guy listen if an older gentleman wants to pound my daughter's sweet gash i'm a man that could facilitate that and will you understand oh i will facilitate it it's gonna happen i need you to put babies in that little sweet gash put

it in there i want to be a grandpa he's got five five kids. So creepy. So creepy. His youngest at this point is 10 years old, by the way, Pagano. So, I mean, he's got quite the spread going on here for, pardon the pun there. So does his daughter. So, yeah, Jesus Christ. And I don't even know her deal. Like, I don't know if she is. Is she a willing participant in this? Well, she's a willing participant, but I don't know if she is um is she a willing participant in this or she's a willing participant but i don't know if she's being told that he's going

to leave his wife or i don't know what she's being told as a young younger person like that and i feel like todd if you're the one that's married you i don't know it's it's kind of your responsibility yeah you get some you get some shit to blame him before you can get in here yeah so pagano would ask todd if he, do you seriously want to do this? Are you serious about killing your wife? And Todd was like, yeah, fucking kill her. Let's do this. So.

I thought you meant dating his daughter. No, no, no. Not serious about her. How serious are you about killing your wife? So he said that Todd said that, yeah. And he Pagano said, well, I'll tell you what I did. I've contacted a few people that might be able to take care of this for you. He's got a lot of connections, Pagano.

So he's like, I know a few people. I might be able to help you out with this. Now, there's another problem that starts to happen. In February of 1990, Todd begins another affair. What are you doing? He begins an affair with a young lady named kristin carrow uh i get what's the big deal he wants his wife dead so i don't know i mean who knows uh well he's fucking around on his fuck around right now which is a problem fucking around on everybody

yeah he's fucking around on bill he's fucking around on his fuck around and bill and his wife he's just betraying everything possible here so there's a lot of balls in the air as we're talking about juggling. This Todd has got a chainsaw and something just caught on fire. So March 22nd, 1990, Pagano goes and meets with the prosecuting attorney of Jefferson County. He tells the prosecuting attorney that Todd has discussed arranging to have his wife killed. This is after he's ratting him out. disgust arranging to have his wife killed this is after he's ratting him out he's uh he said that todd pagano says look i'm trying to dissuade todd from doing this and get him to seek psychiatric help instead so you don't have to arrest him for conspiracy to commit murder you know

it's kind of a big deal you can't even talk about hiring him it becomes a crime real fast it does super fast as soon as you bring it up to somebody, it's a crime at that point. So not good. So the prosecuting attorney suggested that Pagano contact the detective division of the sheriff's department and get their assistance. So after his discussion here, he had a telephone. Pagano had a telephone conversation, not with the detective's department but with the sheriff himself right buck burger little burger is my buddy i'll call buck up here and he tells him about todd's plan he's gonna kill his goddamn wife he wants he's trying to hire somebody we gotta stop it what the shit so uh

pagano said that look my plan is to instead of helping him find someone to kill his wife i'm gonna help him get a psychiatric help but if he refuses to go i'm going to have to take him in myself i am a deputy reserve sheriff yeah so i'm going to take him in myself and i'll arrest him and then i'll bring him to you still got cuffs that's what he said he said the pagano says but i want to handle this alone and if it's if an arrest needs to happen i'll take care of it alone now what the sheriff should have said is uh fucking you're crazy that's conspiracy to commit murder. If he's doing this, then we're going to go arrest him in a professional manner.

You're going to go back to your house and shut up and be a witness, and we'll get a statement from you when we're ready. We'll holler at you when we prosecute. Other than that, what are you, out of your fucking mind? Instead, the sheriff goes, all right. Wow. Sounds good to me. That's a good plan.

That's a good plan, chief. All right. I'll see you then, Chuck. Less paperwork. Chuck and Bill. Thanks, Bill. Thanks, Bill. Might as well be Chuck. Sounds good to me. That's a good plan. That's a good plan, Chief. All right. I'll see you then, Chuck. Less paperwork. Thanks, Bill. Thanks, Bill. Might as well be Chuck. It doesn't matter.

So he also discussed Todd's remarks about hiring someone to kill his wife with a Dr. Gordon Johnson, who's a friend of his, who's the chief medical examiner of Jefferson County and also the chairman of the Department of Laboratory of Medicine at Jefferson Memorial Hospital. That's a good guy to tell just in case his wife comes in with some bullet wounds and shit. In case you get this, I'm going to tell you where they came from. I'm going to give you a start. Heads up. Yeah.

Head start on investigating this one. That's the thing. Now, he told Johnson, this doctor, that todd is using steroids because he's a big bodybuilder and he's a huge guy he's over 250 at this point 250 pounds he's six foot six and and pagano inquired about the effect of the use of anabolic steroids might have on a person uh because this isn't just how much of a punch can i take from him could he is he just gonna rip my arms off and beat me to death with him i've seen movies but in 1992 steroids were not like they are now everybody kind of knows a lot about them 90 it was just like

this oh my god you stick a needle in your arm and you're 300 pounds and then you're you're a gorilla right just tear people apart you know i've seen that documentary of arnold schwarzenegger and he says he's always coming is that going to be a thing if he picks me up is he going to come all over me now how do i get to where i'm always coming that's another question never you know what never mind todd and his steroids i'm curious about how i can be coming 24 hours a day is that possible um should i talk about my daughter's gash now or is that no all right this ain't the right time okay have you seen it have you i've heard it's good terrible so he at this point uh pagano tells us dr johnson that he has taped that he had the taped conversations between him and todd and five thousand dollars

that todd had given him to give to someone to kill his wife he basically said well here if you find someone to kill my wife here's five grand give it to him wow that's what he's doing here so uh uh he said he had this all of this in a safe deposit box he had the money that he gave him and the tape recorded conversations of him wanting him to kill him uh he gave dr johnson uh the key to the box okay he gives him the key to the box now uh uh yeah or i'm the later on, he'll do that. Okay. So now he also, he does all this. He talks to the sheriff and everything on March 26th, 1990. Yeah. He talks to the sheriff. He called the sheriff and said that Todd's coming to my house.

He goes, look, Todd's coming to my house. and said that Todd's coming to my house. He goes, look, Todd's coming to my house. And he told Todd that they were going to go from his house to St. Louis to meet the guy who's going to kill Todd's wife. Got it. He's like, I told Todd I got it all set up. Yep. And it's going to be all good.

So then Pagano asked the sheriff here, asked Buck, should I need you? Where can I get you? And the sheriff told him, look, I'll be at my office if you need me. Okay. So Todd comes over to the residence. And the whole point was he had told Todd, look, you come over. You're going to have to bring like some shit.

You need information. You need a picture of your wife and like, you know, where she is and her habits. And I got to give it to this guy. So bring all your stuff and then we'll go to St. Louis and we'll do all of this. Todd comes over with a picture of his wife there um yeah he's got typed information he typed it he didn't even hand write he typed it out about uh her place of employment where she lives where she visits when she's not working he makes like a schedule an itinerary of where to kill my wife i wonder if he titled it where to kill My Wife. Where She Might Be.

Best Places to Kill My Wife. By Tim Todd. By Tim Todd. Mark Tim Todd. So, yeah, he does that. Like we told you, the $5,000 was already there. He had already given him.

So this is all going to go down. The sheriff knows about it. He's waiting to hear how this is going to turn out. So 45 minutes later, after he initially calls the sheriff and says he's coming over, Pagano calls the sheriff back. Okay. 45 minutes later.

Yeah. And sheriff says, Sheriff's Department. Sheriff Buck. Yeah. Sheriff's Department. Runs out with his little fucking shorts. He tells the sheriff, Sheriff burger here and uh and pagano answers the phone with i had to shoot him oh boy so i had to shoot him already so i did had to

shoot him didn't even get to st louis so buck said what yeah and say what now say what and uh pagano said quote he just won't listen he tried to turn he was going to try to get behind a car and he was coming up with a gun and so the sheriff asked pagano if he had an ambulance coming and the and pagano said that uh he's gonna call one but then he said buck he's dead like i'm gonna call one but it doesn't matter i killed the fuck out of him so yeah uh that's that's what he said here um yeah pagano says that todd entered the garage basically pagano's garage to get into the car to get into Pagano's car. The garage had spaces for two parked cars. Only one car was in the garage.

So there was room. Yeah. He says that, you know, Todd entered first and Pagano told him that he had to go back inside to set his alarm. back inside to set his alarm and uh yeah he says when he returned uh at this point that pagano was carrying a shotgun to you know take him in basically to tell him that you're gonna have to turn yourself in or get some help one of the two and he said it's at that point um either way however it turned out from there two shots were fired from the shotgun uh one to the back of todd and one to the face of todd boy so it is uh yeah it's over it's a two shotgun blasts from short range um now after the shooting that's when uh he gives the safe deposit key uh the doctor gives the safe deposit key over to the sheriff that he was given by pagano that

has the tape conversation and all that kind of shit in it he also at this point gives statements to law enforcement officers pagano does of what occurred in the garage now he's talking to the sheriff here and the sheriff comes over and they are consoling pagano they're not looking at it like hey this is a crime scene so they're coming over they're making drinks billy i'm so sorry they're making sorry. They're mixing him fucking drinks. The sheriff is mixing the guy who just shot somebody drinks, and they're talking about it. It's crazy. This is some small town fuckery like never before here.

So, yeah, he says that Todd came in carrying a bottle of mineral water and the typewritten list in the picture. And Pagano said that Todd had a handgun tucked in his waistband of his pants. And Pagano said when he returned to the garage with the shotgun, he told Todd that he's either arresting him or taking him to a psychiatric facility. And he said that Todd screamed, dropped the bottle of mineral water and the list, crouched and moved toward the back of the car parked in the garage uh he said that he didn't see todd's hand uh on the handgun but he thought todd was going over to the back of the car to take cover to shoot at him like a you know a police

position like basically yeah uh so this is this is his story and he's like thought he was shooting me so i mean oh boy i'm lucky to get out of there with my life right and the sheriff's like more martini yeah another cosmo is fucking pouring in the shit so start burger don't shake it good lord you're gonna fucking bum you un-fucking cultured swine so at this point he uh there's the sheriff's department's a joke the uh the jefferson county sheriff's department though there is a guy there named wally gansman who's the sheriff's department's a joke. The Jefferson County Sheriff's Department, though there is a guy there named Wally Gansman, who's the chief of detectives there. And he shows up at 3.06 in the afternoon.

He goes into the garage and he gets there and the sheriff at that point is consoling Bill. And the sheriff doesn't even realize at that point that the shot is to the back of the dead guy. Never even looked at that. Has no idea. He just heard. Bill said, this is what he did, and I shot him.

You poor son of a bitch. Let me mix you a drink. He is shot. I will vouch for that. I see blood. He's not breathing. I have not heard him ask for help or a drink or anything. So I'm going to assume he's dead.

I haven't checked a pulse or nothing. So Wally Gansman knows the sheriff and he knows pagano you know he knows all these people too he knows the medical examiner's a good friend it's the whole deal this guy is the guy who suggested wally gansman said maybe someone outside of jefferson county should do the autopsy on this case just maybe the medical idea you know since everybody's. Maybe this is a tainted pool. Everybody's kind of buddies. Maybe we should put it outside just for, if nothing else, for just so it doesn't look

bad. Right. Just for above board. Let's do that. He said he worked the case thoroughly. He, you know, did an investigation here. And he said, basically, this guy could have very easily just could have went yep all right self-defense that's what the sheriff says well fuck it let's cool

let's go home and i don't have to worry about this shit that would have been a lot easier to do another guy said that uh but as it goes on he's pursuing leads and he's doing a real investigation on this you know it's uh as these leads start to come in, it starts to look a little suspicious. Number one, like we said, the first shot hit Todd in the back of the head, and the second shot was in his face as he was on the floor.

So that's, right there, suspicious. And it's a guaranteeing death. Oh, yeah. With a shotgun to the face, it's over. You're not going to survive. That was mafia style. You come up in the last one just to make sure here now uh they tell two different people uh um have told the police that uh that tim todd told them that he was afraid to quit the security

company because he knew of murder contracts that pagano had taken out on people so he said he was scared of pagano these are people uh one of the two people uh is patricia his widow uh he says it's also uh and also his former weightlifting park partner francisco frankie perkins jr oh yeah these they both say that they told they told police that todd had told pagano uh that pagano would put pressure on him to marry his daughter, Stephanie, and said, look, you know, basically you have to kill your wife because you've got to marry my daughter now. You've got yourself into this situation. And so Patricia Todd spoke to police within 24 hours of the shooting and told them some

shit. She and Perkins both told police they described how the owner of a rival security company was the victim of a contract killing that was set up to look like a suicide. Oh, shit. That's what they claim. They say that Todd told them that the rival's widow took over the business and that it failed shortly afterwards. Because she doesn't know what she's doing. Yeah, she was just trying to keep it going. Patricia Todd told the police at the time that that had happened tim was not aware of the contract

killing he didn't find out until later when bill confided in him that he had had it done i don't know the name of the man but it was set up to look like a suicide and bill retained lots of his business uh now perkins told police the bodybuilding partner quote I don't know no details on it all I know is it's backed up by Bill and I think Tim did the financial situation and the setting up of it to have it done by somebody so it looked like he shot I think someone I think he shot himself in the head now uh police say they were might have been referring to the death of a guy named Glenn Lodal who was the former head of a security corporation in St. Louis. And the St. Louis people said that they did rule that a suicide,

and they had no plans to reopen the case. Wow. So they were like, look, we cleared that one already. Most of the time, when ink is fucking black, they're not going to turn it back to red. Let's open up a case, especially a case from a few years ago that doesn't count on our clearance rate for this year. Because every homicide, they're all based on their clearance rate. That's how they're judged by everybody.

You've got to get it done now. You don't work on cases. I'm going to reopen some shit. If it's an open case, fine, but you don't work on a cleared case generally. That's in St. Louis. St. Louis in the early 90s. Might be a smidge gummed up lots of murders going on this is crack epidemic shit is fucking crazy so uh yeah this is what they're talking about uh uh this is it's it's insane so the uh the prosecutor said so the patricia the wife here, Patty Todd, tells Perkins and Perkins both told police that Todd was uncomfortable because of recent plans of Pagano to arrange the murder of a second security rival.

He had brought that up to his wife. Patricia Todd told police, and there's another man's security company that was overtaking his, that was getting some of his business. And he had told tim that he bill and some other men were going to have them killed and perkins the weightlifting partner said that in the days before todd died todd had told him that he was nervous about meeting a hitman and uh and he says quote tim was supposed to get in good enough with the owner of that security company where he'd trust him meet him anytime anytime, anywhere, you know, to talk. And then he was supposed to meet some guy with some other mafia, some big time mafia guy to go through the strip search and everything and then talk to Bill about the hit for Bill.

I don't know. It's intense. There's a lot going. There's a lot of moving parts. It's confusing. What I'm taking away from it is that when tom when tim todd uh todd tim todd when he shot himself uh tim todd didn't shoot himself didn't he shoot shoot himself when he was working for the police oh yeah yeah well he shot his vest shot his vest all right so

when he did that uh the fucking dick bag uh decided that this guy's a perfect lemming and will do anything i say he's an idiot. Right. He's an idiot. He's going to be my Lenny, basically. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll give him a little mouse. Just don't squeeze it too tight. That's right. He's going to be my Lenny. He's a big guy.

Right. I can manipulate him to do things. Treat him like a dummy. He's disposable. He's disposable. And yeah, if anything happens, I can dispose of him. I really don't like this guy. No, Pagano's a dick.

He's an asshole. He's a real asshole. So this basically, yeah, he was telling his weightlifting partner and his wife todd before the murder that uh rather than he was setting a pit up against his wife as pagano claims right he's saying that pagano was having him meet hit men to kill a security rival so there's some different different uh conflicting things this is the most cutthroat businessman I've ever heard of. It's crazy. He's crazy. So a third person interviewed by police the day after the shooting said that Todd had been afraid Pagano would kill him.

That was the girl that Todd was having an affair with, Kristen Caro. She said that Todd had told her that Pagano wanted him in his family to marry his daughter, and that he didn't know how he got in the situation, and that he didn't know how to get out of it. I'm fucking you now. I don't want to fuck her anymore. She's so young.

I can't do this. This is crazy. Caro said, yeah, this was a six-week affair they had here, basically. Caro? Yeah, him and Caro. And she told police that Todd had disclosed no reasons for his fear of Pagano but had told her repeatedly, read between the lines. So there was that.

Now also, SSI was the beneficiary of two insurance policies that insured Todd's life as well. That makes sense. Because they're key man insurance policies. They have a big role. He's the vice president. Exactly. One policy was issued in 85, the second in 86, and the first policy was issued. Its face amount was $500,000.

And the second issued by the Prudential Company here was also $500,000. It provided but provided accidental death benefits of a million dollars. So he's got 1.5 million coming to him for this guy dying. million coming to him for this guy dying uh yeah another woman here crystal stewart she she says to police that she observed an argument between pagano and todd the day before the murder that she overheard uh pagano cursed todd and say quote it's got to stop and i'll get you for this and that todd said replied back quote she's a woman. So they're apparently arguing about the daughter, about Stephanie. Because, yeah, a jury. You can't tell me what to do?

Yeah. I can't. Yeah. Well, she's a grown fucking woman. Like, it's none of your business. If we break up, you can't force her to marry me, basically. You can't pick your goddamn son-in-law. It's just not the way it works.

So they question Pagano here. This is great. Missouri Highway Patrol Corporal Joe Swearingen, like Al on Deadwood. That's fucking great. He asked Pagano here, quote, why do you think Tim thought you were the kind of person that would hire a hitman? And Pagano replied, quote, because he knew the people that I had known through my ranking days with the police department. He knew that I was friendly with a lot of organized labor people. And you know, everybody thinks

that every teamster knows six hit men. And sometimes, as much as I loved Tim, he would kind of go in and out of reality with, you know, where do you think Hoffa's a hubcap somewhere? You know, like, shit like that. He also said, so then Swearengin repeated the question,

what would have made Tim think that you were the type of person who could have hired a hitman and pagano replied quote because i loved him what so he knew that why would he why would if todd wanted to kill his wife like you say why would he come to you to hire a hitman what would make him think that you'd be the guy to do that because i'm his guy because i'm his guy i loved him that's why he knew he knew i'd do anything for him knows i'm italian he knows he said hey this guy he's got it man he's fucking things so uh the shot was to the back of the head like we said it's getting pretty fucking yeah silly here uh the testimony of also the dr mary case that the first shot was to the back of the head would have caused an explosion of blood at the time

that the first shot hit and uh the second shot hit that he was probably already dead. Didn't matter, but making sure here. Now the sheriff, what does the sheriff have to say about all this? He should be embarrassed. Oh, Mr. Blueburger himself. Oh boy here. Just after the shooting, he said, quote, this is about Pagano, he's a hell of a gun collector and one of the finest chiefs of police Festivus ever had or festivus festus ever had i keep thinking it's yeah i know there's just

a metal pole in the middle of town uh he said quote when he became police chief women were afraid to walk down the street in festus what mid-70s small town missouri apparently you couldn't even walk down the street before this guy came in wow he made a quality happen whoa when he left that was no longer the case bill pagano is a top-notch law enforcement officer and a top-notch businessman that's what he said after a gun collector and he's a gun time gun collector uh also uh so the the prosecutor decide though uh the sheriff calls the calls the killing justifiable. The sheriff's department says it's justifiable. And then the prosecutor says, you know what?

We're going to go for murder. The sheriff said that he was, quote, stunned by that. Couldn't believe it. Ridiculous. What did the medical examiner say, Mr. Blueberger? Still, I know the guy. blueberger still it's i know the guy what are you kidding me i know the guy so yeah he told this is now it's coming out murder he's a gun collector now it's coming out too that the sheriff you know signed off on the plan of uh

i'm gonna get him psychiatric help or bring him in myself right you know whatever so he's starting to look like a fucking idiot here uh really really big idiot at this point he really is here uh the uh uh swingle who's the prosecutor he says that the highway patrolman gansman made the decision to get outside help and he called him a hero for that he said uh that he was uh not another one of the good old boys the medical examiner because at this point the medical examiner. Cause at this point, the medical examiner was also making drinks with the sheriff. He was at the place. He came to the place and was making drinks with the suspect.

That's what's going on here. That's my shit. Think about this. We've had, we've had the forest ranger. Dude, we've had the forest ranger come in. We've had the fucking mayor come in and that this is worse. We've had the Forest Ranger come in. We've had the fucking mayor come in.

This is worse. We've had the Canadian Royal County Police come down to Florida. Yeah. No, we've never goddamn had the medical examiner mixing drinks with the suspect at the fucking murder scene. While the sheriff looks on and fucking says, salute. What the hell is going on? Jesus Christ. This is wild. This is insanity. So I don't even know what to do here the hell is going on jesus christ this is wild this is insanity so i don't

even know what to do here this is nuts so the uh also different things start to come out uh burger's been the sheriff for 27 years that's a lot so if you're sheriff for 27 years you have some skeletons uh probably earlier in the year his department had scandals about missing evidence and stolen guns phony inspection stickers that they were giving out for cars and judge drugs allegedly being delivered to inmates at the county jail for a fee wow uh but it all all of it basically got pushed aside as quote poor management rather than like you know criminal fucking pushing so uh the sheriff though he was in the middle of all this type of shit, which is insane, and nobody cared.

It was just like, well, that's fine. Small town sheriff. He can do what he wants. So this whole thing goes to trial in September of 1991. The whole thing goes to trial. And the craziest thing in this trial, the first day of the trial, the sheriff walks in. No. And the sheriff.

He shows up? Yeah, the sheriff's got to show up for the trial. He knows that if he's there it looks bad it's crazy for him to show up because he's friends with the defendant so he shouldn't be allowed to be to oversee the proceedings right because you're even cops that are witnesses aren't allowed to see shit that's not that doesn't they're not allowed to be in there for other witnesses because it'll influence your testimony the other point is just that if he's there the prosecutor prosecutor knows everything that he's done that's bad. Nothing he's going to say is going to help.

The other thing is when the sheriff shows up, there's sides of the courtroom. It's like a wedding. Oh, Jesus. The sheriff does not sit on the defendant's side of the courtroom. He sits on the state. He walked in and just automatically sat down on the defendant's side. Then he looked around, got up, and moved to the other side.

Oh, shit, I can't be here. Oh, what have I done? I was just going with all my buddies. This is fucking crazy. So he ends up sitting in one of the sides of the aisle there behind the prosecution table. The families and friends were all there also. It was a big deal, this trial,

because he's a real, you know, this is the most crazy trial they've had in this town probably ever. It's a packed courthouse. The prosecutor comes up. He says in his argument here, he says that this case is an example of what's wrong with law enforcement in some parts of the country in places like Jefferson County. It's who you are. Itfferson county it's who you are it's who you know who you are how much uh how much money you have william nick pagano shoots somebody in the back of the head then shoots him in the face as he's lying on the ground is he going to be prosecuted not if his friend the lord high sheriff has anything to do with

lord high sheriff in a recording pagano called him the lord high sheriff so they used it back on him there so there's that that's a burner he's like ah they're losing my taste this is good stuff shit i heard it so then he says then he goes off into another direction and uh because the defense is that pagano was afraid of todd because todd was on steroids so he made him he was fearful of him and that's why he brought the shotgun out and things just got out of hand you know so the prosecutor says that he wants to talk about steroids he talks about how much steroids you know how much steroid talk the defense wants to talk about they had two doctors testify about the dangers of steroids as well for the defense here and uh

they said the the prosecutor says but the bottom line is that just because a person is on steroids does not give you the right to shoot him in the back of the head and then in the face when he's down true yeah uh also a doctor testified this is in 1991 that there were about 1 million steroid users in the united states that about% of college athletes were on steroids. 96% of pro football players have been on steroids at some point. This is what a doctor testified to. And 6.6% of high school males have been on steroids. So that's what he...

I just thought those were interesting statistics. Those numbers have gone through the roof. Oh, I know. Now it's 185% of nfl players have used steroids so uh yeah they said the guy basically supposed to be so crazed and dangerous on steroids and so uncontrollable and out of control why would the gun that that uh todd was carrying was issued to him by the security company so why would you let him walk around being an armed security person for your company if you were so scared

of him being a violent, dangerous monster here? Which is kind of, you know. Also, why would you do it on your own if you're so scared of the man? Why don't you let the sheriff handle it? Yeah, call the sheriff. He's the Lord High Sheriff. He can do anything he wants. But he makes soap float. You want to come over

here and try out my daughter's gas, Sheriff, too? Because you know what? This guy, he's not doing what he should with it. I'm going to tell you that right now. They talk about another person comes in. A witness talks about an argument that they witnessed between Tim Todd and Stephanie Pagano two weeks before the murder. And apparently it was at the gym. And this woman watched it from the gym.

She said, when I looked out the window, I could see Stephanie upright against him, right up against him forcefully. You could tell she was very upset, and she was pointing her finger in his chest, and he was pointing down at her, shaking his finger at her. They were just pointing at each other. She said that she was pushing up against him and pointing at him like this and uh she said that it was about five minutes long this went on so the jury also heard other testimony about uh pagano's his whole how he's so in with elected officials and that there's evidence that there's evidence that he

tried to give pagano tried to give a political concert contribution to the prosecuting attorney of jefferson county four days before the killing four days before the kill that is super premeditated that is crazy there was evidence that he had previously promised to have friends make contributions to the prosecuting attorney that was actually prosecuting this case and that uh and that he'd given contributions to other county office holders including both political rivals in one election just to hedge his bets in case who wins hey who knows he also contributed to candidates of both parties on the state level as well uh which a lot of companies do that they contribute to everybody you never know

uh in a tape recorded statement that statement that he gave the deputy sheriff, he stated that he used his influence to help the medical examiner, the sheriff, the prosecutor, or any of those type of people to obtain a job. He says he told of contributing to the county court members, and he said, and before all this happened, I probably had about as much influence on things like that around here

as most anybody else did you know i don't know how much i got but i i don't know how much i got anymore but so he that was the end of his statement but basically i used to run shit right i gave everybody money i put a lot of people in their jobs right people owe me favors yeah this is what he's getting at now his wife testifies as well not Not his wife. Patricia Todd testifies. Yeah. So they talk about how she had met Tim Todd in the parking lot at one point and had a conversation. And she said, after work, he met me in the back parking lot by my car. And he told me that he didn't want to divorce me.

But if we were to live in Jefferson County, he was told by Bill Pagano that he would have to marry his daughter, Stephanie Pagano. And if he didn't, Bill said he would kill him. I'll kill you if you don't marry my daughter. You have befouled my daughter. You have planted thy seed in thy gash. And now it is useless to any other man. There you go. So that's basically what he's saying.

He's doing some weird medieval shit where you've touched it, now you've got to marry her. Sorry. And so you have to go down on her. You licked it. You have to divorce your wife. Well, I mean, that's a rule that really is. If you lick something, it's yours, usually. People will let you have it at that point.

Most of the time, they'll go, well, that's yours. It's different with women, though. They have their own say in things because, you know, they're humans. It's a different story. So, yeah, it's strange how that shit works. In some countries. Some countries. In a few of them.

So, not in rural Missouri, apparently. That's a different story. In rural Missouri, your father forces a man under threat of murder to divorce his wife and leave his children to marry your daughter it's super fucking weird so yeah he that's what he told him this would have been she says about the 16th or the 18th of january in 1990 so two months before this and uh she said that he looked very pale and very upset while she said that while while todd told him that told her that now uh the defense defense attorney his whole thing is that you know he's he said uh listen it was a smooth move he was trying to take his friend in he didn't want his friend to get bum rushed by the cops he was trying to take it with him take the

guy he's trying to help the guy out gentleman and he's going through a hard time and his thoughts aren't all together because he's on so much steroids that he doesn't know what to do of course he's going to kill his wife i the lawyer said quote was it wise to be there that's not the question he goes the question is what happened it's a you know he said did the sheriff do anything to protect uh to protect patty to protect you know todd's wife no and he was saying this is a incompetence on everyone's part but not my client who just shot a guy in the fucking head twice he's trying to do the best thing for everybody for everybody that's the thing so after all this it's there's some cloud in the waters uh they they're trying to get him on first

degree murder but there are lesser too there's a second degree and all that sort of thing so uh this goes to the to the jury and uh comes back guilty of second degree murder why second degree murder because they're the premeditation which to me if it's not premeditated you can't even say he did it yeah but to me the premeditation is all of it he it's definitely premeditated if it happened it was premeditated if there was a a contribution attempted to be made four days before that murder to a man who is going to prosecute anybody that murders him that's the thing that's premeditation not only that he set up he set up everything he set it all up ahead of time it's just it's fucking crazy to people yeah second degree murder it's nuts that's a jury just hedging their bets and being like look look, I don't I'm not confident

enough and I don't want to give him first degree. I want this to stick. Yeah. Well, maybe that's part of it, too. So January 1992 is the sentencing of this. By the way, do not turn this off. Stick around till the end because this shit gets crazier. Not even close to where we're going to end up.

OK, so January 1992 is sentencing and um he's saying his statement isn't of you know contrition his statement of is of this is ridiculous i mean this is bullshit yeah the judge on the other hand has other other things to say he says you sir may fuck off uh 23 years in prison okay he gives him for second degree murder but but with a huge butt oh boy uh while he appeals and this this is usually for like a lower level case or a white he can be out while he appeals he is allowed to get bail what they allow he's convicted of second degree murder this isn't of assault or like a robbery or this is second degree murder and he's convicted of second-degree murder. This isn't of assault or, like, a robbery. This is second-degree murder.

And he's allowed out on bail. Bail is set at $250,000, which he has no problem. Super affordable for him. He is allowed out on bail during appeal, which, for a murder case, nuts. That's wild. Nuts. And in a couple years, as we'll talk about september of 1993 the state puts an end to that shit uh there uh the it's a new law pushed for by the uh by the

attorney general at that time jay nixon who heard about this shit well it only affects a couple people here uh he said that uh this nixon said jurors victims and their relatives shouldn't have to be concerned about meeting the convicted felon out on the street before or during the appeal. I guess a couple of these like one. This guy, when Pagano's out, he's not like hanging out in his house. No, he's not just living his life. No, no, no, no, no. He's going.

He's making an extra spectacle. He's going downtown, going to the nicest restaurant, making sure he's seen, ordering expensive wine. I mean, he's acting like I am fine. Dapper Don. Fucking great. Teflon Don. Teflon Dapper Don. Yeah, both.

So, yeah, that's what he's acting. He's acting like a fucking mobster. That's absolutely what he's acting like. This really only affects a couple of people that are out on this, but this would be the change in the law closes the loophole that allowed violent criminals who could afford bond to walk the streets until the appeals process nixon says there's simply no justification justification for special treatment of these violent criminals the jury which is being asked to make the tough calls and the victims and their families should not have to contend with the worry of meeting these people in the street uh yeah uh this affects mainly pagano and one other uh one other person who's out on this particular thing but yeah this puts an end

to it's like uh murder and uh felony assaults and uh aggravated armed robberies and shit like that don't fall their fall they fall under the not allowed to get bail category if you're convicted not if not you know if you're under suspicion or not yeah if you're arrested you can get bail but not you're you're convicted by a jury and you go i'm going to appeal and appeals take fucking years yeah he's out for three years holy shit living his life dude i'm talking having a hell of a life here and And then finally, he's in 94. He gets his appeal and he is telling everybody that, yep, new trial right around the corner. Obviously going to get a new trial. This is bullshit.

You know, everything like that. His main complaints are he's got a few ineffective assistance accounts. But his main ones are that he's mad that the prosecutor statements were allowed in saying that this is the statement he has a problem with. And the message needs to be sent that no matter who you are, no matter who you are, no matter how much money you have, no matter who you know, you can't get away with murder is what he said. He's saying that this is wrong. That's inflammatory. he's saying that this is wrong. That's inflammatory.

He said that, uh, uh, Jesus Christ, man. He said that this notion that whether you are going to be arrested, whether you're going to be prosecuted, whether you're going to be convicted of a crime depends on who you are, who you know,

how much money you have, uh, is the, uh, the, the, uh, he says that basically that was,

that was prejudice against him. Yeah. Saying that you couldn't say that about a poor person is what he said. That's his type of thing here. And also OJ. Yeah. But then he also talks about shooting people and talks about when he shot him on the ground and shit like that. So he's saying the prosecutor went too far with what he said he

said the argument of the special prosecutor was purposeful to bias the jury against the defendant because he was rich and influential which in this day and age is not a position of public admiration yeah people no one is fuck off jesus christ yeah you're so hated you have to sit in your tower while people try to kill you yeah they've seen my 15 room place yeah they're all pissed at me now the argument was not an argument for the need of law enforcement or for honest law enforcement the argument was a get the rich argument which it really wasn't it was forget the corrupt argument right it was for you can't buy your way out of shit and he has systematically tried to buy his way out of this by trying to give a goddamn prosecutor money for fucking days before he killed somebody uh the court did not agree with that one uh they heard

tape recorded statements of pagano from interviews conducted by the deputy sheriff and everything where he acknowledged attempting to use political influence to obtain favors and all that sort of shit he also told uh told the deputy sheriff of assisting tim todd in obtaining a loan through a special contact he knew in congress he said he wasn't going to get that sba loan for that gym until i twisted a congressman's arm to intercede on his behalf so he talks they're saying that we're not he's bragging all the time about how he influences people with money so we're saying that's not going to get you off of murder charges. He also says that during recess of the trial, several jurors overheard a woman named Brenda Todd say that's one of his relatives say that she thought the case was pretty cut and dried.

Jurors who heard the remark repeated it to the bailiff and the trial court dismissed Mrs. Todd. She wasn't a relative of this Todd. Her name just happens to be Todd. She was a juror and questioned the remaining jurors about whether statements have been made in there about the case in their presence. And the trial court, they made an inquiry here and they determined that the jurors, other than the alternate juror who made the remark, could remain fair and impartial and kept in. They're saying that four jurors the defense is saying four jurors heard brenda todd's statement and uh that means this all should be thrown out it's all a sham one juror said it's pretty cut and dried so the whole thing's over uh yeah they

said that the fourth said that she three of them said they didn't under they didn't know which way that this juror decided she didn't say it's cut and dried that guy definitely did it right she just said it's cut and dried so that's a good point three out of the four said i don't know which way she thought it was cut and dried for she just said it was cut and dried and then the fourth one said that she understood that miss todd believed the defendant was guilty uh there all but she also said that she wanted to make up her own mind and that she wasn't influenced by this lady saying it was cut and dried so um it wasn't really affected uh the defendant had moved to strike all the jurors who heard the remark and uh it was denied and then they requested a mistrial and that was also denied there so now

uh appeals come you know he's got all these different things he denied requests for mistrials and he really really wants a new trial here uh they come back uh with a verdict here uh new trial denied oh shit no new trial but you do get prison yeah you can go there jail sir but not right now no you're not remanded somehow even though the appeal is happening even though the appeal is exhausted, he's not taken right away there. He's not Harvey Weinstein. Where Harvey Weinstein got convicted, they took his ass away in cuffs, and he left. Oh, it's going to be much longer than whatever it is that you're staying in jail right now. That's it.

Whereas this, they let him go. Somehow, this court didn't have jurisdiction over his bail, because that was from a different court. It's a weird thing. So those were were separate things his bail and the appeal who gives a shit about his bail it's great well that office who issued his bail they would have to go to revoke the bail and get him basically to to take him to jail the appeals court's just saying the appeal is over they don't have anything to do with the actual remanding of the prisoner we don't we don't sentence anybody we just say whether or not exactly what's trial was some fair shit or not uh now he is 47 years old at this point uh they're saying that he's got 23 years he's gonna do 13 and get paroled so he's gonna be 60 gonna come out 60 years old right still having some money a little bit of shame yeah but i mean he the whole

time he this asshole will use this to his right you know he'll boast about it i'm falsely convicted and he'll make a big deal security company will crush i'm an italian with a record for murder yeah i'll protect the fuck out of you yeah you don't even know so august you don't even know fuck out of here august 23rd 1994 finally an arrest warrant or a warrant is issued to go get him okay uh so the sheriffs they show up at his house with a warrant for his arrest he opens the door and he was in shorts a t-shirt and slippers when they opened the door pagano was he said quote to the sheriff's quote where do we go from here like what's what's going on here and they said they had to take him to the county jail in hillsborough and to the department

of corrections for you know to see where he ends up going and uh he says well do you mind if i change my clothes yeah i don't want to fucking leave in my slippers can i change my you know whatever i have some dignity here like change my clothes get a couple of things with me and um so they said yeah sure and they they treated they all know the guy, number one. They all treat him very casually. Nobody has guns drawn. Nobody even has their hands on their hips. No one's holding him by the arm. He's just free to wander around his house.

They're just like, yeah, you're going to come on. But you were picking somebody up to go to the mall, like very casual. They said, quote, at no time was he out of our sight or out of arm's reach. He was very cooperative and congenial. They said that handcuffs didn't even seem, they weren't even going to cuff him. They were just going to let him get in the car and take him. Weren't even planning on cuffing him. He was sitting in the front seat.

Yeah, they said, quote, I didn't think he was a flight risk. He's not going anywhere. We know who he is. You know, it's fine. Not to mention, he's got MS. Oh, really? Yeah, he's got MS and he walks with a cane sometimes. So they said at this point he was walking with a cane.

Poor bastard. So, yeah, Pagano's not getting around the house. It's not like he's going to run away across the lawn with a cane. Oh, that shit's going to get so bad in prison, though. Well, yeah, stress is bad for you. So he said, when he stood up, I thought he was going to fall. Like, that's how he's not real sturdy. So we didn't think of him as like, you know, he's going to start punching us or run away.

how he's not real sturdy so we didn't think of him as like you know he's going to start punching us or run away um so he they let him up into they they walk with him but i mean he walks up into his bedroom and they said he has a large like a big dressing uh closet there and his wife helped him get dressed in the closet his wife eileen was there helped him get dressed um and then they stood outside the door doorways of the bathroom in the closet while this was going on. The one police officer was about seven to ten feet from him. He goes in. Pagano comes out of the closet. He's got a dresser. He's about seven feet away.

Pagano goes to get socks out. He's got socks and underwear, like an underwear drawer. And he reaches in. He pulls out socks and he pulls out underwear and, you know, all that shit. And he also pulls out a snub nose 357 no and puts it to his temple and blows his fucking brains out in his own bedroom done that's it 357 to the temple one motion unbelievable cops never saw a comment they literally said they couldn't even get a it was just a mafia snubbed himself he just picked it

out gun to the head before they could say a fucking word he was done on the floor brains on the on the wall that was that everywhere everywhere one motion um yeah so five cops are right there couldn't stop it uh what the fuck just happened the county sheriff glenn boyer said quote it was spontaneous we had no time to react you probably should have cuffed him yeah if he's a prisoner maybe if you didn't know him it doesn't matter what you wear to the place they're just gonna put you in orange anyway either way yeah i i assume i don't know if it's just me saying this but if it was me yeah that was being dragged i don't feel like they'd let me wander around my house with no handcuffs and get changed and go pick shit out i don't think they would do that i think they just come and get me

and drag me the fuck away like they would any poor people they just drag them away they don't fucking say oh yeah no get changed yeah talk to your wife get some you want to get comfy socks definitely what do you what do you want to bet this was this this could go even deeper this what do you want to bet he was fucking he discussed this with somebody he was like i'm just gonna fucking end it don't worry let's i won't people one guy who knew him that was a police officer said i imagine his pride probably made him do it uh i don't think he ever could have handled really going behind bars another uh current police chief said uh he described pagano's deeds as a quote greek drama with everything on on a tragic course yeah it's a good way to put it. Also, they talk about that he was vain.

He didn't want to go to prison. He would rather deprive his wife and family of a husband and a father instead of serving time. He owed the state of Missouri. That's what the prosecutor said. The prosecutor also said, I just feel he was a very proud man and, in my opinion, a very bad man.

He owes me a debt. He owes me a lot. Sheriff Berger said he didn't know why his friend killed himself. Buck said he doesn't understand it he says quote he was very optimistic that he would get a new trial i'm sure he didn't want to go to prison i guess he thought this was his best way out now as far as terry todd goes yeah terry todd said quote i'm not sorry to see him go he had a choice to live or die he didn't give my brother that choice i think i think prison would have been the perfect punishment for a man of his arrogance attaboy terry there you go

uh now uh back to this uh lisa his daughter is married to now judge ed page okay remember page was a intern for okay uh now they're the ones who run the security company it's now global security it was at least as of 2013 and uh yeah it's owned by he's a jefferson county associate circuit court judge the the son-in-law page uh takes control of the business in 92 after the murderous charge and everything like that in 2013 this company here uh they found out overcharged the st louis parks department 285 000 over a matter of years but when they found out the feds refused to prosecute they instead uh claimed that the the firm itself had been duped by city workers wow meanwhile they're the ones that got the money oh judge page is a

dick pretty interesting two two st louis parks department officials pleaded guilty in 2013 and got light prison sentences out of it and uh global security and two other contractors avoided prosecution i'm sure they probably knew about it but the city the attorney said quote we believe they had been duped they said it was a embezzlement by high-ranking city employees netting a total of nearly five thousand five hundred thousand dollars from the parks department there uh yeah page was elected on the republican ticket as associate circuit county judge in jefferson county and uh yeah it's there and also his wife is a jurist lisa page here uh she is appointed to the Missouri Court of Appeals by Jay Nixon, who was the guy who revoked bail for violent criminals.

Awesome. Which is funny. He became governor. Right. She works for him. She ends up working for him. Wild. So basically she works for him and this comes out and then they don't get prosecuted.

And so who knows? Oh, man. There is so much finger fucking. Everybody's got a finger in their ass. It's so ridiculous. Everybody get the fingers out of your gashes and fucking pay attention to your jobs. Mark Timothy Todd is buried in the Herculaneum Cemetery in Herculaneum,fferson county missouri there he was 33 when he died and somebody left on his find a grave memorial thing somebody left this that was just fucking

brutal somebody said quote the old adage applies here the grass isn't always greener on the other side it may simply mean you should water your own lawn wow that's a shitty thing to say as true as it is it's also shitty he's dead and he didn't it's fucked up i don't know i thought that was shitty someone had to take a shot on him yeah you fucking idiot it's not cool man so um yeah that's that is the story of festus missouri my god and that is the todd's paganos slash holy shitanos that's a mess it really went down in festus gross the whole place is gross but that's one of those it's just like a surprised i love those surprise endings like that where you're like you don't expect that shit fucking hell yeah it's a twisty one is that our first one where the person now we've all being arrested kills themselves maybe i'm not sure i can't remember i mean the guy

yeah i usually you know that bonus episode i usually stay away from the suicide by arrest because usually they're being arrested for the initial time yeah so then you just get you know you don't get the whole story the trial you don't get to talk to him you don't get to find what happened you don't get an investigation you just get this happen he's dead oh well right so the stories are too short to do that right but this isn't you know usually they're out on bail and have access to 357s i can't believe that murder i can't believe for murder you're allowed not only you're allowed to have weapons in your fucking house at that point you can't have you're convicted of murder right with a gun why you're not allowed to have anything anymore.

He should have to cut his fucking meat with a fork. Are you kidding me? Fuck out of here. You're not allowed to have that. You should have to fasten a knife out of a twig. Sporks only, sir, for the rest of your time. So that is Festus, Missouri. It's a little green.

It's a little infected, but that's okay. Check that out. We're glad that you did. And if you like that show, I know how you can tell us about it. You can. You can go over to that purple icon on Apple Podcasts there. Give us five stars. Doesn't matter what you say.

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Get your tickets right now for New York because those are going to go fast. And then what the hell? Get them for the summer. New York or New Orleans, Atlanta. Come see us. goddammit. Also, all over Texas. San Antonio, get your shit together. We're going to cover you.

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social media we are at small at murder small right on twitter and we'll state it backwards and then we are at small uh small town pod on facebook that's true and at small town murder there you go on instagram that's where the fuck we are god damn it and uh yeah so that's all wonderful and if you want to be a hero of ours, an even bigger hero, and if you want to get bonus material, like the episode that's going to come out this Friday, another weird little Missouri case, and they'll come out about every two weeks, you can do that very easily by going over to patreon.com slash crime and sports or head over to PayPal and use our email email address crime and sports at gmail.com we're so appreciative of everything and on on those patreons it's a five dollar and above level

if you do those we're going to be doing crime and sports bonuses stuff too so if you like both you're going to get both of those for it's not like it's five dollars for one show five dollars for the other no that's bullshit it's us it's all going to us yeah whatever you can have it all it's all going to you it's all going to you that's what i'm saying so with that said i think i need to hear the names of these people they're gonna warm my heart so many and make i haven't slept in like a week so i could use i need to be warmed jimmy warm my heart right now with the names of the most wonderful people in the world hit me with them this week's executive producers are Melissa Turner, Melissa Sparks, yes, Darren Foreman, Tanya Volanek, Jordan Bennett, Brittany Batter, Annalise Garland, Justin Tolentino, Jason

Kluga, and Melissa Cooper. That's three Melissa's. Wow, thank you. Thank you so much. All of you. All Melissa's and everyone else. Truly. Thank you.

Other producers this week are Jon Stewart, Amanda Knight, Sarah Messink, Heather Hall, Tegan Boyko, Capri Bailey. That must be opposite. this week are john stewart amanda knight sarah messink uh heather hall tegan boyko uh keper capri capri capri bailey that must be opposite right there's nobody that's first name is capri capri capri oh is that capri maybe it is k-h-e-p-r-e you you fucking nail it whoa i don't know maybe capri probably not uh heather uh earlich or earlick uh tina sanchez thomas smith Capri? Probably not. Probably not. Heather Ehrlich, Tina Sanchez, Thomas Smith, Ashley Veo, Caitlin Taylor, Katie with no last name, Jessica Christensen,

Shelly Roberts, Lovin's Amy? Probably not. Jesse with no last name, Jennifer Prater, Shelly Roberts, I said that, Desiree Norman, Leroy? No, it's Larry Butterfest and his sweet stache.

He grew a mustache, and he's documenting his beard growth. Sweet, man. Cara Forney. Peyton Meadows. Ben Saulnier. Yeah, I think that's right. Diane Wall. Tori, no.

Yeah, Tori Tuchillo. Brooke Gay. Robin Anderson. Elizabeth Minton. Crystal Walker. Taylor James. James Marder. Raul Segala. Savannah Bender. no yeah tori tuchillo brooke gay robin anderson elizabeth minton crystal walker taylor james james martyr raul cigala savannah bender stephanie uh d'angelo jackie sukup christer is it is it chris no it's christy r ah i think that christer no it might be christer matt campbell uh robin anderson i said that uh janice hill susanna platt brandon brandon

smith dylan irish dylan likes to play the scratcher games and then when he wins he sends us the money why thank you it's fucking awesome good luck dylan go make a million dylan yeah uh andrew wellmers amanda and steven uh mandy peterson d Justin Lloyd, Jordan Baca, Aaron Edrington, Jillian Whitson. Yeah, Derek Stowell, I think that's what it is. Michael Powell, Ashley George, Carmen Macchiandra. No, I stumbled on Macchiando. No. Hmm.

Carmen, thank you. John Herndon, Steven Rood, Adrian with no last name, Stacey Worth-Bastion, Anita Martinez, Lauren Flores, Gary Howard. Thanks, Gary. Ronnie Kumar, Joshua Nicholson, Ellie Bohan, I think it is. Michael Moyes, like Moytai. Yeah, yeah. That kind of Moy.

Nathan Davidson, Faith McClain, David Joubert, Cassandra Ellen, Jamie Jay, Sarah Coleman, Diablo Conqueso, Carol Rafferty, Shannon Lafferty. No. What? Is that right? Both people back-to-back? Like, that's wild. Nathan, no, it's Nolan Stout, Tim Reynolds, Fruit, no, Fritz, Fritz Olsen. Sorry, Fritz.

Jack Cornelius, Aaron Edrington. I said that. He donated twice. Thank you. Casey Taylor. Teresa Petaway. No, Petway. Paul Ruest donated again.

Thank you, Paul. Charles Carpenter. Penny... Oh, shit. Szyzglarski. Nope. Probably not. Rich Beck.

Jerry Paul. Kay Hagel. Or no, Kay Hague. There you go. H-A-G-G-E. I don't know. Elizabeth Dibble, Rob's daughter, obviously. Rob, clearly.

Emily Kokesh, Sean and Laura Dunifin. Yep. Brendan McCreight, Christine Dale. No, that's Day. D-A-Y-E. Rich Beck, I said that. Jerry Paul, Casey Huffman, Octavia Cruz. Kip Sousley. Kelly Justice. Dave Justice.

Well, obviously, all the players. Thanks, guys. Andrew Ebel. Kevin Martinez. Paul. Yeah, Paul. Paul. See, this is Paul Del Real.

And with the two Del Real, it makes me want to say Powell. Yeah, I got you. That's what I'm doing. All right. Rhett Stern, Howard's nephew. Brittany Herz all right uh ret stern uh howard's nephew uh britney britney herzog shayla dawn whitey's niece that is whitey herzog's niece andrew roberts jake gills yeah no no giles uh oh shit uh scott oh never mind i was gonna say scott that's a he's the nephew of the guy with the band right jay guile's nephew uh brian brian lorette i think lisa lubert uh carly lorenzo amy pohanik thank you thanks amy uh it was good to see you in denver also uh lynette campbell uh one one suarez chris

chris hansen no hassan sorry have a seat right over there. Jess Hernandez, Manny Sierra, Margaret Busani, and Julie Small. Thank you guys so much for everything you do for us and all of our Patreon supporters. You guys are truly amazing. Thank you so much, everybody. Honestly, we can't do that without you. We can't do any of this without you. And we're really just grateful of everything that you do for us us what if people were grateful for something that you do for them happy to tell me at wisman socks whisman socks on twitter instagram snapchat thank you guys for all

the birthday gifts and birthday words and somebody from the mardi gras uh they have a mardi gras float the end endy endymion and endymion endy and endymion i don't know it's said with a french accent andy mayon and him i don't know they sent us so much marty thank you we got lots of stuff so we're the amount of you guys that that uh really have done unbelievable things for us i can't i can't believe it i really can't and thank you guys very much where can i find you you can find me at jimmy p is funny or just copy and paste my name from the show description and put it down so you don't have to bother yourself or hurt your head trying to spell it that said keep doing that come back next week look out for the bonus show on patreon tomorrow and i will get some sleep for next

week's show and it'll be wonderful so right with that said until next week everybody it's been our pleasure So with that said, until next week, everybody, it's been our pleasure. Bye. 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. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. 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.