Small Town Murder - #186 - Power Saws, Little Red Wagons & Corpse Finding Cats in Libertyville, Iowa

Episode Date: August 27, 2020

This week, in Libertyville, Iowa, when police are alerted to cats, eating an unknown flesh, they unravel quite the tale. A woman met a man at a function for singles, and they married within weeks. Turns out, he's not as great a guy as she thought he was, which is proven by the opinion of just about everyone who ever met the man. The marriage doesn't go too far without problems, and eventually those problems result in one of the most wild, crazy murders, ever, culminating with corpse seeking cats. The trial that follows is even crazier, so definitely buckle up for this one! Along the way, we find out that corn sounds very boring, that the past is a good indicator of the future, and that cats can be just as good at finding bodies as dogs! 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 Libertyville, Iowa, a woman quickly marries a man with quite a history only to discover that he's not exactly

the great guy that he seems to be. If it wasn't for power saws and little red wagons, who knows how this would have ended. Welcome to Small Town Murder. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder. Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman.

That was a good, enthusiastic yay. Full-throated. I like it. That's what I'm talking about. We have a crazy episode this week, so that is very, very warranted, I will say. Hope you've enjoyed the last few weeks. We are on a roll of crazy lately. I'm having fun.

There's some wild stuff out there, so if you have enjoyed it, very quickly, one thing you can do, get over to Apple Podcasts, that purple icon, you know, the one on your phone there. Give us five stars. Doesn't matter what you say. Doesn't I don't know. You could say, tell us your favorite sandwich. That's a good one. I like hearing what people like to do with their sandwiches. Doesn't matter what you say, but it really helps drive us up the charts. Definitely head over to shut up and give me murder dot com for all of your merchandise needs, crime and sports needs. And you should be listening to crime and sports if you're not. Oscar Poreus a couple weeks ago we had a wild soccer player from brazil this week and those are always crazy stories so check all that out even if you it's better if you don't like sports we'll just say that it's probably better because we're just

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Usually those bonus ones. So you'll definitely want to hear those extra fun. That's right. We did the Minnesota Vikings love boat scandal, which was a lot of football players on a boat with a lot of women. And it was pretty gross. And yeah, not not nice stuff there. That was one. And then we did the women executed on death row since 1977.

Right. When we reinstated the death penalty. That was the last small town murder one. And then we did the women executed on death row since 1977. Right. When we reinstated the death penalty. That was the last small town murder one. So there's some interesting stories in there of these people. And you'll hear that. So you'll get all of that over at Patreon.com slash Crime and Sports. Right. Or you want to do a one-time donation.

Just get Good Karma and a new name from Jimmy. You can do that as well using our email address, crimeandsports at gmail.com. And quickly, the disclaimer, it's a comedy show, guys. Everybody out there. Comedy show. You know, that's what it is. Here we are. We're comedians.

We can't do it any other way. The stories are completely real. There's not like we're making stuff up to make it funny. You don't have to. That's the thing. The crazy stuff happens in this world, we've found. And there's many ways to look at a murder. do you know you want to see like a dateline thing and it's you know the arm was severed from the body and it's very dark and that's fine if that's

how you want to hear it covered but it's a little dark for us we like to kind of lighten it up a little bit and all that sort of thing there's a lot to make fun of around a murder shit yeah to make you know there's not you can't make fun of the actual death but there's a lot around it that's crazy and that's the point what you do is and what we do is we go out of our way not to make fun of the victims or the victims families because we're assholes but we're not scumbags there you have it that's how it works we're gonna have a good time with that if you don't want to have a good time with that if you think that true crime and comedy just should never be together ever makes you uncomfortable hey that's your prerogative but maybe the show isn't for you yeah or maybe it is and you're just you know maybe thinking it's something different no

either way you've been warned ahead of time that it's you know there's jokes in there so don't complain later that said for the rest of you wanting to have a good time wanting to hear a crazy story sit back clear the lungs and, shut up and give me murder. Let's do this, Jimmy. I cannot wait. Let's go on a trip. Okay. All right.

Let's see. We're coming from the East Coast. Right. Connecticut last week. Right. Oh, nice Connecticut. And we're going back to the Midwest this week. Maybe the most affordable Connecticut.

That's one of the craziest, most affordable areas of Connecticut I've ever heard of. This week, we're going back to the Midwest, going to corn country, Jimmy. All right. All the way to Iowa. Yeah. Oh, boy. Libertyville, Iowa. Okay.

Which, that's very Midwestern. Yeah. It sounds like they named it specifically for a Fourth of July parade. Everybody's got a flag in their heart. Yeah. We're going to run it through. What's that town called? We're calling it Libertyville now, because the parade's coming through.

There's hardly any of you there anyway. Right. What the hell you care what your town name is? Shit. So it's down in southeastern Iowa, this is. About an hour 50 to Des Moines, about three hours and 45 minutes down to St. Louis, and about three hours and 45 minutes the opposite way up north

to Forest City, Iowa, which was our last Iowa episode, episode 141. It's been a while. It's been almost a year since we've visited the good people of Iowa. And Jefferson County, Iowa, episode 141. It's been a while. It's been almost a year since we visited the good people of Iowa. And Jefferson County, Iowa, this is in, as all the counties in this great nation are only named Jefferson, Washington, Lincoln, or Madison. Those are the only counties you're allowed to name. You're fucking... Have some creativity, for Christ's sake, people.

They've gotten their due. There's plenty of shit dedicated to them. By the time Iowa started naming shit, because they were way later, and they're not one of creativity for christ's sake people they've gotten their due there's plenty of shit dedicated to them by the time iowa started naming shit because they got they were way later and they're not one of the original 13 here so by the time iowa started naming shit they had to see that other people had the idea yeah to name a county after thomas jefferson they had to have seen it yeah but they didn't give a fuck did they care no? No. He was named it anyway. I hear he was a great dude.

I mean, well. I mean, you know. There's some. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's one of those where it's like, well, he did some really good stuff. Oh, shit. He also did that. Oof.

That's really bad. Oh, wow. He was president when Lewis and Clark did their shit. Yeah, that was his idea. Yeah, he's one of the, you know, he's kind of the author of the. He did some nice things. Yeah, he did some amazing things, and then he did some also very, very bad things. So we'll just say for some reason they named counties. Got it.

So it's area code 641. Motto here for this town. It's a small town, but they got themselves a motto. Quote, more than just corn, there's also murder. I don't know if you want to put that on the sign or what here. But history of this town here. It's platted in 1845. So that's kind of when it first happened.

It's originally known as the colony. See, I told you. These bastards. And a goddamn Fourth of July party. And they were like, nope. No, that's not what happened. But a guy named John Jewett conceived of the idea of founding a village here, and then another guy was employed to survey and plat the town site.

There's not a lot to plat. It's just flat. You can pretty much just, I don't know, even the survey, just draw shit in the dirt. Well, it's probably more for making measurements of who can own what. Yeah, just draw it out in the dirt like a fucking sandlot football play. You go down and run a hook pattern, and I'll do that. What's the difference here? What are we doing?

It's a goddamn difference. So a guy, A.N. Bissell, opened to sell the first stock of goods there in a building, which was his store, and it's now a barn. So it's still there, this building that was there. I'm still fascinated by people who went by initials that, I mean, doesn't even flow together. Hello, A.N. Yeah. It's not good.

It's not like J.B. or something. There's a lot of P.J. or B.J. or R.J. J. really is a key. That's a good one. It's a key to it. It's a solid one. It seems to be the second letter in everything. A.J., B.J., C.J., D.J.

They all workj they all work they all work yeah is there any other ones that work uh not really no no no no it's jay that's the one i mean your middle name has to be jay and then you're in business for a nickname a.n no a.n you don't get to do that no but i mean back then his name was probably like you know aloe vicious or some shit and he's like no one's gonna want to say that or androgynous yeah androgynous bissell he's like i don't think my parents exactly had knew what they were naming me i don't think they liked me or he was like you know what i'm gonna run with that he's like yes what's it you know maybe he felt that way is his name spelled a-y-e-n if not yeah he can go fuck himself yeah no a-, A-N. So the first church was

erected by the Methodists in 1846. I just picture, like, church people of different denominations rushing to the town to be the first to, like, put up... Finish their steeple. Yeah, you know how they show, like, Amish people raising a wall? Come on, the fucking Pentecostals are over there! Baptists almost have it up! Let's go!

Jesus Christ, get hammering! Religious survivor. Yeah yeah that's what it is first one to get their fucking bell or whatever up the rest of them have to leave once you get your erected you ring the bell and they have to go home that's how it works god damn it shit that's the methodist the fuck i guess they're methodists here now god damn it sorry everybody you're already packing up unbelievable it's a bunch of catholics leaving uh we're gonna take the kids with us so uh yeah they had uh this cost of 500 for the first church it only cost to build that is wow

it was 1846 i mean i don't think that's like a two billion dollar building today yeah oh jesus forget it it was crazy yeah so uh 1850 they got a presbyterian church and then uh they finally built it like a good one in 1857 a real church that had like uh you know like a brick one shit like that at that point the town had some general stores dry goods a lumber yard a grain elevator a hotel a wagon a carriage shop wow a shoe shop a harness shop this is all the shit you need they really could have used a department store back then that would have all these things in one place like a home depot like somewhere where you get ever like a harness shop and a car yeah if

you get like a harness and a carriage in one place and a wagon all together in the same house but you're like fuck you have to stop at three different stores well i gotta measure this because he's got the it's got to fit with the carriage shit this wagon oh we got a problem okay hold on let me go talk to him i'll be back you measure this you gotta you gotta get all those three guys in cahoots very good shit to fix right fit right yeah very confusing they gotta get the blacksmith involved to work with other things and they had a beer saloon a meat market and a barber shop and the barbers back then were like doctors, too, in a weird way. Because they could cut.

Because they had a knife. Yeah, and they generally had sterile things. Basically, they didn't know of sterilization in the 1840s. But I don't even think they had that back then. They didn't know about sterilization until the end of the Civil War. Really? Yeah, a lot of people died of disease because they were just, use a thing, cut a guy's leg off and use a thing cut a guy's leg off take it cut another guy's leg off so if he had anything that's what happened back then it was uh very bad then they were like hey maybe we should

like wash this shit right that would help probably so uh the first time that people observed the fourth of july here was in a demonstration of 1842 when they had a barbecue this is before it was platted or anything yeah and uh it's said in an in a in an account from the day a barbecue was given and a general good time indulged here so general general some some people had a shit time some fistfights and you know some people had a great time three people got killed i'm not gonna lie so you know we shot each other's duels but let's call it general good that's good only one of them was a kid so we're doing well so as far as the county goes this general county there's only 4 000 people in the whole county

here so this is excessively rural there is no big cities here in this county or anything this isn't a suburb of anything this is just the middle of nowhere you drive through a cornfield and you go is there a few houses there that's this town all right literally so rising out of cornfield you can't even see the house no that's the house that's in there somewhere yeah so it began as a farming community it's still a farming community uh the first settlers here built the kind of had their farms in 1855 and they've you know built had like big farms and shit like that during the civil war here there was two companies raised for the Union Army. Company H, which really didn't do anything.

And then Company E, which was 39th Iowa Infantry in 1862. They were part of the Sherman's March to the Sea. So they were basically part of, you know, putting the dagger and the final nail in the coffin of the Civil War. That's awesome. Yeah, they were part of that shit. So cool. so that's interesting that's why they get the liberty shit i guess so that's why you're libertyville so it's uh 1064 people served in the 39th iowa at one time or another during its existence that suffered six officers and 58 enlisted men who were killed in action during the civil war. So there's that.

Now, the railway came here. It took like 40 years after the Civil War before the railroad got through here. That's how rural this shit is. This is super farmy. So the population has never been over 400 in this town, ever. The most it ever was was in about 1960. It was about 370 people. That's the most they've ever had here. Right now, population of this town is 360 people, and that is up 36% since 1990.

So, yeah, they had 264 then. Oh, man. Yeah, way more guys than women, like 58% men, which is way out of whack, but for such a small number. That's what it'll do. Yeah, if a couple of families have twin boys, it's over with. It's throwing the whole town out of whack, but for such a small number. That's what it'll do. Yeah, if a couple of families have twin boys, it's over with. It's throwing the whole town out of whack. Median age is a little older. It's farm country.

I don't think kids are moving here after college to start a career, probably. Three times the under four-year-old population, though. Is that right? Yeah, they've just had an explosion of children lately. Just recently. In the last four years, I guess. Corn fed. Corn fed. That's what happens. They're going to be big kids recently. In the last four years, I guess. Corn fed. Corn fed.

That's what happens. They're going to be big kids there. They're shooting that. That's right. So married population's a little bit higher as it goes with some of these. Divorced population is actually a little bit higher as well, which kind of surprised me. I kind of figured in corn country here it would be a little more. A little more stick together?

Well, we have to. We've got a farm to run. There's really no. What are we going to do? Who's going to shuck while I pick? Right. Got problems. We've got to stick together? Well, we have to. We've got a farm to run. There's really no... What are we going to do? Who's going to shuck while I pick? Right. Got problems. We've got to stick together.

We've got to stick together to get your half. That's right. We both want to eat. So not a lot of single with no children. 3% single with no children. So that's very low. Race of this town, not surprisingly, 98.1% white. So very white. 0.0 percent black 0.0 percent asian

1.9 percent hispanic that's the other that's it so they have like you know six mexican people there probably that's it they could be of any denomination but i'm just saying like that might be their you know it's their fucking bottom line that's it there's one family of hispanic people who've moved there 38 of the people here are religious and it's spread around pretty everywhere you got some uh a little bit of presbyterian methodist pentecostal a couple of catholics a lutheran here there it's all there what you don't have though are any jewish people whatsoever no no jewish and uh no muslims here whatsoever uh that's a that's a thing uh politically it leans a little bit liberal the whole county does but it's kind of uh 50 50 last

election it was 46 percent democrat 46 percent republican interesting yeah about nine percent independent and that was that so yeah very very much or eight percent independent very much uh an even kind of a place iowa and iowa's kind of gone back and forth, too, a little bit. So unemployment rate here is pretty low, which is, you know, people work on the farm. So there's not really... There's not a lot of money in that. There can be. There can be.

And these people do okay here, as we'll find out. Median household income, the rest of the country is about $57,500. Here it is $51,000. Okay. So that's not bad. It's compared to there's also a big demand for corn at the moment and other things too that are grown here and uh overall though the uh cost of living which is 100 is regular you know average here it's 75

but the housing is extremely low like health care is very high because there's no hospitals around here but uh housing is very low 37 out of 100 median home cost of 86 400 so not bad unbelievable that's like less that's like a year and a half of your family income right you can buy a house how many people can buy a house with a year and a half of income that's like not a lot of people buy houses like that. It's not usual. So that's not bad, actually. And if we've convinced you, damn it, corn country is for you.

Oh, boy. You need it. We have for you the Libertyville, Iowa real estate report. Your average two-bedroom rental here goes for about $746, which is low, but we might as well just buy something. Your mortgage will be lower than that.

But the houses, a lot of them, the problem is they're on land. So they're actually, the ones I could find are actually more expensive. Steeper than 80. Yeah, one here I found is a four-bedroom, three-bath, 2,200 square foot, 2,280 square foot. It looks kind of manufacturer-y, but it's not like a trailer, and it's very nice inside and shit. It's on an acre of land. It's $159,900. Wow.

That one was kind of honestly overpriced when you see the others. Yeah, but 2,300 square feet. For that, it's not bad. That's great. That's not a bad, and an acre, too, so you got a little bit, you know, if you don't have neighbors right on top of you. I found a two-bedroom, one-bath, 928 square foot. It's a trailer.

It's a trailer with, you know, the shit on the bottom to try to make it look like a house. But it's on 27 acres of land. 27 acres. $195,000. That's unbelievable. That's not bad here. If you don't like the house, sell half your land and put a new house on it. You can knock it down.

It's a trailer. Wow. And tow it away. So I've also found a two-bedroom, two-bath kind of in the middle here. 1,800-square-foot real house. Not manufactured. Not a trailer. It's brick-looking.

Brand new. Just built. This one kind of looks like a log cabin, sort of. It's got that facade on it. It's on two acres of land, $235,000 for that. Somebody's vacation, right? I guess, maybe. It's got to be.

Maybe. That sort of thing makes sense. Now, things to do. Saved a little time for things to do because I always like this. I found Fairfest. This takes place nearby. Nothing happens in Libertyville. let's be realistic here they're not doing that much but nearby at the fair fest holy shit are they doing something boy now the the light the latest lineup i could find was from 2016 so let's find out what they did back

then here four years it's been a few a few uh years here from five to midnight they had an after hours party after hours parties nightly it's an after hours at five five p.m after hours baby after after oh get those martinis flowing you know what i'm saying that's their after that's what you do you put on your black tux they don't know what after hours means i don't think they do till midnight yeah so really it's until after hours is what it should be after until after hours is when you guys stop that's it so it's in front of the fairfield arts and convention center which is very exciting here now also there's camping my god so the first day of this had the second annual fairfield business pitch competition what it's a competition for business pitches it's like shark it's like shark tank but billy shark

tank farmer shark tank out in front of the fucking fairfield what is this the fairfield arts and convention center this is great i got an idea for what this does that have to do with farming no we're not interested so what i got is this idea so you've seen a roomba right so when the cows drop their stuff all over the patch you got to go out there and shovel that shit right so i came up with the idea of a roomba for your for your pastor and they're like well let's see it and he's like i don't have i thought you would build it's a poop it's a pooping right this is what i call a a poop-mba. A poop-mba. It's harder to say.

Y'all can come up. You're the marketing. I ain't a marketing person. I'm a science man. I'm the man of science, obviously. I come up with the technology. So I got the idea. Now y'all build it.

I drew a picture. As you can see, it's round. And there's poop. And then it goes up inside of it. That's the... It's a... The specs of it. I mean, y'all can come up

with the specifics but i feel like this is the general my suggestion atv tires it's gonna be good because my other one gets hung up on the rug forget the long yeah never mind there's no way to get stuck on dog hair so i don't want to forget dog shit forget cow shit so then they have the local foods investment showcase and round table yeah okay you want to do that round table then So then they have the Local Foods Investment Showcase and Roundtable. Yeah. Okay. You want to do that? Roundtable. Roundtable. Then Friday, September 2nd, they have, it's a lineup of bands.

It's a full lineup of bands headlined by Buddy Guy. Oh, boy. Who's an old timey fucking musician. Haven't we had him on something? I don't think so. So, yeah, the Mike Dillon Band opens up. I have some bios for these guys in case you'd like to hear a bio of the Mike Dillon band. Mike Dillon.

Mike Dillon. Yeah. How many artists can claim being praised a punk rock provocateur, jazz vibraphone visionary, and percussion virtuoso in the same sentence? I mean, Jimmy's been called that before. I've heard people call you that. Exactly. the same sentence i mean jimmy's been called that before i've heard people call you that exactly it's weird that they said that exact verbiage that i've heard so many times percussion virtuoso it's a it's like he was there and just thought they were talking about him that's strange there's only one mike dylan so nobody else just mike dylan whether through his affiliation with artists

like les claypool's primus' fucking front man there, Brave Combo, and oh, Ani DiFranco, collaborations such as Garage A Toi, Garage A Toi. Yes, that's fucking amazing. I love fucking terrible bad names. Fucking great. The next one, The Dead Kenny G's,

which I guess it's like the dead kennedys but whatever with saxophones and critters buggin okay or bands he's fronted including billy goat and hairy apes bmx billy goat is him what billy goat is him apparently that's incredible is it i've never never heard of that before yeah i was like is it because i've never heard of that motherfucker i'm still stunned was like, is it? Because I've never heard of that motherfucker. I'm still stunned with Garage Atois. That's fucking amazing. Garage Atois.

That's clever. Ian Moore and the Lossy Coils. Shall we hear about Ian Moore and the Lossy Coils? A Fairfest favorite. Well, you know they're going to be good then if they keep coming back here. There's only 4,000 people in the county, mind you. So even if the whole county comes it's still kind of a not really a stadium show if we're getting out here ian moore is a guitarist

and singer-songwriter from austin texas he studied fiddle as a child oh no but switched to guitar when he realized that fiddle is fucking useless in the marketplace i'm just kidding switch to guitar in the country it's fucking everywhere is Is it? I have no idea. And when wrist problems interfered, his music contains elements of rock, folk, rock and roll, world music, and blues. I'm sorry. No, I... He changed from fiddle to guitar when he had a wrist problem because a guitarist gets blown while a fiddle player jerks off.

That's the problem. Well, that's true. Also, though, you have to understand here, he's got a fiddle player jerks off. That's the problem. Well, that's true. Also, though, you have to understand here, he's got a fiddle, right? So there's going to be wrist problems. With a fiddle... Never mind. I'm not going to say. Is it because he's jerking off?

No, no. I was going to say something... Because nobody blows the fiddle player. I was going to say something much dirtier than that. Let's not go there. I'm not going to one-up on dirty not going to one up on dirty on this one. Let's save that for later. So his covers include Many Rivers to Cross, The Beatles' Hey Bulldog. Okay.

And Bob Dylan's You're a Big Girl Now. He's played with such musicians as the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, ZZ Top, and appeared in Billy Bob Thornton's movie Sling Blade. Who the fuck was he in Sling Blade number one and because I've seen that movie a hundred times and number two did he play like in the parking lot while those bands had a concert he had like a fucking coffee can set up playing outside

James I wonder if he was the guy that was helping him at the at the goddamn lawnmower place like the guy that the owner was like making him help him because there's only like seven people but it could have been an extra though that's the thing and he's you know touting it yeah he could have been one of the people in the institution that have been which is don't claim that one of the people in the diner when he's you know having the conversation with john goodman or john ritter john goodman ordering french fried potatoes two

very different guys i would say. So let's see here. Steve and Michaela McClain are also there. Quinn Sullivan and then Buddy Guy. And then a late night dance party with Bamboo. So there's that. Is that a band or is that like they're going to dance around holding Bamboo? Let's find out. All right.

I have the Bamboo is a collective of genuine soul-driven melodies combined with world-class dance rhythms which include reggae south american and african styles with a regular dose of psychedelic jam to make this unique band a one-way ticket to nirvana holy shit somebody really worked overtime on that fucking description wow they're the coolest ones so far in my opinion they will power you up and make you dance like you are the entire universe at once. Wow. The band features New York City native Barbara Murillo, old-time friend of guitar legend Jimi Hendrix.

I was a friend of Jimi Hendrix on lead vocals. I mean, that's what you... Yeah, we hung out one time and smoked a joint and stuff. So I'm a good musician. You should buy tickets. I'm talented. You know. Jesus Christ. And all sorts of other fucking people. Who cares? we hung out one time and smoked a joint and stuff so i'm a good musician you should buy tickets i'm talented you know uh jesus christ and all sorts of other fucking people who cares like musical ayahuasca that's kind of what it is here and then the next night you're gonna have uh society of

broken souls steve and michaela mclean in the jefferson county green band whoa uh that's a long name you can't fit that on a fucking marquee. I haven't seen them in years. Well, I have, actually. They played my birthday party this year. Are they getting worse? It was tough. I had to drain my savings for them.

It was very difficult. Brian Johansson is also there. Charlie Parr. Oh, boy. Greg Brown. And then Donovan closes it out from the 60s there. Really, Donovan? Really, Donovan, yes.

That's incredible. Donovan from the 60s, yeah. The Herky-Jerky Man? Yeah, they wheeled him out there. Herty-Gerty. Herty-Gerty, not the Herky-Jerky. That's the fiddle player. Right.

He's the Herky-Jerky Man. Donovan's the Herty-Gerty Man. Wow. Yeah, so this is... Plays one song and leaves. He's like, yeah. There's a spirit in the sky, his too? Well, he does Mellow Yellows also. Is that him too? Yeah, Donovan's Mellow Yellow. He's got a few, doesn't he? Yeah, he's like yeah there's a spirit in the sky his well he does mellow yellow

is also is that him too yeah donovan's got a few doesn't yeah he's got a few it's a hurdy-gurdy man mellow yellow i think uh spirit in the sky is his too no that is um not him no that is norman yeah you're right green bomb something like yeah jewish name yeah i know that so i think that's him yeah it's i think it's green so good so anyway yeah that's different. Yeah, I think it's Greenbaum. So good. So anyway, yeah, that's different. So anyway, he's not doing that. Crime rate in this town. What we're interested in, well, I mean, we're not actually. I'm more interested in that festival, but we have to talk about the crime and the murder. Eventually.

You know, that's how this show works, unfortunately. They fucking make us talk about murder. If this could just be small town, I would love this show so much. They make us talk about murder. That's the thing. We didn't start They make us talk about murder. That's the thing. We didn't start the show to talk about murder. The next thing you know, people expected murder because it's called Small Town Murder. And then here we go.

Now we have to talk about murder. It's called Small Town Murder. We were just talking about rivers. That's it. Would you guys talk about some murders? Are we ever going to talk about murder? Right. We do.

We talk about a murder of crows. We talk about lots of things like that. And how you're going to murder that death row food yeah because it's good yeah so crime rate here property crime is under half the average so it's way it's way under there which like i said who are you stealing from they don't live near each other there's not enough people to have enough assholes to keep the yeah and everybody lives fucking 50 acres away from each other who cares and violent crime murder rape robbery and assault the mount rushmore of crime is about half the national average as well so uh this county when this murder took place that we're going to talk about this county jefferson county had not had a murder in 17 years in the

whole county it's impressive no murder i mean there's only 4,000 people, but still, no murder. Kept all 4,000 safe. In line, at least. Well, maybe not safe, but at least not dead by another's hand. So that's good. So let's talk about a murder, shall we? I'd love to. Let's do it.

All right. We got to talk about a young lady first. We'll talk about a woman here. This woman, her name at the time, Betty Lou DeVore. D-E-V-O-R-E. DeVore. Betty Lou just goes by Betty, but her name's the time, Betty Lou DeVore, D-E-V-O-R-E, DeVore. Betty Lou just goes by Betty, but her name's Betty Lou, so you can't leave out the Lou when someone's name's Betty Lou.

She's born in 1949, Betty Lou. Our story is going to take place about 1990, 1991, so she's about 40 years old at that point in time, and we'll talk about her life a little bit. Betty's a small lady. She's only five feet tall, so she's about 40 years old at that point in time. And we'll talk about her life a little bit. Betty's a small lady. She's only five feet tall. So she's very small. I'll show you a picture over here. Never mind the person on this side.

That's Betty there. Oh, goodness. What does she look like? A tiny little Iowa farm lady. Yeah, she looks like she smokes a cigarette while she drinks blonde coffee. High and tight hair. She's got the farm lady hair. She looks like she goes to coffee. High and tight hair. She's got the like farm lady hair. She looks like she goes to church maybe four times a week.

She's got those house coats on the back of the bathroom door. Looks like she can bake bread like nobody's business. Hell yeah. Like a good baker. And a good subscription to Good Housekeeping. Oh yeah, yeah. Right there in the bathroom for her shit reading. Looks like a farm lady.

Like there's no doubt about it. Very tiny little. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller available exclusively on Wondery Plus, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug addicted teenager,

but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law,

her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. With an all-star cast led by Emmy nominee Sanaa Lathan and Star Wars' Kelly Marie Tran, Chinook is available exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app

or on Apple Podcasts. 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. Lady. She has had quite the life, though, Betty. She's been around a little bit in terms of how old she's 41 in 1990. In terms of she's how old she's 41 in 1990. She her first husband, a man named Dale Guffey.

He says that she had a bit of a problem with reality after their second child was born in 1969. How do you mean? Well, she had some issues of literally was kind of dissociative, didn't really know what was happening. Postpartum. It's some sort. They thought it was some form of postpartum we're talking 1969 so postpartum was still cheer in the cheer up bitch phase of you know not oh you have hormones and issues and chemicals and we need to help you out it was well i don't cheer up bitch here you go fuck you want for me yeah you had a kid you're chunky what do you want like that's what the doctors used to tell you if you're a new listener watch some baseball and shoot some fireworks in a couple weeks why don't

you clean the house a little that'll fucking yeah that'll trim you up make you feel better that's what doctors used to tell women back then it's just as disgusting as that is so are you making your husband feel good i mean geez i mean if your husband's not attracted to you obviously you know like shit like that they would tell her well i mean have you been making his dinner properly maybe you'll feel better if you do his crease is crooked on his pants that'll make i would understand i can see why you would feel bad that is how they treated these women back then it's fucking sad so anyway she it got to the point where that she was hospitalized she was actually in a mental health mental health facility for over two months because of this. So it got well beyond the point of kind of a normal postpartum or an average postpartum.

This is a little more than your average postpartum here. It's intense. This is intense. How long after the baby was born did this happen? Like right away? Yeah, like a couple months afterwards. So now the husband's at home with a two-month-old with two-month-old and another what the fuck that's the second kid yeah it's 1969 i don't even know how to change a fucking diaper i can't make food the house is filthy a man at home in 1969 was

worthless on the inside right on the outside he could fucking trim the yard and all that shit would look great and he'd walk inside and it would be on fire and i don't know how to put it out you wouldn't know what he was doing whatsoever baby pissing with just pins sticking in his hips diaper on his head shit trail behind him blood running down his thighs yeah little brother on fire that's what's on fire that's where that smoke's coming put your brother out for christ's sake jesus fucking god damn it i'm'm making SpaghettiOs. Wait a minute. Wait a minute.

Dad's probably thought that the pins weren't supposed to go into the baby. It's going to fall off otherwise. How else do you attach it to the child? That seems prehistoric, but all right. I don't know. How else do you attach it to the child? What the doctor said to do. Otherwise, they're going to shit and it's going to pull it right down.

The weight of the shit. I mean, who knows? I'm putting maybe some suspenders he modified it but that's what a father would do you'd walk in it would the diaper would be on wrong but he'd have suspenders on to make sure it's on or just staying on it's his dad's suspenders though yeah the diapers are huge just walking into walls and shit like mr mom remember mr mom when the repair lady comes to fix the tv and like the fucking washing machine's going crazy and the baby's eating chili off the can and michael keaton's got flour on his face flour everywhere and other kids doing that's that's what that's what men used to be right it's i don't know at some point women put their foot down and we're like you need to figure out how to do shit in here, too.

And then we figured it out. But in 1969, that wasn't happening. So anyway, he says the ex-husband says, quote, she got upset about little things, but said that she was never physically abusive or anything like that. She was just she just had like a freak out on her own and whatever her problem was and personal meltdown, personal meltdown. It was all in her own mind. Not she didn't lash it out on other people she wasn't violent to the children or you know didn't like he didn't wake up in the middle of the night with a fucking knife over him or

anything like that she didn't take it out on anybody else she took it out on herself and that's everything with betty is take it takes it out on herself so that's how she operates her father and it makes sense because we'll get a little more background on Betty. Betty's father, Rex, Rex DeVore, which sounds like he should have a cigarette in a cigarette holder. Like one of those white dinner jackets, you know what I mean? Like walking around a nightclub like Bogart in Casablanca, I feel like. And he's been wearing that jacket all day because he had no chance of getting it dirty. Rex DeVore here.

How are you doing? Picking up women like crazy. That's his. That's her father, old Rex DeVore. And her father says that Betty's mother has also has a history of mental illness as well. And not that Betty does besides that one incident. But the mother did have a history of mental illness. She once threw a knife at him. And Betty was there to see that when she was a child so that's was she mentally unwell or was dad just a dickhead well probably deserved it according to

according to uh doctors they thought she was uh it was him or she they thought she was mentally ill at the time right and uh apparently uh the the mother was so kind of out there that he the father said he feared that his wife might harm the kids in the night oh no because she had she would like pop up with knives out of nowhere and shit so he was scared to the point where he would tie her hand to his wrist at night and in case she got up in the middle of the night to kill the kids. Holy shit. So he would wake up and go, hey, no, don't kill the kids. Right.

She'd go, oh, I'm sorry, and go back to sleep. He's literally making himself a ball and chain. Yeah. I mean, yeah, that's wild. So he said, quote, I don't know if the kids knew of her behavior, but she did say that Betty was nearby when he was attacked with a butcher knife while he laid on the sofa by his wife. His wife just there weren't even an argument. She just came in the room with a butcher knife and tried to attack him.

And he was like, holy shit. And the kids were there like, what the fuck? It was not a there. Well, like I said, there was nothing to precipitate it. It was just he's laying there. Next thing you know, fucking knife wielding mom comes in the room. So mom is a little flighty let's just say here um and he says the father says quote when it started it was a pretty good marriage but it kept getting worse over time and eventually her parents

divorced in 1960 when she was 11 they had seven children so a 1960 divorce those didn't happen as often and when they did a lot of times it was just like well you go this way i go that way men started new families and never saw their kids anymore and that was just it a woman would have to try to find a a man who would accept her kids and fucking raise them as his own and that was fully not diddle all of them yeah which is the problem the hard thing to find generally a woman bring your seven kids on over to my house. Come on in. I got room for all of them.

I got some room right here next to me. Why don't you just sit right here on my lap? Oh, boy. You're the cutest. Oh, Jesus Christ. So she ends up meeting Harold Freeburg in 1989. Betty does. Now, like we've said, she's been divorced a couple of times.

Harold, as we'll talk about, has had quite the history with marriage. Harold is older than her. He's born in 1931. So he is significantly older than her, obviously. He's almost 18 years older than her, which is, you know, whatever. He's in his late 50s, and she's about 40 when they meet. So, you know, I don't know. At that point, who gives a shit?

That's the thing. It doesn't matter. And for some reason, women can tolerate older men. I don't know what it is. I don't know if you guys are just nicer, I guess. You're like, you know what? I can deal with the wrinkly balls, I guess. Which is a fucking thank you.

That's a testament. When I get older, I'm going to be happy that, you know, women are okay with that. Well, I only need one. But still, she'll be okay with that, I guess. That i guess that's good whereas yeah men aren't as forgiving for some reason we're a lot more vain when it comes to that stuff i don't i don't feel like we have the capacity yeah well when it starts to fall apart if you're a visual aspect person well that's what it's tough to stuff to keep going when you see something you don't like to see that's true yeah i guess if you're younger yeah it tough thing. Yeah. Not everybody jerks to all porn.

You know what I mean? You can't look at one porn and be like, yep, I'll do it to all of them because I appreciate all naked bodies. No, see. There's some things that you do it for. There's women listening right now going, really? They don't know this. This is a fact.

Yeah. No. Men's jerking habits are very specific. Oh, yeah. They're extremely specific. Yeah. By the time they've hit, I don i don't know 14 they've really honed in on the thing that they fucking like i know what i dig they know what works for them they

know like what's gonna happen it's a very specific thing and if you watch pornography from 16 to 28 you see four or five girls uh retire and you gotta try to find a new one that you like yeah if that's the way you do it that's the way i do it that's what goes on in our fucking minds by the way god damn it keep making porn jesus christ i need you yeah my god so yeah that's that's kind of what was going on here so she meets this harold freeberg and uh they meet at a singles event yeah just like a gathering for singles and in fairfield okay so i mean i guess i don't know how else you would meet people back then there's no outside of like a newspaper classified there's no online you can't go on you know there's no farmers only it's mostly bars so you go to a bar and even there though it's

so rural i mean how do you even same people it's the same people and i don't know so yeah i guess a singles mixer is the only way you'd meet anybody. So they ended up dating for 21 days from March of 88 when they meet. They date for 21 days, and then Harold proposes to Betty. What the fuck? Very quick. Yeah. I guess when you're older and you're on the farm, you just fucking lock it down. He doesn't have much time left either.

He recognizes it. Yeah, I think he saw her, and he and he's like all right this is some good i gotta i can i can make a farm partnership here with this fucking broad i'm not getting any younger it's been three weeks i still like you you've definitely shit by now and i'm still here things move quickly in corn country let's just say that shit so uh a friend of his said quote harold woo someone. And after the courting was over, the wooing changed. He said that it would start out, all of his marriages would start out smoothly. But then in the first couple of years, things would get a little different. Harold would change.

And there was always a pattern, his friend said. Having some expectations. Well, he just turns from a nice guy kind of all at once into not a nice guy out of nowhere. And it's a pattern because it's happened five times before good lord betty is harold's fifth wife he has not learned uh he's also he also has seven kids harold so harold has been around he's 59 years old five wives seven kids he's had a full fucking life here and he has a farm in in uh in outside of libertyville it's between libertyville and Batavia, by the way.

But it's a little bit closer to Libertyville, by like a half mile. So I picked Libertyville as a town. It could have been Batavia. It doesn't really matter. Either way, it's still happening. It's happening. So also, Betty, with her, has a daughter. Has a teenage daughter who, in 1988, is 12 years old.

Her name is Heather. And she lives with them as well harold within the first year of the marriage adopts heather okay as well so that's a good sign that he's accepting heather not only as his own but he's adopting her which is that's big i mean jesus christ he could be you know ostracize her not want anything to do with her you look at her as a burden that's getting in the way of time with his new wife and all that shit and instead he's like no that's my daughter so So good for Harold. She has two other kids too then?

She has older kids. Yeah, too. She has older kids because the one was born in 1969. So they'd be 20 years old and gone. And then the other one was older than that. So they're in their 20s. Yeah. And just away from craziness because there's a lot of stuff going on. By the way, saying Harold is a

nice guy for adopting Heather is probably the last nice thing we're going to say about harold there so let's talk about some of harold's former wives uh here's one uh mary he married in 1951 so this dude was getting married in 1950 fucking one think about that shit no it's a tough life man 51 and he was still around that's just wild to me like it's can't imagine fucking i love lucy wasn't even on yet no like there was nothing on it was really no yeah it was like three really nothing it was the nightly news was on tv was like in like three cities like you couldn't even get it out here they didn't even have tv so uh between 1951 and 1966 when they were married so they're married for 15 years uh when she did finally divorces him she charged in her divorce degree that he subjected her to quote cruel and inhuman treatment

as to endanger her life um yeah he filed a cross petition with similar charges his said that the marriage was destined to failure. Listen, he said this shit in court documents. Listen to this shit. Destined to failure because his wife refused, among other things, to prepare meals for him and his children to help with chores on the farm and to can and process garden or and or orchard products. So, I mean, Jesus Christ, Jimmy, that's that was why my first marriage fell apart is she or and or orchard products so i mean jesus christ jimmy that's that was why my first marriage fell apart is she wouldn't can orchard products i was like listen the goddamn i couldn't take it anymore absolute refusal to be a a domestic slave was just the

ending of it i mean no it was coming no no the rest of it was all fine. But then I said, can some orchard products. And she was like, no. And I was like, what? I will not have that in my house. I'm not going to have it. You can those orchard products. What the fuck is that to include in a court document? Can the orange slices. Did she cheat on you?

No. No. Did she beat the children? No. Did she poison you? No. Set the house on fire? No.

Run away? No. No. no gamble all the money away i said she refused to can the tomatoes i got peaches just sitting here they're just sitting here they look canned to you they're fucking rotten the fucking rotten peaches god damn it so uh and another she had a bunch of wives the last wife that we found is janabelle spees who was uh divorced from him in 1984 so that's the last the last wife we know of and then he meets her in 1988 and gets married but between 1951 and 1984 he's had five wives in there so quite the and four between 65 and 84 so he he packs them in there. One every five years. Yeah. He pumps them out.

He really does. Every five years. Every five years he starts over again. Trading them in, I guess, or something. I don't know. What his fucking story is. They get tired of him, probably. And it's not even every five.

He doesn't have a marriage for five years because there has to be like a divorce and then like being single. You have to meet somebody. You have to go to the Fairfield Convention Center. Then you got to get them into three weeks later, marry them, and then find out they won't can shit and off to the next one the next one well that actually makes sense that he's a quick quarter then because that's how that's how you end up with five wives because you court them fast they come fast and hard you think after five on your you know on your sixth one you'd be like you know i don't take it slower this time just

give it a two months maybe make sure this is a good man after the third, you'd be like, you know what, I'm going to take it slower this time. Just give it two months maybe. Make sure this is a good thing. After the third one, you should be like, the first time I got married was 15 years ago. That averages out to be five. Maybe I should wait a minute.

After the third one, you should be like, I'm never doing that ever again. The fuck was I thinking? Maybe I'm the problem. No, that's it. If Sarah decides ever she doesn't want to be with me anymore,

I'm never getting married again. That's it. Twice, three times. Why't want to be with me anymore, I'm never getting married again. That's it. Twice is three times. Why would I? There's a fucking cliche for that. If you fail three times and I am not doing it. I'll hang on to my chance. I just say two time loser her for as long as she'll fucking tolerate me.

And that's that. I'm done after that. So back to Bettyty and harold together though now betty and harold it sounds like a match made in heaven and betty and harold out on the farm yeah come on you show it seems right you know they got a young daughter there it's good stuff harold is a farmer because they live on a farm like i said orchard products you know you gotta fucking can them he's also an antique dealer he goes around he'll go states away to go to estate sales antique things and get antiques and then sell them to local people

uh and also people in other states like he does he's a dealer where people come from other states to pick out his stuff so antique roadshow wasn't on the air yet no it's the truth and there and there is a lot of shit back then and still is but i mean especially back then because now it's a known thing but old barns would be treasure troves barn finds it's a thing the thing there's tv shows about it every once in a while you'll see like articles about a barn find it'll be like you know there's 20 1960s corvettes in here just like pristine in this fucking barn why'd this guy buy all some weird farmer some weird farmer bought one every year and just pulled it into his garage and fucking to look at it the weirdest shit in the world why why did this happen i don't know but they did it that's what happens with antiques

too apparently so uh it happens a lot like i said there's whole shows about this type of shit so he's doing that betty works from home selling insurance uh so she's a, you know, kind of a, what are they called? Like an independent broker that works for a company though. So she's just, she works at home and does it. She sells dismemberment insurance, which is. Say again? Dismemberment insurance, which is, you know, if you. It's farmer insurance.

Yeah. If you lose a fucking hand out in the thresher, you can't work on the farm anymore. You need insurance for that. What an insurance to have. Dismemberment insurance. Hi, how are you doing today? Good? Excellent.

I'm Betty. I'm with the insurance company. Have you thought about being dismembered recently? Because if you haven't, it's very possible. There's body parts just strewn across the countryside. And the only thing that prevents your children from being destitute and homeless is me right here. I don't think I need that. Well, here's 13 horrific stories about people that thought the same thing.

Just send them pictures of fucking bloody stumps. You know when you're out in the cornfield picking with the combine and sometimes it gets clogged. Well, old John down the street, he went and unclogged that that's what happens there and it took his right arm yeah what are you gonna do you could have used dismemberment insurance i don't know if your i don't know if your finger would have counted but i'll bet they would have given me 25 grand give me something for that a couple of bucks probably yeah that's there's uh in the anthony bourdain the first book he wrote he was talking about how he worked in some fucking New York union kitchen. And when he first started, it was one of these big kitchens with all these old cooks that were all union guys.

And some guy fucking slammed his finger in an oven door and it was hanging off. It was like half off. So he quickly went and got the fucking union book and figured out that you got like a shitload of money for a loss of a finger, but not one hanging off. So he just took a knife and lopped it the rest of the way off so he could collect the fucking money right there on the fucking line in the kitchen. He just, let me say what it's worth.

I get 30 grand. If I lose a finger, I get like five. If I, it's hanging off, he could give me that fucking knife and he just pop copped it the rest of the way off. He's like,

take me to the hospital. Opened the the back literally yeah literally was fucking scrolling through he goes oh man i get a lot of imagine doing that while your fingers dangling off pouring blood hold on i gotta go to the index and find fucking lopped finger what kind of shape is it in because it says if it's pristine you get 20 grand i don't know you can just hold it you're gonna have to prove it though is it mint is it in? Because it says if it's pristine, you get 20 grand. I don't know. You can just hold it. You're going to have to prove it, though. Is it mint? Is it mint?

Jesus. It's got to be a mint tent. Does it have a hangnail? I need pointy corners. You just lost at least $800, $900 on that. So Betty, at the time they got married, she had $35,000 in money and property from her first marriage. A divorce settlement. So she had whatever. So she gave that to Harold after they were married.

They got married. She gave all that to Harold so he could plant the crop that year. So he could basically, you know, she bankrolled the farm that year, basically. So he told her that he would pay it back with interest whenever she asked so whenever you need it back i'll pay you back with interest on this but i need to you know whatever i don't know how farm should work my feet every night go down on me from time to time i i guess i don't know if they do that on the farm probably you're fucking better i just paid 40 grand for this shit yeah well she should yeah she i don't think i can't see pick i

can't picture harold although with five wives maybe that's how he got them i don't know harold's a fucking virtuoso with his tongue other the rest of him's a piece of shit yeah but man can he lick some pussy boy it is wooey he gets in there there's fucking smoke coming off that tongue boy let me tell you the tornado oh baby the tornado's coming people go to the bathtub my wife goes oh no that ain't what we mean it's a different kind of alarm in my house so this is a happy day it's a happy day so she uh she was told that uh she said she did it because she loved him and she said she never asked for the money to be repaid he never offered it was just kind of they were married and it kind of became community property type of deal uh she said though that uh after harold adopted the daughter heather that's when he started to change when the when he i don't know if he felt i'm like

my duty he owned these people now because now the daughter is his too so now technically i don't know that keeps her there stronger i don't know what the fuck it is. But she basically he started becoming just more, more easily upset, more agitated over things that didn't really call for being agitated. And she said in the early winter of 1990, that's when all sorts of name calling started. And then that escalated into physical abuse as well and sexual abuse and every other thing you can imagine here so um and there's a lot of people that saw this type of shit too like this wasn't a hidden behind closed doors no type of thing he was a dick to his wife fucking everywhere wow everywhere they were people were like god jesus treat your what the fuck dude

you know like even other farmers are like, that dude's an asshole. I mean, shit. I call my wife a fat whore and stuff like that, but I ain't doing it like that mean. I don't do in front of people. Because it is like 1990. So they were on the farms. They probably were dicks to their wives, but not to this level. Right.

So Marilyn Smothers is a woman from Washington who would buy antiques from Harold all the time. And she would come all the way from Washington to buy antiques. So we must have had some kind of good antique stash going on here. So she said that he would boss her around and embarrass Betty in front of her all the time. She said sometimes also he would flirt with other women in front of her, including her. Harold would like she said he would make crude remarks and gestures right in front of fucking Betty. Just right in front of her. It would be, you know, make really crude sexual remarks.

I want to see the tornado. Yeah, exactly. You ever hear about my tornado action? Jesus. Call me the tongue twister. My God. So she she said she went to the farm to the farm several times to buy antiques. He flirted in a crude way.

She said, quote, I was embarrassed for her, which she said that Betty seemed to be humiliated by the way he acted. She said, quote, he ran his hand through my hair and said to me, quote, I'll bet with that blonde hair you had lots of boyfriends. Oh, boy. That is gross. That's a dude who wants you to tell him about it. Right.

Yeah. You had lots of boyfriends. Tell me about the one with the biggest dick. That's what he said. That's the 1960s equivalent. Any black ones? You know, he's going to say that shit, too, you know. Tell me all about it.

Was it vain here? That's the 60s equivalent of does the carpet match the drapes yeah that's what he's telling that blonde hair but you've had lots of boyfriends how creepy is that in front of his wife does that even mean i don't know everybody likes i bet i bet everyone wants to fuck you like that's i mean the only interpretation i could get is that he wants her to tell him about the dick she's got right while he fucking i don't know jerks off or fucks her does some weird shit he's implying that she has blonde buzzy hair and he wants to see it pretty much that's what that sounds like to me yeah and that's disgusting anyway don't touch people's hair no it's weird

fuck away from so the winter of 1990 is when the abuse started yeah okay uh harold at one point kicked betty and fractured her toe uh in a rage caused by what do you think it was caused by jimmy what made him so angry i'll give you a guess we're on the counter no no actually uh the house settled and there was a crack in the floor from the house settling in the winter. And so he got super mad and kicked her. Yeah. Kick the house, man. Yeah. He didn't even like take a deluded path to blame her for it.

Like, well, if you didn't put the chair here. He didn't even do that. He was just like the goddamn house and kicked Betty for it, which is fucking crazy. Find the guy that built it. I didn't do it. Dude, that is nuts nuts that's like people that are you know yelling on the phone and hang up well fuck you too boom and then kick their dog like it was just standing there's like what are you doing not that she's a dog but for fuck's sake

like someone who has nothing to do with anything it's the equivalent that's nuts she didn't build the foundation of this home for fuck's sake not a fucking mason no so uh anyway uh later more abuse came from another thing that had nothing to do with her uh that was a bull died so that's a you know the bull died her fault and uh that that resulted in a beating um you know he again she has nothing to do with the bull she doesn't not responsible for the bull believe the bull is his responsibility actually some outdoor shit it died so he came in imagine and this is this is terrible and this is serious for a second imagine being in your home and being in fear of that of all time all the time not that you will do something to even make somebody mad which is like you know a normal abusive relationship oh god i hope i don't make them mad because then they're going to abuse me i hope nothing happens in the world to make this

person mad because they're going to abuse me think about how fucking scary that is yeah keep your head on a swivel constantly any noise any anything oh my god is that something that's going to make him mad and like attack me that's fucking crazy like that's you can't live like that man you can't live like that it's not right so uh death of a bull another farm other farm problems too whenever anything would happen a fucking piece of equipment broke he'd come in and beat the hell out of her um another time there was a dispute with one of his one of his ex-wives about alimony and so uh he would yell at her for that and then there was the constant yelling about her at her about her weight as well uh he called her names and uh told her to lose weight all the time and all this type

of shit she's not a she's not a big giant woman or anything like that picture she's no she's a tiny little person so it's fucking ridiculous he's a jerk and when he even when he's mad at his ex wife he takes out on her and other other point is does she look the same as when you married her it's been two it's been two years you were fine with that so shut up i don't care what the fuck somebody looks like they could look like fucking you know rocky dennis from i don't care no if you married rocky dennis you got rocky dennis you'd be happy with rocky fucking dennis god damn it and you fucking go look at that you him. Don't try to change him. You handsome motherfucker, you.

Let me trace your giant jawline. I don't give a shit, but that's what you married, dude. Be happy with that shit. So, oh, another thing, too. Now, she also would like she never threatened to leave or anything like that. But just in case she ever thought about it, he did threaten. I will kill you if you leave. Obviously.

I mean, clearly, that's a kind of saying, almost, with an asshole like this. I think the shit out of you when I like you. What do you think I'm going to do with you when I hate you? When the house settles. Right. You know, like, you're upset about it, too. A crack in the floor. It's not like she was like, fuck yeah, finally a crack in the floor.

It's what I've been waiting for. She doesn't want a crack in her floor, either. Kick her. It's going to be a pain in the ass to mop over. That's the thing. So at different times he's shook her slapped her choked her uh he at one point strangled her with an alarm clock cord a fucking cord to an alarm clock jimmy that's think about that shit you grabbed the nearest

thing to strangle with and that's that's far down the list of murder that's like serial killer shit like oh i dropped my knife i'll grab this stranglist person so they can't identify me. That's crazy. Hit her in the back of the head with a five-gallon bucket at one point. And stabbed her in the arm with a fork. Also threw a knife at her from across the room at one point as well. Kind of like knife-throwing style. I'm going to go ahead and go out on a limb and say, this one's over.

He's kind of a dick this guy not even kind of he is a fucking monster this harold here no wonder and you go oh that's why five other women divorced him or four other women divorced him that's the reason why he's the problem he's a yes it's clear that he's the issue here so uh also he uh basically it's more than a dozen attacks between winter of 1990 and September of 1991. So 10 months, and we're talking over a dozen attacks, including, so more than one a month, including ones that required medical treatment, obviously the broken toe, and other occasions. On one occasion, she was in a wheelchair for three days, and she never filed charges against him. Refused to file charges, because I'm sure she was afraid of him if he's threatening to kill her and strangling her with alarm clock cords.

And what are charges going to do? Just piss him off. Yeah. So I'm sure she was scared of him. And she kept saying she loves him and she's not. She's happy with him. She said she loves him. She loves him because she's, you know, she's abused and she's got that mindset and it's fucking sad so heather this doesn't end with just betty either because heather the daughter she says that harold once uh slapped her so hard he drew blood so made her lip

bleed from a slap which is motherfucker yeah at 13 years old no no no no no no don't don't slap your fucking kids and don't slap your little girl no once in a while your boy might need a pop in the back of the head but not your little girl don't slap your little girl especially if you're a guy yeah like hey how can i fuck my little girl up forever and uh you know set her up for a life of uh fucking abusing this and yeah i guess i'll slap her till she bleeds when she's a fucking assholes, man. People realize that shit? Don't they think for a second to like, hmm, do they ever put their actions down the road a little bit? Like, if I roll this ball, it'll keep rolling and banging to that.

Do they ever fucking think of that shit? No, you just throw the rock in the water. The ripples look cool. Fuck, man. Jesus. My daughter, if I tickle her too hard, like if I puncture like puncture her no no i didn't do that puncturing i poke her in the ribs yeah so like you know like that little shock so if you puncture her yeah i punctured her side yeah i punctured her side and unicorns flew out poker and like

make her i try to tickle her like if i poke her too hard and hit that pressure point and she cries i lose my shit for hours i feel like you're supposed to feel bad yeah uh he also had threatened to kill both heather and betty together right obviously it's a package deal yeah he gets mad he threatens to kill them separately but then when they're together that's you know that's a family moment when when dad threatens to kill mom and daughter at the same time it's a real double date it's very nice uh she once uh she said she has uh only seen her her mother with a gun one time and that was when she was going to kill herself her daughter says quote she was going to kill herself i asked her what she was going to what was going to happen to me if she didn't if she did that and then she stopped so she cares

about her kids uh or you know, definitely Heather that's still here. Harold would yell and complain about housekeeping, how meals were cooked, and if chores were not done correctly. This is at both Betty and Heather. He would yell because Heather had chores as well. He made threats to kill them both. Like we said, she also said her stepfather or her father at that point carried guns around the house. In the house? In the house. Like walking around with it? Yeah. Also, he would just kick her for no reason sometimes.

She said that she'd see her mother get kicked for no reason. Heather says, quote, I was scared of my dad because he kicked her. She never hit back, but she would try to get away and cry. Jesus Christ. She said that she never did anything about it because she was scared of her stepdad, obviously. Because she's a child. Yeah. She said, quote, he pulled me out of my bedroom by my hair because my room wasn't clean enough.

He just pulled harder if I said anything. And he also hit her with a leather belt. Oh, my God. Yeah. She said that he said, quote, he said I was stupid. He called me little Betty because he always called her stupid and a cow and all this other shit. He called her a fat cow all the time. He she also says, quote, I felt like a slave.

If you didn't do something he wanted, you got yelled at and got hit. So, yeah, she said she was pretty much always scared. She did say there was times he was nice as well as a lot of abusers are because how else do they reel you in for a second and that one thought of oh they're nice to me that's the trust that gets you to come and that way they can fucking hit you and surprise you if they're always an ass what they do you leave that's what i mean you leave or you do something but that's that that little fucking thing is what they oh man they can tell they have a sixth sixth sense these fucking predators there's a treat there's a reason that you stay. Yeah, it's a psychological reason that you don't know what it is.

That's the thing. It sucks. So one time, one of his daughter-in-laws was there, one of his multiple kids' wives. She was staying there with him, and she saw Harold walking around with a handgun in his belt and one in his back around the house two guns in the house in the house just walking around two of them two of them just your daughter-in-law your teenage adopted daughter and your wife there just in case any of you three bitches get out of hand all these bitches gonna bum rush me i'm gonna have to put them down like no this isn't the okay corral relax dude calm the fuck down the the daughter-in-law said quote i had to leave because there was a lot of name calling and arguing he was calling her names like fat cow

and fat bitch okay so that's that's who we're dealing with exactly so heavy man that's real heavy uh now september 29th 1991 harold loses his wallet okay okay she's pissed because betty doesn't want to help him look for it loses his wallet um yeah he at one point says that he said he was packing up to go somewhere he at one point tells him you and heather if it takes you all day you're going to spend all day looking for my wallet because i need to find my wallet that's what's going to happen um oh and he pointed a gun at her to to cement it drive the point if not i'll shoot you because now i've it's escalated from i'll call your name so i'll hit you to i'll kick you to i'll fucking stab you with a fork to i'll threaten you with a knife to now i point a

gun in your face when you don't want to look for a wallet so that's an escalation is what that is and it's fucking pretty gross so uh yeah that night that same night uh there was a uh they were hanging out betty and harold and one of harold's friends was there and uh one of the antique people and he joked in front of the friend that he could quote chop his wife up and his adopted daughter up and spread them out on the farm with the corn chopper that's what he says like ah if i want to get rid of them i'll just kill her and her kid and put them in the corn chopper and spread them all over the farm with the corn chopper that's what he says like ah if i wanted to get rid of them i'll just kill her and her kid and put them in the corn chopper and spread them all over the farm and they were laughing and that was a big joke to them so this is a 1912 grandfather clock yeah this is a big joke to them what the fuck to the girls not so much a joke to the ladies because

you know they are deathly afraid of him so that's how it works and this gong dates back to the peking dynasty that's amazing by the way i think when i kill my daughter i should put all her stuff and chop that up too because they're gonna look for her right so i should probably put all that in there identification that sort of thing right so september 30th 1991 um yeah betty's having a normal day she has a business meeting that day with her boss right shows up and does her business meeting here it's her boss at the bankers life and casualty which is a cedar rapids company and um yeah so that was that uh she did her normal thing nobody hears much but then a few days after september

5th or september 30th she tells her boss that her husband's missing she says harold's gone harold's missing her boss is like wow that's weird uh very strange here um the boss thought the guy was a dick anyway he says that basically when they were on the phone whenever the boss was on the phone with betty he could hear her her hear him in the background quote harassing her and giving her shit while she's on the phone with her boss giving her shit talking calling her her shit. Talking. Calling her names. Wow. She can't even be on the... That's what I mean. He does not hide it.

No. At all. That's her boss. There's friends over. Her daughters. No. Yeah. He's fucking impunity.

He just fucking doesn't care. He just call you a fat pig? Yeah. Yeah. So I'm going to need that quota of 30 policies by the end of the month. He's like, you fat bitch. And she's like, so I closed the end of the month he's like you fat bitch she's like so i closed the deal with the johnson family three new policies they're all up for dismemberment

shut up you fat pig they're all very scared of dismemberment i know i know yes okay so they're very scared of this another crack in the foundation okay uh please um i'm gonna have to go soon but those policies are really it's not funny but it's fucking disturbing that's the point why would you do that right that's just there's how is the boss most people do shit at least gross shit in private right you know what i mean uh fuck man so blatant people don't molest kids in the middle of the street for a fucking reason you know you don't fucking act like this to your wife it's ever but especially this is crazy usually it's in the shower yeah it's all a light-hearted nightmare on our podcast morbid we're your hosts i'm alina urquhart and i'm ash kelly and our show is part true crime part spooky

and part comedy the stories we cover are well-researched. He claimed and confessed to officially killing up to 28 people. With a touch of humor. I'd just like to go ahead and say that if there's no band called Malevolent Deity, that is pretty great. A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing. This mother****er lied. Like a liar. Like a liar. And if you're

a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal, or you love to hop in the Wayback Machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes, you should tune in to our podcast Morbid. Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad-free

by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. In May of 1980, near Anaheim, California, Dorothy Jane Scott noticed her friend had an inflamed red wound on his arm and seemed unwell. She insisted on driving him to the local hospital to get treatment. While he waited for his prescription, Dorothy went to grab her car to pick him up at the exit, but would never be seen alive again. Leaving us to wonder, decades later, what really happened to Dorothy Jane Scott? From Wondery, Generation Y is a podcast that covers notable true crime cases like this one and many more. Every week, hosts Erin and Justin sit down to discuss a new case, covering every angle and theory, walking through the forensic evidence, and interviewing those close to the case to try to discover what happened.

And with over 450 episodes, there's a case for every true crime listener. Follow the Generation Y podcast on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Generation Y ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. 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 so he wants clearly he wants to embarrass her and show her that you know who's where the power is so october 8th 1991 harold's still gone betty reports him missing she said i don't know harold's gone yeah october 8th she calls the cops and said i he's missing she tells the cops i last i saw him was on october 7th which is interesting because she told her boss he was missing since the 2nd, I want to say. So there's five days that go by where missing and missing, but she doesn't report it until then.

Then she says, though, last I saw him was yesterday. So there's a discrepancy there. She said that he left to go antiquing with an unknown man in a white van oh so those white vans are dangerous that's i mean well antiquing though that's what you might do hop in a van with some guy and go look for shit in a barn i don't know so that seems believable for him that's something he might have done so they go all right well uh left the farm with a white van people she didn't know she said that he said he was going to illinois on quote antique business so business from a long time ago antique

business old business old business we're gonna figure out and get over with here um she said that uh that she got a telephone call while he was gone from an anonymous man saying that harold was in a hospital and could not contact her so that's what's wrong hey harold's in the hospital that's why he hasn't gotten a hold of you i'm sure he'll get a hold of you when he's out of the hospital that was the phone call she got she said so he's missing he apparently was in the hospital at some point who the fuck knows here a vague ass phone call it's very vague so uh yeah they so they're they're trying to figure out what happened they ask heather maybe if heather knows anything um heather didn't know shit she said uh she said that uh you know she that when the day that he left and was

missing september 30th was since then uh she said that she would go to she went to bed super early because she had helped uh with the corn with the harvest corn helping harvest corn yeah she was harvesting corn she said that her job was to make thing make sure things went right uh at that point i guess for the corn i don't know how you how you do that i'm not a corn person so uh she said that she got up before 6 a.m that day to get ready for school and she never saw har Harold at all that day. Just didn't. She said, quote, I went to the bedroom, went to the bedroom door, and mom told me to stop because he wanted to sleep until 8 o'clock.

So she said when she left, he was still sleeping. And she said, don't come in. He wants to stay asleep. He said not to wake him up till 8 o'clock. So she said she got home from school, and her mother told her harold had left to go antiquing with some guy in a white van she said that he just went antiquing uh all the way over to illinois so uh heather said she doesn't remember much else from that week she uh she stayed at the home of her friend uh for a couple of days just because she'd do that that anyway. She remembered helping clean the garage.

At that one point, she said, quote, all I did was carry out the trash. And she said her mom was sweeping and scrubbing the garage floor. And that's what she said. So she was helping her with that. And she said her daughter, you know, that was all. She went and

hung out with her friends. Nothing seemed awry, except they were doing some cleaning and corn harvesting corn harvesting for ones doing it on their own that's it yeah so uh corn harvesting though james they're very particular about that shit apparently so you got to make sure everything goes right as she said so you ever eaten corn around somebody that that shit means something to them if you eat that corn wrong you will hear about it i've never you are supposed to drag your teeth across that corn cob and pull the shit into your mouth that's the way you do it like it long ways like fucking drag your that's how they do it okay and if you don't you'll get yelled at or called the pussy or you can just not go to iowa that's what i that's i've avoided that

my whole life i got friends from nebraska that make fun of me there too because i cut the corn off the fucking cob because it's much easier to push in your fucking mouth as you know omaha my favorite town jesus christ deal that yeah if anybody said anything to me about corn there i go have you been to your fucking state fuck you how about this you're doing all of that wrong i'm eating corn wrong you're doing it all wrong fuck Fuck corn. This place is awful. Are you kidding me? Jesus Christ, man. You get in a goddamn car, everybody talks about it.

I know where Warren Buffett lives. Well, great. Whoop-de-doo. Thanks. Did he give you anything? Jesus Christ. Shut the fuck up. I heard he's a nice guy.

Whoa, well then. Thanks. That's why this city exists. Right. Fuck out of here. I heard you eat at a mattress factory, you weirdos. Fucking strange, then thanks. That's why the city exists. Right. Fuck out of here. I heard you eat at a mattress factory. Yeah. Weirdos.

Fucking strange, strange people. I remember that. So the deputies come to. They did some preliminary whatever, and they come to get some more information. When you report a missing person, they come and talk to you and say, you know, get all the information. Who are all his friends? Phone numbers. Things they can follow up on.

So they come the next day. Two deputies went to the farm after she filed the report and they talked to her for a while and she gives them, you know, this and that. And then they also talked to Heather and Heather told them that weird thing that the only thing I can think of that's weird around here lately is if you go out like in the field here in the garden uh by the house uh you know way back there there's a bunch of cats that won't go away that seem to be eating some kind of meat back there which is strange so i don't know you might want to that's the only weird thing i have so deputies were like we got nothing else to go on

they went to the garden and uh they looked around a bit, shooed the cats away and they found what they thought might be flesh. Oh, like flesh pants. They're coming up early this year. That's the whole flesh crop is coming in. That's the thing. If you don't harvest them right on time, it just drops away. It's not good.

So brings in the cats. That's what happens. The cats are here. Oh, shit. The cats are in. We didn't get it. Damn it. We didn't go out there and get it.

We're going to move to Iowa and we're going Iowa, and we're going to grow flesh plants. But I'm going to put up a cat fence. The problem is you've got to put it up high because they can climb and jump. Yeah, electrify that shit. Maybe you do them out so they can't get around it. Like a prison. Yeah, like a prison. That way the cats can't get in.

Otherwise, your flesh crops are fucked. So the next morning morning the sheriff's office organizes a search around the area and they find some things uh some things like a torso like a human torso and also other pieces of flesh of what they describe as flesh um this criminal investigation agent describes finding body parts all over the farm, basically. Here, he was moving body parts found around the farm and placed them in body bags to be brought to Des Moines for analysis. A bunch of them. Picking parts up here and there, chunks of flesh, things.

It looked like he exploded. Like somebody exploded on the farm. Like somebody got packed with dynamite and just fucking exploded. Like, oh, there's a foot over there. She just came apart. Flesh and intestines and shit. They took photographs of this. In the photographs is a picture of a torso, just a random arm that they found south of the machine shed.

A close-up of the torso had the red plaid flannel shirt on the arm from the torso. So they had the same matching shirt going on the torso. And a right arm and a portion of the right chest also. And two bottom halves of legs they found from the knees down with shoes and socks on. Yeah, he just blew up. He exploded, dude. You know what? He's an angry guy.

You know when you see like in a cartoon it bubbles it bubbles and bubbles maybe if you spontaneously you've seen scanners right maybe it's a whole body thing just was he like poof letting it out randomly on the wife you realize if i don't punch you i will explode they're gonna find my fucking torso two farms over then what you gonna do huh who going to can the orchard goods? I know you ain't going to do it, you fat, whore, lazy bitch cow. Asshole this guy is. Yeah, so anyway, we don't know if it's him yet.

So anyway. Somebody blew up. Somebody exploded, knees down with shoes and socks on, a large piece of flesh that the police assumed were, quote, the genitals with a large piece of flesh that the police assumed were quote the genitals with a large piece of abdomen attached oh no oh this is like a fucking like a wolverine attack this person um the guy in charge collected some evidence uh he said after that he after placing the body parts in bags and i assume throwing up and just reflecting on his life choices what he's decided to go to jesus christ this is

it's a spleen isn't it i said who wants to be an investigator and i went i do i do i could be pulling people over giving them tickets right now this would be much easier instead i got a larynx in my left hand fuck that's the good hand the other hand i have a piece of abdomen and this man's fucking exploded genitalia so uh he also took fingerprints from parked cars and from the door frames of the house and from you know all that shit as you would do in a investigation of somebody being taken or killed or something like that so they take him in it is harold freeberg we find out investigators also find a 38 caliber revolver and a 28 and a 22 caliber revolver there as well in the house now uh but they there's guns all over the house because it's a farm and he carried a

bunch of guns too uh four slugs are removed from harold's body during the autopsy. So maybe he didn't explode. Exploding rounds. Exploding rounds. Four slugs were taken. A 38 slug taken from the body matched the gun found in the room where he was found, where he initially was. And also, they said it's highly probable that the.22 caliber slugs came from the other gun found in the room he shot with two different calibers wow he shot with two different guns yeah

so now they're like um yeah two different guns usually two people hands so they found it's a cowboy they found a third gun duck holiday did it i knew it i got two guns one for each of you it's fucking i was seeing uh willem Dafoe from Voondox. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like, one gun, and then he crosses them over, and then he sees it happen in his head, and then he goes, got us a cowboy. Yeah, yeah. Pussy compared to Doc Holliday.

Yeah, yeah. Ain't shit. That was Rocco. Yeah. God damn it. No. He's no Doc Holliday. They also found a third gun, a. a 22 caliber revolver in a shed across the

road to the east of the home okay so they have all these guns when they do the autopsy they do find out shot four times with two different weapons at the farm here uh they said that harold's heart other internal organs and genitalia were removed and the body was dismembered with a knife and a power saw that's what the autopsy concluded wow whoa who's mad at him whoa that's a that's a lot of rage oh you think yeah wow um that's fuck dude removed everything like a chainsaw or like a band saw or a circular saw i think a power saw to be cleaner chainsaw is going to be messy. Yeah. Throw shit everywhere.

Limbs were cut from the body, most likely with, quote, a power handsaw used in construction or home woodworking. Oh, the autopsy said Jesus Christ. The right arm was severed at the shoulder and the left and the right leg at the hip uh shot four times in the neck back and chest by the way back is one of the places he was shot neck check and neck chest and back two distinctly different types of bullets were recovered and the bullets were not the same caliber as we found so they uh bring betty in to talk to her maybe she knows who could have possibly done this had to heard something betty's at least four gunshots and a fucking bandsaw and the antique business is a cutthroat business let's be honest here you sell somebody some brass candelabra and it turns out to be

fucking bullshit right it's not actually from 1845 guess what two guns one for each of you it's fucking on bitch it wasn't on the titanic yeah dare you i mean we all know most farmer slash antiquers meet their end this way this is you know it's like whether you're trafficking cocaine like in the 70s in columbia or if you're a farmer slash antiquer eventually someone's going to sever your legs and arms from your body my ass is yeah carnival cruises fucking exactly right so they bring betty and betty what the fuck do you know anything about this what could possibly be who could have done this betty do you have any information and um she does she has plenty of information as a matter of fact uh she said that uh well harold basically said that

uh pulled her out of bed in the middle of the night yelling and screaming at her so that's how you want to be awoken pull getting pulled out of bed to be screamed at for no reason it's a damn good way to get yourself murdered though um yeah demanding that she go with him to the basement to help him pack for a trip he was making in connection with the antique business um she said and this is, they taped all this, because they tape everything whenever anybody's talking. She said, quote, he had a gun in his hand, and he said he was going to kill me.

So she said that she, at that point, grabbed two pieces, grabbed two handguns lying on a piece of furniture and blasted away with both guns, she said. She said, quote, I think I closed my eyes and just pulled the triggers. Great shot. So she hit him four fucking times.

She says that the next morning, after seeing her daughter off to school, that's why the daughter didn't know what was going on, after seeing the daughter off to school, she went to Grand Rapids to handle some affairs for the insurance company and went and picked her daughter up and ate some fast food. Yeah. Still in the bedroom? Went about her business in the basement all shot up went about her business and then on the tape she says the next day she pulled him up onto the big table which is uh it's

a farm so it has a big table for you know those big round that you in the kitchen that you take deer apart with and shit yeah uh yeah she said she got him up onto there and she said she spent six hours cutting him up. Yeah. All by herself. I would assume it would take that long. She said, quote, I saw it at Harold's leg. She said, I used the knife and I cut his legs off at the knees. She said that she remembers cutting one arm off and placing his intestines in a plastic

bag and disposing of them near a water well on the farm she said that harold once had the day before threatened to cut her up and place her remains in the well so she just did it that way she thought that was right it's a good place harold yeah then she said quote i took the torso across the road south of the machine shed in a small red wagon she fucking told she transported the body parts all over the farm using a child's little red arrow wagon that's what she used little red rider wagon she's pulling a fucking severed torso in how amazing is that this better than skipping sweet five foot tall little farm lady with her high and tight church do fucking pulling a red wagon.

Oh, look, isn't that sweet? What do you have in there? Baked goods for the church sale. Oh, my God. It's a fucking torso. Jesus Christ. What is that? Oh, God.

I see tendons. God in heaven. It's oh, there's maggots. Oh, my God. It's still got clothes. She said, quote, I might have also used the Lincoln, the family car as well to scatter things. I don't remember for sure. She said.

That's the other thing, too. She's got parts missing out of this. Oh, I'm sure. She said, I've tried to blank it out of my mind. Yeah. She said she waited till her daughter went to bed that night, and that's when she dismembered him while her daughter slept. She's using a power saw yep she described using a power saw in in a room in the basement to cut off both legs and

dragged the body to the garage and cut off one of the arms that's why she was cleaning the garage and her daughter was like i remember mom scrubbing the floor in the garage just thought it was like spring cleaning no she was cleaning the blood off the floor of the fucking garage that's what she was doing she's like like, no, dear, it's okay. Yeah, everything's fine. Hope we find him. Sandwiches in the fridge if you're hungry. So where's I don't know where he is.

Those damn antiques. It's a cruel mistress. Those antiques. Concrete is really washing up red. Oh, boy. Yeah. Cut off one of the arms. Her explanation for dismembering the body, including cutting off the genitals, which

seems personal, was that, I'm little, it made it easier to move. He said, I couldn't move his whole body all around the farm. I could only do it in pieces. That's a great point. It's a point. She's five feet tall.

What's she going to do? She's not a big, giant woman. And on the tape, she describes taking some of the parts across the road to a field using the red wagon. It was her daughter's red wagon. It was literally her kid's red wagon.

This will work. Let me take this doll out and all this stuff, dollies and teddy bears and shit, and put a torso in it. It's already red. It's perfect. It's not going to even show up. She transported some of the parts in the Lincoln,

and all of the body parts were scattered around in a field and around the farm, basically just in a circle around the house, wherever she went. She said that she, quote, spread the body parts around the farm and then went about her business for the rest of the week. That's what she did. Yeah. I mean, they're trying to figure out why. Obviously, you know, blind rage, I would say.

Rage of fear that finally just instead of fear it came out as fucking aggression which i mean yeah had enough uh yeah she says though that she blacked out all of this and uh that she at one point she actually believed her husband was missing she didn't even really know that she did all this she said she convinced herself uh after she dismembered the body though she picked her daughter up from school they went and got she went and got her hair done that she did all this, she said. She convinced herself. After she dismembered the body, though, she picked her daughter up from school. She went and got her hair done and got dinner at a fast food restaurant.

So, very nice. You gotta get all the brain out of your hair when you're dismembering a guy, you know? That's what I always do. Might be bone fragment. Well, on The Sopranos, whenever they'd kill a guy and cut him off, they'd go get a big giant steak.

That was like their, you know, there was their murder steak here. But this is a different thing this is you get your murder do got my got my my hair murder did so the housewives do did it up murder style so after confessing to the killing she's very nice about the whole thing too very pleasant to the officers she uh leads the officers to both the guns she used. Here they are. I use both these guns. They were stashed behind some boxes at the farm. They never found them until later. She also said, here's the power saw I used, which was found under a bag of charcoal in the shed.

They hadn't seen that either, but they found it now. So they're holding her. They're like, we're going to hang on to you, Betty. We're going to do a little looking into this. But it seems like you're probably going to jail, I would say. This is murder. That's a lot of stuff you just did here. So she's being held on a $500,000 bond.

So reactions to this are like, like I said, 17 years, no murder or anything like that. The cops have say they don't have any motives. I would say uh the prosecutor who's going to be the prosecutor here ann taylor is her name she said quote yes yes it is i find it's why she got out of the legal business and had to do something else i can't start making dresses jesus i personally find it very disturbing i think that regardless of what anybody was like nobody deserves something like this. This whole thing is unfathomable to me,

which, you know, a lot of people had that same reaction. Friends and acquaintances saw nothing in her character that thought that she would be capable of this. One of the insurance agents she worked with said, quote, that is not the Betty Freeburg. I know.

No, she, you mean you never knew her to dismember anybody and scatter their fucking body parts around a farm. No shit. Did he have dismemberment insurance? We fucking body parts around a farm? No shit. Did he have dismemberment insurance? We'll talk about it, Jimmy.

I hope he didn't. We're going to talk about it. I don't know. She sold dismemberment insurance. I mean, this is amazing. This guy described her as soft-spoken, nice, and pleasant, one of the sweetest people I've ever worked with. She's the type of person you could never get angry with. She's the last person in the world that any of us would imagine would be involved in something like this. In the back of my mind, I kept thinking that this that they must have made a mistake.

Yeah. Now, Harold's other wives, they talk to them. The Jeannebel Spee said, quote, It's blown my mind. I can't understand any of this. So, yeah, that's how that goes. Were you married to the man? That's what I mean. Don't you remember? I goes were you married to the man that's what i mean don't you remember i'm sure you wanted to do this probably uh the mayor of batavia which is the town next door over was knew the guy knew harold real well really this guy by the way how much of an asshole do

you have to be to say this in the paper knowing that what an abusive twat this fucking guy was he said quote i can't understand it even if she was driven out of her mind by something uh you know it doesn't make sense he described harold as a workaholic who took pride in his business he says quote he was boisterous but kind of reserved about certain things he was kind of a halfway loner somebody get to that mayor's wife and rescue her yeah because because if that great guy then what does he do to his that's what i mean jesus what the fuck that's what i'm saying say that stuff so it's been a bad month for iowa apparently there's been a bunch of homicides

in the last couple of weeks oh no and the state investigatory division is like fucking overwhelmed by because they're not used to this much homicide in iowa murder cops are busy they're calling it black october black october yeah they said the heavy case load is compounded by state budget cuts and the uh and the increase of legalized gambling which has reduced the number of agents available for criminal cases because they have to keep an eye on that uh and medical examiners said quote it's tearing them apart the crime lab people going to work these cases are spread so thin i know for a fact that the dci is stretched to a breaking point something has to be done and i hope the legislature addresses it this year uh the homicides all of them have been in rural areas that's why

yeah when shit happens in rural areas people don't expect it so like the cops have extra they have to fucking solve it because these people are like no no there's 360 of us figure out who killed that person that's it it's not random yeah figure it out uh they said quote when something like this comes up it shocks people back to reality that's that it's a pretty violent world out there we're not all that experienced in iowa with murder not like chicago or miami where newscasters can can tell the grisly details and smile afterwards because they've gotten so hardened they supposed to do cry and go to the fucking funeral the reporters if they cried uh they

would still be crying when they interview us after three murder stories they do do that let's go to you hey guys hi bus careened off the road that was the building the bus that footage literally a man firing a machine gun in the street at other people fucking bus missing a turn careening into a fucking building and they're like and now these guys and now these guys. And a drowned baby. No, not a drowned baby. The 10 people in San Francisco that had like 10 children that they kept abused and starved in their house. We'll have more on that.

But first, let's talk to these two dickheads who have a podcast about murder. Hey, guys. How's it go? What's so funny about murder? Well, nothing about the ones you just showed. Jesus, that was just sad.

Fucking jerks. Fucking assholes, man. God damn it. You guys are dicks. That lady couldn't hate us more. No, she couldn't. She was so mad at us. So we were dicks back.

It was fun. She hated us, man. Because we were laughing at her questions. Like, you're ridiculous. Like, do you know what you just showed? You just did something horrific to us and you don't even realize or you do and you're complicit which makes you worse either way you suck it's like casino either you were in on it you're too dumb to fucking know what's happening or you're or you're in on it either way you're so jesus october 18th 1991 uh there betty pleads not guilty okay so she pleads not guilty to this

not with like an explanation just i did all this not not guilty after she just yep she's doing she's saying self-defense okay okay uh she's not doing battered wife syndrome, that whole thing. It's self-defense here, so whatever. So pre-trial, they talk about the guns that were found. Harold's, let's see here, Betty Freeberg here, once she's arrested, they find that they try to, the attorneys are trying to suppress her confession, saying that it was illegally obtained. Judge says, no, it's a good confession. It's all on tape.

It's coming in. So the jury's going to hear the whole tape along with photographs as she's describing it. So that is graphic as fuck. Photographs of a fucking torso that's been sitting out in a field for a week is not good. And then the other half that still has the dick attached to it. Yeah, here's his dick with his abdomen piece there. It's not great, but yeah, who cares?

I also feel for Harold because people are going to see these. This is horrible. He deserves it, I think. He deserves to see, for people to see his dismembered dick fucking displayed for people

because he's an asshole. He's been abusing people for 40 fucking years. He's dragging teenagers out of bed by their hair. He's fucking beating his wife and sexually abusing her. Fuck this guy.

This might be the classiest way some of his neighbors have ever seen him. That's what I mean. Yeah. No shit. Makes me look at him in a whole different way. So now, yeah, Heather's talking about Heather here because they're talking about whether she's going to testify or not as well. Now, the her lawyer, Tom Walter, he didn't want to talk to reporters about this, but he did file a notice of two possible defense strategies that he that she killed her husband to to protect herself and that she had diminished responsibility because of her mental state. Those are her two her two angles here.

They said she's a meek woman who sold insurance from home. None of her friends said she's like this and all that sort of shit here so the the prosecutor really wants to nail this one because it's the first fucking murder in 17 years in the county so they're like we gotta really make an example of old betty here slam dunk god forbid um she said that uh they're asking the prosecutor do you think that they're gonna go uh basically on like a battered wife type of defense and she, that wouldn't surprise me at all if that's what it was. They did say that I would say this will be a highly attended trial relative to anything else we've ever had here. So there is a motion, like I said, to suppress the confession. And they said, no, I wouldn't do that.

So the trial comes up in March of 1992. Okay. Trial is three weeks long here. All right. So it's a long, it's a long fucking trial, actually. Three weeks. That's most people's trials don't last that long. Right.

The prosecution. Okay. Trying to frame the whole thing. So the prosecution said, quote, it's not self-defense when someone has their back to you when you shoot them. When you proceed not to call the police, when you hide the guns, dismember the body, spread the parts around, and then tell people for a week

how he went off with some person in a white van. So they're really trying to make her look bad, obviously, as prosecutors tend to do. They're not going to get up there and go, listen, obviously, there's some circumstances. They're not going to give you the benefit of the doubt unfortunately um so yeah the uh they they said that uh part of their case is that a lawyer testifies from libertyville that the couple had changed harold's will in 1991 in june of 91 this is stuff that she doesn't really want coming out dave Miller was his name. He said the new will meant that Betty would receive more money if her husband died.

But there's strings attached to it. One of the new terms was that he and Betty were trustees of the will. So basically, the new will was rewritten to make Betty the primary beneficiary. Before it was his kids. Now in June, it's her. His antiques collection is valued at $100,000. What? Not bad.

He had three life insurance policies worth $245,000, and he has debts of 200 grand. So you're looking at $145,000 after net there. After it's all said and done. Yeah. According to the new will, six of his children would each receive $1. So not just cut him out completely. Yeah. Really stick it to him.

Really piss on him. Yeah. And Betty would receive the rest of the estate after the debts were paid. They said that the lawyer said that Betty told him that they decided to change the will because Harold wasn't getting along with his children. Betty told him that they decided to change the will because Harold wasn't getting along with his children. And his children said that they are going to contest that will because, you know, if it's changed to the beneficiary, then kills the guy three months later. It's like, hey, come on. Can we go back to the old will? So the defense for this here, they say that they bring in his old his ex-wives and they say that he was physically abusive to at least three of the four

of his ex-wives so that's a good pattern uh he a defense attorney also said in his opening remarks here that uh you know basically painted the picture of harold as an abusive person and uh there's risks to doing that in a trial obviously because if anytime you have the dead person they're always going to be technically the victim so when you're saying they're a bad person but if you frame them bad enough you have to get go past that to the point where they go he kind of deserved it like that's the where this lawyer's that's where the lawyer has to go to put the jurors in the mind of like do i is there any other way out basically so uh yeah they said that the abuse culminated september 29th when he pointed a gun at

her when she refused to help look for a wallet and the lawyer said quote all the things that she had held in came bubbling into a rage and they said that she dismembered the body and cut part portions of the body quote until the rage subsided but it dated she didn't do it till the next day though yeah so that's the thing that's all that's tough she went she went to sleep and drove her kid to school and shit and then did it so that's a it's a lot of rage uh quote once the rage was spent betty simply gave up is what he said which she kind of did she just confessed and all that sort of shit she tried to hide it for a minute though betty believed harold was going to kill her uh is what he says when he pointed the because he she's saying he pointed a gun at her in the basement uh he though betty believed harold was going to kill her uh is what he says when he pointed

the because she's saying he pointed a gun at her in the basement uh he said betty freeberg acted in self-defense quote she picked up two guns from the table pointed closed her eyes and fired and uh the obviously the jefferson county prosecutor has a different take on it in their take they say that she planned the killing of the husband in cold blood and dismembered the body to cover up the crime, which is another way of looking at it.

That's the way you've got to look at it. As a prosecutor. If it's a prosecutor, yeah, otherwise you should quit. You can't, as a prosecutor, walk in and be like,

she is a better wife. Yeah, it's not going to work as a prosecutor. That's the thing. Prosecutors have to... Force their hand. Yeah, it's like debate club or something where you have to just take the side you're given and act like that's your opinion whether it is or not so now uh she says she

talks to a psychiatrist who becomes a huge major cog of this case basically and the psychiatrist says that uh she remembers very little about her childhood, but she does recall three instances where she was sexually abused as a child. One where she was about nine years old and forced to have intercourse with a male acquaintance in a barn. After he finished, he pulled a hammer out of his

pants and said that if she told anyone, he would smash her and her sister with the hammer. Jesus Christ. That's disturbing. The psychiatrist said she has a tendency to blame herself for things that have happened to her, which is exactly what I'm saying. You had it right on the nose with that. He recounted Betty telling him about a year of abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse inflicted on her sexual abuse everything she he said at one

point when she threatened to leave she she said quote Harold told her that he can he had connections everywhere and that when he found her he would make her watch them cut off she would he would make her watch them cut off her daughter's fingers joint by joint so that's what she's threatening that she's if you leave i'm gonna have people find your daughter and torture her by cutting her fucking crazy betty said well we have dismemberment insurance so in the end we're gonna come out on top on that that's not what happened i'm gonna buy a car that's not what happened but that's what a terrible man. That is disturbing. Bad thought. So,

uh, yes, psychiatrist, um, testified that Betty told him that she would not have killed her husband if she knew that the gun, I guess the gun he had wasn't loaded. And the other problem is when they find the gun, it doesn't have his fingerprints on it.

Oh, no, that's not great. It has no finger. None of his prints are on it. And it's shot in the back. That's not good. That's not good. Um, the prints are on it. And it's shot in the back. That's not good. That's not good.

The gun was not loaded, his gun that she claimed he had. And she said that if I knew the gun wasn't loaded, I wouldn't have shot him. I was afraid for my life here. So the doctor testifies also that she told him about the cutting up of the body and all that sort of thing. But he says that she has dissociated herself from the incident and in her mind it's kind of like somebody else did it it's some like weird floating blob of some shit that happened but not to her you know what i mean like a memory from a movie or something like that sounds like something that somebody that killed somebody that doesn't have murder in them. Yes.

Would say. Yeah, that's not normally a murderer. She's not a murderer. Yeah. She murdered. And now she's trying not to remember because that didn't sit well with her, probably, because she's a normal person. Because that was tough to see. Yeah.

The guy a few weeks ago in Illinois there had no problem. Oh, he didn't have this? No, no, not at all. He remembered every second of it gloriously. Thank God he did, no, not at all. He remembered every second of it gloriously. Thank God he did. While he jerked off, he remembered every second of it.

Yeah, that's the thing. His shit got real specific. Right. Because the porn stars kept retiring. Fuck, that's what happens. He says, see what happens? Ladies, stick with it

is what we're saying. He said that everything she told him is consistent with someone who didn't plan to shoot her husband. He also said that her bizarre behavior following the shooting is consistent with people trying to block an event out of their mind, just going along with normal business. But he also said that they also conceded when asked by the prosecutor. Yes, that's also how people try to cover shit up by acting like everything's fine.

It goes both ways. It just wonders. Right. Whatever way your brain is doing it. What are you supposed to do? Yeah. I love it when they're like, and then he went and got ice cream. Yeah.

Well, he told somebody he was going to go get ice cream. He went to work the next day. Didn't go to work. Yeah. That's why. Yeah. It's obvious. He tried to cover it up.

Well, yeah, he fucking killed somebody. Obviously, he tried to cover it up. Wouldn't you? Jesus. It's very rare that they kill people and then jump on their house with a flag and say, everybody, listen, check it out. Look what I did. I did it. So the medical examiner testified how Harold was dismembered and exactly how it was done

in graphic detail, showing the slides and everything of the pictures of him being. It's graphic shit. That's if you're in the jury that's got to be like ooh um now betty ends up testifying on her own behalf she's got no choice she's got to testify because her her whole case is that she was scared of harold and that's why she did it so if the jury believes that it's self-defense if they don't believe it if they just you know she's some figure that's been painted whatever way yeah she's got to paint herself the way she wants to paint herself it's the only way to do this midwest jody area that's right well except no except for marriage except for the fact that i don't think i think harold probably deserves yeah but i'm saying like in the courtroom in the courtroom yeah yeah it's very similar yeah so betty gets

on the witness stand and she said that she remembered a lot of the gruesome details uh during the sessions with a psychiatrist but didn't remember it until the psychiatrist pulled it out of her that's what she says um she she denies because the prosecutor goes at her heart about didn't you do this for the insurance money their whole line of questioning is about you changed the policy in june and then you killed him in september how much money where you stand to get blah blah blah all about that basically they make it all because i mean they're looking for motive and that's something that you could put in the jury's mind and they'll go that's a reason a lot of money because otherwise you look at her and you're gonna believe her you're gonna you're gonna go yeah that guy's a dick everyone

says he's abusive she killed him fucking case closed fuck that guy but if you make it of it's for money then it's dirty and it's uh maybe it sucks yeah she uh testified that she never encouraged harold to make her the sole beneficiary though she said i didn't tell him to do it he just wanted to do it because he didn't want his kids on it anymore and who the fuck else was he gonna give it to basically i'm his wife so uh he believed that she said he believed his six children didn't love him this guy's a fucking psycho yeah he changed or maybe they didn't because he's a piece of shit and beat the shit out of their moms and stuff i wouldn't fucking love him so maybe he's a jerk that's the thing maybe he's an asshole what do you want so he changed his will because of legal action by his ex-wife is what she said i guess uh his ex-wife pat tried to recover back child support of 32 000 and uh

of child support and alimony how fucking long was he not paying for no kidding jesus in 1990 he's probably paying 300 a month for christ's sake. These old child support since fucking Elvis came out. The night Elvis was on Ed Sullivan is when the ruling came down. Fuck, man. So, yeah, she said she didn't plan to shoot and dismember him at all. You know, that's not how it worked. Fuck, man. She said it just happened.

She detailed how she killed him, how she dismembered him. She said that, quote, the blood all drained out of him. And then she sobbed when she was talking about cutting him open, you know, chopping limbs off. How it happens. Yep. She said that he pointed the gun at her from the vault room of the basement, which is like an annex room to the basement there. She said, quote, he has the gun kept on top of the refrigerator in his hand first of all he calls me pat and says you women are trying to take all my money because

pat's his ex-wife who's trying to take his whatever that alimony thing says you women are trying to take all my money she said quote his face was twisted up it was a horrible look he had on his face i went for the guns as fast as i could. I thought he was going to kill me. And she's sobbing on the stand. She said she fired two shots from each of the guns that she picked up from a cabinet near the basement stairs. She said that he said to him, why'd you go and do that for? And then he fell down to the floor. Why'd you go and do that for?

Plop. Famous last word there uh she said that she woke up and didn't even remember the shooting the next day she said that she was in a daze throughout the day and went to bed that night feeling awful she said uh quote i had a nightmare that i had shot harold and went to the vault room to see if the nightmare was true she said so uh after heather had left for school she said she went down to make sure that was just a dream and she said she cried and shook when she saw the body she said quote i still loved him why why i didn't want him to be dead i was sad i was sad it was just like a part of me died down there with him and she said that she's still uh

work still working now to remember all the events of everything. She said, though, she found the guns next to the body in the vault room, along with a black handled knife and a picture of a boy and girl. She said, I was scared and I stabbed the knife through the picture. I was hot and burning all over. I think I thought it was my older brother, Larry, and myself in the picture. She was having some kind of an episode. She stabbed a picture through him. She said, quote, I stabbed Harold on the side of the stomach along the rib cage.

I kept cutting and then I put the knife down. All I know is I cut across the top. I sawed his legs. I used the knife and I cut off his legs at the knees. I cut his hips off, too. Used a knife to cut him off the knees. That's hard, dude. That's a woman that's gutted an animal.

That's a woman who's butchered shit out. The farm woman. She remembers cutting off Harold's arm and putting, quote, part of his stomach pieces in the garbage bags. I took the top part over across the road. Okay, that's just John Mulaney now.

Now it's, did he get that from this? The top part? The top part. He called it the top part. She called it the top part. Unbelievable. I took the top part over across the road. Wow.

She says that she recalls, she recalled the dismemberment when she confessed there uh she but then afterwards it kind of got cloudy she also says that they talk about her childhood and uh she said that her mother once tried to stab her and also stabbed her father as well and her father backed that up with testimony as well so her mother was fucking out there it sounds like i don't know what was wrong with her but definitely something and she said she was raped as a child and used to be forced to watch her father have sex with his girlfriend oh jesus jesus christ um yeah and so she testified about harold's abuse and when the abuse came and you

know all that sort of thing so in closing the defense lawyers here, they talk to the jurors and the defense lawyer reminds them when they go in that this is funny to tells them, listen, you know, she's a fragile woman with a fragile state of mind at this point. And it's all this abuse and everything. Just so you remember remember she is only on trial for murder not dismemberment so don't let the dismemberment cloud your judgment on the murder it's just murder she's on trial literally he was saying that remember that the dismemberment plays no part in this just murder so that's your only choice is there um so uh yeah that's that's how

that worked they didn't even bring that into it huh no they didn't now to convict her here's how it works they're trying to simplify it because they don't want to get into all that shit yeah don't muddy the water don't muddy the water simple she admitted to it let's just try her with that yeah so to convict her of first degree murder as the prosecution wants the jury needs to be certain, obviously beyond a reasonable doubt, that the killing was premeditated. That's first degree murder. So it's a seven woman, five man jury, by the way. There's also two lesser offenses involved here.

There is second degree murder or voluntary manslaughter as well. So if you feel bad and you feel like she was abused, you can drop a voluntary manslaughter on her. And that is way less than murder because first degree murder is life without. Yeah, you're done. And second, manslaughter has got some 15 years and you're out in five and all that kind of shit. So the verdict comes in here and the town is full, full courtroom. Yeah, everybody waiting. Full courtroom.

Yeah. Everybody waiting. Jerd, jerk, jerk, jerk. The verdict comes in and they say, not guilty of all acquitted. Have a good one,

Betty. Yeah. Enjoy. Go have a nice dinner tonight. Yeah. You got a question to fix. Not guilty. Wow.

Go fix your crack in the floor and don't worry about Harold. Fuck that guy. Forever. 12 people said, fuck that guy. Done. Of quitting. Unbelievable. Not even voluntary manslaughter.

That's how much they hated Harold and liked Betty. James, then that double jeopardy, she can't even be tried again. No, no. She admitted to it, owned up to it, acquitted. Dismemberment on tape. They played the tape and showed the pictures and the jury just said fuck him he deserved it that's how big of an asshole this guy was that's what an abusive twatty is and i'm not mad about it fuck this guy again this is like leyland west virginia i really

don't give a fuck about this guy he's a dick that's what happens when you beat your family plural sorry for whatever you know what eventually you're gonna fucking it's russian roulette here eventually you're gonna find the fucking family that isn't gonna let you beat him for 10 years and someone's gonna shoot you in the back because fuck them who cares wow um yeah that's wild acquitted done of everything not even and she went on to murder four more husbands and uh yes right now she's known as the black widow of iowa and she's on death row no cornfield black widow that's how it goes boy so afterwards they talked to her outside the court because she they just let her go that's it you're done you're released they process her she's out um she said quote oh thank god thank god thank god she told a reporter after that um she was

crying her eyes out uh several of the jurors were smiling while she was crying and hugging her attorney there. Apparently, they were happy for her. There was about a dozen family members there, including two of her sons. Everybody was weeping. She said that she, quote, prayed all night in her jail cell for an acquittal. She said, please praise the Lord. The system works. Okay.

That's one way to put it. I agree there for this case. Sometimes. Sometimes. Not for our show. Calm down, buddy. Rarely. Yeah.

Let's not put this on the whole system. Jury members declined to comment right away. We'll get to some comments later on. But the family members were happy. Her sister, Vicki, said, quote, quote under the circumstances it was the right thing to do if someone had pointed a gun at me i would do the same thing i'm very sorry it happened but i think the verdict was fair which she gonna say fuck my sister yeah also don't fuck with chicks from iowa apparently no this one too fuck with farm chicks i will bust a cap in your ass i will

fucking you will get shot i'll chop your belly off and include the dick i'll just put your dick and a piece of your abdomen your abdomen in the field and your stomach parts in a bag enjoy uh she said i think her testimony convinced them and the lawyer said that his defense didn't wasn't the battered wife syndrome he said quote this was a pure self-defense case but he also said the public's sensitivity toward domestic violence victims also probably worked in his favor. Obviously, people are not OK with that. You know, they tend to tend to feel bad for someone who's getting knocked around their fucking house for no reason. But it's the silent minority that likes that shit.

Yeah. Weird. Isn't it strange? So he also said that he the lawyer said that he had a good luck charm, which was a pink haired troll doll that he had with him. So that was the that's who did it. He's the only guy that uses that as a good luck charm. Apparently, he said, quote, I think this is what made the difference. I had it with me the whole time. I think I'll keep it in my office as kind of a trophy. Oh, man.

In 20 years, he's going to be blown away. And then he gave it to Betty. He did. And he gave it to Betty. he did and he gave it to betty and so she had it and he said she loves princess poppy she loves it she says quote i'm really sorry harold is dead because i still loved him that's that was her quote on the courthouse steps now a week later she said that she's gotten a ton of support outpouring of support from friends and strangers and everything like that she said quote i've had a lot of support from friends and strangers and everything like that. She said, quote, I've had a lot of letters, phone calls and hugs.

Most people have been very supportive. She said she's not surprised by the reaction. She says, I think people probably know what I went through. I just want to thank everyone for their support and their prayers. So she's continuing to sell insurance, I guess. Yeah. She said that she was going to keep selling insurance. That's what she wants to do.

She loves doing it for some reason. That's loving to sell dismemberment insurance. But she said she first plans to check herself into a psychiatric hospital to, quote, work through some of the things in my past. Very responsible. Beautiful. Holy shit. Yeah.

Wow. Perfect. Betty, you're the right answer. You're taking responsibility for everything. Oh, my God. That's amazing. Good. Now I've got $14 you're fucking taking responsibility for everything. Oh, my God. That's amazing. Good. Now I've got $145,000 that I can do it.

And now maybe she'll fucking get some of that shit out of there and find someone or not. But if she wants to find someone, maybe find someone who's not an abusive twat. Right. So she says she's going to do that. Psychiatrists obviously have testified in her behalf. So it seems like she needs some some some help uh she said that she you know she shot her husband and it was just uh oh she also poured farm one time he she talked about how he poured farm chemicals on her body after he beat her

because she had cuts ouch farm chemicals whatever the fuck that is i don't know but it sounds aside fucking disturbing um one of the jurors in the case they talked to one of the jurors and this is interesting here i really want to know what they said uh one of the jurors in the case said that she set aside her emotions when she voted to acquit wasn't an emotional thing she said you couldn't help but but have certain parts of the testimony strike you emotionally, but it was not an emotional decision on my part. She said, quote, she said that she was speaking only for herself, not on behalf of the other people on the jury, obviously, but they all found her not guilty,

so it seems like everyone had the same mindset. She said, you don't sit in a courtroom for three weeks and listen to that kind of testimony without being affected. I have about this every night i'm still processing everything i've seen and heard sure yeah these are normal people who come in and sit there and then they're like let me show you a dismembered fucking right torso want to see genitalia with part of an abdomen attached to it would you like to see a body's top part yeah i want to see the top part hold on let me wheel it in this little wagon that'll make it better for everybody so uh yeah post acquittal here quickly uh talk about a little bit about kind of what that meant for the whole this is like a this is a big deal this is the early 90s it's a pretty landmark

deal for someone to be because this is more because this is almost like she said self-defense but his prints weren't on the gun they know i think the jury knows he wasn't probably pointing a gun at her right at that moment but that doesn't mean that they that we all think that betty didn't feel in fear for her life that's the thing whether he had a gun or not doesn't fucking matter because he could have grabbed one at any point and also he's done worse without a gun so who knows so? So that's a thing that people are talking about a lot. This is almost a jury nullification case where she said she did it. They know she did it.

And they went, fuck that guy. We don't care. Fucking not guilty. Because that's pretty much what it is. If you look at it. It's face value. That's exactly what it is. Yeah.

If you take it like letter of what it was, you can say like they believed that she was getting a gun pointed at her so she did that the dismemberment part was just overkill or whatever so that's fine but uh there's somebody here a a newspaper article in iowa about this talking about how um you know this is a different different kind of thing well This is an instructor in women in the criminal justice system from a college around here, University of Iowa. She says, quote, traditionally, self-defense instructions speak to imminent danger. You can't, for example, respond to an assault with fists by using a deadly weapon. In the 1980s, the court started recognizing that these traditional notions simply don't fit cases where women are abused because that's how they used to do it women used to claim like a self-defense and they go well was he were you in danger of him killing you right at that very second beating you

and so they kind of took it to when it's an ongoing thing where you it's not like you got in a bar fight and you left and he left you're not going to see each other anymore you live together this guy pulls you out of bed in the middle of fucking night. He can do anything to you. It's always happening. It's a constant threat. So that's kind of what they went from an imminent threat of right now, punch, punch, shoot, shoot, to a general overall imminent threat. So they said that from the use of that, the battered woman syndrome evidence where women feel they're in imminent danger. She said evidence has been accompanied by the belief that traditional definition of self-defense didn't really fit that scenario, which is true.

Whether there was eminent danger hasn't been of the same importance now. She said that, you know, this whole thing, people are becoming more aware of domestic abuse in the home that were previously assumed to be sanctuaries. Many women are saving their lives when they do what they do which i think eventually he would have killed her you know what i mean um my or just tortured her for 20 years or hospitalized her within an inch more that's the thing and the kid too he abuses teenage girl for the rest of her fucking time and you're fuck that guy man right you're putting a seed in her head that's fucking dangerous yeah

and that's terrible that's what i'm saying so uh she said that my prediction is that uh about juries that they would not take a person's word at will uh they want they would want everything to have some corroborating evidence and they do and everybody comes up and goes oh yeah this is the worst guy ever total asshole piece of shit um so as a kid that grew up in a household that's very similar to this uh yeah apart shitty yeah i didn't have violence like that but shitty guns being pointed yeah it's very similar uh i i understand the the want and and yes you can see the the how it got there uh we just didn't have the uh i don't know gumption i i don't know it probably boils down to bravery i just didn't

have the bravery to fight well if you're a child too it's different it's a it's a difficult my mom was rarely in the house when it all happened so she doesn't see it that's yeah it's tough as a kid you don't have the same wherewithal to do shit but you do go to your bedroom stinging thinking one day i'm gonna fucking do something about that but as a kid you never think that you're a legitimate human no to do anything you just wish so there's a lot of everything is sunday sit in your bed that's the problem i wish i was bigger that's it so they say at this point about two to four thousand women are killed yearly in the country by abusive you know uh boyfriends and husbands and shit

adding about a third that many men are killed by their mates as well so it's a domestic violence in either way is a huge deal in abuse cases where women are found guilty of homicide they tend to serve longer sentences than men in this particular case that is flipped completely around now really yep back then that's how it was now they i just study on it that's completely flipped around now women now in criminal justice yet for the same crimes they get way less sentences now it's a the only that's the only like advantage they have in this whole thing is that if they get busted doing something they do less time congrats ladies hey ladies there you go i guess i don't know um he said quote when they're not successful with the jury women tend to

pay for it uh which is wild uh laurie shipper is director of an ames iowa shelter for battle battered women she said quote i feel enormous relief for betty justice was served society needs to recognize that battered women should be able to protect themselves yeah you can't just beat the shit out of somebody and fucking make them fear for their life all the time sorry now of course not everyone's happy there are some people if you go through the newspapers of the time which i did you'll find some letters from people some editorials that are very fucking pissed off they're angry yeah here's one from a guy named w.h baker w and h don't go together coral well this asshole baker this asshole probably just doesn't want to

give his first name because you shouldn't want to if this is your fucking take here. Quote, isn't it wonderful that Betty Freeburg is, by the way, before I get into this letter, I should tell you, but when she got out of the hospital, she was going around to colleges talking to criminal justice courses about battered women, about self-defense, about her story. She went around and actually found on Reddit somebody recalling having her come into their class and say this is a crazy story. They had a shitload of the details wrong because they were probably trying to remember it from 30 years ago. But they were talking about it saying it's crazy. She became a race car driver.

Yeah, it's wild. She fucking won. One day. Yeah, she won Indyycar she's doing great so yeah she came in to do that and uh it's it's fucked because like she's coming in doing all that sort of shit and some people are pissed off at her and i feel like it's almost dangerous for her i hope that nobody fucks with her at that point this asshole said anyway quote isn't it wonderful that betty freeberg is urging other abuse victims to quote with quotes to seek help uh listen to this guy's take what a noble gesture for someone acquitted of murder who actually admits to said murder betty goes on to lament

quote i hope women don't ever have to go through what i went through indeed who would want to defend depend on a self-defense plea when the murder victim was shot in the back, dismembered, and scattered around a farm like fodder? Amazing how such a, quote, and in quotes, desperate abuse victim, like that was nothing, has such marvelous hindsight. In judicial fairness, her trial should have been moved out of Jefferson County. hindsight in judicial fairness her trial should have been moved out of jefferson county her pathetic display of remorse and justification was enough for an obviously simpleton jury of peers to be manipulated into an acquittal i don't know everyone that's listening there's hundreds of thousands of people listening right now how many of you went fuck yeah when i said not guilty a shitload of you right yeah apparently you are uh simpl Apparently you are simpletons. Obvious simpletons. Apparently W.H. Baker was very good friends with him.

Oh, they sold antiques to you. He drives a white van in here. This guy. That's all I could tell. W.H. Fuck you. Fuck this guy. Who calls you W.H.?

Nobody. Who says that shit to your face? Because that is four syllables way too many for two letters. That's some old fart who beats his wife, probably. He says, quote, a jury of intelligent, detached individuals would have found her rightfully guilty. I'm appalled by domestic abuse and encourage all victims to seek help. I'm more appalled by Betty Freeburg's selective insight, the grisly murder she admits to, and the incompetent jurors who decided her actions were appropriate recourse. Fuck you, dude.

Suck it, Dub. Dude, suck it. Really. Honestly, go fuck yourself. Eat just a pile of mountain of dicks and fuck your mother. And stop beating your wife. Yeah. You've already beat your wife into, what is it?

How many wives are you on now, asshole? That's because they've all left you for whatever fucking reason, you stupid dipshit. So, you know, it's one of those things. You just wish fucking Betty. We all wish that just Betty and him at that singles function would have just passed. Walk on by. Just like Dion Warwick. Walk on by.

It would have been great if I just had that night. He said, oh, she's a fat pig. Or she said, look at this shriveled up old nutsack loser. Fuck him. I wish they would have just viscerally hated each other. That would have been amazing. But apparently if you're on the farm, I don't know if it's easier to find people,

harder to find people. But again, resorting back, he turns on a charm to meet women. That's the thing. And he does. Every one of his wives did the same thing. year or two charming nice guy he's got to have some kind of charm if you can get five lines you know not everyone can find five people to marry them yeah i know plenty of people who'd love to find one person to marry them and can't find that this guy finds them every five fucking years so he's got to have some kind of quality that attracts women to him probably

the problem is the issue probably is that these women were probably abused as kids or something. And that's what attracts them to him is because they know he's an abuser and that's he's attracted to them because he can tell they're abused. And it's some weird fucking animal frequency that we get on that we don't even know we're doing where we do terrible things to our own selves. I don't get that shit. You're in a relationship just to get out of it before it gets to this. Before he fucking loses his mind and gets you, or you have had enough. I'll go a step further. If you're in a relationship, just get out of it anyway.

Just preemptively. You never know. They could turn. You've been great, but who's to know if you're going to get comfortable and be an asshole? Let's all just, you know what? It's musical chairs. Now we're all going to sit, and then we're going to get up, and you're not going to end up back in that same chair again who cares at this point let's

just all after hearing that story let's just all wash our hands of our relationships and go our separate ways because uh bad stuff is gonna happen to fucking everybody that's disturbing but i am i am happy this does remind me of uh barbara ann peterson yeah is that her name barbara barbara and peterson i believe in mary dell maryland uh she actually though was convicted of Barbara Ann Peterson. Is that her name? Barbara Ann. Barbara Ann Peterson, I believe, in Mary Dell, Maryland. She actually, though, was convicted at first and then she appealed it and her conviction was overturned

and she was freed. But this is like walking out of the courtroom that day. This is like fucking OJ, you know? She got like an OJ acquittal. I can't imagine how cool that is. How great would she have felt at that moment in time? As a kid, I wished for that day. But that's the other part imagine how cool that is how great don't she have felt at that moment in

time as as a kid i wished for that day but that's the other part too when you're a kid and you're getting beat you already know that murder is bad yeah you want to murder the guy and then you're just like yeah but then i'm gonna go to jail with i've seen documentaries already with children in prison i've already seen grown-ass men yeah that's horrifying my butthole is gonna not like that right i'm gonna kill this guy and then go to prison with guys that are him and worse yeah that's the other thing how many people am i gonna have to kill by the end of it you're gonna take away knives from you in there that's what i'm saying so i have a gun this shit is crazy and uh jesus christ well betty's good and

hopefully uh heather recovered also because she had to live with that whole thing so hopefully she kind of you know hopefully this didn't ruin her life too much. Imagine that. It's hard enough to be in like the ninth grade, but to have your mom on trial for dismembering your stepfather. Right. That's a lot for a kid. I do love that she got right out of the court and talking to a court reporter says, I'm

going to go to therapy and get better because she already realized there's a, I mean, it's a very famous quote now, but it's you date according to your self-esteem yeah absolutely so if you hate yourself you're gonna date somebody that hates you she said i have tons of stuff from my childhood in my past i'm gonna take care of that then do stuff i was like wow that's healthy as fuck betty and like i said that loves me yep and then she went around to colleges and did some speeches for a while and um yeah i think i found her but leave her alone. You know what I mean? This poor lady's got enough problems. I think I found her, but I'm not positive it's her,

but I think it's her. I haven't been able to find an obituary for her. That's outstanding. I was looking for all of her different names and everything, too, and so I'm hoping that she's still around. I'm hoping the one I found is her, but like I said, I'm not going to fucking... She had another name in there,

so I don't know if I think she got married again at some point. Can you imagine being that guy? Yeah, hey. So you did what? Hey, buddy. She's like, I said to stop doing that. He's like, okay. Yep.

No problem. No problem, sweetheart. Never again. Never again. No, I will never put my socks on the floor next to the hamper ever again. I apologize. I know that could be super irritating. I totally could just make you want to dismember to the hamper ever again. I apologize. I know. That could be super irritating. I totally could just make you want to dismember a person.

I get it. I get it. Babe, the kitchen's dirty. What did you just say? I said, I'm going to go clean it. That's all I was telling you. What's this wagon doing here? I don't like this at all.

What's happening here? This is no good. I was just prefacing what I'm about to go do with the reason that I'm doing it. Not you. I don't want you to do anything. No, you're good. Have a seat. Have a seat.

Chill. Let me make you something to eat here. Put your feet up. That is wild. You can't be married to that woman after that. No, that'd be tough. Oh, my. If you like that story, there is a way to tell us and tell the world about it.

Get on Apple Podcasts. That purple icon. Give us five stars tell us either why you like the show tell us your favorite sandwich your most fluffiest cloud formations tell us anything you want and it doesn't fucking matter to me tell me what your favorite toy was when you were 10 i hope it was a red wagon that's a good thing that's why i said that yeah obviously let's see if it's a red wagon and we can all fucking get together on that so uh do that though uh apple podcast that purple icon does help us out a lot also you can follow us on social media as well you can find us at murder small on on uh on twitter at small town

pod on facebook and small town murder on instagram you can do that if you want to be a supporter of the show even more if you want to be a hero of the show, even more, if you want to be a hero of ours, and on top of that, a producer, and on top of that, get a bunch of stuff for you. Deal! Holy shit, you can do that. You can do that very easily. Go into Patreon here. You're going to get Jimmy mispronouncing your

name. If it's an Italian name, good Lord, he won't even... Get it. He'll give you a new name. Got it. And you're going to get all of that stuff, and you're going to get all of that stuff. And you're going to get tons of bonus episodes. We do bonus shit all the time. Crime and sports and small town murder. We do two a month for each.

So and you get access to all of them for five dollars. So you get four extra shows a month. You can't beat that. It's good stuff. You can do all of that over at Patreon dot com slash crime and sports. Or if you want to be just a hero of ours and have your name mispronounced by jimmy and just have some good karma you can do that as well over at paypal using our email address crime and sports at gmail.com and we just wanted to explain quickly

when you sign up for patreon because we've had people ask us well what do i do you sign up for patreon they email you a link right that takes you there and then you can have it added to your feed and everything and it'll just pop right up in your feed like normal yeah it's all through your email you sign up in there and then it comes up i think normal right and you're like in your feed with your normal podcast shit so i think that's true i think it's true i'm not sure but every a lot of people have been able to figure it out you'll be able to figure it out if it's frustrating i apologize yeah i don't think it is everybody said it's pretty easy i would be able to figure it out. You'll be able to figure it out. If it's frustrating, I apologize. Yeah, I don't think it is. Everybody said it's pretty easy. I assure you I would be able to figure it.

Yeah, well. Hang in there. Let's find out the list of the people who are going to figure this out this week and get access to all our great stuff. Everybody, please, Jimmy, mostly, hit me with these names of the people who would never dismember me

and carry me around a farm in a red wagon. Hit me with them now. This week's executive producers are Kelly Loff. I think that's an L. It might be Roff. I am an awful person. Name one. Starting out.

Right out of the gate. Quickly, before you get... Now that you've screwed one name up, before we get any further into the name screwing up, I have to congratulate Kevin and Corey. Kevin is Sarah's cousin and good friends of ours. We like them a lot. So Kevin and Corey got engaged. Oh, boy.

And they're getting married. So congratulations, guys. Good for you. Yeah. Well, the other ones this week, executive producers, are Ross Rochester, Shannon. Oh, my God. Gammon. Yes.

Shannon Gammon. Got it. Taylor Hahn. J.C. Hansen. Tim Haley. Media Maven. And she sent a nice note. Thank you very much.

Cindy O'Brien. Saquon Barkley. Deborah Durnall, Amanda Richards, Ben Brunson. Brunson. Christy Chauvin. Chauvin. It's spelled like shove in. It's not. It's probably Chauvin or Chauvin.

Yeah. Joanna Ahern. It's actually Joanna Ahern. Sherry Paulist. Linda Campbell. Chrissy Ann Castaldi. She's been with us for three years. It's actually Joanne Ahern. Sherry Paulist. Linda Campbell. Chrissy Ann Costaldi. She's been with us for three years. She's a sweetheart.

Thank you, Chrissy. Anne Pagano. Jackie Sukup. Jordan Bennett. And Carol Braun. The last four, they're just people that have been around for so long. Thank you guys so much for everything you do, truly. You guys are the best.

Other producers this week are Elizabeth Rose Reagan White. Happy birthday for Senorita Melanie. Hey. I doubt that's a first name. Senorita. Right. And then we also have, what am I doing, man? Ectorina?

Ectorini? Arsinellis? That can't be right. Mason. I mean. Mason Wicks. Nick Simmons. Jericho Nightshade.

John Allen. Jonah McNeil. Jericho Nightshade, John Allen, Jonah McNeil. Jericho Nightshade? That's the coolest name ever. I'm sure he's a wrestler, right? He's got to be. Maddie would know last name. Paul Lipman? Kipman.

Kipwin? Kirwin. That's what it is. Ali Vandegrift. Leah would know last name. Rachel Wargaki? I got to fucking take a penmanship class. Allison Diem? Edward Cruz? Bre Bustard, Kyle Anderson, Deborah Bryant, Melissa Lee, Kyle Anderson, Christy Solosinski, Hunter Hensler, Gabby ward no gordon damn it amina sally i think amina sally sassali it's

two s's man i don't know erica yeah erica schaefer emily fitzsimmons lynn gross tristan sibley luke nineman uh samuel caldwell greg yore uh melissa uh p, Powell, fuck, Garrett Woodbury, Cricket Hilliard, what is it, Maralise, Maralise Sage, I think, fuck, Renee Swelling, Erin Bengay, Benji, Renji, Benja, Brianne Legia, Liga, damn it, Aussie Amanda, Aussie Amanda. So she's obviously from Australia. That's an Aussie named Amanda. Clearly. Right. Jacob Andrew Galloway.

Roxy Beaver. Foxy Beaver. Oh, boy. Patrick Matsu. Amanda Nicole Lewis. Cody McCaskill. Alexis Wortham. Marsha Peterson.

Brianne Poland. Krifix Juxi. Krifix. I don't know, Brooke with no last name, Jeremy Christensen, Steven Petrakis, Petrikis, Pickle Bean, Catherine Kukendahl, Rebecca Martin, Megan H.,

or is that an N? I think it's an N. I gotta get it together. Riley Mac... What the fuck? Macietzki? No. Laura Riley,h with no last name cassie harris sean powell christina peterson jeffrey tellus aurora santangelo santangelo i'm sorry carrie stop johnny i know it's you know john johnny and max price robert Esparza, Joe Evans, Andre Brown, Murray McCartney, Kay Steinhilber, Madison Grant, Mark Cardio, Chris Moffitt, Brandon Fedor, Jamie McKay, Don Bottoms, Daniel

Ranweiler, Christopher and Jade Hughes, Kate Houck, Julie Garcia. What is this? All right, already I'll watch the fucking wire. There you go. Miller Maggio, Tom Saldy, Sam Harvey. What is that? Kelly? Kelly King? Yeah, no.

Carly with no last name. Angela McCormick, Amy Seufer, Alexandra Brown, Greg Fredrickson, Janet Jacob, David Tiller, Candace Gordons, Heather Thomas, Zen Ren, Beverly Henkel, Bethany Armour, Julie Peltier, James Welch, Thomas Fine, or Rhyne, or Nine. John Allen, Josh LeMaster, Rakiv Lewis, Angela with no last name, Neil Link, Gavin Musfeld, Amanda Gray, Krista Ramirez. She's in Texas. Thank you, Krista. Thank you. Laura Hawkins, Casey Vandervoort, Andrew Kowalski, Louisa Johnson. Nope, that's Lisa Johnson.

I'm so dumb. Evan Sirich, Dre Ensor, Austin Koenig, Shannon McKeown, Sean Thompson, Tia Fish, Gary Howard. Thanks, Gary. Appreciate you. Heather, thank you. Tammy Hackett, Bonnie with no last name, Kaylee Spikes, Hugh Hay. Hughie? Heather, thank you. Tammy Hackett. Bonnie with no last name. Kaylee Spikes.

Caitlin Coleman. DM King of Beans. Cody Lowe's. Aaron Reed. Lisa Dungeon. Dudgeon. Dudgeon. Dudgeon.

Emily Franz. Kimberly Nichols. William Anderson. C.W. Brendan or Brandon. She of, uh, Sheavell Bean? Nope. Sure. Adnerb. August with no last name, Brenda Hall, Kathy Matus, Atreyu, Kaylee O'Hara, Carly Hornack, Shana, Shana Gjallarhorn, no, probably, Tyrell Hodges, Julia Jasinski, Jasinska, Jimmy Valencia, Ryan Snyder, Catherine Bruzzoni, I think. I'm sorry.

Kelly Gillespie. She's also an artist in L.A., and she is fucking fantastic. Thank you, Kelly. Thank you. Holly Moquin-White, Steve Darubas, Rachel Tisch, Hugh Atkinson, Viviana Hernandez, Miranda Leavitt Pino, Cody Panzi, Tim Solomonson, Dory Lyons, Amanda Hinton, Eli Gowell, Isabella, Travis Shatima, Mike Smith, William Cordell, Max Hobbs, Antonio Nicholson, Brent McCollum, Matt Johnson, Ayla Heffernan, Will Chow, I think, Brandon Wilson, Rachel Sincere, Stephanie W., Joe with no last name, Michael DeStefano. Nailed it. Fucking.

Jimmy. That was good. Serena Garcia. Julia Schuster. Victoria Walters. Elizabeth Deegan. Meredith Martin. Daniel McGowan.

The Pollinator. I forget what. I don't remember where that was from. Some of that was so good. The Pollinator. Pause to play. Nicholas with no last name. Molly McDermott.

Keegan. What did I do? Rechinger? I don't know if that's an R or a K. I apologize. Alicia Coletta. Elizabeth Parker Stafford. Sophie Schmidauer.

Schmidaver? I don't know if it's a U or a V. Pickles with no last name. John Penrod Jr. Richard with no last name. Amber Everhart. Samantha Graybill. Tyler Bing, 1996, Jack

McGee, Holly Levinson, Megan Eberhard, Heather Stoud, I think, Kurt Nierum. Is there a Kurt Nierum that's famous? Why do I know that name? No? I don't know. Yvonne Wright, Court Seal, Jewel Jones. Jewel, thank you so much. Thank you.

She's down in North Carolina, I think. I think so. Emily the Strange, Jewel Jones. Jewel, thank you so much. She's down in North Carolina, I think. Emily the Strange, Don Hatch, Katie with no last name, Rashid Bibbs. Oh, it's just Bibb. One B. One Bibb. Zach Taylor, Amanda... Singular Bibb. Amanda Monell, Libzilla, Gabrielle O'Reilly,

Casey Trentman, Tiffany Capozzi. Alright. This is getting to be goddamn ridiculous. Italians, sign upozzi. All right. This is getting to be goddamn ridiculous. Italian, sign up for Patreon. It's hilarious. Capozzi. Amanda with no last name.

Josh Guido. That's easy enough, but that's because it's a slur. Sean Meyer, Kimberly Blevins, and Drake. Thank you both. Carly Miller, Celine Izzy Berthow. Nope. Berthow? Berthoweth. Nope. Berthow? Berthsaum.

Kyle Schutt, Marcus Longo, Marcos Mora, Clarence Tudor. Charisma would know last name. Adam Gray, Todd Horse Cochran. You know what he's saying. I do. I don't believe him. Min Lil McGee, Patrick Corey. Matt would know last name.

Simone Stridham. John Doe, nope, Felicia Harrison, Three Bugs Mom, Isaiah Swift, Alex Zika, Alan, what? Jamie McDermott, Sean Mosley, Steve with no last name, Stacy Lockett, Injoli Pettis, I know her from somewhere, or he, fuck. It's probably she, right? Mary Breedman. I don't uh mary mary you know the money you tell me what gender they are i know that person i swear uh mary breed love matt glennon jen mosher jenny mosher joseph uh demar demar say demarcy i'm sorry benjamin rickett sarah would know last name

monica's uh shoot debbie sushwan, Amanda Press, Robin in Seattle, happy birthday, Chad Haas, Cynthia with no last name, Alicia Raines, Justin Lee, Riley Kyle Dignan, Erica Fardon, Riley Foster, Kelly Moyer, Patrick Matu, Max Hobbs, David Albert, Kelly Foster, Kelly Moyer, Patrick Matu, Max Hobbs, David Albert, Holly Hoffman, happy birthday, and Lindsay Lowe. Thank you very much. Doreen Cruz, Macy Messino, Sarah Lasher, Chastity Irwin, Justin Perry, Jorge Torres, Eric Castillo, Cindy Wilkin, Shay with no last name, Michelle Turner, Allison Bailey, Aaron Tate, Kelly Kunecki-Martz, probably not, Leanne Bogie,

William with no last name, Denise Simmon, Diago Santori, Thomas Smith, Timothy Heath, Jolene Flath, Carly Mann, Craig Riley, Zach Altimus, Nikki Lundquist, Ashley Veo, Brendan Ables, Liz Vasquez, Erica Langdon.

We know all these people. We do. Zoe McGeechan, Gerald with no last name, Happy Birthday Jackie, the meteorologist, otherwise known as a liar. Peyton Meadows, Amanda Lipinski, Andrew Gauci, James Marder, Halls Fowler TV, Vincent Strauss, Tiana Royer, Tracy Poets, Emily Tincher, Greg Voda, Tom Locke, Mandy Knight, Eric Castillo said that, Janice Hill, Katarzyna Nienzolka, she got me again because she knows her name's a fucking nightmare, Chris Foy, Matthew Regechow, Emily Taylor, Brian Crosby, and Samantha Summerlin. You guys come through every week. Thank you. Thank you so much, everybody.

Honestly, from the bottom of our hearts. Saviors. Thank you, thank you, thank you. We really hope you're enjoying the bonus material. We're really working hard to give you different stuff and kind of a variety and funny stuff and weird stuff and just just a variety we want you guys to kind of have like a whole other experience on that we don't want to water it down with no goddamn cases you get that yeah we want to try and give you something fresh and new and something that uh is us we don't want it to be this light we try to make it like a whole other

thing so if you check that out just different stuff, prisoner dating games and the classified ads and the weird, like, small town things we look at and last meals and death penalty stuff and all sorts of crazy shit. So check it all out there. Thank you for everybody that has. Honestly, you guys are the best. What if somebody wanted to thank you for anything, Jimmy? How could they possibly do it? You can do it. It's on social media.

I'm at Wisman sucks. W.H.I.S.M-m-a-n sucks and look around you'll find it where are you just copy and paste my last name you'll find me on there it's jimmy p that jimmy p is funny but it doesn't matter you'll find it just copy and paste and do all that shit don't try to spell my last name it's a nightmare i couldn't do it at first so we chose these last names that's these were chose to keep them these aren't even our real no this is a stage name i use as petra gallo i just wanted to tom smith i was too many of those just wanted to confuse everybody i'm kind of a dick i'm kind of contrary so i just said how about petra gallo fuckheads what do you think of that bet there's not another one of those that'll be

real unique perfect so with that said everybody thanks again for joining us. Keep coming back each and every week over and over again. And until next week, everybody, it's been our pleasure. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. 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.