Small Town Murder - #23 - A Nasty Pair Of Murders in Ocean Grove, New Jersey

Episode Date: June 21, 2017

This week, we take a look at the old timey beach town of Ocean Grove, New Jersey, where a young man thought he could get away with 2 horrific murders. Legal factors, and small town publicity become a factor as this story twists & turns, with life in the balance. Along the way, we find out why the beach was closed on Sundays, what exactly washes up on a New Jersey shore, and what a day is like on death row!!Hosted by James Pietragallo & Jimmie WhismanNew episodes every Thursday!!Please subscribe, rate, and review!Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts!Head to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things Small Town Murder!For merchandise: crimeinsports.threadless.comCheck out James and Jimmie's other show: Crime in Sports Follow us on social media!Facebook: facebook.com/smalltownpodInstagram: instagram.com/smalltownmurderTwitter: twitter.com/MurderSmall Contact the show: [e-mail] See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You're listening early and ad-free on Wondery Plus. What if you married the love of your life and then stood by them as they developed 21 new identities? What would you do? This Is Actually Happening is a weekly podcast that features extraordinary true stories of life-changing events told by the people who lived them. Listen to the newest season of This Is Actually Happening on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. This week, we look at the beach town of Ocean Grove, New Jersey, where a man tried to get away with two horrific crimes. Welcome to Small Town Murder.

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder. Yay! Yay is right. Give me murder. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I am Jimmy Wissman. We can't thank you folks enough for joining us this week.

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it's not higher than seven and two cops, but the way it was done makes it, it's like a volcano. It's swelled up higher. It's not great. It's some brutal crime, but that's okay. Last week was five people, seven total. Six dead. Five civilians, two cops. Wasn't it five civilians? It was four civilians or seven people. Yes, it was five and two. Anyway, go back and listen.

You count. You count. But we'll give this a perfect time to give the disclaimer now that we're talking about this. Yes, this is a comedy podcast. All the facts are real. Cases are real. Promise you that. The research is real. Everything is real. We do make jokes, yes. This is a comedy podcast. All the facts are real. Cases are real. Promise you that. The research is real.

Everything is real. We do make jokes, though. We're stand-up comics, and that's our take on this genre. That's our gig. Yeah, we don't want to sit here and go, well, then he cut her head off. It's very dry, and that's fine. A lot of people like that, and that's good for them. I like some podcasts like that, too.

But we also want to do something a little different. And so we never make jokes at the expense of the victims or the victims' families. That's not what we're about. We're not assholes here. We're really not. We are. We are, but not in that respect. Yes, we're assholes but not scumbags, as we've said a lot.

It's a good slogan. Our jokes come at the expense of these towns. They come at the expense of a bumbling police force. Maybe an asshole murderer that's done something stupid that we make fun of. Or maybe the technique of investigation. You never know. But either way, if you think that true crime and comedy never belong together and no joke should be made around these things. You're free to think that.

You're not going to like this. No, you're not. I'll just tell you right now. No, you might as well hit the unsubscribe. We shake hands, send you on your way, say thank you very much for giving us a try, but we're not for you. Now, anybody who's left, we're not your bag. If you're left out there after we've told you not to listen, as we like to do, we're the only podcast that thoroughly discourages people from listening.

Encourages going away. Yeah, please don't listen, okay? Any chance you're going to be offended, I'd rather not hear about I was offended by this and that. I'd rather just give it to the people who really, really are digging what it is. So without further ado, Jimmy, let's get down to business. I'm so excited. I am excited for this week. We are going to Ocean Grove, New Jersey this week.

My goodness. It sounded beautiful at first, and then you said New Jersey. New Jersey. Yeah, and then it was not. I'm from New York, so there will be New Jersey bashing here. Sorry about that. It's part of my culture. I'm like a guy who grew up in

the 1910s and down south. It's like, well, you go, well, Grandpa is a little racist, but it's the time he grew up. It's where he's from. It's one of those things. Not that that makes it okay to be racist, but I'm from New York. We make fun of New Jersey. Sorry, I'll keep it to a minimum as much as possible because New Jersey actually isn't that terrible. It's pretty nice state.

Sounded awesome. Ocean Grove Innocence Pool. New Jersey. Ocean Grove Sewer. That's awesome. Ocean Grove Incess Pool. New Jersey. Ocean Grove Sewer. That's what it is. And it's just north of Atlantic City, which that'll tell you Atlantic City is a shithole, and I don't think there's anyone in New Jersey that would dispute that fact. Shit goes downstream. Yeah, it's a dump.

And if it's downstream from Ocean Grove. It's not going to be good here. It's on the east coast of the state, obviously. It's in the ocean, or right on the ocean. It's not going to be good here. It's on the east coast of the state, obviously. It's in the ocean, right on the ocean. It's a beach town. It's right in the central part of the state, right on the shore. It's in Monmouth County. It is actually inside, technically, it's inside Neptune Township, the way they do this. The towns back east are set up a lot different than they are out west. Here's a square, That's a town. Neptune Township is the bigger town, and then inside that is another

town called Ocean Grove. It's the way it works. It's a smaller town. There's about 25,000 people in Neptune Township, so that's not really a big town either by any stretch of the imagination. A zip code here in Ocean Grove is 0-7756. Area code 732 if you want to beware of calls coming from there.

Are there several towns in that area? Oh, yeah. There's towns everywhere. New Jersey is one of those places. No, I mean in that Neptune Township. There's a couple, I think, but this is the main one. So this is like the yolk of the egg. Kind of, yeah.

This is at the beach, and then it goes out from the beach. Got it. Because this is an older town. I'll get into this exactly. It's a tiny town. It is less than half a square mile. What? 0.428 square even call that a town it's very small and only 0.372 is land the rest is the ocean that you know so it's a very very small town it is both an unincorporated community and as we discussed last week a census designated place okay for those who didn't listen

last week a census designated place is a concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. Only. Only. Just to count some shit. That's what it is, yes. Basically, that's the deal here, and it's unincorporated, too. So it's saying, look, we don't want to be part of shit.

Nothing. All right? God damn it. Screw you, Neptune Township. We're barely in New Jersey. We are seceding from everything. We're seceding from New Jersey, which wouldn't be a bad idea.

Now, this place was kind of you know, we'll call it founded here in 1869, a reverend named W.B. Osborne and a reverend named Reverend Stokes. There's no first name for him. It's just Reverend Stokes and a bunch of Methodist ministers had a big camp there by the

seashore. They had this, it's kind of like a religious. He's Jersey. That's his first name, Reverend. I'll bet you. Jersey Stokes. Jersey Stokes. No, no. Reverend's his first name.

That's on his birth certificate and everything. It's Reverend Stokes. He had no choice. He knew what he was going to do from an early age. Like, sorry, you're Reverend. If we called you doctor, tough shit. You're going to be a doctor. I don't know what to tell you.

These reverends liked the place so much, they decided to establish a permanent Christian camp meeting community called Ocean Grove. That's so sad. Half of these towns, most of these towns are started by people who are like, I could put a fucking church here. Yeah. Yeah. I could get people here talking some shit about God.

Yeah. Let's bring them in. Bring a lot of people in here and lie to them. Yeah. They had about 20 tents that summer. A lot of people in here lied to him. Yeah, they had about 20 tents that summer. And by the next year, though, they were parsing out plots, grading the land, selling off lots.

What about this? Planning a town. They were like, yeah, we're going to do this. All in the name of Jesus. All in the name of Jesus. That's right. Late 1800s, it was a big destination place for these religious. They'd go there a lot during the summer. And it's by the beach.

It's nice. I mean, it seems like Jesus is an excuse to go to the beach oh yeah you know what i mean sounds good to me yeah you know hey uh we're gonna go to the beach and uh jesus and stuff yeah we're gonna yeah bring up bring your pail and your little shovel thing and a jesus and then we'll get the jesus and don't forget your bathing suit jesus plenty of a reason just putting my balls in the sand is a reason for me i just don't want to be anywhere that's not near a beach i love beaches beaches are great they are great i not near a beach. I love beaches. Beaches are great.

They are great. I'm terrified of sharks, but I love beaches. Yeah. They start 1870s. They really started building wooden shelters and that sort of thing, tabernacle deals. People were coming in from New York like crazy after the 1870s. after the 1870s. In 1877, just the year 1877, 710,000 railroad tickets were sold for the Ocean Grove-Asbury Park train station.

How are they going to get that many people in a half square mile? So that's, they're going to the beach. That's over the course of a year. But still, I mean, that's, so people are coming. And it kept growing and growing. Over a year. That's over 1877.

And it kept growing and growing. Tourism's booming for that area. Oh, it is. It's huge. That's over 1877. It kept growing and growing. Tourism's booming for that area. Oh, it is. It's huge. It's huge for them. But they were trying to keep it to religion. That's the thing. They didn't want it to be a party town.

They wanted it to be a cult. Yes, you come here and you worship by the beach type of thing. By the late 1890s, they'd outgrown all their church facilities, all their wooden shacks. They built the Great Auditorium. it's called, the Great Auditorium, and it's still there to this day. Really? Completed in 1894. Wow. It's beautiful.

130 years old? Under 20. Under 20. Those old auditoriums that they built turn of the century in theaters are beautiful. They're ornate. They're gorgeous, these things. There's lots of wood on them as the structure itself, and then concrete all over. It's wild. They're ornate. They're gorgeous, these things. There's lots of wood on them as the structure itself, and then concrete all over. They're beautiful.

It's originally designed to accommodate 10,000 people. What? And then later on, they did theater-style seating and all that sort of thing and reduced it to about 6,000. In 1890, they built that shit to hold 10,000 people. Like there was an NBA game coming to town. That's amazing. Like the Knicks and Nets were going to play there. I think they shot a little high, and they realized it when they chopped it down to 6,000.

Listen, we're never going to fill this shit. Well, they had to put seats in and shit. Before that it was like, I think they just did standing room pews, probably that sort of thing. And then they made it, hey, we can sell tickets if we have seats. Presidential inauguration? There are 10,000 people. It's crazy. Yeah.

I don't know what they're making. Standing room only. That's insane. It's true. It's a huge deal. After, though, it's weird because after World War I, church growing was down a lot in this country. And it kind of really disillusioned people. I don't know. I think you see that kind of

carnage and you're like, you know what, maybe fuck God. I don't know. Not even just fuck God. I got burned by mustard gas. This sucks. Like, World War I was brutal. It was brutal. Maybe it's not fuck God. Maybe it's just, there's definitely not one. If this shit exists.

Yeah, if that happened, this is bad shit. Because I'm telling you guys, like, I've been listening to Dan Carlin's Hardcore History, which is a tremendous podcast. Yeah. And he has, like, a five-part series on World War I. Really? It's fucking amazing. They're, like, five hours each.

They're incredible. It's the most brutal, horrific thing in the world. He talks about all the atrocities and stuff. Oh, it's the whole—he talks about Dan Carlin is every—he's like us with history. Like, he goes up an ass with a microscope and finds every little thing and every detail and reads 20 books and goes, this historian's take and that historian's take. Did he get, like, the fucking chemistry of Mustard Gas, too? Jesus. You would think he would, but yeah, that's what I mean.

So I think maybe people came home and they were like, you know what, maybe not religion. Maybe I'm just going to have fun with my life because at any point I can be blown to smithereens in a trench somewhere. Also, too, I've been home for six months. My lungs still burn. Fuck God.

Yeah, fuck it. This is terrible. He created mustard gas, or at least the elements to create it. Fuck him. No shit, man. So at this point, people stopped coming for church as much, for camp meetings. It's known as like a time capsule of the early 20th century because of the architecture. And we'll talk about that there is no new structures here at all.

The average home is 75 years old in this place. Wow. So that's a lot. That's very old. That means there's younger and much older. Much older. Much, much older. The Ocean Groves, they had a municipal authority until 1981.

That's when they folded into Neptune Township. It's odd because before that, they had a lot of laws that were unique to Ocean Grove. It was illegal on Sundays to have cars on the streets. Just Sunday. Just Sunday. Also, too, you were not allowed. The beaches were closed on Sunday. So cars on the street driving or cars on the street parked?

Anywhere. At all? Anywhere. No cars on the street. Clear the streets on Sundays. But what if I get to go get my fucking wash done? Tough shit. Can't do it.

Do it another day. Day of rest, asshole. My wife is having a heart attack. Tough shit. Day of rest. Day of rest. What the fuck don't you understand about day of rest, asshole. My wife is having a heart attack. Day of rest. Day of rest. What the fuck don't you understand about day of rest, Jimmy?

I cut my arm off. God said rest, asshole. I don't know what to tell you. So, sorry. I don't know. I don't know. Put a towel on it for now. I don't know what to tell you.

You got any duct tape? I can't even go lay down at the beach? No, it's closed. My arm's cut off. At least I need some relaxation. You know what? You just got sand in the wound anyway. So it's better off.

Stay home. It's not going to work. So much for day rest. I can't go to the beach. Nope. You can rest somewhere else, but not at the beach or in the streets, in your car. Doesn't say anything about resting personally in the streets, but in your car, fuck no. You're perfectly safe if you lay down in the street.

Jesus. No shit, man. Unbelievable. They did this for a reason. The Sunday no beach thing was so people wouldn't come just for a weekend. That was so they would come for a week. That was to try to get people to come for a longer amount of time. So that was kind of a trick.

And they would try to, they also would want them to come to, you know. Worship. Yeah, camp activities also. From the 60s to the 80s, the town declined like everything else on the East Coast. Started to deteriorate and fall apart. We always talk about these towns and these cities with crime and sports. It's falling apart. The whole New Jersey seashore

turned into a shithole. I remember as a kid, like in the 80s, it was like the Jersey Shore was like, why the fuck are you going there for? Down the shore was a bad idea. Every other day it was closed down because they found a shitload of hypodermic needles washed up and things like that. It was like toxic waste, and they were always closing the beaches. It was a total shithole.

They nicknamed it at that point. People started to call it Ocean Grave. That's clever. Because not only is it just kind of falling apart, decrepit beach town, but also, too, we'll get into the elderly population is amazing there. Amazing. into the elderly population is amazing there. Amazing. But through the 90s, when people started moving away from New York City as it got more expensive,

there was a huge increase in property values and it's kind of restored the whole town. Nice. People started restoring hotels and that sort of thing. Housing. Yes. Sidewalk cafes and all that sort of shit. Hipsters. Hipsters. Exactly.

They moved in even in the 90s. They were there. People in this town, population is 3,134. So not a big town here, but for that little area, they're cramming them in there. They really are. It is down 25% since 2000, 35% since 1990. There was more. There was a lot more, and they just fucking took off.

They left. There's about 1,000 more people. It's out of whack in here. Females are almost 61% of the population here. It's normally about 51%. There's 61. Whenever we do this, whenever it's more males, it's always like mining or logging or something like that.

Whenever it's more females, old. Every time, it's just everyone's 100 there. That's it. They outlived the men. Otherwise, it's odd. I haven't found another reason that females would gather in a town unless half the people died off. It's odd. The median age here is 51.8.

Jesus. The average is 37 nationally, so that is excessively old. That's the oldest we've covered, I believe. Yeah. I'm picturing like Pauly D in the situation, elderly. Yeah. They're just sitting there like, hey, man, this town's all right. Let's go down to the beach, see if we can get some chicks

to take off their bikini tops, you know? You got some more grease? I got a little bit of hair left. Let's go down to the camp revival and see what we got going on down there. I got one spike left on my head. I'm going to put it, I'm going to really stick it up straight, though.

You know what I mean? How's my tattoo look? Is it good? Yeah, it's perfect. The one that used to be on your biceps, on your wrist. No, it's on my forearm, but I think it looks good now.

He's got one spike left and he's still frosting the tip. Oh, he's frosting the shit out of it and gelling it like a little horn. Hilarious. Ages there, ages 0 to 17, that age group, it's less than half the average of normal. Not a lot of kids there. It says there is 0% ages 0 to 4. No fucking babies allowed. No babies.

No cars on Sunday. Beaches closed. No fucking babies allowed. No babies. No cars on Sunday. Beaches closed. No goddamn babies. This place sounds fucking great. Yeah, it sounds like a paradise if you're old especially. The age group 60 to 70, more than double the population. Not so good anymore. Triple the 85 and over. Wow. Yeah, triple the 85 and over. They are living long.

They really are. Widowed, three times the amount of widowed is normal. Everything else is pretty normal. Race and religion of the town, white, it's about 86% white. Italian. Yeah, a lot of Italians probably I would imagine. A few of us Guineas are wandering around there. 2%

black, which is way less than the 12% average. 2.5% Asian, they got about half, so they're working on it. You know, they're trying. You know what I mean? 8.11% Hispanic, which, you know. That's pretty impressive. That's about half the average, but still there's some.

For a tiny little town like that, that's pretty impressive. Yeah, there's some people. They're religious. It's weird because normally the Northeast is a little, either average or a little less religious. And here, 57.4% religious, which is higher than the 50% average. I assume that's because this is still the, you is still the shell of the religious upbringing of the town. And still close to the big cities of New York and Philly, which are heavily Catholic.

Yeah, absolutely. So you're going to get 43% of the people are Catholic here, which is about as expected. 3.3% Jewish. How about that? That's a record. That's a fucking record for small town murder. What is this, New York City? 3.3%?

That is a record for small town murder. 1. this, New York City? 3.3%. That is a record for small town murder. 1.2% Muslim, another record. How about that? Holy shit, another record. The political breakdown, the voting, 47% register as Democrats, 52% as Republicans identify there. The median household income here is $58,000, which is about $5,000 over the average of $53,000, which is national. But if you look at it, all the brackets above $100,000 are all below average.

It's that sort of thing. I'm looking at jobs here, and there are four times the amount of construction and maintenance and repair jobs here. Yeah, trying to keep that town back above water. Yeah, so it's a pretty blue-collar town, and there's probably wealthy people who own some houses and vacation homes and all that sort of thing. Lots of Springsteen fans. Absolutely.

And we go cost of living here is, cost of living overall, we do 100 being par average. Yeah. Cost of living here is 153. Holy shit. And that is mainly, it's average in transportation and groceries and healthcare and all that sort of thing. But what's really high is housing at $243,000. Yeah.

$243,000. Bananas. It's insane, man. The median home cost in this town is $451,200. And you're supposed to afford that on $58,000 a year. That's not... Whoa. 26% of these houses are vacant vacation homes.

So a quarter of the housing is just for vacation homes. When you look at it, most of the houses are between $200,000 and $500,000. 31% are between $300,000 and $400,000. Holy shit. So, yeah, it's a lot. And then also 28% are between $500,000 and $750,000. My God. So that's a lot.

Either a half million or three-quarter million house. Between those you're talking, 58% of the houses are in those two brackets. So that's a lot. How do you afford, like a million dollar house, the mortgage for that, what is that? Well, let's find out. 30 grand a month? What is that, like 50 grand every three weeks? What are we doing? Carry the two. Well, let's find out. If you want to move to Ocean Grove, New Jersey, let's do the Ocean Grove, New Jersey real estate report. Two-bedroom apartment there on the average is about $1,210, which is about $200 more than the national average. That's great.

That sounds great, actually. That's not as bad. In comparison to what a mortgage costs there. Found a few houses here, a four-bedroom, two-bath, 1,600-square-foot house, $489,000. My God. A three-bedroom, two-bath house, 1,250 square feet. $3 million. $549,000.

Holy shit. That is insane. Three-bedroom, one-bath. And the bargain, yeah, three-bedroom, two-bath, 1,250 square feet. And the bargain of the week, I found a foreclosure. I'm a value shopper, guys. A short sale. Foreclosure, one-bedroom, bedroom, one bath, 504 square feet.

So it's a closet. It's a walk-in closet. It's our studio. Yeah, it's basically our studio. $249,000. Holy shit. They think they're running a village? What is that?

That is intense, man. I'm sure it's right on the beach. It better be. Things to do in Ocean Grove. It better have its own fucking island for that price. It really should. At least come with a slip with a boat or something. This comes with a yacht.

Somebody that towels off your balls when you get out of the shower? A ball towel. That's what we need. Honey, I've hired a new ball towel. I didn't have to hire him. He came with the house. He comes with the house. 249K buys you a lot here in New Jersey.

249K. Wow. Things to do if you buys you a lot here in New Jersey. 249K. Wow. Things to do if you find yourself in Ocean Grove, New Jersey. There's, of course, the Great Auditorium. That is a big one. These are all in the top five things to do, okay? There's five things to do at least. There's like 11, and they're all, you know, whatever, both touristy shit and religious type things.

I think these are three out of the top four. Great Auditorium, like we discussed, which you should visit because it's 1894. I'd love to see it. It'd be a cool thing. Me too.

The Ocean Grove Women's Club. Okay. I don't know why that's a top thing to do. Because there's a bunch of chicks there. There's a shitload of women there.

That sounds like a bunch of grumpy old women complaining is what that's all. Polly D. They're all 85. Polly D. and they're looking to get his laundry done.

Yeah, he's like, I'm going to pop my chest hair and see if I can get these broads to do my laundry. And the number one thing listed on their thing as the number one thing to do in Ocean Grove, the Ocean Grove Chamber of Commerce. What do you do there? Go there and get some pamphlets for the Women's Club. Like, is that what you do? And the Great Auditorium?

Yeah, what the fuck? That's a boring-ass town. It is. And we're doing this podcast, so apparently there's murdering people to do, too. Oh, there is. Let's get into the crime here, which is our area of interest. Expertise? I don't know if I'd call it expertise.

We're up to our asses in it, but I don't know if we're experts yet. At least what we talk about. We try. Yeah. The crime rate, property crime here, burglary, robbery, theft, is pretty significantly higher than the national average. Makes sense. And violent crime, murder, robbery, rape, assault, that sort of thing, is even higher above average than property crime.

So you get these touristy towns, they get a lot of crime. I don't know if that's just drunk people or people just acting a fool when they go on vacation. Or just New Jersey. Or just New Jersey. Or maybe it could be the Pauly D contingency. We don't know these things. I have no idea. It's just them running wild.

And now let's get into some murder here. Okay. Our murders this week, we're going to go back to 1983. So picture 1983, New Jersey. Yeah. Yeah. That's gross. It sounds terrible.

Yes, I've been to New Jersey. I can smell it already. I don't remember 1983, but I've been there, I think, at that time. And I probably hate it as a small child, I'm imagining. In the early morning hours of April 2nd, 1983, there was a call to the police from a jogger. And Patrolman Kenneth Wittenhauer of the Neptune Police Department responds to the radio call. And the call tells him to go to a vacant lot that's adjacent to a boardwalk in Ocean Grove, the boardwalk in Ocean Grove. It's worth $250,000.

It's worth, yeah. Just that spot, that vacant lot, just one little piece of it is worth $250,000. What Wittenhauer, Officer Wittenhauer discovers there is a young black female who is nude and battered and dead, clearly. She has a bra knotted loosely around her neck. Oh, God. And her clothes are in a ball in the corner away from her. And so they find her. Now, this is obviously, it turns out that this person is Cheryl Alston.

She's a 19-year-old resident of the area. She lives around there. They find her. She's lying face up in the center of this vacant lot, completely unclothed except for the area. She lives around there. They find her. She's lying face up in the center of this vacant lot, completely unclothed except for the bra. So she's naked. They do a little, obviously, further

investigation. They discover that she's got just a ton of blunt force injuries all over her. All over her. The injuries to her chest have one to two inch wide marks. Her face they said, quote, was, this isn't me, this is in the police report, quote, pretty much destroyed. Jesus. Her jaw appeared broken and her teeth were protruding out.

Wow. It was so bad in the face that identification of the body was not possible. Her body was identified through her dental records. That's how, I mean, that's how they identified, but that's how bad this person was. Not a fist. Not a fist. Not a fist. Now, Cheryl's mother, Cheryl Alston's mother, the night before, she said that she'd picked

Cheryl up from the Grand Union, which is a grocery store back there, and she drove her to some friends' houses, and then they went home at about 11.30, quarter to 12. She said, Mrs. Alston, the mother, said she went into her house. She went into her house, and after she did that, Cheryl went to visit her friend Princess. She's got a friend named Princess, who's an adult woman. It's Jersey. Yeah. She lived just a few houses down Princess.

She's going to princess's house. What kind of person names their fucking kid princess? I doubt it was a given name. I don't think that's on her birth certificate. I hope it's a nickname. And it's in quotes, so that might not even be her nickname. That might be like a made-up nickname for court records. All right.

I can't help it. You said it was an adult woman. It is an adult woman. Adult. I mean, 19 probably. 18, 19, but still an adult woman. It was an adult woman. Adult. I mean, 19 probably. 18, 19, but still an adult. It was just so sly. Go on, okay.

So, but no, you wouldn't worry about Cheryl going to her friend's house three doors down. Princess's house. Named Princess. It's not like Princess is going to do anything bad. Right. If you're going to be safe anywhere, it's at Princess's house. I would think so. It's going to be at Princess's house.

And Cheryl returns home about 1230 a.m. and sits out in front of the house on their stoop. She just sits out on the stoop. She's hanging out. The mother could see her from the window. She said at about 130 a.m. This is Cheryl's aunt and her mom's sister, Angela, arrives home from work. She works second shift. When she asks, hey, where's Cheryl?

The mother said that she thought she was outside. Didn't she walk past her when you came in? Yeah, she's like, she's not outside. And the mother said, oh, she must have gone back to Princess's house. Because it's like three doors down. So they go back and forth, and who knows? She might have said, hey, come here for a minute. And she's 19. You don't have to keep track of her anymore.

Yeah, it's no big deal. They looked around the neighborhood a little bit and tried to find her. Just like, hey, is she over here? Is she over there? And finally they were like, eh, you know, who knows what she's doing. Whatever. They went to bed around 4 o'clock in the morning. My goodness. So they stayed up.

Those old ladies are burning the midnight oil. Well, they stayed up to look for her. That's why. They were looking for her. And the one didn't get home from work until 1.30 in the morning. So, I mean, she's not going to go to bed. You get off work at 1.30 in the morning. I'm going the fuck to bed.

I'm going to be up until probably 8 then. Because I'm like, this isn't my day. This can't be my whole day. I need time for me too. I need time to not be working and sleeping. It's fucking horrible. I just don't sleep. I can't do that.

I just go right the fuck to sleep and then, God forbid, I'm late to work or late to whatever I've got to do. It's going to happen. If I go to bed at 1.30 in the morning, forget it. I'm not waking up. I just choose not to sleep. It's much easier. Try that next time. Just don't sleep. It's going to happen. If I go to bed at 1.30 in the morning, forget it. I'm not waking up. I just choose not to sleep. It's much easier. Try that next time, Jimmy. Just don't sleep.

It's good. Fuck that. It's good. You're delusional. You're out of your mind. Hey, come on. I'm doing podcasts on no sleep. We can do this, man.

We can do this. So both women were awoken early. The Alston women were awoken early. The mother assumed that Cheryl had come home and was in her room but then she heard her phone ring in her room and didn't and then didn't hear anybody answer she's like that's odd so she checked and looked in her room she wasn't there so she spends the whole day calling her friends looking for you know just where the hell is her yeah where the hell is her where the hell is she um so the next day is a Sunday what happens when you get no sleep, James? That's what happens. The next day is a Sunday.

She goes down to the police station and says, you know, where's my daughter? Can you guys help? My daughter's missing. She's 19. I gave her a day. I figured she might be, you know, who knows, 19-year-old kids do shit. But now she's missing. And the police at that point inform her that actually she's not missing.

We have found her and she's dead. And here. So that's not, I don't think, what the mother wanted to hear. have found her and she's dead and here so that's not i don't think what the mother wanted to hear before she did oh yeah they found her before they even knew she was missing jesus i mean they found her the next morning by a jogger by the beach founder before she reported it there there oh god that's so before yeah they didn't even know they spent the whole day yeah calling people looking for when she had already been found and they were trying to identify her. As a parent, holy fuck, I can't imagine. And it's ridiculous, especially off the stoop.

You'd figure, okay, she's home and on the stoop. Now she's safe. Yeah. This is the safest she's ever been. Anything happens, she can run right in the house. No big deal. You know, it's that sort of thing. So they further investigate the scene, the prosecutor's office, the Monmouth County prosecutor's

office. They find her clothes, like I said, balled up in a doorway of a nearby bathhouse. There's apparently four abandoned bathhouses there. Not the gay kind. Not the gay kind. Not the decadent kind. The wash the sand and hypodermic needle and toxic waste off of you from the beach kind. Yeah.

They had to put those in because people were like, look, I have sludge on me from that fucking ocean. By the way, the shore there, full of jellyfish in Jersey. It's fucking terrible. Oh, it's the worst, Jersey Shore. Like a wave crashed into me. Now I have three hypodermic needles in my thigh. It's awful.

And a jellyfish stuck to my head. It's the worst fucking place in the world. It's terrible, the Jersey Shore. Anyway, they also find, in addition to this, they find various cosmetic items that were identified later as Cheryl's strewn about in there. They find a single trail of footprints from the bathhouse to her body and from the body down to the street, which is Spray Avenue down there. They also find a dented two-by-four nearby with blood on the end of it that they recovered.

A two-by-four, if you don't know, construction is a piece of wood. It's what Hacksaw and Jim Duggan used to carry around in the ring. And they're thick, and to dent one, it's fucking hard. Yeah, you've got to hit something very hard. Very hard. It's a hard surface with a lot of force. They conducted an autopsy on April 2, 1983. It revealed multiple blunt trauma, blunt force trauma,

with penetrating wounds of the left eye, nose, left side of the face, and oral cavity with numerous fractures to the facial bones and lower and upper jaw bones. There was a three-inch gaping wound of the forehead causing exposure of the frontal bone of the skull. My goodness. Unbelievable. The left eye was pushed inward. Abrasions were found near her neck and on the victim's chest. They revealed horizontal linear contusions consistent with being

caused by a two by four. You bet. So they do all that. The doctor would later testify to the injuries in the face. Two inches wide means he hit her with the side of that. Not like flat. He was bashing. Which is harder. Or she was bashing

her. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. Yeah, doesn't sound like a woman no i'm gonna go out on a limb here women though i mean the the statistics alone no they don't kill like this though that's true men kill in a very different way yeah you're right the men kill this is very fucking personal that's not sexist well it's i don't even know if it's personal or if it's just a someone who's out of control or Okay. We'll find out. All right. Anyway, the doctor here, the forensic who examined her, said that there was evidence of a fracture to a bone in her neck consistent with the ligature found on the bra.

Right. He said that strangulation probably only produced a loss of consciousness and that the blunt trauma to the head, chest, and abdomen caused swelling and hemorrhaging and were the main cause of death. Blood to death. So internally and hemorrhaging. That is so terrible. And yet from being beaten so horribly. And I don't even know what to say about that.

So that's April 2nd. That's very important to note the date, April 2nd, 1983. Now, April 26th, 1983. Five days later. Wait. No, three and a half weeks later. April 2nd to April 26th. Oh, I was going April 22nd. Oh, 1983. Five days later? No, three and a half weeks later. April 2nd to April 26th. I was going April 22nd.

Oh, yeah, April 2nd to April 26th. Around 9.20 p.m., we're going to catch up with Carol Penniston. She's a 47-year-old woman. She's divorced. She lives alone. She's trying to better her life. She's attending a computer course. This is 83, too.

If you're attending a computer course in 83, you're trying to do something with yourself. You know what I mean? Because that's not a common thing back then. Walking around all day seeing a green tint on shit. Yeah, people are like computers. What the hell is that? You were trying hard. She went to Neptune High School for a night class.

They had night classes there. She took a computer course there. But the next day, she did not report to work, and she never returned to her apartment. She's missing. A week later, police tell the Penniston family they had reported her missing in that week. And the police call the family and say, hey, her car, Carol's car has been found. It's been involved in an accident, and we found it on the road, and we impounded it. They did get a fingerprint that was not hers off of the rearview mirror of the car.

So somebody adjusted that shit so they could drive. Somebody adjusted it. Now, a man found her purse also, and they questioned the man who found the purse. Now, he was trying to return it to her. Oh, that's nice. He found the purse and was just a nice guy and was trying to find her address and return it to her. So he showed them, he showed the police where he had found it. It's

found outside of a shed in the Ocean Grove area. Okay. Near Asbury Park, actually. Now, on May 3rd, this is, when this man leads them to the shed, they go into the shed. It's near an industrial building and they find the body of Carol Penniston.

Oh, my God. So he found the purse so close to her body. So close, but didn't know. And she'd been dead for several days. Oh, Jesus. They did an autopsy on her that revealed she had been beaten, sexually assaulted, strangled. They found a sneaker imprint on her chest. Oh, my God.

She had fractured ribs and hemorrhaging of the right lung vertebrae that were knocked all out of whack and also damage to her heart like physical damage to her heart a medical examiner uh decided concluded that the whoever did this had stomped on her chest by the sneaker mark repeatedly stomped on her but they did uh on her chest by the sneaker mark while it repeatedly stomped on her. But they did narrow the ultimate cause of death down to a ligature strangulation. Now, who are they looking at for this? Who does that fingerprint belong to?

Let's find out who that fingerprint belongs to on her car. That fingerprint belongs to a man named Marco Bay, who is actually at this moment in time, after they find her car, is barely a man. Really? Barely a man. His date of birth is April 12th, 1965. Okay. So that would make him 17 years old when Cheryl Alston was killed, and that would make him 18 years old when Carol Penniston was killed.

That's very important to remember at this point. Marco Bay. I could have guessed Marco, by the way. Marco, yeah. It's a black guy. It's not an Italian. Oh, really? It's a black guy. M-A-R-K-O-B-E-Y.

Gotcha. Marco Bay. Everybody involved in this is black in this thing. Both the women were black. You were thinking situation. Yeah. I'm only saying that because I know Jimmy's thinking like the situation is standing. I'm going to kill his broad in the shed.

No, it's a black guy. But that makes neither here nor there. But just so you're. Just for mental picture. For mental picture. Everybody involved is black. How big is this guy? He has to be a monster.

He's not even that big, but he's a hefty guy. He had been released on this, like I said, the Alston incident, or incident murder happened on April 2nd. Yeah. He had been released from prison, from jail, and put on juvenile parole on March 19th. So two weeks before that, this happened. So they're very interested in this kid. from prison, from jail, and put on juvenile parole on March 19th. So two weeks before that, this happened. So they're very interested in this kid.

Now, I did, God, Jesus, I did so much digging to try to find what he did before this, but they're juvenile sealed records from 35 years ago, and they're just not. It's not available. I found every court document. Everything's redacted on it. They even told the jury later on, and we'll get into this, that he had been out of state for the last couple of years. So they wouldn't tamp. They wouldn't even look for him. Yeah.

So they wouldn't. What's the word I'm looking for? So they wouldn't. Investigate further. Unseal them. Contaminate. They wouldn't contaminate the jury with his past things. Whatever.

So they're looking into him on May 6, 1983 at 5.15 p.m. See how dumb I am real quick? I didn't even get anywhere near that word. At least you didn't think that there's oil in New Jersey, so I'm going to let it slide, Jimmy. I haven't brought up the oil in a couple of episodes. It's only in the water from their hair. That's all. That's it.

That's it. Perfect. So 5.15 p.m., May 6, 1983. By the way, that wasn't a black people's hair. I just mean the greasy Italians. I knew that was a good one. It's just as racist. I knew that was a good one.

Sounds just as horrible. I can give you a pass on it, though. That's the thing. Like I said, Petrogallo is my last name. Pass. Let's move further before I put my foot in my mouth and sound like an asshole. Before you are further racist. Accidentally.

Go ahead. Officers from Asbury Park and Neptune Police Departments, because those are the two jurisdictions, they find Marco Bay at his mother's home in Neptune, and they arrest him. Of course. Now, they're arresting him first right now for receiving stolen property. Yeah, because he was at the end of the car. On her car. Now, five hours after he's in police custody, he starts talking.

He starts talking. He starts singing? Absolutely. What he says is, after five hours, he confesses to the Penniston murder. Really? Yeah. He confesses to it. He doesn't take, it's not that hard to get him to do it for that matter either.

What he says is he approached Carol as she returned home to her apartment building in Asbury Park, and he tried to rob her. He demanded money from her. Someone exited the building. When they exited the building, this scared bae, and rather than just robbing her, he grabbed her because he didn't want them to see. So he grabbed her and walked her a few blocks away. That's kidnapping already. To get away from it.

Yeah, exactly. Walked her down an alley and into an abandoned, like I said, industrial shed. Yeah, exactly. I walked her down an alley and into an abandoned, like I said, industrial shed. Now, inside the shed, he went through her purse and he told her to take her clothes off. Oh, God. Which is fucking the scariest. To be dragged into a shed and told to strip might be the most frightening thing ever.

At minimum, you could be thinking, he's telling me to do this so that I don't run because obviously I'm going to look like an asshole running down the street naked. That's wishful thinking. Yeah. That's wishful thinking. Fingers crossed, this is the worst case scenario. I don't think that's what she's thinking probably. I can't put myself in her head, but I would think that this guy's going to do way worse. And after knowing what he did do, we know he wasn't thinking that either. No.

At this point, what he said was he saw her looking at him going through her purse and he thought, oh no, she sees me. She can identify me. He didn't think of that until then, which is his state of mind. You already walked up to her and do-headed money with your face showing. Insane. He beats her. He causes the blunt force trauma, all the internal bleeding.

She had four broken ribs and a sneaker imprint. He then raped her, of course, because he's a piece of shit apparently, and then uses her belt to strangle her. He stole her purse and car and then was driving to Newark and got in an accident and just abandoned the car. What an asshole. Yeah, what a complete asshole.

But I mean, if that's your first murder and we can, I guess, assume that it is, you know what I mean? Because we don't know what he did before. But he's probably a bit panicked and that's probably how he got in the car yeah and we'll find out also too he's not in the best best state of mind he's got some chemical uh of course some he's intoxicated a little bit here which that doesn't surprise me as he's doing things like that they probably wouldn't have the best lifestyle right uh the he the police did a search warrant of the house. They did take a couple of pairs of sneakers and things like that.

He was kept, they read him as Miranda Rights. Right away. They did it a lot. They did it multiple times. Kept telling him, by the way, you don't have to tell us. No, no, I want to talk. Yeah, they Mirandized him and then before they asked him about the murder

because they were asking about the car first and they Mirandized him about the murder too because they Mirandized him for every separate thing they were talking to him about. Way to go, fellas. They did breaks for dinner. They used the bathroom. They had an hour of rest in his cell. So, I mean, they weren't pressuring him.

It doesn't sound like they were putting the screws to him. And then he finally gave a written statement at 10.55 p.m., and he finished up about midnight. In the statement, he said exactly what we just said. He ended up taking $8 from her, by the way. That's what this was all for. This was all for $8. What a turd. A woman's life and everything else for $8.

Wow. So I don't even know if that's just insanity. I'm just grossed out right now. Yeah. Why is that at all? Rape or two while I'm here. I'm just horrified. For $8.

Yeah, I got $8. That's not quite enough. So, yeah. So, anyway, after that, at 12 o'clock, they re-Morandized him. Yeah. And he said he understood. Now, after that, they informed him they wanted to question him about Cheryl Alston also. Okay.

He's like, oh, shit. He indicated at first that he does not want to talk about Alston. He says he didn't know anything about it. The police continue to try to discuss it with him, as they do. We've all seen Law and Order. They don't just go, oh, you don't want to talk about it? OK, cool, man. Cool.

We'll get back to you. Can we get you like a pizza? You want something? Like, no, they're like, we're here and we're going to talk about it now, especially since you just confessed to another murder 10 minutes ago. We've been in a lot of chat with you already, taking breaks and naps. We're going to talk about this one, too. Yeah, absolutely.

Definitely. After a few minutes, finally, he concedes that he had known the victim. What? He met her about three years earlier. Okay. He knew her. They were two years apart, a year apart in age. And he also admits that he had saw her the night of her death.

That's not good. Which never, yeah, don't do that if someone died. You're trying to avoid being captured for something. How about don't put yourself near them? Absolutely. So that was at midnight, 1207, they Mirandized him. By 1 a.m., he is orally confessing to the murder of Alston. He's a dope.

Yeah. He then gives a written statement. About 115, he starts that. About 245, he's done with that. We're two hours from him saying, I don't know her to, I killed her. That's what I mean. It took two hours. All right, fine, I killed her.

That's what dumb guys are. And he signed the cover sheet saying that he acknowledges, he understands his rights. He wants just to waive them and give a statement. Like I said, in the confession, he said he knew her from three years earlier. He said they met by chance on the beach that night. He said that he had already smoked six or seven marijuana cigarettes. So he said he smoked six or seven joints and had drunk at least 140 of drinking 40s. 40 and six joints?

40 and six joints. Dude is loaded. He's feeling it. He's feeling something. Holy shit. He said that he saw Alston and he talked to her and offered her to come smoke a joint with him. And she did it voluntarily. He said after smoking another joint with Alston, he said the two agreed to have sex.

So they walked over to the bathhouses. And so he said, here is a quote from his confession statement. So this is not me and this is a piece of shit speaking. So here it goes. That's a warning. This is going to be horrible. It's going to be horrible, but this is what happened, and this is what he says happened. You need to know what he says.

This isn't what happened. It's what he says happened. He says, quote, we went inside of one, which is the location they were talking about, because police have this as location where we found the body. They have a map thing. So it's one. And we both took our clothes off. She laid her jacket down and laid on top of it. Then I got my nut and I wanted to start again and she didn't. So he's a classy guy.

Yeah. We started kissing again and I started again and she wanted to stop and started hitting me. Then I got dressed and I had to go down to the sand and I dropped her in the sand. I know I beat her, but I don't remember how I did it. Then I remember running. I was going home. I ran down the street behind Palace and then I went home.

I ran down Lake Avenue and Asbury Park and I turned down Fisher and I turned on Stratford and then to Drummond Avenue. I stayed home all night. I woke up the next morning and heard that someone had got killed. I didn't know who it was at the time. I didn't know that it was her until I saw it in the paper. That's his thing. Hey, she wanted it it we were hanging out which he might have known her and because they were around the same age he might have said hey you want to go smoke a joint she might have

went fuck yeah that's cool let's go do that I mean that's all possible and I don't even know maybe she did like the guy I don't know any of that shit but it doesn't matter because then after that he fucking beats and kills her so the voluntary that's that's all i'm more hung up on how how little this whole event meant to him uh yeah if i'm yeah it's it's the part where he beat her and then he ran home like have you ever been in a situation where you've hit a woman and i dropped her in the, I just beat her. And I dropped her in the, quote, dropped her in the sand. Dropped her in the sand and ran home. And ran away. He remembers all the path he took home, but he doesn't remember how bad he hit her.

How many times have you hit women, bro? Apparently a lot. Because that shit would stick in my mind. At 17. Yeah. I'd remember pummeling a woman to make those kind of injuries that would expose her skull. Right. I think I would remember that and crush her face

and make her eye go in a repair. And also too, hey, where did the 2x4 come from in that whole like, we were having sex and you were that close to a 2x4 that you just picked it up with your dick out and you're beating someone? If they were in a lot. If they were in a vacant lot, there might have been a 2x4 or some construction shit. Remember, 25%

there's a lot of construction jobs there. Like I said, so there's two by fours. Maybe he just carries one. He's a two by four. Maybe he's like Hacksaw Jim Duggan. Maybe he comes in and he just goes and beats people. But he's a piece of shit. And then he runs down several streets carrying that two by four.

Just to be clear, I do not think Hacksaw Jim Duggan has ever raped or murdered anyone. I don't think so. Anyone at all. I know he got caught with cocaine with the Iron Sheik in the 80s, but that's a whole other story. Anyway, so Bay in the statement also claim that he was very high during the encounter. And he said some of his details may have been flawed. Yeah.

Like how he killed her. Right. Just basically saying that he became very angry when she didn't want to have sex for a second time and be even more mad when she started to hit him. Yeah. So now we go back to the Penniston case. Yeah. Or for Cheryl Penniston. And there's evidence there.

Like I said, the fingerprints were on the rearview mirror, which is a – that's a bad one. That's terrible. Right away, that doesn't look good. That puts you inside the vehicle. Inside the car. Also, they did lots of tests on the victim's coats that found fluids that were consistent with the defendant's saliva. Back then, they didn't have DNA, so they'd do it as genetic markers, and then they'd say, like, this percentage of this race or this person has this specific genetic marker. And the genetic marker that was left by him had 2.3% of the black population had that

genetic marker. Wow. So, not a lot. Yeah. So, it's a very, but it's still 2.3%. They can't narrow it down like now where it's 1 in 85 billion. It's not – In a town of 3,000 people though.

Yeah. You know what I mean? And the fact that he also killed the other one. Let's just say that odds are pretty good. This guy's pretty good for the suspect on this one. Yep. They did a – also too for Penniston, they found other fluids that did not come from him. So they must have been coming from her.

Well, no, from another man, but that could be 48 hours ago. Oh, okay. The way it stays for 48 hours. She could have a boyfriend. She could have a boyfriend. Yeah, who knows what she's doing. I mean, that's her business. Who cares?

Doesn't fucking matter to hear. Poor woman's dead and she got... Doesn't matter. His fingerprints on her fucking car. His fingerprints there and also to all sorts of genetic... He's leaving blood. There's a lot there. I'm sure.

For them to look at in terms of physical evidence. Sure. Now, on July 5th, 1983, quick moving, he's indicted. The indictment charges are purposeful murder of Cheryl Alston. This is just for Cheryl Alston now, the first one. Okay. He's got a felony murder and an aggravated assault and an aggravated sexual assault for Cheryl Alston. Those are steep charges.

Those are aggravators too. Those sexual assaults on the murder. Yeah, absolutely. Before this whole thing started, the defense, and they do this throughout the trial, they beg, beg, beg for the jury to be sequestered. They really beg for it. There's

anticipation of unfavorable publicity. They don't want any of his past indiscretions to come out. They don't want the details to come out and not the ones that are allowed in court. They don't want the jury to see any of this shit because it's all inflammatory. Yeah, and they're going to cover it because these are two brutal fucking murders in a tiny little town. Yeah, this is going to get noticed. It's a big deal.

Absolutely. But they do not do that. They say that they will not. You guys can go home. They won't sequester. They do advise them the normal shit. They even say to the jurors, like, you know, when you go home, tell people to go through the newspaper and, like, cut out anything that has to do with, like, if you have anyone at your home, tell them to go through the newspaper ahead of time and cut out articles that have to do with this case. So they really try to tell the jurors not to.

But, I mean, if you're in the jury and you're interested and you want more information, who's not going to look at this? But what they did, too, for the jury is, like I said, his priors and his being incarcerated as a juvenile, they told the jury that he was residing outside the state of New Jersey. That's all they said. They didn't say what he was doing. Like a kid in new york when his when his mob uncle goes to jail they're like he went to college he went to gay he's exploring the mountains so he's off at the university he's going to college so this was they said he moved he like he came into the state on march 19th 1983 not he got out of jail okay then uh he lived in arkansas

or some shit yeah he tries to get the Alston confession thrown out. He says that he claims it because he didn't want to talk about it initially. So they basically said that you can't keep a – what they'll do is – and I've read all these books. I always talk about the David Simon Homicide, Life on the Street, Killing Street book is huge with this where they talk about it a lot when they're doing murder interrogations, is you can't keep them there too long. If you keep them there 14 hours and then they confess, that's not going to be a good confession. The judge is going to toss that out in a minute because it's obviously coercion. Because you took that long to convince them to start talking. Over the course of 14 hours, too. I mean, people mentally, they're not the same.

Oh, my God. Lack of sleep, lack of food, lack of drink, all these different things. After eight hours, I'm at a job, you lose your mind. Yeah, and people have been known tons of times after that to just go, yeah, fine, I fucking did it. If he gets me out of this room, yeah, great, I did it. And then they're like, I'll deal with it later because I didn't know I didn't do it. But it doesn't matter. Have you seen interrogation videos?

The rooms are smaller than the studio. They are tiny rooms. And they're meant to be intimidating. But he's trying to say that he said he didn't want to and that sort of thing. The court finds that they did re-Mirandize him and they had let time pass and he had an hour in his cell and he wasn't under undue stress. He was only there for six hours and he had had like two hours of breaks. So like, you know.

And a nap. Yeah, and a nap. And they didn't start. He confessed to it in like 45 minutes. It's like they badgered him about it. So they say the confession stays in. So all that other evidence too from the Alston case comes out.

And yeah, he's on December 13th, 1983, he is found guilty of the Alston murder. Holy shit. Cheryl Alston, which good, good for her. It's some justice for this anyway. December 15th is sentencing. Now the penalty phase, it lasts December 14th

and 15th. They just, the just basically said, look at the evidence. Like, fucking kill this guy, please. You know what I mean? Are you kidding me? He's up for the death penalty. Oh, he's up for the death penalty. This is a death penalty case. They're going for the death penalty and they're showing them photographs, too, and slides to establish what it looked like.

The two by four beating. The two by four. Her face unidentifiable and things like that. With the three-inch gash on her forehead? Absolutely. With a bone explosion? Wow. Horrible. I pity anybody that was on that jury.

You want to go kill that guy yourself at that point. To this day, they're fucking just scarred. Yeah, they have to be the normal people. I can't imagine seeing that. Bay presented three witnesses at the sentencing phase to try to get – they send people out to try to get sympathy. It's what it is. It's mitigating factors. That's what they're looking for.

His uncle testified that he grew up in poverty. His mother was an alcoholic. His father left the family when he was two. He never had any contact with him, which so what? I'm trying to find the reason that he bashed open a girl's head. That happens a lot to a lot of people. They said he was a good student up until junior high when he lost interest in school and dropped out. He got his GED.

They said he started smoking pot and drinking when he was 14 or 15. Always claims he had a problem with drugs. He never had a solid job. You know, all that sort of thing. He's saying that. Hey, DeYoung, this is every person in America. Yeah, that's America. And I've never bashed open a woman's head. That's just how you grow up.

It's fucking ridiculous. No, it's absolutely ridiculous. His mother also testified that about the poverty and, you know, all that sort of thing. So they really tried to, you know, he's poor sympathy factor on here. The jury comes back and sentences him to death. Good. They don't give a shit. They say aggravating factors outweigh, because they actually say they have to write which aggravating factors they believed and which mitigating factors

they believed. And they believed, I think, four of the aggravators and two of the mitigators, but the aggravators far outweighed the mitigators. And he sentenced to death. New Jersey, not a big death penalty state. Last execution in New Jersey, not a big death penalty state. Nope. Last execution in New Jersey up to that point was-

Can I guess? Yeah, go ahead. I'm going to guess like 62. 1963. Ah, it was so close. That was really close. That's good. Yeah, 1963.

And then it was abolished after that. And then it was reinstated. Right. August 6th, 1982. And they haven't killed anybody since. So this guy really fucked up with killed someone at the wrong time. It's a year before, and right as he turned 18, not smart. Take that, fucker.

Now, 84, the next year in September is the Penniston trial, the trial for the murder of Penniston. It's moved to Cape May County because of the publicity surrounding the last trial. Everyone in that town has heard about this guy. It's impossible not to. How do you not? Especially after the trial. You know what I mean? You can't do it. He was convicted. has heard about this guy. It's impossible not to. How do you not? Especially after the trial. You know what I mean? You can't do it. He was convicted. That makes some fucking news.

Huge. And convicted and sentenced to death. Which was another big deal. Right after it's reinstated. Now, in this case, his lawyer, William Gurdie, argues that he didn't commit purposeful murder because he had consumed large amounts of alcohol and marijuana. What the fuck? Doesn't fucking matter. Don't care.

I've never been driven to fucking want to... I've wanted to murder people when I was drunk, but I also wanted to when I was sober. It happens. I didn't do it either time. I went into traffic on the way here. 45 minutes ago, I wanted to kill somebody. Are you kidding me? But you don't do it.

He said he consumed 120 ounces of malt liquor, so 340s. That's a lot. 340s, and then a bunch of straight rum, and then he smoked, quote, a considerable quantity of marijuana after that. He said he admitted to killing, but he said he didn't know why he did it or how he did it, and he says it shouldn't have happened. He explained that he said he got scared when she was looking at him going through the pocketbook, and then he decided he needed to hit her. And then while you're hitting her, might as well sexually assault her, apparently. Strangle her.

He says he does not recall stepping on her chest at all. That part, no clue. He said the only thing that he remembers was her face and looking at him. And he said, quote, that's when I started hitting her. It just went too far, something that shouldn't have went on. He testified in both these trials, by the way. What an idiot. He kept testifying.

He is eventually found guilty of murder, of purposeful murder, felony murder, aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping, robbery, and theft. Holy shit. That's a fucking lineup right there. When you're already up for death. Absolutely. Are you going to get it again? Yeah. Sentencing, again, they bring the uncle in,

they bring the mother in, the whole deal. The mother cries on the stand, says the blame should be placed on her, that it's her problem, she screwed up, she apologized to the Penniston family and said, maybe if I would have never taken drugs, this would have never happened.

So, I mean, yeah, that's great and all, but you know. That's sweet of you to have some regret of how you raised him. But look, he still had his own choices. Yeah, it doesn't matter now. There's two dead ladies. At this point, who gives a shit? Bay presents at trial, or his lawyers present, testimony of a neuropsychologist that said that Bay has a frontal lobe impairment and a psychiatrist that says he's got personality disorders, blah, blah, blah. personality disorders, blah, blah, blah.

The jurors have to weigh the mitigating and aggravating, and they found five factors mitigating, five factors aggravating, and they said the aggravating factors far outweighed the mitigating factors. They deliberate for 30 minutes before recommending the death penalty. That's just time for paperwork. That's it. You get in and you said, where's the papers? Let's go. Who's got a pen?

I can't kill this guy fast enough. i just can't kill him fast enough what ends up happening here and so the appeals start okay the appeals start he appeals on many notes here and we'll get into the the most uh the most fundamental of it and the thing that matters okay is he he argued first of all the mid-trial publicity. He said the jurors were contaminated, the whole deal. The main thing he is arguing is the fact that he was 17 when he killed Cheryl Alston. The law says you cannot

sentence someone to death when they committed the crime before. That was the thing. Well, he wasn't a juvenile when we sentenced him, but the law says that you can't do it if he committed the crime when he was a juvenile. He's stuck in time at that age at that point in court. Now, during this retrial for Alston, they do find him guilty of purposeful murder and aggravated sexual assault and the whole deal. But they remand his death sentence because it was before he was 18.

They take away his death sentence because it was before he was 18, not remand, they take away his death sentence because it was before he was 18. They give him an aggregate sentence of life imprisonment plus 20 years with 40 years of parole ineligibility. That's for Cheryl Alston. Holy shit. Because he was only 17. Now, what they do find, though, is then they also do the Penniston thing, and they had

to throw that out at first, too. But on the retrial of that he is convicted again they had a prison guard here also in this one that was a big deal a prison guard named Alexander Pearson who was a corrections officer with him in 83

and 84 and he would just talk to him just talk to him because they just talked to the guys and he said the guy Bay told him told Pearson that he had to the guys and he said the guy uh bay told him told pearson that he had raped and killed a girl on the beach yeah so that's so in 1988 before these retrials prosecutors went and talked to all the prison guards to see if he had made any statements and they found that out he's trying to say in this in the in this case that you can't he can't do that because he's acting as a as a police arm and he didn't

Mirandize him and got a confession out of him. The prison guard's like, this happened over months. Like, I was just talking to him. I'm just a dude. I'm just a dude. He's like, I don't, I'm not trying to get shit. I don't give a shit if he confesses or not. My job is to make sure he doesn't stab another inmate.

Other than that, I don't give a shit. I pushed some food through a little hole in his cell. That's all. And they asked me if he said something. And I said, yeah, he didn't go right away to the cops in 83 and say, he just said this. It took him five years to get it out. And it was someone asking him. He was like, yeah, he said that, but he wasn't like trying. He wasn't acting as a police

officer, is what they were saying. They decided that, yes, he wasn't acting as a police officer because he wasn't, he wasn't, he just wasn't doing that. He wasn't, it was clear by their conversations that they were about everything. They talked about family. They talked about sports and women and all this type of shit.

Just a dude you trusted. Just a dude. And the guy says they try to teach the prison guards to talk to the inmates so they don't kill themselves basically. Because where he was, there wasn't a lot of other contact with inmates. So they say you have to talk to them. Make friends with them. Make sure they don't kill themselves. They need human interaction.

Right. Otherwise, you're going to have to clean them up out of their cell otherwise. And you don't want to do that. So it's advantageous to them. Anyway, what they do is about the beach thing, too. They end up later on. It's very clever. They end up looking at all the murder.

They can't find another murder from the time he was arrested to the time he got out of jail except for that one. Because he's saying, I didn't tell Pearson that I killed that girl on the beach and raped her. And they're saying, well, she's the only girl who was raped and killed on a beach in the time you were out. How about that? So that's the only one you could have killed. Take that. So it's her. Go fuck yourself, mister.

So they convict him again. This is 89. He's convicted again. Like I said, they do keep the death sentence for Penniston. How about that? Because he had just turned 18. I love it. Just turned 18. He really it. Just turned 18.

He really fucked that one up bad. Now, he's on death row now. Really? By the way, let's do a day on death row. I have a what a death row day. 23 hours in? Goes by. Well, let's find out.

Let's see here. They're awakened at 6.30 a.m. They eat breakfast in their cells. They also have lunch and dinner in their cells. You know, plastic utensils, plastic trays, the whole deal. No personal decorations. No metal bars either, like old school. It's the doors.

It's the door with the slat. Which is worse, I think. Each cell has a bed, a steel sink, and a toilet, wall-mounted toilet. Also a table affixed to the wall. Cinder block walls painted blue, white, or gray. Cement floors. So we're getting a, This is a depressing environment. They're allowed to have televisions, radios, and an ice chest.

That's not bad. They wear khaki pants. No refrigerator. No refrigerator. They have to have an ice chest. You can probably make things out of the shit inside a refrigerator. Elastic drawstring khaki pants. That sort of thing. Only personal effects are you can have a watch and religious medals.

That's it. That's the only personal shit you can have. How shitty is that to have? That's a torture technique, that watch. Yeah. To watch time go by. To watch time. You wouldn't want one.

By 8.30 a.m., they're allowed to spend time in the recreation area. There's a cage without walls where they play cards and do puzzles and that sort of thing. They have 90-minute increments during the day. Only three prisoners are out at a time. They can go every other day. They can go outside for two hours. Again, only three people out at a time. Every other day.

Every other day. They're not given access to weightlifting equipment either. They can't lift weights. Except Jeffrey Dahmer got killed. Yeah, they can play basketball. Like I said, they serve lunch in the cell, the whole deal. They can have no more than two visits a month from immediate relatives. Visits

are one hour. The only people inmates can meet without glass partition are other inmates, prison personnel, clergy and lawyers. You can't even see your family. You can't ever touch them. There's no touching. When they leave the unit for any reason, they have to wear handcuffs and leg irons, the whole deal. My God.

It's a serious thing. And that's death row. That's death row. Holy shit. It's tough. That's not good. It's not good. It's depressing.

And you're going to die, which would be more depressing. That's the light at the end of the tunnel is dying and getting out of that. But meanwhile, when people talk about when somebody gets convicted and gets the death penalty, we have to pay for them to be on death row for 20 years or more. Fine. I'm okay with it if that's what it is. It's not great. That is horrible. It's not like they're in their party.

No. It's terrible. That sounds awful. It's almost worse than death it seems like. So like I said, there's more appeals, more appeals. Also, July 28, 1992, the state Supreme Court of New Jersey upholds the death penalty in New Jersey because there had been some challenges there. 1995, he has more appeals. The death sentence is reaffirmed in 95. 97, he has another appeal. This is another one based on confession, saying that he, based on the confession he gave at the police station saying they drug it out of him he didn't have a lawyer present blah blah blah they said

you didn't ask for a fucking lawyer and you signed a sheet and you had plenty of arrests so eat shit convictions are affirmed death penalty still on still on uh by march of 2000 he files a uh petition for habeas corpus in the u.s district District Court for the District of New Jersey, raising 20 claims, saying his conviction and his sentence have problems. Twenty of them. Twenty claims saying all this. They keep rejecting his appeals. In 2005, New Jersey lawmakers vote to suspend the executions, any executions in the state while a study is commissioned examined on the fairness and expense of the state's death penalty, how it's distributed and what it costs as compared to whatever. Governor Richard Cody signs the bill on January 12, 2006.

And finally, after several years of proceedings in the district court, the death penalty is repealed in New Jersey in December of 2007 and Bay's death sentence and everybody else's death sentences are commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole. So that's that. So when they have life without parole, do they get that exact same treatment? No, no. It's not death row anymore. But it's still not.

I wish they would get that. Regular prison is not much better. Regular prison is that plus you've got to deal with other inmates. And you've got a dude in your room with you. And you have a dude in your room with you and more chance of getting stabbed by somebody. I'd rather him put up with all that other shit for the rest of his life. Yeah, yeah, sitting there. Put up with all of that shit for the rest of his life.

Look at your gray walls forever. Enjoy that, asshole. Yeah, good job. Every other day you can go outside, but don't touch those weights. You'll never hug your mom again. Never. touch those weights. You'll never hug your mom again.

Never. New Jersey was the first state to impose a moratorium on executions through legislation and not executive order. They were the first ones to actually examine it and do a study on it and say, yeah, this is too expensive and it doesn't work. How about that? Let's get rid of it. So they get rid of it there. No one was executed from 1963 until they repealed it.

They actually never actually executed anyone. I remember that. So interesting right there. And that is Marco Bay, a complete piece of shit. That's bananas. Poor Cheryl Alston. What a terrible story. Yeah. And so I hope he is

rotting nicely. Let's just hope for that. Wow. What a fucking mess. I hope he still hasn't hugged his mom. I hope he's still just hating life. Ocean Grove, New Jersey sounded like a much nicer place before you heard that story, I bet. Besides the religion. Besides being in New Jersey. If you enjoyed that story, you're a sick bastard.

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Pennewell. Pennywell. I don't know. It's spelled like the pasta. Pennewell. All right. Okay. Eric, that guy.

Thank you. Joshua Hoffman, Gramey McColgan. Gramey or Greamey? I'm not. Graham. Graham. Maybe it's Graham. That's Graham.

McColgan. Is it? Yeah, it's Graham. G-R-A-E-M-E. Yeah, it looks like green. Yeah, it's Graham. All right. Well, McColgan. Weird way to spell it, but it's Graham. That's Graham. McColgan, is it? Yeah, it's Graham. G-R-A-M-E. Yeah, it looks like green. Yeah, it's Graham. All right. Well, McColgan. Weird way to spell it, but it's Graham.

That's fascinating. Steena Gardner, Cammie Payne, Zach Gallagher, Lindsay McIntyre, Laura Murr, and then Melissa Martin emailed us and told us that her husband is now listening, and he was making dinner listening to us while she emailed us, which is fascinating to me. We love that. Thanks, Melissa. We love to hear couples when they listen together. That's the best.

It's like we're helping their relationship a little bit by not being a complete shithead. They're happy that plays this together stays together. Absolutely. Isn't that how it goes? I think that's how it goes. I think that's what it is. It is interested in murder together, stays together. That's it.

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

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