Small Town Murder - #232 - A Strange Way To Torture - Laurel, Delaware

Episode Date: July 15, 2021

This week, in Laurel, Delaware, a skeleton is found, tied to a tree, and needless to say, this freaks out the whole area. There are a lot of theories, and dark, disturbing possibilities, but it doesn't take long for the truth to unfold, which raises even more questions, and horror at the suffering of the victim. The whole thing gets even crazier, when it appears that no one will be punished for the act!  Along the way, we find out that they love to day drink in Delaware, that a misplaced dumbbell can make you a murderer, and that it's possible to torture someone, without doing a thing! Hosted by James Pietragallo & Jimmie Whisman  New episodes every Thursday!  Donate at: patreon.com/crimeinsports or go to paypal.com & use our email: [e-mail]  Go to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things Small Town Murder & Crime In Sports!  Follow us on...  twitter.com/@murdersmall  facebook.com/smalltownpod  instagram.com/smalltownmurder  Also, check out James & Jimmie's other show, Crime In Sports! On iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You're listening early and ad-free on Wondery Plus. What if you married the love of your life and then stood by them as they developed 21 new identities? What would you do? This Is Actually Happening is a weekly podcast that features extraordinary true stories of life-changing events told by the people who lived them. Listen to the newest season of This Is Actually Happening on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. This week in Laurel, Delaware, when a skeleton is found tied to a tree in the woods, many theories spring up, but it doesn't take long for the real story to come to light. Welcome to Small Town Murder.

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder. Yay! Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I am Jimmy Wissman. Thank you, folks, so much for joining us. We are excited, as you can be be for murder, really. I mean, there's murder happening, so I mean, we're not, you know, it's, oh, boo, murder.

Yeah, but all the rest of the stuff, we're excited. We're excited to do a show here. Very excited. And want to thank everybody this week for your reviews on Apple Podcasts, that purple icon. Don't know why it helps, but it helps, so get on that five stars, please. Also, head over to ShutUp and give me murder.com

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you can do that as well over at PayPal using our email address, crimeandsports at gmail.com. And get on that right there. So that said, disclaimer time. This is a comedy show, everybody. It's a comedy show. We are comedians, so there's going to be jokes.

Now, murders are going to happen. Every week it happens. It's a weird, it We are comedians, so there's going to be jokes. Now, murders are going to happen. Every week it happens. It's a weird, it's called small town murder. We didn't kill anybody, first of all. And we're not happy about the murders either. That's the other thing. We don't make jokes about the murder. We, you know, we're not like, oh, then they dismembered this person.

And we're like, hilarious. Armor leg first. Oh, God, that's good. That's not where the jokes are the jokes are in you know a police force bumbling and and letting a murderer walk free that that can be pretty you know amusing when it's crazy like that and in addition to that we make fun of the murderer oh yeah we have to because we go out of our way not to make fun of the victim or the victim's family why that's because we're assholes.

But we're not scumbags, Jimmy. That's how it works there. So if that sounds good to you, I think we're going to have a great time. So buckle up and enjoy. If not, if you think true crime and comedy should never, ever, ever, ever go together, maybe this isn't for you. But it might be. But either way, no complaining afterwards.

That said, I think it's time, Jimmy. I think it's time to sit back, just clear it all out and shout, shut up. Shut up and give me murder. Nice. We were all, I like this new do our own cadence be damned. Run it how you brung it, James. That's right. Let's do it.

Let's go on a trip, Jimmy. All right. Shall we? Let's do it here. We are going all the way, not very far, actually. We're going to stay in the Mid-Atlantic region. We were in Maryland last week. We're going to go to Delaware right next door.

Oh, terrific. No plane ride or anything. We're going to drive right next door. A lot of crazy stuff coming up in the next few weeks, by the way. We have Hawaii, Michigan, and California, and they are next-level bonkers, all these cases. So it's a lot. Yeah, we're finally going back to Hawaii. Finally found some small-town Hawaii stuff.

Terrific. So now we're going to Laurel, Delaware. There's also a Laurel, Maryland, which was confusing because I ended up thinking it was that at first and doing all the research for Laurel, Maryland, and then going, I'm in the wrong state. And, um, I'd like to know the origin of where Laurel comes from everywhere. Cause it's very popular. I believe it's England and I will probably, we'll probably find out here. I would imagine too, but that's, uh, that's why we're doing, we did Maryland last week in Delaware this week, cause this was supposed to be last week, but then I realized it was Delaware, but I wanted Maryland, so I did Maryland, and then I already had a bunch of Delaware done, so here we are. Anyway, let's do this.

Laurel, Delaware, southwestern Delaware. It's about two hours and 15 minutes to Washington, D.C., about two hours and 15 minutes to Philly. So right in between those places. It's in Sussex County, which again, from the English, there's a Sussex County in every state on the East Coast, I think. There's everywhere. Area code 302, three square miles, and the motto of this town, and this is their motto here, quote, great things come naturally. Yeah, they come naturally yeah that's um yeah they come naturally um which is which would make sense as the uh for the second part of their motto

which is lesser known and that is they better be natural because we are not trying so that's a we've given up now history of this town briefly. This is from the front page of their website. Okay. This isn't really history. This is current. It says, quote, do not flush any of the following as they do not break down and will clog sewer lines and jam pumps. This is front page is the first thing.

What pumps? Oh, pumps. Okay. This is the one. What about the pumps? This is the first thing they want you to know about the town. Not, come here, it's beautiful, live, work, and play. First thing they want you to know about this town is we're on septic.

What to not mess up the shitter with, okay? How to not break the shitter, number one. Unbelievable. Baby wipes. Nuh-uh. Clorox or disinfectant wipes. Cleaning wipes. Wipes. Can we Clorox or disinfectant wipes. Cleaning wipes. Wipes.

Can we just say any type of wipe? It's not toilet paper. Tissues. Tissues. I guess. The aloe. They don't break down the same. Paper towels and trash of any kind.

Like people. Just say only flush toilet paper paper only flush shit and toilet paper please that's all we can handle in this town even if you vomit you might have to you might have to you might have to run that through a strainer run it through a strainer to get some of the pieces out because they're through colanders please they're not hunky-dory with our sewer system i'm sorry we can't do this at all so this place is great this is amazing i love when it starts out like this like you know by the way don't drink the water is first page or like i love when it's some shit like that that always makes me happy i don't know why it cracks me the fuck up so uh let's see what's what's

interesting about this town um yeah the the name of this town, I believe it's from, it's an English thing here from what I found. The southern part of Delaware saw a sweet potato boom. Oh. Just sweet potatoes as far as the eye can see. I love sweet potatoes, James. From 1900s until the 1940s. And in order to store the crops, potato houses were built. And then what happened?

It was all fucked out? I guess all fucked out. They said the blight struck. I don't know if it didn't grow anymore, a blight on the soil, a blight on the people not wanting sweet potatoes anymore. I don't know what it was, man.

A self-imposed sweet potato famine. Everybody's had enough fucking sweet potatoes. It's enough. You know what? I've had them a lot. It's's had enough fucking sweet potatoes it's enough you know what i've had them a lot it's been 40 years of sweet potatoes really we're i'm ready to go to a regular potato now like a russet to be honest with you the novelty's worn off on these fries not so good let's check on what idaho's got going on i hear they're doing good things nowadays what do you say i hear they're really up in the potato game for everybody. They're microwavable and they're still crispy. That's how good they make them now.

Somehow. So the potato house is a structure built, obviously, for the storage of sweet potatoes. And they were very common here, apparently. The early 20th century was when they really were pumping them out because of all the sweet potatoes that they were growing. They really were pumping them out because of all the sweet potatoes that they were growing. They're two-story wood-framed structures, tall and narrow proportions, heated in winter with a coal or wood stove. And potatoes were stored from October through February, requiring a constant temperature of 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Like a basement.

They made a basement, basically. Sweet potato's good for four fucking months? Apparently, before you can even do anything with it i don't know i know a lot of like fruits and vegetables are stored before shipping there's a they pick them at a certain time for commercial use i don't know i mean you have to age your potatoes fine age and ribeye fine aged sweet potatoes like a fine cheddar i had no idea that's really weird um that makes sense how about you ship those fuckers out so that they last more than three goddamn days in my fridge i don't like sweet potatoes so really i don't eat them at all no they have a weird it's like oh good a potato

why does it taste like that my brain is i think it's because my brain is set for a potato when i see one and then it's not a potato and you're like this tastes nothing like a fucking potato it's exactly what it is my brain and my mouth they're having a fight also when you chop it it's not a fucking potato yeah i don't i don't don't maybe if you called it something else i could do it but when you when you it's you're comparing it to a potato you're it's automatically in competition with a potato when you put the word potato in it. And there is no competition is what I'm saying. The regular potato is superior.

So I know that's going to be the most probably the most sensitive thing we've ever said. We're going to get the most shit over potato gate 2021. But I don't know. It's going to be nuts. I don't care, everybody. I don't care. It's going to be nuts, James. I don't care, everybody. I don't care what you say. I don't care anymore. I don't care.

Fuck sweet potatoes. We've all been pretending to like them forever. If you are mad at James for that, I'm on your side. I fucking love them. No, I will say the exception is a is a sweet potato pie that's a different that's an exception there because that's got it's a different deal now we're talking something totally different that's mashed sweet potatoes it's a different thing out of mashed potatoes i wouldn't say that mashed potatoes mashed potatoes to me they can

take on anything that you need them to be that's what yeah that's the problem you're not gonna just eat their mashed potatoes. You're going to put shit in it to make it taste better because it's shit. Butter, salt, pepper. But how many foods? You don't eat a steak without seasoning it. You don't eat anything that's good without seasoning. Who doesn't?

I fucking love them. An unseasoned steak. I will eat it. Absolutely. You are a monster. Salt and pepper are there to bring out the flavor of the steak. You're like, this steak could be wonderful, but I'll take it at half speed. I think I'd like to take...

What is this, a V8 engine? Let's pull four of these out. Slow down with all the speed on the steak. Let's pull four of these cylinders out. I don't want to run that hot. Let's just go. I'm going to keep it under 35. Let's do four of these cylinders out. I don't want to run that hot. Let's just go. I'm going to keep it under 35. Let's do that.

You're out of your mind, Jimmy. I will eat a fucking, I used to do it all the time. Just throw that fucker on the grill. Did you not have access to salt? It's like 39 cents for seven pounds of it. Put some salt on it for fuck's sake. What are you doing? It's not hard to find.

All right. That's fine my point is you can't just mash potatoes and eat that that's a good point you can mash yeah they have their own potatoes and just eat it no they have they have their own flavor which that's why when they're mashed they take on all different things there's a different texture to them too when they're mashed it's a yeah anyway so that's absolutely the only way uh sweet potatoes are superior to regular potatoes outside of that you do them in any other exact configuration the russet will kick the fuck out of a sweet potato yeah i don't want sour cream on a sweet potato it just doesn't work no so laurel here incorporated as a town in 1883 it was one of the wealthiest towns in the state.

They had 11 general stores and only 2,500 people, seven grocery stores, a bunch of clothing stores, drug stores, carriage factories, butcher shops like this place was thriving with sweet potato money. It was just chock full of sweet potato money. Neither did I. West Laurel is one of Delaware's oldest free black communities as well. Great. Which is interesting there as well.

West Laurel dates back to the 1790s. Holy shit. Yeah. At some point in the 1870s, Captain Theodore Marsh settled in West Laurel, bought property, broke the property into plots, and sold them to his shipmates. And that's how that happened. So, yeah, they're like, I'm making a town. It's interesting here.

Once hosted the Laurel Blue Hens of the Eastern Shore Baseball League. So they used to have a team. And somehow in this little town, the Laurel High School football team has won three division two state championships look at this it's doing well uh reviews of this town three stars and i can't find a lot of bad ones on them just a bunch of here's all three stars out of five here uh three stars laurel is a small town in delaware well no shit that's why we're here uh it's not the greatest place to live but the community as a whole is great there are bad neighborhoods and every and very few they mean very few they said every few very few restaurants or businesses to work at but everything is relatively close together okay um three stars there's nothing attracting people

or businesses therefore many residents end up involved in law enforcement trouble or using drugs. I think they mean law enforcement trouble or using drugs. So because this person, this person uses no punctuation. So I think they either, or they mean like you're just in, in law trouble with the cops. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe that's what it is. Uh, here's a person new resident.

I've lived in laurel for a year now there isn't many stores or restaurants okay um there isn't many um i wish there was a wawa instead of two royal farms well you know what i agree because wawa is fantastic or just take what you can get any calm down any little convenience store where you can get a wonderful sandwich is tremendous. They'd trade one Wawa for two whatever the fuck that other gas station. That's what it is. There is a lot of farm life in Laurel.

And here's three stars. I have basically lived in Laurel all my life. A contrasting view. And one thing I can say is that Laurel comes together as a family. No matter what happens, you will be treated as family in Laurel. One thing I would like to happen for Laurel is that we get recognized more often than we do. Well, you got your wish, chief. Is this what you meant?

I want people to look at the map and be like, I want to visit Laurel. Well, maybe you won't get that, but 50-50, 601, you know, I mean, you're getting half of what you wanted. I want us to be noticed is the last line. Well, congratulations. It happened. You're getting what you want. Many, many, many hundreds of thousands of people who had no idea you existed now know you exist and won't want to go there because they can't flush anything down the toilet. They're going to be very afraid.

Ladies, you can't go there at least one week a month for you. Yeah, I just wrap them all up in some toilet paper. Throw them all in. Yuck. Boy. So anyway, people in this town, population 4,147, which is up

29% since 1990. And the male and female populations are absolutely the most out of whack I've ever seen for a town that has more than like 300 people, 58 and a half percent female. That is fascinating. That is. I don't know what's going on. I don't know what's happening. Yeah.

I don't know if there's some sort of genetic modification for only X chromosomes to come out or what's going on here. But it has to do with sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes cause girls. Everyone out there, here's a new old wives' tale. If you eat sweet potatoes when you're pregnant, you'll have a girl. It's a new wives' tale. Yeah, new wives' tale. Median age here, Twenty four point three as well, which is, you know, 15 years younger almost in the national average.

There's three times the kid demographic. Zero to four years old. Babies everywhere. And but yet there's very few kids that are like between four and 14. It's a very I don't know what happened people just there's a baby explosion going on here what the shit and like half of the over 55 population i guess they're driven out by the incessant crying i don't know was the government giving free homes to uh soldiers from afghanistan potato houses for anyone willing to impregnate their spouse

free potato came back and just started having babies. What is it like the baby boom? It's so yeah, it's basically a post-war baby boom here married populations low. It's like 37% normally 5050 single with no children higher than the national average, which is rare for us. 13 percent. So higher race of this town. Thirty five percent white, which is definitely low for us. Normally about 62 percent. Forty eight percent black, which is fascinating. Higher than normal here.

Like we said, and that's the average population is twelve point three percent. And the average population on our show is like negative eight point seven percent. Small towns is just zero point zero percent Asian, though. percent and the average population on our show is like negative 8.7 percent small towns it's just 0.0 percent asian though no asian people here and 11.6 percent hispanic so it's a uh it's a it's mixed it's a lot of mixture the religion here 37.7 percent are religious which is lower than the normal 50 and there's a few Catholics, a Methodist here and there, some of those, you got a Lutheran running around, you might have a Pentecostal popping out of somewhere, that sort of thing. But what you don't have is 0.0% Jewish. That's one thing you

don't have 0.0% Jewish, 0.0% Muslim. The county, Sussex County, in the last election, 37% voted Democrat and 59% Republican, 4% independent. The unemployment rates here is about normal. It's about average. The median income, though, is low, household income. Regularly, it's about $57,500. Here, it is just over $34,000. So that's a lot lower than normal. 24% make under 15,000 a year.

Why are all these people having babies with this little amount of income? It seems like from the demographics, it seems like there's young people with babies. So that's a problem. I don't know if there's like a college nearby or something, but that age population has to have something to do with like something nearby where young people are. You know what I mean? There has to be something like that. Very few people here make over 50 grand a year. Really? Yeah. It's not great when it comes to that kind of stuff. Manufacturing jobs are the highest ones

and retail trade. Those are the two big jobs here cost of living 91 is here normally 100 is average here it's 91 uh housing is low 67 out of 100 that's helpful median home cost 155 900 so okay yeah it's not uh not uh unreasonable there and if we've convinced you damn it if you've you've been noticed, damn it, if you've been noticed, you've noticed Laurel, you've given that man his wish. And you can't take your eyes off her. Gotta go there.

We have for you the Laurel, Delaware real estate report. Your average two-bedroom rental here goes for about $960 a month, which is lower than the national average. I found a three-bedroom, two-bath, 1,064-square-foot trailer. And, I mean, it's a trailer. It's a small trailer. It's not great.

$36,500 for this little piece of heaven. Deal! So, I mean, it's a place to live. It's cheap. It's the price of, of like a small suv so that's something can't live in that can't live in a chevy equinox can you no so there you go if it had a if it had a toilet uh i i don't think i'd be opposed if i had nothing to do you know what i mean i just mean this is easier to live in than a Chevy Equinox. Found a three bedroom, two bath, 1,000 square foot. So the same thing except actually anchored to the ground with a foundation, an actual house.

And it's a nice little house. It's a cute little house. 65,000 bucks. Okay. If you want a foundation, it's going to cost you an extra 30 grand for that. Then I found a four bedroom,room, three-bath. It's a nice house here. 3,232 square feet.

Nice. It's a spacious house. It's nice. It's well done. $349,999. Jesus. So, a little pricey, but in Phoenix, that house would be $1.1 million. So, you know, it's something something things to do in this town holy shit looking at these uh not a lot to do here i found um

as the reviews told us i found the strawberry festival of course there's a festival they're very proud of the strawberry festival it's held in may and um they they do have some they tout scrapple sandwiches for breakfast so that's what they have you go you go you head over to the saint philips episcopal church and you pick up a scrapple sandwich for breakfast gross and then they have chicken salad for lunch which is scrap chicken salad sandwich sandwiches yeah or not even sandwiches it just says chicken salad so i guess it's got to be a sandwich right working out some you might have to bring your own bread all day you might have to bring your own bread jimmy i'm not i'm not gonna they're not guaranteeing us bread here that's the problem so it does not say sandwich can you get

one of each and then dump the scrapple out and put your chicken salad on the scrapple bread will it taste like a scrapple salad sandwich at that point? P.S. Those are two of the worst sandwiches on earth. Yeah, I don't want any of that. Yeah, chicken salad's depressing. It is. Chicken salad, when you eat that, you're like, yep, it's come to this. I'm eating just chicken salad.

This is where I am. I don't know why that is, but it's a depressing meal. Even if you really like it when you're eating it, when you take that first bite, you're like, hmm, yeah, look at me. There's something about it. I don't know what it is. I got through this bread, and then right in the middle is this mush. Any sandwich that's just like a paste in the middle, I don't want anything to do with it.

I like tuna, but chicken is different. I can tolerate it, but I don't want it. Chicken's different. I can tolerate it, but I don't want it. Chicken's different. I've never on a menu and there are other options been like, I'll have the tuna. No. Oh, I like tuna. Yeah, I like tuna. Do you?

Yeah, it's good. Tuna's really good. Chicken salad is pretty crappy, though. And it's not even because it's like a low-quality food, because I'll eat shit any day. I'll eat ramen noodles. I'll eat hot dogs at two in the morning i don't care that's not what i'm about uh but yeah it's just not that good so all kinds of strawberry desserts of course it's a strawberry festival and uh the hope lodge

will be serving oyster fritters oyster oyster fritters i don't know i'll take it if you're in that area eat anything with seafood in it and And cream of crab soup, which is probably very good. That I can deal with. That's good. Join us at this community-oriented, family-friendly festival centered around local fresh strawberries. They mention Scrapple as much as strawberries in that. Admission is free. Breakfast, lunch, strawberry desserts, strawberry lemonade, oyster fritter sandwiches, and cream of crab soup served by Hope Lodge, crafters and vendors.

This is all free. What the hell is this about? What? Bake table and attic treasures, live music, children's activities, and face painting. So there you go. Everything's free. I don't know if the food is free. It sounds like the food's provided by the Masons there.

I don't know what's going on. That's unbelievable. Wow. Then they have the Laurel Beer, Wine, festival which sounds okay very fun here that'll be held uh that's held in september live music entertainment and shit loads of booze so get on that you know you want to go there right there's the reason there's so many babies and uh it's only from 12 to 4 which is they're going to send a bunch of shithoused people just release them at four o'clock in the afternoon into the world that seems day drinking festival and then we cut it the fuck

off when the fun starts four o'clock that sounds like by eight o'clock it's gonna turn into uh the homes of people are gonna turn into wife beating festivals is what it sounds like four o'clock you're hammered he's gonna be drinking more for fuck's sake by eight o'clock he's gonna be spiking the kids off the wall not good don't go to this festival it's a bad bad hours get blasted and release them up on the public bye there you go so crime rate in this town what we're interested in of course uh is uh property crime is about double the national average so quite quite a bit of property crime. And then violent crime, murder, rape, robbery, and, of course, assault, the amount Rushmore of crime, is triple the national average.

What the hell is happening here? Well, I mean, there's a lot of young people. So that's who generally does more crime is committed by younger people just because they have more energy. I mean, older people do shit, plenty of shit, but they don't have the same energy to go out and really rack up the stats. That's the thing. They just don't have it in them, I don't think. They're not capable of it.

Triple. Triple. That said, let's talk about a murder. What do you say? Let's do it. I'm surprised I'm not talking about a murder. What do you say? Let's do it. I'm surprised I'm not talking about a murder right now. Let's get into it. We're going to talk about a couple of murders here.

So let's go back in time to September of 1977. Okay. Think about it, Jimmy. September 77, feathered hair. Must have been gross. Blowing in the breeze. Yeah. feathered hair gross blowing in the breeze yeah just i mean you're you pop the t-tops to your trans am off and you just cruise on down the street with and just get fog hat blaring butterfly

collar that's collar and all sorts of weird whatever necklaces you're wearing and you got just got boston blaring on the radio it's just a lot going on it's a lot going on i saw them in concert post 2010 james why because my mom wanted to go oh okay well that's a nice thing to do so much fun oh that's a yeah you know the songs you're like yeah i know this shit look at that guy he's a hundred ha this is hilarious it's fascinating to see a band like that and be into whatever they're playing but then you see like i don't know uh remember the 90s and you just stand in the crowd and just go can you believe we're seeing this asshole that's fucking tone luck can you believe tone loc is playing right now this is hilarious or uh remember that i remember sarah she worked at an ad agency, and she had to do all these ads for Sir Mix-A-Lot at a casino in the middle of Oklahoma.

Yikes. It's like, it's the middle of Oklahoma. I mean, what are we talking about? I don't know how to draw anybody to any of this shit. Sir Mix-A-Lot, Oklahoma, none of it. You go to ACDC or Aerosmith, and you're like, this is a memory. This is amazing. But then you see that shit, and you're like, isn't this hysterical that we're doing this?

Yeah. We're pissing money away. Somebody I know went to one of those like Backstreet Boys, whoever, combo concerts a few years ago. And it was like half empty. They said it was just sad. Oh, it was Backstreet New Kids, I think. It was something, but without Justin Timberlake, I think. It was just, you know, he's got. He was in sync. He's like, no, no, I have money. Yeah, I have money. Oh, it was Backstreet and New Kids, I think. It was something, but without Justin Timberlake, I think. Yeah, it was just, you know, he's got...

He was in sync. He's like, no, no, I have money. Yeah, I have money. Oh, yeah. He's like, no, no, I'm good. I have... I'm begging Jessica Biel. Yeah, I got a bunch of money, so I'm all right.

Everything's fine. Yeah. But there was like half of the audience was there. It was very sad. And, you know, the guys were just doing their slow motion moves. Just like, you know, doing them, but only 2,000 RPMs. They're just down a little bit. They're doing them like steak with no seasoning.

Yeah, they just lost a step. That's all. So, all right, murder again. Now, let's talk about this. we have to go all the way back to 1977 september 16th 1977 to be exact um bgs are blaring you know how it goes so um something unfortunate happens though this day there was some land surveyors out in the woods uh west of laurel and some just middle of nowhere land in the West, just West of Laurel, Delaware.

And they're looking around and, um, I don't know why they're, I don't know if there's land has just gotten sold or, you know, whatever it is, but developing it or whatever. Yeah, that happens. Um, so they were doing it. This is just off the Sussex 504, which is over there. And the surveyors survey something that they really didn't want to survey. Put it that way. They wanted to see woods, and instead they find a, I'd say, 90% decomposed human body leaning up against a tree.

Oh, my. Yeah. Against a tree. Oh, my. Yeah. Pretty much a skeleton at this point, except for some parts of this body there. Yeah, it's pretty much a skeleton, though. It's September 16th. So depending on how long it's been here, it's been here in the mid-Atlantic summer, which is hot.

Whole summer. Humid, hot. And it's sitting up against the tree? Yeah, it's leaning near a tree. Yeah. It's leaning out near a tree. And we'll kind of talk about this here. So they're obviously trying to figure this out. But the body is so decomposed. And so they don't even know.

They don't know. Male or female. Male, female, black, white. You know, they don't know anything. I mean, the people who originally find it anyway once a medical examiner looks they can take a look and find male female and shit like that but otherwise it's just uh you know it's a it's a tough thing here they don't they know nothing about this this person here um they do find uh a uh dental plate in his mouth

and um we'll talk about that and that's how they end up identifying him and identifying this person here. And they said that there's no they can't even buy when they pull the skeleton out. There's no specific cause of death that they could find right off the bat. They said they're doing postmortem tests. There's no obvious signs of trauma. There's no knife wounds, skull fractures, bullet holes, trauma to the bones. There's nothing that would look, you know, that you would look at. Skeletons intact.

Yeah, there's nothing you would look at and go, oh, well, obviously that's what happened. There's a big chunk of the skull missing. That's clearly the problem here. Medical examiner would say that this is just for a good fact for us all to know. I guess the human body, when it decays, goes through a process of putrefaction. Yeah.

Yuck. Which the body, as they put it, literally melts into the ground. That dirt at the base of the tree that they found the skeleton was dark and greasy, a condition characteristic of the process of purification. So in the medical examiner's opinion, whoever this was died while tied to this tree because the skeleton is also tied to the tree.

There are pieces around that we find and we'll get into all that. You said purification. You mean putrefaction. I said putrefaction. I don't know if I said purification. I apologize. I'd rather call it purified. It's putrefaction, which is just disgusting. But this is the medical facts of the whole thing

and what happens, and this is what happened to this particular human being, and it's not good. So obviously they want to find out who this is, what the fuck happened, and how this person ended up tied to a tree in the woods for long enough to decompose completely. This is, you know, it's an odd thing. So we go back about a month there, a little over a month, about six weeks, go back to August 6th, 1977. And we're going to talk about a few people here. We're going to month about six weeks go back to august 6th 1977 and we're going to talk

about a few people here we're going to talk about six different people first let's start with a man named john m horstman h-o-r-st-m-a-n horstman so uh he is 67 years old, old John Horstman, and he seems to be pretty spry for his age. He's not like, you know, in the 70s, 67 was old. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like nowadays, 67 is like, you know, people are like, oh, I'm starting my life over going back to college. And then I'm going to I just got married. And, you know, we're planning on adopting.

People are just they think they're going to live to be 150. No. That's what people do. They just pretend when they're like 73, they just pretend, oh, I'm going to live another 40, 50 years. They're making these long-term plans. It's like, what are you doing? No offense.

I don't mean live your life and be happy. I'm just saying like, hey, there's also reality of you're probably not going to be. And the life expectancy is dropping fast. Yeah. That's number one. That's for other reasons. It's fascinating that the appearance of people is holding up better. Like your dad is in his 70s.

Looks amazing. He's 65. Late 60s though, right? 65. Looks amazing. Yeah, yeah. He looks. In the 80s. We're Italian though, Jimmy. Our genes are different you know okay it's the olive oil it's it's an olive oil thing you know

how it works i got a picture of me sitting on my great grandma's lap when she was 75 she looks 126 she looks horrible that's older people back then too people were outside all the time yeah look at a baseball look at a baseball team from 1927. They all look like they're 53 years old. Every single guy on the field. You're like, Jesus. Because they all grew up on a farm in the sun from sunup to sundown. They played nothing but day baseball.

They were fucking lines in their faces. They were just leather. People used to be leather. Has air conditioning and roofs helped us that much? Yeah, oh, absolutely. Yeah, and moisture. And we realized that you should drink water once in a while and not just whiskey. Things like that.

Hydration. Yeah, all these things were just, I feel like, living a little better. So, but John is pretty spry. He's got a wife named Flossie. Flossie Flossie over here. So she is there. Been together for forever. Years and years and years.

They have kids. They have a son named John. John W. Though he didn't junior him up. So that's good. John W. Horseman. They also have a daughter named Patricia as well.

And and so and I think they also he they have a daughter named Patricia as well. And I think they also have a son from Flossie's first marriage as well. So Flossie was apparently married before him. He has a stepson named Jack. And yeah, he's also got 15 grandchildren. He's got 10 great-grandchildren. My fuck. They're very fruitful, this family. He has had a run of bad luck lately, though.

Oh, John. It's been tough. He was a very heavy drinker for years and years and years, to the point where he's having liver problems now in his 60s. But he has been on the wagon for a while now through 77 his wife thinks he's been doing great and flossy says he's been awesome and he's been uh he's been on the wagon here um since a certain incident happened he kind of went off an incident happened a little while back we'll talk about and made him kind of go off to off the just off the whole rails. And then later on, a couple of months later, he buckled down and went on the wagon again.

OK, so 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. I understand that anybody who's paid attention to the media would have to come to the conclusion that I killed my wife. Hi, my name is Zach Stewart-Pontier. I'm one of the filmmakers behind The Jinx, and I'm excited to bring you the official Jinx podcast.

We'll be revisiting all six episodes of part one and watching along with part two as it airs on Max starting April 21st. Bye bye. The official Jinx podcast. Listen on Max or wherever you get your podcasts. It's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid. We're your hosts. I'm Alina Urquhart. And I'm Ash Kelly.

And our show is part true crime, part spooky, and part comedy. The stories we cover are well-researched. He claimed and confessed to officially killing up to 28 people. With a touch of humor. I'd just like to go ahead and say that if there's no band called Malevolent Deity, that is pretty great. A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing. This mother 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. He apparently had liver and other medical problems from drinking, basically. She says, though, he quit drinking about eight months before August, the beginning of uh 1977

and he was always home before six in the evening after he stopped drinking all of the craziness went away isn't that amazing that happens it's it's bizarre how you can take any sort of illicit illicit substance that generally uh causes you to be a fucking mess uh if it brings you down so far that it just you're so inebriated you can't function if you delete that thing from your life shit goes great isn't it weird i mean it's sometimes it'll go bad in other ways because you were drinking to self-sabotage something or you were self-medicate whatever but sometimes it's just like i stopped that and it's crazy i don't know i'm just been doing better at work that's perfect i haven't been arrested in

years it's pretty pretty wild lots of smiles at my house yeah it's great my kids don't run in fear for me when i come home it's wonderful it's just great um that's i was reading by the way a book uh it's so strange how kids uh i was reading a book on the Iceman, you know, Richard Kuklinski there, and it's so weird how, like, his kids were scared shitless of him for good reason. Really?

He's always portrayed... We'll do a bonus episode on some intricate part of that. He's such a great family guy. He's portrayed as this, like, he is, like, from the Dick Van Dyke show, like, at home. Like, he comes in, trips over the ottoman, and he's like, hey, everybody, what from the dick van dyke show like at home like he comes in trips over the ottoman and he's like hey everybody what's for dinner mayor and he gives her

a kiss like the kids come over daddy how was work that's how it's portrayed and then he'd leave the house and then he'd get in the car and turn into this killer he beat me he beat the shit out of his wife constantly in front of his kids he didn't beat his kids that's what he didn't do he didn't beat his kids that was it otherwise his he beat his wife he was terrible they were all scared shitless of him he was a fucking monster but he's portrayed because he didn't kill his whole family yeah that's gotta be the reason that when he had that grabber in the in in jail yeah when they called her to ask her permission of what they should do and she told him don't resuscitate him yeah and they didn't that's how he died everybody hated him except

for his one daughter which is weird he had two daughters and a son and the daughters were older and the one daughter hated his guts and the other daughter worshiped the ground he walked on. Wow. Which is to this day. That's how it goes. Like she visited him in jail before he died. She went all the time. She was his his rock.

I'm stunned. It's because I then I read more about it. It's because she was sick when she was a kid and he was always by her hospital bed and all that shit. So that's how it goes. But we'll talk about him on a bonus episode. Never mind all of that. His kids, though, Horstman here, he's been doing well. His wife said during the last six months he's never stayed out one moment.

So he's just he's been by the book. And he had an incident in late 1976 that prompted him to stop drinking because it caused a real escalation of his drinking. In late 1976, his son, Louis, okay? Louis, by the way, was a minister of music at the Christian Life Church in Baltimore and was also a hairstylist. Okay. Yeah. In the 70s, he's a music director of music and a hairstylist yes so yes you know make whatever inference you want in the 70s we don't know if that's true but i mean that's just in the 70s that's just kind of what you would imagine and

it's not because of the hair because i have my grandfather fucking did hair so it's not that at all it's the show tunes and the hairs it's the both of those things, because my grandfather fucking did hair. So it's not that at all. It's the show tunes and the hairs. It's the both of those things. Yeah. And then I'll do it at a church. That way I won't. You know, in the 70s, it was different. So he directed the Maranitha Choir at the church.

And under his direction, the choir produced two albums of church music. Holy shit. This guy is wrecking it. Look at that. Good at it. Making albums worth of church music. shit this guy is wrecking it look at that good at it making albums worth of church music good for him um so uh anyway he had some problems though um he operated a he had his own beauty shop in baltimore his own salon there and um one night oh this is terrible, Jesus Christ. One night, he was found shot to death a few feet from his car at about 6.30 p.m. in Baltimore.

Lewis was. He died at the city hospital a little while later. He'd been shot once in the chest, and his wallet was still in his pocket. So. What the fuck is that about? Very strange here. pocket so what the fuck is that about very strange here the person who ends up being charged with the crime is a man named john not even a man a boy named john sims who's 16 years old he is charged with the murder which is very very very strange here do they know each other is there any it

doesn't seem like he was found uh this is what the weird thing is here that i'm i'm wondering what was going on here he was uh this was november 27th 1976 he was uh apparently he uh they captured they ended up catching sims by the way on a o'donnell street bridge minutes after the shooting and he had a long barreled pistol on him and they matched ballistics from the gun to the bullet and lewis um sims the young the boy there said he did not remember how he got into the man's car oh he was oh he said that he had was home and lifting dumbbells and he hit himself in the head with a dumbbell. And then he began, he was in a daze and began wandering.

He just wandered out of his house in a daze, and he doesn't remember. With a gun with him. Apparently with a gun. He said that after he got out of the car, the other guy, the horseman junior there, Sims said that after he got out of the car sims raised the pistol because he thought that the that that uh horseman was reaching for a weapon and he said he just pulled he raised his pistol and it just fired he didn't pull the trigger it just went off but this this gun the hammer needed to be cocked before the trigger could be pulled so you have to you have to do that so um it's fucking so this guy's found

sprawled in the street uh they get a description like we said they they get him right away in his gun uh they had one spent cartridge and four live bullets in the gun and he and sims also had 17 bullets in his coat pocket wow so um i'm never working out ever again just on the off chance that i hit myself dumbbell and then wander into the street and shoot a stranger that's my myself in the courtroom for murder yeah he said apparently he got into the car dazedly got into a car and the guy was like what the fuck and then they got out of the car and he and he shot him so um he had no idea yeah he now sims who is sims is he like some, you know, crazy kid that raises hell?

He's a Boy Scout with no previous arrests. What is happening? This makes zero sense. Boy Scout, no arrest. It's not like he just finally was like, fuck it. I need to get some money. They didn't rob the guy. Didn't take his jewelry, his wallet, his car, anything.

He was sitting there with keys in the car and a wallet in his pocket. Taking the wallet, the car, and fucking took off. But he didn't. It's the weirdest, strangest. What a story. Oddest thing ever. We don't know what it was. He said he was just dazed.

That's all it was. And said he was gripping the gun tight and it must have went off. and said he was gripping the gun tight and it must have went off. Sims ends up getting a 30-year prison term for that, for the shooting, and he says he doesn't remember it. There's more to that story, and I want all of it. That's what I'm saying. What the fuck happened here?

I've never heard of this before. I've read a lot of court. Like I said, for every case we do, I've 20 30 cases or whatever even more sometimes so like sometimes 100 so i read a lot i've never heard of this before no record no rod there's literally you almost believe sims that he doesn't understand it because there's no other motivation for this you know what i mean but like crack myself with a dumbbell so i went outside and shot a guy is also a really weird excuse are you going in the gym sir it's it's so strange so yeah he uh that was that was it though so now back to john senior his father august why you started drinking that's why he he got bad that was late november

he got real bad for a couple of weeks there through like i believe the holidays and then it was like he just quit and said that's oh christ you know i'm spinning out of control here he had liver problems and everything else so he just quits and then uh this is he's been clean pretty much since the beginning of 1977 as far as this whole family knows and everything like that. I mean, who knows what anybody does? But so August 6, 1977, about 10 o'clock in the morning, he John Horstman leaves his home and Laurel and his pickup truck takes off here. It's a camper, you know, like a pickup truck with a camper shell on the back. It's a 67 year old man's pickup. Exactly. What you know, your a pickup truck with a camper shell on the back. It's a 67-year-old man's pickup.

Exactly. You know your grandfather's pickup truck? That's the one. That's what it is. That's the one there. He said he'd be back in 15 minutes. See you in a minute. He's going to run to the store quick.

And he never ends up coming home. That's the thing. So that's a strange thing that day. So the family said that they heard around town later on that several persons were seen with him and all this sort of thing. Ended up where he actually went is he leaves his home and he arrives at a place called Lookout Mountain, which is a corner lot in a section of Laurel with nothing on it. And it's a place where people, according to the court documents, quote, where people often gathered to drink. So this is an empty lot in town on a corner somewhere where people just hang out and drink from all around. It's Lookout Mountain. Yeah.

But it's not like out in the middle of nowhere. It's just in town. It's just you could go to the grocery store. There's the drinking crew. Wave to them, kids. So that's what's going on here. Now, he runs into five people there. There's a lot more, but these five he ends up hanging out with here.

One of them is James William Waller, W-A-L-L-E-R. He is 33 years old. And then there is Eleanor Waller, who is 39 years old, and James' sister. So those two are hanging out. Shirley Mae Pryor is 33 years old, and she's with this crew. And then George W. Gray, who is 35 years old, hanging out with this crew. So that's the crew so far. And with them, for some reason, I don't know why these have no relation to any of these people, is a young man named Bobby A. Anderson, who is 14 years old.

Yeah. Why is he hanging out with a bunch of people who are drinking in a corner lot in the middle of town at 10 o'clock in the morning? Mid-30s people. Mid-30s people. Their lives, obviously, are not going well if they're drinking at 10 o'clock in the morning just out in the open in a lot. Is this a weekday, too?

Why isn't this 14-year-old in fucking school? That's a really good question. Well, he's a migrant farm worker, this 14-year-old. He's bouncing around. So there's a lot going on here. I don't know if this has to do with the 70s or what, but I don't want this 14-year-old hanging out with these people that are sitting in a lot drinking in their mid-30s at 10 o'clock in the morning.

They're not even hopeful that something better will happen during the day. They're like, fuck it. By 10 a.m., I give up. I give up to the point of being drunk and I can't do anything now. And it's mid-70s, so nobody's got a phone on them going, just waiting on Better Life to ring. You know what I mean? That's the Better Life. Want to meet there, and then they just sit there.

They've given up on opportunities to come a-calling. They've gone to a corner lot to be drunk at 10 a.m. Between this and the festival, what is it with early drinking in Delaware? You guys get your drinking done early and get it over with. No drinking after dark in this town, damn it day is for drinking if you drink during the day when god can see it's all right that's how it works if god doing it under the cover of darkness all that shame all that hiding you get shit hammered before 4 30 in the winter that's what you gotta do or else it ain't going to work.

So Bobby Anderson hanging out with four people. I have no idea why and I'd love to know why. And these people aren't the people he's hanging out with here. These aren't the most upstanding group of citizens, obviously. It's not like I was CEO of a corporation and I'm off this week so I'm going to head to the lot at 10 a.m to get shit faced on thunderbird with the rest of the crew like i feel like that's not probably happening and uh one of the guys is there a prize for being earliest like 10 a.m 10 a.m you have to get a good spot i guess i don't know what it is there's a lot of lawn chairs going in there i don't know what's up with this shit that is

unbelievable the bank just opened yeah you're already drinking in a field field drinking is for later man like this is early you can find put it in your coffee or something try to look presentable at least at least give it a shot you know put it in a coffee cup and walk around and blow i'll go every once in a while and just blow on it act like it's act like it's not booze at least try fuck man so uh one of the people especially is definitely an unsavory character james waller uh the one with the sister, the 33-year-old here, he is reported to use at least eight aliases. Eight. 33?

Eight. Let's look at his stats for a minute. Yeah. Okay. 33 plus eight aliases divided by 10 o'clock in the morning. Plus our times, Mad Dog 2020. Think about that. Think about those numbers, Jimmy.

They add up to something really bad. Minus a job. Minus a job. Plus some handyman work. Yeah. Plus a lawn chair. That's plus a 14-year-old that you're somehow in your crew. Yikes. Add those numbers up and you get

an equation if i put my lab hold on i gotta put my lab coat on for a minute there we go you have do this math this man is a fuck up jimmy that's that's what came out of the computer i'm sorry i put i input all the information this is what i got it comes it. Yeah, it comes out. Shitbag, fuck up. You know, it's a $20 million computer. It's very, very complex. It's called the Patreon. It's the Patreon, yeah. The Patreon 7000. That's wonderful.

So, James, here, eight aliases, he has also been convicted of a what they describe as various charges, most of the military charges because he was in the military and including this isn't like, you know, falling asleep or some disobedience. disobedience. Rape is one of them. Escape from prison is one of them. That's, by the way, another two things to add to the equation. When you add in escape and rape, those are scary together because that means he got out and who knows what he's after at that point. And a bunch of probation violations as well. But that's a deep enough rap sheet for me where i

don't think he should be hanging out with a ninth grader at that point i'm just it's crazy that conviction uh for rape and you can still be on the streets in your 30s like oh yeah yeah especially back then that was like you know ah christ we give him three years it was like nothing back then it was fucking nuts that is awful it was it was considered like not a huge deal back then it was fucking nuts and awful it was it was considered like not a huge deal back then somehow it wasn't considered as violent as it is now exactly yeah because i maybe because we know more about the psyche behind it now and we know i think it's also well we know what that that a person who can do that is more dangerous than just that yeah you know what i mean it's not like back then it was like well he was horny and she was wearing a short skirt i mean obviously we don't want it to happen but i mean

what the fuck whereas now it's like yeah that's dangerous that person it's a pattern that escalates and then you're tech bundy so let's not i snip that i don't think i don't think it's it speaks to what that really consists of by boiling it down to four letters and one syllable it is so much worse than four letters in one syllable it is so much worse than four letters and one syllable fucking hideous it's absolutely hideous that's what that's what the charge should be he is charged with hideous your honor yeah it's a hideous hideous crimes against humanity this is fucking horrific minimum three fucking syllables whatever it is something something give give us a latin name and uh we'll use that something long

because that's awful shit so uh he entered the military this is i've never heard of this either he entered the military under an assumed names an assumed name he didn't even enter them how do you do that you get i got you get a fake social security card back then is how you do it and there's no computers so they just just go, that sounds good. What's your name, son? And you give them the card and they go, all right. And they write it down. They give you a uniform probably back then, right?

Start shooting you up with. Start dying. Well, let's get you protected against malaria and then move you on. I think that's just what it was back then. Get on the plane, son. But he was in his 30s in the 70s. so he was old enough to go to Vietnam, James. There you go. So they probably were just like, what's your name?

Good enough. There you go. Get in. Get out there. Under an assumed name. But the fucked up part is he was convicted of the various other charges under different names. Wow. That's the fucked up thing. He would change his idea.

Within the military, he was like three different people. How do you do that? I don't know. But he was convicted of rape under one name, and then he was convicted of something else under another name. That's not okay. He had a bunch of different identities. Now, on everybody else, I tried to do some research. The only thing I could find on anybody else in this group is in 1955, young Shirley May here was a victim of rheumatic fever.

And, yeah, apparently she got really sick. It was her. She was 11 at the time. And a bunch of other people here, a bunch of other young girls, were very, very sick. And they were getting to go to a camp because they were sick. That's called an internment camp, James. The five were selected after examinations were made of cardiac children desiring to attend summer camp to determine their physical tolerance to the camper's daily schedule. They're like an experiment, basically. Like, well, these kids were sick.

Let's see how they do. The good news is you're going to camp. The bad news is you've got rheumatoid what is it? Rheumatoid some shit that doesn't exist anymore. Fever? Rheumatoid some shit that you get shots for before you go to kindergarten. I don't know. I don't know what it is uh yeah rheumatic fever rheumatic fever which sounds like something you die of on the oregon trail and then it sounds like something you get when a mosquito bites you

yeah oh man i got rheumatic favor that mosquito must have been from down yonder. So back to August 6, 1977, we have a 14-year-old hanging out with a bunch of ne'er-do-well adults. Shouldn't be, yeah. So they're all there, like we said. Gray, Waller, Pryor, Waller's sister, Eleanor, and little Bobby Anderson, all there. Now, they've all been drinking already as of 10 a.m. Like, they're all, they're not just cracking their first bottle you're not here in like the clink of like the you know bottle top cup that's there they've been going for a while now my god um everybody except for anderson the 14 year old okay so he hasn't devolved to drinking in a field pre-noon yet so

that's good that's a good thing. Maybe Bobby just thinks it's funny to hang out with these idiots and see the dumb shit they do at 10 a.m. I mean, maybe. It seems like from our next thing, it seems like he was looking up to these people. So Horstman shows up, and he's mingling among the crew.

This is a social outing, apparently. This seems like something you do very sadly without speaking at 10 a.m. Right. A lot of head nods and downward, not up. You know what I mean? Every once in a while, someone just goes. And then you just nod along and go, yep, buddy, maybe that.

I hear you, pal. Something. I don't know. It's very sad. Me, too. Me, too,. It's very sad. Me too. Me too, buddy. Me too. You're why fuck your best friend too?

Yep. That's right. So a person that Horstman is talking to introduces him to Gray and Waller who are sitting there george gray and james waller like hey i know these two guys blah blah blah so they talk for a second then gray introduces horstman to the rest of the crew there the other three and this is so this is shirley eleanor and of course little bobby yeah so it wouldn't be a band without little bobby of course you know he's singing the soprano over here still so this is like a bad 70s family band is what this is a partridge family gone wrong let me introduce

you to our secret weapon the soprano bobby there he is there he is he comes out i'll be there he sings like an angel. Oh, God, Jesus Christ. This is sad shit. So they're all hanging out. They're all talking. And, you know, the horseman's getting along with this crew here. And anyway, they all decide they're running low on liquor, obviously.

I mean, it's 10 a.m. We've been at it for hours. So they decide that Horstman says, well, I was going to get some liquor, too. I'm going to head over to this liquor store. If you guys want to come with me, more the merrier. Hop on in. So they go to Del Mar, where there's a liquor store, and they bought cigarettes, two six-packs of beer, some orange juice, and a big bottle of vodka, of course. Oh.

You know, so. We got options. You were like, all right, beer and cigarettes and orange juice. They're just going to ease into the day. Oh, no, no, no. The orange juice is. Screwdrivers and Budweiser? Let's do this.

The orange juice is most certainly a mixer at this point. Nothing for health. Well, I need some vitamin C so I guess I'll do screwdrivers. They didn't get the orange juice for Bobby? Is that what you're saying? Yeah, we got this and then orange juice for Bobby. Wait, never mind, Bobby. Not so fast. So they get in the car

and they're hanging out, driving and drinking and I don't even know how to. This is the weirdest thing ever. James Waller says to Horstman while they're driving. He's like, well, hey, buddy, what you think of my sister? And Horstman's like, she's mighty fine. You know, I guess she's OK.

And he's like, you could have her. He is. He is pimping his sister. Now, James Waller has decided to pimp us. I don't know which which identity is doing it. But yeah, one of the eight identities he has is pimping out his sister at this point. So they're driving Horseman in the driver's seat uh yeah eleanor the sister is in the middle and james is by the window so he leans across

he's talking to her yes they're talking about selling her past her face one's turning and she's standing what does she just look straight ahead while this is going on or is she like chiming in like yep i'm hot for you there's no problem or is it like you can have my sister and he's like i don't know what do you think of me they start haggling he said he said i'm nice he said it seems fine to me so i i mean i don't even know what to say and then the rest of it here gray and shirley may prior and bobby anderson were in the back of the truck in the enclosed camper yeah yeah that's a fun place to ride yeah they're sliding all around there so hit with toolboxes oh you know little bobby's bouncing back and forth so they're all sitting up there and he he told horseman that you know

they're talking about it and he said tell you what buddy because horseman said well how much you know i mean i guess once he gets drinking it's anything's on the table now yeah um and waller says i mean jesus christ you could have her for 10 bucks says i mean jesus christ you could have her for 10 bucks how's about how's about ten dollars how's that sound to you how's uh ten dollars fair hold on can you scoot your head back sweetie yeah ten dollars isn't bad what the fuck are we doing well in that situation you're getting your ten10 because nobody's going to look at her or sit right next to you and go, how about eight? Yeah.

About $6.50. I got some quarters in the ashtray here. I'm going to grab those out. Right to her left ear. You can have her for $10. That's his starting point? $10? He didn't even say like 50 and he was like, that's outrageous.

All right, fine, 10. He started at 10, meaning they're willing to take less. That's what that means. $10. Ladies, how would you like to be sold by your brother to a man you just met in a parking lot where people gather to drink in the morning right for ten dollars how'd you like that to be how's that sound ladies for a 1970s carton of cigarettes wow ten. And at this point, Horstman was running his hand up and down her leg, like feeling out the feeling out the ten dollar merchandise, feeling out the mail. Like, I don't know. He's kicking the tires, I guess. This is insanity. I feel bad for this woman, for fuck's sake.

At this point, this sounds horrible. So they keep driving. They make two different stops for supplies, one at the liquor store and one somewhere else. It's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid. We're your hosts. I'm Alina Urquhart. And I'm Ash Kelly. And our show is part true crime, part spooky, and part comedy. The stories we cover are well-researched. He claimed and confessed to officially killing up to 28 people.

With a touch of humor. I'd just like to go ahead and say that if there's no band called Malevolent Deity, that is pretty great. A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing. This mother f***er lied. Like a liar. Like a liar. And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal, or you love to hop in the Wayback Machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes, you should tune in to our podcast, Morbid. Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller available exclusively on Wondery 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 Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. This is after the whole offer and the acceptance of everything. I can't get over the fact that he's selling his sister in front of his sister for $10. I can't get over that fact. I could see if she wasn't sitting there and he was like this scumbag trying to make a deal. But she's right there, apparently not objecting, agreeing, or's just sitting there like yeah this is what happens this is what happens next this is how it goes like this is crazy so um anyway uh eleanor tells horseman that yeah we'll get it on no worries i just got to get out of the truck for a second um because i gotta pee so you

know we can't be you know whatever so apparently um they stopped uh while they're in the truck apparently they come to a stop now to do this and this is out kind of in the woodsanor getting out of the truck is apparently the signal to Waller that Horseman has money and this is the time to rob him. So they've worked this out ahead of time without speaking. So that means that they've done this before. This is a thing they've done before. We hang out. I pretend to sell you you go to the bathroom and i take the guy's money so this is like on deadwood basically like that that whole

storyline remember the what's her name when her brother came in and remember that whole thing and me yeah i remember six characters anyway and we're discussing them right now we're in the middle of it pal so oarsman stops the truck for this uh waller exits on the passenger side and goes around uh the truck to the uh apparently when he's going around the truck uh waller said to somebody quote what i do is my business as he got around the tailgate the people in the back were saying something to quote, what I do is my business. As he got around the tailgate, the people in the back were saying something to me. So what I do is my business. And that's on the way to the driver's side. And he apparently, Waller gets to the driver's side of the truck, opens the door and tells

horsemen to move over. I'm driving now. Okay. So tells him to move over. He said, no, I'm not fucking moving over. It's my truck. Old men don't let you drive their trucks. Like, that's true.

I'm driving my truck. Yeah. So Waller said, all right. And he punched him twice in the side of the head. Oh, he drills horseman in the side of the head. Go ahead and drive my truck. I guess. Here's the

keys uh third gear sticks a little bit i don't know what to tell you don't smoke my clutch yeah i don't know so they uh he begins bleeding from the head actually from this uh horseman is from these shots yeah and uh yeah this guy has experience in all things criminal. So it makes sense. Waller then jumps into the driver's seat and drives the truck through a nearby field. Okay. Pulls off the road, drives through a nearby field into a wooded area where he tells John Horseman to get out of the truck. So now let's get out of the truck. Okay.

Everybody gets out of the truck now. The whole, everybody disembarks or dis, uh, what is it? D D planes at this point. so now let's get out of the truck okay everybody gets out of the truck now the whole everybody disembarks or dis uh what is it d d planes at this point they all deplane and uh horseman at this point bleeding from the head said quote please don't hurt me i'll give you anything you want but please don't hurt me so you know rob me all you want. But, you know, this is crazy here. We're in the fucking woods. What's going on? So Waller again hits him over the left eye. It's now over the left eye, punches him again for some reason. Please stop means punch me in the eye, obviously.

So now Gray comes over. George Gray comes over and holds Horseman's arms like behind his back. Like, I don't know if it's a full Nelson or the other way or whatever, but this guy's like 67 liver problems. So I don't think it I don't think it's going to take too much force to really subdue him while he does this. Waller goes through Horseman's pockets and Horseman's is not a rich. He's a house painter. He's a 67 year old house painter. It still works like he's not a rich guy or anything like that.

But they go through his pockets while the two ladies and Bobby Anderson stand by there. Now, this is fucking crazy. They end up robbing him of $140. That's what they get off him. He's got $140 in cash on him. So he could have gone higher than $10. Let's just say that. He could have gone upwards of $140 in cash on him. So he could have gone higher than $10. Let's just say that. He could have gone upwards of $140, James.

Yes. So at this point, Waller tells George Gray to go back to the pickup truck. Okay, go back to the truck. You think to get something, but it's no, no, no. He says to, quote, wipe it of fingerprints. Oh. Which, if you're a horseman, you don't like where this is going no if you're when people get rid of fingerprints that that means that they're a experienced criminals and b that they must not want their fingerprints there for a reason

because they're gonna do bad shit so they're they're about to do way worse than punch an old man in the eye yeah so fuck man um at this point uh waller so george gray goes back he's on wiping duty waller uh bobby anderson shirley may prior and eleanor waller the merchandise we'll call her from here on out um eleanor the merchandise eleanor the merchandise waller you know her uh she they led horseman to a tree in the woods and anderson said waller told basically waller told anderson to go get george gray's shirt go get his shirt to quote tie up Horseman here. So we're going to tie him up. So it's at this point where Gray comes over. Gray kicks Horseman twice, gives him two solid kicks, apparently. And wow.

Then they debated what they were going to do to him. Gray wanted to hang him. That was what he said. That was his idea um he said well i mean let's hang him we got all these trees here let's just hang him what do you say and that 'll be quick and easy um and then they finally decided on let's not hang him but we'll tie him to a tree instead let's just tie him to this tree and we'll figure it out from there. Okay. So they end up doing that.

They tie him. They direct him to kneel against a tree with his back to it. So if you can picture that. So kind of with the feet. Like a wall sit. Yeah, exactly. He tells him to do that. His feet were tied on the other side of the tree.

So his feet are around the tree. So you got to picture that. His feet were tied on the other side of the tree. So his feet are around the tree. So you got to picture that back against the tree. So your feet have to have somewhere to go. If you're on your knees, they go that way. Yeah. And they go, yeah, like you're on your knees. You're wrapped around the tree. Wrapped around the trees there by with a belt.

He ties his ankles with a belt. So binds his ankles behind there. His hands were then tied in front of him at the wrists uh with another belt and his elbows uh there's wrists they were tied with another belt at the wrist and then and then his elbows were pulled back at his sides so he couldn't like you know do anything with his hands because his elbows were pulled back. They were pulled back at his sides and a shirt looped through them around the tree. So he was like, he couldn't move. Yikes, man.

He had his hands bound. Can everyone see this in your head? Hands bound. That's awful. Elbows back so your hands are against your chest with your arms so you can't move and you can't move your legs because they're tied around a tree. Not real comfortable. That's like the worst way to be tied up. This is the least comfortable position I've ever.

When they burn people at the stake, they would fucking put them in a more comfortable position than this. James, I would venture to say that being crucified is more comfortable. I was trying. i was debating whether to go there but yes i would say yes it sounds better yeah this is like uh being on a cannibal island and and spit roasted this is how they would tie you this is crazy this is like cia black site and interrogation this is like they took you to turkmenistan and they're going to find out when the bomb's going to go off and then this is this is fucking crazy they're going to start waterboarding any second here then if that's not bad enough okay if that's not bad enough they then place

a gag in his mouth as well yeah and uh tie it behind his head and a shirt. Then they use a shirt to blindfold him. Another piece of the shirt. What they do is they blindfold, put the shirt over his face and then tie that around the tree. So his head is pinned to the tree as well. Oh shit. So he's completely pinned to this fucking tree, which is,

um, you know, he's part of the tree now. He's part of the tree and he's, they've um, uh, you know, he's part of the tree now he's part of the tree and he's, they've been, uh, he's been basically like commandeering. Waller's been commandeering clothing from people like taking this guy's shirt.

Give me that. I need your sleeve, stuff like that to, to make this makeshift shit here. So while he's tied up is when gray kicks him twice for some reason, he's a real threat while he's tied up. Um Gray kicks him twice for some reason. He's a real threat while he's tied up. So at that point, they use socks as well at one point. Socks, a handkerchief, belts, whatever they could find because they needed to gag him.

They're all coming out of the woods naked. Yeah. They said that the handkerchief was the gag, and they said it was so he wouldn't scream it was james waller's idea anderson said i think james waller did that he said so he couldn't see then place the shirt over his his face there um which is fuck man um pretty pretty goddamn interesting here um so after they do all of this they they walked away from the tree. They just walked away and they could hear him. He was trying to plead to them to don't leave him tied to a fucking tree, please.

He can't get out of it. And he's stuck there. So but they just walk away. They leave him there and they went to Laurel and stopped after a couple miles so Anderson and Gray could hide some of Horseman's personal belongings that they stole. And they removed all this shit. And that's how they did. They sped off and that's how it went. So they, Waller's driving, like we said, they drove to an area near Portsville, Delaware.

That's when they removed a bunch of personal items from the truck and got rid of it. But what they did is Waller stops and instructs Anderson and Gray to take some shit and go hide them in the woods. They take the stuff, go hide them in the woods, and Waller speeds away in the truck and leaves them there. He ditched them. You don't ditch accomplices of this nature. No. So Waller drives away with Eleanor Waller, his sister, and Shirley Mae Pryor. And they go all the way to Salisbury, Maryland. And they get on a bus to Philadelphia from there.

And Anderson and Gray walked back several miles to Laurel. Where do you think they went jimmy uh to the bar lookout mountain the bar that's a little too classy for these guys they went back to lookout look out mountain here i come uh where gray continued to drink as he had started to do before he's like now what was i doing before i was interrupted fucking ridiculous he's like he's like walter in in the big lebowski where he's like fuck it let's go bowl he just told the kid fuck it let's go drinking and the kid's like i don't drink he's like well i do want to watch me do it all right then, then. Maybe we'll come across a good piece of $10 tail. You never know, son.

The other three, though, when they got to Philly, they went to a bar. Right to a bar and started drinking. They've got $140. A two-hour Greyhound ride and a bunch of, it's a lot of booze back then. Yeah. So, Grey, though, he was pissed because he said he wanted to find the other three because he didn't get any of the money he got nothing out of like they didn't give me shit and he was interested in getting his cut basically where's my fucking cut so uh

now bobby anderson said before they were he was ditched and he thought maybe this is why they ditched him that anderson told uh waller that he wanted to call the police he goes can't we just stop at like a pay phone and call the police and tell them where he is like they won't know it's us we'll just be like hey there's a guy in the woods you might want to go untie him you know shit like that and um he was told quote if you do i'll kill you by waller so um I'm sorry, by Gray. That was by Gray. Because this was after they got dropped off.

He's asked Gray. And Gray was like, I'll fucking kill you. So that was that. A couple of weeks later, Anderson goes to Gainesville, Florida, where he lives normally. He was just here doing some work back to Gainesville. So the next morning, Flossie Horstman, John's wife, is sitting at home going,

he said he was leaving for 15 minutes at 10 a.m. yesterday and he never came back. So she thought maybe he went on a bender again because this happens. Who knows? This is like a very Tracy on love after lockup. She's back at the house going, motherfucking booze and throwing her phone. So, no, this poor woman, though, I mean, she's at home not knowing what's going on, not knowing if he's out on a bender.

Who knows? He drove off the road and his truck's wrapped around a tree. She has no idea. So she's very worried. And she calls the state police and files a missing person report and uh they begin investigating it and it's not long before they find his abandoned truck they find that in salisbury maryland at the bus station no actually in the parking lot at the purdue chicken processing plant really yep they just found like some big parking lot probably. And it's a

big industrial thing and they just pulled it in there. No one will notice it here. And they do because those places usually have security. Oh, it's got a stink. That's terrible. This stinks the right amount. Leave it here. I'll go to Philly. Wow. So that's what happens there. Wow. So that's what happens there. And that was on August 8th. But it's just a truck. There's no there's nothing in there. There's no indication. There's not like it's not like it's covered in blood or there's like there's no it's just a truck sitting there delaware is hot yeah it's fucking hot in the summer so from august 6th to september 16th he sat against that tree oh god he sat against that tree and just decomposed quickly animals everything else um you can't imagine you'd live long uh in that position against a tree you'd you event i don't think you'd even starve to death you probably i don't even suffocate you right because the the

elements wouldn't take you i don't even know how you would that's a horrible way to die it's it's a torture it's a torturous way to die it's i'd rather be shot in the face oh by far who the fuck wouldn't this is horrible this is very very bad here and what do the cops think like he just ran into this chicken processing plant and like jumped into a de-plucker or some shit yeah that's it he couldn't take it anymore um the loss of his son made him want to become just parts man thighs and wings and so speaking of that when they find him i shouldn't have said the word parts now now i feel bad when they find him his remains are in two parts oh okay the lower torso he's in a he's a top and a bottom at this point the lower spine yeah well yeah because think about the other was tied to a tree so right the other just fell

the bottom just fell off the lower torso was in a pair of pants still it was just a skeletonized it was a skeleton in a pair of pants and uh the upper torso was still in his shirt still in his shirt um they were the remains were approximately 13 feet from a maple tree that was about six inches in diameter, which is where several, that's where they found several things tied to it. So when the body rotted, it fell off. It slid out probably, and then animals have pulled him, I assume,

away a little bit here. And lying in the immediate area by the tree was a man's belt and several other pieces of clothing. At the base of the tree was the dental plate where they found the inscription eventually of Jay Horstman and anything that is insert that your body has like some sort of attachment to it on some paperwork somewhere exactly so even back then they had that they at least wrote his name on the goddamn thing or you know inscribed it in there or whatever so they talked to his wife and you know she gives she tells him about it he was a heavy drinker and then he wasn't and then he just took off and uh don't know what the fuck happened. And, you know, they're they're pretty goddamn clueless about this.

They cannot establish a cause of death for him. They can't find it. They they said the medical examiner's office did all this shit. Like I said, no obvious signs of trauma. There's been putrefaction, but no trauma. Dr. Judith Tobin, who is the deputy state medical examiner said that uh he may have died because of the gag in his mouth that's a possibility suffocation might have been like kind of not not enough to suffocate him completely but over time

it could weaken his breathing enough so that's possible um yeah they said she couldn't determine exact cause of death because the advanced state of the decomposition made it difficult she was called uh later on and they said the death could have come from the gag not sure but they did say based on the seepage into the ground of a decomposing body that they are very sure that horstman did die at the tree. So he died on the tree and rotted there. So this sounds, we've had a lot of bad deaths of like, you know, people cutting people up and chopping people's heads off and all this crazy shit. Top three.

This is as bad of a death like for the victim. Absolutely. That I can think of. And it's cowardly. Yeah. Apart from the ones that were like raped and set on fire in a bed while they were still alive. Yeah. This is as bad.

It's getting there. This is. Yeah. This is torture. This is torture. Absolutely. And this is like the ultimate omission bias. Like if I just leave them there, then I didn't kill him and it's fine.

Do nothing. Yeah. It's it's it's a really cowardly thing to do. It really is. Yeah. Like it's chicken shit. It's like you don't just leave someone out there. I don't know if they thought like, oh, I'm sure he'll wiggle out of it eventually.

And once he does, we better be in Philly. So, you know, when they start giving descriptions of us, we're not here. I don't know if that's what it was or it was like, fuck him, he'll die. There was no, he couldn't get himself out of this shit. And there was nobody who was going to find him out there to help him. So, it's, and he couldn't get himself out of this shit. And there was nobody was going to find him out there to help him. So it's and he couldn't even yell and scream. They yeah, they said that there was there was evidence in the area that pointed to a homicide, obviously. And yeah, they said the police, the family said the police gave them no cause of death.

So they didn't get anything, you know, more than that. All they found out was that he was seen leaving the town and country store alone. The day he went on an errand, but was soon seen with a quote, some other people. So the, the family's thought from asking around, maybe he had been abducted.

The police and the son say there's no way that he would have abandoned his, that he could have abandoned his truck in Salisbury and then walked to the woods all the way out there and died like this tied himself up tied himself to a tree it's difficult it's it's difficult um so uh what ends up happening is through some grapevine shit because they go talk to all the alcoholics on the corner and they all say yeah they were she was talking to this one these people drove away with them not the most reliable witnesses but you might be able to find people who are drinking before noon aren't usually you know who knows if they've been up they don't have they don't have their wits about them to really give a detailed description of what happened but what they do have is reliability and saying i did see that man and and he was with these people after that

it doesn't matter because then you've got at least somebody to go connect him to exactly and that's what they they ended up finding somebody that would say uh yeah that guy that came in the truck the old guy he left with george i think right yeah george so you should talk to george maybe he's seen him so they talked to george gray Gray and he's brought in for questioning. And it takes basically no time for him to completely fold and say exactly what they did. And even offer to take the police to the area of the woods where he was killed and where also where they hid items from his truck. So, I mean, he was like, I'll give it to you all. You can have it.

It's all i want out of this is ten dollars that's ten dollars that's it i'm just i'm still looking for that ten dollars he uh he admitted that they went to the woods they admitted they robbed him he said that he lent his shirt to waller to tie him up he even said that he helped waller tie him up so he's even putting himself in everything that he did um yeah there was it was a lot for for it i mean they were like okay well i guess he doesn't know that this is a murder no there's no way he knows there's no way he's connected already that they're like there was a murder there and he's just going oh we tied the man up and we left no big deal i'm not yeah i'm

not sure he knows about exactly how this is developed. Right. Yeah. So they end up busting everybody else. And I'll tell you how in a second, because it's pretty goddamn funny. Now, Eleanor Waller, the merchandise, as she's known on the street. The $10 gas. That's right. She's.

And Shirley Pryor, they end up like immediately pleading guilty to second degree murder they don't really yeah they give them kind of a break on this too uh with the sentencing as we'll talk about later on and uh the others are everybody else is arrested uh like we said waller while when he's arrested only a month and a half has gone by it's not like it's been five years he's at that time serving a sentence at lewisburg for that he's already rocked up for something else he's already yeah for his escape conviction because he was apparently out on escape that's where he was he was escaped from military prison while he was out that's wow yeah this whole time he's been an escapee from a military prison unbelievable not not wonderful here so he's already the kind of person i expect to be day

drinking on a street corner somewhere yeah someone escaped from lewisburg federal penitentiary yeah absolutely fuck man they they found waller when the bureau of prisons in washington ran all eight aliases through its computer and they figured at least three four of them were over in this place so they might want to go take a look over there so uh he's brought into delaware uh and questioned and waller and gray are both charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping, and robbery. Wow. Which is heavy. Those are heavy fucking charges. They face death by hanging if convicted.

Oh, 70 Delaware. You do it right. Death by hanging. We do it something. We do it. It gets done anyway. I wouldn't call it right probably, but it's done. You do it scary.

Wow. That's maybe why Eleanor and Pryor pleaded. done anyway i wouldn't call it right probably but it's done you do it you do it scary wow um that's maybe why eleanor and prior pleaded they're like second degree great sounds good so they finally get down to gainesville and also arrest bobby a anderson who is still 14 years old anderson was just a migrant worker was in the area doing farm work at the time of the killing here he's extradited also back to delaware and um uh so they end up talking to james waller five days after they discover horseman and they talk to him and uh waller signs a statement completely incriminating himself concerning the whole thing also signs a voluntary consent to search without warrant uh consenting to a search of his belongings that are held you know by the cops what he had

when he was arrested basically the purpose of the search was to find a timex watch which had been owned by horsemen and which waller admitted to having taken so So he said, I took it. So yeah, you can search and you'll find it in my shit, basically. So they conduct the search and get the watch the next morning, September 22nd. So now Waller, later on, he's going to say that after the interview, he rethought about the consent, which he had given, and he wanted to withdraw the consent for the search. So he said, I thought about it once I went down there and I said no. But he said he was unable to do so because he couldn't get a hold of the Delaware police. Yes.

You know, he's in jail. Right. There's no phone in here. Yeah. No shit. it so the following day they waller says that the uh the police should have contacted him to determine if he still consented to the search because yeah he said because they didn't do so and he didn't want them to search that that shouldn't count obviously because they didn't ask him hey you sure about that thing you said yes to yesterday?

And he didn't get a chance to say, no, I'm not cool with it anymore, guys. Hey, we got this duffel bag. We're about to open it. I got my hand on the zipper. You sure about this? That's what he wanted, pretty much. Yeah, that's what he wanted. And yeah, this is a shit that's already in police custody, by the way.

This isn't like i have a mountain house that my grandmother owned and if you go in the basement behind the furnace there's a fucking drawer and you open it and then her head's in this that's not this shit's cataloged into a into a machine somewhere because they have to keep track of it in case you say we broke something it's literally in his list of belongings that's why they that's why it's not a big deal to search it he admitted he had it it's in his list of belongings that's why they that's why it's not a big deal to search it he admitted he had it it's in his list of belongings and they were like well can we go get it and they were like he's like yeah i guess obviously you're gonna get a warrant otherwise

it's not like they couldn't get a warrant to get it if they want one they just already have it can we skip the judge and just go to this do you consent so um yeah later on though a court will decide a brief a brief lapse of time between the consent and the search does not require a reaffirmation of the consent which duh is another thing they said stupid um so uh they said that he was it was written and signed and authorized a search specifically for the watch in question, and he knew what he was doing, and the police did not go beyond the limited scope of consent in the search. Only one search was conducted, and only the watch was looked for and taken.

That's what the search warrant wasn't like, we're looking for other shit. It was, we are looking for a Timex watch. It was listed. He signed the consent form at 4 p.m on september 21st and the officers reported uh there at 10 a.m the following day and had to wait two hours before the before they were presented with the watch so it was from 4 p.m to noon the next day there so they said the reason why uh uh you, they said that he should have definitely been re-asked again. I mean, you know, you know how it is.

So he says he had no way to contact the police. This is fucking ridiculous. A 20-hour delay between consent and search? I'm called for. The court says, no, it's cool. You're fine. So now Bobby A. Anderson, he ends up pleading guilty as well. He pleads guilty to delinquency second degree murder because he's a child.

So he's tried as a child. It's called delinquency second degree murder. Apparently that's when you do it if you're a kid, which makes it sound way less than murder when you's put delinquency on it yeah but i'm i'm confused why i i feel like there's got to be more to his role in this because at that point you you have a 14 year old who's very easily influenced and people that are goddamn almost 40 telling him what to do and taking him with him you know what i mean yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. He could be scared of these people, too. He's on the road. James, he's getting out-of-state work at 14. Farmwork. Migrant farmwork at

14. Up the coast, James. Yeah. Past the Carolinas. He's not like playing in the U.S. Open or anything. He's doing migrant farmwork. Right. He's not like playing minor league hockey. This kid's on the road doing farmwork. He is. I didn't know there was road farmwork. That's incredible.

The migrant farm. That's why they're called migrant farm workers. They move from place to place where the work is. So that's what he did. Well, the reason he pleads guilty for this, he's 15 by the time he pleads guilty, is he's sentenced to, you young man may fuck off, he's sentenced to an indefinite term at the Ferris School for Boys, which is a reformatory. But by law, he cannot be held past the age of 19. So no matter what, he's out by 19. So essentially, they sentenced him to a maximum of four years in a reform school, basically.

Dear God, if there is one, and you you're answering at this point i hope that kid is okay i hope he didn't go to this reformatory and it fucked him up and he's just on the road to in cyclical prison for the rest of his life this is crazy and if we if i if he didn't have such a common goddamn name and no real set place that he lives. I could find out that, but I tried. And there's a lot of Robert Andersons out there in the world. Shockingly, yes. Tons of them. And especially if you don't know what goddamn state they would reside in. Right.

Because he wasn't an adult then, so none of that shit was on the record. I don't know what he did later on. Very difficult. So, yeah, he pleads in family court there. So, yeah, he pleads in family court there. And they also ordered the facility to file a report with the court before it releases the boy. So the court wants to be notified because the school, I guess, that he's being sent to, school in quotes, it's a juvenile facility, they get to decide when he's released. It's a molestation factory.

Basically, it's a diddle factory is what they call it. It's a house of diddle, I believe. Yeah, that's bad. House of diddle. Going to the house of diddle. Not good. Never mind the house of the rising sun. The house of the lower diddle is what you don't want. House of the bleeding sun. Oh, God don't want. House of the bleeding son.

Oh, God. Not good. That's bad. Yes, we made molestation jokes and we can only do that because... Why, Jimmy? Tell them. Well, because I'm molested. There you go. Jimmy can make all the molestation jokes he wants and all I'm doing,

because he had it horribly, and I'm, as a friend and as a supporter, propping up whatever makes him feel better. James supports me making fun of... It's calling it out. We're making fun of the people doing it, not the support. Systemic molestation in those fucking places.

It's horrible. And it's the people doing it and we're making light of it because what else the fuck are we supposed to do when we're uncomfortable talking about some 14 year old getting sent to a diddle factory how can you like it's such a bummer that that's what our court system did push kids they just fed the monster yeah no that's that's they were too much power given over children of uh to people that maybe shouldn't have had that kind of power here. So awful.

They decided to drop the kidnapping and robbery charges if he just pleaded guilty to delinquency second-degree murder. So that's it. So felonies in family court are categorized as delinquencies. First-degree murder and kidnap and the like are all the same. So there are different levels of what it is. So Waller and Grissom, everybody's pled now, the two girls and the like are all the same so there are different levels of of what it is so waller and gris everybody's pled now the two girls and the ladies and the young man and now waller and gray are going to be tried together oh wow they're not happy about that but they're going to be tried together gray his way through this because he admitted to it took him out there

he can't exactly say didn't do it so what he does is he tries to claim mental illness yeah and he does it in a way that the court actually called it i can't what is it here a uh they called it a um it was like a they were impressed that they even thought to try this basically is what it was i'll get to it but they're like wow that's pretty impressive that you even thought to try this basically is what it was i'll get to it but they're like wow that's pretty impressive that you even thought of that but no um he said i'm mentally ill because of first of all i'm a super huge alcoholic okay so that negates the intent element of the underlying offense of kidnapping and robbery i was so drunk i couldn't have had any intent i was just like in the back of a truck you know so which he didn't have a signal worked out with his sister and all that kind of shit for all he knew he was a drunk going for a ride in the back

of a pickup truck but then when they yeah when they had a guy tied to a tree he was like here's my shirt let me kick him so that's that's the problem. That's where his story disappears. Therein lies the problem. So in offer of proof, his counsel stated that he intended to produce several witnesses who would testify to his excessive drinking. He's a drunk. The state said that's irrelevant, and the court agreed with that. Now, one of the witnesses proffered in his offer of proof were present when Horstman was abducted. Okay. And this, they said that it wouldn't have mattered.

He thought that he couldn't appreciate or intend at the time for all that kind of shit. So that's how that worked. He also said he was shithoused at that moment. At that moment at that moment in addition to that yeah and that right then i was hammered not only am i an alcoholic at that time i was shit-faced so right there's that too he also sought to establish a mental illness defense based on this is this is original based on a combination of alcoholism and low intellect. He said, I'm dumb and drunk, okay?

So, listen, I'm dumb and I'm drunk. These are problems. When have you ever seen a dumb drunk be a threat to anybody? The combination of stupid and drunk equals mental illness. That's what he said, which is wild. Back then, that was before they established it. Was it 79 or 80 or something when they established exactly what mental illness was and made it so you basically had to think that fucking He-Man came down and did it and not you. That's the only way.

I saw He-Man do it is the only way you're crazy. and did it and not you like that's the only way i saw he man do it is the only way you're crazy but he said if i combine those yeah um during what's your iq like i don't know like 85 yeah that's not enough yeah but i also drink way too much when i drink it's like a 50 58 59 i feel it lowers it significantly right That should at least... I mean, I'm not even in the normal range at that point. I'm below gump, as what they call it on the gump scale. It's not good. You know what?

At that point, you got to go, you're not even dumb because that was clever as fuck. Yeah. You were at least smart enough to hire a lawyer who's clever enough to come up with that. So you know what? So the the counsel for Gray proffered the testimony of the state psychologist to examine Gray. And he said he would testify, quote, concerning alcoholism, that the consumption of alcohol by an alcoholic is an involuntary matter. So it's not a voluntary intoxication defense, which is something else. That's almost like a manslaughter thing.

That's different. And he said that it's involuntary and that this is something he cannot control once he starts and that combined with his, quote, low intellectual ability could have placed him in a position mentally of being unable to appreciate the wrongfulness or conduct or to substantially control his conduct that day. So that is very interesting. So involuntary intoxication is also a defense that he wants to use here. So in any prosecution for an offense, it says that is for an offense. It is a defense that this is involuntary intoxication as a result of intoxication, which is not voluntary.

The actor at the time, meaning that whoever's in the case of this conduct lacked substantial capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or to perform a material element of the offense or lack sufficient willpower to choose whether he would do the act or refrain from doing it the comp this is what they say quote the combination alcoholism low intellect argument is a novel approach this is what the court writes that's amazing a novel approach if a judge finds what you're doing a novel approach at least put that a feather in your cap if you're a lawyer you you thought of some shit that no one else ever has before it's got to be worth something right um probably pursued the judge is certainly going to talk about this at his next barbecue and that i am i am very proud of that's not that doesn't often happen he likes to leave it right here at the office so it's uh it's impressive next is they're they're upset about miranda rights here

now if you're not from the u.s miranda is when you see a u.s show and they have you have the right to remain silent you have a right to an attorney and all that shit when you see that on a united states cop show that's miranda rights so now they have to give you miranda rights every once in a while they can't like read you your rights then question you for a while then you like go and sleep for eight hours and they pull you back in they have to remirandize you at that point like so there's certain breaks that are like official breaks anyway so they uh uh they said that the in the supreme court held that a criminal defendant is entitled to be informed of four specific rights prior to interrogation. He must be warned prior to any questioning that he has the right to remain silent.

Anything he can and say will be used against him in a court of law. These are all the things that you hear all the time, that he has the right to the presence of an attorney and that if he cannot afford one obviously an attorney will be appointed to him prior to any questioning if he so desires we've all heard that but prior to indarrogation they were given these four warnings both suspects but they said that there is a fifth miranda right which he must be advised of as well, namely that if at any time during the interview they wish to discontinue, they have the right to stop. OK, now there is language in the Miranda decision to the effect that if the individual is alone and indicates in any manner the admissibility of a defendant's statement is dependent upon showing that he was expressly advised of this fifth Miranda right. So the other four, you have to be advised of. This one's kind of an optional, apparently.

This is like a floating rib. rib. The Miranda opinion does not conclude that explanation to an accused of this requirement for a police cutoff of questioning is an integral part of the required initial warning requisite to a valid waiver. So that's what they said. The requirement is part of the is that part of Miranda rights? Yes, but it's not apparently when you have to give them back then. It was only the four. The fifth one of you can stop at any time didn't have to be said does that have to be said today i believe it does the requirement is directive only and is not required not a required warning under miranda but is instead a caveat to the police that if an accused wishes to stop answering questions the police have a duty to close the interrogation so it's true that if you say you don't want to that you don't have that

they have to stop that's true but that's not part of miranda in proper apparently to warn of that i mean even though it's true at the the miranda rights and warnings are essentially say that i mean it's it's built into that like if yeah anything you say can and will be used against you do you want to talk at that point you should be like i mean not really you know yeah exactly that i would have i wouldn't have talked if you told me that last part i doubt is a thing i can quit at any time i didn't know that if i started i i could stop yeah i thought once i started i couldn't stop till i was convicted yeah that's Well, at the same time, it's just a matter of are you required to say that? If not, then fuck off. If they're not required to say it by the Constitution under Miranda, then never mind.

But if they are, then they needed to, which apparently they weren't at the time. It's essentially built into the first floor, which are, I mean, they're warnings. That's all it really is. But if you did something, shut the fuck up fuck up yeah that's what it should be did you do something shut the fuck up about it there you're gonna get off everything's gonna work out much better for you at that point so the prosecutor apparently there's a thing with discovery of evidence apparently the prosecutor originally agreed with the defense counsel to a, quote, open door discovery policy with the evidence that the state had. And now, despite the agreement, though, the Waller and Gray say that the state failed to provide certain items deemed material to the defense.

taken from the base of the tree where Horstman was found, a bark sample from that tree, and a set of color photographs taken at the scene on the day the remains were discovered. And they didn't even, Waller and Gray say they didn't become aware of the existence of the dirt and the bark samples and the lack of any scientific tests performed upon them until after the trial had started. So they said that they weren't told of this as the trial goes on they're told of this um they say that the trial court's failure to order discovery as originally agreed to along with the introduction to evidence of the above items severely will prejudice them and their right to a fair trial so it must be thrown out they're really their lawyer is good whoever their lawyer is is finding they're trying

to find anything they can here um they said the state had agreed to a you know an open door discovery policy it appears though that a misunderstanding arose between the prosecutor and defense counsel as to the extent of that agreement it's open door but not for all the rooms you can come into the living room but if you you find a bedroom door locked, you can't just go in there and rifle through my medicine cabinet either. Also, what do they think the greasy spot is? They think that tree is just a leaky one? It's just a leaky tree. It's just blowing out of that tree?

It's just leaking. So the trial court ordered that the usual discovery rules would apply and never mind the previous agreement and all that shit so anyway uh this delays the trial for all these things are just delays delays delays basically the troop uh the uh detectives at the bridgeville troop who investigated the murder apparently overlooked pictures, and that's why the defense didn't get them, because, quote, they were so busy. Okay, that's not a good enough excuse. No, you need to give, we were too busy to give the defense discovery is not okay. That's bullshit.

Not going to cut it. That's a load of shit. So anyway, defense attorney Larry W. pfeiffer who represents waller uh here he said that there were no laboratory tests done on the body quote there were no lab tests because there was nothing left of the body is what the doctor said when he said that to her which is pretty fucking amazing now the guys waller and gray wanted their trials to be separate they have a motion to sever but the court denies it there, which later on they'll say the trial court abused their discretion in this here. But there has to be like an antagonistic defenses.

That's how you get things severed. Look, our defenses are directly butt heads with each other. How can we sit next to each other? And it doesn't make sense. My defense says he did it. did his defense says i did it we can't do this together that's kind of the thing here so uh but they said that uh uh they they cited all this shit waller here he contends that they were antagonistic defenses and a jury could not segregate the evidence against waller from that of against gray and And they the court said they do think they could. And at the request of the defense counsel, they held a big proceeding to figure out whether

all this shit was, you know, independent. Was this your witness or his witness? Are they against each other? Or it's a police officer testified at the hearing that after being brought to Troop Five for questioning, Gray took the police happily to all this type of shit. He further testified that he admitted the whole thing and admitted everything. So how are you going to say that there's any contrary defense? The defense is they both admitted it.

I don't understand what's going on here. So they said there was the court says there's no antagonistic defenses in this case. Neither Gray nor Waller offered testimony which amounted to a defense at all. Furthermore, the trial court was correct in concluding that a jury would have little difficulty segregating the evidence between defendants. So there you go. Now the opening, the prosecutor, first day right out of the gate he says he got waller here they lure this guy out and blah blah blah and he says he's quote acting as a pimp for eleanor waller and for shirley prior attempt attempting to hook horseman up with one of the two girls okay apparently he offered

prior too but he liked eleanor better that's how it worked so jesus uh bobby anderson testifies they get the kid up there he uh he testifies they bring him in he said everybody's been drinking and they cross-examination they just tried to say that like he was only saying this because he got a deal so like did you enter a plea he says yes and they said you pled guilty to second degree murder um you know he said did you agree with uh he said did you did you conspire with these guys to to you know kill this guy and bobby says no and then they they kind of dig into him a little bit trying to basically say that uh um you know he said that the the charges and everything he wasn't tried as an adult because

he was helping them and yeah because because he's not an adult he's a child also because he's 14 and yeah these people were 37 year old alcoholics so this is they said quote you were originally charged with murder in the first degree robbery in the first degree and kidnapping in the first degree. The same as George Gray, right? And yeah, they said they asked if you have any hopes of leniency or all that kind of shit. They did the same thing when they brought Shirley Pryor in. Everybody that testified, they were like, you're getting lenient sentences, right? Isn't that true? And they all said, no, we have got no promise of sentencing because they all have to testify before they get sentenced.

Waller testifies in his own defense here. He takes the stand. He gives, according to this newspaper, a rambling account of the abduction, which he said that he was drunk, but, quote, almost had to fight the other men to protect horsemen from a physical attack. So he said Bobby Anderson and George Gray had had a bloodlust for this guy. Just a bloodlust for him. Wanted to just do horrible things to him. And he had to almost physically fight them off. Yeah.

Just to tie him to a tree and leave him there. I'm dumb and drunk. And I had to use that that was working against me and i had to try to convince these two to to simmer their blood lust you know just tie him to a tree let's just tie him to a tree and leave him yeah we could cut his head off sure but i mean really is that what kind of people we are yeah he then testified this is hilarious i don't know how anybody could keep a straight face. If I was in the jury, I'd go, oh, poor shit, at the statement. He said when he was robbing Horstman, Waller testifies, quote, this is wild, quote, I told him, sir, I said, I don't know you and you don't know me.

I would like to have some money and that's all I want. That's the politest robbery in the history of the world sir it's not how it happens sir i don't know you and you don't know me but i'd really like to have some money and that's all i want and i'll move on um wow that is fucking incredible right there he tried to play that off the person that says that stands on an on-ramp to a freeway and gets $20 a day over the course of 6,000 cars. Sir, I don't know you and you don't know me. But if you could help me out with a little bit of help so I could get a nice place to stay tonight. And then he says later when they were strapping horsemen to a tree, Waller said that he recalls that he said this is amazing quote i said i'll probably come back and untie you he was very cooperative he didn't even seem that nervous

so horseman was fine really we shouldn't even worry about him he didn't even he was into it he was having a great time he was having a great time he's like i haven't been tied to a tree since i was in my 20s this is amazing thanks guys thanks a lot yeah wow he said yeah he's cooperative and he said i'll come i'll probably come back and untie you probably that's something i want to finish assurance on probably really holy shit probable that's the that's the chances i got he said that waller um they said a statement waller himself gave to the police where he directed an effort in which left him basically he with his statement to the police says i was in charge of the tie-up i told this guy to wipe the fingerprints down and give me your t-shirt and use a belt and give me all this shit he said that uh he thought the man would get free that's what he

said he goes i figured he'd wiggle out eventually so that's why we didn't care we were just like oh he'll get out he'll wiggle out eventually and that's got to be his best defense because the the really murder is is you did this and what did you expect was going to happen you know what i mean yeah yeah and for this like i can see somebody saying I thought he would wiggle out. But no. But yeah, that's if you just tie his feet, I could see it. Yeah. He'll eventually back, man.

Yeah. His shoulders, his hands, his fucking head is he can't even move his head like I was just supposed to do anything. they're being denied a fair trial because at one point the state brings into the courtroom the clothes of john horseman the victim that he was wearing as their part of evidence yeah um which according to the defense emitted an quote an obnoxious odor well that's because you left a man to die in them that's probably why stupid that's that is called decomp. Let's not call that obnoxious. That's a man. Decomp goop is what that is. They said, and commenting upon them in front of the jury there, they said, oh, yeah, these

are really, these don't smell good. And they said the clothes weren't in evidence at the time. They were being brought up to be put into evidence. So at that point, you can't make any commentary. So the examination of the record shows that while the state prosecutor was questioning a police officer about the victim's pants, the prosecutor stated, you may remove those from the courtroom. That's what they had in the records.

And they feel like that was the pants at that point, because are these the pants? Yes. OK, get them out of here because they stink, basically. So this is what's going on. I'm too, I'm drunk and dumb, which makes me crazy. That's one guy. And the other guy's like, I politely asked him for a couple of dollars and then I, you know, gently, what is he talking about?

I got him a cup of tea after that. So what's going to happen here? I'm just feet behind the tree. You know, he was so happy about it so the jury comes back and it is guilty for both of them here yeah it's a nine man three woman jury and uh guilty of second degree robbery rather than the only thing that they didn't find it was george gray they found him guilty of second-degree robbery rather than first-degree robbery because he didn't actually get any of the $149

that they stole from Horstman. So he didn't get that part of it. Gray was also found guilty of kidnapping, and Waller was found guilty of robbery, kidnapping, and the murder as well. When they go to sentencing, they both face death by hanging at this point, which is wild.

Hilarious. That is just nuts. They said that neither man showed any emotions when they read the sentence. And when they read anything, you know, jurors were polled and they just stared straight ahead. Didn't give a shit. After the first degree murder verdict was rendered, Gray and waller uh were laughing it up apparently joking with prison guards just like acting like nothing happened it's just all fine here what uh yeah they were like oh no big deal we got found guilty of murder i don't know if they're their

lawyers told him look you're going to be found guilty but we're going to get it flipped on appeal so don't worry about it that's probably what also you've been found guilty in the sentencing phase if you act fucking crazy and they're like laughing and shit perhaps they won't do it yeah maybe they're like oh they ain't even scared so they said the jury's going to meet again to decide if the death penalty should be imposed the prosecution and defense may introduce more evidence at this point and the defense will argue against the death penalty obviously well the prosecution is going to say that they should be the first people to be hanged in the state of delaware since 1946 when 34 year old forest uh stir stir divant was hanged uh for murder in this county as well. So sentencing comes around.

So for the sentencing the next morning, 11 of the 12 jurors who were there ended up there. They're here for this. I don't know what the 12th juror is doing, but only 11 of them were there for some reason. And before the jury's brought in, the deputy attorney general Merritt Burke, the third told the judge that the

state's position was that quote the jury has got no choice in this matter but to return a sentence of life and imprisonment and that a sentence of hanging quote would not be upheld so the prosecutor said that if we sentence these people to hang they're not gonna this is not gonna get upheld it's gonna get struck down so let's just do life in prison and we're happy with that as well yeah it's the 1970s there's no way this is sticking yeah they had argued with it for it but now it's you know it had just been reinstated that year or the year before 76 it's the death penalty in general. Yeah. So the state here, they said that they would be, you know, they're asking the jury now to do that. And so the they end up they took a break in the sentencing, though, for a higher court to decide something because it had to do with them. The Delaware Supreme Court released its ruling on the constitutionality of the state's year old capital punishment law at the time. The uphold they upheld most of the statute. The high court struck down as unconstitutionally vague two of the very, quote, aggravating circumstances that the jury is now debating for them. So that's why one of them

was one of the aggravating circumstances was that Horstman was, quote, elderly and defenseless. That was one of them. When the penalty hearing came, the defense attorney asked that the jury be dismissed because it already heard that the elderly aged comments and no amount of implorance when they go back to that. Now the prosecution can't use that anymore, the elderly and aging thing. And so the defense is saying, we need a whole new jury to do sentencing because they already heard that

and now they can't unhear it. So that's when the prosecutor's like, you know what? Fuck it. Life imprisonment's fine. Otherwise, it's going to get fucking overturned and we don't want to deal with that shit. The other one,

they said that Horseman's death involved torture and that waller directed others to commit murder and that it was out outrageously or wantonly vile horrible or inhuman three other aggravating circumstances provided there the prosecutor introduced an fbi report on waller which showed he had previously been convicted of several other crimes, but none of them were at the time. They said, quote, none of them violent. They didn't consider rape a violent crime back then. None of them violent.

That's wild. That's insanity. So that's really insane. So the defense in a plea for leniency argued there were several mitigating factors, including his science, his clients, deprived socioeconomic background and the fact that he was, quote, not in Delaware and could not have been available to release horsemen from the tree to which he was tied. That's because you got on a bus and went to Philadelphia with a fucking guy tied to a tree. That's insane. His defense was, well, we ran away.

We went on the lam from this crime so he couldn't have thought that's nuts we tried to go back but the bus driver would not make a u-turn that wow um i don't even know what to say about that uh in addition they argued that the other defendants in the case weren't risking any risk facing any risk of death so finally they say you sirs may fuck off and uh life in prison here for the boys uh waller and gray they should waller's rest of his life in jail and uh that's that other sentencing here shirley may prior and eleanor waller there uh they the thing is unlike them they are sentenced. They have Waller was sentenced to life without parole.

OK, the women, though, are sentenced to the only the lowest sentence you can get for murder is life in Delaware at the time. But life at that point meant that the women could be released from jail in less than 15 years. So that's what that meant. Life was like Eleanor's a problem eleanor's yeah she could be a she was setting the guy up i mean her and her brother had a hand they were she's she's an enormous problem she is bonnie and she's gonna walk yeah sure yeah she's definitely bonnie and anderson can only be kept in custody till he's 19 like i said so they all go to prison 1984 i found this article from 84 they've all been in prison a few years now and it's about mothers in prison this article and they talk about

shirley prior and uh you know she pled guilty and all that kind of shit and she says that she sees her daughters about every other month in jail so she she said, my mother has to drive so far. I write a lot of letters, eight or nine letters a month, and they don't write me back. That's because you're in jail for murder and you've been there for six years and your kids are probably mad at you. I would assume that you murdered someone and left their life. The children live with their father and their stepmother in Salisbury, where they have lived. The Pryor's got divorced in 1975. Pryor is involved in prison in a juvenile awareness program where inmates work with problem youths.

And she said, as we meet with these juveniles, it's really helping me deal with my children. They have problems at home. They can't communicate with their mothers and their parents. After the group session, I know how to cope with my children. They have problems at home. They can't communicate with their mothers and their parents. After the group session, I know how to cope with my children better. So but you're not you're in jail. She she said she wants her children to avoid the mistake she made. But she says that, you know, communications hard, especially with her younger daughter. She says, quote, I try to talk seriously to her, but she laughs at me. She only wants someone to take care of and love her. I can't do anything while I'm in here. I want them to have a better life.

It's frustrating. Well, he has kids only two. What do you expect? Obviously, it's hard. No, I'm just kidding. You try to have a serious conversation. She just keeps saying juice, juice, juice. And I'm like, I'll get you juice.

Hold on a minute. Trying to tell you how to build a stock portfolio. a minute trying to tell you how to build a stock portfolio i can't really tell if she's saying juice or if she's just very anti-semitic i think she's i don't understand it i mean yes we're all half german in the family but you know anyway uh april of 1981 to go back a little bit is uh they call uh this is when they come out with the fact that they say it might not have been criminal this the attorneys for waller and gray are saying that yes it was a bizarre unfortunate imminent uh thing that happened here but it's they probably shouldn't it's be classified as murder it's just kind of a crazy accident. Just a crazy accident.

I could see if somebody's wearing a ball gag and they suffocate and you didn't mean to kill them, but they just died that way. You know what I mean? This isn't a sex tie-up game and somebody's having a great time. No, that's what I mean. Oh, damn it. You're robbing a man. Yeah, and forcing him to do this shit. Right.

And he's begging for his life. And they said, had we known the dirt samples, had we known that Dr. Tobin was going to refer to the dirt samples, perhaps it could have shown that the deceased didn't die when he was tied to the tree. So we didn't kill him. Something else must have killed him. Bl blame the animals or whatever the fuck so uh september of 1981 is the first official appeal here and the delaware supreme court upholds the conviction of them uh basically here and uh they had 13 grounds for overturning the conviction they had they were arguing about the felony murder statute because they were saying

they didn't actually kidnap him is the thing. They went a little far with that. I mean, he was driving the truck. He could have driven wherever he wanted. So they were saying that kidnapping in the second degree should be there. And then they were talking about how the statute had changed in the state. So maybe that's what it is. They said the defendants make two related arguments. First, they contend that the state's indictment in the case is defective because it's specified as the included felony under the murder statute, the crime of kidnapping, which is no longer a statutory offense in the state. So it changed by then. But is robbery? Yeah, I suppose it is.

Yeah, I would think so and they definitely fucking robbed him but gray would say i didn't rob him remember i didn't get any money i'm second degree not first degree so that's not a that's not an aggravator so or that's not you know what that is so anyway um the statute as it refers to kidnapping it says could not possibly fail quote to give a person an of ordinary intelligence fair notice that his contemplated conduct is forbidden by the statute. So, yeah, anybody who's not completely out of their minds knows what kidnapping is, is what they said. Now, they also said the jurors, they fucked up in the jury process, saying that it was an abuse of discretion. The defense says that the trial court should have conducted a more in-depth exploration of the jurors potential biases because this case involved inflammatory aspects like the intense media coverage of the case. The the difference in race between some of the people here because gray is black and horseman is white.

So they are saying that and i believe uh shirley may prior might be black as well okay so and the defendants who there and also uh waller's alleged solicitation of horseman for sex with eleanor they said that shouldn't even have been brought up that's's just inflammatory. I mean, shit. And the excessive consumption of alcoholic beverages. Let's just all put that aside and say forget about it, huh? What do you say? So they should go into all that. 92 prospective jurors were asked 18 questions as a group.

This was done twice to ensure that the members of the panel remembered the questions asked and their individual responses. Make sure they didn't answer differently five minutes later. Those giving affirmative answers to any of the questions were removed, and the remaining 29 were questioned individually. Eleven jurors are then selected out of 29, and the remaining juror was picked from a group of 63. So the questions asked of everybody pertain to radio and newspaper publicity, personal knowledge of the case, familiarity with the defendants or victim, racial prejudice and other biases, including questions like, do you know anything about the case, either through your personal knowledge, discussion with anyone else or the news media? Do you know of any other reason, any reason why you cannot give this case your undivided attention and render a fair and impartial verdict.

And defendants in this case are black. The alleged victim is white. Do you have any racial prejudice that would prevent you from rendering a fair and impartial verdict in this case? Would you give the testimony of a police officer more credence than others merely because he's a police officer? You can't answer yes to any of those or you're out. So that's fine um so

they're all interviewed everything like that uh they're saying they weren't asked the right questions and uh and normally i'm all up for that sort of thing but i feel like this case is pretty open and shut like you left a guy tied to a fucking tree it's not really. They also attacked the the deputy attorney general, Sam Burke, and he blamed the state police for the evidence problem with the when they said they just they were just just plum busy, just just super busy. We couldn't get there. So there was that. One of the issues raised was that the prosecutor didn't give them access to some of the evidence until four days before the trial. That was the color photographs that the police were too busy to give them, which is not not a good thing to do. They said that the they said that they knew. Now, the prosecution says that the defense knew about the photographs and never asked for them. So, you know, that's the deal there. But the one guy said that it's an embarrassment for the office.

He said, I have to go to court and correct something. And that is not the type of conduct that we expect from deputies. You're not too busy, God damn it. Get them their shit. So then there was the thing about the samples. And that's pretty crazy. The color photos like we talked about. Anyway, they're all upheld. all these convictions for everybody are upheld uh 1996 they go before james waller goes

before the board of pardons okay this is to try to get his life sentence commuted to life with parole okay this is what he's trying to do here. Uh, so he's asking for that. He says, uh, he wanted a chance to leave prison and help others. The, uh, the board noted that he has hit,

that he has been disciplined numerous times while in prison and does not seem that helpful on the outside. No, thank you, sir. Yeah. This is what they said you got you got eight eight aliases man dude eight aliases one of them raped a chick like this is crazy you're like you

have military crimes you want to help who man yeah who are you helping so anyway too bad for him. That was 96. 2011 here, James Waller is again denied a commutation of his life sentence. Again, they voted unanimously to reject it, citing the nature of his crimes, the victim's suffering, and the fact that he repeatedly gets in trouble in prison. Right. No matter what the fuck he does. That was 15 years later. Right. Still a problem. You're a problem in here with prison. Right. No matter what the fuck he does. That was 15 years later. Right. Still a problem. You're a problem in here with all these rules.

You think you can go out there with a little bit less rules and all of a sudden you're helpful? It's all going to come together for you? Yeah. No. No thanks. It seems like it comes up every 15 years. Okay.

Because it was from 81 was when the appeals were over and then it was 96 and then 2011. Okay. It seems like you can check on that every 15 years. But doesn't quite make it to the next one because April 30th, 2020, James Waller drops dead in prison. He died. Yes. He hope like I do that it was COVID.

Well, he died of COVID. That's exactly what he died of. Yep. He was moved. Fantastic. covid yep he was moved fantastic and uh they he had been returning a negative test but he was he registered a fever he last time he had a test was april 8th and they've been doing temperature checks before that and then he uh during the meantime and then on april 26th he registered a fever he was moved to the prison infirmary and tested positive for covid he was admitted to bay health hospital and uh his condition deteriorated he received some care but

he died and that was that so why is that so funny to me i don't know it's uh at least it killed a murderer not somebody's grandma or something that was maybe that's what it is I guess like it there's a silver lining to this shit and then right after that George Gray dies as well get the fuck out of here nope he was 79 years old when he died died at Bay Health Hospital

same as fuck same as Waller there so he had a his well no he had a history of chronic health conditions including hypertension diabetes and COPD so waller there so he had a hiss well no he had a history of chronic health conditions including hypertension diabetes and uh copd so yeah he had breathing problems so he was a heavy guy too it was just he was the fucking target audience for that shit yeah he was a big heavy set guy too great okay he was a uh so i don't know if those problem breathing problems mixed with being heavier is going to not going to help you any if you can't breathe anyway.

So he was admitted for shortness of breath and further assessment revealed a diagnosis of aggressive metastatic lung cancer. Oh, no. He was treated. His treatment was immediately initiated, but it continued to deteriorate. And he was placed on comfort care, which I assume is like hospice for prisoners yeah that's prison hospice that's no good no and he was pronounced dead there he is um dead as shit everybody's dead uh he uh yes it was that but it wasn't covet actually so there you go so they're dead we don't know where bobby anderson is with his common ass name and uh eleanor waller god knows where she is and uh shirley may prior we knew she was in prison trying to see her

daughter so hopefully shirley may prior got it back on track and just uh because yeah like shirley may prior and and the and bobby anderson they don't bother me. Like, none of this was their idea. They wouldn't have been involved in this if it wasn't for other people. They were hanging out with shitty people and were too weak to do anything. One was a child, so he has no way of doing anything. And a child who obviously was born into a very difficult world. If he's going from Florida to fucking Delaware to do migrant farm work. Yeah, that's what I mean that's crazy i mean it was he shouldn't have been in school because it was

august by the way so he wouldn't have been in school anyway but still he was on the road doing farm work which is very strange so i don't see that eleanor waller on the other hand helps i mean her and her brother have a like a predetermined signal to set people up to rob them so this isn't the first time they've done this shit. That is a sick kinship. That's some sick shit going on there. So that's the way I'm looking at it. And yeah, Gray and Waller,

I mean, like I said, they didn't... You can't be like, they're sick. You know what I mean? They didn't do the horrible action that most people do. Most people can look into someone's eyes and turn the lights out. That's of the people we talk about. But this was like for the murderers, it was the least, you know, horrible action, but probably the most suffering for any victim we've encountered.

You know, we're close to it. So it's the coward is involved in that on the on the murdering murdering side is fucking it's off the charts yeah you can't even you can't even be there to to do your fucking awful thing yes exactly i me personally i would have paroled gray after his 30 you know what i mean yeah because he just seemed like he was a fucking drunk that was like he was in the back of the truck yeah i don't think he was in on the planning of this whole thing so i i think that waller is the ringleader his idea pimping his sister rape fucking convictions in the past eight different aliases that guy can fuck off and sit in prison forever because

if he didn't do it to this guy he would have done to somebody else at some other point he's a piece of shit but i don't think every anybody else deserves really life in prison without parole. For Gray, it seemed a little harsh for me. It's pretty awesome that COVID got a guy like that. Yeah, it is pretty awesome. A bad guy. At least one. One out of 600,000 wasn't too shabby.

And so far, like going so far to be just like and even trying to get out of it all skirt, you know, skirt, skirt the justice and be scot free from it all. It's acting like you paid your penance. You're a dirt bag, man. Dude, that's that's what I mean. Like for Gray to not have the idea to do it, to just give a guy your T-shirt, help him do something and kick a guy twice isn't life without parole for me you know what i mean i get that you could go into a you know a gas station and your partner could rob somebody and shoot them you had nothing to do with it you didn't pull any trigger or whatever and you're still an accomplice and still didn't even have a gun still going yeah i don't know

it's just tough on this one i don't know i don't know if Gray knew what the plan was. It's just, I don't know. But fuck Waller. Anyway, that everybody is Laurel, Delaware. And we've never had a story where someone tried to pimp their sister. Have we? Is that a new one? Small town murder first. It's a small town murder first.

For like low end. You know what I mean? For discount bargain basement price. Ten dollars. Fire sale pussy. It's awful. And you know what I mean? Yeah. For discount bargain basement prices. $10. Fire sale pussy. Yeah. It's awful. The hookers at the Point documentary, they charge more than that. You know?

Remember? And that was in the 80s or early 90s. It was in the 90s. And this was like, you know, sleazy industrial area, toothless, like, you know, last leg of their career ladies of the night. It's a different thing so anyway if you enjoyed that story let the world know about it get on apple podcasts and give us five stars it really does help drive you up the charts why we have no fucking idea but it does do all that head over to

shut up and give me murder.com right now for everything crime and sports and small town murder. And get your tickets to live shows. Get your merch. Tons of new merch up, by the way. Check all that out. Those upside down digital shirts are badass, too. The fucking coolest. They're cool as shit.

You need to get those. Kudos to Sarah for finding the person to design that and nailing it. That fucking logo is legit. It is, is man thank you so much and uh thank you everybody out there who's been wearing it and we've seen people posting pictures of it we appreciate it you can get all your merch there get your tickets to live shows at shut up and give me murder.com though because so many live shows all throughout 2022 and even a few at the end of 2021 here i know we're in california we're in uh boston

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We don't like to pat ourselves on the back, but these shows are fucking hilarious. They're really good. If you want to hear these shows, if you don't, I don't think you'll like us very much. But if you do, you want to hear these shows. Trust us. This week we do kind of a little retrospective on drugs and sports kind of over the last, since the late 1800s we talked about it. Our first cocaine overdose athlete was what, 1902 that we could find?

I mean, literally, that's how far back this shit's been going on. And then the introduction of steroids. You wouldn't believe what people used to shoot into themselves before an athletic event. And even more to the point, you wouldn't believe what doctors would use to saw your leg off. You wouldn't have a clue. It's so crazy. They made surgery sound like so much fun. Oh, boy.

Just tons of cocaine. And then for the small town murder bonus episode, even though you have access to everything, both episodes, the whole back catalog, the whole deal for small town murders. We have the downfall of the Hillside Stranglers, two of the biggest assholes that we've ever produced as a society. I must say just terrible serial killers from the 70s that did unspeakable things to women. And we're going to talk about not that stuff, but how they got caught and kind of the craziness that ensued from there. Because the whole place, it's insane. People write, yeah, women write in screenplays and then trying to live them to get them out

of trouble and faked hypnosis and multiple personalities. Jizz smuggling. It's crazy. We have a story of Jizz smuggling. It's great. We have a story of jizz smuggling. So if you want to find out, A, what Bug House means, and how to smuggle jizz out of a prison, you want this week's bonus episodes. Patreon.com slash Crime and Sports right now.

And that goes for all that. And you're a producer, so you're going to get a shout-out as well, Jimmy. And we're going to get to the list in just a moment here jimmy is going to mispronounce your name while trying his best to pronounce it properly there's that and uh yeah i think that's about it social media do all of that stuff follow us uh shout outs oh paypal too if you want to if you want to uh make a donation a one-time donation and just get get a shout-out and our undying love and affection, you can do that at PayPal using our email address, crimeinsports at gmail.com. That said, Jimmy, I need right now, I need love. I need to feel good about myself.

Hit me with a list of just the best goddamn fucking people that science, nature, or God has ever produced. Please, hit me with them right now. This week's executive producers are obviously Jordan Bennett and not grim Karen Lewis, Josh Jessup, Kevin Spilker, Matt Wilkins donated according to Italy's score against England. I saw that. That was an awesome donation. Thank you. Thank you. I against England. I saw that. That was an awesome donation. Thank you. Thank you.

I got a kick out of that. Shannon Stone and Todd Steffi, and also Laura. Thank you. Laura didn't give a last name, which is bananas. You're amazing. Thank you, Laura. We thank you, Laura. Can't thank you enough.

Also, the memory of Andy Sparky Green. Somebody donated in his memory. I wanted to give that person credit as well, but they said no. Just say Andy. So rest in peace, Andy. He was a listener. So miss him already. Other producers this week are Maria Rasper, Thomas DeMello, Thomas Smith, Frank the South

African Bird Washer, Gabriel Bell. He got a promotion, so he gave us a cut of it. Thanks, Gabriel. Brendan Ables, Devin Lengas. Steve, the rock and roll scientist. This guy's fucking great. I can't wait to see him again. Totally.

Philly is... I really miss that town. Oh, a lot of great people in Philly. We get to see TJ. We get to see him. We get a lot of cool people we like in Philly. So many people to go see. Caleb York, Blair, Melanie, and Brittany, and the shitload of people they brought to the show.

Del Griffith and his shower rings. Solid. That was Del Griffith and his shower rings. Solid. That was Del Griffith, right? Yeah. I think so, yeah. Yeah. Clayton Watson, Janice Hill, Travis Marshall, and Bennett, his golden retriever. Moe and Ryan Marquis, or Marcus, I think it's Marquis.

They're getting married. Congratulations. James Marder, Jeff Stanton Jr.'s friends, Chris and Becky got engaged. Congratulations. So many people making terrible decisions. Peyton Meadows. Good luck to you. The memory of Zach.

Zach Shane Rice in Springfield. The Springfield, Missouri police are still looking for who took Zach from us. Oh, Jesus Christ. Get on it, Springfield. Yeah, put that shit together. Archibald Stanislav Bunker. Do you know who that Zach from us. Oh, Jesus Christ. Get on it, Springfield. Yeah, put that shit together. Archibald Stanislav Bunker. Do you know who that is? Nice.

Well, that's Archie Bunker. Ravish Milalovich regenerated a finger. Good work. Hey, good for him. Grow it back. Corporal Carl Kirshner still around. Uncle Leo's son, Jeffrey, at the park service. Yeah, he works at the parks department.

Mr. Bentley, Ralph the Doorman, and Mother Jefferson's wig. Chris would know his name. Jefferson's references and Seinfeld, you guys are awesome. Miles Palmquist, Rob Myers, Joe Salvi, Fartpants, whoever that is, Chris Almodovar,

which that guy, probably not related, but there is a newscaster who his last name is Almodovar, that guy, probably not related, but there is a newscaster, his last name is Almodovar, and he has to say that after every report. And somebody has made a super cut on YouTube that's fucking unbelievable. It's like, Almodovar, fuck, I forget. It's like Raphael Almodovar, and he has to say it. It's amazing. I'm going to send it to you. It's fantastic. Jesus. Chris, probably and he has to say it. It's amazing. I'm going to send it to you. It's fantastic.

Jesus. Chris, probably no relation, but it's great. I kind of get that. I get having to say your long last name. Yeah. May Dean, I think. Paul Roy. Sherry Schwark.

Dr. Sue 74. Cole Heisterman. Lena with no last name. Dave Schwartchick. Michelle Hickman. Taylor, no last name. Cedric Sargent, Robert Alvote,

Celeste McDonough, Taurine Hughes, Nikki with no last name, Adam Coppola, Stephanie Clark, Jess Massary, I think it's Massary, I forget,

Kelly Lloyd, Isabel White, Samantha with no last name, Jen Greenan, Cayman Jarvis, Jenny with no last name, Tiffany Sanderson, Chancellor Bailey, Maddie Stover, Ridiculous Randy, Kara Hamlin, Summer Johnson, Amy Bancroft, Mandy Wydek, Alejandra, Tyler Duthie, Kelly Larmore, Bill Mann, Lorna Gusner, L.T. Willis, Beth Fries, Kenneth Graham, Kristen Dotson, Jesse, no last name, Stephen Henderson, James Harrington, Hillary, no last name, Stacey Manley, Christina Watson, Kathy Stalter, Jody Bowen, Peter Jude, Jacob Frisch, Winston with no last name, Katie Wolfe, Stephanie Sluka, Sluka.

You're on a roll, Jimmy. Fuck, that one's a tough one i don't want to interrupt you i'm like let him go let him go dylan cassidy felicia tarns joe scarcella eric bouth christina faris fuck farisi it's farisi right farisi farachi it's farisi ese so it's got to be oh ese yes yeah there's a c in there okay i'll fuck up either way uh sean mcknight at a lind uh leaned uh megan paul lock justin would no last name morgan weeks jay say again what was that megan paul paul pollock paul lock paul lack you definitely called her megan paul, so I just wanted to clarify that.

P-A-W-L-A-K. That one's a tough one. Polack. Polack. Polack. I don't fucking know. Thanks, Megan Polack. We appreciate it. Jay Paris, Cynthia Chapman, Trent Reinerson, Parker Johnson, Angel Delgado, Otto Hess,

Ryan Reinerson, Parker Johnson, Angel Delgado, Otto Hess, Jamie S., Connor Fudge, Daniel Escobedo, Richard Hopkinson, Matthew, nope, that's Mason Mills, Damon Hamer, Jaden Young, Andrew Dorn, Colette Cialante, Jesus, Ryan with no last name, Laney Talley, Christine Kind, Kind. Stop there with the vowels, please. Mr. Meowgi. That's somebody's cat, right? Meowgi. That's fantastic. That is a good name. It's a good one.

Emily Giedemann. Michael Bennett. Melissa Brown. Chris Doyle. Hannah Sutoff. Leah Muse. Leah Muse. Oh, like the dude from Clerks.

Jason. Muse. Jason Muse, yeah. What is this? Alana Clerks. Jason. Muse. Jason Muse, yeah. What is this? Alana Marie Gordon. Jody West. Kim Miller. Robert White.

Brandon Territorio. Gino. Preston. Case the Third. Jessica Bone. Hell yeah. Shelly Fane. Ken McKeon.

Fuck. Mark Daly. Mickey with no last name. Chelsea with no last name, Matthew Lang, Candace Taylor Austin, Douglas Porter, Nick Belgiorno, Amanda Yates, UPS Joe, KY, or the state of Kentucky, I'm not sure which, Riley Timmons Orr, Rick Myers, Ian Woodhams, Skyler Olig, Robbie Macon, Bud Hoffman, Cameron Cross, William with no last name, Amanda Walls, Jackie Benecke, what is this, Vicky's sister, Shea Valancourt, I think, what is this, Danielle Gledhill, James Hutchison, Andrew Morris, Caroline Quaid, the Quaid boys' sister, Anne with no last name. Tara Dacus.

Jessica Robbins-Eads. Nancy Shealy. Anna Case. Satoya Moody. Joseph Brown. Oh, like Judge Joe. Yeah. Moira Speroni.

Macy Marcelino. Sean Pomrenke. Megan Bianco. Phillip with no last name. Alexis Hunsinger. Monty. Monty Wakerlig. Boy, oh, boy,

Tawny Garcia, Graham Cox, Little Mousy Boy, Marina Boda, Adam with no last name, Rebecca Myers, Danielle Munoz, Chris Bailey, Adam Carpenter, Josh Herman, Brandy, Brandyn Ross, Tina Malia, Mad Hatter, Daniel with no last name, also Eric with no last name, Justin Robertson, Michael Johnson, Thomas Rutkowski, Shelby Bew, oh boy, Reese Turner, Eric Schiller, Silas Klisch, Amber Henshies, whoa

boy, Rebecca Morgan, Kaylee Ray, Connie Clark, Nicholas Oliver, Roberto Martha, Katya Grimm, Allison Fearfile, I don't know. Kitten Ledoux, Don South, Valerie with no last name, Leslie Dubs, Travis Zibrick, Roy Phillips, I almost pronounced that P, Dorothy with no last name, Yasmin White, Tiffany Mason, Friendly Neighborhood, Wheelie Boy, Nathan Berio,

Berio, Sylvester G, Ryan Weger, Amanda, nope, that's Amber, no last name, Mark Bruno, Dustin Rick,

Alex Walshinski, Terry Monocle, Natalie, nope, Natalia, oh, fuck, Soledivkiv, what, Soledivkiv?

Yeah, something Russian. Katya with no last name. Dallas Dennis. Colin Givens. Michael Troa Jr. Kyle Todd. Daniel Archer. Zach Wenig.

Chris Holt. Julian Rios. Hunter Pickett. Elizabeth with no last name. Joshua Bain. Tamara Colwell. Pamela K. Pamela Knapp.

Watrous. Fuck, I don't know. Peter Masters. Theo Bain. Tamara Colwell. Pamela Knapp. Watrous. Fuck, I don't know. Peter Masters. Theo Garrett. David K. Valentine. Annie Tapolesky. Liz Bengston. Nope, that's T before the S.

How do you even do that? Bengston. Ashley Turnbow. Turnboff. Rosalyn Aiken-Hall. Naomi Bell, Gennaro Passarella. That sounds delicious. Kevin Legassi, Jennifer Burke, Molly Teague, Stephanie with no last name, Heidi Overman-Rush. Nope, that's Lush Rimbaugh.

That is fucking great. Tucker Brackenberry, Deborah Edwards, Matt Brook, Kelly Anderson, Josh Venticher, Taylor Stansberry, Michael Hackney, Andrea Ann Mauricio, Casto Faclazzo, Jacob Foster. Casto Faclazzo. That's a good name. Helena Chun and Cheryl Sharp and obviously all of our patrons. Truly, you guys have given me the opportunity to be the best father I can be, and I can't thank you more or enough. Truly, thank you so much for everything you do for us.

Seriously, everybody, thank you so much. We cannot thank you enough, and we're just beside ourselves with, I don't even know what to call it, gratitude, I guess. Thank you for everything that you do for us. And we make the show for you because that's what matters. We don't give a shit about sponsors or ads or any of that stuff. We make it for you because you are the ones who support us. So thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

And Jimmy, what if they wanted to thank you or maybe have something disparaging to say? How could they get a hold of you to do so? You can write me a letter and send it in the mail. Yeah, you can stamp it, get your quill pen out and really work on it. You can find me on the Internet, just the same place you can find James. Yeah, Google us. Through the Google. Work it.

You just Google us. We'll pop up and you'll go, oh, yeah. Then you click on us and it'll say all the places you can follow us and everything like that. And we'll be so thankful that you did that. Just like we're so thankful that you listened to this show, everybody. Thank you so much. We had a good time

and we hope you did as well. And until next week, everybody, it's been our pleasure. Bye. Hey, Prime members, you can listen to Small Town Murder early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Or you can listen early and ad-free with Wond. 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

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