Small Town Murder - #235 - Night Stalker Training Program - Shenandoah, Iowa

Episode Date: August 5, 2021

This week, in Shenandoah, Iowa, a horrifyingly cruel murder leaves very few clues, other than the large serving fork, protruding from the victim's neck. Obvious factors take investigators down a road that seems to have an arrest, at the end, but they are blocked at every pass. Finally, an unlikely source comes forward with information that takes everyone by surprise, and shifts the focus somewhere completely different. To someone calling themselves "Night Stalker"! Along the way, we find out that everything is fertile in Iowa, that no one has ever fallen on on to a serving fork & impaled themselves, and that some books not only shouldn't be judged by their covers, but maybe not the first 50 pages, either! Hosted by James Pietragallo & Jimmie Whisman  New episodes every Thursday!  Donate at: patreon.com/crimeinsports or go to paypal.com & use our email: [e-mail]  Go to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things Small Town Murder & Crime In Sports!  Follow us on...  twitter.com/@murdersmall  facebook.com/smalltownpod  instagram.com/smalltownmurder  Also, check out James & Jimmie's other show, Crime In Sports! On iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Small Town Murder early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. What if you married the love of your life and then stood by them as they developed 21 new identities? What would you do? This Is Actually Happening is a weekly podcast that features extraordinary true stories of life-changing events told by the people who lived them. Listen to the newest season of This Is Actually Happening on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. This week in Shenandoah, Iowa, a seriously vicious murder leaves everyone looking at just one person,

but maybe they should look a little deeper. back to Small Town Murder. Yay! Yay, indeed, Jimmy. Yay, indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman. Thank you, folks, so much for joining us today. I can't tell you how excited we are to be here as always. It's every week, but we're excited every week. The yay is genuine. We'll put it that way. Indeed. And I second it as a matter of fact. So thank you everybody for being here. We are mighty appreciative

of it. We have a crazy show for you this week, as usual. First of all, thank you for everything you've done for us. All of you wonderful people, thank you for your reviews. They help a lot. We don't know why, but wherever you can review, Apple Podcasts or Stitcher or wherever you can, give us five stars. It does help a lot. We don't know why, but that's how they set their thing up. It's not our algorithm.

It's theirs. So who knows? So do that head over to shut up and give me murder.com right now for everything small town murder and crime and sports and everything in between check it out all sorts of merch up there get your tickets to live shows yeah my goodness we have so many live shows lined up that our fingers are crossed extra hard that we're going to be able to do here so get your tickets right now for that. There's a few left at the end of 2021, and then we have a full slate for 2022. So please do that. Fingers crossed.

And, well, at the very end of the show, we're going to talk a little bit about the touring situation and everything like that. So a little State of the Union there. So stay tuned for that, definitely. Patreon. Oh, my goodness. Patreon this week is so good. So, so good.

I can't wait. Patreon.com slash crime and sports. We have for you our two episodes. And, of course, you get access to all the Patreon for both shows, hold back catalog, everything like that. It is fantastic. We have the crime and sports one is going to be on the congressional baseball steroid inquiry when a bunch of baseball players went to congress and just lied their asses off and it was hilarious and then we'll find out exactly how badly they were all lying it'll be a good time

we're gonna have fun with that one and then one i've been looking forward to for a while this is going to be one of the most fun patreon ideas ever here it's about i call it ted bundy and his wild world of socks that's what we're gonna talk about ted bundy it's a hell of a theory it's inside i have a theory everybody i have this theory about ted bundy and his socks that if if if somehow ted bundy could have had just like an unlimited sock supply i feel like everything could have been avoided just everything it's all about socks and underwear it's a weird theory but trust me on this one it's culled from his interviews and i don't think anybody's really ever focused on it and we're gonna be the first i've never heard it in my life

and i can't wait to talk about it in 40 years of tedy talk, I think we're the first to come up with it. So we're going to come up. It's going to be awesome. It may be 50 years. When did he get arrested? In the early 80s. Yeah, you're right. It's 40.

So patreon.com slash crime and sports is where you get that. And you'll be a producer, so we need to thank you as well. In addition, we thank you with episodes, but we're going to thank you with a shout out at the end of the show where jimmy mispronounces your name that's the way that's how grateful we are isn't that sweet it's so sweet and then if you just want to be a producer and have your name mispronounced you can do that over at paypal as well using our email address crime and sports at gmail.com let's go with the disclaimer it's a comedy show it is It's a comedy show. It is. It's a comedy show. We're comedians, and so we're going to make jokes. We will. Based on the title of the show, there will be death happening and murder.

I mean, it would be a weird show if it was called Small Town Murder and we just talked about somebody, you know. Talked about the cars in Days and Twins for an hour and a half. I was going to say somebody got ripped off at the mechanic or something. They're like, what are we listening to? So there's going to be murder. So we're going to make jokes. But we're going to make jokes about the right things.

That's the thing. It's not hilarious when someone's being dismembered. That's not funny. You know what I mean? And we go out of our way not to make fun of the victims or the victims' families. Why? Because we're assholes. But we're not scumbags.

There you have it. That's the thing. We're just not. But if that sounds good to you, I think it's time. I think it's time to sit back, clear the lungs, and shout SHUT UP

AND GIVE ME MURDER! Alright, let's do this. Let's go on a trip, Jimmy! Let's get this rig rolling. We're coming from the deserts of california last week where that was definitely one of our grosser episodes that was quite quite disgusting too oh just a terrible just a terrible thing in a terrible place uh we're gonna head to a more fertile area of the country this week we're gonna head to the midwest and we're

gonna go to iowa all right yeah kind of the farm the farm epicenter of the uh country here we're gonna head to the midwest and we're gonna go to iowa all right yeah kind of the farm the farm epicenter of the uh country here we're gonna go to the belt buckle of the farm belt you think right in there yeah this is the clasp of it man this is like the hole that you put the the peg through the one that fits right we're going to shenandoah iowa all right and this is in far far southwestern i, all the way down next to Nebraska, just over Missouri and all that. It's over there. So it's about two hours and 20 minutes to Des Moines. It's on the other side of the state. It's about an hour over to Omaha, which is a little bit west of here and maybe even worse than here. And it's about, everyone's going, oh no, it's Omaha again.

Omaha takes it on the chin every week. Well, at this point, too, it's just a joke now. I mean, nobody could be as bad as we purport Omaha to be on a weekly basis. So it's just a joke at this point. I mean, and the people of Omaha are so cool. They're just like, I laugh every time. And I'm like, I love these fucking people. They're great.

So it's hard to hate Omaha in general, filled with fun people. It's about three and a half hours to Libertyville, Iowa, which was our last Iowa episode. Episode 186, way back in August 2020. So it's been a year. So we're going back here. This town is in both Page and Fremont counties, but our story takes place in Page County. Area code 712, about three and three quarters square miles. So it's a small little town.

The motto of this town is, quote, the city with energy. Oh. With energy. Yeah. Or there's a reason for that energy. And this is what the locals kind of the local motto, quote, meth is making us industrious, which is where all that energy is coming from. You know what it is? Meth. So guess what we're doing.

So the history, and I don't know that this town has a lot of meth in it, by the way. I'm just assuming. I'm just assuming. There's got to be some out there. So the history of this town, it's originally called Fair Oaks, the name here. It took its permanent name of Shenandoah in 1870 when soldiers came back from the Civil War and they thought that it looked a lot like the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. They said it's a striking resemblance, so they decided to, you know what, let's name it Shenandoah instead.

This looks like something. We're going to change the name. Yeah, now unscrew the letters off the front of the post office. We're changing it because uh johnny and bill think it looks like something okay they said it reminds them of a time they got sucked off under a bridge somewhere and that bridge looks similar i did they i guess that was in shenandoah yeah shenandoah they just said that's what he told me i loved it held it's hard to get an answer out of him he's's currently being sucked off as well. This guy never stops.

He's a monster. So it had a lot of, it's very fertile around these parts. This is very, very fertile farmland. And it became the seed and nursery capital of America in the late 1800s. Those were all your seeds and your plant nurseries. If you were getting plants, a lot of them, yeah a lot of them were coming from here than anywhere else. The Mount Arbor nurseries were there. In 1871, a guy named Henry Field was born in Shenandoah, which is hilarious because he started selling seeds.

Henry Field. Yeah. He started selling packets of seeds at age six which is very industrious yeah 15 years later he started his own like he had a company going on and all this sort of shit he by the time he died the Henry Field Company was one of the largest seed companies in the whole United States field see field see Henry Field seeds. Field seeds. Henry Field Seeds. Just field seeds.

Interesting. So Shenandoah had a minor league baseball, or a few minor league baseball teams, as a matter of fact. Oh, sure, yeah. One was called the Shenandoah Pinrollers, who didn't last very long, I assume, because they realized they weren't bowling and stopped. They showed up and they were like, what the fuck? They're wearing those shirts. Or uh women's baseball league folded what what pin rollers pin roll yeah they

show they showed up in those shirts with like a wrist guard on with weird shoes and they're like what the fuck is this you're gonna hit that plates on those smooth fuckers yeah i can't hit this fucking ball what's going onpping all over the grass. What do you mean throw the ball at him? I'm going to roll it to him. I'm really good at it. I'll get it to curve. I knocked down two of their outfielders in the dugout. It was pretty good.

I'm good at it. Put a two on the board. And then 1903, they had another one here. Although they switched leagues to the Missouri, Iowa,owa-Nebraska-Kansas League. Holy shit. My goodness. And early live radio stations gave a lot of performers their start in this town, including the Everly Brothers, who are from here. And I guess Charlie Hayden got his start here as well.

Country guy. So reviews of this town. Nobody really hates this place. I've got to be honest here yeah but they don't even when they love it there's a there's a hint of sadness um here's uh here's here's four stars uh quote i moved here from the big city first of all i want to know which one yeah if you moved here from like ames i don't want to hear it you know what i'm saying i was in sioux falls and i'll tell you what our sioux city and it's different up there boy i moved here from dodge city and this is bleak yeah i don't want to know what big city it's a nice

change of scenery and everyone has proven to be kind and friendly i guess they really had a vetting process i would recommend this town for anyone looking for a small town living with commodities. Commodities? That's not what they meant to say. Nope. They definitely didn't mean commodities, I don't think. So four stars here, another one. Shenandoah has been my home for the last 10 years. I love that the people here know, everyone, that this town flourishes in town pride and school pride. The only thing I would like to see change is using the old historic buildings that are empty downtown.

I think that the city should change them into businesses that show off the town of Shenandoah. Excellent idea. Great idea. The cities generally don't open businesses in these things, so that's different. They don't, they're not like, it's not how, you know. They don't open businesses and these things so that's different they don't they're not like it's not how uh you know they don't just open a business and give it to some guy and tell him to run it it's not how capitalism works the mayor doesn't sit there and

go we should have a shoe store right there you know should you know anybody that's good at running a shoe store i'm gonna open one up and someone has to do that you have to you know what you do that open up a fucking store down there yeah what. What do you do? Yeah. Get on the commission and start telling people, talking people into taking out loans and shit. Yeah. There you go. That's what that takes. Open up. Yeah.

Yeah. Do something down there. Open up like a payday loan place or some corrupt shit like that. That's that always makes money and robs people blind. You know. So anyway, here's a three star one here. Quote, as long as you lock up everything at night and when you're not around it should be fine oh my god that's how apparently if someone as long as it's locked they have lazy criminals really that's what it is they're like you know

it's locked we leave yeah forget it it's locked they just walk away they're just if something's loose they'll pick it up but other than that that's what my ring doorbell app is full of ps is just videos of people going this guy tried to open my car thank god i locked it okay put it in your fucking garage dipshit yeah there you go no shit that's what it is video after video of lazy criminals of a garage too that's the other thing it's the camera is above the garage because it's elevated, and it's a video of a guy trying to open his car that he evidently armed last night. That's hilarious. Oh, man.

All right. Here's a three-star. I love when they're this specific. I love when they're so angry about something, they need to go to the internet to write a review of the whole town for one little thing. Quote, it's three stars. Some restaurants are great, even if some are on the pricey side, but many of them are repeats of each other.

There isn't much diversity either. There's only one Mexican restaurant and two Chinese restaurants. That's probably for the best in southwestern Iowa. I don't know if your gut can handle that. Yeah, let's be realistic. What's the Mexican food like? Yeah, what is it? Is it Taco Bell?

What is it? I think there's one Mexican food and there's two Panda Expresses and a Taco Bell. That's what they're talking about. Here's a three-star. Quote, many of the popular stores are very expensive and don't have much variety. Okay. stores are very expensive and don't have much variety okay however the quality in the locally owned stores is better than the nationwide stores but i'd rather go to the latter than the former well then why are you saying but as you're saying the quality is better and the stores don't have

very much variety the national one so why wouldn't you go somewhere that's better that has more variety why would you say but words have meaning god damn it fuck i'd rather go where there's less shit uh for more money is that what they're saying i'm so perplexed when i read people's writing and i really realize that people were really nobody's good at stuff i'm not excluding our us out of this either i'm wearing it too but james we've you're not wrong there what advancements have we had you know we had we had tvs microwaves airplanes cars invented and now all we do is invent ways to jerk off better that's it jerk off better and and more in a more clear fashion how much more clear can i see that vagina because that's really all it is

because i need more pixels on the pussy that's what i want yeah speed internet speed goes with how how it progresses crazy you're not wrong that we're not good at anything anymore we're really not it's it's kind of i mean we're good at that don't get me wrong oh boy you can see you can see somebody's kidneys yeah other than that, so people in this town, 4,977. So almost cracking the 5,000 mark. Down 10% since 1990. Can't imagine why. Female and male populations, about average, normal. A couple more females.

The only high demographics and age, like where there's more than there should be, is there's more zero to four year old kids and there's more over 65 year old people like all the way old so fertile old people apparently the the elderly are as fertile as the soil here yeah that's good planting seeds everybody so the married population here is high it's like a family-ish kind of that kind of town 57 married in this town and the we kind of look at like you know the party people so we look at single with no children single with no children 1. Three percent Asian and about seven percent Hispanic here. So Iowa as fuck. It's very Iowa. Yeah, that's it's a that's about the Iowa ratio. And then I found religion. It's actually well, it's well it's 57 religious here which is really over the national average which is about 50 50 and the most of everybody here that comes out there's uh

is methodist there's the most methodists it's is this the only place that that's a thing and lutherans methodists and lutherans that's what we're going on here. A couple of Catholics, but not many. A Baptist here or there. A Presbyterian or two. But 0.0% Jewish, though. That's one thing that's not here. One people that don't hang out here. Page County, the whole county. This is a very pretty rural county, too.

The elections here. 27.7% voted Democrat in the last election. And 70.7% voted Republican. Over last election and 70.7 percent voter republican overwhelming 1.6 percent independence that's that's under what we usually see here uh unemployment rate is low in this town right now it's about four percent but so is the median household income so people are working but they're working for a little less. Household income is 4% too? It's about 4% of the national average. No, household income, 39,479. It may as well be 4%.

Yeah. It's so low. It's almost 58,000 in the rest of the country, so that's not. But the cost of living goes with it. Everybody that makes under $40,000 a year year all those demographics are high more of those people than than there should be or than there usually is and not as many people making over a hundred thousand dollars as other places as well uh manufacturing and retail are the two big jobs that's like 40 of the jobs are those two so that's uh you can either make shit or sell shit that's

it make it who's selling the shit i'm making brenda okay brenda here you go go sell the shit i made i manufactured it now you sell it i guess right i don't know we do moving and holding they do making and selling making and making shit selling shit moving shit holding shit they can make the shit then we'll move the shit then they can sell the shit and they'll sell the shit and then we'll move the shit, then they can sell the shit. And they'll sell the shit, and then people can move that shit wherever the hell they want. And then they can hold the shit. And then hold it for as long as they want. So the cost of living in this town, overall it's about $73, and $100 is average.

The lowest thing out of everything, health care, is like way, it's $131 health care, way out of whack. But the housing is a 32 out of 100. Oh, they're fire sales. They're giving it away. Median home costs $75,800, which is unreal. That's what, in Phoenix, which is like the hottest real estate market, quote unquote, and you know, it's ridiculous. You couldn't get, you couldn't get you couldn't get

anything for that people's sheds would be more than no you pay that in rent yeah you pay that in rent holy shit that's wild uh well if we've convinced you you know what it's time to slow it down a little bit everybody take it easy and uh take in the the mexican restaurant and the two chinese restaurants we have for you the shenandoah iowa real estate report your average two-bedroom rental here goes for ready for this six hundred sixty four dollars half for it's like a half for a two-bedroom. That's wild. You get a roommate, pay under $400 a month each for rent. That's awesome. I found a three-bedroom, one-bath.

So the T-Bowl to B-Hull ratio is a little off there. But it's a small place. I don't know where they're fitting three bedrooms. 893 square feet. What? Yeah, tiny, but it's an actual house. It's not a trailer. It's an actual house with a concrete slab and everything. Needs a little work. We'll say that. And I mean that sarcastically. Actual like holes in the floor.

frames spray painted in black paint is the word bubba's with an apostrophe in other words this i don't know if the doorway or the whole home something here belongs to bubba we do know he's showing ownership that is incredible bubba's uh above the is it inside or outside oh inside inside it's like in like the master bedroom above the door frame it's beautiful right and right on the drywall all right i don't even know what the fuck the wall is, but it's written Bubba's. Some sort of plaster. Some sort of plaster, but the price? $14,500.

I mean, Jesus Christ. You can't get a used car for $14,500. That's awesome. And that's what they'll pay you to take this house off their hands. Wow. I found kind of the nice version of this house. Two bedroom, one bath, 900 square feet. Okay.

Nice, decent, livable. Bubba has not been here or anything like that. No holes in the floor. $48,000 for that house. Unbelievable. That's wild. What does that mortgage even work out to? How do you even? I can't. What's the math? does that mortgage even work out to? How do you even, what's the math?

What, like a 30 year? You put 4,800 down and then you mortgage like 40 grand over 30 years. If you pay three times the home's value over 30 years, that's 120 grand. Divide that by 30, you're like 40 grand a year. Is that what it is? No, it's not. No, it's way less than that. That's what you'd be doing over three years.

No, it's like... That's 40 grand over 10 years. It's like 120 bucks a month in mortgage. That's wild for a house. Then I found, this is the gem of the town here, a four bedroom, two bath, 2,042 square foot. So it's roomy.

It's got a nice front porch, actually. You could use some updating and things like that, but it's decent4 500 bucks for that wow which yeah in phoenix that's 600 grand easy if it's in a shit neighborhood so things to do in this town why it's oh boy uh i found some some stuff here uh what is this is this the shen Fest? Yeah, I think this is the Shen Fest here. The Shen Fest is an annual, not an animal, an annual community-wide celebration held with a huge parade, a fun run, entertainment, food vendors, tractor show, a tractor show. Of course. Pancake feed. What the fuck is that? i've heard of like a pancake

breakfast but a feed that sounds like you they throw them into your mouth or they tie your hands behind your back and put them in a trough in a trough he doesn't all you can eat and then you just dig in and move your face around they pour syrup on that shit oh man uh this year will be the 150th anniversary of the place i guess of since they renamed shenandoah and um in addition to the regular shen fest events like a large car show and kids games multiple class reunions let's get everybody together what class reunions at a fucking festival okay i think it's not just what the festival is, then. It's just a class reunion? It seems like it.

There's a presentation by Chuck Offenberger on revitalizing for the future. So maybe he's going to talk about, maybe he's the guy saying we need more buildings downtown with Jitten. Revitalize. Not bad. The Fireman's Fundraising Pan uh thing five dollars i don't know if it's five dollars to feed the pancakes to people or to eat them three dollars for kids there it's only from 7 45 to 8 15 so you really gotta be on time it's a tight window for a feed i mean a feed could take longer than that right let's be there's a three window for a feed. I mean, a feed could take longer than that, right?

There's a three-mile fun walk here. Oh, yay. How about that? Jesus Christ. Shop the retail hub of Shenandoah while you tour the Iowa Walk of Fame. It's got three stars on it. It's a very small area in Shenandoah's beautiful downtown streetscape. Apparently, it's full of empty buildings. The Walk of Fame highlights over 120 famous Iowans from around the state.

Excellent. They got 120? Apparently. I mean, from around the state. Yeah, I'm sure there's people from Iowa, from around the state, but from this town. In Shenandoah, you're going to praise a guy from Davenport? What are we doing? Apparently, yeah.

I mean, Des Moines is uh gonna be strong here it's also there is a like a part of it is the Everly Brothers childhood home is on there on the tour and you go there and there's a like a video shown about the house that you can watch and all this type of shit and then uh the fair the uh Everly Brothers if you don't know were kind of an old i guess they're kind of like country crooners i guess i would call them would you call it that i guess so they did um bye bye love was their first hit in 57 it's essentially like early rock i guess right yeah i guess but it's country though too because all their shit is country after that wake up little suzy they were doing like iowa yeah they were doing like that 50s rock and roll with a country twang

to it basically is how they were doing wake up little suzy all that shit like that's it's pretty boys for a guy on a combine exactly exactly it's the plow boys that's what they were the plow boys that's it the field boys not the beach boys the field boys so uh it's uh also at the end of this though the important things the miss shenandoah contest why do you do this and then even worse the little miss shenandoah pageant. The worst possible thing. Stop judging children's looks in town contests. It's just so creepy. It doesn't feel right at all. I mean, I guess. No.

They're over 18. I guess it's not so bad. It is still bad because it's creepy. No. It's fucking weird. They should be judged by only children their own age. That's it. No one else is allowed in.

And only in a negative light. Yeah. Otherwise, they're all like Frank's little beauties on uh i'm always sunny oh that's all i say otherwise i don't bang kids and never want to bang kids so that weird scene in little miss sunshine yeah yeah oh my god crime rate in this town what we're interested in here property crime is a little bit under half the national average so it's it's pretty safe like you guys said you lock your shit nobody will bother it violent crime murder rape robbery and of course assault the mount rushmore of crime is again under half the national average so terrific it is low uh i said i noticed i looked they had this stat and i

noticed they had zero rapes in 2014 and 2015 and then 20 in 2016 they saved them up what the fuck happened there one guy maybe is it i mean was it one guy on a spree or is it just like losing his mind everybody there was like some sort of like crew of like X-Men that put all hands in the middle and went, whoa. Rape on three. Fucking weird as shit, right? They broke their safe streak of zero in 24 months. By 20. Just killed it.

Terrible. I don't know what happened, but hide. Everyone hide. Now, let's talk about a murder in this safe little farmy town. A place of seeds. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about a guy first here. First up, we'll talk about Robert Borton is his name.

Okay. Now, Robert, he's born in 1947. And we're going to catch up with Robert where our story is in the late 80s. So we'll kind of listen as Robert goes through. He's born in Marshalltown, Iowa, apparently. And he graduated Semcoe High School, which sounds like it sells weird gadgets on TV. Doesn't it? It sounds like Ronco.

Ron Popeil talks about this shit. Yeah, you can buy a microwave that cooks a chicken also you know wait there's more but yeah yeah there's more than all of that a thing pops out of the top and cotton candy can be made as well it's called remco semco semco yeah remco is an old toy company actually that's what i guess yeah it's just like remco but with an s instead fascinating he went there and then he went into the u.s navy as well uh there uh when he was in the navy he gets out of the navy and uh so i don't know if that was probably during vietnam i would assume jesus probably went in 65 it's the time yeah um you know you're probably but if he's in the navy that was uh fought in jungle so So hopefully the Navy was there, too.

I mean, Christ almighty. They had all the ships on the I mean, they trudging through. Yeah. I mean, think about Gulf of Tonkin incident was the whole that lie. But still, that was a naval ship sitting there. That was the whole pretext of the of the escalation. So, yeah, they were definitely there with the plus aircraft carriers. That's they would get the shit there.

Let's say you were definitely there. Plus aircraft carriers. Yeah, that's where they get the shit there. That's how you get them there. So anyway, he also was in the Navy. He meets a young lady. Terrific. He meets a young lady named Cynthia Doms, D-A-H-M-S, Doms. And she is born in 1949, so she's a couple years younger than him. But they get along. They're both very nice people. They're both very nice people.

They're both very nice. Cynthia is like a, she's like a Disney character, basically. She's like bubbly and happy and just- You met her back in Iowa after the war? Yeah, because she's from Iowa as well. She's all American. Yeah, who knows, coming home in between or whatever it was but uh they ended up being married in 1969 wow so yeah he's 22 she's 20 summer of love i mean

i mean christ who played at the wedding john cougar mellencamp and this is the most this is the most like iowa and he's coming in his naval uniform and they're gonna you know Iowa and he's coming in his naval uniform and they're gonna get married and a girl is practically a teenager and it's just very, I don't know how beautiful it is. It's a bad idea probably. It works out sometimes.

In 69 it's gorgeous. Exactly. Right now if you had a son who came home from the Navy and was like, I'm getting married. You would slap him across the face so fucking hard. Use your GI Bill and go to college you dumb getting married you would slap him across the face so fucking hard use your gi bill and go to college you dumb fuck you would beat him you would you would beat him until the woman wouldn't want him anymore because he'd be full of some bruises you're not getting married

at 22 you're not you're fucking not no i know that sounds excessive, but it's usually not a good idea to get married at 22. No, it's not. Back then, people would stay together for 50 years. Today, it happens, some people, but it's more rare. It's more rare. So they get married. Her parents here, she's got a brother as well. And her dad's name is vernon by the way

yeah vernon sounds like a farmer doesn't it or a farmer's wife well yeah well they do that both ways his wife's name is marcella which is interesting yeah isn't she like italian or something as much as it gets for iowa that's what i'm saying so yeah i don't know if she was uh as it gets for Iowa. That's what I'm saying. So yeah, I don't know if she was he's like, I found a fiery Italian that I like and she makes me that spaghetti there. It's pretty good.

Or Latin America. Or she could be Latin. Who the hell knows? Either way, she's She's If it's Marcella Thompson, we got a problem. Yeah, then that'd be different. Who knows? So then we're like then it's just we wouldn't know then it's hands up we're going huh yeah it could just be that

somebody they met in their life they're like that's a beautiful name we're gonna name our daughter that yeah or I knew a girl in you know college named Marcella I want to name her after her because she died in a tragic boating accident when she tried to parasail. She was my first love. She was my first love, and I decided never to have a woman again because that's why I married this man. I know you were saying the other way, but you know what? Let's make it interesting. Let's spice it up a little bit. I like that better. Yeah, let's spice it up a little bit.

I feel like this is much—isn't it a much more interesting story now? Just the whole thing? It is. Because you're like, yeah, okay, I see this. And now, I mean, it hurt her so much that it broke her sexuality. That would be different. It doesn't happen often. College girl-on-girl love affair.

Ah, man. Here we are. Here we are. It's a tragic boating accident. Very tragic. It was terrible. So, yeah, it meets. Anyway, they get married in 1969.

He enters the ministry in 1977 and becomes a pastor. Robert does. Almost 10 years later? Yeah, Robert and Cynthia Borton. Yeah, he gets out of the Navy, and then I think he's kicking around, has some jobs, and he decides to enter the ministry. He becomes a pastor. And he's a pastor for a while in Shenandoah at the Church of God there, which seems like a very basic name. Yeah. Church of Christ, up church of god it's all

it's all very not very creative you're up all night there's a round table there's like chinese food containers knocked over and like you're just like i don't fucking know pizza boxes are open you've come up with all these names and someone's like let's just call it the fucking church of god all right fine and someone goes great we're going. And then they throw the pen down and leave. They'll think it's the original, let's leave. Yeah, I don't care anymore. Church of God. It says it all that it needs to say.

We're a church and we like God. Moving on. Now we're just like a building in a strip mall that just says tax services over it. Tax services. Yeah. Or the one in Tamale Shop. You're like, okay. Wonder what's there. I'm going there i'm gonna say it does the job

but it's not very creative no not at all in plain text it's all a light-hearted nightmare on our podcast morbid we're your hosts i'm alina urquhart and i'm ash kelly and our show is part true crime part spooky and part comedy the stories we cover are well-researched. He claimed and confessed to officially killing up to 28 people. With a touch of humor. I'd just like to go ahead and say that if there's no band called Malevolent Deity, that is pretty great. A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing. This mother****er lied.

Like a liar. Like a liar. 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. 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. 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. So he graduates, actually, from the seminary at Evanston, Illinois, in 1981.

And then from 1982 till 1984, he works for the Church of God in Shenandoah as a pastor. And in 1984, though, he leaves the church. Now, I don't know if part of this apparently they there's a lot of money struggles going on all the time between the with the couple and they have a son named john and that's born in 1970 so i mean right after they got married i don't know if i don't know if that was why they got married or what perhaps that hastens the deal yeah or they could have you know waited and then you know been so built up that one shot and she's it's all next thing you know you're having a kid yeah yeah who knows what happened here so he ends up leaving the church and that's the only thing i could think is possibly for monetary reasons that he needed to make more money for the family because at one point here in the 80s cynthia is

you know she's a homemaker too she's taking care of the son and everything like that and she volunteers at churches and she also works three different part-time jobs to make ends meet here and there just works at three different places. Not all in the same day. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She doesn't wake up at five and then get home at one o'clock in the morning. Run three four-hour shifts at three different places? My God, I'm just bushed.

Three six-hour shifts got me hurting. But she goes around, and he ends up getting a job at Select Motors in Shenandoah. He worked there while he was at the church but i feel like he went there and kind of took more hours and uh that sort of thing because like i said money was a concern for the couple like a big concern so uh cynthia's making ends meet doing odd jobs she he does a couple of you know little odd jobs too in addition to the select motors deal so it's a you know it's a it's a it's moving that's it's this is a a family that's trying

this is what happens when you get married at 22 and have a kid is you have to struggle financially because you know it's it's rare that you're 25 and just doing financially amazing that's just not that you aren't expected to be either that's the other thing like if you're if you're 25 and you're broke yeah that's you're that's about right you know you're on the right path don't worry about it don't don't get all angry yeah don't get upset remember remember how upsetting that was though oh boy you just felt like ah what the fuck why am i a loser at like 23 why don't i have money that 50-year-olds have? I don't get it.

It was more than that for me, because I'd look at my friends that were the same age, and they're doing fine. And I'm just like, well, how the fuck are you doing that? We work at the same place. I was going to say, they were drug dealers was the problem. So I was like, well, yeah, obviously you're doing fine, asshole. They have the same job yet you have a new car and i rode the bus here well i had a i got married and had a kid early so

yeah that was for me like well everybody else was like hey this is great and doing this shit i was like i have to buy diapers you know like this isn't great yeah are you guys so happy i i got i bought tickets to game seven of the world series that year whether i worked for the timing backs there and rather than going to the game like i wanted to and you know it was three rows off the dugout i sold them i sold them because i needed the money so you know not that that's like a sob story but i'm you know i bought them to sell them and like that's i was just trying to hustle while other kids that were 22 if they got a hold of those they were just went to the game and got drunk and had a good time you know like that would have been that so laughing about how much you just

pissed away oh yeah well they were like 300 bucks face value but then i sold them for like you know 1800 a piece or some shit so right you had to do it it was like well that's three months rent and profit on these tickets i kind of have to can't really go to the game that'd be dumb of me that buys me a shitload of name brand diapers i'm gonna get name brand this time oh i'm doing more diaper rash it's going we're gonna get desitin too it's gonna be excellent no more red thighs madison there we go kiddo enjoy that until the money runs out let's let's hope they get to the world series again next year fingers crossed so we can all kind of relate to this or not all of us but a lot of us can relate to this kind of

this hustling struggle of just being a young family and trying to work through shit it's so fucking hard it's hard it's real hard so um 1988 comes around and young john is 18 years old and uh and uh robert's working at select motors and cynthia's got her part-time things and she's a homemaker uh she works at a donut shop part-time apparently in the afternoons and uh september 6th 1988 to be exact robert uh strolls into his home at about 3 30 p.m he strolls on in because he got a call from cynthia's boss that she didn't show up for more for work that day so he's like what the hell's going on here so uh he goes over there now sue rogers is the name of the manager of the donut shop and she got a hold she called robert at work to find out where the fuck cynthia is hey where's

your where's your wife uh she said she was always on time or a little bit early so uh she was about an hour and a half late. So she's already calling. Oh, that's super late. That's that's very late. But I mean, maybe she's no call, no show. You're calling her whole family already going, hey, where is she? So Roger said, quote, she was always on time or a little early.

I thought maybe there was some confusion about the holiday weekend because it's Labor Day weekend. I thought maybe there was some confusion about the holiday weekend because it's Labor Day weekend. And she might have thought that she was due for work at 3 p.m., but she didn't show up then either. So that's when she started calling. And she says this is the manager again. She says, quote, her husband thought she might have been taking a nap and overslept possibly. So I sent Ruth Fender, another employee, out to their house. And she yelled through the screen door because the door was open the screen door was closed and she said she yelled through the screen door but got no response uh she said the door was open but she didn't go inside

because there was the dog barking and she wasn't familiar with the dog and didn't know if i go inside is this dog gonna bite me which? There's that. That's rude. And it's also, yeah, that's the other thing. What if she comes out in her bra with a Walkman and headphones on fucking dancing or something? What are you going to do? Well, she's dusting. Yeah. What are you going to do?

You're going to go, oh. I forgot she had work today. Oh, my God, your tits are out. Sue's wondering why you're late for your shift. Like, hey, leave me alone. I'm in my fucking underwear here. I'm flaunting my rack. Get the fuck out of my living room this is what we don't know what women do in world they're alone by the way this is what we imagine i assume we assume it's awesome they're frolicking around yeah yeah i assume it's everything that

we all want it to be yeah what we think we would do if we were in that situation and we had boobs basically going around going these are wonderful like dancing like standing in the mirror gripping them every once in a while yeah just like i mean we're dudes we don't have boobs no and we still helicopter our dicks in the mirror and do dumb shit i'd be doing ballet if i had boobs i'd be pirouetting and this is wonderful doing a handstand seeing if i can hit myself in the mirror and do dumb shit i'd be doing ballet if i had boobs just like i'd be pirouetting and this is wonderful doing a handstand seeing if i can hit myself in the face with them they're amazing then again if we had them we probably wouldn't be that excited to play with them in that same novelty might wear off yeah that's the problem because it's been 40 years i've seen a lot

of them i want to see more that's the thing if you if you put boobs on me right this minute i'm into it and i'm going to be into it forever but if you put them on me at like an early age and maybe i'd be tired of them by now or if i was born with them and then it wouldn't be as good not quite as great but that's what i assume that's going on in the house so ruth fender though she's not going in because the dog was barking and um so anyway she they send uh the husband ends up coming home robert sure he walks in and he sees a different thing once he opens the door once he opens the door he finds cynthia that's the good news i suppose um you know where she is problem is and more than a problem is the first thing ro Robert sees is, A, a shitload of blood everywhere,

and B, Cynthia lying on her back with, you know, like when you barbecue and you put meat on, the two-pronged big fork that you use to put meat on. No, the steak fork. The big giant, yeah, the big long one so you don't burn your hand. Right. One of those is sticking straight up from her throat. Oh my God. And she doesn't appear to be in any sort of live shape

at this point. So she appears to be expired and has the fork sticking out. Barbecue fork. That is's crazy what a terrible choice of a murder weapon that is fucking man that's brutal right in the throat too it was sticking straight out like some sort of you know horror movie prop basically left in yeah um and it it gets worse too like in the house you could could see later on that there was a struggle. There's things knocked over.

There's blood smeared here and there. I mean, it's obvious. And a fight. It's obvious that this didn't go down easy or quick. And then you could see in the blood where she crawled on the floor through her own blood to try to get to the telephone basically she almost made it to the phone but didn't make it to the phone and then she's on her back and then there's a a fork sticking out of her neck um it is just absolutely fucking brutal though i mean just brutal um there's no uh the screen door was, you know, had a lock on it or whatever.

So there's that. There's no like wide open doors. There's no wide open windows. There's nothing, the house hasn't been ransacked. There's no, you know, drawers haven't been gone through. The only thing that's messed up is where the struggle was. That's it. So everything else is in perfect place where it was this morning.

No, son is not there no one's there uh 18 year old son not there and there's nothing missing from the home either nothing at all like nothing so there's that so this and when they do a little further investigation and we'll we'll we'll get into this here um she, we'll talk about Robert for a second. What we're saying is that the scene is chaotic and personal. It's chaotic and personal. And somebody clearly left casually. Yes, and we find out later on,

not only is there a two-pronged fork sticking out of her neck, she's been stabbed 29 times, and her throat was likely cut as well. So this is five different murders in one on one lady who, by all accounts, is the sweetest lady that's going here. Yeah, she sells donuts and everybody loves her. And she's just a nice woman who, bubbly, No one has a bad word to say about her. So, yeah, the manager, as a matter of fact, said, quote, We were all absolutely shocked at what happened. It's hard to believe she worked for me for four years. She was a friend and a loyal employee, always smiling and happy. She would do anything for anyone. She had a very big heart. Why would anyone do this so it's um yeah they said that it's it's so vicious that it's obviously murder is the there's no there's no alternate motive and then someone had to murder her in between there's no robbery there's no anything this is i'm gonna kill this fucking

person yeah this isn't like just uh oh i need to steal this i'm to get rid of this person quick because this took a while and was very difficult to do so uh robert said uh that he had seen her three hours earlier is what he said he came home for lunch yeah uh you know from work he works about a mile away less than a mile away from the house on the street so right down the street so he said he came home for lunch and then he went back to work. And that was that. He said, quote, I kept thinking it had to be a bad dream and I was just going to wake up and it was all going to be better.

So, yeah, they immediately, they think of, okay, who could do this? She has no enemies whatsoever. She has no, she's not a gambler she's not she's not into drugs or anything like that where she owed somebody a shitload of money and they're gonna make a statement on her she's not lifestyle she's not selling meth or anything she's just raising a kid and you know married and she's a fucking iowa just a woman right your average joe or jane or whatever the hell you want to call her i don't know know. It's got to be Jane, right?

I would think. I mean, you could call her whatever you want, I guess. Is there an average? Is there an average? Jane does. Average Joe. Right. That's what I'm thinking.

But then Joe is a John Doe. So I don't fucking know. Anyway, either way, your average goddamn woman name. I don't know. Pick one. Okay. Plain Jane. There's that.

There's plain Jane. We're going with Jane. Okay. We're going with Jane. Jimmy, I'm making an executive decision. It's Jane. There's plain Jane. We're going with Jane. OK, we're going with Jane. Jimmy, I'm making an executive decision. It's Jane. We'll run it. Write it down, everybody. It's Jane. So they keep Jane Q public here. They don't know how to deal with this. There's not really a there's not really a huge go to for for generally a part-time donut maker, homemaker person. That's not really a, oh, that's usually this person. There's no robberies being done around town or anything like that.

Unless it's that mustached fuck that gets up real early at Dunkin'. Oh, that son of a bitch. That guy's creepy, man. Time to make the donuts and kill some women. That would have been a different commercial. Time to make the donuts and kill some women. If he said that shit like under his breath, that would have been amazing. Would not be surprising.

He looks like the type. He looks so miserable. He's getting up at three in the morning. I mean, you'd want to kill somebody. I don't know if it had to be women. Doesn't have time to have a wife he's got a fucked up schedule just make a pack to kill the first donut customer every morning his first person that shows up oh yeah motherfucker 450 you're banging on my door when you know we open at five you're getting do investigations in the house they not one single usable print can be lifted

from anything in the house uh that's that was out of place of what would be abnormal there's no outside prints nothing on any of the knives with that much blood not an accident that's right even a print in the blood something like that footprints really nothing like that they can't find uh the fork uh basically or the uh the other knives in the kitchen they don't they fingerprint all of those nothing uh nothing they uh they're not they don't think that they don't find what they believe to be the murder weapon the knife that's used to cut their cut her throat and stab her a lot either they don't really they don't think that's on hand either and the only thing they find is this fork and there's not a usable print on it or anything

like that so there's really it is not a lot of evidence there's no like i said footprints no fingerprints that don't wouldn't belong there anyway that aren't just the family or you know that sort of thing uh so no anything taken um it's very strange basically uh it's very fucking strange so the police chief when arrives because it's a small town and when someone's been viciously murdered the chief shows up yeah you're getting the chief today that's he's gonna get to the bottom of this so great so bob's standing outside robert's standing outside um and he said uh you know they're sitting there talking to him and uh he didn't really know the chief didn't really know him he didn't really know the chief but they knew of each other because it's a small town so that's but they didn't know like oh they weren't like best friends or anything so he says to him

you know i know this is tough on you but i have to ask do you have any idea who could have done this with to your wife and he said no not at all i have no no idea what the whatever um whatsoever they start talking a little bit more but it's at that point that John pulls up. The kid comes home. He comes home and he says that he sees his father in front of the house leaning on his mother's car. And he's like, why is mom's car home? He says his first thought is, well, mom should be at work. What's going on here? know he's a senior at behind high school by the way and he said that uh you know i don't know what was going on he said but then he found out that his mother was killed and that's the problem so that would make more sense why the cops are there and his mom's car is still

home so this as you might imagine in a town that in 2015 or 14 and 15 had zero rapes will this is nuts and the murders dude there's just none when you look at it for years and years i mean murders don't happen here they happen every few decades not every few years even it's it's you know it's been 25 years we should start looking for another murder type of thing. Doesn't happen. So people fucking freak out. Sure. Freak out. They said the one sheriff said that there hadn't really been anything around here like this since the 50s.

That's like none of these cops were even on the force or even thinking about it. Most of them weren't even alive yet when this shit happened absolutely never investigated a murder not like this especially i mean the county people have and stuff but this is like holy shit this is a crazy one and there's no obvious clues so um you know they said everyone was thinking what if it's a serial killer because that's what everybody was so worried about back then you know this was the year after ted bundy was executed and i mean we were very serial killer centric in the 80s because that was so big at the time and the midwest was had a lot of them yeah and this didn't make any sense this was just this slaughtered woman who you know obvious overkill yeah you know so people are wondering what it is

who it is what if it's somebody running around all around town and you know who the hell knows it could be somebody from town it could be some outsider they have no idea they're freaking out everybody's looking at each other sideways it's literally like no one trusts anybody anymore yeah in town you know you're looking at bob the vegetable guy you're like i don't know about this guy so this uh people started they i was in the papers that people are locking their doors for the first time in history now that's great and all this type of shit which is not a good good reason to do it but good it's so easy to unlock a door this is what i don't get why people don't i'm not locking my door yo is is this this motion with your finger like that that thing that an infant could do could do, is that what's keeping you from keeping murderers out of your home?

Just that right there? A little twist? Also, a lot of houses, mine included, have a tiny little window right next to the fucking door that if you smash it, very easy to manipulate that fucking log. Yeah, but it gives you a little extra warning. I suppose, yeah. They can't quietly walk in you hear the yeah smash uh-oh intruder you know something so uh the mayor robert creighton he said we're a funny town with a lot of single elderly women living by themselves so they all

really freaked out this was like oh boy bingo night was a whole other thing. Now that's all they were talking about a bingo night. So obviously there's an investigation here. And immediately, basically, based on all the evidence, no evidence of sexual assault either, by the way, of any kind. So a brutal murder, no obvious overkill, multiple weapons used, looks like anger involved. There's violent stabs and things like that that are deep and they're not just utilitarian. They look like someone's having a party. Obviously, coupling rape with it is fucking horrific.

Yeah. But is it worse that all they wanted was to fucking murder i yeah i you know what i don't know if that's sicker or what yeah because most of the time like we're going to talk a lot about ted bundy on the bonus and his sock thing but like like ted bundy the murder was just to get rid of people right like it's just to shut up the rape victim he liked to capture and have and fucking fuck with people and like he liked having a butterfly in a jar you know what i'm saying and to tap on the side and fuck with it and rattle its cage and sure you know scare it and then

hurt it and that's what he liked to do and then he was like well i gotta throw this out otherwise she's gonna tell on me so right exactly that's what it is with him. And I think that. And then he was like, maybe if I cut her head off and fuck it, that's good, too. Who knows? That was also part of it. I don't know where he got that idea. But I guess if you're already doing that other sick shit, you might. I don't know. I don't know.

You're already there. You're already there. This is like as a person that obviously is in the pool. If you're in the pool of victims in the town, possible victims, if somebody just breaks in just to fucking butcher you, is that worse than them wanting to rape you? I can't tell.

I can't tell either. What's scarier, honestly? I don't know. But, you know, as far as police officers go, when a detective's investigating things like this, it's an Occam's razor situation, too. They're not thinking what's oh maybe it was a fucking aliens that came down or maybe it's somebody from five towns over they're gonna look at who who would have who could have had more this much rage and had no motivation to steal or to rape or to do any of this shit really it's really pretty narrow at that point you know what i mean you're like it's the

husband or it's the son really is what they're thinking i mean who else could it fucking be and as somebody that's that's been raped uh i don't i'm kind of thankful he didn't murder me james i'm thankful as well yes that's true there is still a side that's like worse i mean yeah this is i just can't tell which is which. I don't know how controversial, but obviously it's worse to rape and kill someone than, you know, obviously the more things you do, the worse it is. I think obvious. I mean, it's just not mathematics at that point.

I'm looking at the victim side. Which one would you rather be? Because I don't know that I want somebody just to come in just to butcher me. At least rape me for Christ's sake. At least have a reason. Rob me for something. Rob or rape me. What are you going to do?

Jesus Christ. Once again, Jimmy is allowed to say this. I can say that shit. Because he's had quite a run of it, everybody. I think I've earned it. Yeah, I would say so. I'd say still in therapy for it think i've earned it yeah i would say so i'd say still in therapy for it means you've earned it this is this is how i believe this is how your therapist told you to

deal with it isn't it like so you're helping jimmy get through it right now laugh laugh laugh at this man laugh at his pain it's what he wants and this is how comedians this is how fucked up we are yes as comedians that we turn this into if i tell everyone maybe i'll get laughs out of it well who hell is wrong with us in general like taking the sting out of it by putting it on you it's the most painful things that have happened to me let me try to twist that into a humor for people who just came out to have some drinks and loosen up for the night let me see if i can dump that onto them because that's the art form and that's the trick of it is then making them laugh at that horrible shit is like i just performed if i just walked up on the street and told you that shit you would

be horrified horrified but i packaged it so well make you make you get a babysitter and pretend to come out for a date that's right all of a sudden it's okay and i can and i package it just right with this microphone and somehow it's funny i don't know what it is somehow my pain means a lot to you so um so yeah they want to first of all first thing they want to do is they go to bob's job because they're like all right let's check out and see if Bob when exactly he got back to work. And no matter what, back then, this isn't a computer time. Like he has a sign in sheet and a time card situation, but it's not a computer. And he also lives less than a mile from home.

So you could literally say you were going to the bathroom and go home and come back. You know what I'm saying? And nobody would notice. It would take you 10 minutes. the bathroom and go home and come back. You know what I'm saying? And nobody would notice. It would take you 10 minutes. So that's a different thing. So they go to check on his job. And he's been there for over five years and, you know, very studious worker. It's a car dealership there.

And he cleans the cars for the dealership. He's like the car detailer guy that gets him ready for sale okay that's what he's doing and um they they basically said uh you know what time did he get to work and the guy said when he's he got here when he always gets here like when he's supposed to he got here seven o'clock said he went to lunch around noon got back around one and uh he went right back to work that was that and they said um well what did he do when he got back to work did he what work did he do and he said well he turned in all his dirty uniforms for cleaning and then went back to work uh-huh yeah he had a pile of dirty uniforms to turn in for cleaning that day that he brought

in at one o'clock when he came back from lunch it was laundry day there and uh it was already picked up by a laundry service out of omaha and was already clean by the time because they went to the job the next morning the police to talk about this yeah and that shit had been taken the last afternoon and was scheduled to be returned today so it's already been it's already fucking omaha at the outback steakhouse getting laundered it's already been it's already been laundered in a thousand degree, you know, whatever they put on work uniforms to kill whatever's on there in a Burlington factory. Because that's the thing. That's the way Omaha does it. The shit that gets done there has nothing to do with the name of the place. A Burlington coat factory. That's true. The mattress factory where you go get a sub sandwich. Yeah, that's perfect. Right. That's good.

the mattress factory where you go get a sub sandwich yeah that's perfect right that's good or the it is a strange town yeah it's a fucking weird place it really is my favorite they go do the laundry down there at the panda express you know how you do it you know i go down to the subway to go to the to see the tits in the strip club you know so they got them there. It's perfect. I go over to Golden Corral to get my license plates renewed. Every time. They do. They're the quickest.

Then I can scoop into that tuna water while I'm at it. So basically, this guy, the manager, tells the police this just you could probably watch them wilt when they told him that they went oh no he didn't fucking break they were like did you see what he had and he was like just a bag of clothes i mean like always he has a bag of uniforms it's what every tuesday we have that they're like and he brought him from lunch yesterday and fucking perfect they're just like fuck like could this be any fucking worse? They have no evidence. And the one piece that they think they might have has been steam washed to shit and is professionally washed and gone now.

Sterilized and perfect. Yeah. So they're like, fuck, basically. And people around town are definitely not treating Robert like a grieving widower. Really? Yeah. He notices that, you know, he said people used to smile at me just in town. He'd smile and say hello and good morning.

He says now people cross to the other side of the sidewalk when I come walking down the street. Literally, people will go across the street to ignore him. Like he is, they're treating him like OJ. Literally, people will go across the street to ignore him. They're treating him like OJ. Like OJ at a country club in 96 when he tried to go back and be himself. And they were like, excuse me? It didn't work out well.

Everybody's just very suspicious of him. That's all there is to it. So they canvass the neighborhood as well they ask for any these small towns one thing we know is any suspicious activity if there's a strange car in front of a house that just stopped by and you know butchered somebody somebody took got a look at it goddamn guarantees one of these single old ladies that they were talking about was looking out the window with a notepad right in the license plate down. We've had so many cases broken by nosy old ladies on this show. Just never underestimate.

They're amazing. Never underestimate the boredom of an old lady sitting by a window. And just downright observance they are they fucking they're as old as they are they focus and remember shit they're vigilant man that's the thing so honestly honestly if you are like uh like a you know like a wire style drug dealer like you have a spot and everything with like people on the street selling don't get some fucking they get 12 year old kids to be lookouts first of all that's just shitty don't fucking get this kid in trouble number one and number two 12 year old kids are suck at everything they're terrible at everything hire like 78 year old women to be your lookouts they'll sit on the

stoop no one will ever suspect them and they'll notice everybody they'll notice everything they'll tell you what your dealers were doing. They'll tell you what the other dealers across the street were doing, how many customers came by, when the cops are here. Yeah. That's what you do. And then teach the elderly lady street lingo, because it's hilarious to hear an old lady scream, Favo! Favo, one time! That's what I want to hear

now call Ethel screaming one time one time and you should just give her the drugs too because no one's going to mess with her cop comes up he'd be like hello young man did you see any young boys around here

running around oh no it's been quiet this morning sir what's the cop young man young man Did you see any young boys around here running around? Oh, no. It's been quiet this morning, sir. What's the cop, young man? Young man? No, young man. I have not. I know your grandmother.

Tell her I'll see her at church on Sunday. I remember when you used to run around with poop in your pants. I remember when you were born. I might have the birth announcement on my fridge still. Come inside. Have some good chocolate. I have to go get the drug dealers now. I can't, okay. I might have the birth announcement on my fridge still. Come inside. Have some chocolate. I have to go get the drug dealers now. I can't, okay?

I just have to go. Let me make you a bologna. Get in here. You still keep Werther's in your purse, though? Because those were good. I'll take one of those. Why, yes, I do. And she gives him a crack vial instead.

Oh, I'm sorry. That's not a Werther's. So, I don't want to watch that scene play out if we made a spoof of the wire that would be on that's it right there screaming one time in 5-0 5-0 so

and then Omar just beating the shit out of old women Popo hide your shit yeah whooping old women's ass-po, hide your shit. Yeah. Whooping old women's asses. Oh my God. 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. 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. So they go around you. They find one particular woman, an older lady, shockingly enough. And they said, did you see anything out of the ordinary?

And she said, yes. As a matter of fact, I did. I saw a kid running through the neighborhood. Okay. Okay. Which doesn't really sound that promising. They said, do you remember how old he was? And she said, maybe a teenager.

So, again, not too accurate um she said though that she definitely noticed that it was a kid because she was saying why isn't why isn't this kid in school this time of day okay that was her thought they said do you remember what he was wearing and she said no i really didn't get a good look at him just he was a kind of thin and had like light brown hair that's all that's all i know about him and they said okay thank you and that's the only information of the whole neighborhood that they got was they saw a kid and that that description fits the son john pretty pretty close really that's a pretty close description of the son john he's a guy he's just a thin guy with light brown hair and uh they were like well that that

fits him um so so far we got we got work clothes guy over here we got laundry day happening and then we got this kid seen running through the neighborhood uh with no other evidence so they're like seems like we're gonna focus on these two and not the fucking rest of the. Let's leave the rest of Iowa out of this for now. You know, let's. We'll stay in the first ripple away from the body first. Exactly. Yeah. Let's get stay in there and disqualify that first.

So they're starting to wonder about everything now. Now the funeral comes around. It's the funeral for Cynthia. And it's obviously very sad. Like tons of people come that had just met her and that she sold donuts to and everything else because she was such a nice person, and everybody liked her. The law enforcement agency here will not let him into the house to get clothes for himself, his son or his wife to be buried in. They said it's a fucking crime scene. You're not allowed to go in there so that he's not allowed to go get all their their stuff, basically.

So he said, quote, That was the first time I had any idea it was a homicide. What do you think it was, sir? At the funeral. He said, listen to this, Jimmy. Quote, I don't even know how to say this. Quote, I had figured that Cindy had tripped and fallen and that it was an accident and she fell onto a meat fork that was next to her. Is that where you store your meat forks? Straight up?

Right. Who the fuck stores their meat forks? Sticking straight up out of the counter, and then you trip and fall and stick one in your throat, fall down, struggle with the wall. That's a ridiculous analogy of this. Did she use a knife to try to get it out and stab herself 49 times? What are you talking about? She cut her throat and then was like, fuck it. Maybe I can get pressure. If I stab here, pressure will make it shoot out out and we're not making fun of her at all that was we feel terrible

for this is the dumbest thing i've ever heard in my life i'm going to repeat that one more time okay because this is his actual with quotes on it actual quote i had figured that cindy had tripped and fallen and that it was an accident and that she had fallen on a meat fork next to her. Well, first of all, thank fuck you're not a police officer, sir. That would be well open and shut case. She fell on a meat fork. Tragic. On to the next one.

Fucking dummy. Closes his book up. On to the next one. His notebook slaps it closed. Another meat fork disaster yeah that's worse than the guy last week that shot himself 14 times in the back that's the guy that was tragic very tragic it was i don't know how he did it was an accident fucking unbelievable so when when they when they have uh an investigation like this and you you are

burying your wife you'd think the police would be like your wife was murdered right didn't they tell them that they didn't talk to him at this point not what oh no they could they consider him obviously suspect 1a so they don't want to go to him until they have something to go to him with a lot of times a lot of times when they have nothing and anticipate having nothing they'll bring in their prime suspect just to see if they it's basically you're you're you're shooting from half court you're like let me throw up a half court shot and maybe i can guilt the guy into fucking admitting it because a lot of times that works oh let's get it off your chest and all that shit and you know your mom would have

you know your mom that died of cancer two years ago would really want, what would she be thinking of you right now? You know, think of your mom looking down on you. And then people, I killed him. I swear. Oh God,

Jesus. Pookie owed me $50 and I shot him. It's like a totally, it works too. That's the fucked up part. But like a lot of times if they don't have anything and they have somebody who they don't think they could really break, they want to have evidence to present to them and go, look, motherfucker, I have A, B, and C. Admit it.

And then maybe you'll get a deal. But otherwise, if you go in with nothing and you go, we think you did it, and they go, no, I didn't, that's pretty much it. That's an impasse. And then you also tell them right out of the gate that you're under suspicion. Yeah. And then you can hide evidence. Right, dispose of you. That's the other thing. That's the other thing, yeah.

So they were playing him real. They talked to his job. They talked to all of her people, neighborhood canvassing, everything before they ever talked to him other than, do you know anybody that could have done this? Was there somebody who was threatening her two days ago ago saying i'm going to come to your house and stab you and stick a meat fork in your neck so um yeah he said that you know that because they were like everybody liked her it makes no sense that this would happen here and what you know

other than somebody who had a reason to that knew her so So he, everybody, lots of people were there, like I said, for the funeral. After the funeral, they really, the investigation really tightens in. Now it's honing in on Robert. They're on him 24 hours a day, basically. They're following him around. I mean, he's like Jimmy Conway in Goodfellas.

He turns around and there's a car following him and shit like that. Like, it's really rough. Finally, they bring him in for a formal interview. They don't have shit still, but they're to the point where they're like, we don't have shit and we don't know where we're ever going to get shit. Right. We got to create some shit. Yeah. Yeah.

We got to get him in here. By asking questions, not like framing. Yeah. We got to create some shit i hope that's not what they're doing fuck that would be terrible that's the worst that would be terrible but they're like yeah we got to get him in here and try to rattle his cage up a little bit and see if we can uh see if we can get him to start talking or to slip up and say something wrong and we can jump on or anything here so they uh they tell him you know tell him

what happened tell me what happened here what's going on he said i went to work at 7 a.m like always um you know and they said did you see her in the morning he said yes i did and they said how was she everything fine and he said everything was fine you know uh perfectly perfectly normal um everything like that he said he left work at noon, came back around one. He said, is there anyone at your work that can confirm when you left and when you return? Now, they know there was because his manager did. But they're just, you know, see. His answer to that is, why are you asking me that?

Uh-oh. That's his answer to that, which is a weird answer to that. You know why. Your wife's dead, dummy. That's why. to that, which is a weird answer to that. You know why. Your wife's dead, dummy. That's why. Hey, stupid. Did you fucking, your wife didn't fall on a meat fork. How's that?

I mean, that's why. So why are you asking me that? He says, let's procedure. You know, we have to ask everybody everything and all that sort of shit. So he said, I have a time sheet. So, yes, you can see right there when I came in and they said um you know you came back for your second shift and he said that you know sue rogers called said cindy hadn't showed up for a shift he said i called home and nobody answered so i i was concerned i went home and i walked in the door and i found her like that. And they said, well, what'd you do next?

And he said, I called an ambulance right away and I went outside and waited for it. That was it. That's exactly, he walked in, went, oh my God, picked up the phone, 911, hung it up, walked right outside. Is that weird behavior to you? Yeah, I mean, you rush to the side

of the person that you love and at least try to give them CPR or some shit. Something. See how bad it is. Something, right? Or you sit in there, you, something. I don't have a wife that I care about, so I couldn't tell you, but if it was my kids. Yeah, I'd stay in there.

And he went, he called, he like took the phone outside to call 911, too. Like, he wasn't even there. Yeah. He just grabbed the phone, took it outside, too. He wasn't even there. He just grabbed the phone, took it outside, called 911, and sat out there and waited. It was a very strange thing. And so they were a little bit kind of like, okay, so you didn't go down and get down by your wife's side and get blood all over you or anything like that? And he was like, no, no, not at all. Jesus, no. That's gross.

God, no. Yeah. Disgusting. Gross. That's John Mulaney. John Mulaney. You know, they were like, was it just, was he in shock? Was it, you know, were you repulsed?

Were you, what's the fuck? Why the fuck would you do that, basically? So this is about a week after the the murder this all happens and he's in the basement of the police station and uh basically he sits down the detective gets real close to him um he says bob says quote i'll never forget pontius that's the detective pontius looked at me and said bob let's quit playing games we both know cindy was dead when you went back to work so now we're there because you can't determine time of death to a to a degree of that sense you can get within three hours of either way so and right now we've got a three-hour window between

time you left the house and by the time you got to work so you got to work yeah you got to work at one yeah you got to work at one 9-1- got to work at one. 911 was called at three 30. So, um, you're, you're well, you were home well in that fucking window of murder time. So, um, they interrogate him for three hours. Yikes. And, uh, he had a lot of, I don't knows. And, um, to a lot of questions and a lot of, I didn't do it as well. A lot of, you know, they'd ask him a question. You go, I didn't do it as well a lot of you know they'd ask him a question you go i didn't do it i didn't kill her so uh apparently uh the detectives would get

angrier and angrier too they were getting like i don't know if they were good cop bad cop in it and this this pontius seems to be bad cop because he's robert said quote finally he took his jacket rolled it up threw it on the desk and doubled up his fist swore at me and told me we're going to get to the bottom of this we're going to take you to des moines and give you a lie detector test we'll find out if you're telling the goddamn truth so that's impressive yeah they're like you fucking son of a bitch like they're very. Yeah, they're like, you fucking son of a bitch. Like, they're very, very mad at him for this. This is like you see this approach on television, but not really in real life that much, where someone throws their jacket down and says, I'm going to take you to fucking Des Moines and hook you up to a lie detector. Which you don't have to do, by the way, a lie detector, by the way. So, you know, it's not part of everything.

So the next day, he went down to uh des moines and took the lie detector test uh they never told him the results of the test yeah but they sat him down afterwards so you know uh after the test uh borton said quote that one of the one agent quote sat right in front of me this This is after the lie detector, mind you. Called me a fiend and told me my ministry was nothing but a sham, that I lied to people and that anyone who did what I did had no right to call himself a Christian. That's what they were screaming at him like that. Because if he's such a big Christian, they're going to try to play on that guilt of that. Of, you know, well, Jesus, how are you going to get into heaven? that guilt of that, of, you know, well, Jesus, you,

how are you going to get into heaven? And you know, don't you have, get it off your soul, you know, that sort of shit. So they call him a fucking scammer. They go, you're a fucking liar.

You're not a Christian. Your ministry is a sham. You're a piece of shit. Fuck you basically. And they just yelled at him for like two hours. Yeah. Telling him he's a liar and a piece of shit and everything after that um uh when they when they're finally done yelling at him they got to drive him back from des moines

it's a remember it's a two and a half hour drive it's a long ride after this you've been yelled at for five hours and apparently failed a lie detector test based on what they're or you know but what he would think i would assume at least that he failed because they're yelling at him now you're in a car with these two um he said that uh apparently agent uh smith told him quote you know what bob when this is all over and you've been arrested charged tried and convicted i'd be honored if you finally confess to me like why don't you tell me what happened once it's all over with and once you're in jail and it doesn't matter anymore i'd be honored i'd love to know what the fuck happened basically i'd love to know what's in your head and what you did here so uh this goes on for the next few months now of they're talking to him all the time uh this will go on uh the whole thing

he says though at the time that his ministry training helped him get through all of this questioning he said quote I felt if the Lord wants me to go to jail I'll go to jail even if I didn't do it Cindy knows I didn't do it I know I didn't

do it my God knows I didn't do it mighty Christ like sir that's what he told the press there. So, yeah, he's either full of shit or a really nice guy, one of the two, which on our show, you know, how often? You know what I'm saying? I think we had zero of that guy. So very few of that guy. So they interview the son here because he was the one basically seen in the area.

So they interview him. They said, when's the last time you seen in the area so they interview him they said when's the last time you saw your mom and they said he said at breakfast and he said anything seem out of the ordinary anything like that and uh he said yeah a little bit i guess so he said quote i mean i didn't want to go to school so we argued over that a bit. But she finally ended up taking me. And he said that she drove me with the expectation that she would be at work that afternoon and I would be walking home from school before the end of the day. So, yeah, she gave him a ride to school. So they said, did you leave school at all? And he said, no, I didn't leave at all. I could just not process the fact that my mom's no longer here. That's what he said. So he's like, I didn't leave at all. I could just not process the fact that my mom's no longer here.

That's what he said. So he's like, I didn't leave. So, you know, those are the alibis that we have. I was at work. I was at school. Decent. They also talk to a kid that is one of John, the son's best friends. Yeah.

Who they say basically Cynthia, he has some trouble at home and cynthia was like very nice to him and treated him like a second son and fed him and took him in and that sort of shit um and uh he said that they they talked to him too to see about the father and son did you hear anything while you were over there did you ever see anything and uh he said that uh everything was great over there he said there was no tension between Robert or Cindy. John never talked about hating his parents. Everybody got along. They were a happy family. I don't know anything. And so they just

said, sorry for your loss there, because he said, you know, Cynthia was like a second mother to me. So, you know, this sucks. And they said, well, we're sorry about that. So they check in on John again here. And so they go to his school and they check in on that and they asked you know is there any way to show they go to the school and say is there any way to

tell what if a kid was here on a certain day like if he stayed basically because he could have showed up and whatever so uh the one teacher said oh tuesday i gave a test that day. So if he was here, we'd have a grade for the test. And he does have a test with a grade. So he was there. So he was at school that day until approximately 3.30 in the afternoon. He was in a class and then seen at school. When police were called. When police were called.

So, yeah, he got home when dad was talking to the chief of police. So he got out of school at 3.30. That's when the cops were called. Then he had to walk home so for 20 minutes or something and there you go okay so they're pretty satisfied with that on john unless he snuck out or something or whatever but it seems pretty he would have had to have snuck out well earlier in the day and it's it's not likely and an 18 year when you were 18 could you run home murder somebody get back to class and take a test and be clean right you're gonna clean the blood off of me and then go take a test you'd have to disappear from you'd have to be unbelievable fucking cold i mean you'd have to kill your mom

yeah like dude you'd have to be ice fucking cold and then take a test on the magna carta no wow beyond cold like yeah i don't even know what level cold you'd have to be i don't even think fucking cold to do that. And then take a test on the Magna Carta? No. Wow. Beyond cold. I don't even know what level cold you'd have to be. I don't even think Kuklinski would have did that. He would have been like, I don't know. That was my mom, so I had a couple of drinks and chilled out afterwards. Even he would have had to tie some cats together and throw

them over a wire to get over it. That made me feel better, obviously. So, back to Bob. That's who they're really looking at now, Bob. They were kind of eliminating the sun, is what me feel better, obviously. So back to Bob. That's who they're really looking at now, Bob. They were kind of eliminating the son is what they were trying to do. They think the lady might have been mistaken. Like, you probably saw him either coming home later because they didn't talk to her until the next day.

It's an older lady. They were like, you maybe saw him here. Maybe she saw him in the morning and thought it was later. Maybe she saw him the day before that and fucking didn't even think about it and mixed her days up. Because I do that. Yeah, I do that. And I'm not 80. So, you know, so Bob there, they said that they kept, you know, they talked to him.

They kept bringing him in and asking him the same shit over. And I'm talking even to the point of where do you work? Things like that. So he was saying he's doing all of his things and they said okay i'm gonna ask you some questions about september 6th and um did you have lunch with your wife he says yes they said did you leave he said he left at 12 45 sticks to the same story um you know they said he even yawned several times during the interview just seemed real real nonchalant about the whole thing yeah jesus christ of course fucking times and i tell you yeah yeah meat fork guys come on get with the program um so he's all that they said did you hurt your

wife before you went back to work bob bob bob your wife bob and he said no and they said did you kill your wife bob bob just flat out asking bob be a guy bob come on let me know pull some old shit like that and it's all timey come on be a guy uh he said, I didn't kill her. Um, so they said that this whole thing, cause they're coming at him pretty hard and he's yawning. And he said that this is weird. Um, if you're a grieving husband and you want the, your wife's murderer to be caught and everything like that, and they're constantly questioning you, you think that you'd get pissed off.

They're like normal people would get very upset they'd feel very disrespected and they'd be fucking angry by this point and they go will you stop fucking asking me questions and go fucking fine who killed my fucking wife you assholes just you know like you'd snap after a while like why are you talking to me i'm here did to my wife he's to do it to somebody else. That's not. He's going to do it again. Fuck yeah.

So they were like, it's really weird. He didn't show any responses, any significant reaction, just very nonchalant. It was just really weird. They said he was really. And the lie detector guy later on said the same thing. He was so nonchalant that they couldn't even get a consistent. Wow. They couldn't even get. It was inconclusive. Couldn't even get a consistent. Wow. They couldn't even get lay was inconclusive.

Couldn't even get a baseline to figure out what's happening with this guy. He's just so like, man, I don't know, whatever, which they gave him in a week after his wife died. So he's probably on a fucking couple of Valium or something too, which is going to help him. I would imagine. Yeah. Just to, just to be even whether you did it or not. So they were really like, fuck, what do we do here um there's no there's

no evidence they have no evidence other than they don't like bob's attitude which is really you know we don't really care for bob's attitude and the fact that he maybe had the dumbest theory of a crime in the history of dead people of somebody that has seen the body yeah that's the thing you saw that if all the humans that have lived on this earth you saw how it ended and you saw how did you that's how you got from a to b you son of a bitch like in all of the human beings who've ever existed on the planet earth how many people died by accidentally falling onto a meat fork that stuck right in their throat and then they fell backwards on their back how many times did that happen zero i can't i don't know this would have to be the only one the immaculate meat fork

this is the guy on the kingsford bag got on there the it's it's a tribute to the guy there it's a tribute to the guy that's possible he's the guy the one guy yeah so robert is very much under suspicion not only from the police but pretty much everyone in town is staring at him like like i said like he's fucking oj in 1994 so he moves to a different town with his son he picks up and moves away um also by the christmas holiday around there he has plans to remarry in the spring wow yeah he's met a woman and uh apparently has plans to remarry in the spring here so there's a pretty quick turnaround for old bobby there it's uh good healing powers bob that's not bad i don't think oj is dating right now, right? I mean, he's had girlfriends since then, but he didn't get married. Right.

You know. So he moved to Gladbrook in November of 1988, and they continued to drive there, the police, and question him once or twice a week. Wow. I mean, they'd still show up at his door. Hey, Bob, how's it going? Haven't forgot about you, Bob. Yeah. him once or twice a week wow i mean they'd still show up at his door hey bob how's it going haven't forgot about you bob yeah so november 30th 1988 i remember bob moved uh to gladbrook which isn't that far but he moved in november of 88 this is november 30th of 1988 there's an attempt made

by someone a half-assed attempt i don't think it was a real attempt, but kind of a more of an attention attempt to set City Hall on fire. Oh. Okay. There are, this is one of several incidents of arson lately. Specifically, there's a fire on Broad Street that was a, I believe, by one of the schools where something was set on fire in a school parking lot. Yeah. And then also a pickup truck was set ablaze as well over in January or in July. So the last few months has been a bunch of fires and then this murder.

So the one of the fires was at the schools. And like I said, and one was on a pickup. They said they were kind of like trash fires. A of the fires and uh the ones by the buildings they didn't think that someone was really trying to burn down a building it didn't look like but they were trying to definitely trying to attract attention to something that's what they said um they said that um the weird part was that uh the they were hopeful that you know got some kind of clue out of this maybe possibly so what they ended up finding was a note at the november 30th 1988 fire oh at shenandoah

city hall yeah and the note says whoever wrote this is a hack first of all quote compliments of night stalker oh you bastard there's already a night stalker that was very famous by then you know what i'm saying very very famous compliments of night stalker broad street anderson pickup and cynthia borton is nothing compared to what's coming next night stalker and he signs it the night so he opens it on the night stalker and he signs it by the way night stalker out in he opens it on the Night Stalker and he signs it, by the way, Night Stalker out. In case you've forgotten. I like that he bookended it with Night Stalker on both sides, though.

He's branding, you know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, Zodiac did it. Hi, this is Zodiac speaking. And then at the end, throws the Zodiac in there. That's it. Compliments of Night Stalker, Broad Street, Anderson Pickup, and Cynthia Borton is nothing compared to what's next, Night Stalker. Got it. So the amazing thing on this is there's a fingerprint.

Whoops-a-daisy. On this. But it's of nobody who's been arrested ever. Oh. It's not on the file in the, it's not on the arrestee fingerprint file it's not bobby's hands well they didn't fingerprint bobby he wasn't arrested he hasn't been arrested and there's no prints and there was no prints to compare it to in the place so what the fuck would it matter what his fingerprints were and his finger it's his house so right unless it's

on the fork and even then he could go yeah i washed it and put it away last night and they go oh well there you go use the fucking thing all the time yeah i barbecued three days ago stoves on the fritz all we do is barbecue it's really difficult if it's somebody's house to say why were your fingerprints all over it because i fucking live there dummy so they yeah they decided to go back and your wife i would hope so jesus good god they decided to go back to the jizz and your wife i would hope so jesus good god they decided to go back back to the scene of several previous arsons to see if maybe there was something they overlooked now that they know that this was someone trying to get attention you know this so-called night stalker uh they even stopped by the middle school where the, someone's truck was set on fire.

And, um, they asked a teacher, do you know anyone who would set your truck on fire? And he said, the teacher said, no, I have no goddamn idea. He said, I don't have any enemies. They said, did you give a student a bad grade? Have you been threatened by a student, a parent, anything like that? And he said, no, just their kids. No one's ever, it's just normal. I haven't had any problems or anything so they were like oh shit they went to this uh broad street bridge

where there was another fire and they uh they uh they they initially there was some initials paint spray painted somewhere they thought i don't know if it was bubba or not from the house earlier but son of a bitch they they didn't mean anything they were from they did some right looking at it they were it was like a year old or something tj loves trisha yeah i was like that has nothing to do with it so uh basically they're stuck um they're really stuck in december of 1988 after all this is going on the fucking mayor is pissed oh i'm sure mayor's rip roaring pissed he's mayor robert creighton from before and he said that he hasn't been hearing enough updates from the police of what

the fuck is going on in this investigation he said he's received at least 200 telephone calls from residents who are pissed off that this shit hasn't been solved yet and they're scared in their houses yeah you guys need to solve this shit so i can feel comfortable going you know that's right you don't want that as mayor no it's not good because you're a small iowa town you don't want to go well we lived in fear under him right you know like small iowa town that has half the national national average of any kind of crime at all yeah and and that asshole made us all unsafe so he said after months of saying i don, to residents, he's sick and fucking tired of it. He said that they have, you know, he wants some progress.

He said, quote, I just want to have them communicate with us on the progress of the investigation. Duh. Now, the law enforcement, though, says that he's provided as much information as possible that doesn't jeopardize the probe. I don't know if they don't trust the mayor to not tell citizens shit that they're going to pass around or whatever. February 1989. This is like the February very beginning. All of a sudden, they're digging for a clue. Agents from the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation were seen digging at a Shenandoah agricultural chemical factory by out in the back in the dirt looking for something related to this case.

So that there's some sort of break in the whole thing. And the break is that a couple of weeks before that in January, a teenage kid walks into the Shenandoahah police station here uh and he's got a story to tell yeah teenage kid comes in and um he said that uh you know the officers called in the detectives they said do you think maybe you want to talk to this about this guy and uh this he said that uh basically uh he's talking about being friends with Jim Bettis, James Bettis, the kid that was like a second son to Cynthia. Right, right, right. And he said, yeah, I was good friends with him until high school. Then we got closer and closer. We became best friends and all that sort of thing.

And he said one night, a couple weeks ago, we were hanging out at my place. It was a Friday night. He said, we got into like this deep conversation you know when you're a teenager yeah smoking a little weed or having a couple beers and you start getting philosophical and shit and you yeah you know that goes dumb shit that you think is smart yeah and you're like you know what i mean man they're like whoa i never thought about it like that none of it matters and you didn't think about that because you're not an idiot and i am that's yeah and he said they're having a conversation about god forgiving their sins i've never had that deep conversation you think god forgives our sins man if someone asked me that i would

have been like shut the fuck up what are you talking about somebody asked me that's just me first thing i'm saying is holy holy shit, what have you done? Why are you so worried about it, man? Yeah, what's going on? So it came up, apparently, he says, about whether God can really forgive you for sins that you've done and all that stuff. Does he really have the power? Is he the guy? Or does he still have a few more credits before he gets that power? You know what I mean?'s in power is he is he the is he the guy yeah or does he still like have a few more credits before he gets that power you know what i mean yeah what's he doing is he putting

this together or what does he have a does he have a plan for this or how's this going so he says that um you know they're they're talking about this and that it's just a funny conversation to have i guess though if you're if you're religious I suppose it's a conversation you might have with people. It's a relevant conversation to you, especially if you've got some guilt for some bad shit you've done. Yeah. And every teenager thinks they've done horrible things, even if they've done nothing. You know, I stole that Twix from the Rite Aid back then and I can't take it anymore. So just he said he mentioned that he didn't. so just he said he mentioned that he didn't he said well you know i think god forgives but i guess jim bettis said that he committed a crime that he doesn't know if he could be forgiven for

oh um so they said what did you do and he said i killed mrs borton oh my god jimmy jimmy jimmy and they said well he said well why the fuck did you do that? We thought you liked Mrs. Borton. What the fuck? And he said, because of my father. What? What is okay? What does his father have to do with this?

Yeah. Was Cynthia banging his father? Was there an affair going on or something? No, none of that at all. He said that he was too scared to kill his father? Was there an affair going on or something? No, none of that at all. He said that he was too scared to kill his father. He was too scared to try and then not succeed. So he said that he killed her instead. Why?

And they were like, well, why would you do that? And he said, well, it was the easiest person I could kill, basically. He goes, i had access to the house they'd let me in and the neighbors wouldn't like think twice about seeing me there or anything i wouldn't stand out so everywhere else you think about how do i kill a person you think oh well what if people see me well what about this what about that you know factors that you an intelligent person would think of usually to discourage them from murder even if they wanted to for some reason this guy's like,

fuck is this doesn't make any sense. This is what I want to do. Yeah. He said that, uh, you know, he said that, uh,

it doesn't make sense. Um, he said, you know, I knew he was weird. The friends, like I knew he was a strange guy and everything, but Borton was helping him.

Like he, Jim had dropped out of school. He dropped out of high school and like, she was trying to get him back into high school, trying to smooth shit over with the school, was feeding him and shit like that. So they just didn't seem like that. And the cops didn't believe this kid. Really?

They were like, I don't fucking buy it. How about that? This doesn't make any sense. This makes no sense whatsoever. This sounds like something a drunk kid would make up. You know what I'm saying, to make himself sound big to another friend. They're like, this doesn't sound viable because he has no reason to.

And why would an 18-year-old kid with no murder experience murder like that? That was a- That's true. You know, that's a lot. But the other point is, who chooses, I murdered a woman who was helping. Like, that doesn't make you seem big. It makes you seem like a piece of shit. Yeah, but I guess that's how cold he is.

I don't know. You know how kids are. I know teenagers when I was a kid that were like that, that were just dumb like that. Like, I'm that hard, motherfucker. Just like they were. I don't know. I got no heart. That's why.

I'll do anything. Yeah, that's right. I'll do anything. I'm crazy. I'm stupid. That's why. I'm stupid. That's why.

I'll go to jail, and then i'll get out and i'll break your fucking head open again that's my business that's my business that's what i do because i'm fucking stupid because i'm fucking stupid stupid i love it i love it anyway so yeah this is uh this is interesting this is john jackson is his friend that told him that told them that and um he then went on to say that uh that bettis this was january 26 1989 is when this when the admission was made. He said that Bettis explained to him that he planned the killing for a week ahead of time. And it was just because Cynthia was the easiest person he knew to kill. He knew when she'd be home alone and wouldn't have raised any red flags.

And, yeah, he said that he went over there on September 6th asking her, would you mind if I put you down as a reference on a job application. That's why that was his way of going over there. And she said, yeah, come on in and all that sort of shit. So she said that she went to let it. Bettis told him that she went to get him a glass of water. And he told Bettis that or Bettis told Jackson that that's when he wrapped his arm around her neck, slit her throat twice, and then she said that, he said that Cynthia dragged him across the floor toward the telephone. Like, she was hanging on to him, and like, she was dragging him around, trying to, like, hanging on to him and trying to go to the phone at the same time, even with her throat cut.

the same time even have with her throat cut so then he said that he ripped the cord out of the wall which doesn't make sense because he made a phone call so i don't know if there was two phones there there might maybe a kitchen and a living room phone i don't know that's right you know how people would have the wall phone and then maybe yeah yeah everybody had one in the kitchen with a 65 foot cord exactly damn reason he said that he flipped her over and finished stabbing her repeatedly just hacked her up 29 times as we know he said then he washed his hands real good and then before he left though the final little cherry on top as he grabbed the two-pronged fork and stuck it in her neck and left it there and walked out that was what he said so that's what he told his friends so clearly the police would love to talk

to this young man uh again let's get james back in here they had no suspicion of him when they talked to him the first time he was one he was the third person they talked to yeah i mean he was one of the first people and then we went back to dad yeah and they went back to that because he was just like because they they only talked to him to find out what was going on in the house they talked to him for background hey do you see on in the house. They talked to him for background. Hey, do you see fighting in that house? Is the kid pissed at his parents? Is the parents fight?

What's going on in there? He's an outsider. He might be able to say it. So they basically, they take him in. They say, did you fucking, did you kill her? And he says, no, of course not. Jesus Christ, are you crazy? So they said, how about a polygraph?

Let's take you to Des Moines. What do you say, chief? Sounds like they need their own machine. That's a lot of driving. killer and he says no of course not jesus christ we crazy so they said how about a polygraph let's take you to des moines what do you say chief sounds like they need their own machine that's a lot of driving i don't know how much a polygraph machine or a polygraph examiner costs but there's a lot of gas money they're burning up going back and forth this is now 10 hours on the road uh before you rent the polygraph in person up there. So how much is 10 hours of officer driving? Two officers. Yeah, two officers and gas and wear and tear on the car going all the way out there. That's a half a week's paycheck.

That's got to be a lot. So basically, after they take the polygraph, they tell him that he failed. And he said, well, you didn't pass that polygraph, chief. But the problem is that they can't use that polygraph isn't even admissible in court and if he's not admitting it and all they have is a failed polygraph they can't hold him on that there's no way to hold him so that's they didn't know what the fuck and they're thinking holy shit if this kid wasn't lying and he's just got some rage from his father that he's taking out on anybody who the fuck else is he gonna kill he could kill anybody it's dangerous how long does it take for this balloon to swell with rage before

it pops and on people and kills people so they are like if it's true though because he did deny it and who knows uh so they said tell you what let's grab his fingerprints right and we'll see if he's the guy with the note and if he's the guy with the note. And if he's the guy with the note, that's a pretty good indicator. That's probably him because he mentioned her and all the other fires and everything. So they check the fingerprints and they match. It's him. He's the he's the kid who at least set the fires. He's at least the night stalker of Shenandoah. But then they're also thinking if you were trying to be big and brag, you might admit you might say you killed this person

because we've had plenty of people you know send letters jesus saying that they killed people i mean it's it's a very common thing evidently and a hilarious joke to do that i you know i've missed the punch line but i'm told it's funny. Yeah, that's hilarious. I've heard it's the funniest, but I can't really put my finger on it. Can't find it. There's a lot of shows like that for me. I don't get it. I'm told it's funny.

Good. Yeah, I'm told it's funny. It's like The Office for me, basically. Everybody says how funny it is. I can't watch it for five minutes. Now, then I was told why it's not the office's fault apparently and it's not because i'm like it's i didn't say like oh it's terrible these people suck i went i don't get any of these jokes and then i heard did you ever work in an

office and i went oh yeah never and they were like that's that's why you don't get any of these probably why you hate it yeah that's why i don't it because, and I don't even want to be in an office in a sitcom. I'm like, ugh, get me out of here. Get me away from these cubicles. I can't do it. I just can't do it. Basically, every office in America, anywhere in the world, really, because it was successful as fucking Britain, too.

That's why Ricky Gervais has, he owns everything under the sun. Ricky Gervais has, he owns everything under the sun. There's like Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and then Ricky Gervais. Those are the richest people on earth. And Ricky Gervais has it because of The Office. In there. That he made probably fucking 12 episodes of because it's Britain and that's a long-running series there. I know they made more.

That got more seasons than most. I know, but still. Every Office has characters and everybody was like, oh, this could work at my place, too. And it just fucking works, man. That's why I say it's not the office's fault. When I had it explained to me that why would you get any of these jokes, I went, oh, yeah, I guess not.

That's duh. Gary Goldman was the next pick to be Jim on that show. Jim Halpert was going to be Gary Goldman. Yeah. Interesting. That would have been great. I have better yeah yeah oh god so much better although i like gary gold the guy that played jim halpert is great uh i'm sure he's fine we just like gary goldman because we're comedians and he's a nice guy and he's amazing and he's an underrated comedian so we want more for him so that could have changed his whole fucking life oh yeah oh god fuck yeah

would have fixed everything for him he'd be selling out theaters right now right you know what i mean yeah rather than for a weekend like for for several days on end instead we outsell the fuck out of him which is sad because he's depressing a great comedian and has been doing this longer than both of us put together and so anyway anyway yeah so he uh finally they're they're pressuring him and he's only an 18 year old kid i think he's 19 at this point and uh you know they're telling him look we have your fingerprint we know about this we know that you're the quote-unquote night stalker right this attempted this alleged night stalker so-called night stalker um night stalker three because already there was a few original and then him and now you yeah and i feel like richard ramirez really took the title as he yeah he took the title like

hendrix took all along the watchtower that's his song now it's not dylan you know what i'm saying like that's his and nightstalkers ramirez's he took it to another level there's a way to do it better is all he just took it to another level and that's all there is man so he just can sold the fuck out of i will always love you i mean that's just the way it goes i mean i love dolly parton but let's be honest here that's whitney's fucking song now you know sorry it just does dolly doesn't care she made a billion dollars from it oh yeah she's like you sing it girl i'll give it sing it make another movie and make it the fucking whole soundtrack i don't give a fuck i don't care i'm making dough off this shit this is great so uh finally after all that he says all right i'll

tell you the truth yeah and they said what happened and he said i went by the borton house he said quote i watched and i waited for mr borton to leave and then i rang the doorbell and they said um you know okay and she said that she told me to come in and um by the way this is after they talked to him about his home life he doesn't have a very good home life, apparently. He's got a real issue with his. He's been wanting to kill his dad for years. And like literally thinking, how can I kill my dad?

Wow. Not I sure wish he'd die. Yeah. Like some teenagers have. I'm talking, how can I kill him? Which is a very different emotion. Right. That's omission and commission right there.

That's what that is that's the psychology the omission commission bias of psychology is right there like i hope he'll die or i'm going to actively kill him or very different macaulay culkin didn't even do that you know what i mean in home alone he never tried to kill them he tried to maim them and make them leave but he never tried to kill him that's pretty impressive that's all he probably should have i mean jesus christ at some point he's got every reason in the world a castle doctrine will protect that kid all day just shoot him plus he's like fucking nine right jesus christ if he if two long criminal record burglars are dead on the floor and there's a nine-year-old kid standing there. The cops are like, holy shit. Yeah. This kid's going to be in fucking Seal Team 6 or something.

This is awesome. You're a badass, kid. Holy shit. Kevin McAllister, Seal Team 6. Can we give you a list of enemies of the state and you just go hunt them, 007? We're going to fucking airdrop him into hostile nations. He'll be able to go anywhere.

They'll go, oh, look how cute he is. And then just, bah. Next thing you know cool lost in cuba home alone lost in myanmar home alone persian gulf a persian very pers Christmas. Oh, my God. Good God. Home alone, Tehran. How many times can Captain O'Hara lose him to save the world? Oh, God. We came all the way to Tehran, and then we left Kevin here.

Oh, no. And there he is. So he said that he asked for a glass of water. Yep. And she got it for him. And then he said, quote, I knew that if I didn't do it that day, I wasn't going to get another opportunity. I don't know why. Yeah.

Seems like it's the same schedule every day. He then described pulling out his knife. He brought a knife with him, a folding knife that he had with him. So that's why none of the ones in the kitchen seemed to be the murder weapon and none of the knives were missing because he brought his own. And he said he attacked her from behind. Same story he told his friend.

He said he sliced her twice across the neck. And then, yeah, he described in detail how she suffered and was begging for her life while he stabbed her more and more and more, trying to shut her up, basically. And she struggled, and she didn't go down easy. This wasn't like in a movie,

you stab someone, they fall over, and they're dead. He was stabbing her, and she's pleading for her life and holding on to him and saying, why are you doing this? And trying to get to the phone, and he's frantically stabbing at her, which is the fucking,

just the most horrible scene you can think of just to some poor person suffering and and it's also with like a bench maid you know or like a fucking kershaw or a buck knife that's not no for like it can it can kill people obviously but it's to have someone 29 times and cut their throat twice they'll die but it's a folding knife that's four inches long that's a bastard to murder somebody with she just bled to death man he didn't he didn't you know hit something that knocked right she just bled out like that's horrific um he said that he uh he said that she struggled to get to the telephone and that he stopped basically she almost got to the phone and then he grabbed the phone and ripped

it out ripped the cord out of the wall right before she got to it so this is fucking horrifying a horrifying way to way to die here um so he said that he uh described he then described how he uh continued to stab her and stab her and stab her pretty much till he got tired of it yeah remember we went over it stabbing takes a lot out of you 29 stabs yeah a lot of stabs man especially there's yeah it's not not easy and so uh and especially imagine your adrenaline and your heart rate while you're a teenage kid murdering your second mom my god i mean fucking broad daylight no less while she's yelling and screaming oh and the doors open the screen door i mean like are people hearing this there's so many negative variables it's yeah this is just

not a good thing to do on on a cosmic a karmic a fucking logical there's any level you put this on this is a terrible thing to do unbelievable yeah he uh he then said that finally once she finally died he washed up and then um doesn't know why she finally died, he washed up. And then doesn't know why he did it, but he just grabbed the serving fork and just stuck it in her throat on the way out as a final. Just like a, yeah, I'll do that before I leave. Whole confession, very casual, he said. He was just real, yeah, that's what I did. And he cut her up and, you know, he had to rip that phone right out of the wall.

And that was a pain in the ass. Like someone was describing a flat tire they had and they changed it and it was it was annoying but it's fine um so he went into that he had a great he was just pissed he was very pissed he had anger built up in him and a hatred and an urge for vengeance against his father but he said he was scared of his father and he didn't feel like he could successfully kill his father because he was scared of him. He thought he would hesitate and then his father would have the upper hand and then he would kill him. So he couldn't do it. So I don't know if this was like to build up his whatever to go kill his dad eventually, or if this was just the balloon popped and he needed to kill somebody and put his dad's face on it for himself to make it okay or whatever but uh he said that uh he the

only reason he hadn't killed his father is because he never had an opportunity to do it and be able to you know have him not fight back right he said that his mother was always there and that with his father and that they're always together so he's never alone so he never had an opportunity to kill his father he didn't want to kill his mother which i guess is good i mean i suppose if we're looking for a fucking silver lining here um he said that he was very very angry about his father and just wanting to kill his father and he said but cynthia was available and um that's what he did because it was available. And so they arrested him for murder, obviously. And he then told them where he buried his black and gold folding knife, which is why they were digging it up beforehand because he was already in custody.

And the evidence says that the knife was consistent with the knife that could have caused many, if not most, of the stab wounds. They said, though, they did come out with that many knives could have caused many if not most of the stab wounds they said though they did come out with that uh many of many knives could have caused the injuries it was a pretty basic knife it didn't have any real right it didn't have any real characteristics that would make it stand out yeah it wasn't like double serrated or had like a hook on it or none of that shit so it was very basic but they said you know that that works that's the knife so um he's arrested when he's arrested he says that he thought he would this is the fucking this kid has no idea he's 19 years old by the way wow he is seems to have the mentality he thinks he's like 14 or something probably because

they asked him you know what do you think's going to happen to you and he said he thinks he's going to be sent to a group home or something. He fucking carved up a woman. You're going to prison, chief. That's where you're 19. Yeah. It's over. You're done. He said that he was afraid that he would become so mad at his parents that he would try to kill them again.

And that's why he confessed, because he didn't want to kill more people. He lived with his parents, obviously. because he didn't want to kill more people. He lived with his parents, obviously, and he is being held on a bond of $517,250 because it's not just the murder charge. He's also charged with counts of arson connected with the fires, he said, as well. Only half a million dollars bail?

Half a million. It is the 80s. It's 88, which is a lot it's like a million now but still and this kid's not gonna come up with it anyway so who cares it might as well be 80s in rural iowa i'm surprised they didn't try to pin this shit on like some some occult shit yeah dude as bad as that murder is you know if it went on another six months they would have been fucking doing it you know it you know moon cycles and line it all up oh my god they're gonna find some group of kids like 100 miles away that killed a

cat or something so they would have been insane a farm pump with a pentagram on it and yeah that's it slam dunk boy light it up there's crow's blood around here somewhere i can feel it i know it i know it you smell that crow's blood in addition to this yeah he's charged with all that shit robert bob borton yeah is as you might imagine happy yeah but also pissed off he said fuck yes he said he's been real pissed off he said that uh, quote, he said he got a call in February 89 and it was the agent saying he wanted to see Borton. And he, quote, he said he had some good news for me. He said I was scared. They've been stalking me for months. I didn't know what that meant.

I thought they were going to fucking good news is you're under arrest now or some shit because they told me I had to come in to receive this good news. Good news. Case closed. Bad news. Put these on. Bad news. You're going to jail he said he told me that they made an arrest and i answered praise the lord who and uh he said when he told me jim betts i almost fell i could have fallen over he said i couldn't believe it he said quote he was a friend of our son and of our family cindy loved him almost as much as her of our own son

he was always at our house he even stayed at our house after cindy was killed oh no yeah dude that's cold as fuck man that is fucking ice cold man that's i yeah i'm so glad they caught this kid no think about if they didn't catch this kid how many people he would have killed fucking slept in the house walked past what he did yeah that's crazy this is a serial killer in the making this is absolutely and it's the same thing anger builds lets out with the cool down period afterwards after he kills and then he's gonna go do it again this would have gotten bad this this would have definitely gotten bad silver lining uh of rural america they they they literally preach into your head that hurting people is bad and thankfully this kid got some of that that stuck because he had some sort of remorse obviously yeah he did and i don't like i said i don't know if that was

an alcohol fueled remorse when he told his friend and then once it came up he was like fuck it i'm screwed or what the fuck it was because he didn't admit it until after they told him, you failed the lie detector test and your fingerprints match this note. That's when he finally was like, all right, I'm overwhelmed here now. That was too much for him, but he wasn't trying to admit that shit. So Bob Borton has moved two times since this murder already. Now he had to move from the other town he moved to because people knew and they would look at him funny. So he lives in Eldora at this time. Works for a plastic recycling firm and has plans to marry Elaine Hewan of Eldora.

So he moved there, found a lady awfully quick and good for him. I mean, good. He's moving on. Great. It's when we thought he killed her that didn't sound as nice. Right. Now you're happy for him right so um yeah he said that uh quote it wasn't a dream this is bob it was a nightmare that didn't stop for six months which sounds about right um now the state

officials defended their handling and said the investigative techniques they used were how you investigate a murder like sorry dude but you did look super guilty i mean honestly what would you have done put yourself in our shoes what the fuck are we supposed to do here right so um don't do laundry ever that's your that's your fucking life mantra from here on out if you think of this poor bastard came home saw his wife for lunch grabbed his laundry laundry, went back to work, put it in, did his work. And the next thing you know, they're like, you must have killed her. And you did the laundry. Oh, my God.

And you're like, but I do laundry every week. And then I left. And what the fuck? That must have been. That's brutal, man. That is brutal. Triggered every time Tide commercials are on TV. Goddamn laundry.

So the police said that the prosecutor they did this was an aggressive investigation. It's a fucking horrible murder that doesn't happen around here very often. And people wanted it solved. So, yeah, we were being aggressive. The one cop says, quote, You have to remember, he was the only person to have been with the victim. A person may be innocent, but the agents didn't know that at the start if he didn't kill her he almost uh he almost had to have bumped into the killer when he left for work it's real bizarre like and he did because the kid said he sat and watched him and waited for him to fucking leave it's exactly what happened yeah exactly what happened and if it was somebody

who didn't know their schedule that wouldn't. He would have just walked up and found them both in there and whatever. But he knew. Had to die. Or they would have moved on. Right. They would have said, I'm not fighting two people. That's a lot harder to kill than one person, especially if one of them's a guy. You know, it's going to be more.

He's bigger. I know, Borton. So he said that the investigators were under a lot of pressure and, you know, they ended up with an arrest. And he said the results speak well for for our techniques fuck do you want i mean yeah we had to break some balls but you know you don't make an omelet without breaking some balls you know what i mean almost cost the mayor his job no shit like what the shit man so uh he said there was immense pressure to make an arrest and we held off because we were not convinced Borton was the right person.

Good thing they didn't arrest him. Honestly, they said, overall, it seems to me like a fairly regular or routine homicide investigation due to the terrible nature of the crime. Very intensive investigative methods were used. Mr. Borton was the last known person to have seen his wife alive. It was extremely important to establish without a doubt his innocence or presumption of guilt. They said, we try to determine whether or not a person didn't commit a crime, and we have to be just as intense to establish innocence as we do to establish guilt. Generally, in a murder, you're eliminating suspects first. If it's a mystery, you're eliminating people first. That's what you want to do. You want to talk to somebody and either put them in a murder you're eliminating suspects first if it's a mystery you're eliminating people first

that's what you want to do you want to talk to somebody and either put them in a pile in or fucking out one of the two so they said of all this Borton said quote there was times when I would lie awake in bed wondering what would happen to me and my son

if there was a rap on my door and they arrested me no shit so while he's in jail um bettis here starts writing he's writing letters all sorts of letters uh bettis okay bettis like jerome same spelling okay so uh bettis told uh jesus christ he has there's a fellow inmate here named kim rogers who I believe is a guy. Because they're housed by each other. I don't know if it's that small of a town.

Or a couple of jail cells. There's a chick over here, a dude over there. Just, I don't know. The women's jail is on the left. The men's jail is on the right. That's for babies. Okay. That's juvie.

And there's like two-year-olds in there with their binkies in their mouth. A TV and a stage two kid. Right? Oh, no. Kim's a female. Okay. So somehow he has access to a female inmate somehow, which, I mean, wow, that's a pretty decent jail experience if you're a dude, I guess.

Yeah, it's very progressive. He told this kim rogers is her name he told her that he had dreams at night in which he would wake up smelling blood and hearing cynthia borton's pleas to stop wow yeah um he maintains that he told her that because at the time he said that he oh my god he did that you know why he did this why because at the time i still wanted out of my house that's why he told her that he's now saying he's innocent he only confessed because he wanted to be arrested so he could get out of the house that's his excuse i just wanted just wanted out of my house so i said i did it you could you're 19

you could get out of your house. Yeah. You can leave any time you want, bro. He thinks he's 14. Yeah. It's the weirdest thing. Also, there's letters that he wrote his aunt while he was in jail. One of them says, quote, when I killed that lady, I guess I went a little too far and pretended she was my dad.

Wow. So that's pretty damning there. Yes. Trial comes around the polygraph uh examiner is there he says that uh he volunteered that he had he had volunteered that he admittedly had set the fires he admitted to that because that's what they hit him with first and um the uh the polygraph examiner also said that he also advised me that he started a fire at the – and every time he mentions the fires, there is objections from the defense that are sustained by the judge. So I don't know what happened, but the fire thing seems to be excluded from this shit, which is strange.

Um, the, uh, the court ends up, uh, at one point at the defense counsel's request, admonishing the jury to disregard any, any evidence of anything but murder. Basically, none of that shit matters here. So they get Jackson, his friend who he confessed to. He's on the stand and he said that he told him he made a terrible mistake. Describe the detail, the slaying in detail, uh, even drew a diagram of the home and what and where it was and she was here and i was here and here's the phone and yeah she died here and all that kind of shit not jackson did i bettis drew him a diagram when they were talking about it um they said did he tell you why he did it? And he said, quote, because she was the easiest person. And, uh, same thing talked about the father and, uh, said basically everything that happened.

And they, the, in cross examination, they said, well, what, what made you fucking come forward? What made you such a goddamn good Samaritan after like six days that you needed to come forward with this? And the kid said, quote, it might've been my mom good fair very good point yeah if you're his good friend and he killed one of his good friends moms gee you know stopping him and he loves that woman yeah and he loved her he doesn't even like my mom she doesn't make brownies ain't in the ass yeah he's like your mom's a pain in the ass man i mean he's planning her death. I'm positive of it.

Cross examinations and cross examination. The only thing they get Jackson on is they say in two prior depositions, he made no mention that Bettis said he planned it for a week. And now he's saying that he planned it for a week during trial testimony. So that's pretty much all they have. But either way, that's not meaning he's innocent. That's just how much planning was done. So that doesn't really matter. Now, Bettis, he gets on the stand, too.

Really? Oh, yeah. He says that, yes, I did tell my friend that I killed Cynthia Borton, but he says I didn't actually kill Cynthia Borton. He repeats that I only told him that because I wanted to get out of my house. Okay. He said he believed Jackson would help him get away from his father if he knew that. He's like, if I told my friend that he'd help me, like, get out of my house because, you know, it's obviously a bad situation.

I'm killing people over it. It's obviously so bad at my house that I murder people in their house. Yeah, that I murder my friend's parents parents why don't you come to my house like what's the end game there that's a terrible story it's too many when's it stop that's the problem when's it stop so in closing arguments the his lawyer the defense attorney gary gee is his name, G-E-E. Hell yeah. His, you know, because it's all, it's a summarization of your whole case. So it really tells you what you think your case is in the closing arguments always. That's why I like them. He says, basically, this is what it all boils down to, that the whole thing, the confession

and everything follows, it was just, quote, a lie that got out of hand. Yeah. Just simple teenage braggardness you know how that goes just these damn kids bragging away so high feels like gary gary gary fucked a girl at a bar once after telling her that he's been in vietnam and then he had to go home and tell his wife i told her that i went to vietnam and she wanted to blow a soldier so i fucked her i'm so sorry yeah but he's admitting this would be this would be like telling your wife you actually fucked somebody else that would be a weird thing

that'd be like the fucking the woman is the lie and he's got to back it all up now yeah it's because it's a because it's the bad thing is what we're saying is something worse it's the strangest it'd be the weirdest lie ever to tell your wife. I've been fucking this chick. But trying to soften the blow. Yeah. I figured if I told her that, maybe she'd get jealous and start blowing me more. Like, that's not a good strategy.

You know what I mean? That would be the equivalent intelligently of that. It makes no sense. He's out of his mind, Gary. So the verdict comes in and the jury deliberates for five hours on this one, which seems like a lot if I'm being honest here. And they find him guilty of first degree murder. Wow. I'd say that's pretty.

He told the story to his friend. Then he said the same story to police multiple times. He said he fucking did it. He knows he knew where the murder multiple times he said he fucking did it he knows he knew where the murder weapon was buried because he fucking buried it there he had a pretty good i think he did it i'm pretty pretty sure on this one yeah um so he's guilty of first degree murder because they do find that he pre-planned it as well yeah uh sentencing comes around and um he says that at post, this is at sentencing. He gets up.

Anything you got to say for yourself? Sure is. I'd love to say this. I only confessed because I wasn't getting along with my parents, and I wanted to get out of the house, so I didn't do it. Idiot. They're like, that's not exactly what we're looking for. No. And he gets banged pretty hard.

You, sir, may fuck off life without parole okay at 19 that's everything life without whole thing done peace homie yeah yeah just done uh he appeals he appeals yeah saying that he had ineffective assistance of of uh both appellate counsel in his first appeal and trial counsel. Both my lawyers were shit. Yeah. So he appeals his denied relief request, and he says he got ineffective assistance of appellate counsel due to the counsel's failure to raise the issue of ineffective assistance of trial counsel.

So, I mean, how ineffective can you be everybody's ineffective and nobody wants to say they're ineffective oh that just can that made my head hurt that was some weird confused meta ineffectiveness that just happened to me shit was crazy so um he claims that his trial counsel was not effective because trial counsel failed to file a motion to suppress his confession and he believes that his confession was involuntary and would have been suppressed if the motion was made no it wouldn't have you know how rarely confessions get suppressed right it's like if you were in the room for like 18 hours they get suppressed if they beat you with a phone book they get suppressed if they didn't read you your rights they get suppressed yes it's otherwise if you were in there and all

was on the up and up you're fucked that's it um now a lot of times they are there are forced confessions that happens a lot but he's not saying that he's saying that uh you know they would have definitely found it that way when he's made no claims other than it's involuntary. He didn't say they this is how they forced me or they did this to me. So I said this. None of that happened. He they said, though, he was an 18 year old dropout living with his parents. He's interrogated by agents of the Division of Criminal Investigation.

His life experiences were limited. He claims he was prone to grandiose feelings and exaggeration. Now, the Division of Criminal Investigation agents confronted him at the police station, questioned him for an hour, then took him to Des Moines, where he was given a polygraph, and told that his test shows deception. He was then questioned further, and then that's when he admitted everything. And he says that while he was told he could leave, he had no practical means of returning home.

Yeah. So Des Moines. Yeah. So he was like, you know, whatever. And he said his counsel should have made a motion to suppress that. Normally they do that anyway, just to throw it at the wall, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

Give it a shot. You never know. Uh, he says though, he didn't preserve the error for the issue on appeal. That's what happened here. And also the the the failure to object to the confession resulted in a need for the council to question the polygraph examiner as well. Attorney was not effective in doing so because it allowed in evidence of prior bad acts like the fires he set to come before the jury, even though they were struck from the record, which means they don't exist. So, yeah, he's basically saying trial counsel fucked me over, has taken out a discovery deposition on the polygraph examiner and questioned him about his confession. He says his attorney had his attorney made a motion to suppress any of that, the issue would have been preserved for appeal, even if it wasn't right. Because you could then appeal it if it came up during the court.

Now, to bring it up during the trial, to bring it up now, something that didn't come up isn't an appeal of a direct thing that happened. So it's a new thing. It's a different states of appeal. It's like a it's a new thing. It's a different different states of appeal. So, yeah, they said that basically he was he was advised of his constitutional rights. He was he signed a statement waiving them. They said that the court does agree with him that if his trial attorney were of the opinion, the confession was coerced. The issue should prop should have properly been raised by a motion to suppress, but they do not find that basically there was any prejudice on that issue or that it would have

succeeded either. So they were like, he said his last contention on the appeal is the cumulative effect of the various effects and omissions of his trial. Basically all sorts of shit. He said that the post-conviction council has combined to deny him constitutional rights under the fifth sixth and fourteenth amendments yeah all of them uh namely right his right against self-incrimination his right to effective representation and right to due process by law due to this cumulative effect of all of these violations, he says that if these errors had not been made, a different verdict was probable. I don't fucking think so.

That's just, I just don't see it. So, um, they, the court says there was sufficient evidence in the record to convict him. Even if his counsel had committed errors, uh,

he said he testified, Jackson testified, Bettis told him in detail. Also, Bettis, his letters, which he wrote in prison, admitted he had, quote, killed the lady. That's a good point. So there's a lot going on here.

And that was to his aunt. I don't know, is he trying to show off to Aunt Judy? What are we talking about here? Trying to get a better Christmas gift? You're in prison. Yeah, come on. Aunt Margie's going to really be impressed. Or she'll be scared to death on me getting out of here because I'm fucking stupid.

Because I'm stupid. I'm going to break be impressed. Or she'll be scared to death on me getting out of here because I'm fucking stupid. Because I'm stupid. I'm going to break her fucking face. Break your fucking head all over again. That's my business. That's what I do. Because I'm fucking stupid. Give me my fucking money. That's my business.

That's what I do. So the 2014, he's still in prison and he is on a list that the governor has before him to decide on of possible sentence commutations don't you life without paroles that you can you know possibly commute of younger offenders basically that were younger when it happened and uh governor terry branstead denies his application for commutation. Good for you, Terribare. It's life without, Chief. You're fucked.

He's fucked. 2016, Investigative Discovery did a show called Murder Comes to Town. It was basically kind of like this show, but on Investigation Discovery. It sounds like it lives there. It's been there. Jesus. And this feature was featured at February 22nd, 2016. I didn't see it.

I never heard of this case before now. But the inmate information here, his name is James Walter Bettis. He's in there. Offender number 080-6368, if you want to say hi. He's 45. He's in the Clarinda Correctional Facility, and he will be there fucking forever. He's done. He will die in the Clorinda Correctional Facility.

He's going to die in the old Clorinda Correctional Facility. And that, everybody, is Shenandoah, Iowa. Iowa goes hard, man. Fucking, that is crazy shit. That's awful. How much did you think the husband did it? Yeah, I couldn't wait for the information where it finally breaks wide open

that that guy's an asshole. Right, that he like left something somewhere and some like hunter just dug it up in the woods and we found the evidence and now he's fucked. Omaha's gonna call. We got this bloody sack of clothes for you guys yeah and like four affairs four affairs would be uncovered and all that shit nope never happened just some poor guy whose wife got killed when he went back to his fucking menial job that's

all poor bastard so uh and poor cynthia jesus christ i mean the worst nice lady did nothing wrong tries to help some kidney brutally like i said it's so much more brutal to be killing somebody and as they're not dying and begging you and they know your name you know this person it's not a stranger she's saying why are you doing this bettis james right yeah it's your face yeah hey jimbo why are you murdering me please stop murdering me like jimmy jim jimbo nope hack away like that's fucking crazy and really dark shit man and it disturbs me on all accounts she's like as sweet as a sugar glazed like she's a she's a darling she's taking care of she's taking care of the kids that that have tough lives too not a bad word said about this woman ever.

She seems to be a fucking, like I said, a Disney character. Yeah. Like, in terms of, you know, just likability and niceness. Sweeter than a Honey Crueler, James. Sweeter than a Maple Glaze. She's a long john. Oh, baby. Sweeter than the cream in a Boston cream.

I want to hug her. So, anyway, yeah, that, everybody, is Shenandoah, Iowa. Maybe sweeter than the cream in a Boston cream. I want to hug her. So anyway, yeah, that, everybody, is Shenandoah, Iowa. Hope you enjoyed the show. I sure did. If so, yeah, get on whatever the hell you listen on and give us five stars. It helps a lot. So do that. Help us out with that.

And get on shutupandgivememurder.com. Yep. You want to go for everything crime and sports and small town murder. We have our merchandise there. to live shows it's gonna happen one day eventually we're gonna do a show on a stage for people that are watching because if we don't we're gonna lose our fucking minds so you understand yeah um yeah it's it's wild we know a lot of people have had you know bad shit happened to them over the course of the last year and a half i mean fucking hundreds of thousands of people died so we're not we're not bitching about our shit life but it's like you know kind of our main

thing that we do is do live shows it's like you know how we make our living and stuff like that so when we can't do it for like a year and a half, it kind of hurts. Yeah, we don't want to. We want it to come back. We'd like it. You know, it's enjoyable to us. It'd be helpful. That's what we do. We're comics. We like to be on stage telling jokes and we can't.

So it sucks because we're waiting to go and then we really want these things to happen and now we're waiting. We have to sit around each week, make these shows and then wait for you guys to tweet us to tell us you heard it. Like that's not a thing when you're on stage i can hear that you heard it based on you your boos or cheers yeah you mentioned something they respond you're like they all heard the episode

last week it's pretty cool it's a room full of like-minded people they heard words so um anyway yeah that's uh thank you for that please get your now. Shut up and give me murder.com. A lot of them are pretty sold because they've been on sale forever because they started, never mind, a long time ago. We put them up before people started coughing. That's why. Exactly. Yeah. December 2019 is when the tickets went on sale for this tour.

Four favors went up. By the way, we've had people complain to us that like,'ve had people come at us like with a like a political attack on us. And we're like, what the fuck are you talking about? Our shows got canceled that had nothing to do with us. And then they were rescheduled to the first available dates. Like that's when they rescheduled shit. It was every live act on Earth rescheduling at the same time. Guess what?

We're not in the, we sell pretty well. Yeah, we do great. We go to a thousandth cedar and we sell it out. That's great. We're not in the echelon of the people whose asses they're kissing first when they schedule. We're like way down the list where they're like, oh yeah, we got some left for you guys. But it's not the first fucking pick. We couldn't say we're taking this weekend and that weekend.

We do what we can. We want to be on the on the road trust me i know you want to see us we want to make a fucking living are you kidding me we'd love to be on the road love it the comics that sell better than us and it's not even just comics because we perform in venues that do everything they do music too and their acts that are on their way up that are in there yeah acts that are on their way down that are in there. We're competing with Snoop Dogg for fucking, yeah.

They had Charlie XCX on the weekend right before us in fucking St. Louis. Maybe he wanted the thing that we wanted. That's what I'm saying. Maybe we were going to,

yeah, sorry. I'm just saying, fucking, well, I was going to say, actually, it's because of somebody else I was going to mention and that's who was in my head,

not her. Either way, the point is, they're bigger acts and they want they'd rather have charlie before they get us because she she's in songs with people that are famous she features and she has albums and shit she has fans absolutely we have fans people that's fucking weird to say we have friends that people that like our show but see us we have listeners it's fucking it's strange that that we're in demand at all but the people that sell before us we don't get to just shimmy and be like this is the day we'll be here they're like no you fucking won't no that's the thing so we're we're doing our best

we we want to be out there as much as you want us to be out there so um yeah sorry i don't know what to say we're trying our best we really do we want to be out there and we want to be part of the solution more than the problem and we just want wanted we want to do shows and get an audience there and it's fucking brutal we want everybody to have fun that's all we just want to we want to have fun and have a room full of people to have fun and we we can't wait for that to happen yeah so speaking of fun something very fun patreon.com slash crime and sports we have a couple of the going to be the most fun episodes this week i know i say it all the time but i'm never honestly i'm never lying they're always fun on patreon yeah

if you're missing out if you're not on patreon you are missing out i know it's five bucks a month or whatever but you are going to get like four shows for that five dollars four bonus shows and they're going to be fucking hilarious this week and you get access to both shows bonus the whole back catalog everything this week we have uh the for crime and sports it's the steroid investigation the congressional steroid investigation when all of the baseball players went there and said i've never done steroids and uh some of the things they said were hilarious and then we'll find out exactly what you know monkey hormones they were injecting into themselves to hit 60 home runs in a year. Very similar to Jeremy Mayfield saying, I never did meth, and then pissing dirty twice for meth.

Yeah, and then going, they're both lies. It's all lies. They're lying on my boys. And then Small Town Murder's bonus episode, James, is fantastic. This is my favorite here. This is one I've been, it's a theory I have, and it's a weird one,

but it is amazing. When I told Jimmy about this, he went, this is the greatest thing ever, and we were like, we have to come up with a bonus episode for this. Ted Bundy, as you know, did shit loads of interviews with a couple of specific people

at the end of his prison sentence and all that kind of shit. And, really got into a lot of stuff. And so I've been going over this with a fine tooth comb for some reason to find shit for you guys. So you can hear it. And I have a theory about socks.

He had an obsession and I'm sure you've heard this because it was one of those things. All it's ever brought up is when he was arrested, he had a fuckload of socks on him for some reason. like in court they were like isn't it weird he has socks okay and they move on but to him the socks were like this whole big mystical thing that he talked about they were everything i'm telling you it's the weird thing of ted bundy might not have been he might be your congressman right now if he just had more socks. It's the weirdest thing. And there's some other stuff we're going to talk about of Ted Bundy, of course.

But it is such a crazy fucking theory and a wild story from his interviews. And I don't think anyone else has talked about it in 40 years since this has been going on. So please do that. It's Ted Bundy and his wild world of socks is what I call it. I can't wait. And patreon.com slash crimeandsports. And you're going to get a shout-out in just a minute here at the end of the show because, goddammit, we appreciate you.

And thank you for everything. Jimmy, you'll mispronounce your name. Patreon.com slash crimeandsports. And if you just want to be a producer, hear your name said and mispronounced and have great karma and our undying affection you can do that as well over at PayPal using our email address crime and sports at gmail.com

and if you want to get a hold of the show very easy to do as well we are at murder small on Twitter at small town pot on Facebook at small town murder on Instagram and that said I think it's time I've that was a crazy fucking story, and I really think I need to hear the names

of the most fabulous fucking people on the face of the earth that would never break into our houses, ask for a glass of water, stab us 30 times, and leave while plunging a meat fork into our necks. Jimmy, hit me with them right now. This week's executive producers are Jordan Bennett,

Gabrielle East-Lopez, John Harper, and the IT team. Cameron Koshwara, you're the producer of the week, Cameron. Thank you so much. Thank you. Unbelievably kind of you. Thank you. Amazing. Carol Braun sticking around. And this one, Zoncheetle, I think?

No. Zoncheetle? Alright. With an X? I don't know. And Carla Dayhoff. Dayhoff? She got a Dayhoff? D-A-Y-H-O-F-F? I can't pronounce that right. That'll never happen.

You guys are terrific. Thank you so much. Other producers this week are Samantha Quigley, Annalena Holmberg, Heather Knight is celebrating her divorce. Congratulations. Hey, congrats. Martin Principal Olson, Jess Campanella, Serena Lee, Isabella Simpson's brother. Nope, her sister, Naomi, had a birthday. Happy birthday.

Happy birthday. Alexandria Krudkiewicz, Janice Hill, Harry Rubin, Thomas DeMello, Matthew Webster, Sarah Surge, Thomas Smith, Reverend Lindsay King, Frau Blucher, Crystal Osig, Natalie Yulvin, Daniel Tebow. And he goes to, he went to, I don't know, maybe still, he went to Mel Hall's high school. Lauren Demrath, Cody Leversey got engaged. One day maybe we'll celebrate his divorce. Hopefully not. Cody's true. Good luck. Under the Sea Fabrics. got engaged. One day, maybe we'll celebrate his divorce. Hopefully not. Cody's true.

Good luck. Under the Sea Fabrics. Tiffany Gonzalez got one by us last week with Steve Martin's name in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Was it Neal? Neal? Yeah. Not Griffin. That was fucking John Candy. Dell. Dell. Yeah, Dell Griffith. But she said, Neal was last week. I was fucking John Candy. Dell. Dell. Yeah, Dell Griffith. But she said, Neil was last week.

I forget his last name. Doesn't matter. James Marder, Aneas, Roney, Rone. Neither of those are right. I apologize. Neither one. Corporal Carl Kirshner had a deer commit venocide with his car, so he's dealing with that. Larry Cooley, Jamie Hammer, Deborahah scar mastra scar scara scara

mastra nope it's italian right yeah you're out on that alan westfall mary case karen foster cassia isaacson uh tony espinoza dave parker probably not that one emma emma philips emma pfeiffer i think that's michelle's sister. S. Pence. Jessica Hansen. Kathy with no last name. Terry Burrows. Michelle Utzinger. Jesus. Ryan Rice.

Sarah Mallett. Nikolaj Olson. Nicholas. I don't know. Melissa Turgeon. Joseph Mayfield. Margo Christensen. Casey Donaldson.

Helen Black. Kinson Anna. Miranda Vauder, Cheryl Kate, ALB, Matt Amorose, Andrew Davey, Angie Bray, Kaya Meineke, M. Norton Matthews, Ayuma Ayumi, loves K-pop. I imagine that Korean pop music. Brooke Fowler, that felt like I was an old man. That goddamn Korean pop music. Brooke Fowler? Yeah, I would think so. That felt like I was an old man. That goddamn Korean pop music?

That's the Korean music they're putting out nowadays there. Shelly Mercado, Maya Cox, Tuka Niener? Sally with no last name. Amelia Rose, Gilly, Jilly? Brooks Miller? Joshua with no last name. Justin, John Jacob, Jingleheimer, Schmidt, Bauer? Mary with no last name. Justin John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt Bauer, Mary with no last name, April Bendury, Bender over, Brandon Beasley, Vincent Vincente Perez,

Sharna Matthews, Tyler Munson, Chuck Smith, Still Usher, Johnny Betancourt, Caitlin Kreider, Cale Crowan, David Hannon, Carol with no last name, Karen Regora, Rob Diaz, Drew Biddle, Aaron Smith, Sarah Dermer, Tori Alicia, Bri Scala, Jenny Thetford, Tara Hammond, the dork of the planes, Laura Sanchez, Jessica Lopez, Michael Best, Kimberly with no last name, Peggy Fernbach, Jill Rydell, Lori Jean Cook, Anthony Philpot, Philpo maybe, Ash with no last name, also Kara with no last name, Daniel Bickerton, Jason Gladney, Kiara Tyus, Finn Adkins, Jessica Sturdy, Nicole Atherton, Tyler Maus, Donald with no last name, Evan Hoffman, Kellen Highfield, Matt Maws, oh boy. Donald, no last name. Evan Hoffman. Kelly, Kellan, Kellan Highfield. Matt Kleeman. Cade B. Emmanuel Ofori.

Nathan Frankst. Ian and Stacey Ferenczi. Donna Sepulveda. Austin Lynch. Jennifer Kuhl. Kiara Groff. There has been three or four of those. Stephen Looper.

Tamara King. Jessica Christofferson. Stephen Looper. Tamara King. Jessica Christofferson. Mandy Brough. Brian Rice. Sarah Pacindo. Sari Theobaldi. Mason Judge. Grant Anderson.

Crimson Mertz. Shane Hirschman. Laura Sauter. Sauter. Lauren, what is this, Linehan? Dick, nope, that's Nick D'Amico. Walter Fritz. Brandon Geyer.

Lindsey D. Katie Kreener. Richard Doyle. Bailey Myers. Haley Craighead. Brandi Minard. Gerard with no last name. Gabrielle Montoya.

Joey Hepler. Hadrian Ringstad. Kent. Deanna Menorak. Boy, oh boy. You're on a roll. This isn't very good at all. Hannah Weiss Olivia Bernard

Lisa Schwartz Bennett Bode Overlord Whiskey Casey Utter Adam Mitchell Rebecca Flowers Aaron Kilgore Nathaniel Minocci

Christy Talton Whitney Tolette April Wheeler Anna Tesling Stephanie Zoback Jim Briggs Emily Smith Smith, Kathy Bader, Lauren Hache, Mona Davis, Andrew Grieve. This episode also brought to you by the letter D. Michelle Campbell, Kyle Wilson, Christina Kolsch, Luis Butler, Rachel Kuntz, Michael Brown,

Neil Coker, Chris Calloway, Christine Golke, Scott Ingle, Corrine Darcy, Sammy McCoy, Chanel Lounsbury, Eric Pekuch, Michelle Ramirez, John Kelly, Noah Pope, Robert Rosenow, and all of our patrons. You guys are unbelievable. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It's bananas, man.

Thank you guys so much. Thank you. We can't thank you enough for all that you do for us. And so we try our best, but I know it's probably not good enough. But we're trying. We're trying to thank you. We'll make an effort. No matter what we say, it's not going to truly express how we feel. So thank you so much for everything you do.

And what if people wanted to get a hold of you, Jimmy? How could they possibly find you? You can find me on the Internet, mostly on Instagram and Twitter at Wisman Sucks, W-H-I-S-M-A-N Sucks. Because Facebook has been full for like three years. It's it's what Facebook still lets people friend you when you've got the maximum. It's funny, though. I keep having to restock my roster because I unfriend about 100 people a week because of their dumb shit.

Fucking awful posts on Facebook. Yeah. One one conspiracy theory and you're gone. That's how it works with me. You're fucking out. Enough out of you. Goodbye. and you're gone. That's how it works with me. You're fucking out. I've had enough out of you. Goodbye. See ya.

Bye. Done. Where are they going to find you, James? I don't have time in my life for that shit. You can find me at Jimmy P is funny or just copy and paste my name from the show description or just Google the show and find links to us that way and you can do that. It's easy. And don't friend me on Facebook if you post conspiracy theories up because you'll get

unfriended mighty quickly. I'll tell you that right now. Boy, do I hate those on facebook if you post conspiracy theories up because you'll get unfriended mighty quickly i'll tell you that right now do i hate those fine if you want to knock yourself out not in my house that's what i'm gonna say not on my page not in my feed motherfuckers so that said holy shit i think it's time yeah bid adieu and say until next week everybody it's time to bid adieu and say until next week, everybody. It's been our pleasure. Bye. Hey, Prime members, you can listen to Small Town Murder early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today.

Or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus and Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.