Small Town Murder - #443 - Writing Your Murder Script - Lempster, New Hampshire

Episode Date: November 30, 2023

This week, in Lempster, New Hampshire, twisted relationships, and misplaced anger lead to someone, mysteriously disappearing, off the face of the earth. Detectives eventually find a treasure trove of evidence, including part of a skeleton, and some very detailed notebooks, that tell a disturbing story of cruelty, and selfishness by a terrible person, who thought they could manipulate everyone, including police!Along the way, we find out that when you think of New Hampshire, you should be thinking about Okinawan karate, that you should never write out incriminating scripts, and that you maybe shouldn't write down all of your murder evidence!!Hosted by James Pietragallo and Jimmie WhismanNew episodes every Thursday!Donate at: patreon.com/crimeinsports or go to paypal.com and use our email: [e-mail] to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things Small Town Murder & Crime In Sports!Follow us on...twitter.com/@murdersmallfacebook.com/smalltownpodinstagram.com/smalltownmurderAlso, check out James & Jimmie's other show, Crime In Sports! On Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Wondery, Wondery+, 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 Lempster, New Hampshire, a beloved woman goes missing and the twisted trail of anger and bitterness leads to one very dangerous person who likes to write everything down.

Welcome to Small Town Murder. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder. Yay! Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host.'m jimmy wistman thank you folks so much for joining us today on another wild crazy edition of small town murder and this is just wow what a twisted weird strange tale of a oh my god this is like a this is like if you saw a little tiny plant and you pulled it out you expect a little tiny

root but instead it's connected to the middle of the earth. And you're like, what the hell did that happen? How did that root come out of that plant? That's what this is. It's insane. We'll get to it. First off, thanks for all that you do for us. Oh, yeah.

Head over to shutupandgivememurder.com if you want to hang out, if you want to buy some merch, tons of stuff, everything from coffee mugs to shower curtains. We got it all. So get in there and get that. Also, tickets, one live show left, December the 2nd, Dallas, last live show of the year. And then we'll be announcing in December our 2024 tour dates. We can't wait to come see everybody. So get in there in Dallas. A few tickets left.

Come see us there. Also, you definitely want Patreon. I'm telling you right now patreon.com slash crime and sports is where you get it that is all the bonus stuff there anybody five dollars a month or above you get it all couple it's good stuff it's great stuff couple hundred back episodes of bonus stuff to binge on and new episodes every other week one crime and sports one small town murder and how much do they get of that, Jimmy? Every last drop, and what's up this week? Every last drop this week for crime and sports, we're going to talk about roller derby. No. What the hell is roller derby? What is that?

Because we know some of our listeners are roller derby people. We've been sent jerseys from their teams and stuff, and we don't know exactly what goes on here. We know, is it wrestling? Is it a sport? What's happening? Is there a score? Fascinating names, ladies. I don't get it. Also, we're talking about the history of it because at one point they were the most famous athletes in the country because they were on TV. They were like one of the first big TV shows.

So we'll talk about all of that. And then for Small Town Murder, it's that time of year again, everybody. Oh, you bet. Oh, we're going to get warm for the holidays with love after lockup. You think your family sucks. Let's hear some people that are destroying their lives. It's wonderful. There's already a dead guy even before the show started in loving memory of a guy who's already dead.

But here's some footage of him. We'll talk about all that and more. Patreon.com slash Crime and Sports. Also, while you're listening to podcasts and things, check out our other two shows, Crime and Sports, our original, The OG Show, which is very murdery lately. So check out these episodes. And then, of course, Your Stupid Opinions, our new show, which is goddamn hilarious. So if you just want to hear some comedy and a good palate cleanser, great for the holidays. I'm telling you, you'll need it.

It'll feel good. So check all that out. Keep doing that. Next up, disclaimer, this is a comedy show. It is. We're comedians. There's going to be jokes and people are going to die. That's how this works.

The thing we do is we try to keep those things separately. There's nothing funny about, oh, and then he cut her head off. Oh, hilarious. There's nothing funny about, oh, and then he cut her head off. Oh, hilarious. There's nothing funny about that. But there is something funny about, I know where I could hide the head where no one will find it. No, you don't. That's absurd. That's where the jokes come in.

And that's how we do it. What we don't do, though, we go out of our way not to do is we don't make fun of the victims or the victims' families. Yeah, why is that, James? Because we're assholes. But? But we're not scumbags that's how that works so that sounds good to you crazy story ahead if you think true crime and comedy should never ever mix and you know mingle together maybe we're not for you i don't know give it a shot no complaining

later let's just say that and let's all shout let's all i think it's time. Let's all shout out there. Whoever has not abandoned. Let's all shout arms to the sky. And let's shout. Shut up and give me murder. Let's do this. Shall we, everybody? Okay. Let's go on a trip, Jimmy.

Let's do it. I'd love it. Let's do it. We're going to a state you've spent plenty of time in. Yeah. We're going to New Hampshire today. Oh, I love it new hampshire it's pretty up there the woods it's a good one it's nice we're going to lempster new hampshire have you been to lempster or been through it never even heard of it it's a pretty small town i gotta say it's in southwestern new hampshire so this is about uh 50 minutes to concord new hampshire about 55 minutes to

brattleboro vermont the other direction north of concord i think it's south of concord actually is it really west of i can't remember exactly where concord is in relation to this uh and then it's an hour and a half to salem new hampshire which was our last episode which was who tasted the blood which was okay it's definitely north of concord yeah okay that makes sense yeah so this is in sullivan county okay area code 603 quick history of this because it's a small place not a lot has really gone on here but they have had several names though of this town um it was first granted this town like a you know granted a township by the colonial governor so this is back in the you know british rule days yeah jonathan belcher in 1735 as they named it this this is a catchy name i'm surprised they didn't keep this number nine that's a real catchy one a lot of character to that

the old number nine yeah old number nine it was ninth in a line of forts to guard against Indian attacks. Is that right? Yeah. That's what it was called. Number nine for a while there. Oh, number nine, New Hampshire. Wow. That's awful.

Sounds picturesque, doesn't it? It was regranted in 1753 as Duplin, D-U-P-P-L-I-N, after Scottish Lord Thomas Hay. He is the Viscount Du duplin so they named it after him okay never heard of him me neither uh the town was regranted one final time again yeah in 1767 as lempster after sir thomas firmer who was the second baron leo minster or lempster as they called it that was like the nickname for it. So they gave him that. Yeah, because that's a long fucking title.

Call the town Second Baron Leo Minster. Or number nine. Lempster. Lempster. At least it's better than number two. No one wants to be from number two. That's not good. Jesus.

It's almost like a 13th floor in a hotel. They should have skipped it. They got number one and number three. I'll bet they did. Yeah, let's not go. No one's going almost like a 13th floor in a hotel. They should have skipped it. They got number one and number three. I'll bet they did. Yeah, let's not go. No one's going to be lying. Number three knows the deal. Yeah, all right.

It's fine. Yeah, I'm on the 14th floor. I get it. So, Leinster was incorporated in 1772. So, this is an old town. That's pre-revolution. Yeah. Old school.

A lot of that shit back in New England, those numbers, all right, I realize we don't have much history. 1700s isn't that long ago. No. But 1700 is a long fucking time ago. People in England are laughing right now. Come on. But in America, that's a long time here. Yeah.

You go to Arizona and you're like, wow, that's from the 1970s, kids. Look at that. Look at that. Look at that. Art Deco. The state was incorporated in 1912, I think. It's the most – it's still got that new car smell to it. Everything does. Nothing's old there.

Whereas my house is older than anything in Arizona. You know what I mean? Literally. Fascinating shit. It's interesting. So here's a review of the town. There's only one review. It's a small town.

Oh? But it's one of those reviews where it's just so perplexing. I don't know if I want to hear anybody else's opinion on it. Four stars. Great town with a small but friendly community. That's good. Oh. The only thing that could improve would be the middle school.

Oh, what's happening there? Really specific. Not the elementary school. Not the high school would be the middle school. What's happening there? Really specific. Not the elementary school. Not the high school. Not the high school. The middle school. Mad fucked up. I'm telling you.

The whole town's great. The one with those two grades. Yeah, you go to the middle school, you open the doors, and welcome to the jungles playing in the hallway. It's just bedlam in there. What's happening there? Wow. Why only the minutes really calling it out everything's great except for you principal harris i'm sorry get it together

yeah together people in this town 817 so holy shit yeah it's the middle school is literally 12 people that's what i'm saying what could what could you improve make the room bigger like yeah the one room make the divider more soundproof between seventh grade and eighth grade classes because it's got to be one room with a divider in the middle right how could it not be there can't be that many kids in those two grades i'm surprised they have a middle school i'm surprised it's not just a k through 12 k through eight and then yeah at. At minimum, K through 8. Like Cold Spring is a small town here that's kind of near me here. And they're like this weird small town that's kind of wedged in between a bunch of other places.

But they had a K through 12 school that like all the kids in Cold Spring went to. I don't like that at all. No. I don't want kindergartners seeing kids smoking cigarettes. Smoking, trying to finger each other. I don't want any of that. That's not good. I don't need anything of the sort.

We should break them down by three-year periods, as a matter of fact. Probably. And even that's risky. I don't know if I want 12th graders hanging out with 10th graders all the time. You know, high school alone is fucking weird that we do that. A 14-year-old and an 18-year-old. No. Yeah, we are kids smoking, driving, having jobs, doing all this shit, and then a 14-year-old child.

Pokemon Go. Yeah, it's the weirdest, weirdest environment. Bizarre. High school. So 817 people, not a lot. A few more females than males, but it's pretty much kind of on average. Median age is a little bit older here as is much of new hampshire yeah if you picture picture like you know how they do all the memes of like ask ai to recreate this if you ask ai to recreate new hampshire residents it would

be gray-haired a little bit older folks sitting on a porch yeah uh eating pepper really enjoying the shit out of themselves yeah saying peppers farm remembers that's you know one of those deals well they go down to a pats game every now and again every now and then when they're not too it's and it's a yearly thing the celts maybe the red socks i'm not sure well i'm gonna go down one of the times there's a bus that comes to it's a big one that picks up comes through all the little towns and we go once a year it's very good marky mark drives ah marky marky loves it ah marky mark i said and we go once a year. It's very good. Mocky Mock drives it. Ah, Mocky Mock, he loves it.

Ah, Mocky Mock, I said, come on, take your shirt off, pal. Let's go. What are we doing over here? Let's see those white tighties, buddy. Come on. Fucking jerk. It's about a few less married people

than normal, actually. Less also people that are single with children here as well. Race in this town, 96.7 percent white new hampshire okay um 0.0 percent black uh 2.3 percent asian and that's it and 0.9 two or more races so i assume part white and part asian those people are because nobody else is here yeah not they all love dunkin donuts that's one thing they do love not a hispanic person in the town no it's interesting religion here 23.3 percent are religious which is less than half that's usually 50 50 and no surprise the leader here

is 14.2 percent catholic as catholics are as we know the baptists of the north they're there otherwise it's not a lot of anything, really. Not a lot of religion up there. It's too pretty. I don't know. 0.0% Jewish also. 0.0%. I mean, it's like 0.2% Lutheran.

0.6% this or that. It's, you know. Last election in Sullivan County, 50.7% of the people voted Democratic, 47.1% Republican, 2.2% Independent. Unemployment rate here is 2.7%. Wow. Which is very low. That's dangerous. Yeah, it's actually bad because that means that you can't fill jobs and there's things missing.

Not enough people. Not enough people. Median household income here is high, though. It's seventy six thousand two hundred fifty dollars a year. You're going to need it. So, well, the not that bad, actually. The cost of living 100 is regular average here. It's eighty nine.

Is what? It's the middle of the woods here. Do this is the middle of nowhere. Let's not tell any more people about this. You're going to find it. That's amazing. Once they hear this story, they might know. We'll see.

We'll scare them away. Housing, though, median home cost $275,300 here. Not bad. So that's not terrible compared to a lot of the Northeast. And maybe we've convinced you, damn it,

to take it a little slower and figure out that Pepperidge Farm does indeed remember. We have for you the Lempster, New Hampshire Real Estate Report. The average two-bedroom rental here is exactly pretty much the national average, $1,280, which is a little bit high. And I don't know how much there is to rent, really, in a town of 800 people.

Here is, now there's a lot of these hard-to-find houses here, because it's not a lot of houses. Nobody's leaving. There's only two houses for sale. Two houses and three lots. Yeah, let's say you just want some land. You're going to start fresh. Give me some land.

This is 15 acres of land, and it's described as a, quote, picturesque field. Okay. Don't miss the chance to own a slice of paradise when you can build the life you've always dreamed of. And this, there's a pond there as well, and it's a nice place. $150,000 for 15

acres. That is a sweet deal, but that real estate agent is selling their ass off. A picturesque field. There's nothing here. How can we describe it? Picturesque? I guess so, yeah.

Like a nature picture? How can I say flat shit nicely? How do we say there's not a goddamn thing here that's worth anything? Then there's a three-bedroom, one-bath, 1,800-square-foot house. It's on a five-acre lot. Fuck yeah. It's very weird looking. It looks like a place where you would it's like a factory

where you'd say, this is where I make meth slash dismember my enemies. It looks like a factory in the middle of the woods. It's the weirdest looking house ever. One side looks like it's falling apart. It looks like a barn on the other side. There's like metal siding on it.

It's a lot of work. Is that what you're saying? Inside, it's a mess, too. There's two fridges just next to each other in the kitchen. I've never seen that before. Two fridges. We've got his and hers refrigerated. Side by side.

They're not like mini fridges. It's very weird, man. There's a pool table and a microphone and amp set up. I guess karaoke they get into or stand-up night at the pool table. I don't know what's going on. The windows look like they're barely in the house, like they're going to fall out at the next storm. Doesn't look great here. $237,900, though.

That feels like robbery. Feels high. Next one. Three bedroom, three bath. T-Ball for each and every b-hole. Hell yeah. Pinnacle. 2,114 square feet on 71 acres.

Oh, fuck. Yeah. It's an old farmhouse, okay? Which is kind of cool. There's a giant pit on the property. Just a huge fucking pit of despair. I don't know if you can fight a kraken down there. Do whatever you got to do in this pit.

But I don't know what goes on there. But the listing says that the Lempster-Goshen gravel pit estimated 1.5 million yards of material to include concrete, sandic sand sand gravel gravel stone and topsoil so that so you're buying a rock you're buying a quarry you're buying a quarry enjoy everybody there is your real estate report how much is that thing oh i'm sorry that is uh one million one hundred ninety thousand dollars but you could probably get that money back if you quarry enough i guess if you if you want to set you know burrow toward the center of the earth you can probably get it i'm not sure how much digging you want to do you got to pay your union dues to be a part of this whole thing is too complicated never mind never mind everybody jesus christ this is a weird bizarre

that's the most bizarre zillow listing I've ever heard. Yeah, they don't tell you what kind of septic sand and gravel stone come with the property. That's not normally included in the Zillow. I look at a lot of Zillows, trust me, and that is not usually in there. That's hysterical. So, you know, if you're looking for something unique, I found it for you. That's the place for you, everybody. And it's 71 acres.

That's a lot. It sure is. That's a big, you have a lot of room for your pits. That's good. You could parcel some of that down and make more money. I guess so. I don't know. If anybody wants to take it.

I would never want to give away any acreage if you got 71. Hang on to all of them. That's a nice buffer there. Fuck yeah. Things to do in this town. Tell me more. Sullivan County Cider Day. Yeah, buddy.

Let's get some cider. They're big into apples here. Yeah. Apple picking is a big deal up there. Anywhere like where I am, and it goes just where I am north in New York too, is the same thing it is. Apple country. The last two months, it's been apple extravaganza time. country like the last two months it's been apple stravaganza time it's been everywhere as apple cider donuts and apple cider this and apple pies and apple things and the grocery store it has a

hundred different kinds of apples and they're fresh and it's amazing and hard apple cider too and cider oh boy so with this cider day you get cidery tours cidery yeah cider adjacent tours apparently like wineries yeah cidery tour a guided hike a mural unveiling oh boy oh show me the artwork they're gonna unveil the mural uh free cider and a beanbag toss oh i guess that's that's what i when i think yeah yeah cornhole with that in the east I – Cornhole? Yeah, cornhole. In the East Coast, they don't really call it cornhole. It's beanbags. No, they call it bangs?

Yeah. Throw in the beanbags? They're like, cornholing is a different activity. It sure is. Which it definitely is. And also – It's only in prison. Yeah.

And also music as well. And they – such good music that they do not tell you who's going to be there but there are some people we'll talk about first of all they said they're going to unveil the new cidery building mural local art students helped to create ideas for the mural and an artist uh created a design and all this type of shit so it was painted by 25 community volunteers 20 it took 25 people to paint this thing 25 that's a big mural so it's like a quilt basically like a wall quilt um there's also a fief fife what is that the fucking fife dog what is it no the the instrument is it a fife or a fief i don't know what the pfeffer in it is it fiff f-i--I-F-F-E? Is that Dr. Seuss? I don't know. I don't know either. One of those and drum performance.

Okay, Pfeffers and drummers. Andrew Adams on snare drum and Kim Bronsroth on fifey fifth, whatever, will share their talents with us. Gee, great. Both are professional musicians from the Keene area. Kim is pictured here in her role as one of the Middlesex Chambers players. Oh, boy. Then, this is what I would expect from a New England cider festival. I would expect a traditional Okinawan karate demonstration.

That goes with that, right? That sounds... Cobra Kai was big on Netflix. It's given rise to the Okinawan art of waxing cars. I assume this has been going on since Karate Kid 2, probably. White Crane Martial Arts of Keen will be presenting... White Crane 2 gets the fuck out of... Karate Kid 2.

They all started at Karate Kid 2. Jesus Christ. They hand out those little back and forth little drum things when you come in. You have to see Karate Kid 2 or you have no idea what we're talking about. It's the hand washing drum. One of those. You gotta wash your hands. That's the one. The traditional

local Okinawan karate. They offer the finest martial arts training and education in the Keene, New Hampshire area which I'm sure there's tons finest martial arts training and education in the keen new hampshire area which i'm sure there's tons of martial arts instruction in keen new hampshire it's keen's like a little college town jesus christ specializing in okinawan karate japanese jujitsu kobudo and akibudo akibudo they've got several disciplines several disciplines and they're gonna unveil a mural. Jimmy, I know I got to have to hold you down to keep you from getting on a plane for this.

Questions. Wow. I know. This almost sounds like you almost want to go here just to go. What's happening in this weird amalgamation of stuff? They're punking us. It's a joke. There's no way any of this shit's there.

It can't be real, right? And the Everything Apples free raffle. Okay. There's a free raffle. I don't know what you get there. Free pressed apple cider. Okay. Crime rate in this town.

Let's see here. What we're interested in. Property crime is about one-third under the national average. Okay. Low, which I don't know how that could be high with 800 people. How is there any at all? And violent crime, murder, rape, robbery, and, of course, assault, the Mount Rushmore of crime, is about two-thirds under the national average.

It should be zero. It should be zero. You know exactly who did it. It's that guy. We all know each other. No reason for it. That said, let's talk about a murder, shall we? Let's do it.

Okay. Let's see here. By the way, good stuff from this, good information about this murder came from a book called Notes on a Killing by Kevin Flynn and Rebecca Lavoie as well. So check that out if you like. They do a good job on true crime books.

So 2005 here. Let's start there. All right. Let's start in 2005 and twist our way through this all right let's start out with a woman named joanne defoe okay joanne defoe she is staring out of her window on a february morning in oh in new hampshire very cold it's 9 35 a.m her ride her ride isn't here, and she's looking out the window, looking at the time. She's got an appointment.

That's the worst. That's the worst. Looking at the clock. Did I read that wrong? And she's got a dental appointment, too, so she probably waited a month for it now, and she's like, I missed this appointment, goddammit. So she's trying to, you know, waiting for her friend. This is 2005. This is happening, February 2005.

And she's waiting for one of her very good friends. Penn Meyer is her name. Her name's Edith, but she goes by Penn is her nickname. We'll tell you where that came from in a few here. So Penn, how everybody calls her, she was her regular ride to these type of occasions. Ride to the store, supermarket, doctor's appointments, and also her ride to one place they both go every week faithfully, and that is Alcoholics Anonymous meetings as well.

Oh. Yeah, there's a big, everything kind of swells from this AA thing here. That's where all these people meet in this story. Joanne, she's divorced. She's trying to do her thing. She's on her own for the first time. And Penn has been helping her because Penn's a real strong lady. And she's real forceful of character and that sort of thing.

So she's Joanne's going after. She's tackling a divorce and a restart sober. And trying to do it sober, too. Wow. A lot of these people have been sober for a long time, but they still go to AA meetings. It's not like they're newly sober, a lot of these people. But they became really good friends

and would hang out outside of meetings and that sort of deal. So Joanne, she calls Penn's home to say, hey, where are you? Leaves a message on her answering machine. 2005, so probably a voicemail. But a home voicemail answering machine deal. Digital one, yeah.

Digital. Exactly. Digital answering machine is what it was back then. Still a box, but. Yeah. Yeah. With a weird robot voice telling you how many people you missed calls from. Exactly.

And not having to worry about tapes and that dumb shit from the 80s. So she calls. She leaves a message for her. She still sees. She's still looking out the window. She's not seeing Penn show up. She calls Penn again. Obviously, she's not home.

She had called, too, because Penn had called her the night before to make sure of the time. So it wasn't like she forgot. Like, oh, we made this deal a week ago. She was going to come pick me up, and now she forgot. This was six hours ago. Yeah, she was just there, and she said that Penn would never forget shit. She was going to come pick me up and now she forgot. This was six hours ago. Yeah, she was just there and she said that Penn would never forget shit. She was the most reliable person she

knew. So she thought, oh no, it's February in the morning. There's black ice out this morning. So I hope she didn't get in a car accident. I hope she didn't skid off the road or anything like that. So she needs to go to the dentist though. So she starts calling other people. Yeah. Just calling different people from the AA program, from the phone tree or whatever to find out.

And not to ask for rides, but to see if they had heard from Penn. And none of them had heard from Penn. So she's about an hour late now. It's coming up, too. And everybody she's talked to is like, yeah, that's not like her at all. I mean, that's real weird. Her reputation is for reliability and that sort of shit. She doesn't screw people over.

She tells someone she's going to be there. She's very reliable. And we know that because somebody asked her for a ride. You don't ask your friend that's unreliable. Your flaky friend. You never do that. Especially not for a dental appointment. No.

Somewhere professional that you need to be. I need to go to the store sometime Thursday. That would be fine. But I have to be at this specific place at 940 on Tuesday. That's not the person you go to. And I have to be there 20 minutes early because if I'm not, then the dentist is going with the next person. And I'm fucked. there 20 minutes early because if I'm not, then the dentist is going with the next person. And I'm fucked. Yeah.

You never know. So she calls a guy from AA, one of the people she's talking to, and he offered to take her to the appointment. So she said, all right, I guess if I can't get ahold of Penn, thank you. So she goes to the appointment. She comes home in the early afternoon and no message from Penn. What the fuck? Doesn't get any messages from her. So she's like, what the hell is going on with this?

Where is she? What's happening? So there's another thing that happens here. A little background here. Let's talk about another woman here. Sandra Merritt, double R, double T. Merritt. Like Jeff Jarrett, double R, double T.

Some 90s wrestling there. So she's 44 years old in 2005 here, or late 2004 going into 2005. She is described by, in the book here, as a, quote, pear-shaped mousy woman with unkempt dark hair covering her face and eyeglasses. Okay. People would always say she kept her bangs

to the point of length where it looked like she was trying to hide behind them like she's trying to like always look like she's trying to hide basically yeah kind of a girl from uh what is that what do we do school yes why would you know why would i ask you that how would how would i know what you're thinking of all the girl from that thing what is it what is it what's that thing all the girl from that thing? What is it? What is it? What's that thing? Yeah. I was thinking like some kind of nineties emo shit. I'm like, who was,

or that? Yeah. Yeah. One of those black nail polish band, whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Just, there was a lot of chicks like that in the nineties. So she lives in Newport. Sandy does, which is in Western Hampshire, which is nice place. Very nice.

Uh, yeah. It's a bunch of rural villages there. And Newport kind of has the most stuff of any of the places around here. Now, Sandy's family's got some cash. They have a bunch of farmland at the end of a dead-end street. Sandy lives in an apartment that's added on to the main farmhouse where her brother lives and owns.

Hell, yeah. So, yeah, the addition, they built it for her grandparents, but then her grandparents died. So she lives there and it's just her in her apartment anyway, on the property. Her brother lives there too. But in the apartment, it's her and her dog, Moishe. And she's got, the dog goes everywhere with her. Really? Yeah.

Dog goes everywhere with her. Do I know a kind? It's a little dog? A big fluffy dog she said really yeah she'd uh you know she loves animals and she she would do dog walking and pet sitting as her kind of her her gig here on the side 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 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 Aaron and Justin sit down to discuss a new case, covering every angle and theory, walking through the forensic evidence and interviewing those close to the case to try to discover what happened.

And with over 450 episodes, there's a case for every true crime listener. Follow the Generation Y podcast on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Generation Y ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. She would pass around business cards and everybody would see her all the time. She'd have other people's dogs. She's the town dog lady, basically.

So in the last year, though, she had been in a car crash, and I believe that probably had to do with her being drunk i would assume because she started going to aa after that probably so yeah you don't go to aa if you crash sober usually nine in the morning on the way to work you crashed you don't go fuck i need to change my life i need some steps yeah you go this is a pain in the ass that I'm going to get to work late now. You don't say, my life is a disaster and I need to change myself and reconstitute what I'm doing. So she said she tried to quit drinking before but never could quite get over the hump. Yeah. So this time she said, though, she was fully committed to this and she was going to stay sober and she had some support from the AAaa people and and especially pen who was a good friend of hers and was helping her there uh but she also

had started a romantic relationship while she was trying to her within her first year of aaa which is not they tell you not to do that no because you're going to go have drinks well also they just say that it's i'm not saying i don't know how this works scientifically but they say generally that if you're kicking one addiction you don't want to add in another then you just replace that person and sex you replace the alcohol with that because you try you need to be free of vice basically for a year is what they say in the program and then also try to restart doing stuff like that sober sex with a stranger with someone you know boring sober sex with a person i've met and talked to ew that gets yeah but sober sex with a stranger on a first date that's no good well yeah that's not

gonna work that's not gonna work but. It's everything you hate about them. Yeah, no shit. I guess we're getting too entrenched with other people and entwined with somebody new while you're trying to restart how you do everything in your life. Because I would assume if you're a big drinker and an alcoholic and you have to stop drinking. You have to just change everything you do. Yeah. All your patterns lead to, at the end of the day, you're drinking. So you'd have to do a lot of different shit here. So February 23, 2005, Sandra's trying to get the dogs together.

It's 7.30 a.m. This is the same day, by the way, that Joanne is waiting for Penn to come pick her up. She's looking out the window while this is happening. She's looking out the window two hours later. This is about two hours before she's looking out the window here. So, yeah, she is doing this. Trying to get the dogs together. She's trying to get the dogs together.

It's about 7.30 a.m., and the dogs are, she's got, it's called the Animal Inn she's got, where she's working and doing all this dog shit. She's feeding a bunch of dogs. And, I mean, you can imagine the chaos when you come into a kennel in the morning and the dogs are like, people are here, people are here, holy shit. Because when I come down. There you are. One dog saying there you are is enough.

Three, that's a lot. Dude, I'm overwhelmed in the morning. When I get up, it's like, holy gee, I come down the stairs oscar's fucking anything into the air benny's 320 pounds of excitement oh they're so and i gotta spend like 10 minutes petting them and getting them all psyched and as soon as i sit down on the couch oscar hops on my lap and i sit there and i'm like god damn it's like i spent like 10 minutes petting him it was like a half hour routine just to placate the dogs in the morning so that's what uh what's going on here she's doing that and uh she loves it she loves the dogs and all that kind of shit um so she gets a phone call yeah and the it says quote sandy this is pen okay so there's Penn on the phone. She is 7 a.m. So we know she's there at 7.30, and, you know, she's happy.

And, yeah, she's been one of her biggest supporters. They've been good friends. And Sandy had recently broken up with her boyfriend that she had started seeing in the program. Had broken up with him, and Penn's been helping her and being kind of a sounding post and sounding board and a leaning post and a, you know, all that kind of shit. Just doing that. Yeah. Yeah. And also helping her with keeping sober while this is all going on.

Very nice. That's the other thing that they don't want to happen, I think, is if you start getting in a relationship, then you have a breakup. Yeah. Now you realize. What are you going to do? You're going to go, I think I drink this away. You know what I mean? So you want to have a good footing under you before that happens. So, um, Sandy was, she thought it was odd that Penn would call at seven 30 because she knows

this is when she's at her busiest. It'd be like somebody calling us on times that they know we record. You know what I mean? Like, why are you calling me? You know, I record this day in the afternoon. Why are you calling? Same type of thing. So she said that she was trying to kind of get Penn off the phone because she didn't want to talk to her at that point. She wanted to get the dogs fed. They're jumping all around. She's got, you know, 40-pound bags of dog food she's trying to open and pour.

But Penn says this. She says, quote, Sandy, I want you to reconsider your relationship with him meaning her ex-boyfriend breakup she had broken up with and had recently got a restraining order against that has some serious history to it i need you to call him and also the cops and and kill that thing and then kiss him and penn was one of the people who was telling her she should get a restraining order to begin with. So this is a strange call. So Sandy was like, what?

She's like, no, no, no. You told me he's married. He's not leaving his wife. Because Penn was the one that told her that. So she's like, you told me this. What are you talking about? This guy lied to me, treated me like shit. He manipulated me.

Then he was stalking me afterwards, as we'll get into here. Jesus. So why are you saying this? You know what I mean? She doesn't understand it. This is kind of a thing. Sandy has a history of just bad relationships. This has happened a lot.

And a lot of times alcohol probably played a big part in that, too. It lends to that. This has happened a lot. And a lot of times alcohol probably played a big part in that, too. It lends to that. Well, if you choose people when you're drinking and then you are with them when you're drinking, it's, you know, you're not exactly. When this relationship is based on alcohol and oftentimes sex at the same time, not necessarily the best two foundations. Absolutely. She said out of all of her bad relationships, her last one was the worst, as a matter of fact. So why the hell is Penn telling her to get back together with this guy? That's crazy. Penn said, quote, I could see how the courthouse and remove the restraining order. She didn't say, how's it going this morning?

Beautiful day. Good morning. It's Penn. None of this. Good morning. It's Penn. Not even good morning. Sandy, it's Penn.

Go to the courthouse. Remove the restraining order. What are you talking about? It's 7.30 a.m. This is crazy. So Sandy didn't know what was going on. And she said then, Penn says to Sandy, quote, you know, he's facing a $2,000 fine. I never meant for it to go this far. Call him at Jim's house and tell him you'll testify for him in court and tell the judge how it was a mistake.

So Sandy said, Penn, are you sure? You know, is this what's going on? She said, what do you mean that you never meant it to go this far? What are you talking about? Like, what's happening? So Penn then said, I'll leave a letter for the court to explain how I pushed you because I was jealous of you and him. Oh. Okay.

And then Sandy will, you know, she'll say, yes, that's true. She'll corroborate that. And then they'll drop the restraining order. And, oh, it was poor. This poor guy had a restraining order against him for no reason. Two grand in penalties for that? Well, because he violated it. He violated it.

We'll talk about it. Yeah, there's plenty of occasions where he violated it. Oh, boy. It's bad stuff. So then she says this, Penn does, quote, Sandy, I'm so sorry for my part in all this. I never planned on this. I know he truly loves you, and I did my best to remove him from your life. I know he loves you, and that is his only crime.

Oh. That's what she said, which is like, what the fuck? Wow, this is 7.30 a.m.? Did you wake up just hot this morning for yeah what kind of dreams you have in pen wow so then pen said she's going to send her a letter i'm going to send you a letter which it's going to outline all the ways that i manipulated you into doing this send it can't explain it over the phone you know how it is uh i'm going to send you an outline 800 people we're it's far too big across town to get this letter to you yeah i can't explain it over the phone. You know how it is. I'm going to send you an outline. This is a town of 800 people.

It's far too big across town to get this letter to you. Yeah, can't do it. So she then said, quote, I'm sorry I used you to make him hurt, Penn says to her. What's going on? Then she says, it wasn't personal. I just wanted someone to love me that way. Please, Sandy, I knew from the start that you two should be together let's forget what happened okay that's what she says now she's sandy's like what the fuck are you talking about this is crazy this is wild they spent the last few months dealing with

going to court and all these restraining orders and him breaking it and people like her staying at other people's house to hide from him and people even breaking their 12-step anonymity to testify on her behalf in court shit like that they don't do that very often um all of this and he kept coming he kept coming so much so that he got fined two thousand dollars he wouldn't fucking stop and i mean it was a straight stalk that's all it was he's stalking her and now she's like my bad all my bad i manipulated the whole thing i could have been better send a letter so she's like while sandy's trying to get all this together in her head like why are you telling me this and this is like one of the people she trusts more than anybody is pen so she's like there's got to be something to this.

Then Penn says she, by the way, another thing I have to tell you, I'm leaving and I'm going to Mexico and South America. So I'll see you later. I'm going to go on vacation. But this was pressing. Yeah. Phone call needed to be had. And Sandy said, what? You're going where?

Gotta go. Machu Picchu. Penn said, I never told you of the affair i had with that pilot did i what now there's an affair with a pilot and they're flying down to south america and she's going to fucking carnival what the hell's happening now this is unlike you wow you're supposed to pick a lady up for a dental appointment instead you're going to carnival and you want me to take a restraining order off my boyfriend because you manipulated the whole thing. Who am I talking to?

Now you get it. Cabo. Got to go. Got to go. Peace. So Sandy said, what pilot, what are you talking about?

Because she has a boyfriend named Jonathan Pyrrhic, who's not a pilot. So he's, she's like, I know your boyfriend and he's not a pilot. And you didn't have an affair with a pilot you would have probably told me about that that's that's a pretty exciting thing probably you would have said i fucked this pilot i've been banging it's awesome he takes me all

over the world three trips to rio it's amazing so penn said quote he wants me to travel the world with him i called him after my divorce but i never thought he would come to rescue me she said that she even at this point she said while i'm gone i'm gonna let your ex-boyfriend who i want you to get the restraining order dropped against i'm gonna let him house sit in my house while i'm gone that's how much i trust him you guys are that close now yeah you can you know totally my bad talk about misjudging somebody this is interesting over the top she said if the two of you move in together yeah she has a hardcore restraining order against him and now they're getting to the point not even should you drop it once you move in together yeah get a place together she did she said if the two of you

move in together as you should obviously yeah um you can rent the house out and move my garden to your place. I'll be in South America. Yeah, I'll be in South America. So she had my crock pot. Sandy's like, I got to feed the dogs. And this started with, what is happening today? Yeah. I don't get it. This is very weird. She's like, why got to feed the dogs. And this started with, what is happening today? Yeah. I don't get it.

This is very weird. She's like, why do you want me to do? I'm not moving in with him. You're going to give up your garden? That's your garden? Yeah. Her garden is her whole thing. She's like, you're giving up your garden?

What the fuck are you talking about? You love your house. It's perfect for you. You love it. Why are you talking about all this? And her response is, Penn's response is, quote, Sandy, you're truly a friend. I only want what's best for you. She says then, know this.

Go after him the way I had you stay away from him. Think of aloneness like a drink. Like you should avoid it. Think of aloneness like a drink. That's how much you should run to him it's like running to aa away from drinking when you feel like you need to be alone call your sponsor yep call your sponsor and then fuck him and make him your sponsor she said and stick to him like glue i know you can take care of yourself but let him be your prince charming and take care of you this is what

pen is an extremely independent person who would never say this to anybody about ever any relationship usually so she's like what prince charming take it what the fuck are you talking about so she said this is crazy she said quote pen this is a bit much uh why don't we have lunch and talk about it let me call you sometime between noon and one okay so then pen doesn't answer that and just says keep him happy keep him out of jail okay then have lunch keep him happy keep him out of jail keep him out of jail then pen said and don't tell my my boyfriend jonathan that this happened don't talk to jonathan at all and don't tell him that i called you then she says that she is giving her her sheep dog fluff this is uh penn's sheep dog who she takes everywhere with her and i'm talking

about everywhere there is. If she leaves the house, it's come on, fluff, and he gets in the – they drive away. Everywhere. A fucking sheepdog? A sheepdog. Apparently – That's a lot of dog. Insanely well-behaved sheepdog that like –

I believe it. Yeah. That's a lot of dog. She's always – the dog's always right next to him. She said, I'm giving the sheepdog, by the way, to him as well. So he's staying at my house with my dog. You should move in together, rent my house out, take my garden, do whatever you got to do. But, yeah, you can totally rent my house out to people and to keep the money.

I don't need it. And take the take the take the garden home. Have you been to Puerto Vallarta? This is how great it is. Fucking have you had pilot penis it's amazing pilot penis we'll solve it all puerto vallarta pilot penis and puerto vallarta everybody the three p's so sandy was like what the this is crazy um then she heard her say something and we'll find out exactly what it is later, but she

heard Penn say something about a chainsaw accident. Okay. And like, cause the dogs are going crazy. So she's starting to not be able to hear. And she's something about a chainsaw accident. She's like, what are you talking about? And then the call was over. Okay.

So she is completely perplexed, perplexed. Sandy, she's feeding the dogs going, what the hell happened? And she's like, oh, I got to call her back later. So she calls her up between noon and 1, like she said, can't get a hold of her and never can get a hold of her again. Wow. Yeah. Puerto Vallarta? Where?

Where is she? What a call. Yeah, I mean, you could search all over Mexico and South America. Yeah. Chile's a giant place. Brazil's even bigger. It's long as shit. It's long as shit. You guys go up and down, back and forth. Yeah, it's huge down there. You'll find miners before you find her. Yeah, you will. They'll be in the ground begging for help.

So let's find out about Edith Penn Meyer and find out what her deal is here. Now, Edith is born into a... She's got a big family. I think that she has ten brothers and sisters, I believe. That's a lot. But it's not ten brothers and sisters like a crime and sports story where they're, you know... No? No. Mom works three jobs and the kids are, like, roaming

the streets and none of that shit. They're wealthy. They have money. She has a trust fund. So they're doing fine. Yeah. Yeah, this is is 11 pieces of joy is what we've brought in because we can afford to have people watch them and yeah when we go to you know kenna bunkport or whatever the fuck they do bundles of future that's what these are yeah absolutely they're wealthy and in boston as well when she's born. Oh, Jesus. She's born on the 4th of July as well. Is that right?

4th of July, 1949 in Boston. Of course. Yep. Her mother's name is also Edith. They named her Edith after her mother. She got an Edith Jr.? An Edith Jr. She's a junior.

But the mother said, well, this is annoying having two Ediths in the house because there's no short for Edith. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's two syllables already. Even if there's multiple Jameses, one could be James, one could be Jimmy, one could be Jim. You can fucking do it like that. They go with Edie, I suppose. Sort of.

Instead, they say no. She started calling her Penny after a long time, short for Independence Day because that's when she was born. Penny. Yes. It's kind um short for independence day because that's when she was born penny yes it's a stretch that's a stretch you said what's your name penny was that short for independence day i don't think anybody i wonder in her whole life how many people call to ask that question What's that short for? What the hell, man? Not a single person ever. Not a single person ever. Her mom sat in a chair and overthought the shit out of that. What should I call her?

Indy? Indy? No, I can't call her Indy. That's kind of weird. Okay, so that's Indianapolis. That's not going to work. Pendy? Pendy's not a good name.

Pendy's hideous. Jesus. He'll never get married. Pendence? That sounds like Constance or something. That's not a great name. Pendence? I don't like that.

Penny. Yeah, that's what that sounds like. That's the only thing that you can do with independence that's adorable enough for a child. It's so, yeah. Everything else sucks. So her mom is very creative. Yeah. Oh, boy.

She has a lot of time on her hands, that's for sure. Nobody can bend over backwards like her mom to figure this out. I'll tell you what. Her mom really twisted herself. She's got 10 kids. 11 of them, really. Twisted herself in pretzels over this. Pen. Yeah. Okay. ten kids eleven of them really twist herself and pretzels over this pen okay so uh it's shortened to pen after a while penny pen that woman's name is edith and they did this to her that's how we

got pen that's how everyone calls her pen right short for penny which isn't her name either so it has nothing to do with this poor girl nope um so the myers though this family tons of they have a good amount of money um they are her father was a wealthy industrialist as it's known exactly he's so wealthy that it's not even from what he has so many businesses he's just an industrialist it's not even he has a concrete smoothing business where he made millions or you know he has a whatever business no no he has a bunch of restaurants nope industrial industrialist wow some shit uh the family has multiple homes they take you know summers and uh weekends in the summer in rhode island and all that sort of

thing at their home on the beach there. Their places have names, don't they? Yes, probably. I don't know what they are, but they probably do. Now, Penn, though, that sounds idyllic. You know, you think about it, it sounds idyllic, but it wasn't very idyllic for Penn because she was terrified of her

father. And I guess he had very harsh disciplinarian... Short fuse short fuse short that sort of thing and she was very free-spirited as she'll always be i mean she's just she's just a hippie she's a hippie when she's eight she's a hippie when she's 40 awesome that's just how she is so it's a person yeah she's having a good time yeah so penn uh did they didn't get along very well here and we'll talk about otherwise penn had some problems in her And we'll talk about otherwise. Penn had some problems in her childhood. We'll talk about it.

She went to the Pingree School in South Hamilton, Massachusetts, which is an all-girls day school founded in 1961 in the family mansion of Charles Pingree. Wow. So she went to school in a mansion rather than an industrial building. Named after a man whose mansion they went to. To learn. Wow. After she graduated, she moved to New London, New Hampshire to go to Colby Sawyer Junior College, which is now Colby Sawyer College. She graduates with a degree in 1970,

and then she marries the boy that she met in college. Yeah. Yeah, there you go. Nice time. Colin Campbell is his name, and she's very happy because she wants to get away from her family because she does not like them. So she wants to kind of get away,

and getting married in 1971 was the way you did that. They'll eventually have three children together, Justin, Kira, and Haley. And they settle down in Wilmot, New Hampshire. And they hang out. She learns to weave. Her and another woman named Julie learn to weave. And she was really good at it, as we'll find out later she makes a living at it later on weaving so yeah she did all of that um she's she's big in the artisan

community in new hampshire everybody knows her she has everybody says she makes beautiful napkins and mats and table runners and shit like that she does does well. Yeah. She's doing well here. She divorces Colin in 1985. Okay. Moves back to New London where she becomes, she gets part-time work as a gardener and a flower arranger. That's a florist, right? I guess so. I don't know.

Maybe your job is just you're the, maybe the florist buys the flowers and plans them. I don't know. Yeah. The arranger just puts them in. Just puts them in to make them look great. I'd love to know the differentiation. What's the line between florist and flower arranger? Where does that shit sit? So she worked there.

She did that. She worked for one season at a farm and a live preservation museum where she was fired for her opinions on how the estate should be landscaped she's very forceful didn't think they were doing it right yeah she was passionate about landscape to the point of she'll lose a job i will lose a job over this shit you're pulled a corporate office? Bitched about the greenery in the parking lot? I will lose a job over greenery. Don't fuck with me. Jesus.

Fuck these. These are stupid myrtles. This is wild, man. So she's always known as she's very thin, very tan. Everybody knows her as. Very thin, very picture magna from something about Mary. They keep describing her as very thin, very tan everybody knows her as very thin very picture magna from something something about mary in terms of they keep describing her as very thin very tan new england tan is it new england tan or is it like she goes to go get tan no no she's always outdoors she's always hiking she's

always in the sun so her tan even lasts into the winter she does well here yeah Yeah. She keeps a decent relationship with her ex-husband, too, which is nice here. She takes long walks. When it snows, she goes out in the neighborhood at night and walks around. And the people who have kids, she goes and makes snow angels in the front yard. So the kids come out the next day and see snow angels and think that, I guess, angels of the snow made it. That's either adorable or fucking horrible or weird you have to cover up your footsteps otherwise you go well the angel walked in from the road that's fascinating the angel stood up and walked back to the sidewalk

weird fucking wings aren't much worth much these wings would help with all this goddamn snow around. No, they trudge through two feet of snow, it looks like. That would have been way easier to fly. This shit's almost hip deep, and that angel really put in work for us. Luckily, kids are stupid and don't know that, and they just see it and go, wow. You know, they don't fucking know. A four-year-old runs out hey look at that yeah now pen like i said she's an aa later on and stuff so you're going well

where's the alcoholism come from what's happening what's going on there well she also has something that she hid for a long time that she dealt with after a while is that she was sexually abused as a child for a long time so that was hard and that's why she drank she said that was her way of self-soothing she was a real discreet drinker everybody said really nobody nobody that was close to her suspected she had any kind of alcohol problem anything like that no no she was not the type that was you know sloshed at six o'clock coming in. Where's the dinner? I thought we were eating now. By the mid-90s, she couldn't take it anymore.

She's hospitalized. She has what's described as a nervous breakdown, which I don't know what that could be. A numerous, large range of things here. That could be something that a man just couldn't tolerate. Yeah. What is this, a nervous breakdown? What are you having, a nervous breakdown? I fucking hate you. She checked herself in here um yeah because this she was having a hard time and she just lost it checked herself into the hospital she this though made her talk about her her

childhood yeah put her alcoholism on the table all these things that she had a double life basically in her own mind. This partition that she had made from the rest of the world. She kind of opened that up and let people do that. It's tough to put yourself into a mental facility and not understand that you're about to go through some pretty serious fucking walls. Exactly. So those shits are going to come to the surface. And you're going to be like, why are you shaking so much, homie? Yeah. yeah so those shits are gonna come to the surface and be like what why are you shaking so much homie yeah why that and just everything else too because now she starts talking about the sexual abuse

and so she's trying to she's not masking it anymore trying to clean the clear the slate clean the slate for her so she tries to quit drinking a few times and fails as it's hard to do it's not it's like a coke machine you gotta keep pushing it back and forth um she finally gives up drinking for good in the mid-90s and joins AA. And that's her way of – and she keeps going to meetings even 10 years later. She's still going to meetings. So she also began the process of therapy, about getting molested and all that sort of things. She, I guess, also made herself a pretty good advocate for women who were trying to get them over trauma and get so sober.

And anybody who came into AA that had that backstory, she was a very good help for them. They could lean on her. She knew what they were going through and it was very helpful. So in 2001, uh, her two oldest children are living on their own. 2001, her two oldest children are living on their own. You know, at that point, she's still got her youngest kid, but her two oldest are living on their own. And she gets married to somebody else here. Remarries to a guy, a landscaper from Goshen.

Goshen what? I think New Hampshire. Yeah. A guy named Richard Rankin. So old Dick Rankin over here. He's Dick Rankin. Like he's Rankin Dicks. Maybe wash it, sir. Rankin, Dicks.

Not Reekin, Rankin. Wow. Rankin Dick. Like he's ranking his favorite penises from one to ten. I mean, some girls pay a charge to do that on OnlyFans. You never guess. I mean, some girls pay a charge to do that on OnlyFans. You can have her yet. I mean, who knows? It's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid.

We're your hosts. I'm Alina Urquhart. And I'm Ash Kelly. And our show is part true crime, part spooky, and part comedy. The stories we cover are well-researched. He claimed and confessed to officially killing up to 28 people. With a touch of humor. I'd just like to go ahead and say that if there's no band called Malevolent Deity,

that is pretty great. A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing. This mother f***er lied. Like a liar. Like a liar. And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal. Or you love to hop in the Wayback Machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes, you should tune in to our podcast, Morbid.

Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, available exclusively on Wondery Plus, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church

for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth.

With an all-star cast led by Emmy nominee Sanaa Lathan and Star Wars' Kelly Marie Tran, Chinook is available exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. 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 1 and watching along with Part 2 as it airs on Max, starting April 21stst bye-bye the official jinx podcast listen on max or wherever you get your podcasts so he ends up being very jealous and controlling which is not cool for her because she has a million friends she does things she talks to people not good oh he's also an alcoholic which is a problem he's drinking a lot what the fuck why why is she allowing that man in her life it's just things that are left over that you're attracted to

you can't you can't unless you're at what point do you have to be like you know clear of all that shit to not go after the things that whatever your childhood implanted and you would go after whatever weird shit that is you know and sometimes when you're ranking dick uh the drunk one is highest you can get high yeah you never know he's also abusive verbally toward her guys that are all the time when he's drunk and uh so within three years they're separated she buys a house here in goshen it's a rural house it's near uh water it's very nice here. Really beautiful. It's like the perfect house for her. She makes it all, you know, all earthy and has a garden and all.

It's her dream house. Not a huge place, but very well put together. Very nice. She's got a trust fund and stuff, too. So career-wise, she's not very ambitious. She just kind of does what she wants. Sometimes you don't need to. Doesn't need to. She doesn't live to that's the other she doesn't live extravagantly so she doesn't care when your dad's an industrialist you don't gotta go too hard no you have had a big trust fund since

birth you can chill a little bit she's a weaver and a yarn dyer who sells her goods at the norwich farmers market so that's not someone who's career, really career driven. You know what I'm saying? Damn it. That sounds like a dream. It sounds, if that's what you're into, that sounds great.

No one's like, I'm going to put an ink and thread, James. I'm going to make it big as a yarn dyer. And all you motherfuckers are going to come to me when you need help after that and see who helps you. Cause it ain't going to be me. Ain't going to be Edith Yarn Dyer over here no no

wait for my yarn dying blue check mark on Twitter big hot shit right there so she's also active in community stuff she's the Goshen town representative on the Lake Sanapi Protective Association

board and also a member of the Friends of Mount Sanapi a group working to stop expansion at the Mount Sanapi Protective Association board. Oh, yeah. And also a member of the Friends of Mount Sanapi, a group working to stop expansion at the Mount Sanapi resort. Awesome. She likes preservation of nature. Yeah. She's into that. So she is doing her thing.

This is how she's described in the 2000s, early 2000s, by the book here. Quote, she cut a striking portrait petite slender and tan pen could couldn't be described as anything other than stunning her long once brown hair had finally been allowed to turn silver and her frame though slight bore muscles of a woman who made a habit of hiking and swimming several times a day fuck yeah she's like a sinewy nature woman yeah she's doing it yep um she's everybody said she's kind of laid back she wears a lot of oversized clothes uh yeah a lot of these big jangly bracelets she wears okay she collects them from like all of her travels she'll get these big

like bangle bracelets that are where's them all clanking all over her arms all the time, everybody says. When she's moving around, she sounds like a silverware drawer being jostled every time she's there. So she does very well. She drives a Honda CRV. Her home is nice. It's on the sloping shores of a lake. She's all earthy like we said she's doing that sort of thing fluff though that's her dog fluff here yeah um he got his real name is anisi hyssop that's his dog you know full dog name but he that's from a purple perennial herb

that grew wild in new hampshire but she to just call him Fluff because who the fuck is calling their dog Anissi Hysop? What the fuck is that? Use that at the dog park and see if everybody doesn't look at you. Anissi Hysop, get over here. Get over here now. I'm Anissi Hysop. Someone's like, is there a kid missing? Is that a kid he's calling?

It's an Anissi Hysop. What the hell is that? Is that looking for a drink? Is that a beer? What is that a kid he's calling? It's an Onisi high sock. What the hell is that? Looking for a drink? Is that a beer? What is that? Is that backward language? Like fucking Twin Peaks? That's that Japanese beer I heard about.

Yeah, it's good I heard. An eye sock, yeah. Yeah, the Onisi high sock. You got to try that one. So fluff goes everywhere. Grocery store. Family gatherings. They said if the weather's too not too extreme

if it's not it's not too hot up there most of the time if it's not too cold in the winter fluff would just hang out in the out in the honda crv with the windows open show um yeah the farmer's market where she sold stuff wasn't dog friendly a non-dog friendly farmer's market that seems like you're you're like you're keeping two parts of a Venn diagram apart. And those are dog people and farmer's market people are the same. Also, you're taking the animals away from the actual market of the farm? Like, we're going to take everything that you make, all your products, and we're taking them to market. None of you fucks are allowed to be there.

Yeah, it's very weird. That's bizarre. It's a bizarre, bizarre thing. are allowed to be there. Yeah, it's very weird. That's bizarre. It's a bizarre, bizarre thing. So she would sneak Fluff in her booth and he would hide behind her stuff

and just hang out there the whole time. That a boy. That's a good boy. Yeah, he would swim with her, hike with her. She'd be in the canoe. He'd be sitting in the fucking canoe with her as they're going. So she's closest with one of her sisters

out of her 10 siblings. She's got a sister, Jessie, who's 13 years younger than her huh that's who she's close with and um you know that she she said that like it's in her will that and her ex-husband agrees to this if anything happens to both of them that jesse's no the kids go to her oh the guardianship of the children probably fluff too i assume probably well i'll trust you with my kids but not fluff i only go so far with my trust fluff's going someone responsible you can have these fucking kids yeah the kids will yell at you when they need to eat

but him you gotta feed him so um she is um she goes here she did basically is a free spirit who does what she wants whenever she feels like it. Hikes, bikes, swims, weaves, goes to the farmer's market, does whatever. Very New Hampshire, really, because that outdoorsy shit, that's a specific person in New Hampshire. Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. They make clothing specifically for those people. Fuck yeah. No, that's a big section of a lot of people up there. Penn, she built a stone path that led down to the shoreline and everything like that.

It's the thing with rocks. She collects these flat rocks from her walk. So she has this big pile of flat rocks she collects. It's interesting there. She also has a studio to work in, a yarn dyeing studio apparently here. And yeah, everybody said it's wonderful. Jessie described her house as a tranquil, beautiful homie and a little on the funky side too, like her sister. So she is going out with Jonathan Purek is his name here.

They met at an Al-Anon meeting in Newport, New Hampshire. He liked her, thought she liked the way she carried herself and all that sort of thing. And everybody liked her. She's real social and he was into it there.

He had just gotten out of a relationship and didn't know if he wanted to start something new, but he liked her. So he was in. So they would spend some time together.

She was in the middle of a divorce at this time, so she wasn't ready to go out with him yet and so they would sit a lot of times in the car and talk and have long talks and penn's doing alan on because of her second husband being a drinker alan on is for like family members of yeah yeah so she's trying to figure out what her role was in the drinking of him, in his drinking. Interesting. Which is interesting because I think maybe he's an alcoholic and you were near him is probably your role in it. Yeah. I mean.

It's more about why do you attract that? Why are you attracted to that? Yeah. Yeah. I would worry about more of why I'm attracted to that. For sure. What's that thing that makes me, what triggers, what about that triggers in my brain to want to be with that person? That's what I would worry about more of why i'm attracted to that for sure what's that thing that makes me what's what triggers what about that triggers in my brain to want to be with that person that's what i would

worry about but i'm not a psychiatrist i don't fucking know anything so she um she said that she was going to get a divorce and so he asked her out on a date and she said i'd like he said i want to take you to a concert or something she said i, I would probably date you, but I have to be divorced first. So I'm not going to date you until I'm divorced. And he found that irresistible. He's like, this fucking woman's got integrity. What's up with that? Well, there's that.

But there's also the yes, but give me some time. Yeah. Fuck the time. You just said yes. You just said, yeah, guys will take that. We'll take that and we'll go all right that's all right i'm planting seeds and i'm like yeah what date is it i'm gonna put it in my iphone right now with an alarm yeah you plant tomatoes you don't expect

to have tomatoes right now it takes a while yeah it's just seeds in the ground i'm waiting shit's gonna sprout so he thought that was attractive though yeah their divorce uh dick rankin's divorce with penn is finalized september 15th 2004 and he she can she starts a relationship with jonathan in earnest here so um yeah she's interested here now the 23rd of February, 2005, Jonathan gets a call from work here from A.A. Peter, who took Joanne DeFore to her dentist appointment. So Jonathan Peerwick gets a call at work, and he says, I just had to take Joanne into town because Penn didn't show up to take her to her appointment. And, you know, where is she? Do you know where she is? And he said, I saw her the night before.

We went to an Al-Anon meeting and we talked for a while afterwards. She wanted me to stay the night at her house, but I couldn't. So I went home and I called her in the morning and she never answered the phone. She said, I just figured she's walking fluff around the lake or some shit. She does that all the time. So, yeah. So this lady, you know, there's there. Peter here, who is the,

like we said, the boyfriend or the friend who drove the woman to the dental appointment. Joanne. Yeah. He said, Joanne's all upset. And it's, and I,

she can't, she said, you know, it's so odd and she just has a bad feeling about it. And Jonathan says, well, I don't feel right about it either here. I'll call her too. Maybe she'll call me back,

you know, whatever. So yeah, Jonathan here, he had to drive some guys to an awol appointment which is another way of life meeting that's got to be another one of those things right yeah it's something like that here it's a life skills support program for addicts here you know the amount of support that the new hampshire offers that is unbelievable i love it

a small these aren't big areas too right these aren't like cities these are there's a lot of stuff going on resources to help people with aa and fucking yeah a wall that i just found out i don't even know that exists yeah who knows they even have that shit i don't know we don't know what that is. I don't know what the fuck that is. So Jonathan decides that he's going to drive to Penn's home after the meeting there. So she's not answering the phone, doesn't understand it. He's wondering what's going on. He gives two guys a ride home who attended the meeting as well. He's headed back, and he said, do you mind if I stop?

I have to check at my girlfriend's house. Do you mind if I stop somewhere real quick? No problem. So, I mean, you're driving. You are giving us a ride. I mean, check at my girlfriend's house. Do you mind if I stop somewhere real quick? No problem. So, I mean, you're driving. You aren't giving us a ride. I mean, it's your car. Yeah. He pulls up about 9.30 p.m.

The light was on. And he was like, okay, well, that's good. Yeah. You know, maybe she's in there. He has one of her garage door opener remotes. Oh. So that's how, you know, he can get in the house. So he opens the garage door and her CRV is parked in the garage. Oh, OK. Light on light on car in the driveway or car in the garage. Good sign. He says to the passengers, do you guys stay in the car for a minute? I'm just going to go inside and make sure she's OK because she hasn't gotten back to anybody. And I don't know what's up here. So he ends up he he opens the door he has a key to the house as well

he opens the door he opens it he's kind of scared he's like am i gonna find you know her body parts scattered all over the place or what here so he calls he opens the door pen nobody there what's going on he doesn't know he goes into the bedroom the bathroom maybe she slept slipped and fell hit her head on the fucking tub or something. Right. Any place a person could hurt themselves in a home and be unresponsive, he's looking for that. Maybe she's here. Maybe she's there.

And also, you'd have to go check down by the river. Maybe she fell in the lake or something. She fell, hit her head on a rock. We don't know. There's so much wildlife here, too. There's fisher cats. Them shits are terrifying. Yeah.

We don't know. Snapping turtles. Who the hell knows what happened? They talked about earlier, there was porcupines in her woods. Maybe there was a porcupine accident. So he's looking around. Everything seems fine. There's nothing destroyed.

There's no blood anywhere or anything like that. The bed was unmade. You could smell paint drying in the air, which means she's been doing yarn stuff and painting. So he's like, okay. Dirty dishes and pots in the sink which is fine there's a towel on the yeah towel on the floor in the bathroom like she had gone you know took a shower and some laundry kind of strewn about but that's it that's all she can find so he goes over he plays her answering machine messages because he's getting scared now so he plays her answering machine messages because her car's there and she's not and this isn't normal so there's calls from joanne saying you

know i gotta get to my dental appointment get me yeah uh then there's pen it's me sandy call me i'm having lunch now i want to talk to you more about the bombshell you dropped on me this morning yeah which was that you should get back with your abusive ex-boyfriend i'll call your old man so this guy he's like bombshell what's going on does that have something get back with your abusive ex-boyfriend. Call your old man. So this guy, he's like, bombshell? What's going on? Does that have something to do with her disappearance? A bombshell? Yeah.

So then he heard a bunch of his voice on there. So he's going and, you know, he's like, whatever. Then Fluff walks into the room. Hey, buddy. And he's like, what the fuck? Okay. Yeah. Because his next thing he was thinking was she might be outside hurt somewhere.

As an adult. Not if he's in the house because she wouldn't go out and do anything without him. Yeah. Why would you leave him inside if you're going out? Yeah. That's never, she would never do that. And then she also, he also thinks even if she went out with a friend, she'd probably take the dog with her. So. Yeah.

It's weird. So he stopped calling for her. Stop, you know, pen pen and he's like she wouldn't go anywhere without the dog this is fucking weird she must have left with somebody else and so he leaves so yeah the two guys were outside you know waiting for him he goes and he just said he had a bad feeling about the whole thing and um yeah he didn't know what to do so let's introduce that ex-boyfriend into the equation here okay send for a sec sandy merits ex-boyfriend his name is ken carpenter okay old ken i think it's kenneth russell carpenter he was uh one of three kids

he's the middle brother of three kids here. He was born in August 1951. He's from Greenfield, Massachusetts. He's in Western Mass. Kind of moved around a little bit when he was a kid. His father went to different jobs, so they moved around. Didn't grow up with a lot of money or anything like that. They moved to Florida for a while. Then they ended up coming back to New England, his family.

Just trying to find something that works for them here um he grew up in uh kelmsford uh kelmsford i guess chelmsford i don't know shelmsford whatever massachusetts it's about it's a suburb of boston and um his cousin he hung out with his cousin named alan said he hung around with with ken all the time and they would drink together and get shit-faced together and they started drinking pretty early on early you know youth 12 years old sitting on the grass hill behind the house drinking beers Jesus you know New England yeah you know that works sit on a grass hill getting a stomachache at 13. Yep. Going to throw up later, but that's fine. 13, 14, 15.

His parents are Alfred, but he goes by Bud. That's his dad. Yeah, I could see how you get there. Bud Carpenter. Alfred Bud. And his mom's name is Bernice, goes by Bernie. So Bud and Bernie are his parents. Yeah.

So they end up buying the town drive-in theater his parents really so they run the drive-in movie theater it's a two screener that's an interesting group of people i imagine that's interesting which would be cool if you were a kid though the access to popcorn and pretzels and movies that'd be amazing i would love that as a kid that would have been great just a an interesting person that owns the drive-in i've never seen the person that owns the drive-in but i imagine they're carnies they're carnies they're strange people they're carnies that stay put but they just live a carny lifestyle in a very uh foundation built place that's what carnies do when they want to settle down when they're tired of life on the road they're like let's get it like just a just a home carnival we just do all the time

no no we'll sell cotton candy still same shit but we're gonna show movies now that's all we're gonna do stay put that's what we're gonna do is just stay put where at the drive-in at the drive-in that's fuck it's gonna be you know it'll be just as weird but just you know we stay and they come you ever been to the drive-in at the drive-in that's fuck it's gonna be no it'll be just as weird but just you know we stay and they come you ever been to the drive-in and been like we should never leave that's what we're gonna do we're never gonna leave nobody's said that ever everybody that's gone to the drive-in was like is the first movie over yet can we just go i don't want to see the second one they owned a second one that turned into a porn drive-in which is amazing that you can show giant open-air screens of porn that's crazy that's hilarious i didn't know that

that's real yeah that was a big deal a lot of theaters in the 70s went from regular movie theaters to porn theaters to because the movie theaters weren't making as much money and they were doing the same thing. Driving porn. I mean, then you have a place to fuck too, I guess, if that's what you're doing. Your weirdness jerking off in your car. Very secluded place to tug. Yeah, that's what I mean. It's

more private. It's your own private box in the jerk theater. That's what it is. Try understanding what the fuck's being said on that tiny tinny uh speaker that you gotta hook to your window you gotta touch that after somebody got jizz all over their hand you don't need the sound you know what they're saying fuck me harder i got it you'll hear it coming from the car over there don't worry about it that is fucking about yeah i can't believe because those are always by a road, and as you drive by, you can see

the movie playing. Yeah. You can see somebody clapping cheeks on the fucking, on the screen, 500 feet off the road. As you're driving by, wow, look at the tits on her. Hey, kids, look at the tits. Let's go. Parents with kids, keep off of Route 42 after dark. After about 8 p.m., we got a double feature.

It's a double tonight. You're going to watch. It's a big one. I used to put porn DVDs in my friend's DVD player in his truck because he had monitors on the back of his headrest. I just flipped that on as we're driving around and there's two monitors on the back of his headrest is playing porn while we're driving through old town scottsdale some poor parents are like you fucking assholes look at these dirt bags

so that's what he's got is a drive-in theater, which makes him kind of cool. The other kids like going to the drive-in theater. So as a teenager, it's not bad here. And everybody likes Ken, by the way. Ken's a real easy dude making friends and shit like that. Everybody says he moves between clicks very easily. Kids call him Jeb for some reason. All right.

Don't know why. His name's Ken, that's why. Ken, Jeb. We don't know why. You know, he has long hair in the 60s that he keeps always, always keeps his hair long. And, you know, everybody said he looked pretty cool. He's a good football player, played linebacker and offensive guard.

He's only 5'11", but he's about 220, 230. Oh, that's a big kid. He's a stocky dude, stocky young guy here, and built real solid here. He did really well tackling the shit out of people. Everybody said he was just a maniac tackling people. They said he seemed to like it. Oh. Yeah.

It said it was kind of the – his tackles were the subject of an inside joke in the school yearbook. He said later on, though, he said, sure, I liked hitting guys. Who doesn't? That's what he said. Likes to hit guys there. So that was what he was into. He spent most of his adult life in Massachusetts. He's got married and divorced twice.

Had a son. Bounces around from job to job. He works construction. Carpenter works construction. He said, well. He should be building cabinets. Why not? Yeah.

He repaired race cars. He did construction. He did landscaping. Just no. Jack of all trades. Something blue collar he can latch on to, but no real career goal here. So one thing he does do well is stay sober though here oh yeah he apparently stopped drinking in 1981 went to aa and has stayed sober since has done a really good job of staying sober he was

really into it even his sponsor was impressed with him and everybody said he was super into the program loved it and um after a couple years he becomes a sponsor to other people okay in the program here and everybody said he's got a real magnetism and in these aa meetings because that's his in his field he's good on the football field great in aa meetings that's his area all sorts of charisma and you can do anything but then you get him at a job and he's useless you can't do yeah can't do much can't make his way you can't really do that so you know that's that's kind of how he goes here he even after his hair went gray still wearing a big long ponytail and all that kind of thing. Had a big. That's a bold move.

Big thick beard as well. Yeah. And he, the thing is, is he would kind of find women in AA also. That was the way he did. He would troll for women in AA. And yeah, everybody said that, because he didn't go to the bar or anything. That's where he went, was to meetings. And so he would kind of, everybody said he could get a real good read on the female members he could see their vulnerabilities and you know

he's like a guy in a bar who's going look at her she's doing this that same thing he's just doing it in aa meetings that's all and uh he knows all about the you know the steps and all that kind of shit so people are impressed with him they think he's good but i mean girls don't go to aa meetings some to get laid some there are a lot of girls that go to bars to get laid you know what i mean yeah oh absolutely yeah but he this he doesn't go to bars though he goes here right so that's the thing and he he knows he can tell it's there's also he's got a little predatory thing with women so there's. So there's a certain sixth sense with predators. Yeah, it's the wounded antelope theory. It's one of those.

So I feel like that's how he does it. And he's kind of transferred. Rather than drinking, he wants sex instead now. Wow. He wants women and sex. He also has a wife as well during all of this, as we'll talk about here. Say what? Cynthia Harvey is her

name she goes by harv everybody calls not cindy yeah harv not sin harv harv pen and harv oh and jeb yeah what is happening with this there's no rhyme or reason. None at all. So he finds love in an AA meeting here in Nashua, New Hampshire. He goes there. He meets Harve, and she's blonde, and he thinks she's kind of hot. She's in her 40s, well-built, attractive, and she's going back to school to become a nurse. She's also very religious. She goes to church regularly and socializes with all the church people and yeah um she is very into the spiritual spirituality aspect of aa and all of that sort of

shit so she likes that sort of thing so they started dating ken started dating harv in july of 2000 they moved in together they look like a mismatched pair because he looks like kind of a dirtbag. Yeah. And she looks like a 40-year-old put-together woman. Like career woman. Yeah. So it's a little odd, the two of them together here. And he's not really into church shit.

But, you know, she would encourage him to go to church or, you know, why don't you talk to the pastor? And, yeah, he'd say, all right, he'd talk to the people. But he just wasn't really into it. He just kind of just kind of doing it. You know what I mean? So they eventually they move to Sullivan County and they found a cottage in Lempster, New Hampshire. That's how we get here. And it's less than an hour from her nursing school and the medical center where she works as well.

Yeah. There. And the medical center where she works as well. In Nashville? Yeah, there. So she gets a job working second shift at the Sullivan County Nursing Home as a nursing assistant. And she goes to school during the day. Jesus.

She has quite the schedule, as you can imagine. Wake up at 6, get home at 10. Absolutely. Now, he can't really find a job that well. He's having a hard time finding a job here. He tries. He can't really find much construction work around here. He gets hired. It's seasonal anyway. It's seasonal in the Northeast, especially. It's very seasonal. We just had some painting done, and they were like, last job of the year, and that was like pre-Halloween. That was two weeks ago.

That was pre-Halloween, and they were like, this is the last outdoor job of the year we're doing. I was like, wow, that's right. After this, we're going to bed until we're going to hibernate. Until April. I mean, that's literally until mid-April. So he got hired as a public works employee for the town of Newport. But the director fired him after the probationary period. Oh, he got 90 days. Goodbye. And they were like, nope.

He told Carpenter that he's just not getting the job done. Not what I'm looking for so he does some time as a driver for a concrete and gravel company and he works at walmart as we'll talk about as well oh boy yeah none of the work is he doesn't make a lot of money it's not a lot of steady work it's a bunch of part-time things he's mashing together here um that's he also was telling his brother that he wasn't comfortable with harv being the breadwinner so he didn't like that well make money then feels like that's your fault man yeah she makes more than you that's because you don't make any money no and then he would purchase big heavy machinery yeah backhoes and bulldozers oh my god yeah to resell or to do jobs on the side type of

thing shit like the guy from love after lockup who's like right oh he's buying stuff chase is that his name yeah buying stuff and losing it you know like you can't what you don't have a business for that though he said well i'm gonna make one oh you're not but it's a hilti yeah but it's used and now it lost value go return it jesus. So the machinery would be expensive and she said it would pop up and vanish from her property. And she never knew what he was doing and he'd spend money and be gone. And it was weird. So the AA meetings everybody's attending, apparently there's a real popular site called Millie's Place in Newport. It's kind of its establishment just for the purpose of holding meetings Millie's place in Newport. It's kind of a, it's establishment just for the purpose of holding meetings.

That's why it's there. Yeah. I don't know how it must be. Some, somebody must've donated some money or some shit to that. Cause I don't know how else that's a business exactly, but I don't know. Yeah.

It was just a charity. It was on a strip mall too. It was just like in a strip mall. And, uh, so the members were comfortable there, which is nice. Carpenter attended several regular meetings there, including the ones at Millie's because he goes to a bunch of different meetings.

Ken does. And the other alcoholics, they loved the way he approached it. And he's sponsoring people there as well. He's sponsoring all sorts of people, by the way. Yeah. Harv would go to these meetings as well. But between her work and school schedule, she had no time. Yeah, it's hard. Yeah. Harv would go to these meetings as well, but she had the, between her work and school schedule, she had no time. So she could, she could rarely make it. And she would go

to different meetings than Carpenter did. Cause she'd just go whenever she could, whenever there was time. So, um, you know, that's how it went. They would socialize with other couples and, you know, everybody knew them as a couple and all that kind of thing here. So they meet a couple named Nicholas and Dot Monaghan, and they're friends and all that sort of shit. And they would tease them, tease Carpenter and Harv, saying that you two are so lovey-dovey all the time and all that sort of shit. They're saying, why don't you two get married? And Ken doesn't really want to get married, but then he says, all right, fuck it, I'll get married and ken doesn't really want to get married but then he says all right fuck it i'll get married and he proposes to harv and they're going to do it for an early 2003 they you know all that sort of thing then one night um the couple was on their way supposed to go to the

monahans for dinner or something the truck pulls in and harv comes out, runs into the house screaming or sobbing and crying and hugging the wife of the couple they're coming to see. Carpenter is in the truck, car still running, arms folded. One of those nights. One of those nights. Yeah, I was like, oh, you can tell what happened here. So Carve explained that she and Carpenter got in a fight over something small on the ride over. And Carpenter got really mad about it and way madder than it should have been for a small thing. He pulled the truck over and got out. And he started walking back home on the road.

Been there? Yep. She shouted to him, said, get back in the truck. And finally he got back in the truck and drove silently the rest of the way to the house. Yep. To a, holy shit. For a social engagement. Let's go have a good time.

Now let's go to these poor people's house. Jesus. Holy fuck. Harv told her friend that she didn't know that Ken could get so angry about nothing and then said,'m not even sure if i should marry him anymore but they do get married they get married in 2003 and the ceremonies held at millie's also and after the vows they all went to the other end of the shopping plaza and ate chinese food as one does strip mall on the on the marriage fucking joint the old strip mall reception six doors down pretty sweet no we're gonna pass the subway as we pass the subway everyone don't say anything

now um she ends up with more equipment in the yard here um on their wedding day he had some new equipment in the yard that he she didn't know how he would have paid for it or where it came from and she's got all upset she's like i can't believe you're making me mad on my wedding day this is crazy it's a lot so then that got smoothed over then he gets a postcard in the mail ken does it was postmarked from maine and signed by a woman named Cindy. And she was telling him that she was moving to Sullivan County. So she got, Harve interrupted it and said, what the fuck is this? So he said, it's nothing. It's just a friend from one of the old meetings.

And I've known her for 15 years and blah, blah, blah. Now she said that he's unemployed and he's sitting there. She said if she needs to find him, she knows where he is and it's watching TV. It's watching. He likes police procedurals, law and order, cold case, CSI. Not that. No, no, no. Oh.

Like the actual. Yeah. All right. Procedurals where it's like someone there's a murder and we're going to solve it. One of those. So at one of the meetings at Millie's, Ken meets Sandy. Okay. Meets our friend Sandy from before.

Yeah. Merit. So Harv worked nights. She worked Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and every other weekend at the nursing home and didn't get home till midnight. So what Ken would do is that was like, he was like a bachelor that night. He'd go out, he'd fucking go to the meetings.

He'd go out and have coffee and Chinese food with the other members and, you know, do his thing. Then on January 23rd, 2004, Sandra Merritt shows up and he, you know, she's trying to get back on the wagon and she's been on and off and all that sort of shit.

So they welcomed her. And Ken here, he's attracted to something about Sandy, and it's the wounded antelope thing. She's there, bangs hanging over her face, acting like she doesn't want anybody to see her. And he's like, oh, I can coke something out of that. Yep. So there's something about her. She talked about her life. She talked very sad about the whole thing. She talked about her life. She talked very sad about the whole thing.

They talked about her problems. She said he had been seeing a psychiatrist and been taking antidepressants, so he's trying to get better. Ken is. But there's something about her. Something about her that intrigues him. So it's weird because his wife is apparently, according to everybody, much more attractive traditionally. Like you'd look at them and there'd be no contest as far as who's more attractive. But he is somewhat.

He's not interested in that. What he's interested in is something. There's some other gain there that he requires, whether it be monetary or ego stroke. I was going to say, I think he looks at her and goes, oh, I can get her to worship me. She will adore me. She will adore me. She'll adore me. Exactly. That's what it is.

And she's just getting back into AA. And it's not a rule or a law. It's not like love after lockup war. I knew it was a rule. I didn't know it was a law. It's not that. But apparently that you're not. Yeah yeah you don't date each other you're not supposed to date in aa really it's kind of discouraged it's one of those but you're you're

definitely not supposed to date anyone within the first year of their recovery in the program especially if you're in it they call it the 13th step yeah is don't fuck the guy next to you in aa right in your first year it's like that extra borough down there in florida it's just it's part of it yeah so she said that he said that well i mean but she's been in aa before so this isn't really like her first year in the program so you know it's fine she knows what she's doing so they have they talk and um ken talks to her and says you know i have 20 plus years of sobriety there's no magic trick and you know take it one day at a time and all the shit from the book and

she says okay he offers to be her sponsor which by the way men are forbidden to sponsor women because obvious it's a power dynamic that you don't want to have there so there is i don't think women are allowed to be sponsors for men either i don't think it's probably probably frowned upon also yeah so um but sandy liked him and thought he was cool and you know she asked him are you married you see you have a wedding ring yeah and he said my marriage is over i'm going to be asking my wife for a divorce so she said. And then they started having an affair. Oh, boy. Yeah.

He never did ask his wife for a divorce. No. Even though the marriage isn't going right. This is great. Yeah. Well, also, she's gone most of the time. So he can do what he wants, and that's what he does. So he said that, yeah, no, no, our relationship's terrible.

It's going to be over any minute now. I'll be moving out. We're definitely getting a divorce. And, you know, also she's the one I'm on her health insurance. Oh. And I'm going to get antidepressants. I'm going to therapy. I wouldn't be able to have that.

You know, geez, I'm only sticking with her through all of that. You know what I mean? Right. But in Sandy's mind, she's just holding for a minute until he gets a divorce and they can be together. Hmm. So yeah, they'd go out and hang out.

They'd see movies and all that sort of thing. But mainly they would hang out at her apartment at the farmhouse there. Yeah. Yep. He would, uh, she would go, Harv would go to work at night and he would go over to Sandy's house and

they would eat and watch tv and fuck and that was their whole night wow they couldn't get enough of uh crime scene of csi that was their jam yeah i'm seeing investigators they love that shit on thursday harv worked thursday nights so he's there always when it would come on in 2004 in 2004 yeah yeah that's the best time and then she also worked monday nights which is great because CSA Miami's on that night, so they could watch that too. I'm not even kidding. That's what they said. So they were due that, and they loved it.

They felt like CSI was their thing. And millions of other Americans. Yeah, it was one of the highest rated shows going at that time. Yeah. But their thing. The reason that it's like 30 seasons of it yeah no shit i think it's still going on they would sit and during commercials talk about all the facts and the forensics and who did this and they would really get into it like they were trying to solve a case it wasn't that fucking hard to figure out no that's the other thing

every one of them was like I think it's the husband. Yeah. I think that guy's a dickbag. That's what I think. You just got a bunch of insurance money. That can't be good. Every time. There was never an episode that at the end I was like, wow. Yeah.

Oh, man. That blew my mind, man. So then he would sneak back between 10 and 11 o'clock he let the dogs out straighten up and act like he's been sitting there just bored and lonely waiting for his lovely wife all night meanwhile he knows everything grissom's up to well there's something happens he's like on csi i mean i mean what i was cleaning stuff around here one One afternoon, he's working at Walmart, though, and this is when shit comes to a head. This is a comedy. This is a small town comedy scene right here.

Oh, shit. Like, this is incredible right here. Okay, he's working at Walmart, and both Harv and Sandy enter the store within 30 seconds of each other. Oh, fuck. Within 30 seconds of each other. So he saw them both at the same time as far as being there he was like oh shit so he ducked out of sight and tried to hide in walmart which is a lot of places to hide in walmart i'll give you that it is yeah there's a lot getting that gardening section you can really get in behind some like bags of mulch or something

you can get in there you find a pallet of fucking garden hoses yeah a tire, you can really get in behind some bags of mulch or something. You can get in there. You can find a pallet of fucking garden hoses. Yeah, a tire section. You can get yourself in a tire if you're thin enough. Fog man, in seasonal time, you can climb in the wrapping paper. Watch out. You're never going to find me. He's going to be in the Santa Claus outfit pretending to be Santa Claus, hoping nobody notices, hiding in plain sight. A light bulb in his mouth that lights up.

Jesus. So this turns into a farce very quickly because they'll start walking toward that area. He sneaks out to another aisle. Yackety-sacks. And the co-workers all stopped working to watch it because they thought it was fucking hilarious. They're like, check it out, dude. He's going. There she goes it out dude he's going there she goes oh he's never good is she gonna find him or what she gonna get him she get oh he slipped out oh he would stop when he'd see one turn the corner there'd be another one in the other end oh shit he'd run that way fucking ben stiller movie

and both of the women not only are they looking for him they're asking every employee they come across do you know where Ken Carpenter is? I don't know. So they point, I think he's working over there. So they'll point and then he has to run. And then the other one, an employee will see him and then they'll say, I'm going that way. So it's like this crazy farce of a bullshit. It's incredible.

It's incredible. So he begs one of his co-workers please please tell them that i already left just tell them i left tell them both i'll go hide so they do apparently so at millie's place one night ken and sandy keep their relationship no one knows about it in aa because they're not supposed to be doing it and he's married to a woman who also comes to meetings everybody is very well aware of yeah yeah not good and hangs out with people in there so they would both come they would both come to the 7 p.m and they just keep their interactions to a minimum they're just hey how you doing like anybody else just that kind of makes it harder that doesn't work when nobody knows and they know

they fucking know yeah they fucking know they know when there's a fucking. These are grown adults that can sense sexual tension. Yeah, I feel sexual tension. Because they have some too. Little glances, things like that. They never sat next to each other, which why wouldn't they ever sit next to each other? Dead giveaway. You're avoiding each other. Yep.

And Sandy would talk to the other women after the deal, and Ken would keep his distance. But apparently no one suspected the affair. It worked out. It worked. distance and um but apparently no one suspected the affair it worked out it worked one day though sandy's chatting with some women after the a meeting and um she becomes friends with pen that's how she met pen sandy pen was you know knew that she was suffering and wanted to help her and so they ended up starting to hang out and she said hey come to my place you can hike around the lake with me or whenever you want.

And, you know, so she did. She came over and her and Penn and Fluff would do the trails. They go around the lake and there's a lot of fun there. So she said, you're perfectly allowed to do this even if I'm not home. Feel free to use my property to get to the lake and enjoy. Then November 2004, Sandy pulls up one day with Ken Carpenter in the car. What? Yeah, they go on the land. They walk around. They find car. What? Yep. They go on the land.

They walk around. They find a fucking porcupine. They feed it an apple. They do all this shit. They're doing everything. Then when they pop out, they see Penn and Fluff in the backyard. And Ken lets go of Sandy's hand and tries to act like they're not together. And yeah.

So Penn knew that there was divorce going on and all that sort of thing. pen and ken that's going to be confusing it is bizarre so you know he didn't know if pen knew anything about this or what the deal was if sandy had told pen about it so it was all very uncomfortable so they leave and uh you know pen says come back anytime go ahead but that's the first time she saw them like like, together and holding hands. She was like, that's interesting. Then over the summer, then she had – Penn ends up finding out about the affair because Sandy tells her about it and Penn is finishing up her divorce and, you know, going into the relationship with Jonathan.

And, you know, Penn isn't judgmental, though, with Sandy. with Jonathan and, you know, Penn isn't judgmental though with Sandy. She said, you know, and she was asking Sandy, Sandy was asking Penn, is he leading me on, you think? Do you know what his relationship with his wife is like? And Penn's like, I don't know shit about any of that stuff. So, you know, I don't know anything, but you're not supposed to, he shouldn't be having a relationship with someone who's in their first year of sobriety. But she didn't really push to say you should end it or anything. Then it starts continuing here, and it's all in Sandy's apartment.

Oh? Because they're small towns, so they can't be seen together. Yeah, yeah, and you can't do it at his house. Fuck. Yeah, he can't do it at his house. So, you know, he would call her at work all the time. You know, he was saying hi. And then he started to kind of show a jealous streak as well.

He's married, by the way. Yeah, right. What the fuck? Yeah, he's jealous. She knew that he was married to Harv and all that sort of thing. But she was under the impression that they didn't, like, do married couple things together. They weren't like a couple. They were just technically married but getting divorced soon.

And just stayed together in the house because of financial reasons. But not like being a married couple. You know what I mean? Just on paper. That sort of thing. He even told her at one point that... Sandy said, well, then can I come to your house? And he said, fuck no.

What, would you do that? Yeah. So she said, you said you were unhappy with Harv house? And he said, fuck no. You crazy? Yeah. So she said, you said you were unhappy with Harv and you were going to leave her. Why do you stay? And he said, well, it's the money. I can't leave because then I won't have it. I got no steady job. I can't support us.

I'm on her health insurance and all that sort of thing. So she says, OK, I get it. So October 2004, he loses his job at Walmart for shoplifting from Walmart. He stole from Walmart as a Walmart employee? Yes. The loss prevention officer suspected him of stealing from the store for some time now. Okay. So she followed him around the store, and he took mundane household items and stuffed them into shopping bags and loaded up a cart.

Wow. Now, Harv was sick, so some of the things he stole were orange juice and NyQuil. Oh, my God. So he pushed the cart out of the store to his car, and the security officer confronted him and said, what the fuck? Now, the security officer is a woman named Terry Casey. And Carpenter, she said he was just cool as a cucumber when she confronted him. He said to her quote this

never happened and then he opened up a bag of potato chips that he just stole and offered her some want some this is just between you and me have some lays and he said i'm walking to my car and i'll pay you tomorrow she said no you're coming back inside and we're handling this now. No, salt and vinnies. He then looked her up and down and asked her if he wanted to have sex. Quote, no strings attached. What the fuck? He got these roles reversed is the thing.

What do you think? She's like, what? She's like 30. He's like 50. And, you know, she's like apparently was an attractive woman. And she's like, I'm not fucking no. And he's got sour cream and onion breath now. Yeah.

So then he started to get mad when she said no. And he started to get pissed off because his charm didn't work. So she found him. She said he got wound up quick but then cooled him down pretty quick. She said she'd lose her job if she didn't come back inside with the goods. Like, I have to or I'll lose my job. So he pushed the cart back inside and said, okay, here's all the stuff. And then he got fired the next day.

This never happened. No, this never happened. Yeah. Here. Sour cream and onion. Barbecue ruffles. They're kettle cooked. Come on.

They're good. That is a cocky thing. Anybody gets caught stealing, offer the person who catches you some of what you stole. Wink at them and say, this never happened. Give them their chunk of the spoils and then be like, what a fuck. What a fuck. No strings attached. Shoplifting makes me horny.

Yeah, get real horny when I get caught doing things. The horny shoplifter. That is the most amazing confrontation i've ever heard his nickname should be the horny shoplifter without a doubt that's incredible that is i known a lot of kids like when i was a kid that got caught stealing none of them ever thought to try that i don't know man did you try to fuck the officer? What the fuck? No strings attached. I won't call your wife about it. Don't worry.

Come on. Holy shit. It's so funny. One time, October 2004, it's a meeting at Millie's. And before the meeting, Carpenter ends up talking to a guy named Jim Swan, who was sitting next to him there. And Sandy entered the room. And fucking idiot Ken said, that's my girl.

And then Jim said, I'm going to go ask her how her dog is doing, remembering that she had shared something with the group. So Ken says to him, oh, Moishe's fine. You're not going to ask her out, are you? Like, you're not going over there to try to, you know, scheme on my girl. And the guy said, why would you ask that?

And Ken said, you're a single guy. And then so his friend was just all like, what the fuck? Thought that was weird. So after the meeting, he pulled him aside and he said, am I missing something here about you guys? Did I? Yeah. What's going on? So Ken told him, all right, fine. We're're having an affair my marriage is kind of on the rocks and you know i'm trying to um you know i want he said that he wanted to build a home on a parcel of the farmland that sandy lived

on her brother greg's yeah so she's the guy him, how do you really feel about Sandy? And Ken said, I love her very much. And then they talked out in the parking lot. And Ken said he hadn't told anyone about his affair or his feelings. And he told Jim that he's going to leave his wife. And his friend said, look, I have a big house. I live all alone. I'm single. If you need a place to stay for a couple weeks, place to crash, get back on your feet until you can find a way to get through all this, you're welcome to stay with me because you need that when you're getting a divorce.

Somebody's couch or air mattress is going to help. He said, I don't know. I'll think about it. I'll think about it. So November 14, 2004, Nicholas and Dot Monahan threw a housewarming party. Those are their Harvey and Ken's friends from AA. And it was a new house. And they said it was actually a house blessing, not really a housewarming party. Those are their Harvin, Ken's friends from AA. And it was a new house, and they said it was actually a house blessing,

not really a housewarming. Alcohol-free potluck. That sounds awful. Alcohol-free because you're in luck there's pot? Is that what it is? Yeah, no, no. It's alcohol. There's no booze, but don't worry.

A bunch of different incompetent people all made food that none of it goes together. A bunch of non-chefs made, but don't worry. A bunch of different incompetent people all made food that none of it goes together. A bunch of non-chefs made food that doesn't pair. Come on over. Don't worry. Fucking Denise made the deviled eggs, so it's fine. The deviled eggs and barbecued tiny weenies. And of course, absolutely, there are tacos.

Oh, shit. There's going to be tacos. So Penn ends up there yeah and um because jonathan wants to go he's into more religious shit than she is uh so they you know this is one of their first appearances as a couple so they're gonna go out as a couple at that point they walk in and um you know they're taking their coat he leads in in Penn and Jonathan toward the kitchen. And as they go through, they see that, holy shit, it's Ken and his wife. And they're like, you know, arm around each other, laughing with people, just being a married couple. Being a married couple who's not in the middle of a divorce, obviously. So that's what's going on.

So that's that. obviously. So that's what's going on. Um, so that's that now she, he sees Penn's face and was like, Oh shit, that is, um,

interesting. Um, Oh, I didn't expect Penn to be here. So he is supposed to also come with Sandy for Thanksgiving dinner at Penn's house in a week. And now he's with his wife. So it's very,

very interesting here um and now Harv didn't know any of this shit that was going on so he ends up cornering Penn and says please don't tell Sandy you saw me here with Harv and she said I'm not gonna lie for you dude like that ain't gonna happen yeah and he said please please, you're just going to hurt her. And Penn said, you're hurting both of them. And he said, I'm not if you don't tell them I'm not. You don't say anything, then everything's fine. So she then was talking to him about the fifth step, admitting you're wrong and all that kind of shit.

Oh, boy. You know, that's it. And then he said, oh, yeah? Well, there's another saying in the program, sweep your own side of the street. So they're going back with cliches from the program, back and forth with each other. Yeah, well, a penny saved is a penny earned. Oh, yeah? Stitching time saves nine, motherfucker.

That's right. You know what I'm saying? Measure twice, cut once, bitch. Don't count your chickens before they hatch. One in the hand is worth two in the bush, my man. That's all I'm saying. Stop putting all your eggs in one basket! That's all I'm saying here.

Nothing better than that kind of argument. Holy fuck. So, yeah. So Penn leaves. Anyway, Sandy ends up confronting ken about his marriage in the apartment after the housewarming because penn went and told her friend november 17th 2004 um you know he came over because harv was working he come he'd come over on monday and uh he expected penn to have told her by then but she didn't but that but by that the other night so csi miami was fine but now

regular csi is going to be fireworks it's going to be wild shit over there yeah he's like good thank god not on a csi miami night that's i need that one yeah so she told him the relationship's over i can't take your lying you're're trying to control me. You're jealous. And he said, you can believe Penn if you want, but I don't think you should because it's bullshit. So she told him to leave. And he said, OK. And he left. Now, rather than say, well, got away with that without my wife finding out about it, should probably just call that a win on that front and head on home and forget all this ever happened.

Yeah. He said, no said no no i really like her though i'm gonna i'm gonna really stick with her um yeah he thought he could really he could get her back here so the next evening was thursday regular csi night harv leaves for work at the nursing home ken stayed home watched csi by the way alone and was upset and was wanting to get Sandy back he's like I'm watching CSI by myself

this shit isn't right this is bullshit you got nobody to kick this around with so he called her and said I just want to talk as friends just want to be friends here CSI

she said we're not friends don't call me here again click done he showed up on Friday night November 18th showed up at sandy's place and said sandy we

can straighten this out sandy he said it like fucking john travolta sandy sandy sandy sandy so he's out there come on sandy please he's got the john cusack boombox he's doing it all so she said don't come here again get the fuck out of here kicked him out he kept calling her and calling her he called up her employer the animal in tried to talk she didn't want to see him she said stop calling her he called back again and again he goes over her home over that weekend even though she said to leave him the fuck alone on monday november 21st sandy came home and found a message from him on her answering machine. And it said, quote, I want to know if you'd like to go to Thanksgiving dinner with me.

I figure we could go as friends. So she called him back and she had forgotten that they discussed going to Penn's home on Thanksgiving before they broke up. So now she was like, fuck, why did I say that? So she said, I don't know why you're telling people that we're friends because we're not. And she slammed the phone down. Okay. The next day, she started to get worried because he's really, it's constant. She started carrying around the number to the local police department in her pocket. Sandy does.

She was afraid he would show up at her workplace and make trouble. The day after Thanksgiving now, Black Friday here. It's weird that we're doing this on Thanksgiving. It wasn't planned like this. So it was at Millie's again. That's that Friday. People had the day off work. So there's a lot of people coming in and out for meetings during the day.

I just saw my family. I'd love to drink right now. You know, believe me, if there's a time when I. Oh, I've got enough bread and meat in my belly to soak up so much of this. Give me shots. Shit. So Penn gave that night Joanne, the dental appointment lady from the beginning, a ride to the meeting. Jonathan was there, her boyfriend.

There's another guy in the group named Ronnie. And there's also Ken Carpenter. That's who's there. Sandy nor Harv. Neither of them are there that morning. So they they're talking and Jonathan Penn's boyfriend thought maybe this is a good time for me to talk to Ken man to man. Maybe I can make him understand.

You know what I mean. So he talked to him in the back of the room and he said look number one you're a married man. If your wife doesn't know about this then you shouldn't be doing it and number two you know you can't be hitting on a newcomer to the program that's a big no-no that's verboten can't do it fucking bad so Carpenter said I really care about Sandy I really do I'm just I'm not I can't help it that's what's going on you don't get it dog he was like yeah but it's just it'll all work out she'll get it that it would happen.

So he told him, you have to stop calling her. You can't keep bothering her. And Ken was like, yes, I can. You know, I want to do that. I'll bother her. Yeah. So Jonathan ended up walking to catch up with Penn and Joanne, and they're standing in front of the video store talking about the holidays. And suddenly they hear a car engine revving up and coming closer to them

and it's carpenter's tan jeep and it's barreling at them oh it stopped short like a squeal in front of them oh my and he swings out and gets out of the fucking car and he is rip roaring pissed now and he is screaming at penn that's who he's mad at and he says my personalroaring pissed now. And he is screaming at Penn. That's who he's mad at. And he says, my personal business is none of yours. You don't get to tell me how to live my life or tell others either. You go fuck yourself and all that kind of shit. He then said, and you revoke my invitation to dinner?

I was supposed to go to Thanksgiving with Sandy. And Penn said, I didn't even know she invited you. I had no fucking idea about that and he said what a bunch of hypocrites you need to sweep your own side of the street god damn it holy fuck screaming idioms yeah fucking oh my god so carts and horses and it's getting it's crazy so then he got back in his jeep and slammed the door and peeled out of the parking lot and she was like whoa what the fuck that was crazy so all of them were like that was wild so in the next few days

he's even more determined he's trying to get a hold of sandy he's he's always been able to sway people and especially this woman who he thinks like she's not even as attractive as i can get you could she should do whatever i want i can pull hotter than her she should be so cordial about this but she's just getting madder at him for it and um it was really he's getting desperate for sandy and he's really pissed off at pen at the same time for because he thinks pen did this this is all her fault interesting that's what he thinks so he couldn't understand why would she do that why wouldn't she mind her own fucking business he writes in a notebook that she's jealous of what we have and then he a bunch

of other stuff and then he said she must be a lesbian okay and she wants sandy for herself that's what it is yeah so obviously november 28th sandy goes to millie's place and looks for any of ken's cars before she goes in doesn't want to go to a meeting with him there he didn't come to millie's until the meeting was underway and then she's already there so she's stuck there now so he's engaged he talking about a lot in the meeting he talks a lot about forgiveness when it's his time to share. Oh, my God. As soon as the meeting takes off, Sandy bounces out the door, but he catches up to her and says, let's talk. And she says, leave me alone. And he's going, come on, we'll work it out. She's running away. He's going, Sandy, I love you. Come back to me. Yeah. She's saying,

it's over. Leave me alone. This is getting scary then november 28th two more calls from him then he comes knocking at the door at her apartment oh my god sandy let me in we can talk about this and she's like what the fuck man this is fucking crazy so she thought about calling the cops but she's like it's gonna take them a while to get here yeah i'll call my brother he's in the farmhouse smart yeah yeah so she told him my ex-boyfriend's at the door. He's going nuts. So he goes outside and, you know, he flicks the porch light on and goes out there. By the time he gets out there, he sees the Jeep flying down the driveway leaving.

Yeah. Yeah. So she invites the brother in. They talk about it and they're talking about the details. She's like, this is what happened. This is why he's going crazy, because he didn't know any of this, the brother. So then as they're talking, the phone rings. She said, it's him.

I know it's him. So the brother's like, I'll fucking pick it up. You can talk to me. He picks up the phone and tells Carpenter that you're not to call this number, you're not to come to this property, you're not to harass Sandy again, and hung up. And that was that. And he said to his sister, tomorrow we go to the fucking police.

This is ridiculous. So the next day, Ken receives a call from an officer at the Newport Police Department. He tells Ken that Sandy didn't want any more contact with him. department he tells ken that sandy didn't want any more contact with him and um ken says to the cop i feel badly for having put ms merritt in this situation can i call her to apologize what did we just tell you i've said no the opposite of that actually yeah you just told me good enough wow um he said no no telephone calls no visits nothing and sandy said that you stay at least a thousand feet away from her so he later says carpenter will say that he asked the cop if he could write her a letter and the cop told her that yes letters are okay that's what he says

later on so a week later less than a week later, Greg Merritt, Sandy's brother, gets home to the farmhouse and walks over to the apartment door that she lives in there. And on the front step, a big fresh bouquet of flowers for her, for Sandy, from Ken. So in her request for the restraining order, Sandy said that Ken refused to leave her alone. She wrote in the affidavit here, I'm afraid of what he will do next. He's disregarding any warning. He's been volatile about these circumstances towards my friends, and I don't know what he'll do next. Yeah. November 30th, Sandy tells a police officer that she had broken up with him about two and a half weeks ago.

She started to harass her, calling constantly and tries to talk to her at program meetings and um and all of that now she had asked this cop to talk to him and ask him to stop yeah yeah straining order isn't enough right you know if a grown adult that has nothing to do with your relationship shows up to tell you that your behavior is fucking out of line yeah you should feel so embarrassed so you should feel like the biggest piece of shit ever and be like you know what dude i will never i'm i'm i'm disgusting how dare i how is it that i've come to arrive here i'm in sports terms jesus christ oh my god so he said you're gonna get charged with harassment if you keep bothering her so and ken said i totally understand totally understand then 10 minutes later harv

called the cop back oh and said why were you talking to my husband because she didn't know about any of this and he refused to tell her because he can't. It's none of her business. Really? So he refuses to tell her, and she hung up. And that was that. Okay. So a week later, December 4th, this cop talks to Sandy again, and she told him that Carpenter was still showing up at her house, including that day, December 7th. A day earlier, she found a letter from him on the front porch.

Two days earlier, he left a letter and flowers on her car parked in her driveway. You can't do this. Even if it's a thousand feet away, if it's at her car, like that's still harassment, right? Oh, it's I would say, yeah, it's in her car. You can't you got to stay away from all of her shit. You can't make that's making contact with her letters and buying her gifts. So they're long rambling letters with a lot of references to pen in them and all that sort of thing and he writes he's got a lot of resentment toward her and all that kind of shit just pissed

off um she did say that there had been no history of abuse toward her sandra said like he never hit me or anything so um she said that she didn't want to go to court because she couldn't miss any more days at work so can you please talk to him and tell him that you know stop so he said he called ken and told him that he couldn't have any contact with her even through letters flowers or email or smoke signals or telepathy anything sky writing none of it plain banners nothing can't we can't write it in rocks on a mountain so you can see it from none of that. Whiteboard messages at the AA meeting. None of it.

Those are bad. He said, I advise Ken that Sandra did not want to be with him because he's a liar and a married man. He said, this is amazing here from a guy. Look, you're a liar and a married guy. What the fuck are you doing? From a cop. Ken stated that he understood and now had some closure as to why sandra didn't want to talk to him again and he would leave her

alone now that he understood okay so the cop told her you should get a protective order from the court which would make it illegal for him to contact her and prior to sandra leaving she acted like she did not want to get the order. This is not just the original thing. This is a whatever. So the next day, though, she applied for a domestic violence stalking petition against him. Wow. She wrote that he called her multiple times, tried to visit her and all that sort of thing. Some men from the program tried to talk to him about her, she said. And she said he seemed to take it well, but then he comes storming back really angry.

In front of those guys, like, oh, yeah, dude, totally get it. Yeah, you're right. No, I don't break her balls. I won't break her balls. And then he's like, how fucking dare you tell them that shit? He's crazy. So the carpenter can ask the judge to deny the restraining order, saying it would only cause him to always be on guard. He said, I believe some plaintiffs do this in order that the defendants have to keep these plaintiffs on their minds and i don't want that like this is her way of stalking me by getting

a fucking restraining order bizarre thing to think he said my wife has been through enough the plaintiff has been through enough i would like i would just like to dismiss this and get on with our lives his wife also harve testified against the order, saying it would prolong contact between them and keep her husband from necessary AA meetings, which could pose a risk to his life. But the judge says no. Restraining

order. He can find other AA meetings. He can drive to another town if that's what he really needs. Go to Boston. So a temporary order of protection there. It's December 9th. Pending a hearing on January 4th about the whole thing. So on January 4th, I believe. Yeah. Oh, no, no.

Yes. January 4th. Carpenter can goes to Frederick Evans house who he knew from Millie's place. And he'll say this later on Carpenter Evans. Mr. Carpenter came to my home unannounced and pushed his way past my tenant through the breezeway and into my kitchen. As I entered the room, I asked Mr. Carpenter quietly, what's happening, Ken? And he said, Mr. Carpenter rely relied angrily. That's what I want to know. Carpenter told this guy that the police wanted to serve him with a stalking petition filed by Merritt, but the petition could not be served until 9 a.m. the next day. He indicated to this guy that he could do whatever he wanted to between now and then. Holy.

So as Evan said, they said that they had asked him to leave because he said him and his brother had bad health problems and they didn't want to be involved so this guy said mr carpenter is more and more out of control and my brother and i feel threatened by his actions so yeah according to this affidavit that's he had come there and um he's then also by the way four days later arrested for violating the restraining order against Merritt by calling her at work. Now, on December 13th, the judge issued a – the judge inside a permanent protective order or issued a permanent protective order against Carpenter. That's in December. But January 8th, he violated it by calling her at work, like we said. And the restraining order, he's not supposed to. He's not supposed to do anything. He's also ordered to pay fifteen hundred dollars bail, surrender any weapons he may have and refrain from alcohol use after he violated the court order. Oh, now he's on bail. So he can't have any of these things. A separate court order filed against him in December by a friend who said that's the Evans guy. So he's got another restraining order there.

Wow, that's a lot going on here. Now, Penn is missing, like we said. That's where we are. We're up to that point, February 23rd. AA members tell investigators that Ken had constantly talked mad shit about Penn, once pulling a member who had hugged her away from her and telling him not to hug a traitor.

Penn's a traitor. One guy said Penn felt Edith Meyer was responsible for that breakup. On three separate occasions, Penn contacted the Goshen Police Department with concerns about Penn, though they didn't provide details. The third

time, Penn called to say that Penn had followed her home, jumped out of his car, and screamed at her before driving away. Oh, boy. And then we find out also, February 23rd, Sandy got the early morning call from Meyer saying you should get back with him. Everything's great. That's why it's so unusual.

You just heard all of that. Would Penn at any point call her and go, I was totally fucking wrong about this guy. You should totally move in with him. I swung and missed. My bad. It was a ninth inning. We're down a couple runs.

It's a 3-2 pitch. I got to swing. I got to let it go. That's fucking hilarious. Yeah. So they also said a neighbor, the chainsaw accident was one that he had the day before. They also said a neighbor, the chainsaw accident was one that he had the day before. So they said Penn would have had to have been with him on that day, the 23rd, because how else would she know what happened the day before to Ken? Right.

two hours earlier saw a man with a gray beard and hair gray hair and beard long sitting in a station wagon parked near penn's driveway hunched over and talking on a cell phone and um the carpenter's wife's harv owns a station wagon of the same description by the way the police conducted huge searches in the woods around penn's house. And after all this, though, they come to focus on Ken because of court records, police reports, calls, interviews. I mean, everyone says, I don't know, he was mad at her. Any enemies? Not except for this guy who was really pissed off at her. Just this one guy. So they question him.

And he tells police that on February 23rd, he went to an appointment with a mental health professional in Claremont because when they find him, he's going to be in a mental hospital later on, by the way. I figured he'd be out there cleaning his side of the street. Just sweeping. Just sweeping. Just out here sweeping. He tells police he had a panic attack and couldn't go inside his appointment once he arrived, so he instead drove to Greenfield, Massachusetts to hang out with his brother. That's what he was doing on the 23rd. So he said police couldn't verify with anyone that Carpenter had even been in Massachusetts,

and his brother was away in Texas at the time. Uh-oh. You should have asked him. You should have asked him first. Shit. Well, I guess that's good. I was there. Well, there's no one to say you were there.

Well, I was there. Your word against mine. Well, I guess that's good. I was there. Well, there's no one to say you were there. Well, I was there. Your word against mine. So they also, he told police that he hadn't seen Penmeyer in two weeks here. Meanwhile, a witness where Carpenter lives reported him seeing him burning a brush on February, burning some brush on February 24th.

And that person said it was unusual that Carpenter was cutting brush in one part of his yard and using a pickup truck to haul it a considerable distance to the pit next to his house. This didn't make any sense. It's not what he normally did. And also, it's late February. It's a weird time to cut brush. Right. Yeah. So on February 27th, the police, with Sandy's cooperation, listened in on her telephone conversations between her and Carpenter.

During this call, Ken tells Sandy that he's spoken to God. Oh, boy. Had a little chit-chat with the maker here, okay? Oh, boy. We sat back, we chewed the fat a bit, and I gotta tell you some stuff. He said God had spoken to him, obviously, back.

You know, it's a conversation. Two-way street here. It's not just me. I'm not going to dominate his time. The guy's busy. And you want to let him talk. He's probably got things to say. You know, he knows stuff.

He's the wise one. So, yeah, he said that he spoke to him. Ken denied any involvement in the disappearance of Penn, but told Sandy that, quote, things would be revealed about Penn. Oh. Real weird and cryptic. Also that day, the Goshen Police Department, where investigators were, received a phone call from an anonymous male who said he had given Penn a ride to the airport and that she was okay.

I wonder who that was. Yeah. Yeah. Don't worry, she's fine. I gotta go. I took her to the airport. She's good. One of the troopers on duty said the voice sounded just like ken's i'll bet it did talk to him a bunch the caller then told the police that they should go to the goshen county store where they would find a key at the payphone there now we're sending them. Okay, yeah. So police rush down there. They discover

a safety deposit box key from the Lake Sanapi bank attached with bright orange duct tape to the phone booth. You don't see a lot of bright orange duct tape. The safety deposit box ended up belonging to Penn.

Yeah. And inside of it were jewelry, silverware, and her will. Silverware. She had been the last person to access the box, according to the bank records, in March of 2004. So it's been a while, almost a year. Then shit got weird. Then?

Then it gets weird, okay? Yeah, okay. Okay. Then shit got weird. Then? Then it gets weird. Okay. Okay.

Sandy on March 3rd gets mailed a package that's postmarked February 25th. And she hadn't been home to get the package when it was delivered because police had helped her find a place to stay away from here in case somebody was after her. She's scared. So inside this envelope was a typed up agreement letter signed by Penn in which she transferred all of her property to Sandy. Really? In addition, the envelope contained a $400 check from Penn made out to Sandy within the memo line written in for dog sitting. Yeah. And the cop said that Sandy told me she had no idea why these documents were given to her.

Made no sense. Right. She also discovers that there was a March 3rd telephone message left for her in which Ken called and said he couldn't believe that the agreement they had made, they had not, he couldn't believe that the agreement had not yet made the news. And then he hung up. That's what he said.

I don't know. He didn't know what that meant. During the investigation, police do a search warrant at Carpenter's home now where they discover a box in which a folded document was hidden beneath a pile of magazines. a box in which a folded document was hidden beneath a pile of magazines. Okay. The document dated February 23rd was a typed agreement to sell personal property, which had been signed by both Ken and Penn. Now that's weird.

He said he hadn't seen her in a month. It was similar in appearance to the one that Sandy had gotten. Right. One of those. Penn's signature on the documents appeared to match a signature card that she had on file at the bank. So it looks like a real signature. Police also found

at Ken's home a roll of bright orange duct tape similar to that which was used to attach the key to the payphone at the store. Now, here's the other thing. They go to Ken's house, and they're going to search around. Now, they had gone and did a preliminary, and now they're going back.

There's a big blizzard coming in as this is happening. Snow is piling up and everything. They needed to check a couple places in the yard, and they said that there was another hour or two of passable travel until the snowpack was higher than they could get through with their trucks basically so they're stuck here um otherwise so there's one small section of the backyard that had dimples in the drifts snow drifts but dimples where you can tell that there's a lower area lower yeah yeah so they go out there it's a fire pit that's why there was a fire in there before so the snow they said's up to their shins the detectives say and they find

the remains of paper and branches covering the outer layer and they said the covering of new wood seems less like it was meant for fueling the fire and more like it was for like covering the fire up there was no active flame and the top layer was ash but there was some ember still going on in the bottom okay now in the ground stuck in the ground near the pit is a big large stick that's five feet long and a few inches thick and the bottom half was charred black and end was worn to a point that's a stick that's a stirrin stick yep so it had been left about an arm's length away as if it you know was a stirrin stick just use yeah so you can grab it and do it so the trooper kneels by the fire pulls the

branches out one by one and he's examining the burned wood with his flashlight he's in the snowstorm with flashlights this is a guy who wants to find evidence. This is a brave man. He's sitting in a blizzard, and he's finding it with a flashlight. Sifting through shit with a flashlight. And, you know, with an inch of snow on his shoulder here. Wind gusts 20 miles an hour or two, and it's, you know, making snow drifts. So cold.

It's rough. So he uncovers a bunch of stuff, and then he finds another piece of wood in there that's not like the other bits of firewood in the pit. He pulls out. It's about the size of a thumbnail, and he turns it over. He finds an item that's about the size of a thumbnail, turns it over, and his flashlight, and it shines on it real fucking bright. And it's a gem. It's a piece of jewelry in there. So they're like what

the fuck is this then they figure out that the other pieces he's holding is a bone this is a ring on a finger he thinks oh wow he said it's about an inch long and looks like a chicken bone he didn't know for certain what was going on here but he couldn't even didn't know if it was human but he said at this point they're looking for people that are disappeared we have to assume it might be somebody's turned the blizzard off so we can look in here yeah that's what it is so that's what they do they have to bring in a big fucking tarp to put over this shit yeah to try to do this um he is grabbing other things he grabbing around because the snow's coming in his face so he's just grabbing for shit and he finds more

bones. Oh my god. And he's putting them in bags here then he sees a thin wire poking out of the ash pulls it up and he realizes it's not a wire it's the frame to a pair of glasses. Oh shit. Yeah. He said he

knows what a fucking I don't know if it's a chicken bone or a real bone, but I know chickens don't wear glasses. Very rare. Yeah. Yeah. He said, you know, it could be something just fell in a fire pit, but it just seemed a little bit odd. Yeah. So, yeah, he's doing this, and they look, and the other guy says, how do we process this?

Yeah. We're in a fucking blizzard. What do we do? So also they don't have a lot of homicides even in the state of New Hampshire, never mind in this town. They don't know what the fuck they're doing. So they said sometimes they're called to examine a body found after a building's burned. So they're trying to, you know, they don't know really how to do this that much. So they said, well, how do archaeologists recover bones and fossils from sand?

Yeah. They use screens. So they call up an archaeologist and get a series of stackable screens like you would be. Start sifting it. Start sifting. And that's what they're doing. They do that. They repeat it.

And they find more bones, more bones each time through. They can sift all the way down. They said, we can do some preliminary sifting, but we can't do all of it on site in the weather. We need to do it in a controlled environment. So they did some of it. They poured dirt on the screen surface, and they're doing all this,

and they found more pieces of bone. They were various sizes, some up to six inches long. Some were flat. Some were rounded. Each were, they said, charred to a different color from black to gray. They bagged them all and did all of that. They had an expert determine only that the bones belonged to a human who was small. That's all they could figure out.

And she weighed about 100 to 110 pounds, which is right in the ballpark here. It's a small one, yeah. So they're looking into a DNA analysis on the bones and still searching the fire pit. They said maybe there's teeth that could be compared, something. Sure, yeah. So, yeah, they said they haven't found blood or hair samples or anything like that. So they don't know what to do here. They haven't even positively identified things as human bones.

They don't know what to do. So they take it to the medical examiner who performed the autopsy on hundreds of bone fragments here. They tried to put together a body. They assembled about one-third of a skeleton from the bone fragments. Wow. Which ranged from six inches long to the size of a grain of sand. Jesus. Yeah. And the person is about Penn's size.

Now, one of his sheds out there, they said it kind of looked like an outhouse. It was an old wood shed with a dirt floor. It had shovels and hoses and you know coffee cans full of nails and all that kind of shit yeah shed shit um they said that there were uh fuel containers five red plastic gas containers also a yellow diesel fuel container okay there was a can of charcoal lighter fluid as well and um they had they they took liquid samples of each fuel so they could match it to any accelerants they found in the pit they also discovered a black backpack in your shed with your garden hose why is that there they could tell it was full they unzipped They said, oh, some gloves, a flashlight, a belt, crazy glue, a lighter, a lock, some condoms.

What? What does this sound like to you? Oh, and several knives and tie-down cords. That's a whole rape kit. That is a whole rapey, kidnappy kit there. Ted Bundy would be jealous of that kit. Oh, boy boy that thing's got condoms too so god no dna yeah so they said could be a kidnapping kit let's fucking bag it up

here then they go to the other shed that's got chainsaws and bolt cutters and all the shed shit that you'd expect here stuffed in the corner though someone out of place they thought was a yellow rain jacket wasn't hanging neatly on a nail and there was nails for that sort of thing. It had been kind of bundled up, and they thought it might have been covering something. So they picked it up, pulled away the raincoat. It is a.22 caliber Marlin rifle.

Propped up with the muzzle pointing down, which is a weird way to store a rifle. He took the Marlin and opened up the bolt, and there was a round in the chamber and more in the magazine. 11-22 rounds all together. Held up the butt of the rifle and

looked in the raincoat. Inside the lining of the raincoat and permanent marker the word Ken is written. So this is his coat and his stuff. Also they find a gas station video. What? From the morning of he was driving a Ford Escort on the morning of February 23rd,

and they were hoping to find some evidence in there, and they ended up finding a video from a gas station where he was filling up the car. He kept looking into the back seat of the car, repeatedly, while he was filling up. On the video, the back seat contents are dark and shapeless look like maybe covered with a tarp or blanket there's something back there though and no matter

how much they you know tried to enhance it they couldn't get a better view of what was in there though but they think it might have been penn's body in there he's looking over and over yeah so in the truck and when they look in the truck here, or look at his truck, on the floor was a candy wrapper, one for a Lifesavers Cream Savers. Remember those? Yeah, they're delicious. Those are pretty good. Strawberry or the butterscotch? They don't say.

Strawberries are pretty good here. So this is the same brand of candy wrapper that they found in the pockets of Penn's jeans at her house. Oh. Oh, that's her favorite. We like the same candy brand. So the back of the truck's bench seat was folded forward for storage. Behind the passenger seat was a roll of duct tape, orange duct tape. Stuck to the seat also a six-inch strip of orange duct tape. And so that's interesting. Also in the truck was a box of Federal Brand.22 caliber bullets, same as recovered in the rifle. So there, he can't say somebody must have put it in there

and put my raincoat in there. But 11 rounds in it. It holds 10 and then one in the chamber. That thing's ready to fire right now. Oh, fuck yeah. That's disturbing. Yep. They go search his house.

It's a four-room house with a bathroom as well. Small house. There's an unfinished room off the bathroom that was used as a storage closet. They rummage around the storage area. There were foot lockers and suitcases and clothes on racks

and there's musty in there and all that kind of shit. He found a cardboard box up on a shelf. He lifted it, started looking through papers inside and ended up saying, come in here, you got to see something., and ended up saying, come in here.

You've got to see something. They found a piece of paper folded in thirds. At the top, it said agreements to sell personal property. And it was a one-page purchase and sales agreement template. But the template wasn't filled out. It didn't say anything in the blank blinds of what was being sold or what the price was. anything in the blank blinds of what was being sold or what the price was, but it was filled in with Penn February 23rd, 2005, and it was signed Edith K. Meyer and Ken Carpenter on the bottom,

and her signature matched. It matched the signature. Like he was practicing. No, no, no. Or she was there to sign it. Oh. Like he forced her to. Uh-huh.

That's what they're thinking. And then they're looking at a red leather chair. He said it was nice, you's what they're thinking then they're looking at a red leather chair he said it was nice you know decent chair they're looking at it and uh the seat cushion they realized was detachable so they picked it up and put his hand underneath and he pulls out a blue notebook from under there oh the writing inside was carpenters and um you know they they knew that because they had seen it before and it said what's in my head smaller picture i don't want to die today not yet anyway this was from january 31st and they said it read like a stream of consciousness rant a lot of you know scribbles

and underlines and triple exclamation points and yeah somebody just spilling their shit on the page uh they said on the page he was going back and forth from obsessing over sandy and watching csi to penn's unsolicited interference um the one entry was randomly punctuated with that bitch fucking with an exclamation point um yeah he Yeah. He said, are they together? If they are, I can let this go. At one point, he said he pleaded with God to let him know if he should move on to his life with his life. He said, why do I feel so lonely inside? Tell me what to do.

Said he was still all every entry is like pissed, obsessed with her, mad at this one. with her mad at this one. Yeah, he's obsessed with a woman who he deems as less attractive, yet he's being rejected by her. He can't take it. Yeah, he can't do it. He said at one point,

then, I'm sorry, they said they find other writing, and they said, this doesn't seem like it's Ken. This is weird. It says, I never meant for it to go this far. Okay. Then they said it was almost like it was a narrator or almost. They said it explained how I pushed you and all this sort of thing.

And they're like, why would he be using a different persona to give orders to someone? Yeah. And they said, oh, this is a script for somebody to read. And they said, oh, this is a script for somebody to read. Then they said here, I never planned on Ken hanging in there, is what it said. They said that in this it said that Sandy, loving you was his only crime. This is the shit he made her say on the phone. And it says, Sandy, you should go drop the restraining order, take Ken home, and fuck his brains out.

That's what he wrote. That's what he wants. Oh, that's what he wants. Holy shit. So they're like, okay, this is a first draft of the script he wrote. This is fucking wild. The script called for Penn to reveal that she had been carrying on a secret affair with a pilot i'm going to florida and you won't believe this mexico and south america ken's gonna house sit and drive my car until i return and even said that uh they should move into the lakefront home together also in the notebook were letters written by this you know quote unquote pen her him writing

for pen one to the goshen police and one to sandy merit she uh won the letters informing the cops that she and carpenter had resolved their differences and would be house sitting for an extended he'd be house sitting for an extended period in the the letter to Sandy, the writer said, go after him the way I had you stay away from him. Think of aloneness as a drink and stick to him like glue. Yeah. The writer said that Sandy

promised to send Sandy a check to help with bills and to drop a line from Mexico. And the letter was signed, quote, pen, and then in parentheses, the asshole. The asshole.

Un-fucking-believable. Why would he do that? Oh, my God. Holy shit. The man has watched so much CSI. How does he know this is the worst one? Fucking this is the dumbest shit ever. How does he realize it?

It's fucking nuts. So on also back to that phone call on the day she disappeared at 7 40 they obviously it's the same goddamn thing and they're like holy shit he was standing next to her forcing her to say this shit right wow um there's also in this notebook a crude sketch in which a stick figure man is pointing a gun with a fire in the background. With a fire in the background. He is so bad at this. He's terrible at this. Based on skull fragments

found in the fire, the prosecutors think that she was shot in the head with a small caliber bullet, like a.22 and then was burned. And they found the.22 wrapped up in the jacket. With his name on it. With his name on it. With his name on it and her very unique jewelry

that she has. It's like special made. It's not mass produced shit. So it's like stuff she found at, you know, whatever. And keys. Farmer's markets. Her keys were found in a burn pile.

Oh, God. They said, the police detective said, it's almost impossible to imagine the terror that penn meyer experienced that morning i would say so they go and arrest ken once they find all this shit he is at the valley regional hospital in claremont where he checked himself in yeah and they check him in they they get him out and um holy shit man it's this is very fucking interesting. This whole deal here.

So a little more weird evidence here. A police officer, once they get Ken in custody, they bring Sandy from a motel back to her house. And her dog was in the main house. So her dog was staying in the main house. So no one was there. And they said she wandered around and peeked around the fridge and like didn't know what to do. Then she like stared at her phone like she was all freaked out by the fucking thing. And then she saw an unfamiliar message on the caller ID and it was from him.

He said, hi, it's me. This is from the hospital. Yeah. I'm just seeing if you got that check and everything left for you. I don't understand that, but you suck. That's what he said. What? She was like, what the fuck is going on?

Then she got the envelope with the sales thing and everything like that. She's like, what the fuck? So the neighbors are like fucking freaked out by this whole thing. Like, what the hell's going on here? One guy says when somebody is missing for this number of days, it's hard for us to continue to be hopeful. All week I've been hoping that somehow she would be okay. Yeah, Jesus Christ, I would say so. Another guy said that it's just so totally baffling that she would not be here anymore.

None of it seems to make a lot of sense. I would say not. Another one here, a woman named Ellen Stetson, whose family runs a couple of businesses, said Carpenter worked for her family for a few weeks, helping pack maple candies they sell. She said, I never felt in danger around him. He just seemed lonely.

She said, very nice talking man, very good natured. Good natured, big big deal so he's being charged with first degree murder yeah and the defense is they don't have any evidence they just have like bones they think is her that's not anything okay yeah right um which by the way they statistically this is very rare for somebody to go after an outside person because of a domestic situation right statistically extremely rare it's weird statistically he's out of his fucking mind though and he's he's crazy he created a different reality so it's like yes it's it's rare for somebody to strike out lash out at somebody that's not involved in the d. But he's so out of his mind that this is just out of the whole thing's out of the ordinary.

Fucking it's bizarre. The whole thing's bizarre. Just the whole thing. There's a conversation. He calls his wife from jail. Oh, boy. And this is when he finds out they found all the rest of his notebooks out of a stump in the yard. Oh.

They didn't find it. A hidey hole? His wife found him and gave him to police yeah that's uncomfortable he said he said hi babe and uh yeah what's the spiral shit she said then there was silence and he said what's up and she said the police were here last night and he said why and she said they took the stuff from the stump. And he said, how could they? How could they? What did you do?

What did you do? And she said, I called the police. And he said, why? And she said, I had to. And he said, oh, Harv, Harv, no, no. Like Ray Liotta when Karen flushed the Coke down the toilet. Oh, Karen. They never would have found it, Karen.

That's all the money we had. That's all the toilet. Oh, Karen. They never would have found it, Karen. That's all the money we had. That's all the money we had, Karen. I was scared. I was scared that they would have found it. No, they wouldn't have, Karen. So he said, you couldn't have. Tell me this isn't happening. Dude, how else it's happening?

She said, you told me about it. you had no right to tell me why'd you put me in this situation and she said he said why oh honey don't tell me you did this please please please to my god why did you do this and she said she said because it's what god wanted me to do i had to and he said no no no that was satan on your shoulder oh god that was satan fighting you because i'm getting that much closer to god and it's pissing him off that he can't get at me okay all these walls are keeping him out and she said no it wasn't no satan doesn't like going through the metal detectors, his problem. He thinks it'll interfere with some stuff he's got going. He doesn't like handing over his pitchfork at the entry of the jail.

Oh, he said, I don't, you just, I don't believe this. Why didn't you just let it go? Why didn't you just let it go? I don't believe this. And she said, because God was ready for me to find it. And he was like holy shit um he told her that she fell for a trick of the devil just like eve in the garden of eden oh my god uh then said i'm having a bail hearing why didn't you just wait let it go until i got home and she said why'd you even tell me and he said because you kept pressuring me too

and she said ken look in the mirror don't turn this around on me sweep your own side of the street ken she didn't say i added that but that's what she said look in the mirror she told him and then he said i can't believe you fucking did that i i i i five eyes i can't i really can't it's like a death penalty I can't believe this. And she said it wasn't her fault. And he said, I'm glad I never admitted that I did anything because I didn't do it. I might have known where stuff is, but I didn't do it.

Oh, God. And she said, I told them that. I told them that you told me where to look. And he said, I'm pretty fucked right now. I might as well just shoot myself right now. They'll never believe me. They'll never fucking believe me. And she said, I'm pretty fucked right now. I might as well just shoot myself right now. They'll never believe me. They'll never fucking believe me. And she said, they'll believe me because I didn't have to call them, but I did.

And he said, my life is over. They'll never believe me. And she said, God will see that justice is done. That's what I'm praying for. This isn't just about you. Don't worry. Yeah, it'll happen. So, yeah, this is a mess so uh jury selection is by the

way halted for his trial because he's trying to have people killed from jail so they have to hold up here who the fuck does he think he is um they said that two the attorney general said two men identified by the by the initials wt and told authorities that Carpenter tried to arrange for the one guy's wife to contact Sandy to buy her a plane ticket so she could not be available for trial or to get her lost in the woods. Yeah. Along with requests to have her leave town, he allegedly gave an inmate a handwritten letter that he hoped would reach Sandy. According to this, the letter said, they just want to use you and hurt you. I am still waiting for you. You should be with me.

Life is short. Then he asked this inmate, WT, to help kill Jonathan Purek, who is Penn's boyfriend. He has nothing to do with any of this shit. Yeah, so he just said he didn't want Pyrrhic around for trial. Yeah, because that guy knows that I've been fucking Sandy. But, I mean, Sandy's going to be there, man. No shit. In exchange for their help, he offered the inmates they could split the sale

of a 1985 bucket truck that he had. A cherry picker. I got a cherry picker. You guys can split it. 1985. It's a 20-year-old truck. It probably doesn't run. Oh, my God.

Jesus Christ. So the judge had previously represented both of these informants, though, creating a conflict of interest. So they had to have a bunch of hearings about all that kind of crap and everything to figure it out. So anyway, the trial comes. Yeah. Defense. Okay. Defense attorney Mark Sisti argued that Ken couldn't have killed Penn because he was seen driving out of town on the day she was presumed murdered.

Meanwhile, he was seen at a gas station. That doesn't mean that he was out of town. He was seen heading toward Massachusetts when he left a Claremont, New Hampshire gas station. They said that was the day he was supposed to have killed her. So that's crazy. If you don't know where something happened and you're trying this case, you're trying a case in this state. You lose. You lose right out of the gate.

He said, that's it. But the jurors got to hear all of his scripts, scripts that he wrote for Penn. I know he loves you and I did my best to remove him from your life but now i see he truly loves you and that's his only crime sandy i'm so sorry i used you to make him hurt it wasn't personal i just wanted someone to love me that way as he was married i felt he was cheating on me and i have been cheated on in the past someone had to pay for my past hurts. All this type of shit. Yeah. She was in love with him.

Then Harve testifies about burning notebooks. She burned three more notebooks before she called the cop. She had burned notebooks. He told her to look in his toolboxes in the house to find three notebooks. Then she said she cleaned the house after the search and got rid of all their possessions. She admitted destroying evidence and has since received immunity in exchange for a testimony.

She said that he told her about a pile of debris near a tree stump and two weeks later she checked the area. She said she found a pile of ash with a bracelet on top and when she dug deeper she found bracelets and bone fragment. She said she called her pastor then called the police. with a bracelet on top. And when she dug deeper, she found bracelets and bone fragment. Oh my God.

She said she called her pastor, then called the police. And the pastor told her to call the police. Yeah. So she said that she would have found the notebooks. She found the notebooks, but didn't read them. Instead,

she burned them in the wood stove. Three notebooks. She knew that he had been unfaithful and she didn't want to read about the details, she said. She thought they were diaries. And then she said he called her and told her about some other stuff. Then, even after she had called the police in 2005 and he had the, Karen, why'd you do that, Karen, conversation. Then in September, months later, he called her and told her about other shit he hid. What is he doing?

Behind some insulation in the storage loft at their house. When she checked, she found a notepad inside an envelope and a small twig. A torn piece of paper from the notepad had Meyer's handwriting on the top, according to the witnesses. One line in Carpenter's handwriting at the bottom read, I need you, I want you, I love you. handwriting at the bottom read, I need you, I want you, I love you. So they said after bringing these items to the defense attorney, she turned the notebook and the twig over to the police again. She also said that he then, in January 2006, months after that, after she's already not done what he asked twice, to check behind the insulation again,

and she found a Honda key wrapped in duct tape. The key is... It was CRV. It is fucking Penn's key. Starts her car right up. Oh, my God. And a dental expert testified that some of the teeth and tooth fragments found on the property were consistent with Meyer's dental records. So they said there was two man-made crowns found amid the burned debris

that were consistent with x-rays of her teeth. So Ken's brother testifies and said his brother told him that the woman he loved had recently secured a restraining order, but that he didn't blame Merritt. In fact, he blamed Penn. Yeah, she said that he felt the restraining order wouldn't be there if it wasn't for penn's involvement and um yeah he said he could have pulled oh he said at one point um carpenter said that he went to penn's house to try to work things out penn wasn't there but when he drove off he saw her walking alongside the road he said he could have pulled over and

hit her and he said i couldn't bring myself to do it though i couldn't do that i'm a nice guy yeah ken's son enters the courtroom by the way dale is his name and he said that he hadn't you know didn't really grow up with his dad and didn't see him too much as an adult yeah he said ken promised to take him to the airport on march 3rd so michael could visit his grandmother in florida and and they were supposed to catch up. But a few days before that, they got missing, and Penn went missing, and he said that his dad called him and told him that he was in the hospital, and that he loved me, and that he was proud of me, and he was depressed, and he can't take you to the airport. So that's how that goes. They cross-examine the medical examiner. This is defense cross-examining.

examine the medical examiner. This is defense cross-examining. And the cop says that, you know, we're in a place, meaning a courtroom, where people can't assume things, correct? I guess I could go on for six minutes about drowning. You can't rule out a heart attack, an accident. You're unable to testify that the defendant had anything to do with the cause of death. And they said, well, distinctive jewelry identified as belonging to her, bones, gunshot wound to the back of the skull, dental and bone records saying they're Myers. You know, I'm pretty comfortable. He said, I took all those things together and ruled that they were the remains of Penn Meyer. And yeah, they said, looking at the whole thing, the whole picture. That's my opinion.

So once the prosecution rests, the defense says, I think we should obviously dismiss this, right? You know. Okay. I said, they don't even know where she was killed. They don't even know the location. How are they supposed to do this? They just said someone's remains were found at his house. That doesn't establish jurisdiction.

Do we need to murder the police? Uh-huh. And they said, what are you, fucking crazy? There were bones in his fire. No. Yeah. fire. No. Yeah. So they they for defense here. They have one guy testified that he didn't see anything suspicious on Penn's Road that morning.

He had another trooper who said that the guy there was a woman who said she saw a gray haired man with a beard in the station wagon by the end of the driveway. This trooper says that the lady who told him that appeared to be drunk when he interviewed her. So then she can't be trusted, obviously. So both sides said that also there was a jury thing here where they sent the jury home for the day, and they asked the lawyers whether they wanted to dismiss a juror who was noticeably nodding off at several points throughout the trial. This is so boring. Oh, my God. A male in his late teens or 20s, they believed he understood the case and is capable of rendering a verdict.

So they go in. Jury deliberates for two hours, but they don't. That's just filling out the paperwork. They said they went in and they took their first vote and they were unanimous on the first vote. All guilty as fuck. First degree murder guilty, he comes out as. Sentencing comes around. Oh, my.

You, sir, may fuck off life without parole. Holy. Keep on keeping on, shitbag. Forever. Forever and ever and ever so post-trial here the prosecutor said they expected it the whole time they never even considered offering a plea deal or anything they said we felt strongly about this and we wanted life without that's what we wanted and they said that was the only way justice could prevail here and um they said they said

bullock the defense said we're definitely going to appeal to the state Supreme court, several legal issues and everything like that. Yeah. The defense layer said, I've been doing this 30 years and I've seen them come in after an hour and a half. And I've seen them come in after two weeks. I don't even try to predict a jury.

The jurors, here's what they said. One said, I think he incriminated himself over and over again. He did a lot. Yeah. Another said, I think he incriminated himself over and over again. He did a lot. Yeah. Another said, I fell in love with the person Penn was. Oh.

Another juror said he wasn't necessarily ready to convict Ken for bones recovered on the property, but was convinced by the phone calls and notebooks that he was guilty. He said his writings were huge. That showed the deliberateness, the premeditation. It was kind of overwhelming. Guy loves to write things down. Yep. They also said that one said he was considering voting not guilty until the closing argument. And he said it was not a closed case.

It was back and forth. Real wishy-washy. Real wishy-washy. The fucking script that is on tape. You can listen to her voice on the tape, say those words, and then find in his fucking handwriting the script of that. Yeah, that's the wishy-washy. The fucking script that is on tape. You can listen to her voice on the tape, say those words, and then find in his fucking handwriting the script of that. And then she disappears that day. Yeah, that's the wishy part. Wait till you hear the washy part. Let's hear the wishy-washy. You're fucking

crazy? He said, I was worried the prosecution wasn't doing a good enough job. It was hard to tie together until the end. And then once they put all the facts together, they did. And so, one cousin not surprised. The cousin he started drinking with back in the day. Yeah once they put all the facts together they did and so one cousin not surprised the cousin he started drinking with back in the day yeah they were best buddies and he said kenny was always there for me all i'd have to do is call and he'd come and get me he said we didn't

have any trouble finding trouble when we were looking for it but he said they grew apart and he said that they grew very distant and um he said he hadn't even talked to him he just heard one of his friends said saw your cousin on tv and he got arrested and um yeah they said he said he plans to visit his cousin in prison because he says i think i'm pretty much it i don't think anyone else is going to give a shit about him and um yeah that's how it goes so that's how it is he says um he said i have to sit here he said, I have to sit here. His cousin said, I have to sit here and figure out why I'm here. What am I doing?

It all goes back to the fact that he was a very good friend and he's my cousin and I love him and I'm the only one who could be here. So he like, he like flew in and stayed at a motel for, this is a month long trial. This was a month long fucking trial. And this guy even bought, he bought his cousin ties and jackets for for court he said i didn't want him sitting there in an orange jumpsuit i love him and i wish this never happened but he needs uh someone from his family there he's alone he's not getting any support um so yeah um now 2013 is when the book notes on a Killing came out. That was later. Edith is Edith Knight Meyer.

She is not buried anywhere because she was cremated and her ashes are unknown. I bet they were probably that lake has something to do with it. I bet she loved that place. Kenneth Russell Carpenter, on the other hand, here. He is in prison forever. His max out date, this is when they have to release him, is December 17th, 2105. So, yeah, they got to let him out. He's only got 80 years to go. That's okay.

And he's like 73 now, so that should go really well. Where is he at? In New Hampshire at the New Hampshire State Prison for Men. Oh, boy. His case, I, or his inmate ID seven, nine three Oh three.

If you want to keep up on him there and check out what's going on with him. But that, fuck him. That is Lepster North, North New Hampshire, not North Hampshire, New Hampshire. Yeah.

That's a twisted fucking sick guy right there. My God. He had potential to kill a lot of people. Yeah. Oh, for sure. Imagine if he got away with this. If he got away with that, there was a lot of people that were going to suffer. And he could add that to his manipulation toolbox.

Forget about it. Yeah, yeah. Holy shit. To think I'll force a person to say these things, and that is sick fucking shit there. If you like the show, tell the world about it. Please do. Get on whatever app you're listening on it really does help help drive us up the charts with the review and uh say something nice about us there give us five stars thanks for doing that shut up and give me murder.com is where

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Right, there you go. So check all that out. Find us there. Keep coming back over and over again. And you know what I need to hear right now, though? Oh, yeah, I got it. The wonderful people, Jimmy. Tell me the people who are so wonderful

and now have shitloads of awesome Patreon episodes to listen to. Hit me with the names of a shitload of happy people, are so wonderful and now have shit loads of awesome patreon episodes to listen to hit me with the names of a shitload of happy people jimmy right fucking now this week's executive producers are jordan brennan see jordan we'll see you in dallas how's about that i can't wait can't wait to be a ball kimmy wolf sarah hanzelik hanzelik she got out of a speeding ticket uh by having us on the radio. I shouldn't expound on it. I hope it was terrific. You're weird and you've got worse problems than I can give you.

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She sounds fucking rad. That's fucking amazing. They wouldn't let her, though. Or she chose not to because she thought it would be inappropriate. I don't know. She sounded fucking amazing. I wish we would have been able to meet her. Fucking awesome. I hope't let her though. Or she chose not to because she thought it would be inappropriate. I don't know. She sounded fucking amazing. I wish we would have been able to meet her. Fucking awesome. I hope you guys are hanging in there. Michelle and Mike, keep going.

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