Small Town Murder - #499 - Hermit Horrors - Denio, Nevada

Episode Date: June 13, 2024

This week, in Denio, Nevada, multiple bloody bodies are found in the desert, near the underground dwelling of a very odd hermit, who is later called "one of the most dangerous men ever". He has a history of withdrawing from society, eating from the dump, living in a hole, trying to stab cops, and also claiming he's a US Army General, who authority over the land! And that's just the start of this insane tale!! What happened to the treasure map?!?!Along the way, we find out that you can pull uranium out of the ground with your hands, that if you cook it enough, you shouldn't follow treasure maps to fantasies of gold, and that if your crazy goes "into remission", you are judged sane, again!!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.

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She was a romance mystery writer. They glommed on the fact that she writes stories like this. There are murders in all of the books. From Wondery, the makers of Ghost Story, and Feta, this is a story about a murder that rocked my little community. Binge all episodes of Happily Never After ad free right now on Wondery Plus. This week in DeNio, Nevada, when multiple people are found murdered in the desert, attention is focused on a man who lives in a hole in the ground and shuns society at every turn.

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 Petragallo. I! Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petragallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman.

Thank you folks so much for joining us today on our 499th episode. 499. Going to be the big one here coming up on Friday. The Express episode will be episode 500. Join us for a celebration. It's been seven years and 500 episodes and we're nowhere near the bottom of the barrel here. We can't wait. We can't

wait for 500 more, but definitely check that out. Also head over to shutupandgivememurder.com. First of all, tons of merch there, but also tickets to live shows. Hey! Last Batch was amazing, Durham and Nashville. Thank you so much. Holy. You guys are amazing. You shut up and give me murders. We're loud. You guys were all singing along to Nobody, No Crime,

the Bob Marley version beforehand. What a blast, man. Thank you, everybody. Great crowds and a lot of fun. We injured a woman, unfortunately. Terrible. Yeah, we saw it. That was a woman unfortunately. Terrible. Yeah, we saw that was crazy. Yeah, you will. So there you go. You will laugh so hard an ambulance might be required because

it was for one particular woman, which is we're both sad and proud at the same time as a comedian. Yeah. If someone died in your audience from laughter, as sad as that would be, you're kind of like, I'm good. That means I'm good. I'm going to make a trophy of that. We're going to do that, so no. She's okay, we know that, that's why we're making jokes. She's doing great and a very nice person, so thank you for doing that. Get your tickets, Minneapolis, you're up next,

September 20th, be our biggest show ever. You can do it, you can beat Chicago, and then we have Milwaukee right after that, that's just about sold out, so if you wanna get in in Milwaukee get your tickets right this instant also Kansas City we opened up more seats so get in there everybody get your tickets and get in there at shut up and give me murder calm patreon.com slash crime in sports is where you get all the bonus material all you have to be is five dollars a month or above a cup of coffee the price of a cup of coffee, you're going to get so much more than coffee.

Your cup would be overfloweth with hundreds of back episodes that you'll get immediately. And of course, new ones every other week, one crime and sports, one small town murder, you get it all. So you get it all. This week for crime and sports, we're going to talk about all of the various New England Patriots cheating scandals. You don't even really have to be a big sports fan to remember all that stuff, because it was so big. And then for Small Town Murder, we're getting back into

Ed Gein, Ed Gein, Ed Gein Part Two, with a, kind of wrap up some loose ends and specifically talk a lot about the psychology of Ed Gein and what the hell was going on there. That's going to be a lot of fun. Patreon.com slash crime in sports, and you get a shout out at the end of the show as well. So you can't beat it, it's going to be wonderful. there that's gonna be a lot of fun. Patreon.com slash crime and sports and you get a shout out at the end of the show as well so you can't beat it it's

gonna be wonderful. Quickly we got to do the disclaimer. Sure. This is a comedy show. We're comedians. We're gonna make jokes and people are gonna die. For sure. Absolutely. Otherwise the show would be a lie. The name of the show itself would be a lie. Small town survived. Small town Almost Dead is not a great show title. Small Town Livin'. That's not a fun show. You know, well that's like an HGTV show, but it's definitely not a murder show. We're talking about magnolia trees.

What we do though, what we go out of our way to do is we don't make fun of the victims or the victim's family. Why's that, James? Because we certainly are assholes, but we're not scumbags. And that's how that works. So it's a good deal. If you think that sounds like a good time, you're going to hear a wild show. If you think true crime and comedy should never ever go together. I don't know why you clicked on this to begin with, but obviously you were drawn to it for some reason. Give it a chance. You might like it. If not, no bitching later. That's the

deal. So that said, shut up. I think it's time for everyone who's left here. Let's all take a deep breath, arms to the sky, and let's all shout. Shut up and give me murder. Let's do this, everybody. Okay. Let's go on a trip, shall we? Let's go. Oh baby, we're going to Nevada. Let's go on a trip, shall we? Let's go!

Oh, baby, we're going to Nevada. It's been a while. Hey. Nevada is a very difficult state to find small town murders in. I'll be real honest. Is that right? It's the most difficult state out of the 50 we have to do. Really?

Really, really hard because most of the population is in Las Vegas or Reno, which are both too big, and otherwise there's very, that's not, there's not much going on there. But otherwise there's very little stuff going on. It's sparsely populated. It's very sparsely populated, so it's really hard. It's like here in Wyoming, because there's just no people there at all. And it's a giant fucking landmass state too.

It's big. It's huge. It's big, and it's a giant fucking landmass state too. It's big. It's big. Yeah. It's all like, you know, federal government owned land. They, you know, irradiated it with nuclear testing for years and years. And, but there's some interesting formations and there's mountains and Nevada is a weird place. This is Denio, Nevada. This is D E N I O. Looks like Denio, but of course, really, because it's small town murder, It can't be pronounced that way It's denial. This is in northwestern, Nevada right on the Oregon border up there right on the Oregon border

Yeah, it's it's weird because the closest town to here is Winamucca, which we already did Oh, yeah, and the murder doesn't take place in De Nio proper, but it's the last town you go to to get to this place in the middle of nowhere that we're gonna talk about. So it's almost four hours to Reno, so long time, three hours and 20 minutes to Elko, which was our last episode that we did in Nevada, episode 432, Broken Trust, Broken Skull, I remember that one.

This shit stretches from Arizona to Oregon to Oregon yeah connect my god connects the Pacific Northwest and the Southwest Desert it's unreal that is a weird state and it's all you know kind of lowland desert in one area there's huge mountains the town we're gonna talk up denials at like almost 4100 feet of elevation so cascades or some shit up there? Yeah, it's up there. Yeah, it wouldn't be the Sierras. Would it be the Sierras?

I don't know. It might be the Sierra. Nevada's, James. Sierra Nevada, yeah, I think it is because it goes through California right there by Reno. It's just up there, mountainy. Because that's where Reno is and the Sierras, I think.

Yeah. That's how that would go. This is in Humboldt County, not the one with the weed. A very dry, deserty one. The town of De Nio itself is small,.46 square miles. Its motto is the Black Fire Opal Capital of the World. Well, what the fuck is that? Opal is the gem, or not the gem, whatever the fuck you'd call it, opal.

Stone? Stone, there you go. Black Fire Opal isals of kind and this is the capital of the world this is all mining country around here oh this is the place where people come with treasure maps in their hand and to go find the legend of some shit like that this is some crazy like old west fantasy land I would call this to a lot of people there's a lot of hot springs around here natural hot springs that people go to So a little bit of history here and goddamn it is not easy putting together The the stats on a place like this because there's hardly any people here. So it was originally in Oregon this place

They wouldn't they before the bound they moved the border. Yeah, it was named after Aaron De Nio who settled in the area in 1885, and this guy had been born in Illinois, traveled to California. He was a miller, a miner, and a farmer, and then he settled on the Oregon-Nevada border. He died in 1907, but the post office was named after him in 1888, and that's how the town got its name, because there was really not a lot of other people here. So they just named it after that guy I guess after World War two a bunch of businesses

Relocated south of the they basically moved the town south of the Oregon border to take advantage of Nevada's very loose laws for everything They had no income tax liberal liquor laws you could put slot machines and gambling in your place, prostitution laws were more liberal, so the post office was moved even, and then reopened in 1950 with a Nevada address. They were like, yeah. Listen, sometimes you gotta have some strippers with your mail.

We're in Nevada now, well strippers deliver your mail in this town, that's how they do it. They use your mailbox as a stripper pole and they hump it and shit. And it's, you're pretty excited to get your gas bill. I'll tell you that. Big pink feather on her hat. It's pretty odd.

That's how you know she's the mail lady. The feather, you see it coming down the street and sticking out of the Jeep. So in this town, it's a census designated place, which means there's no real governmental structure. This includes a post office, a community center, a library, and then the complete center of the town where everybody goes to do everything

is the Diamond Inn Bar. That's where it all happens. The Diamond Inn Bar, yeah, it's one of these places. We'll solve this over a pint. Nothing else to do there. We'll pass the hat to pay for the rec center. Here's some reviews of this place that I found because people stop in here because it's the only thing

for hundreds of miles in each direction, so they stop in this town. And it's fucking fascinating. And it's fascinating, and that's what people think too. Here is Joe Four Stars, a place to stop and stretch and drink a cold beverage. All right, this corner is a welcome sight, especially driving through the Oregon Outback,

even though there ain't much to see here. Ain't much to see here. There's a corner store that sells cold drinks and other food stuff. There's also a small hotel if you're looking for a place to get some shut eye. Shut eye. Shut eye. Yeah, this is a review from the 1880s, I believe.

A very specific man wrote that. Ain't much of a place to get no shut eye. Jeff gives it three stars. Good lunch, he says. Oh boy. Okay. I stopped in for lunch driving through the area. The lady at the counter was great.

I ordered their burger and was not disappointed. Gas was a little pricey, a dollar more than I paid in Winamucca, but they're the only show in town for about a hundred miles in any direction. Only show in town. They say wild things out here. This is amazing. Yeah, this is, people who live out here don't understand their talking in other centuries terms.

Yeah. They say consarnate understand they're talking of other centuries terms. They say consarnate when they're upset. Dad gum. Dad gum. I stopped here for lunch again, but I make sure to fuel up in a larger town first. But by the time you get there, you need more. It's 100 miles away. Right.

And now they're the only show in town. The only show. Three stars. I bought a gallon there as an insurance policy. I'd never been in the area before. And all I can say is don't stop here unless you have no choice. They know they've got the market cornered and they're not shy about leveraging it to their customers' disadvantage.

Yeah, because it costs more to truck it out there too. That's the other problem. I was lucky enough to not have to go in, but the gas was priced at a minimum of $1 higher than any other station I passed which honestly seems fair because you're in the middle of nowhere Yeah, it's expected and fun should have filled up back there Yeah, that's the choices you make fill up and win a muck and leave me alone shut up So one star nasty store owner here we go. Oh, we stopped her by the way It's we stopped her we stopped her by the way. We stopped her.

We stopped her to get snacks and take a short break. Uh, my sweetie went in TP to buy, I guess to went in to buy snacks and I took our dog out for a quick leg stretch. Uh, two other dogs that were roaming around residents there, I assume came over to check out our dog. They sniffed each other and I pet one of the dogs, a Border Collie. The dogs walked away and we were walking around in the area beyond the gas pumps and the side of the store near the parking lot. A woman came out of the store, I assume the owner, and started to gripe to me that this was considered their front yard and she didn't like me out there with my dog.

I live in a gas station, okay? So get your dog out of my parking lot. I told her that I always clean up after my dog and she was on a leash the whole time, yet she kept it up about that she didn't like that I was in her yard with my dog. My sweetie came out of the store. Can you say anything else but that? Stop saying that. Oh, God.

Consarn it. I'll tell you what. Dad gum. My sweetie came out of the store and told her we are leaving and she finally retreated to the store. This was uncalled for. We will never return. I don't think they expect you to probably. You're passing through. They leave dogs off leash to scare you away. Yeah, exactly. Get out of here. Nothing was posted. She was just cranky for no apparent reason. Alright, people here. Now anywhere, and this is seasonal too because it gets fucking cold up here. It's 4,100 feet of elevation, so in the mountains it's cold.

So it ranges from anywhere from 20 to 47 is the population of this town. People. People, 20 to 47. Total. Yeah, we're gonna go on the 47. Let's say it's a perfect season for this and everybody's here, okay. 47 people. Yes, there are, rather than give you the percentages

of male and female, I'll just give you the actual number. There are 25 males and 22 females in the town. This is great. We know exactly. There are three lonely, lonely men in this town. Three guys beating off. I hope they're gay. Let's just say that.

Maybe they can fuck each other, but otherwise they're gonna be sorely disappointed. There may be one, if they're not open to a polyamorous, there's one lonely dude. One lonely dude. He's like, damn it. Uh, median age here, 60.3. Little old. This is a lot of older people come out here to like live in the desert. I guess you've had it with society. Yeah, you're done.

You just had it with people. Uh, everyone here, nobody's married by the way. Zero percent. Everyone is either single or widowed one of the two Which is hilarious. No desert marriage ain't legal out here on the desert Just unrecognized y'all can say it but it doesn't mean nothing. Yeah Just you could just say it and it means just as much as if you did it So still filing single on that w-2. Tell you what, it's 100% white, people out here. Median income is $76,299. That's median household income, which is much higher, not much, 7,000 more than the rest

of the country. The average household size, so people who live in a household, it's normally like 2.7 in the rest of the country. Here it's normally like 2.7 in the rest of the country. Here it's 1.6. So the average dwelling does not contain two people. This is a- One dwelling that has roommates that's fucking it up for everybody?

Fucking everything up. Unemployment is low because there's nobody here. Cost of living is also lower than 100. It's 89.2, so that's low. Median home value here is $281,660. It's not bad. It's high. They break down the mean prices for the average prices for all the different houses and whether it's a detached house or a mobile unit, I did find that. Maybe this is for you. Maybe you said, damn it, I'm tired of society. I'm looking

for a place to hide out forever. Maybe you're wanted for something. Add it up to here with everything. Add it up to here. Well, we have for you the Denio Nevada real estate report. The average two-bedroom rental goes for, it doesn't exist. It's a middle of the desert. Nobody's renting up. There's not an apartment complex here, so you're not getting that. Here is a three-bedroom, two-bath, 300 square foot hovel. Say again? Three-bedroom, two-bath, 300 square feet.

I don't know. I don't, I'm not going to even question it. That can't work. I think somebody got their numbers crossed here, but that's the listing. It's on one acre of desert and the only picture of the house is blurry and from a long distance. So very strange. $70,000. You see like heat waves coming up in the picture off the ground like what's happening. Next up we have a one acre a lot of dirt. Would you like to have a flat one acre piece of dirt everybody? Park your motor home out here.

You can have it right here for the low low price of $36,000. So move on in. That is very cheap. It's not that bad. No, that's pretty good. And then finally a three bedroom two, 1908 square foot house. It's on Sunset Boulevard also. Very exciting.

All the stars. That's what the street is called, which is funny. And it's on 2.80 acres. There are no pictures of the inside of it so god knows what's in there who knows a long ride to the viper room long ride to the viper room yeah yeah that's if you want to find a young star dead in a gutter you're gonna have to travel 270 thousand four hundred dollars for that thing oh good lord still on almost three acres and but they're not showing us what's inside no no no they're just I think a structure and and... But they're not showing us what's inside. No, no, no. They're just, I think, a structure and a roof and they're like, that's all you need.

There's no floor. I'm very interested. Things to do here. Well, we've said in the town itself, there's a community center, a library and the Diamond Inn bar. That's all really what's going on here. But they say that hunger, this is from a travel site, hungry travelers weary from a long day exploring some of Nevada's impressive natural sites can warm their bellies with a famously juicy burger

Watch or wash down by ice cold beers at Danai Oh junction the nearby diamond in bar opened in 1951 offers good food and bar entertainment such as pool shuffleboard cards and bar dice Bar die. What the fuck is bar dice. Bar dice? What the fuck is bar dice? I've worked in bars I grew up hanging out but never seen bar dice before we played like CeeLo and shit but not bar dice that wasn't a game. This feels like those stabbings a lot. Oh god yeah just outsider what you doing? Recreational activities include bird watching, photography, off-road vehicle use, fishing, recreational black opal mining, that's very fun.

Recreational. It's better than medicinal black opal mining. I like it much better because you have to pay more taxes, but still I like it better. Rock hounding, hunting, visiting all the hot springs, which we'll talk about, and camping in the Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge. So this is, De Nio is like the town you go to and can stay in

because there's a motel if you're gonna go out in this area and explore. So it's one of those. It's like knockoff Sedona, huh? Kind of, yeah, Except without the, yeah, I guess you could say that without any of the things that are in Sedona. Yeah. Yeah. Without, without anything but hamburgers. Yeah. Without like goods or services or anything. Yeah.

Sedona only circa 1835. Yeah, exactly. They said the black fire Opals found at these mines were designated as Nevada's state precious gemstone in 1987. And it's one of only two spots on earth where you can find Black Fire Opal gemstones. And so that's why they stole, because they got the capital before the other one did. We got the most of them.

So a trip here, they say, it's a once in a lifetime opportunities. Spend a day rock hounding at the dig it yourself bonanza, rainbow ridge and royal peacock virgin valley black opal fire or black fire opal mines. And also they say some of the best star gazing there possibly is. We have stars. It's dark here is what you're telling us. Guess where the best stars are wherever it's dark. Come on over, at night you can't see shit.

You can't see shit but stars, woo boy. And that's just how it is. You can't see your hand in front of your face. And you can see migrating pronghorn antelope as well. Oh that's cool. That's neat. I would say so, they say it's the fastest land animal in the world, which I don't know if that's true either.

I think they're lying to us in this article I don't think so. What about like a cheetah? Leopard or a cheetah I thought they were supposed to long horse Hmm long horn the fucking gazelle pronghorn antelope is what it is. Oh prong or migrating pronghorn antelope That's that's the ones with the fucking like this Yeah, like a like a duck stick. Like one of those. Yeah. Duck dick horns.

A duck's legit got a drill on him. Oh yeah, yeah. They have to. That's so the chick ducks can't get away, I guess. Thread it in. How terrible is their game where they're like halfway through it. They're like, I changed my mind. No, you didn't.

No, you didn't. That's disturbing. You're a yo-yo now. Let's get off the subject of duck rape and run into something else here. Crime rate in this town, what we're interested in, property crime is about half of the national average. So I don't know who could be stealing or doing. Yes, it should be zero. There's 47 people here. Bill, stop doing that shit. Everyone saw you. There's 47 people here, right Bill stop doing that shit, right? Everyone saw you There's no one else here and then violent crime murder rape robbery and of course assault the Mount Rushmore of crime Also low it is about three-quarters of the national average. So

Again, and no one's even married. So as there is not like there's domestic disputes Most people live alone for you can't have a domestic dispute with yourself I would think Yeah, there's no victim right? No, I wouldn't say so. So that was one of the most difficult Plod like towns we've ever had to do the info on because it had to come from a little bit here a little bit there There's no, you know main like area where you can get everything here. It's fucking cool as hell. I like that. That's neat. We normally have, you know, it's could be, I think last week was like a suburb of Philly. You know what I mean? And now we're doing this. I love it. So here we go.

Let's talk about some murder. Holy hell. Do we have some weird, weird, weird shit this week? Let's get it on. Here we go. Let's talk about Ronald John Gress. G-R-E-S-S, R-J Gress, Ronald. He doesn't like Gress though. He's gonna, he'd rather you call him a different name and we'll talk about that. He's got a name he'd rather you call him as a last name

and then he has two nicknames that everybody else calls him which is hilarious. Okay. We'll get into him as they come along. Okay. Now, old Ronald here, he's born in North Dakota in 1935. Hell yeah. So okay, we'll talk a little bit about this guy.

I found in 1952 here, because he ends up in, his family ends up in Oregon. He doesn't grow up completely in North Dakota. He ends up in his family ends up in Oregon. He doesn't grow up completely in North Dakota. He ends up in Oregon and in 1952 there's a court case Where apparently there someone is trying to adopt him? He's like 17, which is makes no sense Yeah, and it's only got a few months to go. Yeah, someone is trying to adopt him I guess and they're talking about they want to give him the they're trying

He's trying to be adopted and have his name changed from Gress to Ronald John Bunnell The UNNELL which is a couple that's Helen and James Bunnell who are trying to adopt him and they're saying that There has to be a big court hearing because his parents are like fighting it now even though they weren't before So I don't know what ended up happening, but he and he stayed grass big court hearing because his parents are like fighting it now even though they weren't before. So I don't know what ended up happening but he stayed grass so apparently the Bonnells lost out. He's known as being like an all-American boy in high school like type of deal and they were talking late 40s early 50s you know Letterman sweater that kind of dork you know.

So handsome guy, athletic, well liked by people and you know all that kind of thing and then he He seems to be having a good trajectory in his career path to he's still living in Oregon at some point He works for Boeing for a while. Yeah at some point. He's a computer programmer in the 60s Which is the beginning of computers so like he's on the cutting edge of this brand new world-changing technology. A block down to plug something into this computer. Oh yeah that the whole warehouse that's that's the computer it's got it's got eight megabytes of RAM this whole warehouse. It's bigger than the plane. When you see back in the day too they would have like a literally an entire giant room

filled with shit and that was one computer with like 10 megabytes of RAM and they were like it's moving so fast. And a line of people in white lab coats and clipboards looking up at it jotting shit down. Yeah, always looking up putting their glasses on the end of their nose. Don't you wish you had a computer to put all this computer info in? Then at some point he goes completely off the rails. So this is sometime between the late 50s, he would have graduated high school in 53, sometime between 53 and 63 he works for Boeing as a computer programmer and then loses his fucking mind by 63. 1963 he's like potato farming in Oregon.

So to go from being a computer programmer to a potato farmer is an odd transition. It's a weird choice. In 1963 he started telling everyone he knew and he was positive of it that 300 women wanted to marry him. Really? 300 women were all trying to marry him and he was like, I gotta lay low because I got 300 women trying to marry me.

300? Like he was on a reality show and like, who wants to marry a fucking lunatic and who wants to marry a potato farmer? And 300 of them are all over him. It's because their husbands were Spartans, James, and they're all dead. It's potato farming flavor of love is what he's got going on. He really hates it.

So that's what he's got. He's telling everyone, everyone's like, sure, Ron, yeah, okay. 300 women want to marry you. Okay, that's great. You have manure all over your shoes. You know that, right? Odd choice in number 300 I mean everybody's gonna think you're a liar right? Oh, I well he doesn't think so

He thinks that people should believe him and is hoping to lead them into battle all of them like you said So then in 1966 He is institutionalized And in 1966, he is institutionalized, which makes sense. And it's not for thinking that 300 women love him. No? No, it's actually not for that. I'm sure that contributed to it, but the main factor that springboarded him into an institution

was that he and his father got in a fight, and his father came at him with a knife, and he returned with a shotgun. So police entered a standoff between a knife wielding father and a shotgun wielding son and then they talked to the son and he was like, 300 women wanna marry me and they were like, oh, we see who's the crazy one and they put him in an institution.

Yeah, because he looks like the winner at this point. Yeah, he's the smart one. But if you took them both aside and talked to him in one sit, I don't know, he's acting crazy, and I had to get a knife to defend myself and he got a shotgun and the other one's like, 300 women are trying to marry me. You'd be like, hmm, I wonder who the problem is here. When the matriarch of a prominent Princeton family is found stabbed to death in her locked basement, investigators look from a serial attacker to her family, to Princeton University students.

One hot-blooded investigator sees a conspiracy. Is he way off base, or does privilege let you get away with murder? You can listen to In the Shadow of Princeton exclusively and ad-free with Wondery+. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or Apple Podcasts. We've all been there, turning to the internet to self-diagnose our inexplicable pains, debilitating body aches, sudden fevers, and strange rashes. Though our minds tend to spiral to worst-case scenarios, it's usually nothing, but for an unlucky few, these unsuspecting symptoms can start the clock ticking on a terrifying

medical mystery. unlucky few, these unsuspecting symptoms can start the clock ticking on a terrifying medical mystery. Like the unexplainable death of a retired firefighter, whose body was found at home by his son, except it looked like he had been cremated. Or the time when an entire town started jumping from buildings and seeing tigers on their ceilings. Hey listeners, it's Mr. Bollin here, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast. It's called Mr. Bollin's Medical Mysteries. Each terrifying true story will be sure to keep you up at night. Follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts.

Prime members can listen early and ad free on Amazon Music. No wonder. Then, so that's 1966. He's going gonna be institutionalized a couple of times between 66 and 68. Couple different times. You really, in that time period, you gotta be out of it for them to put you somewhere.

But also, you could be put away just based on a pretty light recommendation too. It's not like now, yeah, now you have to like, there's like a panel, you have to go, there's a, there's like, there's like a panel you have to go, there's a whole system. Back then, like a husband could just literally go to a mental institution and be like, my wife's acting wacky, and they just take her away. Guys used to do that all the time to get rid of their wives. That was like a big deal. Oh, fuck yeah, that was a huge, a huge deal back in the day. They wanted to get rid of their wives. You're in the wrong time, James, I had to go through a divorce to get rid of my wife.

I was gonna say, yeah. That would have been great. You had to go through a divorce to have the court say she's fucking wacky. Yeah, I needed a judge to tell her and it took years. It took years. So he is diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. Ah. Which makes sense thinking that 500 women or 300 women want to marry. 300, James. Come on.

Come on, yeah. He's not that crazy. Come on. So he's hospitalized a bunch. Then in 1968, when he's out, this is after a second hospitalization. And by the way, people will say that he's in remission from paranoid schizophrenia after this incident. He's going to be fine. Going to be judged. That's a thing. He's going to be judged just fine. And they literally say it's in remission He's gonna be fine. Gonna be judged. I don't know, that's a thing. He's gonna be judged just fine

and they literally say it's in remission and he should be good. Remission, which I've never heard before from paranoid schizophrenia. Yeah, I don't think it's pancreatic cancer. Well that never goes into remission. You just croak. Ask Patrick Swayze.

That one gets you fast. Yeah, that one gets you real fast. You're just done at that one. So that was Swayze's problem. Weak pancreas. That was his whole issue. Should have worked that one. Yeah, all this stuff. He's doing these kicks over his head. Pancreas. Pancreas falling apart. See, you can't work it out. So 1968, he is trying, he's eating a duck in a cabin in a deserted mining town. He's in a ghost town and he went to one of these cabins that he doesn't own.

It's just a ghost town cabin. And he's eating a duck in there, okay? I think it was, I'm sure it was a la range. It was real classy, I'm sure. Crispy skin, you know how it goes. You don't think it was on a stick over a fire? Actually I don't even picture him with a fire. I picture him just not even feathering it,

just biting it with like feathers coming out of the side of his mouth and a mouth full of feathers and meat. That's what I picture. That's maybe a match. Trying to cook it. So the highway patrolman and a game warden showed up because they heard he was out there and there's game

So and there's game time. This is the first time in this show the game wardens been warranted. Yes He's not investigating a human murder. No, he's figuring out this guy's got a license to be eaten duck Well, the game warden told him it's not duck season. Where'd you get that duck? There you go No season and, old Ronald here, if you think of a list of the craziest answers you could give, for it's not duck season. Yeah, what's the best answer? You could even say, I hit it with my car,

it flew in front of my car and I hit it, so I ate it. It's not a good answer. It's dead anyway. Well, that's the most legal, I guess, to get you out of this. Like, I didn't kill this thing, it was just dead, and I'm eating it because I'm a disgusting fucking weird

desert hermit. There's no good answer for this. He comes up with probably the worst answer you could come up with as far as your mental stability. He said, well, the thing is, sir, Mr. Game Warden, I outrank you. So that's the problem. I'm actually an army general. Don't know if you knew this,

but Army General and I'm on a special mission. And right now on this special mission, it gives me federal authority to open the hunting season early for myself. So on behalf of the US Army, I declare it hunting season. Thank you guys. Have a good one. He should have gone with, well, I declare it hunting season. Thank you guys. Have a good one. Jesus. He should have gone with, well, I got it from where it is hunting season. Yeah, and I brought it here. Nope, I'm an Army general on a special mission with special authority, federal authority, to be able to just open up hunting seasons when I see fit for my own needs to forage.

When I need it to be, yeah. And they went, you can't hunt out of season here like they just tried to ignore it so he said okay and pulled out a 12-gauge shotgun put it in the in the game wardens face and pulled the trigger and it didn't go on misfired oh my god so the highway patrolmen in the war tackle him and take him to the ground because he just tried At very close range from three inches blow the head off of a fucking game warden for telling you can't hunt ducks Who we found out is the most high-ranking officer in this death. Yeah They're like our general general calm down General let us put the cuffs on you. Stop resisting, General. Wow.

So this is special crazy here. He's put back in the institution there, obviously. But by the end of 1968, he's released, and all the doctors said that his paranoid schizophrenia, they got it all figured out. He's good now, and he's he's quote in remission now. So. Attempted murder.

Hardcore attempted murder. But they said, even the cop was like, he's obviously out of his fucking mind. Like they didn't even take him to jail. They took him to the mental institution because they were like, this dude's saying he's a general and he tried to shoot me in the head. None of this is normal.

Like, it's crazy. It's not normal. So he's in remission though. He's doing well. Okay. So he's so in remission and doing so well mentally that over the next couple years, he just completely drops out of society and starts becoming like a weird like minor who dynamites things and probably for the best. This is the, yeah, that's what I mean. This guy doesn't need to be like on the morning train. You know yeah I mean this guy doesn't need to

be like on the morning train you know what I mean he doesn't need to be on the subway we don't need this guy at all in 1970 he earns a new nickname here's one of his nicknames okay now in this newspaper article they have his age completely wrong but it's definitely him he was he's from, they have him as from Merrill, Oregon, but he was in, near Orovado, he was near, I guess, the town in Oregon. He's mining, and he's injured in a dynamite blast. Uh-oh.

He was caught in a premature dynamite blast 12 miles north of the Quinn River crossing near Orovatto. It went on three? What happened? Yeah, it went too early. I guess it had a quick wick or something and he was gone. So it blew off a good chunk of his right hand and a good chunk of his left hand as well

and peppered the rest of him with shrapnel from rocks. I mean his whole face is covered in rock scars now and he's got, I believe on one hand they're able to salvage the fingers and so he keeps all of them. It's a little gnarled look in his hand. The other hand he has three fingers now. So he ends up losing two fingers out of this. The two middles I'll bet you. But the crazy part is after this happened he walked a 12 mile switchback road. Imagine this. I'm missing everything.

That's how bad it was. Missing all of this and went to a ranch near the Quinn River and just entered the kitchen door. Just came through the kitchen door with three fingers and his hand hanging off and meat and blood everywhere, and his face is totally covered in blood from all the rocks. The cook at this place, at this ranch, turned around, saw him walk in,

and completely passed out, fainted. We're talking- I would too. This is an old west, I mean, I know it's 1970, but still, this is like a ranch cook in the West this you know what I mean member city slickers None of those guys would have passed out from anything those guys were hardcore That was the man that this is a man that spins a chicken before he makes it. You know He rings a neck and then makes a buck and he's like this man's hands and passed out passed out

So they also said if he would have not walked the switchback road and instead walked as the crow flies, he would have saved himself about half the trip. And it could have been six miles instead of 12. Hilarious. Might have saved a finger. So they said basically they followed a trail of blood

12 miles. You could follow it to. He just bled for 12 miles. They said if it had been warm out, he would have died. Yeah, because the cold slows it down. Yeah, luckily for him it was very cold and it kept the blood, coagulated the blood some even, it kept him from bleeding to death.

And probably kept the fingers fresh enough to reattach. The problem, yeah, the ones that were hanging off. He, I guess, he had a broken left shoulder, cuts, abrasions all over him, and he went to the emergency room. The sheriff said it was a miracle that he survived, that Gress survived. Unreal.

Two days later, they talk about the blood was congealed, the 12-mile trek was retraced by investigators, and they said they followed the blood trail the whole time, it's wild. They said the distance down the mountain, he definitely shouldn't have gone the switchback way but that's the way he went and he was transferred to Veterans Hospital in Reno from the Winamucca Hospital and he was suffering from the broken shoulder and all that and he's been in intensive care since then. After this all of his

friends, all the other miners, they all call him Three Fingers after that. Old Three Fingers. Now he's Three Fingers Gress. And he embraces it too. He'll call one of his sort of house later the Three Finger Hot Spring, he calls it. Really? Yeah.

Which sounds like he's going to finger you in a hot spring. For three of them. Get ready for three, guys. He calls it really yeah, which sounds like he's gonna finger you in a hot spring For three of them get get ready for three guys. It's coming the accommodating fist oh my god Yeah, so at I guess one of his rancher there said that he was called him quote tougher than hell He walked over seven miles through severe cold to seek aid. But they were all impressed with how tough he was that he lived. He should have died in the desert somewhere and he didn't. So yeah TNT that's a that's a big boom. It's wild. Both of his hands a damn near blew his whole fucking shit apart. Oh yeah. It's a whole thing. Very close to dying. I mean very close to dying in multiple different ways. So from 1970 after the blast, I'm sure it took him a while to recover, I would imagine.

He was in for weeks in intensive care. It took me a year. Yeah, that's right. It's got to take a while to recover. So over the next couple of years, he just recedes even farther from society into the desert, into mining and hot springs action and all this kind of weird stuff. So he also earns a couple of new nicknames.

So now he's three fingers, number one. He's also got, he's also named, and we'll call it, we'll figure it out here, his nickname Straight Gut is what his buddies call him. Straight Gut. Straight Gut, yeah. Straight Gut, and. Straight gut. And he says, OK, so I'm Ronald Gress.

I'm also three fingers and straight gut. But I want to change my last name legally, because I'm not real into this Gress thing. I don't know. Maybe. What does he want? He was still trying to get a new last name from his adoption from when he was 17.

He changes his last name to Bristle Wolf. Bristle Wolf. Bristle Wolf. Two words crammed into one word. Bristle Wolf. Okay. So the bristles of a wolf apparently. Is there a breed of bristle wolf or is this just his made up thing?

I feel like the bristle is in the desert and he's a wolf because he's a lone wolf out there. He's one of those guys that has like a, if he had the money he'd have a van with a wolf painted on the side of it, you know what I mean, in the 70s. A big airbrushed fucking wolf howling at the moon. I wonder where straight comes from, if that's like, I have, I'll tell you exactly.

Oh, all right. It's because of his crazy eating habits. One of his friends said that he came over one night and ate like 12 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Straight to the gut. Straight gut, and we'll talk, he's got, I have a quote from it we'll talk to. He's very hungry, and you'll understand

the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches when we get to it. But at this point, he's completely ragged. He cuts his own hair, but not even like well. He's got big chunks taken out of it. Like he just grabs fistfuls of it and cuts it. Well, three fingers full. Yeah. Three fingers in there.

Three fingers of hair in there. Figure, if it's the right fingers, that's a scissor hand. If it's the correct finger. So he's all fucking crazy looking when he comes out of the desert with this crazy hair, all dirty with fingers missing and everything else here. He would be seen eating dead animals that he picked off the highway. Okay. Yeah.

He just eats roadkill and scavenges meat from the dump From the dump. He's a coyote that he's a wolf. That's what he is. That's what he's a bristle wolf So he would walk all the way to Denial which is like 50 miles north of where he's hanging out and Walk all the way through the desert 50 miles every month to cash his hundred and eighty five dollar a month disability pension checks. Wow. Because of his mental illness he gets and his fingers too. I mean he gets three dollars a mile he walks. That's why it's got to take him 20 days to get there and

back and then ten days later he's gonna turn right back around and go he should just move to denial. This is wild. $180. So, many of those times he would show up, his check wouldn't be there yet. Oh no. It was a problem with change of address at one point and the check stopped showing up. So rather than be upset with the federal government, he would start abusing the postal workers at the denial post office

who are like, I don't know what to tell you, bro. They didn't put it in here. Yeah. I don't know. I'm just here. I don't go to Washington and get it. To the point where they would call the cops on him and they're like, you know, this crazy desert person came out and the sheriff would have to lecture him and you know, all this.

He never ends up being charged for anything, but multiple times the sheriff would have to lecture him and you know all this he never ends up being charged for anything but multiple times the sheriff has to come calm him down tell him to you know recede back into the desert and fuck off and maybe you'll find your other fingers interesting man oh he gets even more interesting he is a he's a wild fella here so he ends up in a place called Pinto Hot Springs and it's really in the middle of nowhere. I mean there's an article where these people went out to find it and it was it's like not easy to find and it's really remote. It's really kind of you have to know where you're looking type of place without GPS.

I don't know how the hell anybody found this fucking thing. Put it that way. So this is how they describe West Pinto hot springs, which is right nearby. This is how it's described, like on the website for tourism, quote, a very large stinky sulfur spring with milky white algae. Which sounds like a big hot jizz pit. That sounds disgusting. Frothing jizz.

Sounds like a warning. Stinky, frothy jizz. That sounds great. Hot, too. We are the worst hot springs. That is terrible, and people go there. Oh, God. It's stinky, too.

It's sulfur. It reeks of sulfur. You can get diseases that way. I would say so. To describe what this place is and the remoteness of it and I'm talking now not even in 1973 now the remoteness of it still here is something that somebody wrote from FindingNevadaWild.com there's an article there they talk about going to this and they also talk about what happened here but they say quote a feeling of excitement that was then immediately followed by wait

something definitely feels off around here. We didn't have time to soak or really even explore the grounds beyond the main cerulean pool that day, but after returning to civilization and pinging cell phone towers, we discovered our intuitions weren't wrong. Some things that happened there. He said Nevada beholds more public lands than anywhere else, with a figure like 80% open to the general public to do just about whatever you want. Because federal lands, you can do anything you want pretty much, as long as it's not permanent. You can go out for a night and fuck off.

That's where people go shooting in Arizona. Yeah, that's illegal to begin with. Today you can roam Nevada's public lands for free, at least in most cases where you don't need a special caving or prospecting permit. They said with one caveat, the federal government requires that you don't stay in one place for longer than 14 days maximum. So you can camp and fuck around but you can't live out there is basically what they're saying. There's no living on this land. So they changed this by the way that was in the late 1970s They changed it to that before that there was no rule there

Somebody abused it that much that a lot of people 14 days you guys. Yeah, Charles Manson You know what? I mean, that's he was living in Death Valley. That was all federal land He was living on that's the back then and that's where people used to just be able to go, recede away from society and just sit on a plot and just use it. So you can't do that anymore. So they say, the way I understand it, this regulation is in place so people don't make a permanent or even semi

permanent living situation out there on federal lands for free. But back in the seventies, when Ronald Gress was looking for a way to get away from everyone, no such rule existed. So they said Bristle Wolf, meaning Ron, was pretty resourceful. Surviving a northwestern Nevada winter above ground would be pretty brutal, hot water or not, because he figures out how to irrigate his shit with the hot springs water, by the way. We'll talk about this. So he said, I can't live out here in the winter, too cold.

So what he does is right next to the Pinto Hot Springs, he digs a fucking house for himself. He just digs a house out. This is a guy who doesn't even have all his fingers. This is a lot of work. Or maybe he just has the best digging tool ever. Just a little claw. yeah. He's got like one of those three prong gardening. Yeah, he's like a backhoe. Yeah, maybe, but I mean, I imagine it's hard to hold a shovel probably with this fucking thing. So he digs an underground two room,

eight by 10 foot home for himself. So he splits eight by 10 into two rooms. First of all, to he splits 8 by 10 into two rooms. First of all to dig an 8 by 10, that's a lot of room to dig for in the Nevada desert. How deep did he go? It's pretty deep. I don't know the exact level, but it's down there. You have to use a ladder to get into it. Yeah, it's at least 6 feet. It's probably 8.

It's probably 8. So then he made around it on the outside, he had two gardens with fruit trees and everything with irrigated water that he brought from the hot spring. Unreal. So yeah, he had a whole thing going on outside of his little hovel under the ground, which is pretty resourceful, I gotta say. It's impressive.

So they go on to say, even though basically everyone in the region knew and feared him, things went pretty okay for him out there for a while. Locals never got too close to him and of course the Bureau of Land Management's 14-day rule didn't exist so he could just live there. Nobody cared. So he just dug a hole and sat in the fucking desert next to these hot springs. I don't even know if it was the high desert. Irrigated that, he used the water for himself as well so he always had a water supply and it was hot water.

He could shower and do all that kind of shit. Not that he did, but he could if he wanted to. Right, it smells bad, but he can do it. Some of the people around there, here's some memories of him, okay. Beth Goodlow of Denio remembered when he was living with some chickens in an old car. He was living in an old car with chickens, just living with them.

Not to eat, by the way, just to have with them. Oh, they're just roommates. They're just pals. They pay part of the rent. That's the problem. He can't afford the whole utility bill without them. God, those stink so bad. He would feed them oatmeal

and popcorn even though he had nothing to eat for himself. So he'd get oatmeal and popcorn and feed his chickens but not eat anything himself. He's a weird guy. This lady said she once loaned him $50 which he paid back and on top of it insisted on paying her $5 in interest even though she didn't want it. He said, no, no, that's only fair. You lent me $50. So if I borrowed it from a bank, that's what they charged me. He's an honest guy anyway like that.

He doesn't want to steal anybody's shit. He could have went back into the desert and she would have went whatever. $50 later, he won't ask me for money again. So several people describe him as very cunning and smart. One person said he's very cunning and smart. One person said he's very cunning and smart quote, but something's wrong with him. No kidding. Yeah. It's called paranoid schizophrenia. It's a fucking problem. Yeah. A paranoid schizophrenic who was blown up, who's been blown up. Yeah. That's the other thing. He's got some trauma on top of it.

So he would live on a, this pension, but there was, I guess, about a two-year lapse and there was a lot of bureaucratic shit that was caused by a change of address where he didn't get any check for two years. What? So for two years, that's when he was living in a car with chickens and he had nothing. Oh boy.

He had nothing. They said he nearly starved and just somehow got by on roadkill and shit like that He said like two of his friends said at one point He told them about a hawk had a sage hen and was about to eat it and he scared the hawk away And so he took the sage hen and ate it Thanks for getting that for me hawk He's a hyena. He's that's yeah. He's a he's definitely a Getting for scraps here.

No shit. Yeah, so he's got his underground lair, obviously, that he likes to hang out at. A lot of fruit trees and gardens. It looks great from the outside. It's a beautiful spring with all these fruit trees and then you're like, what's that ladder? That's got to lead into some weird shit. So yeah, he heated it with water also piped in and everything like that People that knew him knew to kind of stay away from him

Yeah, one guy named a miner named Jim Cole who knew him out there. He said that he was a recluse He feared people but he loved animals He said this coal guy said he had given him a gun in case he needed to hunt things he gave him a rifle and he said that he didn't want to use it to kill food He just didn't want to he was really didn't wasn't into killing animals. No, he's sitting there keeping chickens alive. Well, he's starving to death He's an animal guy. Yeah, so they described how He would instead walk and it's over 70 miles to denial He would instead walk, and it's over 70 miles to De Nio,

that's the closest town from this place, he would walk up there, all the way there, and hang out next to the town dump for several days before starting his trip home. And while he was there, he would pick through the garbages and eat meat off discarded bones at the dump. So someone threw it out, then they put it in their garbage can and it sat there. Then it was taken and then... Then it went in the truck.

So this is... someone was eating that like eight days ago. Yeah, it's been a while. It's sitting in the heat and he's like, hmm, I'll eat it. Oh my. And his friend said that he would... the whole time he was was eating all he would be doing is picking through it looking for Cigarette butts and he would be cursing at the people who smoked their their butts down to the filter because it left him nothing to smoke These fucking assholes. He'd be so like literally like these fucking cheap son of a bitch is smoking it down to the filter like they can't go by more

Fucking wild testaments how much of a hold cigarettes have on people. Yeah, he's fucking, well he would take the tobacco out and roll his own. Yeah, roll his own, yeah. That's what he would do. That's how much cigarettes got a hold on us. Yeah, especially if you're in the desert and there's nothing else to do but smoke. Collecting it. Like, outside of smoking and masturbating,

this guy doesn't have a lot of activities he can really do. So they said before he left, he would fill up a paper sack with tobacco and take it back with him so he could roll his own back there. Jesus. Discarded tobacco, he just picked through everybody. Gross. Picked through the garbage.

They said the 150 mile round trip took him five days each way So like once a month he'd have to go do his check and pick through the dump and that was like that was 10 Days of his mom week. Yeah, that's wild They said he carried most of his valuables with him all the time He would take everything from the hole because there's no way to guard his hole while he's gone He always had two guns and a knife with him at all times, as well as two five gallon containers,

one with gasoline and one with water. What motors he got to run? That's the thing. Why do you have all that gas, man? That's the thing. Maybe he can trade it, I don't know what it's for. And don't mix those up and take a swig out the wrong one, man. Oh man, you better have those labeled real fucking well.

So his friends also said that he had a huge love for animals, as proven by his chicken love, but they said that coyotes would walk up to him like they were his dogs. Yeah, they're part of him, yeah. He said that coyotes would walk up to him like they were his dogs. And also a white wild horse stallion came just would come up to him and hang out with him. A wild desert stallion would just come up because they knew him and they were like, oh, he's cool. Like he, he just made friends with a wild horse.

All of his friends said they saw it happen. But as impressive as that may be to normal people that live in cities, that's so scary. You're in the desert that much that they just think you're another animal. Yeah, that's concerning as fuck, man. Well, the animals don't consider you a human. That's weird. Right, that's the point. Yeah.

Because they're not around people, so they shouldn't be okay with people. They think, oh, you're another animal. He's a bristle. Don't worry They come over and gossip in their native tongue and tell you about how horrible people are yeah And he's like well, I'm an army general, but let me tell you something. I don't care for him either Unbelievable woman named Susie Montero Of the Leonard Creek Ranch nearby there Montero of the Leonard Creek ranch nearby there said that he would come pick through the ranch's dump as well and she would let him because I mean he's got nothing else.

At one time she said he cut out portions of the hind quarter of a cow that had been dead for over three weeks and was teeming with maggots. He ate the asshole out of a dead cow. He cut out a quarter of it and it was hauled to the dump because of the stench. It was effective, they could smell it in the house so they hauled it to the dump and he instead built a fire, cooked it and ate it. This man is strong as fuck. He is a wow.

Imagine the shits this guy takes with the weird shit he's eating all the time. I hope he cooked everything out. I hope he likes it well done. That's what I mean. You'd have to cook it to cinder, I would imagine. Yeah. So I saw that guy, the fucking guy who goes out and survives in nature, that show that used to be out.

Bear Grylls? No, no, the other guy. No? I don't know. The other guy. Who's and survives in nature that show. Yeah, Bear Grylls. No, no, the other guy. The other guy who's like really, anyway, he'd go do all the survivor man, that guy. Okay. That guy, he'd go out and at one point he picked up like a rotten, completely rotted fish and he hadn't eaten in like two days. Oh God, don't. It was like a half a discarded fish that a bear had thrown down. Oh God. And he's like, I gotta make it. He's like, if you cook it completely dry, it's not going to make you sick. Basically, you can make it into jerky there. You cook everything off of it. So it gets hard to eat.

He was like, I was, you know, like, it was like the turkey and Christmas vacation. It was difficult, but he it's better than dying in the stream. Yeah. Just a little girl, a little fucking tasty. So yeah, that's that's kind of what he would do and grow like that. They described him. They also they all they all called him straight gut. By the way, all these people. Yeah, when straight gut came up, they said he was a man of few words, which is not surprising. They said, though, as the seventies progressed into 77 and 78

They said he started to appear more kind of genial more open to conversation more Just kind of loosey goosey and more, you know human like they said that his pension got restored So he was like eating regularly, which is probably will help keep you a little more sane I would think and I hope they gave him just like a nice stipend of like back pay, you know what I mean? Like all the shit that he didn't get. I hope they gave him just like a windfall of three grand. That's possible, because he bought a three wheeler.

He sure did. He did, he got a three wheeler. They said he talked more, they saw him laugh for the first time even. He would laugh at stuff, they were like, whoa. Hell yeah, because life's fun when you got a three-wheeler those things are so fucking dangerous too they're so easy to fly off of and kill yourself and that year oh my god there was zero suspension they didn't give a fuck no

and he's going to the dump in that shit so oh boy scammers are best known for living the high life until they're forced to trade it all in for handcuffs and an orange jumpsuit Once they're finally caught I'm Saatchi Cole and I'm Sarah Haggie and we're the host of scam influencers a weekly podcast from wonder That takes you along the twists and turns of some of the most infamous scams of all time The impact on victims and what's left once a facade falls away. We've covered stories like a Shark Tank-certified entrepreneur who left the show with an investment, but soon faced mounting bills, an active lawsuit filed by Larry King,

and no real product to push. He then began to prey on vulnerable women instead, selling the idea of a future together while stealing from them behind their backs. To the infamous scams of real Housewives stars like Teresa Giudice, what should have proven to be a major downfall only seemed to solidify her place in the Real Housewives Hall of Fame. Follow Scamfluencers on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can listen to Scamfluencers early and ad-free right now on Wondry+. Nancy's love story could have been ripped right out of the pages of one of her own novels. She was a romance mystery writer who happens to be married to a chef. But this story didn't end with a happily ever after. When I stepped into the kitchen, I could see that Chef Brophy was on the ground. And I heard somebody say, call 911.

As writers, we'd written our share of murder mysteries. So when suspicion turned to Dan's wife, Nancy, we weren't that surprised. The first person they look at would be the spouse. We understand that's usually the way they do it. But we began to wonder, had Nancy gotten so wrapped up in her own novels, There are murders in all of the books.

that she was playing them out in real life? Follow Happily Never After, Dan and Nancy on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Happily Never After, Dan and Nancy early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus. Yeah, he's starving all the time otherwise. The one guy who named him Straight Gut is Jess Miller. He's a miner.

And he said, he sat at my place one time and ate 12 sandwiches and a whole jar of peanut butter and a whole bunch of other stuff. And he said, that's how he started calling him Straight Gut. Whole jar of peanut butter. Whole just with his finger probably. I'll eat it all. They said that Jim Cole, the miner, said that he was a crack shot also with his gun.

Great shot. Really good shot. But he only hunted if he was going to die of starvation. He didn't like that. He never hunted where he lived also, he said, for some reason. But he would go out farther. The guy who gave him the gun, Cole, said he gave him the gun to shoot coyotes, but he would never shoot them.

He made friends with them instead, which is strange. But Cole said after he moved away, Gress had to hunt to eat two rabbits a meal. And Cole said that Gress was a crack shot who never seemed to miss even rabbits. He'd hit them every fucking time, which is incredible. You have to be a really good shot to do that. They are fast, yeah. He also, see with some people he's a little more genial, a little more gregarious, and then with other people not so much. There's a, here are some people, Jesus fuck man, four

different people said they were threatened when they got accidentally too close to his dugout home. Here's some good samaritans at one point. Okay, a guy named William Moser and his son went to Gress's went to bristle wolf, I apologize, went to bristle wolf's underground lair to see if the bristle wolf was went to the bristle wolf lair, the lodge to see if he needed help fighting a brushfire that was nearby. Like, you want us to help you so it doesn't burn you out of your home?

He said that he was met by, rather than, oh, thank you, he was met by Ronald turning around with a shotgun pointed at them and cocking the hammer and everything, ready to go. Finger on the trigger and they were like, whoa, whoa, whoa, okay, never mind, guess you don't need help. We were just trying to help and they took off and he didn't shoot them, which is nice. Two other people, Bill Henderson and Martin Northy, they said that they met Ronald also and he had a shotgun as well because they were exploring the hot springs near his home. They said that Ronald told them that they were trespassing hot springs near his home, they said that Ronald told

them that they were trespassing and told him to leave. Remember, he is an army general though, so you think he'll go that way, he might have the authority to enforce that, I'm not sure. Wow. So then somebody who certainly wasn't trespassing, a Bureau of Land Management employee named Hal Green, it's Al's brother Hal Green, yeah, so let's stay together out here in the desert. He approached Ronald in April of 1977 saying that you're trespassing on

public land, you can't be here, and Gress told him that I don't want to talk about it. He goes, well you can't, you don't have to talk about it. He goes, well, you don't have to talk about it, but you got to get off the fucking land. And he turned around with a shotgun and said, quote, I'd rather shoot than talk about it. Oh, boy. Which you go, well, that's fair. Well, I'll be seeing you then, I think.

I got to run. I got to go. Right? I didn't bring one of those, so. What do you say to that if you're this guy? You know, okay. The guy said that the BLM, the Bureau of Land Management, decided not to attempt to evict him because then they said, where else was he gonna go?

He was gonna go to another place in the desert. It was gonna be whack-a-mole with this guy. Or he was gonna go to the town and bother everybody. So they said, just let him live out there and fuck it, who cares, basically. He got, he pulled a fucking shotgun on a government agent, and they were just like I don't know It's more trouble than it's worth never mind. You're gonna die one day, so whatever oh My god

Another guy named Harry Culeard He was a deputy sheriff and he and another deputy sheriff went to investigate reports of a man frightening housewives in the Leonard Creek Ranch area by going from home to home asking for food. He wasn't threatening them, but the sight of them, when he knocks on the door, you open it, this guy just fucking walks 70 miles through the desert and he's covered. Plus his face has scars all over it from the rocks. He's got three fucking fingers. His hair's all fucking mangled.

He's got maggot meat on his breath and he's like, can I have food? You're gonna get freaked out. Yeah. It's weird. And the hand is very off-putting. It's off-putting, yeah. So this Culeard said that they found Ronald,

whom they described as raggedy looking, which is probably an understatement. They talked with him for a while and asked him to accompany them into town for further questioning. Which, you know, that's reasonable, right? Sure. So Ronald had a different idea, though.

Rather than the reasonable thing of just going to the police station to talk to them more he instead Turns around and tries to stab the sheriff's with a butcher knife Just hacking away at him. He's like. I'm gonna carve you like maggot cows and just fucking goes after him This is the third attempted murder Yeah, he does this a lot. Like, you come near him and you get too close to him, he will try to kill you. That's all there is to it.

He'll try to shoot you, he'll try to stab you. He doesn't care if you're a cop. Doesn't care if you're a cop, a federal agent, just some guy, doesn't matter. Everybody's ready to get killed here. So they ended up, they said it was completely unprovoked. They were just asking him to come to the station. They didn't even, they weren't touching him or anything.

He just freaked out. So then they jailed him for resisting arrest after that. Not attempted murder, not attempted murder, resisting arrest. Assault with a deadly weapon. There's all kinds of things. Which that tells me they were like, if we charge him with attempted murder, we're going to have to have him in the jail for a while for a long time This gets him the fuck back to his hole as soon as possible

We don't have to worry about each them a lesson not to do this anymore. Maybe which probably not Here is another neighbor She said he always carried that gun and whenever he talked to someone he'd raise the barrel a little like to point it at You I don't want to talk to someone looking down the barrel of a gun. What? He's like a fucking Yosemite Sam or something now. It's just crazy. After howdy neighbor, that's what we get.

Slowly raising it till it's in your face and you're like, yeah, so the stars have been nice, right? Yeah, they're all right, the stargazing ears. Well, I'm gonna get going. Why are you pointing that? I'm gonna get going. Why are you pointing that? I'm gonna get going now, thanks. Have a good one. One of his neighbors is a guy named Pete Casianot,

or Casianot, C-A-C-H-E-N-A-U-T, and he's from France, so it's gonna be a no, Casianot. Pete is 75 in 1978, where we'll catch up with our story here. Born in 1903? 1903 in Iresserie, France he's from. That man was a teenager when the Titanic sunk. Yeah he remembers that shit. Good Christ. He was like, oh fuck they're gonna draft me for World War I. they're gonna draft me for World War I. I gotta stop the Kaiser right now. Yeah. So yeah, he's from there.

He's got a lot of brothers and sisters, like I think a brother and five or six sisters he's got, all sorts of family. Everybody stayed in France except for Pete. Pete moves to, he has a weird fascination with the American West. He read a bunch of books about that kind of thing and a lot of people back then,

there was so much literature about the American West in the late 1800s and early 1900s that people were just fascinated by it. When he was a boy, this shit was still unfolding. Exactly, and as he came out, it was kind of less that way because as the 20th century came on, it was kind of less that way because as 20th century came on it was a lot less, but it was still more than France. It was still the old west more than France. So he decided he wanted to be out there. Everybody said he was a huge big-time

mountain man. He moved out there when he was about 25 and spent the last 50 years as a mountain man. That's what he did. So he went from France to being a mountain man. They said he was a trapper, a prospector, a sheep herder. He did it all. Real land Jacques Cousteau. Yeah, a Jacques Cousteau of the land. And he's a French and everything.

There you go. Which is hilarious to hear a guy with a French accent who looks like a desert fucking scumbag. You know what I mean? I only know a few of them. Desert rat who guy with a French accent who looks like a desert fucking scumbag. You know what I mean? I only know a few of them. Desert rat who's got a French accent, it's weird. Yeah. You know a few desert rats with French accents?

I only know a few. Or a few guys named Pete. Most of them that are in America that are beneath the fray are Cajun. Yes, exactly, down there, it's different. There's very few out west. Or West Virginian, one of the two. Whatever it is.

Usually the people that are rural in the west have a fuckload of money and they own 400 acres or some shit and they have a lot of money. It's that kind of people. And a lot of sports cars. And shit you wouldn't expect. So he does all this, he's also a miner. In the Black Rock Desert area where

the Pinto Hot Springs is, there's about five residents and he's one of them, Pete. He's one of the five residents. One guy who's lived out there said he knew Pete for about 30 years and said he's a prospector, lived in the desert. He also knew Ronald, this guy, and he said that Pete would visit him occasionally. They knew each other. This guy also said that he would visit the Hot Springs. Jim Cole also said about Pete, quote, a real mountain man and a top notch trapper who always had time to stop and talk. Yeah, good guy.

At 75, he was in tip top shape. He said, you should have seen him climb a mountain and he could look at tracks and tell me how long ago They've been made He's a trapper and a tracker. Yeah, I don't want to see a 70 Mids I out there higher. Yeah, I don't see that guy

Miming a mountain every heartbeat is like a hold your breath cuz it's gonna explode. You can't do that. I'm terrified I'm gonna have to build a skid to drag his ass down. Oh, they'll just roll him back then. They don't care. Skid. Fuck that. They're not gonna get a helicopter out there. Let him return to Earth. Yeah, he loves it out here, everybody. He's been out in the mountains. Let him stay. So he had a mountain cabin back in the hills between the Black Rock Desert and Denayo, and he also had five trapping

cabins scattered throughout the area. So when he was out trapping he'd have a place to rest there. So he lived primarily in the mountain cabin in the hills out there, and everybody said it was beautiful. It was sage-covered hills. It was tucked away beneath some shade trees. It was nice. Just trapping and tagging. Just what he wanted to do, man. He also here will talk about, they said, this is from a newspaper article, quote, a small garden nearby was watered by a spring which ran a few feet from the cabin. It's rippling waters cascading down the hillside. This sounds like a movie set, like a little cabin, a little

stream next to it. It's fucking ridiculous. So they say that the Oliphant's joint in Deadwood. I was just gonna say it sounds like Deadwood, like there's a big fish in there, there's a big trout. It's a nice park. He said one trapping cabin is located almost directly across from Battle Creek Ranch.

It's a natural cave formed by a rock overhang, and Pete enclosed it. He enclosed a natural cave formed by a rock overhang and Pete enclosed it. He enclosed a natural cave that way he didn't have to dig out anything. Genius! It's already built. Already built. Just needs a front door. Except for a small entrance way with whatever materials were at hand, including old car doors he built this with.

So it doesn't look great. And I have a picture of it by the way. Really? It doesn't look great. Well, a picture of it by the way. Really? It doesn't look great. Well not at all but it's yeah. They said just inside the entrance are a pile of stones and grate and a soot covered boulder and that's where he would cook on this boulder. Yeah. They said a wooden door separated the main living area from the entryway and they said inside the walls, roof and floor were all rock. He had all, everything was rock.

He came. How do you ventilate this to be able to build a fire inside and not, you know, fucking succumb? You fucking. Cross your fingers? You're a mountain man, yeah. Oh boy. What are you gonna do?

It's in the front, by the way. He has the fire by the entryway, so I think he just starts like, open the door. Shooing the smoke out the door, I think is how he does it. They said the cracks filled in with the stones and cement make it weather tight as well. He said a flat rock at the back of the cave served as a perfect place for a bed.

A flat rock. He slurps on. They said a rickety table was bare save for an empty cracker box and partially filled whiskey bottle. Like if he went in his house that's what you'd see. Cracker, whiskey. No crackers though, just the box. Well he cooked all the crackers that's why.

He cooks his crackers. He sautes them in whiskey, that's all he's got. Toast some and dip some. That's it. He said he lived a simple life and he loved it out there, obviously, because he lived there for 50 years and he made a very comfortable home for himself there. Holy shit. Now here we go.

Now 1978 comes along and we're talking about, back to our guy Ronald here, Bristle Wolf, they said that he loved it out there, it was his ideal life. But as 78 comes along, people started saying that he started to look a little too thin and not very healthy, Ronald here, Bristle Wolf. They're like, he started to look kinda bad. May of 1978, he closes his checking account

in the Winnemucca Bank, which is weird, because he's had this open for years and years and years. So May 78, he just closes it down. Now, some people come to this area in June of 1978, about June 6th they leave, and this is Richard Weese, W-E-E-S-E, he's 40 years old, old Dickie Weese. And his wife is Judy Warren Weese.

She's 31 at the time. And they come to this area with in their hand, clutching a treasure map passed down by Richard's father. And Richard's father has buried some shit for them to find, huh? Yeah, apparently Richard's father was some kind of Spanish explorer or something, I don't know, but he's given in this map and we'll talk about where the map came from and what he's looking for because it's an actual thing that a lot of people have looked for. It's a big deal. Really? Yeah, this is a, this is their treasure hunting here. So Richard came from a long line of prospectors and miners

in Colorado. That's where his family's from. So his younger brother said he was always looking for the end of a rainbow. So quick money is what he's looking for, the quick fix. He's a blonde guy, about 5'11", 180, not a big guy. He spent most of his life prospecting and working a mine of his own. So that's what he would do, prospect a big guy. He spent most of his life prospecting and working a mine of his own.

So that's what he would do, prospecting. He carried on, I guess, his family settled in Colorado in 1848 and they'd been miners and prospectors since then. So the original wave of people going there. The real gold rush. they just stayed there. So ever since he was a small child, he's been into mining, which is interesting. When he's 10 years old, his father acquires a map of this area for this specific gold hunt that they're going on. And his father. It's gold.

It's gold they're looking for. And his father never got to do it here. Now, Weiss here, Richard, when he was, It's gold they're looking for and his father never got to do it here now Weas here Richard when he was he was from Longmont, Colorado And he joined the US Navy before he graduated from high school. So he ran away ran away from school to join the Navy Then he got his GED later on though. So that's fine He followed after he got out of the Navy later on though, so that's fine. He followed, after he got out of the Navy,

he worked for eight years as a laborer and then went to a business school in Denver to become a computer programmer, just like Bristle Wolf here. I'm really into mining, let me be a computer programmer. That's strange career choice. Trans-storic technology where you spin a tin top in a circle and try to get the soot out or you know.

You take a pickaxe and hit a rock with it. Or this. A few years after that, or I'm sorry, during that time he married for the first time, had three sons, Randy, Kerry and Chris. And then he got divorced and he started a heavy equipment business, which left him a lot of free time. Now with this free time, he likes to pursue mining,

because that's what he likes to do. That's what he wants to do. He worked the Ladybug, which is a uranium mine, which had been in the family for more than 25 years. Uranium, right? It's his own mine? Yeah, his family's mine. They bought it.

So I don't know how, can you just grab uranium out of the ground and put it in a bag? Like, I don't know what's... If you own the land that it's beneath, I guess you can do whatever you want with it. I mean and not die? Is it gonna give you cancer or something? I don't know. What the hell do I know about uranium? I know about uranium?

I know that shit's bad for you. It sounds bad, I don't know. It seems bad, don't they make like... Yeah, that's the fuel for a fucking... Yeah, that's what I mean. Anything that's nuclear, that's the fuel for it. Can you just have a glove and pull it from the ground? Like I don't know if that's...

I don't know if Homer was doing it the right way. I don't know man, but that sounds dangerous, but that's what they're doing So he found gold in addition to the uranium and then worked the mine until it played out in the mid 70s So and then you got a wonderful valuable the uranium or the gold who knows? I don't know what the uranium market is like at all Yeah, I don't even know probably the two most valuable things in that mind probably Yeah, if he can find diamonds, he's really got something there If he finds diamonds, he's really got a gold mine there. Let me tell you something

We don't know how his father got the map But he Ronald remembers venturing into the desert area of northwest Nevada in search of this treasure But the trip was cut short when this Ronald was seven when they were doing this and he got the measles during the trip so they had to go home. Yeah, because that was years and years and years ago when that shit was problems. And his father never returned. Imagine that. Never, never went back and then the, and then when his father died in the late 60s

He passed the map on to Richard because he knew that Richard would be the only one that would probably go after this So because the brother didn't give a shit about mining. He didn't care about it So I measles that yeah, you go mining you get measles So he made Richard made at least two trips to the desert to search for this lost Gold and then he's gonna make another one here in 1978 with his new wife, Judy. Okay He made, Richard made at least two trips to the desert to search for this lost gold. And then he's going to make another one here in 1978 with his new wife, Judy. Okay? Judy, by the way, she's 31 and she's known as just liking to do everything, loves people,

likes to do shit, very adventurous. Yeah, for him it's perfect because she's like, where are we going? Exploring in the, great, sounds good. She's into it. She liked cross-country skiing and golf and all this kind of shit. Her career was in real estate, though. So real estate and gold mining is what she's into. And she married Whis on her 31st birthday,

which was August 31st, 1977, so about eight months before, eight, nine months before they come out here. And then she ended up kinda, she didn't really work much anymore because he made really good money and they wanted to explore and stuff. So she was like, fuck it, fuck real estate, let's do this. So her brother Jack said that he,

she loved hanging out with Dick. They call him, his name was Dick, that's what they called him, Richard by the way. And that she liked doing what he liked to do too. The brother said it was quite a change for her. She wasn't excited about mining but then it didn't upset her either. If it was what Dick wanted to do, it was alright with her. She just loves Dick and doesn't care anything else. Just a big fan of Dick and that's all. That's all we can do. Good

for both of them. Everybody's having fun. So June 6th, 1978, they leave for their treasure hunt. They take off, they travel through Montana and Idaho and Washington. And she would call home every four days to tell her family what was going on. They were still alive and you know, whatever. So she talked about how they were going to look for a gold mine while they were there. That's when she called from Denio. The gold mine they're looking for is the Blue Bucket Treasure. This is a big deal, the Blue Bucket Treasure as we'll talk about.

So they have this map. It's been around for years. The father's been saying this is where the fucking gold is. So he's excited. They get to Denio and they talk about it with the Denio hotel proprietor. We got this map and we're here to fucking pan gold and we're going to get rich off of this and I'm sure the blue bucket full of this shit and I'm sure this guy's heard it a few times running the motel. He's like great I'll take your money every day you're here and don't find it.

You too you said. You too, you said. You too. Interesting. I'll sell you some picks and shovels if you want to. So the story of the treasures here, I'll give this from a newspaper article. The story begins with a wagon train slowly making its way across the Black Rock Desert in October 1845. There were the 40 wagons were on route to Oregon, once part of a much larger train,

but they had split at the present day sites of Winamucca. At the present day Winamucca is where they split, with most of them traveling onto California, and these people making a, you know, a northern turn to Oregon. So the constant threat of Indian attack, the Paiutes, Paiutes from this region, the Paiutes here, the guy, they were very cautious. So they were, you know, trying to, you know, stay safe and all that.

So they were four days into the Black Rock and entered a canyon so deep that the oxen had to be doubled up and the wagons hauled up the steep sides one wagon at a time. Too steep they entered a steep ass canyon. They said children scampering alongside picked up some pebbles and threw them into a blue bucket hanging on the side of one of the wagons. For a time the pebbles were forgotten. Okay, from that point in time there are two versions of what happened next. One say the pioneers traveled on the onto Eureka, California where a miner recognized the rocks for what they were, gold. Gold, yeah. The other says that later in the passage several wagons turned over losing the blue bucket and its unknown treasures So they don't know they said years later some of these people came to realize holy shit there

We had gold what the fuck were we doing? We were stuck in a big giant gold fucking pit. We're what god damn it But did you not see it? God damn it So a party was organized to return to search for the lost gold, but east of Granite Creek, the Paiutes attacked and killed all but two of the people that were looking for the gold. Oh boy. So then another party set out, managed to avoid the Paiutes, scoured the area for weeks without finding anything. Then in the 1920s, grandsons of those people who originally came out also were searching for it. And they said in the newspaper article, in all probability the desert with landslides and flash floods

probably revealed the treasure for a minute, then a landslide probably covered it up again. That's probably why they couldn't find it basically. And that people were still searching for it in the 1970s. This 130 year old gold place. But if it's so prevalent that children are just picking it up and throw it in a bucket, it's got to be everywhere or it doesn't exist. Yeah, one of the two. They said if it did exist, it was probably a flash flood that exposed it and then it probably got covered back up again That's why no one's been able to find it because people have been looking for it for centuries now. They're more than a century So June 16th 1978. Oh, by the way in Denio the motel they're staying at five bucks a night

What five bucks a night even in the 70s 78 that seems cheap even for the 70s, right? So they're staying there Five bucks a night, even in the 70s. 78, that seems cheap even for the 70s, right? So they're staying there, and I guess his daughter, Dick's daughter, is getting married, and they're planning to go to this wedding soon. They're hoping to attend. But they never make it to the wedding, and everyone was like, hey, where the fuck are they? They didn't make it to the wedding.

But they said that, she said they didn't know if they could make it, so everybody was kinda like, oh, they the fuck are they? They didn't make it to the wedding. But they said that she said they didn't know if they could make it, so everybody was kind of like, oh, they might just still be in the desert. So then she didn't telephone again. It's been more than her normal four days, and she hasn't telephoned. So they're like, this is interesting. No one can find them.

No one can find them, their map, their jewelry, or their small poodle. None of them. They're all gone. Or the dog. Or the dog here. So sometime during June 16th, Judy ended up, she called her brother in Colorado telling him of her whereabouts and she told of her husband's treasure search and blah, blah and they said they were hoping to be home in two days for the wedding but then they don't show up. Now at some point here, by the way,

Pete would come by for a soak in the spring once in a while. Our guy Pete. Pete comes sometime in the next two weeks. Pete comes by and Bristle Wolf would allow him to come in because he knew he had arthritis and he was like an old mountain climber so he would do that. When he shows up he finds two dead bodies. Pete does out there just laying in the desert less than a hundred yards away from Ronald Bristle Wolf's joint there so he's like holy shit shit bristle wolf pops out from underground and shoots Pete to

Blast him with a 30 30 shotgun just fucking blows Pete away, so Shoots the fuck out of Pete Here okay Now there's three people in the desert He goes back into his hole and doesn't do anything just leaves the people in the desert and Pete's dead Yeah, we fucking blast him with a shotgun. Yeah. Dead. So the people at the Denial Hotel knew something was wrong when the Weasels don't return to their room. So the hotel guy reports the missing and the sheriff's department said they took a motel room June 15th, left the next day

to find the claim. And he didn't get back in five days, the clerk called the sheriff's office and said, hey, you might want to look for these people. So two men here are out rock hounding. In the, looking for rocks, I think. Oh, looking for rocks, okay, yeah. Yeah, looking for rocks. In the Pinto Mountain hot springs Saturday morning,

on a Saturday morning, and they come across multiple corpses, yeah, three bodies, they look around, and they're smart. They go, rather than hang around and ask questions, they go, I don't wanna be the fucking fourth and fifth. Yeah, yeah. They jet, they go.

Like stumbling onto Native American grounds where there's like heads hanging from trees, you just leave. I'm gonna get outta here, I'm gonna go ahead and leave. Who did this? Yeah, you know, this heads hanging from trees, you just leave. You don't go. I'm gonna get out of here. I'm gonna go ahead and leave. Who did this? Yeah, you don't go, this is a picnic spot. This is great.

No one should be angry here. No. So they went to Winamucca and told the police in Winamucca what happened, and they bring out all these different deputies and a whole bunch of people and a coroner comes out, they, you know, this is unexpected. So as they approach the area, Bristle Wolf is there

in his cave still or in his underground lair, he pops out, hops on his three wheeler and takes off. With his gun, by the way, with his 30-30 here, takes off. The problem is it's a very cold morning for some reason, it's chilly up there and it was the coldest spot in the nation that day by the way. And this four three wheeler just wasn't real great in the cold and was having a hard time getting going. He couldn't get above about 10 miles an hour. So the deputies had four

wheel drive vehicles that could go well over 10 miles an hour and they just surrounded him and did all of that. He wouldn't stop until they fired three warning shots and then he finally stopped. They were like next to him going stop and he's like fuck you give him a finger he keeps going and then finally they bucked off three shots and he was like okay I guess. He raised his hands up when they got to him. They didn't say a word to him. He raised his hands and he said, quote,

I don't know a thing about it. About what? About what, sir? And they took him into custody. Okay, now they find the bodies of the Weas' here, of Dick and Judy Weas. They are filled with maggots by now. They've been in the desert for at least eight days,

they're figuring. They were searching for the claim and they didn't. They said they probably got killed right after, right when they got here, basically. They got from denial, this guy popped up, didn't recognize him. Who knows, they probably might have tried to engage him in conversation.

Hey, do you know where this, because on a map, do you know where this is or whatever? And he said, I know where my shotgun is, fuck you. He actually shoots them with a 22 brush gun, which is that a friend gives him to shoot coyotes. And instead he uses it on them. Russell's rabbits with. And then on the 30-30 he used on Pete.

Yeah. That's a long rifle that the guy riding on the Wells Fargo coach would carry. Yeah, exactly. It's a big one. That's a powerful rifle. Yep, that's what he shot Pete with. So that's where he shot, yeah, and then the 22, the other one.

So also, what they can't, they find everything they can. He also shot the dog, too. He shot the poodle. Oh, god damn. Oh, you hate poodles. Don't act like you care. I mean, I don't want somebody's dog yeah Jimmy literally says poodles should not exist, and I don't fucking even I don't like them and consider them dogs. Yeah Don't act sad about it

They're dead so everyone who loves it is dead. I don't know how to love it. It won't let you love it Yeah, you're petting its skin. It's weird. It's fucking weird. So yeah, now the poor poodle, they find everybody. Dick, Judy, Pete, and a poodle, all dead, which is very sad, obviously. Yeah, he even shot the poodle. That's crazy. So they're all in a pile out there?

The three, the weases and the dog are, and then Pete is half in his truck Basically, he showed up parked right by there and Ronald just shot him before he even got out of the truck just boom He saw the bodies and maybe he was running back to the truck Possibly his truck door is open. He's got one leg out of the truck when they find Oh, and he sat out there for days like that just rotting in the sun So by the way, the one thing they don't find on the Wies is the treasure map. They don't find the treasure map. Yeah, that's gone.

I wonder what the fuck. Well, this guy likes prospecting, too. So he's like, hmm, a treasure map. Now it's turned into a silly movie or like a cartoon where I'll kill him and take his treasure map. And that's what he's doing now. And then Pete came. He's like, you're not getting my gold neither, pow, and shot him. It's my gold, all mine. Wow.

Like a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Yeah, like the prospector on the Arizona lottery. Yeah, we heels kicking together. So Pete is in his truck with the right door open and one leg outside. That's what he is. And he had rheumatism and he just went there to take a bath, that's all. The autopsy shows that he had died several days before the couples as well. They have a big funeral for him. All his minor buddies have a big funeral for him in Winnemucca. Now they have the capture,

they have the 15 mile an hour chase and all that. The reaction of the fellow desert weirdos we'll talk about. They don't seem very surprised here. Miller and Jim Cole, the miners we've talked about, friends of everybody here, Bristle Wolf and Pete, they said quote, there were five of us living out on the Black Rock Desert, now there's only two. There were five of us living out on the Black Rock Desert. Now there's only two. And the reporter said, okay, well two, because who's the fifth? And he said, oh, there's a guy named Cecil

who went to the hospital recently. Cecil got sick. Why are we talking about Cecil in the newspaper? What about? So these two are now the only people left out here. One's dead, one's in jail, one's in the hospital. The gun, 22 caliber slugs are removed from the bodies of both Dick and Judy Weiss here. They were too badly corroded to link them ballistically to Grease's gun, they said.

But they said they did find a single 22 shell casing near Judy Weiss's body that they know was fired by his gun because there's a small screw in place of a firing pin. He had to like doctor the gun to make it work and it makes a very distinct mark on the casing. So that's how they match it up ballistically. His gun broke so he just put a fucking metal screw in there. Put it in there, that'll work. It worked enough to kill people. That's a resourceful fella, I would never know. I'd just throw the gun away.

Nope, he's like, I guess it's broke. Nope, he fucking fixed it. I guess when you live in a hole in the ground, you gotta be resourceful. Yeah, you figure how everything works. Yeah, if you can irrigate hot springs to your own uses, I think you're definitely Probably fascinating pretty good at stuff like that and the 30 30 slugs removed from Pete's body are

definitely matched to the shotgun that he was using so He's fucked. It looks like yeah. Yeah, he is sent immediately to Lakes Crossing Mental Hospital pretty much because he's a loon bag. And they're trying, as the authorities try to piece together what happened, they just pulled this guy out of a hole in the desert and they're like, he looks fucking nuts, let's put him in here for a while, till we figure everything out, what's going on here.

They're, in the newspaper, they call him a hermit, who lives all around in a series of hovels dugouts and old car bodies and they said they're ready to charge him with triple murder. I guess so. They said that he was moved to Lake Crossing after he went to jail for like five minutes and they were like he's definitely too crazy for here. This is nuts. So he's in the hospital for about six months Really before on December 26th? 1978 he is declared incompetent to stand trial at that point

But that's not for good. That's just for now as we'll get into it here. So yeah, they said that he was a Psychiatrist declared him incompetent the psychiatric once it changes then he'll be returned. So as soon as he's sane, they can bring him in for trial. We'll fix this. Yeah, we'll fix him up, put some pills in him, and get him on trial. It was a three-person sanity commission. A sanity commission. Imagine being sat before a panel

that's called the sanity commission. If we have ever in this country needed a fucking sanityity Commission more, it's right now. Get me a Sanity Commission just all over the place. And I want it simple like that. Three, so that's two to one and we're done. We're not doing any of this six to seven bullshit.

No appeals, that's it. We've called, we've deemed you nuts. Fuck off, I can't take it anymore. Get out. Get out. These were doctors Thomas Stapleton, Donald Mold, and Jay Chappelle, and they said that they all believed that he has symptoms of schizophrenia still,

and they consider him mentally incompetent to assist in his own defense. That's the- Unanimous. Well no, Dr. Lynn B. Gero of Reno was called, now that's the prosecution is using that guy. That's the states guy. He says that he thinks he's fine.

He says he thinks he's competent to stand trial. So they said, well, what if he, they asked him this though, what if he was acquitted? Was he fit to be returned loose to society? And he said no. And he said, but then how the fuck is he fit for, no, that doesn't work then, stupid. But that was the prosecution's argument. Stupid. So immediately after this, he's returned to Lake Crossing where he's

being held. Finally, in August of 1979, 14 months later, he's finally found competent to stand trial. Now what they need is a prosecutor. They need a prosecutor who's tough. They need a prosecutor who's fair. They need a prosecutor who's not afraid to get in the middle of Mike Tyson's carnivorous meat ear biting spectacle and get right in there and push him aside. The only guy that could possibly prosecute this case is Mills Lane. Let's get it out.

Mills Lane is the prosecutor and it is the boxing referee Mills Lane, who I always heard was a lawyer before. He was a boxing referee, but never believed it. Here he is prosecuting a murder case. Yes, exactly. So the tiny, if you don't know, he's the boxing referee, he's a small guy, bald head, little gray hair around it, and he talks like this, let's get it on,

he says before every fight. He's the referee for Celebrity Death Match, the claymation show on MTV. Because he was the ref for the Tyson Holyfield fight where Tyson bit his ear, so that's how he became for Celebrity Deathmatch, the claymation show on MTV. There you go, there's that, cause he was the ref for the Tyson Holyfield fight where Tyson bit his ear, so that's how he became the Celebrity Deathmatch guy. And so many others, yeah. Yeah, and they just had his voice going, let's get around, before every one of the things.

That's it. That's it. So yeah, he is, he'll leave his job as Chief of Detectives for the Wausau County Sheriff's Department to take over the prosecution. That's what Mills was doing? for the Wausau County Sheriff's Department to take over the prosecution. Mills Lane. That's what Mills was doing? Chief of Detectives, and then he was a prosecutor and then a judge.

Mills has seen some shit. Yeah, and then he's watched grown men beat the living shit out of each other right before his eyes. So that's why he's a good judge, I guess, here. So I guess that's what they're saying. He's a good judge, I guess, here. So I guess that's what they're saying. He's finally ready. Now, I guess he spent all his time in the mental institution.

Mills Lane says this, quote, he's different, he's odd, but he's sane under the legal definition. Let's get it on! They were like, Mills, calm down. So. All rise. All right, and they said, sure, he's wacky. He said, touch gloves now,

get back in your mental institution. Sure, he's wacky, so am I. Yep, so he's wacky. Who ain't wacky? Ever seen Mike Tyson? He's the wackiest son of a bitch I ever met. He's put him on trial. So the defense disagrees, obviously.

They're like, he's fucking nuts. They're like, you know. We don't wanna do this. They said, he won't tell us what happened. He won't talk to us the defense that he won't help like we say Hey, you know what happened here and here. He just doesn't say anything. He just won't talk. He just won't help us This is Marty wiener as his lawyer Marty wiener so he's the state deputy state public defender and And he said, it's not helping us any. He's he pleads innocent by reason of insanity. That's what they're going to do for him here. Weiner said he's frustrated.

He's a frustrated wiener. This guy by Greece's aggresses refusal to discuss the case. He said, my whole defense is based on speculation because he won't talk. He won't help us, which is the whole point of sanity is can you assist in your own defense. Right. And your defense attorney is going, he won't fucking talk to us, that's not assisting. That seems like he's certainly insane. Totally.

One psychiatrist said Gress' refusal to tell what happened quote was a rational choice and that he wanted to commit suicide through the judicial system. So they're saying he doesn't want to say what happened, he wants to be given the death penalty and be killed. That's what a psychiatrist said. But Wiener disagreed saying a suicide, he said a suicidal man wouldn't have walked seven miles in severe cold to seek aid after being blown up by dynamite.

But that was eight years ago also. Right, yeah. Plenty of people who killed themselves didn't. But that was eight years ago also. Right, yeah. Plenty of people who killed themselves didn't want to kill themselves eight years earlier. Yeah, and anybody who commits suicide doesn't want it that way. No, they don't want to die of blood loss in a cold desert probably.

That's not what they're looking for. Nobody explodes their fucking hands and stares at them as they bleed out. That's not a normal one. I've never heard of somebody say, that's it, I'm going home hands and stares at them as they bleed out. That's not a normal one. I've never heard of somebody say, that's it, I'm going home and taking my fucking hands apart. You know, I'm going to just blow a couple of parts of me off and hope I bleed to death

while I walk somewhere. That's better, I think. So Mills Lane said the trial will be, this sounds like he's a boxing referee. This is so great. His career path was set from the beginning. Quote, will be a battle of the shrinks, a battle of the psychiatrists. 10 rounds, now let's fight fair, keep it above the waist,

now touch gloves and come out fighting, Docs, let's go. Let's get it on! See you on pay-per-view August 10th. That's the one. So jury selection during that, Mills Lane and Marty Weiner are fighting a lot. Unreal. Mills has to fight Weiner. So Mills accused Weiner of asking improper or relevant questions of prospective jurors and Weiner claimed that Mills was

trying to twist his words. The judge here got in the middle of it and told Weiner to go ahead with his questioning advising him he will, he will twist your words and he will do the same thing before this trial is over. In other words, that's the game. It's all in the game. That's his job. Yeah. You twist each other's words and I decide who's right. That's it. So just do your thing. Out of the five people on that day that they questioned for possible jurors, all but one said they'd heard of the case, but they all said that they could consider the charges fairly.

Which should be hard because he's put out in the paper as crazy hermit weirdo. I mean, that's literally crazed hermit kills people. That's what they know of the case. He's a crazed hermit, he's not even a man. It's not easy. A crazed hermit who calls himself bristle wolf, they say. They make him sound even crazier than he is, honestly.

An underground fucking lodge. It's not good. So the trial's going to take place in Winnemucca, because that's the nearest place with a courthouse. And so you would imagine this would be a big deal in a small town like that, in Winnemucca. Yeah, everybody's going to be a part of it. It's not. They don't care. No?

Nobody gives a shit? The judge said that the case has attracted as big an audience as he can remember, but he said that the people, the locals in town don't give a shit. And the newspaper goes around and they say in spite of the national media attention and the presence of at least one television camera crew, most in town said interest had waned with the passage of time since the killings because the victims weren't local. So fuck them. Nobody cares. Nobody cares.

They said, here is one, this article they say, the majority of Winnemucca's residents spend more time talking about the draft inflation, Afghanistan and Iran. This is 1980, by the way. One guy says, the world's problems are of more interest to everyone about everyone right now. Bristle Wolf seems kind of insignificant compared to that. She's doing a pedicure, by the way, while saying that, I swear to God.

She's giving a pedicure. One guy, a guy who, Teddyulgate said at the Sears catalog store where she works, this is what she said, quote, I think most of the talk is about whether we're going to have a depression or World War III. So. 1980? Is that when we were going?

1980. Yeah, yeah, yeah. People were freaked out about Russia and having a nuclear war with Russia, and then the economy was in the toilet. So another guy, Dave Dunaway at Western Auto Store said, we don't talk about it here because my partner is one of the jury.

That's how small of a town it is, yet they don't care about it. When the subject of his guilt or innocence comes up, he says, quote, everybody's got a different opinion, but he did add that Gress is scary. He's a scary guy. He said that the topic over coffee break at the store was possibility, the main topic they would

talk about was the possibility of a revived military draft. Let's just wildly speculate rather than talking about the one interesting thing that's ever happened in our fucking town, ever, since the beginning of time. A genuine threat to any of us if we, any of us went up that fucking hill. Yeah, totally. At the Winamucca Hotel, the owner said all everybody's talking about is the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. I love how these people are super into geopolitical like news stories in the middle of the desert rather than the thing that's happening right in front of them. They said there are the perennial topics around town.

Quote, the cowboys talk about the girls, the girls talk about the cowboys. That's a man at the Boondocks Club said that. At the bar, another guy said that he met Ronald Gress before the killings and said that he saw the recluse repairing his three wheel cycle. They said he said it was he thought it was home-built like he made it himself the three-wheeler He said he wasn't real friendly very odd. He didn't want a whole lot of conversation. You're lucky didn't shoot you. Yeah So 1980 the trial is gonna happen here. Here we go

Now Mills Lane says because of the aggravating circumstances in Pete's murder, that he's an elderly person and he's a friend and all that kind of thing, that he's going to ask for the death penalty for that killing, Mills Lane said. Okay. Yeah. In addition to the death penalty, they can also choose from life or life without the possibility of parole. They got their choices here.

Now the jury is consisting of 10 women and two men. That's the jury. So, not guilty by reason of insanity is his plea. All three are going under one trial. One trial, yeah. It's all one deal. And opening arguments were there. Like I said, 10 women, two men.

In the openings, they call him a, this is Mills Lane, calls him a most dangerous killer of three people, that's what he is, and the prosecution, or the defense's whole case, says he's a frightened man who only wanted to be isolated from society and these people scared him and he didn't know what he was doing, because he's crazy.

So Mills Lane said here that one psychiatrist described Kress as quote, the most dangerous man he ever examined. He did just get his psychiatry license like three weeks ago, but he still, he said never examine a man. Second guy he's interviewed. Second guy, first guy was just, you know, a little sad, but this one different. Dangerous.

Yep. He said that, you know, he described that he said this couple went here, they went about while he was tending his garden and, you know, he must have shot him and they said that's what they thought happened. They said that he left the bodies just 150 yards away from his front door, just left them there in the middle of the desert. Does that seem like a cold-blooded killer in Calculate or like? Doesn't seem very sane because he didn't try to hide it

Right, and he just left it right there That's what I mean most of the time when they do like sanity when they're saying you did You know right or wrong nowadays one of the things they say is well. He tried to cover what he was doing He tried to get away from the scene. He tried to pull the body You know he put something on top of it. This guy didn't do any of that, he just left him there, but they are saying that he shot Pete to cover up those murders. That's why he shot them.

But it would have been easier to just move them so they weren't in the middle of the fucking, where everybody could see them. That's an easier way. That speaks to an insane man who genuinely is scared that people are on his property. He's a little loopy, I think, is what's going on here. So his defense attorney described him as a classic tragedy

of paranoid schizophrenic, of a paranoid schizophrenic who ran from society to a remote desert home in a desperate but intelligent attempt to isolate himself. I'm too fucked up for society. Gonna put myself over here. Mills Lane also really hits the, that he killed the dog hard in the opening. He said even the killing of the poodle was premeditated.

He's not charged with any kind of animal abuse though, which is strange. Really? I guess when you're on for the death penalty, that's kind of a minor charge probably. We'll skip that one today. He said that he's going to show how Ronald Gress had attacked, assaulted and threatened three or four other people who wandered near his place.

And this was just par for the course for him. And these are the people we talked about. The defense said that, listen, I don't deny that my client is a, quote, suspicious and fearful man who manifests those traits through aggressive behavior toward people who invade his isolation. He said the essence of the tragedy is that no man can separate himself completely from society. True.

He said that he called him a paranoid schizophrenic. He said he was trying to escape society in the desert. And he, you know, he said that he ran from organized society as we knew it in an intelligent attempt. So the gun, they get the gun guy, he testifies that the 22 caliber slugs removed from the bodies of the victims were, like I said, were corroded, but those, the shells completely link it to the gun. He also testifies about the 30 30 slugs and all that. So ballistically it matches up. Uh, the lawyers start fighting at one point and the judge had to dismiss the jury and call the two lawyers on a sidebar. Mills wiener, calm down. Let's go. Shut the fuck up, both of you.

How's that? Yeah. Weiner told the judge that he wanted his client to have a fair trial and to be tried on admissible evidence. Mills Lane said, the day lying becomes admissible in court is the day I pack my diploma and go someplace else. Must have been very soon after that, because he was a referee most of the time.

The day I start getting in between two sweaty men trying to kill each other, that's what I'll do when this happens. The judge ordered the two to confine future disagreements to outside the courtroom or before his bench. Either ask for a sidebar or fight it out in the fucking parking lot, but don't bring it in here while the jury's here. How about that? I love this judge.

Listen, assholes. So, Lynn Giroux is the prosecution's psychiatrist here, and she said the recluse here, this guy prefers to be known as Bristle Wolf, number one. He made that clear when I talked to him. He is a paranoid schizophrenic, but that's okay because his disease has been in remission since 1968. Right.

It didn't show at all when he was shooting people for no reason and hiding in the desert, but he said that it's been in remission, so this is ridiculous that we're even having this whole discussion. He did say he was the most dangerous man that he'd ever examined. It's that guy. He testified that he committed two acts of premeditated murder and knew it was wrong when he did it. He said that he's not crazy,

he just can't control his impulses, that's the problem. And where's the map? That's, we never find the map. Who knows where he hid it. He didn't hide the bodies, but he hid the map. That's very childlike, you know what I mean? Right, gotta make sure I keep this because it could get me rich one day.

I'm gonna get rich and go find gold. The psychiatrist said he gets an impulse and goes boom, an extremely dangerous quality. Yeah, because the boom is a shotgun. So that could be dangerous. Or in his hands. Yeah, or a dynamite. He also said that Ronald tried to escape when the sheriff's deputies came for him because he knew he was wrong and was trying to get out. I think he was just over, he didn't have the firepower to fight them all off so he left.

There's too many, yeah. Yeah. And he said that he called the second and third shootings in the desert an act of premeditated murder to cover his actions in the first. So he's saying he killed Richard and then killed Judy and then waited and that Judy was to cover up killing Richard and the dog and all that. He says quote, Ronald Gress is not crazy. He's fully recovered. Oh wow, great. Recovered.

Imagine what he'd be like if he was crazy. Can you imagine that? Holy shit. What else could he do? Dig toward the center of the earth? It's the guy that eats the asshole out of a bowl, James. Oh, maggot-ridden bowl. Three weeks, dead fucking cow.

He said he occasionally experiences what he terms as, quote, scars from the delusions he suffered in the 60s when he was actually afflicted with schizophrenia. Not now where he's all better obviously. Okay. So every once in a while he gets like a little hiccup he says like a little flashback. So he said the second and third murders were to cover up the first he said because he was trying to get away. That was that. The defense shrink has a different, obviously, different say in this whole thing. What are they gonna say?

They talk about this Donald A. Mold of Reno is their psychiatrist. He says that he would suffer relapses of his schizophrenia for the rest of his life, and you can be in remission from it, but you're not really, it's not gone unless you're medicated properly and observed properly that it comes and goes and pops up and is bad for a while and kind of goes underground for a minute. And he said that... Under treatment for it is what you should be.

He said this will happen for the rest of his life and he's going to be, always be dangerous unless he's under constant treatment. That's what he needs. He needs to be seeing someone, he needs to be on medication, that's that. So this guy said that he's a classic paranoid schizophrenic who will never recover from it. He said he's convinced that he's not faking the disorder and that he is among one third of its US victims

who will have recurring episodes of delusions and hallucinations. Okay. So we didn't even know what the fuck he was, he doesn't even know what he was doing out there. He said that, Gresh shows other effects of the disease as well, such as disconnected thoughts

and deterioration of personal hygiene and appearance. Cause remember the people said in the last few months before the murders, he didn't look like himself anymore. He was skinnier, he was dirtier. I heard scraggly, is that what they called him? Scraggly, yeah, he just looked like shit. They said, persons with the disorder follow nomadic lives, removed from other people,

and that's exactly what he did. He said that he believes that there is a 70 to 80% chance that Gress would have failed a sanity test at the time of the killings and would not know as a rational person would know that it was wrong to do that. He said, in his opinion, he was crazy at the time of the killings and didn't know they were wrong. He might have been completely delusional and thinking that these people were fucking aliens that were coming down to take his gold or some shit.

Like who knows? Could have been anything. Is he implying that they blew it by not interviewing him then and finding out if he was? No. There's no way to know because it's 10 days after. He said if right before he pulled the trigger you gave him a sanity test, because the whole point is was he sane at the time of the killings? That's what they're trying to decide in court.

So he's saying if I had to guess I'd say no, probably not. I think he was delusional. He said that he didn't think that Gress would appreciate the act as murder, but as defending and interference with his lifestyle. Which, yeah, either way, off the street is a thing that we need here with this guy. I can certainly see the argument they're making. I don't like it. Definitely. It makes sense. So he's definitely fucking nuts and he's been diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic.

So I mean, that's where you have delusions and hallucinations and literally not knowing what's real and what's not. So if you're, he's the definition of crazy, this guy in terms of legally. Yeah, certainly needs help. So they talk about him being hospitalized three times in Oregon, too, like this isn't a new thing that he just made up out of his ass.

We have paperwork from three different visits saying this is the problem. The psychiatrist said his disease is controllable with medication and that he, at Gress, has actually responded well to the treatment when he was hospitalized. He was doing fine. Oh. He said, but there's no quarrel When the medication wears off he is an extremely dangerous person. He said not to don't get me wrong When he's done on his medication fucking, you know run for the hills as he's coming. Yeah

pictures now Mills Lane showed pictures of his living quarters to Show the you know show him what he was doing. I had a rustic take he called it rust his living quarters to show them what he was doing. He had a rustic, he called it rustic living quarters. That's rustic, alright. Rustic chic. Yup, a cluttered two room dug out home beneath the desert, heated by water, piped in from the nearby hot springs. That's rustic, alright.

With a nice barn door. Nice one. He said he wanted to see the design of the living quarters because it showed that he had an ability to think. Look what he did. He dug a hole in the ground. The defense also attempted to block the pictures from being admitted into evidence because he said, quote, his ability to think is not an issue in this case. He can think. It's just as he knows he's in reality. That's the difference. As they know what he thinks.

Also they want to include pictures of the bloated corpses that have been in the desert for eight to 10 days. The public defender claimed that the pictures were shown in an attempt to unfairly prejudice the jurors, and that the pictures of the slain poodle in particular, quote, didn't prove anything. He's not charged with that that is what they're saying. That's irrelevant to this.

That is a little bit inflammatory, right? It's a little bit, I would say here. There, look at this little poor little dog. And her little dog too. He's, the man's the Wicked Witch of the West, everybody. Look at him. It's one of the fluffy white ones. It's white.

So he also showed Mills Lane said that he showed the evidence that quote a dog was killed because mr Grest didn't want anything to leave the hot springs where he did his deed He basically said he killed the dog so it wouldn't be a witness now. That's what fucking ridiculous even silence the dog come on Yeah, Jesus, so They said that this is from the newspaper, jurors in the triple murder trial earlier recoiled as they were shown gruesome pictures

of the three victims. This is before you'd see like, you know, autopsy shows on television. So they said district judge Llewellyn Young overruled defense objections and allowed the prosecution to show the bloated bodies of an old prospector and a gold hungry couple and their poodle taken after they had lain in the desert sun for more than a week jurors appeared shocked by the pictures some clenching their teeth and others seeming to fight back tears as they

grew viewed the grisly scene that's why they argue whether this is inflammatory or not state public defender Marty Wiener claimed unsuccessfully at the pictures were shown in an attempt to unfairly prejudice the jurors and there's that. One thing they do, the defense is saying, look, he's fucking crazy. We have all of his paperwork saying he's crazy. We got psychiatrists saying he's a paranoid schizophrenic. We got it.

It shakes, it bakes, it fucking dices, it cuts. It's got it all. It's truly in front. Yeah. As far as the crazy scale goes, he's got it shakes it bakes it fucking dices it cuts it's got it all As far as the crazy scale goes he's got it all they said and the main thing that you know He's crazy. He insists on calling himself bristle wolf in court and he says my name is bristle wolf He gets mad when they call him grass and they're like, that's fucking crazy. His name isn't bristle wolf His name is grass. He insists. It's bristle wolf He's nuts so that helps that he's crazy now at one point though Mills Lane comes into court with the paperwork for his legal name change and says no no no his fucking name is legally bristle wolf

So he's not crazy. He's right actually knows yeah He knows his name and he knows his name's Bristle Wolf, because he had to fill out fucking forms and shit for it and pay money and go to court. Nice work, Mills. That's pretty good work. He said he discovered a Bristle Wolf was his correct name while in a Veterans Administration hospital through a process of deduction. They said they figured it out, and then they went backwards and found the name change documents.

It's fucking interesting. So, I love this from the newspaper. The news that triple murder suspect Ronald Gress is legally named Bristle Wolf surprised a courtroom audience here at the trial second week. Special prosecutor Mills Lane produced a document showing that Gress, an eccentric Black Rock Desert hermit, that's something you want to be known as, had legally changed his name in 1973 so he said it was an effort to rebut defense claims that the name bristle wolf was one of Gress's delusions it's not so is he gonna

testify do you send to right do you know fuck no you send this guy on the stand there no I mean he's not I don't even know if he could have a conversation. I don't think he's capable of it. I mean if he if he goes up there and tries to talk it's just gonna further convince that jury that he's not. Well maybe there's that. Maybe you put him up there just to further convince them look this guy's not okay. If you're the prosecution you kind of you know you don't need him up there you don't want him to because all he could do is convince them he's nuts. Yeah, right.

Because otherwise, we know, it's proven he did the killings. There's no doubt about it, they're his guns, the ballistics are all there, he definitely did it, no one's doubting that, it's just a matter of whether he's nuts or not, and I mean, but then the defense, what if he gets up there and he's like, yes sir, how can I answer your inquiries? And he starts speaking, well, when I was a young boy, see?

And he just starts talking, the jury's gonna be like, what the fuck? So the defense attorney, Martin Weiner, he tells a reporter that he wanted to put Bristlewulf on the stand even against his wishes, which is, a judge will never allow that because that's an automatic appeal thing. Force a guy to testify, that's your right to not testify.

It's literally your right to remain silent. So he said that he wasn't sure his client understood what being on the stand means and he asked the judge to explain it. So he's trying to get the judge to say it's okay to put him on the stand against his will. Which is fucking nuts. The judge finally doesn't allow it basically because he doesn't want to testify. He doesn't have to testify. He's the client. It's his case. It's his life. So during the closing arguments, Mills Lane said, the one word to remember is dangerous. Dangerous.

He said that Pete was shot after the weases to prevent arrest, which is one of the aggravating circumstances needed in the death penalty. And he said that Bristlewolf had shown no remorse, which is another condition of it. The defense had called witnesses who'd known him while he was confined at the mental hospital here. A senior

psychiatric nurse there said his condition had improved greatly while he was at the center and that he gradually began to open up to them as a person. Which is fine but it's not whether he's sane now, it's whether he was sane at the time of the murder. So yes, if you put him in a hospital setting and give him medication for a year and a half, he'll probably be in a lot better shape as if he was getting no medication and living in a fucking hole in the ground eating maggot steaks. Maggot burgers? Maggot burgers something, I don't even know.

Maybe it was like a maggot stew or maggot chili. You can make a nice chili out of that. You wouldn't even see it in there. Boiled it down to some burgoo, right? I would fucking hope so, yeah. You'd have to boil it first and then to get the maggots off of it and then it's any rare that that's not good no no you're cooking that till it's leather I would thank so

the jury deliberates for nine hours which is not that long but for this case it's it's decent yeah it's a whole day not only is it's a whole day. Not only is it a day, the guy comes out at like four o'clock in the morning, they reach a verdict. They don't let the jury go home for the night. They go just to deliberate. They've been deliberating since 7 p.m. And they fucking four o'clock in the morning, they come back with a verdict.

Wake his ass up and tell him to come in here. But that's a strategy that a lot of judges used to use because it would make the jury come to a decision because they were so tired they wanted to get out of there. You're not going anywhere until you get this done. Keeps them from negotiating for days at a time. So they're like, yeah, we got it. So they say Bristle Wolf sat stern faced

as he had throughout the entire trial and the jury returned a verdict of guilty of murder, three counts. So first degree murder. During sentencing, Mills Lane says obviously we need the death penalty, this is what it's made for. He cruelly shot his friend who just came over to soak his arthritic bones in the hot springs and the whole fucking deal.

And the defense goes, dude dude this guy is nuts come on and hunt anybody this is just for fuck's sake protecting his property that's what yeah he didn't go out looking for this like this is a in Florida this would be a legal shooting probably you know what I mean I'm not even kidding this would be considered a stand your ground Texas do I was just reading in Texas they've extended it to basically if someone fucking grazes a blade of grass on your front lawn You can just shoot him with no warning and it's considered perfectly legal So I'm just saying in the law in some states not far behind. I know it's huge like that. I know totally

So they come in with you, sir May fuck off three life sentences consecutively oh boy so they go we won't put him in to death but we will make sure he never ever ever ever ever gets out yeah so three consecutive life without parole that's a lot that's that's you made your point I think that that oh So December 27th 1980. This is the day after sentencing. Okay, literally the day after there is a civil suit filed By not suing him on what are you gonna sue him for his three-wheeler? Are they suing Bureau of Land Management?

They it's well There's it's a seeks compensation the family of Judy Weiss names the Bureau of Land Management as defendant because the woman along with her husband and prospector were shot on public land and they let him stay there and they knew that. They alleged that the Bureau of Land Management was negligent in not removing him from the land because he was a public danger and they left it would be the same as if you left a big open, you know, electricity thing, a big open box, a transformer or something. It's the same thing they're saying.

Doug, Doug, a hole in your driveway and let people come over and fall in it. Yeah. It's irresponsible. So they said that the conviction is being appealed right now. His conviction, the suit is filed by Mrs. Weiss's parents, Robert and Freda Warren of Longmont, Colorado, and three brothers, and they seek damages in excess of $10,000 for each surviving family member,

which doesn't sound like a lot, honestly. It feels like a pretty, yeah. It feels like a pretty interesting thing. And right below this article of all this tragedy is Some very funny advertising that I got to show you quick here is one that is Very bad. It's oh, it's a picture of a cartoon Chinese man And it says the Mandarin man is back

Excellent excellent Chinese food at reasonable prices okay then next to it is a some kind of I believe it's a strip club naked piano bar it says dancing cocktails entertainment featuring live on stage breakaway of it's a piano bar Tuesday through Thursday 7 to 12 but then it's this, and it says, call regarding Sunday night quote, talent showcase. Oh boy. Which sounds like it's amateur night there, and you can just come by and take your tits out.

Come on in and flop them out. Yep. So 1982, Bristle Wolf is back in court, fighting the fact that he was ruled sane. Attorney Robert Bork, who I believe is the guy who, isn't that the guy that was nominated for the Supreme Court in the 80s who actually didn't get confirmed because he was a nut? He's in the state's public defender office. He had to advance a lot in five years for that to happen. Challenging that you're not sane feels like the most sane thing you can do.

You filed all this legal paperwork? Yeah, that feels pretty sane. Yeah, it's really hard to find those papers and fill them out. You couldn't just look online for forms back then. That would have been really hard. That's super sane. This whole appeal feels like we got it right. Oh shit.

So they said that the McNaughton rule, which is the insanity rule that says you have to be not, know anything about, you know, not know the difference between right and wrong and not know what planet you're on and shit, for determining the defendant's ability to distinguish right and wrong was out of date and should not have been applied in his trial.

They argued, the prosecution argued that they did act correctly in calling him competent, and they said the high court has ruled consistently in favor of the McNaughton rule and previous challenges, and they requested that if the court ruled against the rule in this case, that the decision not be made retroactive because of the number of cases tried under the rule. So basically, if you do do this,

make sure it's just going forward because otherwise you are gonna fuck everything up. Because it's the state Supreme Court there before, so they could change the laws of the state by ruling that. Yeah, retroactively, this could set press and fuck up a lot of things. Yeah, they decide, fucking crazy.

He's crazy but still stay in jail, crazy guy. That's how it works. Next up, we gotta talk about a guy named Al Brown. Al Brown is a guy in the 80s that somehow, he's a writer. And they're trying to get into the, this was the Sundance Festival back then, but it was before it was the Sundance Festival.

It was the Sundance Institute slash Utah Arts Council 1982 Playwrights Conference, which I believe is all in the festival now. This guy gets in as a writer, and they say a project inspired by a newspaper article in the Salt Lake Tribune was the entry card for this brown. It's called Bristle Wolf, he calls it. Oh.

And it concerns a man named Ronald Gress, currently in prison in Nevada, accused of murdering three people. Not accused of, he definitely did. And burying their remains by his dugout home. No, if he buried them, he might not have gotten caught. So this guy is all off. He said that Bristle Wolf has been described as a brooding silent hermit and friend to the wild horses of the desert. Brown said, I re-read that Trib article several times, then cut it out and kept it. I've been fascinated by it ever since. Is it just a small story in an out of the way town or was Bristle Wolf speaking for

all of us when he said, I'm innocent? Dude, okay, I'm all for art and stuff. But he's not speaking for all of us. He's a guy who lives in a hole in the desert. Are you out of your fucking mind? He's not pretentious. Asshole. No, I don't need this. This is just so pretentious to say that this is why people hate fucking artsy

people because of this, because of pretension. So he says, what is it about people that are different, that live apart and alone by their own rules? Are they us or are we them? They're them and we're us and you're an asshole. That's what I'm gonna say. Them, us, asshole. One, two, three.

It's the first guy to snap a piece of kale and start gnawing on it. Fucking ass wipe. Them us asshole one two three. So first got a Snap a piece of kale and starting on on fucking ass wipe. Yeah, this is you pretentious dickhole Jesus Christ he's He said I don't know but this man's situation raised a lot of questions for me And I want to create a full-length play to answer this one question. Is it the insanity of loneliness or the loneliness of insanity that drives us to commit an act of desperation? Well, I'll tell you what it is. It's a guy who's a paranoid schizophrenic

so he lived in the fucking desert and then shot people. It's very simple. It's not this big philosophical question that you're gonna answer with art. You can answer this with medication. Lithium will solve this problem. He independently sentenced himself to exile. He couldn't handle society and he knew it. He knew it and that was actually I think that he didn't want to. I don't think he wanted

to kill people. I think he was out there and nuts and I don't know if jail is the right place for him or what, but we find out that he certainly doesn't want to be in jail here by 1987. Well, Monday August 24th 1987 there is an article about him being beaten severely over the head with a broom handle by another convict in prison. Imagine this guy in prison. You're in, think about you, you're in the most isolated spot, you rule everything around you, you live like shit but it doesn't matter and then they put you in this fucking box with another person and it's all people. The showers, the cafeteria, it's all people. Someone's yelling at you, they're in charge of you, they're

telling you when to do things. He must have had a terrible time. And that's a guard. And then you have other people yelling at you. They're in charge of you. They're telling you when to do things These are he must have a terrible time. That's a guard and then you have other I mean yelling at you telling you They're in charge of you and then they're supposedly equal to you. It's and funny. They're dead. So he's not alone He's no just with everybody and he's just in gen pop at this point Convicted a murder. He's 51 and he was beaten several times over the head by a 33 year old named Reggie Bell during a fight Sunday in his cell too, he was in his own cell. And he was treated at the Carson Tahoe Hospital before being returned to the prison infirmary. They said that Bell, I'll read the article, quote, Whitley, who is the warden, Harold Whitley, who is the warden, Harold Whitley, Whitley said that Bell, a black, claimed he,

he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, claimed he attacked Gress, a white, after Gress used racial slurs and spit on him. But the warden says actually our internal investigation shows Bell was taking personal property from Gress, and he was strong arming him, and Gress didn't want it anymore, so this guy beat him with a broom handle and said, fuck that. You're getting, I'm taking your shit, basically, you old fucking weirdo.

So in prison he is inmate number 14937 in Nevada there. Now in 2003, there's an article here by the way. This has tentacles that connects to other shit. Oh boy. Okay, 2003 there's an article. This is kind of the legend of Pete as they call it, as the way it goes here. Now Pete apparently had gone to the bar in De Nio and the barkeep had told a prospector that Pete, back in the day, had found a cave that was brimming with Indian artifacts, ancient shit that you could sell for a lot of money. Pete Cousteau, what do you got?

So that's what Pete was talking about. Now this bartender told a man named Jack Lee Harrelson That you know about this whole thing And he so Harrelson looked for it, but he didn't find the cave then a few months later Harrelson found a crevice that they excavated it was at Elephant Mountain, which is southwest of Pinto Hot Springs so There's Jack Harrelson and Pam Harrelson here, husband-wife combo. So Pam said that they sat at the Danio Junction Motel

having drinks with Marge Stevens, a local they had befriended a few months earlier. At the bar, Marge produced an arrowhead given to her by a friend who was Pete. Pete had given it to her years before this, okay? She said this had come from the Black Rock Desert. And immediately Jack and Pam are like, they're connecting the two things together. Pete's the guy who told this guy about the artifacts. This lady has an artifact. This shit's real. Was he trying to find that too?

That's, yeah, we're fuckin', we're goin' and lookin' for one-eyed Willie right now, like this is happenin'. Yeah. So, they get, once they do that, Jack and Pam started asking, could you tell us more, do you know how to get to the site? Marge didn't know much, but she knew enough

to send them in the right direction. Mm-hmm. So, they took several months to find the site that had produced the arrowhead. And it's a cave near Elephant Mountain, like we said. So they searched on foot and also in Jack's Chevy Blazer. They discovered it in May of 1980. This is well, this is.

It's hard to believe everybody's there, yeah. This is before the trial. This is two years after the shooting. So I mean, there's still very fresh shit going on here. So after spotting two owls hunting mice near the entrance of the shelter, they saw mice, the owls drew their attention to the mice and they saw where the mice were running

and there's like, there's shit in there. So there's an open space in there. So they do that. It was six feet deep and two feet high and sat atop a steep 75 foot run of shattered volcanic rock. Yeah. So it's a tough climb and a small area. Pam said it was hardly a cave back then. You could crawl in and bang your head, but there wasn't room for two people. It's like a coffin. Yeah, it's a coffin basically.

So the Harrelsons using shovels and five gallon buckets and a sifting screen, they set to work on this shit basically. By the way, later on they'll figure out, the Bureau of Land Management will figure out that this was one of the five most important archeological cave sites in the Great Basin. And they're fucking it all up. They're just in there with shovels, just ripping it open.

Ripping it apart. Actually, Congress had reacted to a lot of this with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act in 1990. This is a law targeting traffickers and pressuring museums and other federally funded Institutions to work with tribes to return and rebury skeletons where they belong So first the harrelson's here first. They found a cowhide Like okay, that's man-made then they found some corn kernels and shell casings and they're like Yeah, white man shit. They said literally like, they're like, this is white guy shit, this isn't Indian shit.

So then they started digging a little deeper and they started finding arrowheads and broken arrow shafts. They're like, now it's. Get the fuck out of there. Now it's, oh no, no, now let's get bigger buckets. Let's get bigger buckets. Yeah, no, they're not thinking.

We're getting close to pots now. We're gonna get haunted forever. They're like, yeah. The deeper they dug, they older the shit they to pots now. We're gonna get haunted forever. They're like, yeah the deeper they dug They've older the shit they found. Yeah, they just kept digging into it was layers and layers of history Pam said there was something in every bucket and Also, every bucket is a huge federal crime to Yeah, every bucket what's in there is a felony. It's a fair it is. It's's what it is. Every bucket, what's in there is a felony. It's a felony. It is. It's absolutely what it is. So one day in 1984, so four years they're working on this. Good lord. They unearthed a burden basket, it's called.

It's a woven hamper that ancient Native American women wore like a backpack and a conical container which in which they could see the outline of a small head. It's a baby. It's a fucking yes. You're digging this is now digging up an Indian burial ground. This is a cue the horror movie, like cue poltergeist and every other fucking thing that ever happened. This is insane. This is crazy. Pam said,

we found them early in the weekend. So we hid them in the sagebrush until it was time to go home. She said she worried all the way back to Oregon. Stealing baskets was one thing, but this was taking, they were pretty sure, actual bodies. Yeah. God damn it. This is not good.

She said, what if we get in a wreck? And he said, oh, nothing's gonna happen. Don't worry about it. Like, we'll get caught with bodies. That won't be good. Yeah. Jack didn't know how to open the sealed containers Okay, you're not supposed to open them. That's why so he contacts like I don't know how to open coffins when they're in the ground And sealed good reason for that stupid

So he contacted some pot hunting friends that did this all the time one of whom had worked at the labrador pits and They all got together in his garage whom had worked at the La Brea tar pits, and they all got together in his garage, and they opened up the burden basket, and pulled out small, like, funeral-type artifacts, a bowl, a knife, a rabbit net. Then they remove the remains of a small boy. I'm not doing this, I'm done, when I got the mummified remains of a small boy. I'm not doing this.

I'm done when I got the mummified remains of a boy. He was tiny, they said probably around four years old. Not a skeleton. They said he had leathery mummified skin. They fucking, yeah, they preserved him and they're taking this out of the ground like this. This is horrifying. This isn't a child child to somebody you fucking monsters

Horrifying it's a young. Yeah. Wow safer. Who's worse them or old? Beowulf, no shit who's weirder? So then the conical basket they take a young girl out of that. Oh No, they said she was older maybe 10 her knees pulled to her chest Pam said her long black hair was still there. She had teeth too Carbon dating would reveal the children had been buried around two thousand years ago two thousand thousand BC they were buried fucking BC That I would do they unearthed tooth these things have been resting for two thousand years and they fucked it up this is disgusting

So Pam took the baskets into the bathroom and scrubbed them clean with pine saw What pine saw that's what they the to. These stink like a dead body. Oh man, you know what, I'm gonna put some pine-sol in here. Holy shit, what's that shit we got? OxiClean, yeah, spray some of that on there. The other pot hunters were just amazed by what they found. None of them knew where the cave was and Pam said we never told anyone.

But at least one friend warned them against continuing to dig. The one person said, you ought to stay away from it. This is serious stuff. Not only criminal lies, but also just karmically, it's fucked up. What are you doing? Just not cool.

Just on the inside, shouldn't you feel scummy? Shouldn't that feel like a felony? You're disinterring baby corpses This is fucked up like that's messed up. So Jack shrugged it off Pam said he was like whatever no fuck you guys Don't care finding shit. That's worth a lot of money Once the baskets were clean and dry they plan to display them in a glass case. He had built But what do you do with the tiny corpses? Yeah. Yeah, so I would say so he didn't know what to do with those Then there's a guy named Lloyd Olds. Okay. Oh LDS

Jack buys into Lloyd's opal mine in the area. He's got an opal mine a few years after buying in Jack charges that Lloyd has been mismanaging the company and tries to take control of the mine himself, Jack Harrelson. Hostile takeover. Hostile takeover. It's the Bonanza Opal Mine, and it was never, that's the name of it anyway. It wasn't meant to be a commercial moneymaker, it was run as a private campground

for people to just do it for fun. Take it off, yeah. You pay to stay there, then you can go in and look for rocks and do whatever you want. There's a lot of places like that. It's called Bonanza, like the called Bonanza like the TV show like the TV show But the Harrelson had found some valuable opals and he wanted to sell thousands more shares

But they didn't want to Lloyd didn't want to so Harrell tried to start a shareholder rebellion against him and Then that didn't work that didn't work. That didn't work. So, he sets up to have Lloyd Olds murdered. What? Okay, this is like an Indiana Jones plot. What is going on?

He's digging up artifacts of burial grounds and somebody finds out so he's gotta have him murdered so he can sell them and then Indiana Jones wants to find them for a museum and he's going to come in and this is a ridiculous story. I want to be the mayor of Toontown. This is fucking nuts man. Yeah this is what this is.

So he ends up trying to get these guys to, two guys that he found to kill Lloyd now the next day these two guys knock on Lloyd's door Yeah, and they take him outside and they bring him up to Gardner Ridge Okay, they dig a shallow grave what? with Lloyd standing there They threw him in the grave They threw leaves and needles and stuff like that. And then started taking pictures of them. And then helped him out of the grave.

Because those are cops and they're doing this to convince this guy he's dead. This is the end of white men can't jump at this point now. Where they had to take pictures of wood. Same thing. That's what's going on. They helped him out, they're both cops. He looked dead in the hole.

They said, all right, that's about it, that'll do. So they brought him back home and they said, don't fucking come outside for a couple days, lay low. Yeah. Be cool. Take some naps. So they went to Jack Harrelson and showed him the photo. We did what you wanted.

He started laughing. What? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, like an evil laugh. He said, and I quote, it's too bad they couldn't have just gutted him and left him in the middle of the street because that son of a bitch deserves it. But this'll do, one down, three to go. He's got a list.

He's got a list of other stockholders that are bigger stockholders. Oh my god. It'll never be suspicious that all of them are murdered except for you. That would be... I'm the only one standing. That's wild. So he said Harrelson took the picture and threw it in the fire.

He was like, don't need that. He's dead. So this is at his friend's house. He's showing his friend the picture. Look, see they killed him. They should have gutted the son of a bitch. His friend's like... Look how bad ass I am.

Whoa. So his friend wanted him to leave at one point, but Harrelson didn't want to go. So, um, at one point his friend called somebody else up and said, I gotta let the guy know you're happy is what he said. Cause he's the guy who set him up with the cops. This guy. So, um, he calls a cop to go, he's here and he really, he's, he he he's thrilled you guys did a great job so yeah he said no no hurry up and come over he's real excited

so he said okay they finished their coffee and Jack said all right bye and he walks out the front door opens the door and there's a fucking SWAT team waiting for him he's ordered to lie down on the porch and he just stood there. He wouldn't lie down with the SWAT team there, which is a way to get shot. They don't shoot him. He's held without bail, charged with conspiracy to commit aggravated murder, attempted aggravated murder, and four counts of solicitation to commit murder. He pleads not guilty. He won't go to trial for all of this for years. He won't be convicted until 2005 of this crime.

But in 1996, he goes to trial for the artifacts and a jury finds him guilty of looting Indian burial caves in Nevada and the crime was too old to prosecute under the Federal Archaeological Resources Protection Act, but they convict him on state charges of theft, and what else do you think? Desecration of remains? Abusing a corpse and tampering with evidence. Yes.

Even though they're 2,000 year old, still corpses. Still a corpse, man. Yeah, fuck with them. That's it. 2005, Harrelson was convicted of retrial, in a retrial because he the first time was a mistrial To of trying to hire a hitman to kill Lloyd Olds there The evidence came from tape recordings of conversations of him going they should have got at him and left him in the street and him Telling the cops what to do with them. He's a scumbag, man

Yep what to do with them. He's a scumbag man. Yup. Harrelson gave the informant for the hookup a jar full of opals valued at $10,000 to pay for the hit. He paid for a hit with rocks. We've never heard of that before. A small tech. 499 episodes for someone to pay for a fucking murder with opals. In rocks. In rocks.

His defense attorney argued he was the victim of entrapment. How? Because the hitman never existed and the tape recordings of the murder plans represented the musings of a lonely man who never had any intentions of going through with them. That's their defense. Okay, that's a wild defense. Oh my god. He's also charged with wanting a judge, two state police officers, and another partner

in the Opal Mine to be killed as well. Yeah, he's got a list, man. He is found not guilty of wanting the judge, the cops, another partner to be killed, but guilty of trying to have his partner killed there. He said it, but all right. I mean, why not? 2012, Jack Harrelson dies in prison.

That's what he got out of it. 2013, December, Ronald Bristlewolf dies in prison as well. Oh, really? Yep, he's dead too in prison. So, they both die within a year of each other in prison in Nevada, which is so strange. I think here The ghosts came back and got him it feels like it's what I mean Yeah, because he's a he's fucking that's what happens when you're stealing babies from their graves. You fucking weirdo Native yeah, the graves is crazy. I'm not big into like, you know, oh the ghosts and they'll come get you That doesn't but this 2000 year old baby burial grounds, I'm gonna go nah this is fucking, this is a Scooby Doo episode. I don't want to deal with this shit. This is crazy. It feels like, and so

deep into that cave it feels like it was sacred to them that they would put the children safe in the cave. It's like a mausoleum. It's the same thing as, that's what I mean. They were securing them forever. You can't go get them in there. This is a spot that will be secure forever Then they closed it up with rocks and are like they made it So this was a private thing never to be tampered with That's by the way that story it's in a lot of different places But they had a really good rendition of it in outdoor magazine is where I got a lot of that info The the harrelson story with

the babies and all that. What are you reading Field and Stream too? Yeah I'm reading guns and ammo I'm just you know I'm reading Trout and Bass weekly I got going on it's pretty good I got a car and driver James. And the other one there was a lot of good information about the Springs and everything from Finding Nevada Wild dot-com that was those people who showed up at the Springs and everything from Finding Nevada Wild.com. That was those people who showed up at the Springs and said something was wrong here. They wrote a book here. A guy named Frank Bergeon or Bergon wrote a book called Wild Game in 1995 and it's a quote fictionalized account of this exact, which a lot of people write these books.

It's exactly the story except they might throw in a couple of crazy details that didn't actually happen and they call it a fictionalized account. I think so they don't have to give anybody money for anything for their story. I think that's what it is. Richard C. Weiss is buried, I believe Judy is as well, in Mountain View Cemetery in Longmont, Colorado, and Pete's buried in Winnemucca.

So there you go. The two criminals, I don't know where the fuck they're buried, but doesn't matter. There you go, everybody. That is DeNio, Nevada, and some weird desert shit. What a place. What a place. See, every once in a while we got to do some real weird out there shit like that and then back to the suburbs one week and that's what we do

and that's what we've been doing for almost 500 episodes. It's unbelievable. If you're happy about that this week by the way like we said our next episodes are 500th episode so make sure to not only listen but also maybe Share it X share it that week and hey 500 we got to because this is a big it's a big deal to be able to do 500 episodes. Sure is. We want to thank you, first of all, for making it so we could do 500 episodes, and making it, I mean, anybody could do 500 episodes,

but to actually have people listening to them for 500 episodes is huge. Creating a demand of people that want 500 is unbelievable, and people that want 500 more, it's even more crazy. That's what I'm saying, so thank you, thank you. That's exactly what we're trying to get saying. So thank you, thank you. That's exactly what we're trying to get at here. Thank you for what you do for us.

And maybe this week give a review on whatever app you're listening on. Do that. Maybe say, for 500, let's give them a review. I think we've earned it maybe. So do that, whatever app you're listening on. If you don't think so, then fuck you. I don't care, that's fine.

Do what you wish. Do what you wish. So you can do that, please. Also, head over to ShutUpAndGiveMeMurder.com. Get all your merchandise. Get tickets for live shows, everybody. We cannot wait. Next live show is September 20th in Minneapolis. We're doing a big theater there that, if you sell it out, will be our biggest show of all time. We'll be able to tell everybody that Minnesota beats Chicago for the biggest show of all time and there you go. So we can't wait for that.

Milwaukee is right after that and that only has a few seats left at the Pabst which is a great thing. You better hurry. So get in there right now if you want them because they'll be gone very soon. Also Oklahoma City, those are getting low too. Only a few of those left. Austin Texas, get your tickets there. And Kansas City, we added a bunch of extra seats to that

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you can do it and you're going to get hundreds of back episodes and new ones every other week. This week is no different. You're going to get one crime and sports, one small town murder like always, and you get access to it all. This week for crime and sports, the New England Patriots, multiple cheating scandals. We'll talk about so many and that'll be a lot of fun because we both hate the fucking Patriots and we'll talk a lot of shit.

It'll be a good time. Then for small town murder, we're going to talk about Ed Gein again. Ed Gein part two, maybe the only guy weirder than Bristle Wolf. Boy oh boy. Is Ed Gein, if Gein was from this area, that's who he would have been. He would have been this guy. He would have dug a hole in the ground and sat in it.

So definitely check that out. We're gonna get into more of the psychology of him and the resolution of what happened to his house and all that kind of shit. Because who the hell wants to live there? So do that, that's patreon.com slash crime and sports, and you get a shout out as well. When do you get that shout out?

Right now. Right, motherfucking now. Jimmy, please, if you would, hit me with a list of the most wonderful people who have hung out with us for 500 fucking episodes and subscribed to Patreon. Hit me with them right now. This week's executive producers are Kevin Spilker, Raymond Russ, and Sean Carter.

Thank you all so much for what you do. You're amazing. Jay-Z gave us money. Very nice, thank you, Jay-Z. Yeah. He's got plenty to go around. We appreciate it. Other producers this week are

Black Jack Mulligan and Black Jack Lanza. I don't know who they are. Oh, the Black Jacks. Black Jack Mulligan's a big wrestler. He also got busted for counterfeiting money at one point. So we're gonna talk about his whole family on a bonus episode. Tremendous.

And also Fearless Fosnick. Another one? Yeah, he's fearless, that's all I know. Big Meadows, Cassie Wright, happy birthday Garrett! Happy birthday! Travis Novotny, Dan Ward is back in the Navy. Congrats Dan, it took him, I don't know, he said after 17 years, that's a long time to be out of it.

That seems like- Is that what our Navy's made up of? People that were out of the military for 17 years? Old guys, how old are you? If you're our age, I don't want you in combat probably. That's frightening, Dan. That's terrifying, good luck to you. Narjanese, man. Janice Hill, Frank the South African bird washer is back.

My girl Brandy down in Florida, she's terrific. Catherine Stumberg Laugh Head, I think. Taylor Clegg and Gothbrooks, oh, what a guy. Thank you so much. Absolutely, great to see you. I would have come out with you guys if I did not have to be at the airport at six o'clock in the morning.

Yeah, that happens. Ginger Thomas, Holly Vincent, Heather Riley, Michelle Grizz, Steven would know last name, Jeremy Rigolrigalski, Alexis Malnar, Stephen would know last name, Jeremy Riggle-Rygalski, Alexis Malnar, Rob Mansuetti, man sweat, Grizz. Awesome. Man sweat. Christy Conklin, Hunter Rainville, Nicole Miller, Tyler Ringer, Sophia B., Mark Saunders,

Elizabeth Williams, Isaac Hopkins, Abby would know last name, Carrie would know last name, Kelly Grosteen, oh and she got two new Patreons. Thank you, Kelly, that's so nice. Wow, a gifting one, that's lovely. What a nice person. That's so sweet. Rachel Schaefer, TP123, Kevin Carrier,

Crystal Reimer, Lane Calder, Allie Staples, Miranda Casper, Gabby and Jace's mom, Pamela Eckstein, Judd, or maybe it's Jude, no last name, Rachel Marcion, Abby Matracia, Courtney Murphy, Rachel Danielle Bauer, Harriet, no last name, Sebastian Ainsworth, Cassie Jones, oh Jesus, I clicked a window. God damn it. Cassie Jones, here we go. We're right on track.

Here they are. Cassie Jones, she's right there. Kevin Parsley on Squizzy. You scrolled. Squizzy with no last name. Jennifer Eisenhower, Lewis Mashmet. Zach with no last name. Wilma Fingerdew.

Zach Marks. Really? Fingerdome. That's what last name Wilma Fingerdew. Zach Marks. Fingerdome. That's what it says. Fingerdome. Zach Marks, Ice Chanel, Jennifer Miller, Hambone Jones, Laura Clifton, Cameron Blair, Amelia Briggs, Chris C, Theresa Martin, Julie Kaiser, Blanton Unger, Megan Sutton,

Christie, nope, that's Ricky, Ricky Kasich, Sarah Plinkton, Old Kristy Ricky. Pilkington, Sophia with no last name, Kate Whittemore, Emily Wood, Casey with no last name, Helena Gray, Matthew Dyer, Mark Ryan, Sarah Cowan, Leanne White, Christina Fox, Jasmine Soto,

James Lucchese, Lucchese, maybe, Becca Rower, Sherri Thompson, Megan Lasur, Bobby J. Nicholson, Julian Sparrow, Kelly Lynch, Janine Hildebrand, Billy B., Charlie Dwight, Amber Mondragon, Bonnie Hunt, Katie Simmons, Holly Karavich, Becca Martin, DMW 912, Virginia Sanders, Courtney Benson, Padre Paul Ballin, Christie, what is that?

Christie Jackson, H and G, the letters HG. Jimmy with no last name, Sky Atterberry, Micah Reynolds, Rachel Kidney, Jennifer Chappelle, Car Baum, Eli Bloom, Morgan Skotinin, Heather Levings, Ron Jennings, Alex Schmidt, Alex Henderson, Matt Eichelberger. Jesus fuck. Chrissy Fowler, Lorenzo Miglielara, Benji Will, Brad Dunafin, hey Brad, Kathleen Comer,

Kennedy Daly, Molly Varley, Martha Pavlack. Good fuck. Nicole Schaefer, Blake Adams, Karen McGuire, Tara Kersey, Michael Fosjenbauer, Dustin Kisling. Fuck, Molly Golick. Kevin Kabata, Jordan Whaley, Mandingo. Don't like saying that at all. Jojo loves Dee Dee. Anil, anal? Anal Weiss. Anal Weiss. Anal Weiss. Anel YSA. Casey Wollen, Shelly would know last name.

Do it wise, anal wise. Justin Kummer, Trevor Thomas, Delray Curry, Scott M, Danny We Love Jimmy Gleason. Timberland, Sage Stone, Sage Stone. Douglasone, Douglas Lee, Shell Bell, Brent Reed, Joe with no last name, Bailey Grunwerg, Elizabeth Hanson, Steve Brown, Brandon Jones, Matthew Ploo, Michael Vorndron, Celeste Smith, Caleb Smith, they're probably from the same family, Martin Christensen, Radium Suppository, that's gross. T Britt, Bonnie Christensen, probably Martin's friend, a wife, maybe sister, who knows?

Somebody. Michael Koehler, Mary Schuetz, Emma Bell-Hinkle, Brian Zalinski, Jason Timms, Megan Pease, Pease maybe, Tyler Baines, Tyler Daly, what? Rachel, nope, that's Rich. Rich Summers, Tristan Ellis, Justin Prererson, Prerson? That's a lot of R's. Lisa King, Riley with no last name,

James Sagona, Morgan Hernandez, Matthew Whittemore, Tim White, Jess Housley, Jordan Pass, Gemma with no last name, Helena Johnston, Brooke Hernday, Douglas Chanalt, Tynan, Tynan Bennett, Stephanie, no, yeah, Stephanie, Stephanie, that's a fascinating carrier, Don Thompson, Ramsey with no last name, AJ, Deanna Baker, Mike W, Heather S, Cheyenne, Daphne, Son with no last name, Ryan Haglin, Maddie Keener, Eric Bailia, and all of our patrons, you're fucking amazing. Thank you so much everybody for all that you do for us,

for all that you've done for us, and we're gonna keep these episodes coming with another 500, and then probably another 500 after that maybe, you never know. We'll be there, I can't see us going away anytime soon. We do about 100 a year now at the Express, so that's about 10 years, another thousand episodes. I think we'll be there. I can't see us going away anytime soon. We do about 100 a year now with the Express, so that's about 10 years, another thousand episodes. I think we'll get there.

So there you go. Come hang out with us. You wanna hang out with us on social media, you can do that. Shutupandgimmymurder.com has the links to everything there. Thank you for hanging with us. Tell your friends. And until next week everybody, it's been our pleasure.

Bye. If you like Small Town Murder, you can listen early and ad free now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen early and ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey.