Small Town Murder - #8 - A Trail Of Ashes & Bodies in Otisco, New York

Episode Date: March 8, 2017

This week, we check out the small, upstate New York town of Otisco, where a woman began her career of arson, and murder that would extend across the area, and the years. She escaped justice for over 20 years, before finally having to face her horrible crimes. Along the way, we try to figure out if a dog can cause the death of 3 children, how flammable a cabin is, and we learn the legend of the hair covered bear people of Lake Otisco.Hosted by James Pietragallo & Jimmie WhismanNew episodes every Thursday!!Please subscribe, rate, and review!Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts!Head to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things Small Town Murder!For merchandise: crimeinsports.threadless.comCheck out James and Jimmie's other show: Crime in Sports Follow us on social media!Facebook: facebook.com/smalltownpodInstagram: instagram.com/smalltownmurderTwitter: twitter.com/MurderSmall Contact the show: [e-mail] See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Small Town Murder early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. What if you married the love of your life and then stood by them as they developed 21 new identities? What would you do? This Is Actually Happening is a weekly podcast that features extraordinary true stories of life-changing events told by the people who lived them. Listen to the newest season of This Is Actually Happening on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. This week, we look at Otisco, New York, where a woman began a trail of ashes and bodies. Welcome to Small Town Murder. Hello, everybody.

Welcome back to Small Town Murder. Yay! Oh, I'm excited this week, Jimmy. I am, too. I'm pumped. I'm always pumped for Small Town Murder. Yeah, that teaser is fucking great. This is a crazy, crazy story.

My name is James Petragallum here with my co-host. I am Jimmy Wiseman. Thank you, folks, so much for joining us. Thank you so much this week for your iTunes reviews and all of your support. It means the world to us. We're doing very well, and it's because of you guys helping us out with that. So please, if you're a new listener or if you haven't done it yet, please get on iTunes and give us a review. Five stars would be lovely if you could.

Just doesn't matter what you say. I like these guys or I like ponies. We don't care. Doesn't matter. I do like ponies. Who doesn't like ponies? So get on there. Give five stars for ponies and help us out a little bit.

I love it. We have a crazy story for you this week. Absolutely insane. Hope you enjoyed last week in St. John's, Arizona. That's crazy. Which, yeah, I've been up in that direction and it's just as bad as it sounds and just as scary as it sounds. This week we have a very different story. It's a very, very different story.

It's a sad, tragic mess of a disaster, and if this ever becomes a movie, Kathy Bates better play this woman. Let's just say that. She better play her. She can play her wonderfully and perfectly. I feel like it's the character from Misery just out in the world. Not to look at anybody's looks, but she looks a little bit like Kathy Bates to where

she would play her in the film. She's like if Kathy Bates' character in Misery just went outside of her house. I did love Kathy Bates in Titanic though. She was fantastic in Titanic. She's a great actress, Kathy Bates. I mean, she could kill this part. No pun intended. She could really crush it, I'm telling you guys.

Crush. She would crush. Let's go to Otisco, Otisco, New York. This is not New York City, guys. I know in the rest of the country, I'm from New York, but from about an hour outside the city and everything basically, I'm from like south of Poughkeepsie.

Everything north and west of there, we're pretty much the last little bubble of civilization. The last stop. Everything else is West Virginia. It's just what we call, that's what everyone calls the west of the Hudson River is West Virginia, New York. Like that is a different place. My mom's from upstate New York in Pulaski and Oswego County. It's a terrible little town. It is so gross.

Upstate New York, it's a beautiful country. If you want to go for a weekend and takewego County. It's a terrible little town. It is so gross. Upstate New York. It's a beautiful country. If you want to go for a weekend and take the boat out. It's not beautiful, though. Their whole town is on a sulfur well. So when you take a shower, it smells like you're hard boiling eggs. It's horrific. No, these places are wonderful.

Everything's by a lake. There's 10 trillion lakes. Everything's by a lake, including Otisco, which is on the Finger Lakes of New York, which is in the northwestern central New York area right by Syracuse. This is northwestern New York. This is cold. It snows feet at a time. That lake affects snow.

It's two and a half hours to Buffalo, four hours to New York City. So it's right in the middle up there. It's 30 minutes to Syracuse, which is not exactly the garden center of America. It's a college. It's not a hustle bustle concrete jungle. No, it's a college. And then a lot hustle-bustle concrete jungle. No, it's a college. And then a lot of these people that we're going to discuss here. It's in Onondaga County, zip code 13159, area code 315.

So I'm going to get those stats in there. It's a bigger small town in terms of area. It's about 31.2 square miles. So it's a big area. This town originally, all this whole area of central New York, because it's just godforsaken land. It is horrific. It's nice. And there's, I guess, good farmland up there. But it's so cold. And it's not a place where you'd be like, let's take the family and settle down. In the summertime, the humidity is terrible.

Oh, it's terrible. It's awful up there. It really is. And this town was originally part of the central New York military tract. They had to give this land away they're like all right here's what we do uh it was they set aside two million acres to basically pay the soldiers of the revolutionary war when we fought the british that's they were like look we got to give them something and we got a shitload of this fucking land up here that nobody wants no one's watch no one's we'll wait till like well i know we can't give it to them in december they're not going to stay. Wait till like May and then we'll bring them in there. There'll be flowers blooming.

They'll think it's great and we won't tell them what happens. They'll go crazy. We won't tell them what happens in October. Look at all those green fields. This is ours. And they're going to turn into The Shining with their family up there. It's awful. So, yeah, the Congress promised each soldier about 100 acres of land up here and they set aside these big tracts.

What a gift. People were still slow to enlist back then because they were like, what are we doing here? We're going to line up and let people just shoot at us from 14 feet away? I don't think so. But if you survive, you get 100 acres. So no, they added another 500 acres per soldier. Wow.

In a barren, godless tundra. Gee, thanks. My God. That's how much they really needed people to sign up. Fire sale. It's a fire sale. That's how much they really needed people to sign up. Fire sale. It's a fire sale.

So non-soldiers began settling in the area about 1798. It officially formed the town of Otisco in 1806, combined parts of three other towns to do this. Religious people were the settlers. They were the religious school teacher type people. They said there was a quote there when people say when the main settlers came, it's quote with the Bible in one hand and the spelling book in the other. Oh, boy. Party people coming to have a good time. These folks up here, they're super religious farmers. So they're known as the most fun people. If you can get a real religious farmer, they're going to be the life

of the party every time. Town legend has it that an Indian family who lived at the foot of the Otisco Lake, the father and all of the children were said to be thickly covered with a coating of hair like that of a bear. Wow. That's what the local legend is. That's what we're talking about. That's how you know this town is tiny. About bear children who live by the lake.

This is insanity, man. Watch out at night, The bear children come out. What the hell is going on here? Although, you tend to believe that when you see what happens around December, January. You're like, that hair might come in handy. Yeah, maybe it's just evolution. Maybe they've lived here a while. It's a survival tactic.

They've lived here for 20 years. You just grow. Your whole body covers in hair. You just stop shaving. Now, the population here, 2,557. So, small town. It's a tiny town. Like I said, near Syracuse, which is a bigger town, about a half hour away from Syracuse.

Had about 2,000 people as of 1830, but the population slowly declined to less than 900 in 1950. Wow. So, it just kind of teetered off because it's freezing. And I guess the free land people, once their kids got there, were like like, I didn't pay for this shit, and I'm not staying here. I don't want it. I'm taking off. In the 1980s and 1990s, the people came back, and the population has been about the same since 2000. Higher male than female, out of whack ratio, almost 56% male, which is not normal.

It's usually about 51% female is the average. Older crowd, too, median age, 45.4. 37 is the average in the country. So it's an older town, it seems like. There's less people in the 18 to 44 demographic than average, and more people in the 45-year-old plus demographic, which makes sense. Almost 22% of the people in this town are 45 to 54, which is way out of whack. That is way higher than normal. Absolutely.

I don't know why the big baby boom at some certain time. Fertility drugs in the water. Or everybody just stopped having kids. Maybe. I don't know what it is. It feels like the town was like, what if we put pills in the water? Maybe we'll just put stuff in that makes more eggs be produced. Maybe let's just see what happens.

In the sulfur well. Yeah, in the sulfur well. They won't notice because of the sulfur. The smell will cover it. Everything else is about average. More married people than normal by about 10%, which is pretty normal, pretty high. Less single people than normal. Less divorced people than normal.

They're kind of a close knit. They just stick together. They stick together. Racially, this is a white town. Yeah. 98.4% white. That is super white. Yeah.

That's really white out of 2,500 people. 62% is the average. 0.0% black. 12.24% is the average. 0.0% Asian. Yeah. 5% is the average. 0.98% are two or more races.

And then you're remaining 0.63% are two or more races. And then your remaining 0.63% are Hispanic. So they have like three Mexican dudes there and 16.9% is the average. They have, listen to this, religious-wise, a little more religious. So I think still the influence of the founders here. 56% religious, 49% average. 36% of them are Catholic, which is normal for the Northeast. Then a bunch of other Christians. 0.87% Jewish. What? Oh, we found a Jew. I want to play Hava Nagila. We found some Jews in small town. Yay. Good for you, Otisco. That's

awesome. Every one of these times we've had a zero point zero percent Jewish. And we're always like, if you get a couple of Jews, you won't have so much murder that's all we're saying maybe it's an anecdotal you know right an anecdotal point but it's possible but they have a couple like three jewish people and good for you just slightly more than the uh slightly more than hispanic peoples there's like one extra but if we're covering your town those jews didn't stop they didn't stop this we'll say well maybe they weren't there then right we'll say, because we're going to go back in time a drop on these crimes here. 1.42% Muslim, which is also rare for a small town.

I don't think we've ever had a Muslim person in any of these towns. How about that? Politically, 60% Democrats, 38% Republicans. So it's New York State. Sounds like New York. Yeah. Education-wise, they actually spend about 25 percent more per student up there, which a good job there. Twelve point two pupils per teacher, which is way lower,

way less. Twelve point four pupils for teachers. You are really getting the teacher's attention. Yeah. Like I said, I remember classes in high school. We had 36 and there was kids sitting on the heater. So this is great. This is like a third way higher education here. Ninety four point almost ninety five percent have a high school diploma there, which is about 10 percent higher than average. And four year grads is up in the average range, about 28 percent. All right. Twenty nine is the average.

Perfect. They're going over there to Syracuse and getting themselves a college. You bet they have a place to work. And I think a lot of that is people who work at the college or these people because there's some masters or some doctorates. It's all actually in the average range. Professors that are out there trying to get a little bit of land and try to get some peace and quiet from the college.

Absolutely. Good economy up there, 4.2% unemployment, which is terrific. It's lower than the national average. Average household income is higher than the average, which is terrific. $63,669 is the average, whereas their average, 53,000 is the national average. Good shit here. 20% of the people make between 75,000 and 100,000, which is fantastic. Yeah, that's great for that tiny-ass town.

Especially considering the cost of living there. It's nothing. Well, it's not bad. 100 being the average, if we always say. Otisco's a 94. Everything's about average except housing is very inexpensive there. It's a 78 as opposed to 100. So,

median home price there is 145,000 and 185 is the national average. You're doing all right if you got that kind of cash. 18.88% are vacant homes there.

It's a lot of vacants. We're about twice the national average there. Two bedroom apartment. If you're looking for just settle down, have some temporary, you just got a divorce,

you got to get someplace to hold up for a while. It's $660 a month as the average, which is about $400 less than the national average on it. 30% of the houses are in the $150,000 to $200,000 range, so it's very middle class. It's a very nice, comfortable middle class

area over here. If we've convinced you to move to Otisco, if you need to be there, there's a few. I have the Otisco real estate report here. You can get a three-bedroom, one-bath, 840-square-foot house on State Route 80 for $68,900. That's a small house. It's small. It's a little starter house. But not bad for a young family maybe, something.

We've got a couple of babies, a two-year-old and a one-year-old. It's got extra bedroom. Live close and look at each other and actually be able to watch over the kids. Yeah, work at the university. That's nice. You can get a four-bedroom, three-bath, 2,796-foot square house, which is a big one. That's a good one. $240,000.

That's not bad. Not a bad price at all. Four-bedroom, one-bath, 1,500 square feet for $155,000. That's your average home right there. That sounds like good stuff. So you can go there if you can make a decent living. You can work at Syracuse University maybe. You have a half-decent paycheck.

You can buy a nice house, live a little, you know, have a little extra, a couple extra bucks in your pocket to save maybe on vacation. Live in a close-knit, small town. Beautiful. A couple extra bucks for some things to do in the town, like these things to do that I found in this town. B&Bs, bed and breakfast, run rampant in this town. Is that right? All throughout Vermont, upstate New York, Pennsylvania, all these little towns are full of these. They're counting on small town tourism.

Oh, they're full of these people that just want to go up there and restart their failed marriage. You know, they get drunk at the winery because there's a bunch of wineries you go to. You go to a wine tasting, and then you go back to a B&B and fuck loudly so the people beneath you can hear it because you're in a house. You're in an old house with thin walls. Hilarious. Ridiculous. A lot of apple farms to go to.

Also the lake. That's something there. But, guys, if you're going to go to the Blue Hole, which is a local watering hole that every little town has a hole where the kids swing from a rope and jump in a natural body of water. Apparently kids are dying left and right at the Blue Hole. You want to be careful of that. Yeah.

Apparently teenagers have been getting hurt and dying, including a 19-year-old named Kayla Fulmer who died in 2012. Apparently every five years or so somebody croaks in this thing. Terrible. Yeah. So the owner of the hole, of the whole farm, the hole is on Pam Adams. She hangs signs to warn them.

She says, quote, we're trying to save kids' lives here. It's like they just keep jumping in the water. Do they say how they die? Are they hitting the bottom or what the hell are they doing? Drowning, hitting their head on the thing. I've seen kids back in the day

when I was a kid jump into crazy shit. I'm like, what are you doing? There's rocks over there. You have no idea what's down there. It's a natural body of water. That's terrifying. Johnny did it. I've seen kids back in the day when I was a kid jump into crazy shit. I'm like, what are you doing? There's rocks over there. You have no idea what's down there. It's a natural body of water. That's terrifying. Johnny did it. I'll follow him.

Who cares? It's like, okay. We have the Salt River here. People jump off the cliffs every year and die. All the time. Every year. Idiots. So there you go.

You're an idiot if you die that way. Enjoy. So let's get to the crime in this town here. Property crime, which we've discussed is burglary, larceny, theft, blah, blah, blah. That is almost 10% lower than the average. So your shit won't get stolen. But violent crime, murder, rape, robbery, and assault is about 5% higher than the national average, which is very strange. Yeah, I don't get it.

Can't stop from raping and murdering each other apparently up here. I don't know what it is. Well, they jump into fucking natural bodies of water. They're not bright. And sometimes some people grow up in towns like this and bad things happen. All right. Like Shirley Barron. Oh, no.

Let's talk about Shirley Barron. Let's go all the way back to 1958. All right. Shirley Barron was born February 27th, 1958 or near Otisco. Not in Otisco. She's from South Onondaga County. She lived with her mother her father they worked nights uh the mother the father worked nights the mother was there

she had three siblings she had a three older brother three years older than her named peter a sister who was two years older named joyce and a sister who was four years younger named lita they were fucking those parents they were fucking see they're putting shit in the water i'm telling you up there also too it's cold and there's not a lot to do. Hopefully their walls are thicker and it wasn't gross like a B&B. For seven years, they were just banging away, though. Absolutely. So the father worked nights there.

Like I said, the mother was home with them at night. Now, Shirley has a traumatic childhood. And you feel bad for this kid because any child who goes through this type of life as a child, it's sad. It really is. She had a little traumatic experience at age six when her sister's dress caught on fire. Holy shit. It didn't hurt her sister, but I guess it flamed up and it freaked Shirley out. And she was just traumatized about it and brought it up for years in therapy.

Spoiler alert, there's a lot of therapy in this and a lot of psychiatric evaluations and everything else. So, yeah, that was a traumatic experience for her. And then in 1966, basically, Shirley's little sister one night was supposed to stay over at their grandparents' house with her grandmother, with Shirley's grandmother and all the kids' grandmother. Shirley later says she tricked her little sister, Lita, into letting her go and trade spots with her because she just wanted to go. And her sister was four, and you can trick a four-year-old.

You probably gave her a cookie. She said, I'll give you this cookie if you let me go to grandma's. I'll give you this glass of sulfur water. Absolutely. It's delicious. It smells like an egg. You'll like it. It's got a lot of protein.

So, yeah. So that night, there was a leak in the gas furnace exhaust. Oh, my God exhaust that she left. It's thought to be caused by the family dog later on, which they never found, but they thought maybe the family dog jostled it. Maybe they should have. It should have been a little more secure than to be able to be jostled away by a dog. But there was a carbon monoxide leak in the home, and all three of her siblings died in their beds of carbon, shit. Of carbon monoxide poisoning, which is horrific. She's going to have some guilt for the rest of her life for leaving.

Yeah. So she's got a lot of things going on. There's a lot of her mother, Marilyn, survives, actually. She gets out of the house. I don't know how you can get out of the house and have your kids be in there. But I've never been in that situation. So I have no idea. And I'm not going to judge.

Right. You just look and you go, wouldn't you be the one dead in the house as you're pushing your kids out the front door? But I don't know. Like I said, I don't know in the panic of something. I feel weird. I'm going to get my kids. Yeah, exactly. So I don't know how exactly.

But she survives. Shirley obviously survives. She's a quarter mile away at the grandparents' house and hears about this, obviously, and it sends her into a bad place, as we could imagine, as any child would. I mean, she was eight years old. She was seven when it happened. And she wasn't even supposed to be there. She was supposed to be in the house. She was supposed to be in the house.

So, yeah, the guilt of it. It's like missing a plane on 9-11. Exactly. Exactly. Except you not only missed the plane, you traded and let your brother go on the flight. You know what I mean? You sent your whole family on. You guys go.

I'm going to stay home. Way worse. Way, way worse than that. At least then you go, a bunch of strangers died. Not me. Okay, good. But this is, well, not that the strangers died or anybody died, but you're happy you didn't die. Right.

This, you're like, oh, shit, my little sister's dead. And everybody else. Everybody else, except for the mother, had her first encounter, Shirley did, with therapists within the couple years of this happening. A big shocker. Yeah. Even in the 60s, when mental health really wasn't at its peak,

they still were like, let's get this kid checked out. This kid needs some help. She's got some problems here. Everybody said that she became a very difficult child after that in school, at home, to the extreme. The kids began to call her Squirrely Shirley. Jesus. As a nickname, which is pretty ruthless.

Honestly, this poor girl. Not really clever, but then again, eight-year-olds are not very clever. Eight-year-old, it rhymes. They found a rhyme for Shirley, so that's not too bad, I guess. So you've got to give them some credit for some attempts at a comedian. I suppose. But still, horrible. You're picking on a poor girl with dead siblings. What else rhymes with Shirley, though?

You know what I mean? Yeah, that's the thing. Curly's not an insult, so you can't do that. I mean, that's not a thing. Curly's not a not an insult. So you can't do that. Her cousin, June Gross, who is around her age and went to school with her, said that she would bite, throw things and dig her nails into you. Oh, my God.

She would violently lash out at everybody around her. A cat. She basically turned into a cat woman who is a very, very just mean and violent and just lashing out. I mean, who knows what's going on in her head? I mean, I get it, though. That's the thing. You get this as a child. It's horrible. Early on, later on, a doctor named Dr. James Knoll,

who's a forensic psychiatrist at Upstate Medical University, later studied Shirley, and he says that most of the time about this whole thing, if there's this sort of thing, kids turn it inward on them because she also claims to have suffered sexual abuse as a child too later on after this, which I don't know how that worked. But there's no court cases on it, but we'll take her word for it. Children generally go introvert because it's hard as a subservient child to lash out. You're not – you have no responsibilities. You don't know how to do anything outwardly.

Not only that, but the death of the siblings and that sort of thing. He said normally this is an inward thing and they're going to abuse themselves. Lashing out is very rare for this sort of thing, especially for females. Yeah. Sometimes once in a while you'll get a male who's like that. But for a young female. Chicks wait until they're in a relationship. Yeah. There you go. No, for a young female, though, not usually going to lash out violently and be whatever.

No, for a young female, though, yeah, not usually going to lash out violently and be whatever. So doctors at the time said that she had antisocial personality disorder, which couldn't be expected, I think. Also said that she had criminalistic type thinking. Jesus. Quote there, which she was as a child. That's some dark shit to say about a kid. Yeah, antisocial personality disorder, which we all understand. We get that. And then also, too, a bit of a scumbag.

We don't really trust her. Here's my layman terms as a doctor. She's kind of a scumbag. Criminalistic type thinking. She's probably like this poor, depressed nine-year-old girl. Criminalistic. We don't trust this one. The doctor's essentially calling her a sociopath at eight years old or ten or whatever.

He's a pretty good doctor, I think, as we'll get into here. All right. I believe he is. Nailed that one, huh? He did pretty well with it. Fucking Yahtzee. Yahtzee. So 1976 we get to.

She's about almost 20 years old. Yeah, 18. She is, yeah, her daughter, she has a daughter named Colleen. She has a daughter with a man named Ronald Winters Jr., who she's going to stay with now. They end up getting married the next year in 1977. He's 21 years old. She's 18 at the time. They end up getting married the next year in 1977. He's 21 years old. She's 18 at the time. They have a baby.

Hey, good for you. Nice young family. Happens in the 70s. Yeah, let's hope things work out for you. You know what I mean? Things cross. Yeah, Ronald, you go get a job at the plant and, you know, let's do this. Hope he got that doctor's report.

That's it. I don't think he did, honestly. Later on, I think he could have wrote his own, probably. But for now, I don't think he's gotten he could have wrote his own probably but for now i don't think he's gotten this at all uh 1977 she has a son named john oh she's really lining them up yeah now she's got two kids colleen and john now 1978 is her first brush adult wise with things not being quite right somehow they end up in california the whole family and she ends up in a psychiatric care facility in 1978 in California.

I see this as like a vacation, and then she just fucking snapped, and he's like, that's it. I'm putting you in a place now. I'm not even getting back home. I mean, we're not getting back in that car. Now, I don't know if she went nuts with the kids. I don't even know. There's no record of what happened. It's just that she was in this care facility in California for a little bit, not very long, and then they moved back to this area they moved back to new york they went to disneyland

and she fucking snapped that's my that's my fucking that's how i tried to stab goofy with a broken pair of scissors and they were like she needs help yeah this isn't gonna work at ucla medical center now jesus somebody's 1979 they move on back to the East Coast. They go to Teresa, New York. Teresa is right on Lake Ontario. It's further west and north than Tisco. It's up there in a – it's terrible. It's cold. That's all it is. It's just colder.

It snows feet. It's awful. It's like – it's literally three hours from everything. You are not – it's three hours from Syracuse. It's three hours to Buffalo. It's three hours to Toronto. It's a nightmare. The closest city you're's three hours from Syracuse. It's three hours to Buffalo. It's three hours to Toronto. It's a nightmare. The closest city you're going to get is Montreal.

Yeah. So the nearest place you can go to a half decent city, everyone's going to be speaking fucking French at you. Great. That's the way you isolate a lunatic, though. Yeah. When you take her out there. That's some strategy on the part of her husband.

Absolutely. This is a town just like it's just like Otisco. It's 2,925 population. so it's the same sort of deal. I guess it's between the St. Lawrence River and Lake Ontario there, five and a half hours from New York City. It's a bad place to be up in Teresa, not the place you really want to be. But they settle in. They're going to have a family. They settle in.

They get a house. They're doing their thing. They have a cabin. Everything's fine, right? Everything's going to be good at this point yeah sure uh not quite no september 11th 1979 oh boy uh yeah well the first 9-11 there's a fire at a friend of shirley's house in nearby herman it's less than 50 miles away it's a friend of hers her friends three children die in the fire. Oh, shit. So that is horrific, okay? Awful.

I mean, that's sad. Maybe she knows tragedy. Maybe she can comfort this poor woman or something, right? You figure at least because that's terrible. This poor woman lost her three children in a house. House fire is a horrible way to – I can't even imagine that. It's the most cliche insult that there is. You know what I mean?

It's the worst. So terrible. I can't even imagine. And you know your way around that place so well and you can't get out. And the fear of it. The panic and fear would be intense. You can't get your kids because the woman, she got out, but her kids didn't. So imagine that she's going to be wrecked.

It's horrible. It's the worst. No, it is. It is. Now, the very next night, September 12th, 1979, there's a fire at Shirley's cabin. What? In Teresa. Yeah, the cause of the fire at Shirley's cabin in Teresa.

Yeah, the cause of the fire is, they went back and forth. First they thought it was an electrical problem and then they said it was probably some kindling by the wood stove that came out and set the blaze. They're not sure. Others investigating, like I said, they come back with electrical fire. We don't know. Either way, both Colleen, who was three years old,

and John, who was 20 months old, both die in the fire. Oh, Jesus was 20 months old both die in the fire. Shirley's two kids die in this fire. Shirley gets out. She says Ronald was at work I assume at the plant somewhere. He's at work and she was watching TV in the living room when the fire started

and that was that. She got out and couldn't get the kids out she said and right after the fire Shirley and Ron separate. Of course. Because I think I can't imagine the strain that would put on anybody's marriage or relationship. Relationships are hard enough without, you know.

Those kids are what were keeping that marriage together, I got a feeling. Yeah, after the psych ward maybe. Or maybe he really loved her and then this was like, look, you know, this is too painful. I don't know what the deal was, but it was not great. I'm more cold. I'm going with those kids kept it together. He's like, look, I've got no kids anymore. I'm a mess.

I don't need your crazy ass around. Well, they go on and off for the next 10 years. They're trying. Yeah, June 1980, they have another son. They have another child. So they're trying to start over. This is Ronald III. They have a Ronald III.

And they move to Otisco at this point, which is not great as we understand. Whenever we do the town at the end, whenever we end up in that town, bad things are going to happen. We all know this. And here's something bad. Okay, guys, buckle up. November 21, 1980, Ronald III here, five months old, dies of sudden infant death syndrome, which that's awful.

That's the scariest thing in the world. To be honest with you, both of my kids, especially the first one, I just knew that that was a thing, and I was so paranoid about that because it's nothing you just know. They just stop breathing. That's the scariest thing in the world. I used to literally go in my daughter's room. I couldn't sleep.

I'd do it 30 times a night, and I'd just watch her for like five seconds, make sure she was breathing, and then I'd leave. Make sure the chest moves. Yeah, I literally did it constantly. And now they they have monitors that are my son when he was born and we had monitors that you know if they don't move in a certain amount of time they wake them up but this we didn't have that with the first one and it was that's so scary it was scary so i this is the worst my wife was so scared of it we slept with our children until fuck my daughter still climbs in bed with us from time to time. She's six. Until, Jesus, my son's graduating from college next week.

He's still in there. They sleep perpendicular. They never sleep normally. He's a business major, but, you know, sometimes he gets in there. We're very worried about him. We don't want him to stop breathing. So, yeah, poor Ronald, as we laugh here. Poor Ronald dies of SIDS, and it's Shirley's mother's birthday.

It's Marilyn's birthday, so that's an odd thing that they die on the birthday. It's a terrible birthday. It's a terrible birthday. Now, January 3rd, 1981, this is a month and a half later, two separate fires break out inside Shirley and Ron's trailer. Both are called arson. Uh-oh. Both of these fires.

Please don't arrest Shirley. There's a lot of fire in this woman's life. There's a lot of fire in this woman's life, a lot. That's way too much fire in this woman's life. There's a lot of fire in this woman's life. A lot. That's way too much fire in this woman's life. Way too much fire. Absolutely. And she's living in places that are super flammable too. Why are you living in a cabin? A cabin and a trailer. Why are you living in trailers? Those are so flammable. Yeah. If you want to mess up a trailer, just go outside and push it over also. You don't need to set it on fire. That's just insult to injury. Flatten the tire. It'll flip. So yeah, that's two fires

break out on the 3rd. Now, February 10th, a month and a week later, February 10th, 1981, two more fires break out at Shirley's trailer. She's arrested for arson this time. I would hope so. They said, okay, now coincidence is coincidence. But, you know, this is a little. Listen, Sparky. Yeah, this is getting a little ridiculous there.

Fucking, what was I going to call it? Squirrely Shirley? No, not Squirrely Shirley. I had a fire pun locked and loaded for you, and it's not there. I'm sorry about that. I just hit Sparky. That's all I've got. Sparky will work for now.

We'll do that. So November 9th, 1982, she is still underneath the February arson charges from the year before. They still haven't gone to trial with that yet. Another fire breaks out at her trailer. Same trailer. What the shit? Arrested, charged with arson again. Again. So this is insane

with these fires. Shirley is since 1979 for the next 20 years, she is near at least 17 fires. And at least nine of them are ruled arson depending on the investigation. Wow. She's around a lot of fires. 17? Yes.

1984, she has another daughter, Joy. So let's have more kids. Yeah, this is insane. So now she's got another kid, Joy. But she's got one kid. You know what I mean? Why is her husband nuts? It's with Ronald Winters Jr. He's got to stop impregnating this woman.

1985, Shirley has another daughter, Ashley. So now she has more kids keep coming. This is scary as can be because we don't know how. She's obviously unstable and she's setting fires left and right. And she's got three dead kids and it's a little sketchy how these things happen. So she's lost two in a fire already. She's burning up the sack. Yeah, it's terrible.

So November 12th, 1986, this is a year after ashley is born there's a large fire in the winter's apartment building okay large fire causes undetermined charlie's not charged now she's in an apartment building building other people in danger neighbors several neighbors barely got out alive so she almost killed more people now 1987 she has another son another one she's got three kids now. Three. So there's six all together. Three that are still alive. This is the last child she has with Ronald. They soon divorce after

this. They divorce in 1988, and she moves to Syracuse with the three children. Imagine being that guy and giving your three children, saying, here, go live with mommy, and then going to sleep every night not knowing. How the fuck does she get full custody? I have no idea. I would be fighting tooth and nail to keep those kids away from her. I'm going to go ahead and call him at this moment.

We'll give him a break in a minute, but at this moment he's not a great dad. Right. Because I didn't read anywhere where there was a two-year-long court battle where Ron did everything on the face of the earth and worked three jobs to pay lawyers to get the kids away from this lady who has killed their other three kids probably. Who just loves fire. Who loves fire.

Now, early 1989, they're in Syracuse. The family, her and the three kids, Shirley is arrested for arson. Oh, my God. In Syracuse. She goes on trial in mid-89. The first jury is deadlocked. Prosecutors say they'll retry the case, which, good, I would say. Yeah.

So, because, I mean, she's got a lot of history of being around fires. And there's three children you've got to keep safe. Exactly. Now, as she's awaiting her second trial, there are fires at two separate houses where Shirley lives. She has some stuff here and some stuff here. She's doing great. She's got two places.

She stays with people. She's, like, always staying with a family or an aunt. I don't know who would let them stay. Who would let this lady stay at their house? I don't have fire insurance, lady. You can't stay here. No, I'm sorry. I would like my house to be intact let this lady stay at their house? I don't have fire insurance, lady. You can't stay here. No, I'm sorry.

I would like my house to be intact when I'm done with it. Thank you. This is ridiculous. So she's awaiting the second trial. There's two separate fires where she lives and then another fire in her aunt's garage. This is while she's awaiting trial for arson. She's had three more fires. Just lighten it up. It's insane.

Lighten it up. Sparky at her best here. And so they have the second trial. So you figure, good God, how much evidence can you have? And also, too, now they're like, Jesus, we've got to put her away. Everywhere she goes, shit lights on fire. Let's put her in jail. Everywhere.

She's acquitted by the jury in the second trial. Actually acquitted. How did they do that? Not a hung jury. Acquitted. No, it wasn't her. Arson is very hard to prove. Yeah, I can imagine that's true because you got it.

I mean, the fingerprints burn up. So all you got is circumstantial that she's around. If you read, I brought this book up before, The Homicide, A Year on the Killing Streets by David Simon, who's the guy who made The Wire and made Homicide, Life on the Street and all that shit. He wrote a book where he followed the Homicide Department of Baltimore in 1988. shit. He wrote a book where he followed the Homicide Department of Baltimore in 1988 and basically when the phone rings and the homicide guys pick up the phone and they're not thinking, oh, let's go get some

justice. They're like tired. They're on a double shift and they're thinking, let's get an easy one. They want what they call a dunker. That's like you show up at the house. There's a dead guy and there's a woman in the front yard holding a bloody knife going, that motherfucker told him not to do that ever again.

That's a dunker. She's got blood all over her, knife in her hand, he's dead. Put cuffs on her, boom, done. Clear it off the board. Because they have a big board with red names and black names for cases that are open and cases that are solved. The one that's the worst is a fire. They all say, that's like the reporter would ask them all, what's the worst one? And every single one said fire. Fire's the worst is a fire. Yeah. They all say that's like the reporter would ask them all like, what's the worst one?

And every single one said fire. Yeah. Fire is the worst. Burns everything away. Burns things away. Burns evidence away. You can't tell. The only thing you know is where it starts and where it ends.

That's it. The worst things are like a guy in an alley just laying there. Yeah. Like a drug dealer in an alley because there's no physical evidence outside is bad. But that's the worst is a house fire. There's never – and you can't prove it too. There's times when the arson investigators will be saying this is arson and the prosecutors are unsure. And they don't want to lose a case.

So they're like, this is unclear. And you can – everybody – it's really easy to get across to a jury that it was an accident. It's really hard to get across that you accidentally shot somebody. Yeah. It's really hard to get across. You accidentally cut somebody's throat or something like that. You accidentally raped and murdered somebody. That's impossible.

That's hard. But a fire? Yeah. I mean, you, cause people think about it. What if I was in bed and my house caught on fire and then I got out and somebody died and they said I did it. Right. I, I, how would I?

Yeah. You don't want to fry for that. You don't want to go to prison forever for that. People generally give, cause it's really hard to prove beyond a reasonable doubt and house fires so that's what happens now november 12th 1989 a fire starts in the basement storage room of shirley's house on willis avenue in syracuse she says that she sells smelled smoke and got two of her kids out but claims that she lost track of joy five-year-old joy joy ends up escaping on her own good for her thank god so none of her kids out, but claims that she lost track of Joy, five-year-old Joy. Joy ends up escaping on her own.

Good for her. Thank God. So none of her kids died in this one. But Ronald's mother, her mother-in-law, ends up later telling police that Joy told her that Shirley ordered her to stay in bed and not come outside. She said, you stay in here. Oh, my God. She literally wanted one of her kids to die what a

terrible person what mental yeah you know thing but that was we'll get into some of the psychiatric reasons for why she's doing five joy was five years old six when she tells my wife something that i did my wife believes it because a six-year-old and a five-year-old are very similar they just tell you what happened they're like parrots they just shit out shit out the information that they know your daughter's mouthy, too. Your daughter's great. She's strong. If the house was burning and your wife said, stay in bed, she'd be like, fuck you. I'm getting out of here.

She'd walk right out the door. Get the hell out of my way. Push her to her side. This shit's hot and it stinks in here. I'm out of here. This is terrible. What you're doing. Bring me some goldfish, too, because out in the front yard, I like a snack while I watch a fire. You know what I'm saying? That's my daughter. Exactly. Luckily, that was Joy, too, apparently. She's like a snack while I watch a fire. You know what I'm saying? That's my daughter. You're right.

Exactly. Luckily, that was joy, too, apparently. She's like, I'm not staying here. I did joy. Absolutely. So January 6, 1990, a fire, another fire. Jesus. This is weeks later.

Weeks later, another fire. How do they not just, I don't even know what to do with her. That's the thing. What do you even do with this person? But if I'm on a jury and somebody just lines up all these fires in a row and says, and she's the closest person to all of them. She's always there. I'm in. Always there.

Send her ass to jail. How many house fires have you been around, Jimmy? None. Fucking none. None. None. And I know people whose houses have burned down. Guarantee you, that's the only one they've ever been around.

That's it. Fucking none. I mean, they say lightning, you know, the odds of getting struck. Imagine the odds of your house just spontaneously bursting into flames. In the fucking basement. Everywhere you go. Yeah. Everywhere.

Every house you ever lived in caught on fire. So you try a cabin. That bursts into flames. You try a trailer. That bursts into flames. Apartment building. You try an apartment home. That bursts into flames.

Regular house. Bursts into flames. I'll move in with my aunt. Fuck the basement's flammable. Everything. It's insanity. So anyway, yeah. Fire. This is fire. This is fire. This is fire. This is fire. This is fire. This is fire. This is fire. This is fire. This is fire. This is fire. This is fire. This is fire. This is fire. This is fire. This is fire. This is fire. This is fire. This is fire. This is fire. This is fire. This is fire. This is fire. This is fire. This is fire. This is fire. This is fire. This is fire. This is fire. This is fire. This is fire. This is fire. This is fire. This is fire. This is fire. This is fire. This is fire. This is fire. Fuck the basement's flammable. Everything. It's insanity. So anyway, yeah, fire. This is fire.

It's also ruled arson. Burns down Shirley's home. Family court steps in, finally removes the three kids. Thank God. And gives custody to Ronald. Good. I usually want the mother to have custody of the kids. Not in this case.

No. I want Ronald. I don't care if Ronald is a crackhead who brings, you know, I don't even care what Ronald does. Right. At least they're not going to burn to the ground. I don't care if Ronald is a crackhead who brings, you know, I don't even care what Ronald does. At least they're not going to burn to the ground. Anything short of child molestation, give them to Ronald. Anything short of severe abuse, they're better off with him. Go to Ronald.

I'm sorry. So, yeah, Shirley admits herself to the Hutchings Psychiatric Center and only stays a few days. I don't know if that was to try to not get in trouble for the fire. She's like, I'll just check into an institution. They won't know where I am. She gets out. That was only a few days. This was January 1990.

March 18th, 1990, a two-story apartment building that Winters is living in catches on fire and burns to the ground on Lakeview Avenue. Winters gets out. Also getting out is a young couple with a 22-month-old baby who were burned and barely got out alive. Oh, my God. She almost killed a family on this one. They live beneath her in this apartment. This lady is a nightmare at this point. She's a devil.

This is a bad person. Very well. I don't even know if it's a bad person. She's a sick person. Yeah. On top of that, because she's that's that's the thing about what it is that she's so mentally ill and nobody's diagnosing it or nobody's just forcing treatment on her. And as I'm doing all this research, I want to give her a pass sometimes because I'm like, God, that childhood, what she went through and all that.

But I'm like, no, because you know what? We've had all these people go through. I am sure our Hawkins, Texas guy there, I'm sure he had a horrible childhood. I guarantee it. Guarantee you he had an abusive, horrible, just indescribable childhood. But once you kill three people, that shit doesn't matter anymore. It's all about you anymore. Goes right the fuck away.

You gotcha. Yeah, so that's how I feel bad for this woman, and I understand that maybe she can't help it. But at this point, I don't give a shit if she can help it or not. I just want her off the street completely. Just to save society, for fuck's sake. And her kids and everyone else's kids, for fuck's sake. Yeah, the children. Everybody's children.

It's terrifying. Keep kids away from her. Her kids and everyone else's kids. Yeah, the children. Everybody's children. It's terrifying. Keep kids away from her. So April 10th, 1990, she's indicted for arson and reckless endangerment for the Willis Avenue fire that we mentioned from a couple months ago. 1990 still.

She's mid-1990. She visits the graves of her first two children, then tries to jump off the St. Lawrence County Bridge. So that's an interesting little tidbit there. And it didn't work. Unsuccessful. Just went for a dip. Nope, yeah, just a little dip and swam out and went, shit, still alive. Water usually fixes fire. I'll jump in here. At least I'm not flammable now.

I'll go burn something. So September 21st, 1990, a fire breaks out in the garage at Winter's aunt's home that she's staying in. October 5th, a couple weeks later, a fire in the same garage. God damn it. Same garage.

Burns the entire garage and house to the ground this time. Wow. Completely burns her aunt's house down. Yeah, finally. Hey, there we go. There you go. You got one. It's like the third time she set her aunt's house on fire.

Why is her aunt letting her back in? Yeah. At all. And why is there anything that can light fires in the house? Anywhere. Why is there a lighter? You don't smoke anymore. If you smoke and you invite her into your house, guess what?

You quit smoking because nothing. Hey, no. There was no fire to be in this house. None. I don't want her to have anything around her. Luckily, later on, we get into this a little bit. I spray my walls down with the garden hose every night. Yeah, like you live in a wildfire zone.

You're like, it could be coming. I'm out here with the hose. Spray down the yard just to make sure. Jesus, that's scary to think of. Terrifying. September 22nd, 1990, Winters is arrested for making harassing phone calls to her neighbor. What the hell is this about now? What are you doing now?

I don't know. She's just out of her mind. During the arrest, she assaults a deputy and damages a patrol car. Oh, my God. And she's also charged for that. Good. They've had it with her at this point. They're like, we're not screwing around with you anymore.

She's a goddamn menace. And she doesn't have three kids in the house anymore. So now when they show up, she's just a wild ranting crazy lady. Fuck it, lock her up. It lights shit on fire. Yeah, they don't feel bad for her. So November 14th 1990, this is all 1990. This is a big year for her. Winters is arrested and charged with setting a fire

at the Camillus Bowling Alley. Now she's lighting public places on fire. She's just lighting anything on fire. And they're said, too, there's so many fires within a 50-mile radius that they suspect possible. I feel like maybe everybody was like, nobody smokes anymore. So then she was like, where can I get a lighter? Bowling alley, people smoke like a motherfucker. We'll give you a pack of matches with your shoes.

Here's a pack of matches for you. You want a pitcher of beer with that? All right. That's what it is, man. Lucky strikes are on the bowling center. There you go. Grab it on the console. Non-filter.

So October 1991, she is in court. She is actually convicted of arson and sentenced to one to three years in state prison for arson. I mean. It's a start. At least she's off the street. At least maybe she'll get some help. Yeah, that's a thing. Possibly.

November 1992, they parole her. She's in jail for a year. What? She's in jail for a year. But while she was in there, she told counselors that, you know, she'd like to stay on her medication and not, you know, kill people and burn shit to the ground. But she doesn't because a few reasons. One, they make her feel overweight.

She can't afford them. and even if she could, she'd forget to take them anyway because she's got a bad memory. So she's like, you know, I feel a little chunky, and I'm too poor. It just slips my mind, so who cares? Just any reason I get. Those are three very valid reasons not to take a fucking pill. All different reasons completely. None of those.

It's all three of those reasons. So she could never get a pill down her. Those are the worst reasons not to keep the public safe, apart from not being able to afford it. But let's forget. Listen, as a taxpayer, if that person lives in my town, I will gladly, every dime I send to the state, every paycheck, give it all to her for the fucking medication. I'll go pick up her prescription and put it in her mailbox. I don't give a shit. I'm not going in the house because I could be on fire.

I'll bring her some fresh Evian so she doesn't have to take that sulfur water down with her. No shit. She'll need that. So mid-90s now, she's out of prison. She's a little kind of quiet for a while there. I think she might be staying on her meds some in the mid-90s, except for a couple of charges of larceny and harassment, which, I mean, you can't expect her to be perfect. Who has five years that go by when you're not charged with larceny and harassment? I mean, it's better than arson, right?

It happens to me all the time. It's like, well, it's not arson. And everyone's like, hey, good job. And then it's fine. You know what I mean? That's how it works. So 1997, she tells a psychiatrist that when she looks for a new job, whenever she's out in the job market, for a new job, whenever she's out in the job market, she makes sure that the workplace has a quiet room so that she can go somewhere and be alone and respond to her hallucinations.

And life fires. And life fires. Respond to her hallucinations. Jesus. So not only does she have hallucinations, according to her, but she needs to respond to them. As a hiring leader, are you somebody that sits down in your chair when you're hiring them at an interview?

Interview me. Listen, tell me about your work history and your requirements to work here. I don't mean to interrupt you. I understand it's a job interview and this is highly irregular, but I have a question for you, actually. No, no, it's not about the vacation or the pay or anything like that. You don't happen to have a quiet room, do you? You know, we do have one down the hall.

What would you need that for? No one else will come in, right? No, no, it's all yours. Well, you know, I get these hallucinations and I need to, what I do is, I just like a secretary. I take messages all day and about two o'clock I go in and just respond to all of them. It's like, I got to return my emails.

I take messages. I got to return my emails right here. Posted notes on the walls and I just, one by one, I knock them all down. That green demon that comes and visits me about six every morning, I got to get back to him. He's been bothering me for two days now. You know, on the tip of a match is what? Do you know what that substance is on the tip of a match?

Sulfur. That is sulfur, my friend. All that that she's been ingesting, her vagina is a flamethrower. That's what's going on. All of her, everyone up there, people are shitting fire. She's just spraying fucking fire. That's what's going on. Oh, no. All of us. Everyone up there. People are shitting fire. She's just spraying fucking fire. That's what's going on. Everyone else is too. They can control it. Control it. God damn it. This lady.

That's hilarious. Oh, my goodness. On mental institutions, at least seven times, she was readmitted to a mental care facility within two days of being released. Usually high and or drunk. She'd get all fucked up and come on back. She was in psychiatric wards at least 28 times.

28 times. Oh, my God. That's a lot of in and out, man. That's a lot. I've been through a lot of fucking therapy in my life. I've never been to psych wards 28 times. 28 times. Not even in my entire life.

No. So April 27, 1997, Shirley's mother, Marilyn, her home is burned to the ground. Of course it is. Her cousin barely gets out alive. Shirley is arrested. This is a little too close here. She pleads guilty on this one. Good.

They medicated her up, even admits that she knew her cousin was in the house when she set the fire and was trying to kill her cousin, she said. So whatever. She's sentenced to eight years in prison. Good. Good. Off the street. She trying to kill her cousin, she said. So whatever. She's sentenced to eight years in prison. Good. Good. Off the street. She needs to be in prison here. Now they get a look at her a little bit.

And this Dr. James Knoll that we discussed before, the forensic psychiatrist, he says the fires, basically all the fires are about the gas leak, he says. It's all an attempt to repeat and master. People do this psychologically. They repeat scenarios to try to master them. But they're not going to master them. They just need to repeat them. So she's so sick that she's recurring the event that traumatized her trying to fix it? That's the thing.

They don't even know why they're doing it. That's psychotic as fuck. It's called repetition compulsion. Wow. It's absolutely a thing. It happens a lot. It's how killers do it. It's a thing.

They try to master. He says Shirley repeats her own tragedy, but to a severity and magnitude that's rarely seen. He said normally this would not go on for 30 years, escalating these fires, killing children, all this sort of thing. Now, while in jail, she hasn't been charged with any murders. Wow. While in jail, she tells prison psychotherapists that she has nine personalities. I believe her. That's not far off here.

Later on, she says she was trying to appease the psychotherapist into whatever. I think she was just playing around, was bored. Also says that she fears dying on the anniversary date of her sibling's death every year. She says, quote, I have always had, I've always felt each year that on this day I would die. It is scary. It would be fate. So she's just, I mean, her mind is messed up. Can you imagine being married. It is scary. It would be fate. So she's just hurt. I mean, her mind is messed up.

I mean, she married to that. Jesus married to. I can't imagine. Imagine that's your mother. That's your mother. That's the person you look to. And just imagine her being her neighbor. That's terrifying because she's going to burn your house down.

You got to ask her for sugar. No, thank you. I'm good. I'll just take some sulfur out of the drain. Hope you got a lot of baking soda. That shit puts out fires. Yeah, you'd need it. So forensic psychiatrist, again, we're here with James Knoll.

He said that Winters has a borderline personality disorder at this point in 97. He says, quote, at this point in time, our treatment is not that great. What we can do is kind of therapeutically hold their hands through the rough times and hope. Basically, borderline is, yeah, you're pretty fucked up. There's not much we can do about it. Over the years, she was diagnosed schizophrenic, antisocial, dissociative. You name it, she was baptized. It's all her.

28 things. Any personality disorder, she's got it. Yeah, but she's functional enough to not be held involuntarily unless she's a danger to others, which I personally think she's always a danger to others. Absolutely. 2004, she's paroled. What? So it's been seven years.

Okay. Well, I guess. You know, whatever. She's quickly reincarcerated, though, for violating the terms of her parole for having a lighter. Yes. Good Lord. Yes. Jesus Christ.

Good. Thank you. Glad somebody found that. How about that? A BIC puts her ass back in prison. That's crazy. Yeah. She should anything near flay. That's how fucked her life is. She walks by a candle shop. TheyIC puts her ass back in prison. That's crazy. Yeah, she should anything near Flav.

That's how fucked her life is. She walks by a candle shop. They should lock her ass up. I don't even care if they're not lit. They're going to be lit at some point. Go lock up. So June 14, 2005, she's released again from prison finally out of that. Now, she's at the Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester in 2006.

She is claiming she's hearing babies' voices. and when she turns around, there's no babies there, obviously. Her therapist notes that Winters feels compelled to bang her head against the wall and stab sharp objects into her legs. So now she's kind of— She's a fucking party. Yeah, I would say so. I would say so.

So, November 2006, she is staying with a friend, a family friend of hers. Yeah. These people are, okay, the people whose house burned down the day before hers in September 1970, September 11, 1979. And they lost their three kids. These are the grandparents. They're the grandparents of these people that she's staying with. OK, that's if that's hard to whatever, but they're related to those people.

So it's a family friend. She's staying at their house in in Pierpont and Pierpont, also staying at this home while they're what the grandparents are watching. This child is a 23 month old child named Ryan Rivers, who is these people's children that we just mentioned. So she's staying with the family. Ryan's parents, like I said, are the cousin of the kid's parents who died. Gotcha. That's the way it breaks down. So anyway, Ryan ends up drowning in the bathtub while under Shirley's care.

Okay. So any time Shirley's around and a kid dies, shit's suspect, right? Yeah, start investigating. They're investigating. Now, a week later, she's pulled over in her pickup truck for swerving. Her shirt is torn up and she has deep scratches on her wrist. The officer gets to the window and she tells the officer, screams at the top of her lungs, the evil has to stop.

The evil is trying to get out. Wow. Wow. Have you got a light? Holy shit. Yeah. Have you got a light? I got a match.

So also, she said she's been, hasn't been taken.'t been telling him that she's got to pee by the way that's something that's oh man she had she had some nasty taco bell the night before he's like it's got to come also she said that she hasn't been taking her schizophrenia medication and she was trying to get to the ogdensburg Mental Health Facility, but got lost. She says, I'm trying to get to the mental hospital. He's like, that's a good place. Let's go there.

I'll rush you there. So March 2007, authorities exhumed the bodies of Shirley's two children, Colleen and John, from the 1979 fire, and the body of Ronald III, the SIDS victim, in 1980. So March 16th, 2007, knowing that this is going to happen, she tries to commit suicide, ends up being hospitalized. Absolutely. Now, during the exhumation, authorities do full testing, autopsies, the whole deal. They find that Colleen and John, the first two kids, had blunt force trauma to the head

before they burned. Wow. Also that Ronald III had been suffocated. He did not die of SIDS. All right. So now we're on to something. Now we got a murder. Now we got a couple of murders from Ot burned. Wow. Also that Ronald III had been suffocated. He did not die of SIDS. All right. So now we're on to something. Now we got a murder. Now we got a couple of murders from Otisco.

Right. So on March 28th, 2007, Shirley is indicted in Onondaga County for the murder of five-month-old Ronald III in 1980. The judge rules that she made some incriminating statements to the police while they were interviewing him. The judge throws them out of court because I guess she asked repeatedly for a lawyer and said she didn't want to talk. She wanted a lawyer. And I guess they kept pounding on her, pounding on her and didn't go with procedure.

So they lost some incriminating statements. But that's OK because also September 19, 2007, she is also indicted in St. Lawrence County for the November 2006 drowning of Ryan Rivers. Good. The other child. So she's charged with second-degree murder on that one. We have four kids dead, and they're all probably her fault. I think we have eight kids total that are probably her fault. But I mean four that they're going after.

Yeah, yeah. They're going after her for two. They're not going after – they do not charge her for the first two, Colleen and John. They do not because they said with the fire, it's hard to prove. Gotcha. It's a hard one, but these two they can prove scientifically. Mary Lou Winters, who is Ronald Winters Jr.'s mother, she said of her

son that he's, quote, always slept with one eye open, worried about Shirley like even when they're not together. He's worried about her finding him and burning the house down, basically. Says about the charges, quote, at first I thought it was a psychiatric problem, but I think she's too calculating. So she's saying, like, we thought she was crazy, but then we said, no, no, no, she's

evil. We figured it out. No, no. We thought she was crazy, but she's the worst person ever. Evil, evil, terrible person. Now, April 21st, 2008, Shirley accepts a plea deal for first-degree manslaughter for the death of Ryan Rivers. Onondaga District Attorney William Fitzpatrick said he was happy with the deal, which will probably be about 20 to life she's going to get in this whole situation. All right.

She will also plead to the death of her son, Ronald Jr., Ronald III, to first-degree manslaughter also. All right. She'll basically take the exact same deal. Right. And the deal is if she does that, then both sentences will be concurrent. Okay. So she doesn't have to. It's still a life sentence.

We'll see. Not really. I mean, you know what I mean. 20 to life is still technically a life sentence unless. It's a good chunk. Right. It's a healthy amount. Yeah.

It's, you know, more than any of these kids had. Right. Longer than Ryan. All of them combined. Yeah. That's true. So April 24th of this year, she, like I said, she pleads to Ronald's death, admitted to trying to seriously injure him by smothering, because that's what manslaughter is, is you have to

admit that you tried to hurt them, and it resulted in their death, basically, but didn't intend their death. Right. Whatever bullshit hoop they're jumping through. Exactly. Whatever. Get her in jail. Right.

It doesn't matter. So June 2008, Winters gets in trouble in prison. Good. She is in jail. Right. It doesn't matter. So June 2008, Winters gets in trouble in prison. Good. She is in prison. Good. Good for her. What she does is not good. This is what I mean.

This woman is horrible. Winters is in trouble for kicking a fellow inmate who is pregnant with twins in the stomach. Oh, my God. And screaming, quote, I hope your babies die. What a bitch. This lady's fucking horrible. What a horrible bitch. She loves to kill children. I mean your babies die. What a bitch. This lady's fucking horrible. What a horrible bitch. She loves to kill children.

I mean. She needs to fucking kill children. I know why you're saying it. It's not a matter of, oh, it's not a gender thing. Right. You're killing fucking children. You're an asshole. What a bitch.

You're just an asshole. This is fucking ridiculous. Unreal. I hope your babies die. What are you, fucking psychotic, clearly? That's threatening. You're obviously stating exactly what you want to die. What are you, fucking psychotic, clearly? That's threatening. You're obviously stating exactly what you want to do. What a bitch.

I hope your baby, well, she's kicking her in the stomach. Jesus. And she's a bigger girl, too. So, I mean, I don't know if the other girl, but she was pregnant with twins. She probably wasn't that physically stout to be fighting at that moment. June 16, 2008, she's sentenced to 20 years in prison for Ryan's death, Ryan Rivers. On 16th, 2008, she's sentenced to 20 years in prison for Ryan's death, Ryan Rivers. On June 17th, the next day, she's sentenced to eight and a half to 25 years for Ronald's death.

To be served concurrently, she is eligible for parole in 2025. Okay. And she'll be 67 years old. And I hope that she doesn't live that long. That's not old enough. No. Now, there's an appeal process here. The 20-year sentence for the one murder was for the Ryan Rivers murder. One of the condition of that was that she's not allowed to appeal.

That was the condition of that. But for Ronald III's death, that was not in the deal. It's a different deal. So she can fucking appeal that? She does appeal that. She's saying that the state should have ordered competency hearings for her and not let her take these deals. She also claims that her lack of competency caused her to agree to an appeal-free plea in the first place.

She shouldn't have agreed to a charge with no appeal possible. That's what she's saying. On court rules that the ramifications were explained and the ruling is affirmed, then you can fuck off and get out of here and go back in there and go back to prison where you belong here. Now, if you can't get enough of Shirley Winters and you want to check out a book on her, there's a book on Kindle. It looks pretty shitty, honestly. On Kindle? It's a Kindle book.

Hilarious. It's a book for sale. It's called Shirley Winters' Serial Killers Unauthorized and Uncensored. And it looks like just 28 pages of exploitative bullshit with bad research. It's 28 pages, and those are with pictures and videos. So I guarantee you we did way more research than they did to write a book. And this is a one-week thing for us. How funny that it's on Kindle and that's short for kindling.

It's a root word of kindling. Perfect. It has one review on here and it's a five-star review. So who knows? That was probably the author. Somebody enjoyed it. I like my book. I like my own book.

It's a Kindles. I did great. Now, also, do not confuse this woman with Shelley Winters. Yeah, the great actress. If you search Shirley Winters in any capacity, murder or anything else, Shelley Winters comes up for most of the time. Because Shelley Winters in 1980 wrote a tell-all book called Also Known as Shirley. What? So, Also Known as Shirley. What? So, Also Known as Shirley.

She wrote in 1980 as this woman was killing children across upstate New York. Whoops-a-daisy. I guess she didn't hear. Shelly Winters is dead, but still, don't besmirch her name. And for the love of God, one more person I would like you to please don't take it out on them. There's a poor woman named Shirley Winters who is a real estate agent with the Coldwell Banker in Batavia, Ohio. Buy a house from her. If you're in Batavia, Ohio, call up, find Shirley Winters and buy a house from her because I guarantee you a couple of people have not bought houses from her because of her name, which she has nothing to do with.

And she's close enough to New York for it to be confused. Yeah. So this poor woman. So help her out right there. That's Shirley Winters. My goodness. First death in Otisco, New York with her son. Fingers crossed she doesn't get paroled.

Yep. That's the first one she got convicted of. So we went with that as our small town there. And that's where she kind of caused a lot of havoc also. That's there. And I don't want to move up there. No. I don't want to move to the Finger Lakes.

God, no. And I'm really happy she's in prison. The weather scares me off enough. And I want to see this movie with Kathy Bates. Let's just say that. Now, we're going to get into some shout outs here really quick. Once again, iTunes reviews are huge. If you want to help us out

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All right. Liz Clark, Lisa Michelle, Shirley Clatworthy, Benji at Ben Adia Theater in Cleveland, Ohio. Thanks, brother. Autumn Blackford, Emily Flanagan, Megan Kenahan, and Haley in South Dakota who enjoyed your Dunkin' Donuts runs on Cemetery Murder. So thank you all for listening. Thank you all for interacting. Thank you guys. Thank you all for paying attention and giving shit about us.

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Thank you guys so much. It's been our pleasure. Bye. Hey, Prime members, you can listen to Small Town Murder early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus and Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. It's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid. We're your hosts.

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

A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing. This mother****er lied. Like a liar. Like a liar. And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal. Or you love to hop in the Wayback Machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes. You should tune in to our podcast, Morbid. Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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