[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How some people are really good at building a fire and maintaining it into like a bonfire. I'm not good at that. I'm not either.


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[Assistant] Holy shit. Like where is the, it's these kind of people that you're like, where is it? Where's the point that you say I gotta fix some things?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I gotta get this together. What is the moment?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But what, but they're obviously, like, they're obviously piece of shit cowards to begin with, but they kept the pillows over her face.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Isn't it wild that even back then, but especially now, you always get caught?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh yea, like no matter what, like you think like in this, on this giant, you know, uh, in this whole country, you could hide a car or hide something and how would anyone


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, right off the bat, because it's like thank you for just like showing us exactly who you are.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That happened, but don't investigate it. Yeah, don't, no, don't do that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Again, who doesn't wake up with abrasions?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh god, it's so awful. Like the, the, I mean obviously Elizabeth murders.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Mike Williams set off on a hunting trip into the swamps of North Florida, where it was thought he met his fate by a group of hungry alligators. Except, that's not what happened. And after the uncovering of a secret love triangle, the truth would finally be revealed. Listen to Over My Dead Body Gone Hunting early and ad-free on Wondery Plus.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The answer is approximately 23.6666.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's not, but it would have been great if it was. Imagine. We should just say it is, because I don't know when this comes out, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, no, that's not good. Like you should be able to celebrate each other when


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm sure she knew he hadn't, and that is like a factor there, that it's like, did you know that something awful was going to come from this?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's the thing. When people are just off the bat.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like I don't know anyone in my life and I feel very lucky that I don't know anyone in my life that if they went, they suddenly died, that I would be like, you gotta look at this person. Like I don't know anyone like that. No, me either. And it's like, so if I knew somebody that the first thought in my mind was,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They thought she had something to do with it?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, that's the thing. You, everybody listening, live your life off vibes if you want to. Oh, please do. Good vibes only, please.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which tells you that she did not want a part of this. Exactly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This isn't a grown ass adult, this is a child who is being manipulated by their parents. Exactly, it's really sad. Against their other parent. Which is some of the worst kind of manipulation you can imagine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But we could kill your mom. Because I can't afford the child support for you. Like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like we talked about, this is a father manipulating her daughter, so it's very fucked up in every way imaginable, but she played a role.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's not your responsibility to stop it physically, I mean this is a grown man, you're a child, this is your father, but you call the police.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, soliciting somebody to kill somebody. It's like, this is your father convincing you that this is his only way out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Manipulated into that by him, like the trauma they had to have faced while they were children up until that point must have been so immense for him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's the thing, they weren't allowed to be kids because he was sitting there talking about the custody issue and the financial stuff with his children, which is something you, in my opinion, you should never fucking do. No, never. They should know nothing about your financial situation, your anything situation. They should be kids and kids alone. Kids should be kids. That's it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They should never have to know about adult issues between you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Manipulated by a parent, which is the worst kind of manipulation. I can't even fathom that. Right. And then it almost, it seems like she was also trying to protect her younger sister. She absolutely was. Who I'm sure she had to protect a lot from him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like I'm sure that became a little bit of her job. Absolutely. Is to protect the younger ones. I'm sure. And it's like, that's fucked up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's the role, that she had to play all these different roles too.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To try to keep everything the way that you thought it was, but like it's really sad. And again, secondary murder? Yeah. Absolutely. You didn't call the police. You didn't stop it in that sense in any way, but damn, this is an awful situation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She just, there's no way to put yourself in that situation with a parent, you know, like, and especially like that kind of situation, none of us can probably imagine it. Right. There really isn't, there's no winning, but like, fuck, it's a, it's an unimaginable situation on every


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh yea, you can, that's like literally something that you can claim in custody issues is like to keep them away from the other parent, like cause they will like claim parental.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And again, you want to, like the marriage, you want to end the marriage, that's fine, but like, keep that relationship and that contention away from your kids. Seriously. And it's like sometimes people are just not allowed to do that because the other parent won't allow it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Imagine and I would have no advice to give you because it's just I can't even fathom that. No. And you can't. You can't prepare for it. People are different in every situation, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes. And that he did. Because it's like, this isn't just a gut, this is, it's bad enough when a man will kill his wife, like, you know, the mother of his children. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That, that's unthinkable. Mmhm. But add- Add your child into the fray. What the actual fuck? And let them take part of the shit with you? How do you do that?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What a terrible case. Yeah. That is terrible in every way that it could be terrible. Poor Michelle. Truly. Those poor kids. Seriously. And Michelle's mom. Yeah. What a, I was like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know, I hope everyone, everyone that, you know, isn't Lloyd, I hope they're thriving well. Me too. And I hope they're, you know, living a peaceful existence.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's a whole tone of that. We are on TikTok too much. That's accurate. I think, I think everybody relates to that statement or sentiment, if you will. I think so. I think TikTok is everybody's place. Do you think that it is like low key taking over our brains or something? Yeah, for sure. Absolutely.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I went into it far too confidently. That's okay. We love blind confidence. Thanks girly. We love it. Thanks for being such a supportive partner.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I try. You did a good job. I give it a shot, at least. Good job. You know, it's the beginning of the week.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're, we're wild, we're crazy, we're kooky. I'm coming off a vacay, baby. A vacay! But not really, I'm coming off of like a long weekend. I am coming off of a weekend of many kids' birthday parties, so. Yeah, that sounds fucking terrible. That's where I am right now. I was at Universal this past weekend, I was livin'.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the kids had fun and that's all that matters. Hell yeaah. So there's that. But I have a case today that's just really gross. Oh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, this person is a very gross person. They usually are. They usually are. This one just like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's like, oof, it just, there's a lot here. And there's, and he's a liar.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's one of those that lies a lot about what he did. Yeah, this guy is definitely a liar.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and he also, he lies so much that it was like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And interesting to scrape together the facts of his life because he is such a fucking liar. So that's good. That gets tough sometimes. Yeah. So Dave and I did our best to make sure that we did our best here, but I think this story is really sad. It's another case of.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know if I know this one. I've heard it pronounced metheny too, but I think it's metheny, that's what I've heard more, so I'm gonna go with that one. Uhm, but he's terrible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're gonna start you off on December 15th, 1996, the year that Ash was born.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And also the year Scream came out. I wasn't here yet though. You weren't here yet. Uh, well no, you were. It was December of 1996.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They discovered the body of 23 year old Kimberly Spicer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She had been buried under a trailer on the property of a pallet factory in the city's southwest side. Uh, later that same day, police did arrest a suspect, Joseph Roy Matheny.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, he was a man who actually lived and worked at the factory at the time. He was living on the grounds.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, where Spicer's body was discovered. And it didn't take long when they arrested him to suddenly start connecting the dots to other murders of women in the Baltimore area as well. I was worried you were gonna say that. What's wild is this is only a fraction of the things that he confessed to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, right here. He confessed to a myriad of awful, awful things. And do you think all of his confessions are for real? No. Okay. I don't. No. Which is like a whole other set of gross that like, he just came up with these things and was like, I did them, claimed them. Like they're fucked. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So let's talk about who Joe Matheny was so you can get an idea of what we're working with here. Okay. Joseph Roy Matheny was born March 2nd, 1955 in Baltimore, Maryland. He was one of six children. He was born to parents Audra Earle and Jean Matheny. I love the name Audra.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It is a cool name. It's just like a cute name. Yea, Audra. I think one of the girls in Girls Next Door was named Audra, wasn't she? Yea, there was an Audra around there, for sure. Now after he was arrested, Joe did claim, Joe Matheny claimed that he had been raised in a very abusive home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, she said that Joe was a very normal boy growing up. He was smart. He was nice. He had a good childhood. Hm, there wasn't anything of note.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If he was neglected, she said, and this was her own words, she said, if he was neglected, it was his own fault. Huh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which I was like, that's, that's questionable, that, that statement. That's a weird way to word that. Weird way to, like, if he was neglected as a child, so that was his own fault. I feel like that's like, that's the exact opposite of that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She claims none of her children were ever abused. They were never placed in homes. I could not find any records and neither could Dave to indicate that he was placed in any kind of homes growing up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Also, we couldn't find any reports that said that there was like any phone calls to any social services or anything like that. This was the 50s, of course, and like the early 60s, so keep that in mind. But from the sounds of it,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He is, he is kind of exaggerating, uh, how bad his childhood was. Okay. That's what, that's what, this seems to be the collective thought. What if he has like a pattern of exaggeration that it- He lies about everything. Exactly. So that he very much exaggerates a lot about his life. So, I mean, he even claims at one point that he has a son. He doesn't. What? Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, yeah, when he was young for a time, the family lived in West Virginia. And this is where Joe's father worked as a laborer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he ended, he, at first, he was the only income for the family, which, especially of the time period, that is very common. Yeah. But unfortunately, when Joe was only six years old, his father died in a car accident. Oh man. Ah, yeah, and it was in Terra Alta, I believe, West Virginia.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, obviously the entire family, this is six children that he left. That's a lot of kids to provide for. Yea, and like obviously the emotional toll was outrageous. They're all reeling after the loss of their father, who by all accounts,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It seemed like that he was just like a working hard kind of guy, like took care of his family. The father, yeah. Yeah, so like they all were really devastated by it. So while also dealing with this emotional toll and with grieving their father, um, Audra Matheny,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The mom had to now start working full time just to support all six of these kids out of nowhere.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, like a very sudden switch and everything. So see, that's kinda to me, him being shuffled around to different homes. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Different people probably watched him while his mom provided for the family. That's what it probably is. It was probably that kind of thing because she worked as a waitress, she was a delivery driver for like a food service, she was a bartender, she would take any job


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And she was quoted as saying it was very hard on me. I had to work to support the family and I did everything I could to keep my kids together. Yeaah. And so not only did she lose her husband, which like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At least, you know, it sounds like she at least tried to support this family as best she could. Yeah, that's a lot on your plate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now again, by most accounts, like neighbors, friends, all that,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He had a very normal childhood. They all say it, they're like, this wasn't like a crazy family, that everybody was like, ooh, what's going on there? He was a good student.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In reality, like he didn't struggle in school, he stayed out of trouble. Wasn't his troublemaker, didn't get in trouble with the police, didn't get in trouble with teachers. That's interesting. Yeah, none of that. He was a relatively average kid, just nothing of note, nothing, nothing of note poorly and nothing of note like spectacularly. In Joe's version of the story though,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He says that he made it only to eighth grade and then he dropped out and he received his high school equivalency. And that's not true. That's not true.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He has a diploma. Yeah, he did. He made it through school. Like what? And when he turned 18 in 1973, he joined the army.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And his mom is like, oh yeah, he did. He joined the army and he was stationed in Germany.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But Joe says that he was sent straight to Vietnam in the final years of the war.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like the, the, the service. He did not go.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Joe's time in the military though, like no matter what it was, definitely took a toll on him and on his relationship with his family. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like period where he didn't speak to his mother. Oh wow. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like his mother and him did not speak. So that is interesting. So that's that. That's the thing. There's things there that we don't know. We don't know what happened there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] By all accounts, it wasn't a wildly outwardly abusive home, but no one ever knows what's going on behind closed doors. You look at any of these things and it's like you can find out horrible stories and be like, what? I just passed by that house. It looks like a normal house. Like I don't hear anything. I don't see anything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who knows? He lies a lot, so I'm sure it's an amalgamation of lies and truths. Yea, he sounds like pathological. But during his trial later, when he was arrested for his crimes, he actually told his attorney and the investigators that both of his parents were dead.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But then a reporter tracked down his mom, and she was alive. Whaaat? So yeah, uhm, he said after he was arrested in 1996, his mom actually said he just kept drifting further and further away from me. Which could be a number of reasons, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's unclear exactly when he returned to Baltimore, Maryland from West Virginia, but he was arrested by Baltimore police in April 1988 for drug possession. So he did struggle with addiction. He was found guilty for that. He was fined $100.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The arrest for possession kinda shows the beginning of this very consistent struggle with addiction and legal troubles that we see in his life from here on out. He seems to be in a constant state of struggling with this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In 1988, he began working for Joe Stein & Sons, which was a company that makes and sells wooden pallets.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] His employment history was never really consistent. He was a truck driver at one point, like there was a lot of different things. He would kind of disappear for long periods of times from this job, but Stein and Sons, the owners of this pallet company,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was a likeable guy in his social relationships for the most part and in his like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's very strange, but he would show back up to Stein and Sons looking for work and they would just hire him back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and actually later, after he was arrested later, one of the coworkers there said he was a joy. Just kidding and carrying on. He made the day pass by. Wow. So he's one of those guys that you're literally like, you made my day pass by quicker. Like you look forward to working with him. Which is like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On the other side of the planet to what he says and does on his other.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like side of him. But that's the thing, it's like I always think of that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And his work history was in flux all the time, so was his housing status. You never knew where he was gonna stay. He never could keep something for a long period of time. He would sleep on friends' couches a lot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Stay at a lot of shelters, a lot of like encampments, like anywhere he could.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He did have a lot of people who would take him in because of his personality.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and it was usually, and this was around the Baltimore area. And at the time of his arrest, he was actually living in that small trailer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On the Stein and Sons property, the one where Kimberly Spicer was found.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So he was living on the property of where he was working because they were allowing him to. And that's what he did. Yeah. And apparently it was so like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was the situation he was in where uhm, he quote, ran an extension cord from the Stein's main building to power his stereo, television, and air conditioner.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that's what like dire straits his situation was in. Wow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, the owners of Stein and Sons may have felt comfortable enough to let him literally live on the property.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They did start to grow a little more apprehensive of this decision as we went into the mid-1990s. So they were letting him live there for a while, like on and off, like whenever he needed to. Once we hit those mid-1990s, they were starting to be like, uh, I don't know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is when they started noticing a lot of changes in his personality.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because this was immediately following his release after a year in jail.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because he was constantly in legal trouble for, you know, drug possession, stealing, like all that stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he had come back to work because they had allowed him to come back to work after a year in jail.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And co-workers seemed to think that he, he made a very hard switch in that year in jail. He was drinking a lot, he was using drugs more often, he was, uhm, he was engaging the work of sex workers a lot more often, like just seeming to be on this like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, really different path than he was before. Like a spiral, like a downward spiral. Yeah, before I think it seemed like he was always trying to get...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To a better place, but now it seemed like he was just fully diving, fully into this. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and there were other, like, bizarre changes, like, that he would do. Like, he made a fifteen foot high barricade around his trailer made of old pallets. That's weird. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And also, like, that's not your property, you can't do that. Yea, what are you doing? And it wasn't just coworkers that were, you know, initially kind of, like, enamored by his personality and how kind he was, which is very strange. He made a lot of friends outside of work, like, very easily. Socially, he was very much able to make people like him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, according to Connie Snow, who worked at the Southside Bar in Baltimore where Matheny often picked up women and actually picked up at least one victim of his. She said he was so mannerly saying thank you and please all the time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Actually ended up being murdered by Matheny in 1996. Woah. Just to show you how much he can manipulate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And how easily she thought he was kind.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Polite, never had any reason to worry about him and her sister ended up being murdered by him. Oh my god. Yea. That's horrific.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's awful. So, like much of Joe Matheny's personal history and his confession that would later come,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like I said earlier, it's really hard to tell the facts from his lies. By his own confession, his criminal history began in 1976 where he said,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Some stories that connect a little bit with these dates and the places.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The names you can't really connect, like it's, he didn't know the names, so it didn't, it's hard to connect them to him. Yeah. I don't know if they were current, if they were trying to connect them with actual cases, but that's what he claimed later.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He prayed on Toni Lynn because she had been struggling with drug addiction herself and she hadn't been seen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And days after her death, police would, uhm, days after he came across her, excuse me, police would find Tony Lynn's body dumped by the side of Interstate 95 in Baltimore.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, when they examined her, unfortunately she had been sexually assaulted, stabbed, and strangled. Oh my god. And then he had just dumped her.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's so fucked up. And this is how he saw his victims, it was just like trash. Just dump you where I can. Yeah. It's so sad. Now, he waited about four months until he killed again.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, this time it was early July of 1994, and he killed 39-year-old Katherine Magaziner.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, like Toni Lynn, Kathy had struggled with drug addiction throughout a lot of her adult life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She had had a couple of arrests on her record and it was mostly for sex work.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, this was in South Baltimore mainly. Okay. And according to Joe Matheny on the evening of July 2nd or 3rd.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He met Catherine, or Cathy as people knew her.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, on Baltimore's south side and convinced her to come back to his trailer on the Stein lot they made a transaction.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That they engaged in sex while she was partially clothed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] During his confession, he said that uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He wouldn't say whether the sex was consensual or not. So that tells me it was not. And he also wouldn't say if it was transactional, nothing about that. So to me, that says it wasn't. Yeah. Uhm, and if you see his behavior later. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's wildly aggressive. Wildly aggressive. He does not like being told no. And I could absolutely see this not being even a transactional thing. Yeah. Uh, which is awful.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, uh, he said about an hour after they'd gotten to the trailer together.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He said that he had attacked Catherine, choking her with his hands until she passed out. Once she had lost consciousness, he put, he wrapped an extension cord around her neck and strangled her to death. He then dragged her body to a wooded area, only about 40 feet away from the trailer, and buried her in a shallow grave.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So sad. And remember, this is a trailer on his work property. Yeah. It's like not even his. And then he just buried a victim's body 40 feet from this trailer. And then eventually underneath the trailer. And people are coming to work. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Really gross and rough what he does next because he returned to her body several months later and exhumed her.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he told investigators, quote, I dug it up and took the head out. I just took the head and threw it in a box in the trash.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. And that's true, like. Took, yeah. Took her head off and threw, put it in a box and threw it in the trash. Months later. Yeah. How fucked up is that? And like, why? What do you want, what?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he's a very big guy too. He's over six feet tall and I think he was like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 450 pounds at one point, like he's a very, like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's an intimidating guy. He's very intimidating, and one of his pictures in prison is like this. Is it the one with his tongue out? Yes, it's so scary. It's really foul. Like I can't imagine coming across this man when he was like violent. Yeah, it's, he's really... That must have been horrifying. If you look at him up, it's...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like he's just really a gross person, especially when you know what he's done. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But yea, that's, and you were asking, like, was that true? When investigators exhumed her remains, two years later, the skull had been taken away from the body, and he had left only the mandible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So he'd remove the head from the mandible up. And the mandible's like the bottom half of your jaw. So he took like the top of her teeth up. So I mean it's easy, I guess when it's skeletal.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] These things are- Does it like unhook? It's like easy to take that part off, you know? But it's like, ugh. It's very bizarre. I just hate it. So, ugh.


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[Assistant] Now at this point, he was kind of developing a victim type. Yea. Obviously. Right. Uhm, but his next act,


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[Assistant] In court documents, they call it, quote, a lawless community where knives, axes, and other weapons were kept.


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[Assistant] Among the men living in that camp were two 33 year old men named Randall, Randall Brewer and Randy Piker.


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[Assistant] And apparently there was some kind of dispute between Joe Matheny and these two men.


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[Assistant] And then he piled the two bodies on an old mattress in one of the darker parts of camp and just covered them with an old blanket, some trash, whatever he could find. He is terrifying.


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[Assistant] It seems like his temper is outrageous. And just like, his temper seems to like grow and grow the more he does this. And then it just explodes. Wow. Yeah. Now,


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[Assistant] Obviously he did not hide these victim's bodies very well because they were discovered a few days later and he was arrested.


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[Assistant] And after looking at the evidence, I guess the jury felt the crimes were actually committed by...


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[Assistant] Another man who lived in that encampment named Cowboy.


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[Assistant] And detectives actually found the weapon used in the murder in position and it was in possession of another man who lived there named Larry Amos.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and they said he had actually stolen that axe from someone and used it to kill another man, Edward Dowell. Larry killed somebody with it? Yes. And then had that axe in his possession. So when they said lawless, they meant lawless. They really meant it. Like, damn.


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[Assistant] So that axe being in possession of cowboy there doesn't really mean anything because it looks like this axe is just traveling to other people to do awful shit with.


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[Assistant] So I don't know, but they weren't able to connect him definitively to it, which kind of doesn't shock me considering like,


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[Assistant] Who knows if he did it or not. But it looks like I think he did because of what he's done and he claimed to have later.


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[Assistant] And not that he's not, he's a liar, so who knows, but like considering what else he is proven to have done, I'm not shocked by it. Wow.


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[Assistant] It was, cause it's like, we were trying to figure out, like, I want to tell you what was reported, but I want to make sure you know that like some of this is not real, so like some of this, and you're gonna hear


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A very spectacular claim that has no actual evidence to back it up, but it's the thing that is really.


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[Assistant] Uhm, like what everybody looks at for this case. When you hear it, you might be like, oh, okay. Like I might know what this is. I think I know where we're headed because I saw some pictures that were really untasteful, I might say.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When he was arrested for good in late 1996, he claimed that he had murdered those men, and he said that he did it because he wanted to steal $300 that one of them was rumored to have had at the time.


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[Assistant] But he waited only four more months after his acquittal before he killed again.


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[Assistant] Now on the evening of November 11th, 1996, 23-year-old Kimberly Spicer got into an argument with her mother.


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[Assistant] And I guess Kimberly had, uh, struggled with drug addiction as well. And I think her brother, and this is really sad, her brother had actually passed away of a heroin overdose.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Only the previous week. Oh, oh my god. And I think that her mother and her were in an argument or a dispute of some kind while talking about that, probably


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[Assistant] Like, probably talking about her addiction and her struggles and maybe that was like a source of contention.


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[Assistant] So they fought and then, but she, her mother said,


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[Assistant] We would argue a lot. Like it was a little contentious at that time because of what was happening.


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[Assistant] And she said, but, and she would leave the house, like storm out of the house, but she would always come back. Yeaah. And so it wasn't this like wild thing that she stormed out of the house, and she did. She said she would always leave, but she would always come back. Uhm, and her mom Cathy Price said that.


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[Assistant] And that night, she left the house and went to the Southside bar.


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[Assistant] He convinced Kim to go back to his trailer on the Stein's Lot for transactional sex. And when they got there, he stabbed her 26 times in the face and neck with a black-handled knife.


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[Assistant] And then he said he wrapped her body in a red tarp and hid it so he could figure out what to do. And did he say what?


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[Assistant] Does he say whether or not he's like under the influence at any, during any of these things? Every once in a while he will, I don't think he really uses that as a, as a reason to be quite, yea I think it's just like incidental if he was.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now two weeks later, Matheny lured 37-year-old Rita Kemper back to his trailer on the night of December 8th. Uhm, when they got there,


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[Assistant] He tried to have sex with her and she refused him. She said absolutely not.


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[Assistant] And she had come there just to like hang out. She was like, no. And they apparently had met before.


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[Assistant] No, but that night she said, and she said like he was like a normal guy. Like I've never seen him lose his temper.


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[Assistant] I saw him the way that everybody else saw him, which is like this funny guy and like he's just a jovial guy. It's so scary that somebody can present that way and then be this. And she actually said his nickname in the group of friends was Tiny, cause he's such like a big guy. Wow. And so she referred to him as Tiny when she talked to him.


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[Assistant] Talked about him, and when she testified to a jury later, which by the way, she gets out of this.


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[Assistant] Um, Kemper told the jury that that night she just saw a totally different guy. She said you could see evil in him. Whatever Tiny wanted to do that night, he was going to do.


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[Assistant] Now according to Rita Kemper, she genuinely thought, she said, I believed he was trying to kill me. I believe that. Probably was. And she said that he was screaming at her, scream all you want, I'm going to kill you and bury you in the woods with the other girls.


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[Assistant] That's what he was saying. Can you imagine being in that position?


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[Assistant] And she said- And surviving. Exactly. And she testified saying that after they got to the trailer, he slapped her in the face twice, demanded that she take her pants off, was basically going to rape her, and


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[Assistant] It's, it's pretty unclear whether she immediately went to police to report this assault or whether, like,


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[Assistant] It was investigated some time later, like it's a little unclear about that. Okay. But Matheny's clearly escalating violence against


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they acted on this tip, and investigators searched the area around Joe Matheny's trailer on December 15th, and that is when they discovered the body of Kimberly Spicer, buried under the trailer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because remember, Kimberly Spicer was the one where he had hid her, quote unquote, until he could figure out what to do. Right. And...


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[Assistant] It's just, it's like unthinkable, like truly unthinkable. And uhm, it was Catherine who was buried 40 feet away from the trailer. Right. And now he's gone and asked another co-worker to help him bury Kimberly Spicer's body somewhere. But no, she was found.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they were able to go into the trailer as well at this point because they had due cause. They said search warrant, search warrant. Yeah. And so they were able to get some evidence of a potential crime scene inside as well. So the detective in charge of the case, Homer Pennington.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, after they had discovered Kimberly Spicer's body, uhm, that was obviously grounds for an arrest warrant, and they arrested him out, and they arrested Joe Matheny and also Joseph Stein.


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[Assistant] The owner of the Stein & Sons company on suspicion of murder.


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[Assistant] Because they were seen leaving a company Christmas party together that evening.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and he was suspected of helping dispose of evidence even.


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[Assistant] The charges against Stein would eventually be dropped pretty shortly after. Um, investigators learned that he was completely unaware of the murders. Any illegal activities?


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[Assistant] Destroy anything according to the investigation, they found nothing.


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[Assistant] He's a felon dating back to 1985 because he was charged and convicted of arson in 1985.


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[Assistant] So although there's no evidence of him being like a continuous felon of like just constantly committing crimes since then. He did do some arson once. He had a 25 caliber handgun on his property and you're not supposed to be in possession of a handgun as a felon, so that's a problem.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that was interesting, but once Joe Matheny was charged with murder, he was just ready to confess, and he seemed very eager to tell all his stories, all the violent crimes he'd supposedly committed over, you know, two decades at this point.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, he provided detectives with details on the murder of Kimberly Spicer.


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[Assistant] And he also confessed to the murders of Kathryn Magaziner and Toni Lynn Ingrassia.


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[Assistant] Now, and you led them there, like eagerly led them. There's pictures. Yeah. Uhm.


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[Assistant] By the time the interview had concluded, Joe Matheny had confessed to a total


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[Assistant] Of between seven and ten murders, he fluctuated.


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[Assistant] Including Kim Spicer, Kathryn Magaziner, Tony Lennon-Gracia, Randall Brewer, Randy Piker,


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[Assistant] And a third man he claimed to have drowned at that, um, encampment that he was staying at.


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[Assistant] And also, The Man Outside the Bar, 1976.


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[Assistant] And three sex workers he claimed to have picked up on Washington Boulevard in 1988 and 1989. Okay. He would pull some of those off sometimes, put them back on.


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[Assistant] Admit to this many, admit to that many, throw these ones on. Like, so it really fluctuated the amount of people, but they were really...


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[Assistant] In addition to those three murder charges, he was also charged with the kidnapping and assault of Rita Kemper a few weeks earlier. And during his interview, detectives asked him whether he had intended to kill Kemper. And he said, yeah, I don't know, I don't really, I don't know really what I was going to do because she got away.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That is so haunting. Just like, yea, I was gonna kill that human being. Yea, but I didn't know what I was gonna do. She got away, so.


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[Assistant] Okay, I guess I couldn't. Jesus. Again, the announcement came as a shock to everyone who knew him. Like no one was ready to hear that he was this awful monster. It's so scary to think that people can turn it on and off so easily.


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[Assistant] Another bartender named Lisa Reynolds who works at a bar or worked at a bar called the Bordeaux Wine Bar and Restaurant. Uhm, it was a restaurant and bar that Matheny went to often to also drink, play pool, all that stuff. She told reporters everybody liked him. He was very friendly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And even the lawyer who defended him on the axe murder charge, like the one of the two guys in the encampment, was like shocked by his confessions, was like, I don't know if I believe them, like they don't line up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I found him to be very honest and direct. He has a sophisticated sense of humor and he always was very, very respectful of me. He was never rude or violent.


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[Assistant] Yeah. Now Joseph Stein's daughter, Lisa however, had other feelings about him and said, I suspected he was guilty, but I wanted to believe he didn't do it. It's interesting that it seems like


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now after his arrest and the confessions, he agreed to lead police to, uhm, to Catherine Magaziner's grave, like I said before.


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[Assistant] And although he was cooperating with the locations, like he was like, yes, I will lead you to these bodies. He was no help with identifying these women.


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[Assistant] Do you think maybe, I mean, because of like his constant drug use, maybe he didn't? No, I think he just didn't care. You think that's what it was? Yes. I don't think this can be, like, I don't even think it's like cloudy, like whatever, I think he literally just didn't care.


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[Assistant] Like didn't even learn their names. Cause the way he's like, I haven't got a clue, why would I give a shit about that? Like it was said like that, like very like why would I have her name? Like just brushed it off. Like move on. He's just gross.


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[Assistant] Now, because this is such a strange case and was such a strange case at the time,


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[Assistant] They needed some help with the recovery and identification process because he's not giving them anything.


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[Assistant] And unfortunately, he has picked a couple of victims that didn't have direct ties with their families at the moment, so it was hard to identify. Right.


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[Assistant] Baltimore investigators called in the assistance of William Rodriguez, who was one of a very small number of board certified forensic anthropologists in the county, er, in the country, excuse me. Such a cool job. It really is. And Rodriguez is such an important job too.


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[Assistant] Rodriguez had also worked as a medical examiner for the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.


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[Assistant] And had worked on some really high profile cases where he assisted in identifying, like, victims of mass casualty cases.


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[Assistant] Uh, one of these was the 1994 crash of US Air Flight 427 that went down near Pittsburgh. Those kind of things were...


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[Assistant] Mass casualty events happen like that and people have to be identified. I can't imagine the daunting task. The pressure. Yeah.


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[Assistant] He also worked on the case of a crash of two Blackhawk helicopters during the Iraq war in 1994.


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[Assistant] Uh, and he was also an expert on decomposition and the effects of the natural environment on decomposing human remains, like the body farm.


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[Assistant] Uhm, this was a perfect case for him to be put on because Catherine's remains had been buried and reburied in the woods for two years. Cause he had exhumed her. Yeaah.


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[Assistant] So this put the investigators at a disadvantage when it came to determining what damage was done by methane-y and what damage was done by the environment and natural causes.


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[Assistant] Days after the remains were exhumed, Rodriguez was able to identify Catherine through dental records, matched to whatever remaining teeth were in the lower mandible that he left.


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[Assistant] And thank goodness that that lower mandible had teeth left on it and that it was left there because it helped identify her.


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[Assistant] Joe Matheny's confessions provided investigators with


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[Assistant] Very detailed accounts of the violent sexual assault and murders that he committed on these women, but


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[Assistant] As they investigated some more of the claims, they started to wonder how much of this is truth and how much of this is exaggerated. Right. They were able to say he is violent. He's a violent monster. Clearly. He's a violent sexual offender. He's a violent murderer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But then, there were other things, like, this is where it's gonna get kinda wild.


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[Assistant] At one point he told investigators that he'd partially cannibalized some of the victims and had even served some of these victims.


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[Assistant] He said quote, I cut the meat up and put it in some Tupperware bowls then put it in the freezer.


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[Assistant] I opened up a little open pit beef stand. I had real roast beef and pork sandwiches. They were very good.


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[Assistant] The human body taste was very similar to pork if you mix it together. No one can tell the difference. Jesus Christ. Of course, everyone seized onto this part in the press because who wouldn't? Why wouldn't that shock literally everyone? But it should be noted here that there is no evidence of him having a sandwich stand of any kind. Yeah. Maybe he did.


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[Assistant] Who knows? Right. He absolutely could have. And he sounds capable of it. But I think this is one of those things that he said to shock people. Because all of the victims that were found were intact aside from


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[Assistant] The mandible being left, right? That's what it seems like.


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[Assistant] I don't, he could be trying to say these are the other victims that you can't find the bodies of. And then you would also think that if he was living at least in that trailer at the time, they would find evidence of that. Yeah, that's what I was thinking.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think it's him lying. Right. Cause the other thing is, he didn't, other than that trailer, it doesn't sound like he had a set up home. So where was he really doing? Exactly. Where would he have been able to do that? Exactly. So I think it's just him lying. What a fucked up thing to lie about. A really fucked up lie.


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[Assistant] And I think he said he would have kept going until Rita Kemper got away. Like he would have kept going after her.


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[Assistant] Oh my god. So that is true. That's like a nightmare.


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[Assistant] This is how he described her getting away by the way. He said, I turned around for a split second and that was my mistake.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She ran out the door before I could get to her. There was an 8 foot chain link fence with barbed wire on top of it around the front of the company. There was a stack of wooden pallets next to the fence about 10 feet high. That bitch scaled those pallets like a monkey and jumped the fence and ran down to the main road where some guy in a pickup truck


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Picked her up and took her to a nearby gas station where they called the cops.


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[Assistant] Holy shit, she's killed a ten foot pallet. Yeah, good for her.


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[Assistant] And he supposedly ended his confession with this very crass ending.


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[Assistant] Now, within days of his arrest, his defense attorney, Margaret Mead, told reporters, I don't know if what the state is calling a confession is really a confession. Which makes sense for a defense attorney to say, but also, like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, probably not. And she said that Matheny was depressed, confused, and under a lot of medication.


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[Assistant] When he made that confession. And as far as she knew, any crimes committed were done, quote, under the influence of heroin, cocaine or alcohol.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Doesn't mean he didn't murder people. You still can't murder people. Like that doesn't fix that. It's always against the law. Yeah. What's wild to me about this is she said that then in relation, so she said that in relation to the confessions about the murders of Catherine, Tony and Kimberly. She said, I have no reason not to believe him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's what she told the later reporters. So she said, the confession is bullshit, but I have no reason to not believe it. I don't know if the state, what the state is calling a confession is really a confession.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then she said, he's depressed, confused, under a lot of medication, we can't really believe him, don't listen to what he says. But I don't have any reason. But then she says, I have no reason not to believe him. And then she said, I've always found him to be forthright and honest. So you just fucked yourself, ma'am. Like, what?


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[Assistant] Like, you literally, what? I feel like the defenses that we're talking about lately, like some of them I'm just like, you wrote that down? Like, what? But then I'm like, was that meant to just confuse people?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He constantly allowed him to work there, allowed him to stay there, so of course he's gonna, I don't know if, it doesn't sound like there's any evidence to connect Joseph Stein to any of these crimes, so I'll say that. Sounds like he was legally cleared.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, after working to verify all the claims that he started making in his confession, investigators were pretty confident, at least about his confessions to the murders of, uh, Catherine Kimberly and Tony Lynn.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So on January 30th, Joe Matheny was indicted for the three killings, and a trial date was set for March of 19- for in March of 1997. But by the time the arrangement came in March,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The detectives have been unable to find any evidence conclusively linking him to the murder of Tony Lennon-Gracia.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Really? So they had forced the district attorney, Patricia Jessamy, to drop the charges in the third murder because they didn't have sufficient evidence, even though he confessed to it.


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[Assistant] And he, that was, he did not lead them to that body? No, he did not. Oh, okay, okay. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now despite confessing to the killings, he did plead not guilty to the murders of Catherine and Kimberly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And a trial date for that was set for July 8th, 1997. Okay. So now we're only gonna be able to get him on the two. That's sad. So in a press conference following that arraignment, Jessamy, the district attorney, indicated that she intended to seek the death penalty.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, this would be the first time it was invoked in Maryland since 1993. Wow. According to Margaret Mead, the, uh, the defense attorney, she said the district attorney's office had originally offered a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole in exchange for a plea of guilty. But Margaret Mead said that was not a reasonable plea.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, she was not going to allow him to plead guilty. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They said quote, I think with the facts of this case, it would be better off if this were in another jurisdiction.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But don't worry, because while he was awaiting that trial, he went on trial for the kidnapping and assault of Rita Kemper in November of 1997.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The prosecution for this case went about it by showing the jury that Matheny was a violent, unpredictable predator who lost it when Rita Kemper refused his very aggressive advances.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they claimed he had every intent on killing her, and they were 100% right, in my opinion. Abso-fucking-lutely. But his defense just said, and I quote,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Prosecutors were taking a simple dispute between Matheny and Kemper and having it blown up to include attempted murder.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm sorry, but if a simple motherfucking dispute ends in me scaling a ten foot, uh, pallet and then hopping over a barbed wire fence. Also? Nothing simple about that. He later confesses to it. He didn't confess to it at this point, but he had confessed to it later.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, he definitely did this. He definitely did. It's exactly how Rita Kemper said it happened. It's how she said it happened and up until the point where he says the cop showed up, their stories kind of match up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On November 17th, after a very short deliberation, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty in the attempted murder of Kemper, but found him guilty of the assault, kidnapping, and sexual assault charges. And he did get 50 years in prison for this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is before he even goes on trial for murder. So he's already in there for 50 years.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Holy shit, I'm very interested as to why they didn't find him guilty on the attempted murder.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think maybe they just couldn't get, attempted murder I feel like is a tough one. It's a hard one to prove. This may have led to how they found Matheny on Sunday, March 22nd in his jail cell. This sentence. Prison guards found him unconscious and bleeding heavily from a wound to his neck.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was transported to the University of Maryland Medical Center for treatment and he lived.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pretty much the same kind of thing. Bethany was a violent predator who, when refused by any women, just took what he wanted aggressively, however he could. We see that. And they used the confession as some of the most damning evidence against him and it was played in full for the court.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That must have been horrible to hear. On the tape, he can be heard saying, I killed her. I'm a very sick person. I need help.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he testified that Matheny was alert and cooperative at the time of the interview and gave interviewers every reason to believe he was being truthful about the murders of Catherine and Kimberly. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now after the kidnapping and attempted rape and murder trial of Rita Kemper, his defense team probably knew this wasn't going to go their way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they went about it by just kind of mitigating any further and previous damages that they could.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, Mead told the court that there were, quote, mitigating factors in Matheny's history, like his drug addiction and being raised in a supposedly abusive household.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this led him down a path, you know, of addiction and violence and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After three weeks of the trial, Judge Clifton Gordy found Matheny guilty of the first degree murder of Kimberly Spicer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, because he, uh, forwent a jury trial. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. And although the district attorney's office did want that death penalty, Judge Gordy said that they, quote, had failed to establish that Matheny robbed Spicer or sexually assaulted her while she was alive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Either of these things would have made him eligible for the death penalty. What a wild world we live in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it's wild to me that like, murder doesn't constitute the death penalty alone. You have to be sexually assaulted while you're still alive. That's why the death penalty is a wild thing. It is weird. I didn't realize that was part of it. At least in Maryland, I guess. Weird scenario.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now that the Kimberly Spicer trial was done and he had been found guilty and got life, the trial for Catherine Magaziner was upon them and the death penalty was again going to be sought for this one. So on September 25th, uh, Joe Matheny actually chose to rescind his not guilty plea and entered a guilty plea.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, they said he murdered Catherine, stole her clothing in purse, and had later buried, had buried it on the Stein lot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Dessa created her body, all which was done for quote, a sense of power, and because he got a rush out of it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he did say this himself during his confession. He said his murder rampages started as revenge, he said, but ended up as quote, a passion for the taste and overwhelming sense of power that one gets from taking another's life. Wow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After four days of testimony, the jury deliberated for just two hours and then sentenced Joe Matheny to death.


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[Assistant] Along with a concurrent sentence of 10 years for the robbery.


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[Assistant] Which, if they were going by the requirements laid out to them by Judge Gordy, they were I guess right with this sentencing.


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[Assistant] So he literally said, you will never hear me say I'm sorry, cause that would just be a lie. I'm not sorry. Wow.


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[Assistant] In a press conference after the hearing, his defense team told reporters that his statement to the jury, quote, belies his feelings of guilt and self-hatred, but he got what he wanted.


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[Assistant] Good try, good try with that one. So in 2000, Joe Matheny's death sentence came under mandatory review by the court of appeals. That constitution thing.


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[Assistant] They said the prosecution had failed to present sufficient evidence to support the claim of robbery as an aggravating circumstance deserving a death sentence. That's also happening a lot lately in our cases. Yea, it is. It's a factor, but it's not an aggravating factor. Yea, it's true. That is. That's funny.


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[Assistant] The issue wasn't whether he had killed and robbed Catherine.


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[Assistant] Like the justices were like, yes, we agree with all of that. It was if he robbed her. But whether he had murdered the woman in the commission of a robbery, which would make that eligible for death penalty. And they reviewed the case and the court determined that he had taken Magaziner's belongings after killing her, but it was done


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[Assistant] Primarily to get rid of evidence and to take what little cash she had as an afterthought. It wasn't the primary thing. Or like you, we were just saying, an aggravating circumstance.


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[Assistant] Now, in the final report, Justice James Smith said Matheny was charged with robbery only because the body and the clothing were found in different locations. Another person who had killed their victim but buried the victim in her clothes would not qualify for the death penalty.


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[Assistant] So as a result, all his convictions were upheld, but the death sentence was vacated and this case was sent back to the lower court for resentencing.


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[Assistant] Which, he did end up getting sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.


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[Assistant] So he was quickly transported to Western Correctional Institution in Cumberland.


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[Assistant] He later, during more confessions, would claim he had a six year old son with a girlfriend.


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[Assistant] And one day while he was at work as a truck driver, she took him.


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[Assistant] So this was his way of being like, this is why I did this. Revenge. And in his confession, he said he killed three men and four women on his way to this revenge. He said two men I chopped up with an axe under a bridge in South Baltimore.


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[Assistant] This is because he said they were two men who did drugs with his old lady.


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[Assistant] He then said, under that same bridge I killed two women and one man who was fishing and just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.


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[Assistant] I weighed down their bodies and put them in the river. I showed the police where I put them about three years later, but they couldn't find them so they couldn't charge me for them.


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[Assistant] He claimed it was a very busy night for him that night. Five murders in seven hours.


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[Assistant] Exactly. Ash just did that mmmm face like, no. I was like, I don't think so. I found no record of this man ever having a child, by the way. Yeah.


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[Assistant] No record. He can't find it. It sounds like he's just trying to be like, I am such a doting father and that's why this all happened. He did not have a child. Joe Matheny does not have a child. Not one he knew about, that's for sure.


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[Assistant] Now on the afternoon of Sunday, August 5th, 2017, guards at the Western Correctional Institution in Cumberland discovered Joe Matheny unresponsive in his cell around 3pm.


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[Assistant] He was pronounced dead a short time later and an investigation was launched to determine the cause and circumstances of his death. But to this day, there appears to be no cause of death that has been released to the public.


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[Assistant] Story of Joe Matheny. That was, that was a particularly brutal one. Yeaah. It's just upsetting. And it's so sad, uhm, that


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[Assistant] One of the victim's mothers was like, she always came back. That's the thing, like, she did leave when we would have an argument, but always. That's so sad.


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[Assistant] Yeah. She probably was just waiting for her daughter to come back and then she finds out what exactly would happen to her. It's like, oh my god. Yeah, so.


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[Assistant] Wow. That was a really rough, it's just a case that makes you feel really gross afterwards. Yeaah, it's just bizarre. So whenever these like, people go after people who they deem


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[Assistant] To be unworthy of being missed. Yeaah. You know, that's when it really is like, ugh.


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[Assistant] It's such an unsettling case too because as much as he is a liar, I do wonder.


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[Assistant] Well, you just don't know. That's the thing. That's the problem is you don't know the bounds of his lies. And especially like Albert Fish. Yeah. Well, and especially where he lived in that community for so long and like... Yeah. You know, like... There's truths in there. Yeah. Like, it's not all lies, but...


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[Assistant] He definitely is exaggerating a lot of it. I don't believe there's any.


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[Assistant] I hope you're somewhere terrible. That's for sure. Somewhere gross.


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[Assistant] Or somewhere really clean, cause I think that would stress you out more.


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[Assistant] Yeah, you know. Just in like a weird like white cubicle. Yeah, just that's it. With nothing in it. With nothing in it. Just drive you crazy. Yeah, terrible story. That was interesting.


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[Assistant] I commend you for being able to put that together. Thank you.


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[Assistant] Hey weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Elena.


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[Assistant] And this is a special Listener Tales edition of Morbid with one of our fantastic Morbid Network hosts, John Lee Brody of That Was Pretty Scary.


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[Assistant] We're so happy to have you. And I love those deep dives, they're so fun. Those are huge.


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[Assistant] Send us dates. Yup. Hashtag made it. Our people will call your people. Let's make this happen. It's happening.


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[Assistant] Let me get the lights for you. That would have freaked me out so bad. I feel like that was just like fucking around with her.


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[Assistant] Help yourself. I love snacks. Looking for a snack. We got hummus. We got carrots. Help yourself. Let me know what you want me to stock in there. I'll do it. Just leave a post-it. Exactly.


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[Assistant] That was really good. I was there. Painting a picture. Yeaah. I liked that. Or maybe a portrait.


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[Assistant] Well, our next one is Listener Tales Haunted Roads, the time I let my teenagers talk me into dumb shit and I noped the fuck out of Hatchetman Road, Michigan. Why did you yes the fuck into Hatchetman?


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[Assistant] It says, hello ladies, here is my listener tale of the time I let my teenage daughters talk me into doing something I knew better than to do and saw a demon ghost girl and had to nope the fuck out of there.


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[Assistant] I think I get a new biggest fear any time somebody tells us something awful. There it is. I kept myself busy for a small time doing this. Still not tech savvy, uh, yea, no, still not tech savvy, so I did make you a puttifa, but I didn't know how to double space it. I did make it a size 14 font for your viewing pleasure though, so just know I tried.


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[Assistant] Hello ladies, my name is Amber and yes, you can say my name. You can also use my teenager's names because if you read this on the pod, we will all just shit ourselves. Just poop everywhere.


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[Assistant] Let's start off with the normal gushing. We love you, you ladies have made us laugh and cry and feel so many emotions. I appreciate everything you ladies do and all the time you take to making sure you have all the facts while respecting all the victims and their families. Thank you. Thanks. We started listening to your pod during the pandemic. I had never listened to podcasts before and you were the second one I'd found and I was hooked.


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[Assistant] Then they'd listen to me, or then they'd listen to it with me in the car and soon, me listening without them would hurt feelings because they loved you just as much as I did. I love that. Thank you guys. Listener Tales are their favorite and they've been begging me to send this in for a couple months so I'm finally taking the time to do it.


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[Assistant] Hell yeaah. So, when I was a teenager I grew up living about a mile from the creek.


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[Assistant] This was the road, or this was a road that the pavement ended on and about a mile up was one of, was a one lane bridge that was over a small cold creek. It was the creek.


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[Assistant] It was definitely not the most perfect area to smoke pot, an underage drink, the couple of beers that we hid from our parents during the week. Nope.


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[Assistant] As far as my kids are concerned, their mother was a perfect angel who would have never done things like that. No. And that's definitely not why they never would get away with anything because I had never been there. Nor have I ever done that. Of course you have not. No, me either. I believe that. No way, Jose. Never.


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[Assistant] Now fast forward to last summer when I was talking to an old friend from that time period and she said something about Hatchetman Road. And I'm like, where? And she says, the Crickamber. That place we used to hang out at is one of the most haunted roads in Michigan.


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[Assistant] Looking back, we'd never been there at night, except one time when my brother's car broke down. It just wouldn't start. So we ended up walking home, and as it got dark,


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[Assistant] I had been terrified. I chalked it up to just being scared of the dark and my brother trying to scare me. So I of course tell my kids about it during one of their sleepovers where they're all trying to scare each other.


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[Assistant] I tell them about how the man was scared of the apocalypse, built a bomb shelter where he made them all live, until he slowly went mad.


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[Assistant] Then, trying to spare his family of what he believed was coming, he murdered all of them with a hatchet and then killed himself.


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[Assistant] But let's face it, I'm kind of a pushover, and I love all the spooky things, and I've definitely created these monsters of mine, so I cave, and I tell them all to load up. I feel that. Hatchet Man Road is still only a hop, skip, and a jump away from where I live now, so it didn't take long for all of us to pull onto the dirt side of the road and come to a stop.


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[Assistant] Just a pause so I could roll down the windows and turn off the radio to set the mood while Alexis started recording on my phone and placed it in the, uh, placed it back in the mount.


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[Assistant] It was fun. Creeping at all of about six miles an hour and hearing all the cracks and breaks of the twigs and the chirping of the crickets. I'm there.


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[Assistant] I planned on trying to scare my kids like a good parent would. Of course. Asking if they saw that while actually seeing nothing and if they heard that while knowing it was just their own heavy breathing. You know, just character building. I love you, Amber. I do too.


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[Assistant] So Lex started doing the normal talk to the ghosties, asking if anyone was there, if they were, and if they wanted to talk to us, they could.


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[Assistant] But there was nothing much. So we come up to the crick and I pull over so they can get out for a minute and goof off.


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[Assistant] No. I'm unsure of the kids at this point, but me being the whole ass adult that I'm supposed to be at 35, stomach dropped, and I had zero issue at that point leaving a child if they did not get into the car fast enough.


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[Assistant] So as we all fumbled over each other tripping and getting into the car, we rolled up the windows and locked the doors, cause you know, ghosts can't get in if the doors are locked. Of course not. That's the rules. I know, right?


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[Assistant] As we flipped around and started to head out, friend number two and Ash were giggling in the backseat about how she almost lost a shoe, and what on earth was that scream?


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[Assistant] Absolutely fucked up. But then Alexis turned and looked at her all mean and says, you're full of it. You're the only one saying those things to make yourself feel cool.


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[Assistant] I hit the brakes and was just like, what's wrong with you and why would you say that?


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[Assistant] Lexi, stop. You don't say things like that. She went full send. I even chime in and tell her to stop. We were just trying to have fun and now she was turning into a real jerk. She then started to throw her 16 year old teenage attitude around and I just looked at her and said, that's it. We're going home. We're done. You're being mean to the ghost.


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[Assistant] I tell the kids to make sure that they're buckled and apologize again to friend number one who's visibly shaken and pale. Alexis isn't a jerk like that. She loves all her friends. She's a really sweet, caring, and compassionate kid.


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[Assistant] It was at this exact moment I went to turn the phone recording off. When I looked at my phone that was pointed in front of the car, my blood ran cold or hot. I don't actually recall if I knew the exact temperature, but I know that I couldn't feel my legs. I couldn't even talk.


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[Assistant] I had just hand nudged Alexis and she started freaking out and soon


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[Assistant] With a, with a teddy bear. The teddy bear makes it real. Yeaah.


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[Assistant] And there's nothing. Okay, well I guess you checked, now it's time to leave. But I look back at the camera, and she's still fucking there. It's one of those things where you can't believe your own eyes. Open, close them, rub them, it doesn't go away. So it almost paralyzes you.


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[Assistant] But, there she was, standing in the trees. You could feel her, er, no, no, sorry. You could see her from head to toe.


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[Assistant] And it was the darkest, blackest holes I've ever seen. It's Samara. I literally hate this, David. I don't like it.


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[Assistant] In this moment, I no longer wanted to be the adult. I wanted my bed, my safe, and my warm bed. The one that has my big 230 pound burly husband in it.


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[Assistant] The same husband who probably would have said no and stuck with no because even though he's not the responsible one in the relationship, he is not going to go ghost hunting with teenagers at midnight. Nope.


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[Assistant] I'm really sorry I acted like that back there. I honestly don't know why I did. I just felt so angry and frustrated.


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[Assistant] Now, I don't scare easily. I never really have. When I started, I was sensitive earlier. I just always know if a house is haunted.


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[Assistant] Or not just from walking into it. I've cleaned houses since I was a kid with my mom because she owned her own cleaning business and doing what we would call the empties.


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[Assistant] I would, I'd walk into a good handful, and no I was not alone.


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[Assistant] There's a couple great stories from the ghost who would slam doors and turn the lights off while I was in the room. What would stop if I sang along to my MP3 player? Or the one where I went to walk into the basement and was so overcome with dread, I refused to go all the way down the stairs. So while I was vacuuming, the hose came undone three times. The third time, I was watching it.


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[Assistant] And at eight months pregnant, noped the fuck out of there. But this is a road of- this is a road tails, so I'll save those for a later date.


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[Assistant] Hopefully by then I'll have another ghost story because I just moved into a house that was built in 1900.


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[Assistant] That's what it sounded like. Yeah, that she was suddenly being like nasty when she's really not. She was like, yeah, sorry I was backed in like a turd back there. That wasn't me. And she's like, no, it's fine. It was him.


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[Assistant] Well, John, thank you so much for coming on and thank you for bringing stories with you too.


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[Assistant] But not so weird that you go ghost- No, I think you should keep it so weird that you go ghost hunting and experience terrible things. Keep it this weird. Hell yea. Bye guys. Bye.


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[Assistant] It's a multi-parter! And it's like a celebration of our fuckin' five podcastin' years, guy!


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[Assistant] The last episode that we did, uh, I got the stomach bug that night. Yeaah. So. Yeaah. So far. Cause everybody was like, huh, Ash hasn't been doing great though.


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[Assistant] BeachGem on TikTok, she'll tell you all about it. Oh, and you know what I learned from BeachGem? I think it was BeachGem that said it, and you've said it before too.


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[Assistant] But, I think you said it last time you were sick, you can't use hand sanitizer to get rid of the neurovirus, and do you know why?


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[Assistant] You know what though, some families are like that. Especially if there's one boy, he's always like the


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[Assistant] I fucking hated chemistry in high school.


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[Assistant] I don't know, whatever we took, I didn't understand, but what's worse than chemistry is the other fucking one that you have to take. Maybe it starts with a P?


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[Assistant] Of course, I can't imagine, you have no idea what you're about to sweep under that, from under that bed, and it's a baby.


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[Assistant] And like taking the right steps, like he was going to Z when you should have been at F.


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[Assistant] Because he could've just, like shaking his hand is one thing when you're a fu- when you lied to his fucking face. You're shaking his hand and being like, hey asshole, you lied for me technically.


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[Assistant] Wow, Minnie. Like, you were just here to teach him French. What made you think he's gonna revolt to murder?


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[Assistant] I love that she was a full-blown witch. Oh, a full-blown witch. You can't tell me anything else. No, Minnie Everett, she knew. Oh, there's been people that I've said that, not the murder thing, but like, that's like the best feeling.


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[Assistant] Do you have any idea how he came up with that name? I do not. He just wanted HHH.


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[Assistant] That's a thing I've never thought of. Like, if you murder your family and you're a murderer, who gets your life insurance payout? Like, do you get a payout?


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[Assistant] If you've murdered somebody? No, I don't think you get it if you were, like. No, but like the person, so like if you have murdered and then killed yourself, whoever is in your policy gets that money. Exactly.


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[Assistant] Is that what you said? You said bumpin', right? I said bumpin', I sure did. That was something I said. You know bumpits are coming back? That's upsetting. Yeah, that's how we'll end this.


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[Assistant] Woohoo, thanks guys. We love you and we hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep.


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[Assistant] But that's weird that this entire time, every single time Alina has said something about him writing his own autobiography, all you can think of is Ashley Simpson singing autobiography while Henry Holmes, or is that his name? Henry? Yeah. And while he writes his autobiography and he's like, my autobiography. That's all I've been thinking. Bye.


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[Assistant] And it's morbid in the morning. It is, but it's one of those that I'm not sure why I kept for the morning because it's not gonna start your day out. Oh. On a great note.


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[Assistant] There's just like random shit going around in the universe. Yeah, maybe. You know, we saw, um, Corinne and Sabrina from Two Girls, One Ghost recently. We had a little recce with them. That was so fun. I love them so much. And Corinne had a shirt on that said, what was the shirt?


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[Assistant] I love it so much. Also, if you haven't listened to Two Girls, One Ghost, go listen to them. It's a fun, spooky-ass time, and they're wonderful. They're so funny. Go listen to them.


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[Assistant] Uh, but yeaah, so Ash's tummy hurts, but she's being really brave about it. Thank you. So there's that. I keep finding, and I was saying this this morning to Ash,


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[Assistant] Now I'm in this phase of life where I can't stay up after the girls go to sleep. I sit on the couch and I just pass out. Yeah. And it's been happening for like weeks and I'm like, why can't I stay awake?


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[Assistant] I am like, I can handle like a few hours of sitting and like doing something else at night, but now it's as soon as I sit on that couch I'm out.


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[Assistant] We're doing a lot, man. It's not gr- I don't love falling asleep like that. I gotta figure out- You know what it is? It's a blanket. Hello. I figured it out. No, it's- I'm not doing anything.


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[Assistant] Routine with it, I feel like it like energizes me. Okay. In a way that I don't think is happening right now. So maybe I, I think I stopped when I got like,


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[Assistant] Sick at one point, I was like, oh, I gotta take a break. Yeah. And then I just didn't do it again, I've been meaning to. Do it, girl. I gotta do it. We also got- Because I think it helps.


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[Assistant] I think it's necessary. I need some physical activity. Yea, walk a mile in these lube-a-tons. Exactly. In these lube-a-tons. Yea, that's iggy. Are you walking in lube-a-tons?


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[Assistant] No, I think it really is like part of it at least. Maybe. I'm hoping that physical activity will make, I think it will make me feel better as like, in general.


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[Assistant] And when I saw them suggest it, I was like, I'm sorry, what? Because they were like, can you do the bone breaker case? And I said, what? Excuse me? And then I looked it up and I said, what? Excuse me? I didn't know this existed. Oh no. And this is real rough. So.


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[Assistant] Let's begin July 10th, 1994. We got a 90s case. It's the 90s. This is when the body of 14-year-old Chris Steiner was found floating in the Wisconsin River.


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[Assistant] He was discovered after a nearly week-long desperate search for him, who had, and he had mysteriously disappeared seemingly into thin air from his parents' home in Baraboo, Wisconsin.


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[Assistant] Uh, his cause of death was officially labeled as death by drowning, and the theory police were going with was that he snuck out of his house by his own volition that night to go swimming with friends. Doubt it. They ruled it was just a tragic accident. According to them, there was no other evidence to prove anything else.


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[Assistant] But was it an accident? No. Or was this the beginning of a case that has torn my entire nervous system to shreds? The ladder. It is, that's literally what I wrote in my notes. Oh my god. It was the ladder. I am a psychic. You are. We are one.


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[Assistant] Uh, so let's begin with Chris Steiner's death, because this is so tragic.


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[Assistant] And in the middle of the night, he was in his home, and then he just wasn't. And then they found him floating in a river a week later.


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[Assistant] And they had no answers. Like, at first, this was just an accidental drowning, and his parents never believed that. Well, cause parents know. They just know, but they had to wait, like, a long time to figure out what actually happened to him, and it's even worse.


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[Assistant] So on the morning of July 4th, 1994,


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[Assistant] Kathy Steiner, Chris's mom, went to wake up her son, 14 year old Christian, known as Chris Steiner.


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[Assistant] Who would have been asleep in his bedroom at this point? So she went in his room, she opened up the door, and she found that the room was empty.


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[Assistant] Now Chris was supposed to work a 7am shift at McDonald's that morning, so alarm bells immediately went off. Uh, cause he had just started that job, and he was excited about that job, so he wouldn't have just failed.


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[Assistant] So Cathy informed her husband George that Chris wasn't in his bed and together they searched the house.


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[Assistant] During the search, they found that the window screens in their other son's bedroom had been sliced. Ooh, I don't like that. Yeah. And both the front and back doors to the house were unlocked. Oh shit. Yeah. And there was no sign of Chris anywhere. So they immediately called the police to report him missing. But imagine this


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[Assistant] Whatever happened, this person came through their other child's bedroom into this child's bedroom.


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[Assistant] Now according to George and Kathy, they had last seen Chris around 10pm the night before.


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[Assistant] He said his father, his father had gone in to check on him in his bedroom, and he was in there. Yeah. And he said quote,


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[Assistant] He had fallen asleep on his bed wearing the clothes he had on that day. And Cathy was like, that was very usual, especially since Chris had worked a long shift at McDonald's.


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[Assistant] That evening, so, and it was his first day on the new job, so he was like,


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[Assistant] He was exhausted. So he just passed out on his bed and his clothes. We just let him do it. Whatever.


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[Assistant] Now, initially, George Steiner suspected that the window screen


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, to the first floor bedroom had possibly been cut by one of Chris's friends.


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[Assistant] Because he was thinking they convinced him to sneak out of the house to go swimming. I think they were hopeful.


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[Assistant] That this was just some like really shitty decision making by his friends. Right.


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[Assistant] And when police checked with Chris's friends, though, they all were like, yeah, no, like we did not see Chris last night.


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[Assistant] And none of them had even seen him that night. And they were like, we definitely didn't go to the house. They all had like, things that...


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[Assistant] I don't think all of them had like rock solid alibis, but I think they were like, we were home. Right.


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[Assistant] So now they ruled out the potential for his having simply snuck out because it just wasn't looking like that, was it?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And investigators kind of shifted their focus to maybe not somebody intruded into the house and came and got him, but instead Chris must have run away.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They were like, it just doesn't fit with any of this. Like you said, the sliced screen was weird.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they said that one of them said, quote, he was believed to be a runaway, but there was not, there's not been any sign of him in a few days. That's what, um, saw, I think it's Soke. Is it S-A-U-K county? Yes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sok County Sheriff's Detective Mary Ward had said that to the press, that there was just no sign of him since then. And that didn't really add up, because it's like if he ran away, you would hear from him or someone would have. Like, where's he running to?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And according to his parents, they said he had never run away before and they couldn't think of any reason.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That he would before or now, and they said there was no stressful events, no triggers that could really have set him off.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Everything was pretty normal. He had just started a new job. He had just vanished.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So like I mentioned before, the day he'd gone missing, Chris had started that new job at McDonald's and he was working with his older brother Jim.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he was super excited about being out of school because it was summertime and he was looking forward to earning all this money at his first job. Like this was a very exciting thing for him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And friends and family worked closely with detectives. They were very forthcoming with any information. Nobody seemed to be holding back anything or being shady. Well that's good. And they all spent a week, all his friends and family were posting missing flyers around Baraboo and the surrounding counties.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The police were on it, they were doing tons of searches.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And George and Kathy Steiner were speaking to every media outlet that they could get there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Faces in front of. I can't imagine how hard that would be.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I, my brain can't even wrap around that because


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To have to talk about it and beg people, like, they were literally saying, like, if you have any information, please come forward, like, if you know where our son is, like, just begging for help. To have to do that. And unfortunately, the search came to an end on July 10th. That's when Chris's body was found floating in the Wisconsin River by two jet skiers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the autopsy was conducted the following day, and the pathologist on the case was Dr. Robert Huntington. And he speculated that Chris's body had been in the water at least two days, but probably longer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, he determined that the cause of death was probably drowning, but he said the advanced decomposition from being in the water


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Made it kind of difficult to determine if anything else had happened.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, so detectives knew where the body was discovered.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But where it went into the bottom, where it went into the water was something that they weren't sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they couldn't tell if he had gone into the water already dead. They couldn't tell where the drowning had occurred. Nothing like that. And there didn't appear at the time to be any signs of physical trauma like bruising or cuts.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they looked at it and said this seems like an accidental drowning, unfortunately. There was really only minor abrasions, but they said that could have been from being in the water. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, given there was no sign of struggle in the home, I don't know why they're ignoring that sliced screen. I was like, that seems struggle-y to me. Yeaah, no apparent trauma to Chris's body.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The sheriff's office started operating on the assumption that Steiner and his friends were out partying and were too afraid to come forward with any information. That's nice. Just doubt.