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[Assistant] Saying quote, to bring the one who did the killing to account is still one of the unfulfilled duties of this office. We will try to get more evidence.


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[Assistant] Now despite his insistence that they were going to continue pursuing this justice for Walter Brooks,


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[Assistant] Judge Mayer's decision in this special session essentially brought the case to an end.


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[Assistant] During which the coroner and jury heard more or less the same testimony presented in the special session.


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[Assistant] And after reviewing the evidence and testimony, the jury concluded


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[Assistant] That the said Walter S. Brooks came to his death on the 15th day of February 1902 at Hudson Street Hospital by a penetrating pistol shot wound of the head, inflicted on the 14th day of February 1902 at the Glen Island Hotel.


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[Assistant] By a revolver in the hands of some unknown person to the jury.


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[Assistant] Now although the hearings had come to an end, the public's interest in Florence and the Burns family continued. We bet.


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[Assistant] Fred and Henrietta Burns were mortified. They thought she had shamed them before?


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[Assistant] And for her part, Florence hardly ever left the house and rather than take any responsibility for her situation, she just grew resentful of everyone else she believed was to blame for everything that had happened to her.


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[Assistant] Like, girl, you shot a man. As far as she was concerned, if her parents hadn't been so strict, or if the Bedford Avenue gang hadn't been such scoundrels, or if Harry Cohen hadn't tried to interfere with her relationship with Walter, none of this would have happened. The fuck did Harry Cohen do? He tried to get, he tried to get Walter to, like, not meet with her.


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[Assistant] How'd that go? Like the members of the Bedford Avenue gang, Wildrick came from a prominent family.


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[Assistant] Rather than take advantage of the opportunities afforded to him, he chose a life of leisure and petty crime. A year before the marriage, Wilderich had been arrested for passing bad checks at hotels. It's like you had the money! A gem. You literally come from a rich family! After hearing testimony from Wilderich's friends and girlfriend, all of whom lied for him.


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[Assistant] It surely didn't help that the theater company billed her as the most persecuted and most beautiful woman in America.


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[Assistant] I don't know about that. Not surprisingly, Florence's debut on the stage was, uh,


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[Assistant] Disaster. Oh god. She had no talent. She had no determination. She refused to rehearse and was generally very unpleasant to everybody around her. Critics called her a dismal and pitiable failure. Which she even do. And they called her ungraceful in her movements. I believe that. She was supposed to dance, but she wouldn't rehearse.


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[Assistant] In January 1907, she moved back in with her parents claiming that he, you know, her husband had been unfaithful. Then she began sending postcards to his employer.


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[Assistant] Which is no relation. Uh, we're arrested for running a scheme known as a badger game.


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[Assistant] Now Florence and Brooks were both arrested and put on trial. Good. After which it took a jury only 12 minutes to find both guilty. 12 minutes. And each were sentenced to 7 to 14 years in prison. Good. Florence was released from prison in August 1918 and can you nude that downward spiral?


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[Assistant] Uh, in 1922, she pleaded guilty to violating the Sullivan Act.


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[Assistant] Firefighters, 1944. Wow, I know. Firefighters responded to a house fire at the home of Florence and her fourth husband, John Stankovich.


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[Assistant] After forcing their way into the home, they found Florence unconscious on the kitchen floor and dragged her out of the house into a hospital where she was revived and sent on her way.


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[Assistant] This was the last time Florence's name appeared in the newspaper until her death in August 1949. No cause of death is given and she is described only as loving wife of John.


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[Assistant] What? And that is Florence Burns and the murder of Walter Brooks. Wow. What? I think I said wow at least.


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[Assistant] There's just a fire at her house, they find Florence unconscious on the kitchen floor, they drag her ass out, bring her to the hospital, revive her, send her on her way, and no one hears from her again.


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[Assistant] Until she dies. That's so eerie. Like what, like five years later or four years later? Yeaah.


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[Assistant] And nobody even knows how she died. No, no cause of death is given.


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[Assistant] It's just got a lot of like, what the hell's going on here?


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[Assistant] For his family, I know. That's just the fact that they could see it coming. And that they were trying to, you know, kind of save him from it.


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[Assistant] I feel it's, it's not like any of the Bedford Avenue gang were like good.


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[Assistant] Individuals, you know. I mean no one deserves to die though, and it's like- Well and it sounds like he wasn't- It looks like he was trying to get away from this situation. Yeaah. You know? Right. And it's just like- That's crazy. That could be a movie. It really could.


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[Assistant] Like it really could. You could see this being like such a visually wild movie to watch. Absolutely. She really got away with it man. She sure did.


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[Assistant] We won't, trust me, but we figured we'd just start you off with how wily we are.


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[Assistant] Been through a lot of different subjects today. Yeaah. Hit a lot of different things. Yeaah.


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[Assistant] Immediately. Because he's like, I know what I've dipped into.


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[Assistant] What he said, what they had told him it was, you know what I mean? Or if it was a scare tactic, and they did something else that, you know. Fucked him up for a little while. That was just like made you lose your


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[Assistant] Like maybe it was, and this is me totally speculating because obviously I have no fucking clue what's going on. No. That perhaps they told him like he had to do something. In order to get it back.


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[Assistant] It's, it's like, so did he have like injuries? Like he had been in a fight? No. Like somebody had punched him? No.


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[Assistant] To me that feels like it's like you get punched and break a teeth. Break a teeth. Break a tooth and like.


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[Assistant] Cause it's like, it doesn't sound like there was any blood spatter in the car to indicate that he was killed in a car. Nope.


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[Assistant] And it's like you wonder if there was blood spatter on the ground at the scene.


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[Assistant] This is, wow, this is a weird one. It is. And I would, I would love to know like the, the analytics of like the crime scene. Yeah, like the, like any blood spatter and like what direction it looked like it was going in, cause it's like, did it look like he was looking this way? Did it spatter that way? Did it?


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[Assistant] Right. Because it's like that is an easier way to do it if you turn your head to the side. Yup. Than doing it back there. Right.


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[Assistant] But if you do it like this, your angle's a little more, and if somebody was holding your hand to make it look like you did it, kind of thing, that's an easier angle to go about it.


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[Assistant] That's the only reason I could think of that he has GSR on his left hand. Right. Which he doesn't use. Right. And that there's no fingerprints on the gun.


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[Assistant] He seemed like he was in a big state of paranoia. Yes.


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[Assistant] Rightfully so. Rightfully so with what he had gone through. And he had all this stuff kind of closing in a little bit. So it's like...


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[Assistant] It wouldn't be shocking, it would be very tragic, but it wouldn't be.


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[Assistant] And that's the thing, it's like, so we know he wasn't just like, out there.


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[Assistant] You're such a strange angle to do it.


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[Assistant] Like that, I can't get over that. Like they're saying like, oh, he could have done it with his thumb. Why though? Why would he do that? Right. Like why would he do that? What would the point be? Like this is an awful thing to think about, but it's like, why would he not just do the...


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[Assistant] Or in the, you know what I mean, like as awful as that is to think about. Why would you


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[Assistant] When you look at the writing, because you can find a picture of the dollar, of the two dollar bills, so you can see the writing if you look it up.


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[Assistant] It's, it's clear that person tried to disguise their writing because they write all in capital letters. Right.


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[Assistant] Which there's so many strange little, yeaah, none of this is making sense. I don't, right now to me it just doesn't feel like it makes much, uh, the most


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[Assistant] That wasn't there. Right. And he wasn't. So it does make sense?


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[Assistant] Maybe he was at the motel. Possibly that that was him. Yea. Because like, again, where, where would he be? Yea. If he wasn't, like where was he all that time if he


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[Assistant] He's trying to keep it away from the people he cares about the most.


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[Assistant] Cause it's like whatever that like two dollar bill thing was or like maybe he was supposed to do something and they were like, you know, we'll leave you alone or whatever. Do this and you'll get it back. And it's like, so maybe he had to go back.


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[Assistant] To start that process of whatever it is they were having him do or wanted him to do. Yep. And


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[Assistant] Maybe that's the only reason he went back because he thought he was going to end up helping his family in the long run by like getting this.


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[Assistant] Yeah, like maybe this was supposed to be like, you get this, we do this.


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[Assistant] You'll get all your shit back at the end of it, like we're holding it for collateral. Right. So he goes away from his family and everything to try to keep them out of it, but then he comes back to try to do whatever it is he needs to do, goes back or doesn't do it in time.


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[Assistant] But it sounds more like he just went back to finish off the deal.


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[Assistant] Right. And maybe that's what he thought was gonna happen. And maybe they did everything, they took that money from him, because, and they...


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[Assistant] Cause even if you're sitting there, coming to the, the whole like, okay, maybe he was, he had to go do something and they wanted him to have this money and he was supposed to meet them somewhere. Who's them? Who's them? You can't, you don't even know where to begin.


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[Assistant] Like that could be a whole different kind of scenario. Exactly.


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[Assistant] That's very interesting, because it's like, if the pathologist isn't willing, then that gives me pause. Yeah.


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[Assistant] Yeah, cause when they, when a pathologist refuses to, to bend to the sheriff,


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[Assistant] Or somebody else, with that I'm like, what's going on?


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[Assistant] Yeah, to me it seems like, and for her to say that, for her to say there's no way something wouldn't happen without him leaving communication for me and for his girls.


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[Assistant] That's her saying like, I know him as a man and as a father and as a husband and I know that he wouldn't have left this world without talking to us with a note. At least giving us like something. You know, just giving us some kind of communication for why. And it doesn't, I don't think


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[Assistant] From what she's saying again, I also don't know Chuck, I don't know this family. But, I don't know, it just doesn't seem like he...


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[Assistant] Would have wanted to leave all this mystery for his children and his wife.


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[Assistant] I agree with that. Cause that's a lot to grapple with for them to have to wonder.


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[Assistant] So what she's saying I think makes the most sense to me, which is he would have left notes for us. I think so too. Explaining what was going on and what happened.


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[Assistant] So you didn't like these things, these completely just innocuous things that you decided aren't right or socially okay. But because he's such a nice person...


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[Assistant] No. Never. Let's not do that. No. Let's base it off of something totally ridiculous.


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[Assistant] He was just going to say so much to unpack in that statement. It's just like, he was a damn good embalmer, which it's like, you know what? It's necessary.


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[Assistant] Yeaah. The whole point is to look great. Absolutely.


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[Assistant] Just let him like, show too. Again, I don't know exactly what happens after this, so I'm sure I'll change my tune later. Well, fuck that. But like, right now, I'm like, if somebody's being chill, let's just let him like,


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[Assistant] Hold your head up high, hold that head up high girl. Hold that head up high. I hope everybody feels that way sometime in their life. Exactly.


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[Assistant] Oh, neither. I feel like even like, cause you're talking about the people who are like shitty to Bernie because even though he's a good person, they're just mad that he likes show tunes and then these same people are being shitty to her.


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[Assistant] That's where the, uh, that's where it becomes an issue I think.


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[Assistant] Like material reason, but just for like the damn, like that is...


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[Assistant] That is you shuffling off this mortal coil and saying fuck you to the person you took out of your will.


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[Assistant] Yeaah. Like, no, you can't do that. No, you sure can't. But it's like, I don't know if in his mind, he's thinking or convincing himself that he's like Robin Hooding.


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[Assistant] It's like it taints all of this, cause it's almost like you look at like John Wayne Gacy. Everybody loves that guy. And it's like, that's a tactic. Cause then when it comes down to brass tacks at the end,


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[Assistant] Everybody's going, well no, like shut up. Anybody who brings it up would be like, shut up, not Bernie, we love him. And it's like they all get shut down. And it's like, that's a tactic. It absolutely is. It's almost like a cult leader thing. It's like you take


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[Assistant] Wipe your eyes with that cash, Methodist Church. Right? Jesus, come on. Come on.


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[Assistant] I hate that he's like doing good deeds with this, cause you're like, fuck dude, you could've been such a good person.


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[Assistant] And also, you sound like a piece of shit talking about a fucking fiction writer.


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[Assistant] In comparison to like, you know, like you're like, Oh, Stephen King, good to read that, but written that any better. It's like, this is real life. So maybe just look at the video and see that that's real. And that's what that guy did to her and admitted to doing to her.


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[Assistant] You can snap, oops, in the moment. You made a big mistake, but


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[Assistant] This is, this is a lot more than that. It just feels like...


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[Assistant] There's something, you gotta have a lot fucked up inside you to be able to do that shit. 100%. And to be able to walk by that freezer and be able to spend her money. And go into her home.


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[Assistant] That one's not. No. I'm glad that one didn't hold up and they weren't like, well, he was stressed out.


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[Assistant] Thank you. Everybody on the team does such a great job. I was so happy with season one. I got more positive feedback on that than like anything I've ever done in my life. So I'm super excited for everybody to see season two.


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[Assistant] So it was probably about like 50-50 cases they came up with and cases I came up with and they're just the best team to work with and I love them and it's been a lot of fun. That's the dream.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I think for season one, Starstow really stuck with me too. It's one of the unsolved cases. You know, she was at the mansion as a playmate, so I can relate to some of her story. And I had known who she was before, and I knew that something tragic had happened to her before, but I didn't know too many details.


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[Assistant] So right now that's the one that's kind of sticking with me. That's kind of how I feel right now too and I'm sure.


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[Assistant] So to get a little more into this story, like I said, this is about a woman named Lori Bambeneck. She worked as a Playboy bunny for only three weeks at the Lake Geneva, Wisconsin Playboy Resort.


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[Assistant] And it's crazy because, you know, even reading her autobiography, she wasn't really happy with how she was kind of only known in the press as a playboy bunny. And back then when she was on trial, it really worked against her because people saw her as like this manipulative femme fatale, like


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[Assistant] So it's just a good example of how somebody is more than just their headlines and that's why I love getting into these cases is you can dive into more of who the person was.


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[Assistant] And Laurencia Bambeneck, she was born in 1958. She was the youngest of three children born to like a middle class family in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her father, interestingly enough, was a former police officer and he had resigned from the job when he had found out


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[Assistant] She went to Catholic school, she later went on to get her associate's degree in fashion merchandising. After that she worked in retail, she did some modeling where she did, uh, I believe it was a Schlitz beer calendar and some other things.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So Lori graduated, she excelled as a congratulations gift for herself, she brought a bright orange Camaro, and it was a fast car for a woman who was going places. What a badass congratulations


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[Assistant] And there was a lot of socializing where the lines could get kind of blurred. Apparently on the police force at this time, there was a lot of, you know, going out to bars and partying and things like that. There was even later on, she would find pictures of these police gatherings in the,


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[Assistant] So eventually Lori got her, she called to get her schedule and was told not to come in at all. And she was dismissed from the police force because she had gone to a concert with a handful of friends, including Judy.


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[Assistant] They got the job. And back then at the Lake Geneva club, you were supposed to live down there too, kind of in dorms. That makes sense. So there were a lot of rules and regulations working as a bunny. You know, you kind of had to keep your eye on customers and like facilitate their experience all over the place, whether it was at the ski chalet or in the cabaret where there are performances and things like that.


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[Assistant] Finish out like a generational trauma in a way, like if her mother had resigned.


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[Assistant] From the department after seeing corruption, like I wonder how much of that was.


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[Assistant] In her motivation to go after and do this complaint against the police department.


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[Assistant] So despite her grudge against the police department, her social circle still included a lot of people connected to the police. And through a friend, she met a man named Fred Schultz. He was a detective on the Milwaukee Police Department.


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[Assistant] He was dating a friend of hers, but they caught each other's eye and eventually connected after he broke up, broke it off with a friend.


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[Assistant] Former wife and children that he had built himself, k


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[Assistant] And there were times in Lori's autobiography where she mentioned she felt like Fred either wasn't completely over Christine or just had some sort of weird obsession, whether it was resentment that Christine had moved on with someone else and he was still paying the bills.


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[Assistant] But nothing compared to wh in the house that fred ha own two hands in the middl his eldest son had awoken a man had been standing beh with his hands around the boy was able to get free. Th room and into his mother's


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[Assistant] The perpetrator's body as being like very square shouldered and very straight up and down, like not like a more hourglass female figure, like the oldest son was very adamant that it was a man who had done this.


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[Assistant] That's really interesting. That is strange. Yeaah, it is.


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[Assistant] Yeah, so standard procedure after a murder is to canvas the area and look at those closest to the victim. That list included Christine's boyfriend, her ex-husband Fred, Lori,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And their roommate, Judy, because I think I neglected to mention Fred and Lori were living with Judy's S, the woman who was pot smoking a joint and kind of threw Lori under the bus. She was also their roommate. They were just trying to make ends meet. You know, Fred felt like he was giving most of his money, you know, as he should to his kids.


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[Assistant] you know, there was the r seen laying in the hospi at some point. And I guess


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[Assistant] Christine had been shot at close range in the back and the bullet that killed her had gone through her heart. Her wrist was bound with clothesline and a bandana was tied around her face as a gag. After examining the body, police discovered a single strand of reddish-brown hair-like material on her right calf.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A few days after the murder on June 10th, a plumber was called to the apartment complex that Lori, Fred, and Judy lived in. There was something clogging up the pipes between our apartment and the neighbors. The plumber discovered that the cause of this clog was a red wig. The fibers from the wig matched the hairs that were found on Christine's leg.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A day later, the detective came by and took Fred's two guns, his service revolver and his off-duty gun. On June 18th, police ballistics would find that the gun that shot Christine matched the off-duty gun that was in the Schultz apartment on the night of the murder, while Fred was at work and Lori slept at home without an alibi.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Lori spent three nights i her arrest. Her husband F the money together to bail her release because she was let


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Lori began doing interviews with the press. She wanted to make it clear she did not kill Christine Schultz, and she felt she was being set up for speaking out against the Milwaukee Police Department.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the evidence was mostly circumstantial, but the nail in the coffin was testimony from, you guessed it,


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[Assistant] Judy's ass. Oh man. Scary Judy. She's back. Judy claimed that she had heard Lori say that she should have Christine quote unquote dusted.


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[Assistant] She also claimed to know that Lori and Avid Jogger owned a green tracksuit. But Lori, even through her autobiography, insists that she never owned a green tracksuit. That wasn't even a color she really wore.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So she was being painted as a woman who was both a cunning seductress and a woman who was foolish enough to shoot her husband's ex-wife with his gun and then flush the evidence in her own apartment.


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[Assistant] And while she was in prison, she was really active. She did a lot of things. She started a prison newspaper. She started collecting cans to raise money for a salad bar. She felt like the food wasn't healthy and she really advocated for better conditions. So she definitely kept herself busy and was going after the appeals.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So one day during visiting hours at the prison, a friend of hers had her brother come as a visitor. Lori thought he was very good looking and he had just recently gone through a divorce. So Lori's


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They also decided they were going to escape by driving across the border to Canada and they thought the best way to do that without being caught, you know, they needed to come up with fake IDs and they thought the easiest way to do that would be to get real birth certificates. But how are they going to do that without using Lori's name? So they decided to


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or he did go to the cemetery and find gravestones of babies who had died and had birth dates that kind of lined up with their ages. So he took down the names and then wrote to the


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So it's year nine of Lori's sentence and she had been noticing that in the laundry room with the present, there was this little window that was often left open. So that factored into her plan. She was able to squeeze through the small window frame out into the cold night and she sprinted toward her new husband, Dominic, who was waiting there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In his car with the birth certificates ready to drive to the Canadian border.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So a jailbreak is always going to be a big story, but when that involves somebody like Lori, who had already attracted so much media attention in the first place, it became a huge story. And at this point in time, though, everybody who hears about the story is kind of like the overall public sentiment is like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Villified femme fatale and then nine years later everybody's like rooting for her.


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[Assistant] Journalists clamored to get to Canada for an exclusive with her.


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[Assistant] Canadian officials were sympathetic to Lori's case and granted her asylum and only returned her to Wisconsin after obtaining a commitment that there would be a review of her case. She returned to the states in April of 1991. There was enough proof that police had mishandled the investigation that Lori was given the right to a new trial.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I think so. I think they look back on this case and was like, that was very circumstantial. There were a lot of conflicting stories. It wasn't really enough to hold water.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So Lori went on to do a lot of things. She was an artist. She had exhibitions. She moved to Washington state to be closer to her parents who lived in Vancouver at the time. She went on to write a book about her experience called Woman on Trial. I just finished it. It's really good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And while, uh, the DNA test was happening, she was sequestered in, I believe it was like a rented apartment and she was supposedly like locked in there with no phone or anything and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Passing away at a young age, she was only in her early 50s when she passed away from liver and kidney failure in 2010. So young.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh yeaah. The Playboy Murders Season 2 premieres on Monday, January 22nd on Investigation Discovery. And after that it will be available to stream on Macs. So excited!


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh yeaah. It's gonna be weird telling this story with like streamers and like humans on the ground. It's actually really upsetting thinking about it that way actually. I'm looking around like eww. Oh no. Uh, this is gonna be split into two parts. She's got a two part. We got a two part. Cause there's just a lot happening.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A lot going on, and you know, you're gonna absorb this in two phases, because I'm gonna absorb this in two phases. I don't like that you're using the word absorb.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, and you know what, sometimes we, we will record a two-parter or multi-parter like in one day. Yeaah, like back to back. But we'll just release them, you know, in like, absorb, again like, absorbable chunks. I didn't want to say absorbable, in like, palatable chunks for you guys. And this one I was like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're going to record this in two different days because I don't want to talk about the whole thing at once. So that's like, that's how, it's just upsetting. It's not a nice...


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[Assistant] Seventies? Yes. Yeah, uhm, well, actually early eighties. Oh, okay. But some of it happened in the, yeah, it's not great.


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[Assistant] It's like a grimy wild. It is, cause it's like the griminess of the 70s kind of like leaks into the early griminess of the 80s and then it just mixes with some like day glow colors and it gets weird.


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[Assistant] In his home, by an unseen attacker. He wasn't shot, but he was shot at. And in his home, you said? In his home. Jesus. By some unseen attacker outside. And the following day, his coworker, Linda Adair, Linda Adair,


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[Assistant] And although neither Dooley nor Adair knew at the time, these were actually just the first attacks in a violent, senseless, and very confusing crime spree.


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[Assistant] That was committed by Alvin and Judith Ann Neely. Oh man. At the time they were a married couple who, I mean, their brutality is up there.


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[Assistant] And you wonder like how people like this find each other. We say that all the time.


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[Assistant] This one, when you, we get to find out how they found each other, and when you, when you see the entire thing, you're like, wow. This is just...


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[Assistant] This is just like, especially Judy, she did not, I mean, she didn't have a lot of chance here. But what she turned into is a monster. I mean, unthinkable. It really is unthinkable.


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[Assistant] Just like, let you know ahead of time, there is like, speak of sexual assault, there's speak of rape, there's some really gnarly stuff in here, so just like, be warned.


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[Assistant] Alvin though, he's, he's a very confusing case study, I would say, because we're going to talk about it.


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[Assistant] That he kinda didn't really have any signs in the beginning or nothing that we are being told of or confined.


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[Assistant] So Alvin Howard Neely Jr. was born July 15th, 1953 in Trion, Georgia. Arkansas. I had to look up how to say Trion, Georgia because I didn't, I didn't want to mess it up. It was one of those weird.


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[Assistant] It's apparently a small, pretty rural community about two hours from Atlanta. Okay. You said rural so good there. Rural. Yeah, it's hard sometimes. Rural juror.


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[Assistant] Uh, Alvin was the youngest of three children and his early life, like I said, pretty unremarkable, like very normal according to all the things we can find. Allegedly. He had a good home life, he was well liked at school and the community.


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[Assistant] He ended up really getting a reputation for being very charming. He was like a little jokester, a little prankster, but nothing, when he was younger, it was nothing like, oh, he was a prankster and he was pissing people off. It was like, oh, he's just like a little jokester. He's a little charmer, you know? Okay. And he was described as always having a smiling face. So he was just always happy.


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[Assistant] By the time he went to Fort McHenry Elementary School, he had learned that his charm and his very easygoing personality, his smile, his niceness, it was a way he could draw people to him. That's how he was going to get friends. And he also learned in elementary school that he could use it to his advantage a little while. Oh, a little bit. Cool.


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[Assistant] He quickly became the class clown. He really loved making everybody laugh. He would disrupt class a lot, but nothing like crazy. He wasn't getting into trouble really that much. It was just kinda, he was that kid.


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[Assistant] Yeaah, that always pissed me off then and it still pisses me off now. Yeaah. Yeaah. Like whenever the tea, uhm, the girls will tell me about somebody who's like always fucking around in class. Yeaah. I'm like honestly. Don't hang out with them. Shut the fuck up, kids.


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[Assistant] But yea, he loved to make his classmates laugh. And once he got into like adolescence, like early adolescence, he started using his charm and humor to pick up.


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[Assistant] So this all sounds like holy shit, like he's even getting it, like he's a celeb, he's a bougie kid. Like they're letting him into places for, they're letting him into the club for free so that other people come. No cover. Yeah. And he's like early adolescent. He's an influencer. But then.


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[Assistant] And I don't know what happened, but we can't figure out what happened, but he hit high school and he was still a charmer, still had that reputation, was still like thriving in that way, but he started taking like a dark turn in his personality. He was moodier. He suddenly started developing or at least finally showing a very explosive temper.


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[Assistant] That didn't seem to be present before. Okay. And he began committing petty crimes. That eventually escalated to car theft. Shit.


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[Assistant] So like we went from festival of joy to like hitting high school and something really changing.


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[Assistant] I couldn't put- I couldn't find anything. Right. And neither could Dave. We were like, what the fuck happened to this guy?


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[Assistant] Uhm, but that's, so he's escalating already, he's doing petty crimes, like you know, car theft is pretty big.


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[Assistant] And in 1973 when he was 20 years old, he met a 15 year old named Joanne Browning. Nooooo.


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[Assistant] 20 years old, and this girl is 15. Fucking gross. Joanne was an acquaintance of Alvin's half-brother, Betty Farrington, who worked at the local grocery store in Dalton, Georgia, and that's how they met.


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[Assistant] And despite their wild age difference, they began dating.


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[Assistant] Where were Joanne's parents? So this 20 year old man is dating a 15 year old girl. Like what the fuck do you guys have in common? Nothing. So in early 1974, not long after they had began dating,


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[Assistant] Joanne actually moved in with Alvin and quickly became pregnant with what would be the first of the couple's three children. Wow. And at this point was he living on his own? Uhm, at this point, yea. Okay.


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[Assistant] So at first, I think he had, at certain points he had gotten like an apartment by himself and then he would move back in with his parents. So at times he and his wife, or wives we'll find out, will move in with his parents sometimes.


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[Assistant] But it didn't take long before Joanne finally saw that violent temper.


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[Assistant] Now according to Joanne, she said, and this is like trigger warning, like this is pretty upsetting. She said quote, Alvin had beaten her on the breasts and arms and had stretched the corners of her mouth with his fingers.


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[Assistant] Yeah. Isn't that just like fucked up? That's just strange and horrible. Yeah. And she told the jury that this was the first of countless times that he assaulted her. He stretched her mouth? Yeah. What? And he would assault her every time he got mad about anything after that.


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[Assistant] After this, in Cleveland, Tennessee in January 1975, and this is when they moved back in with Alvin's mother at the time. That's just such a


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[Assistant] That idyllic childhood that like was a festival of joy. Right.


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[Assistant] But then he's moving in with his wife and beating the shit out of her while she's pregnant in front of you. And you're not saying anything? I don't know about that.


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[Assistant] Like, I'm not saying anything because I don't know anything, I'm just saying that's strange to me. Yeaah. That's a strange... I don't know.


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[Assistant] That doesn't, that doesn't, the math ain't math in there for me, but I don't know. But.


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[Assistant] Alvin used to be super paranoid that Joanne was having affairs with men in the neighborhood. That was like his obsessive thing. And this was something that would send him to jealous rages a lot and he would physically assault her because of the paranoia.


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[Assistant] And then would also drag her on wild goose chases to go search the neighborhood for her imagined, like, affair partners.


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[Assistant] And he also insisted that she serve him and be submissive in every way at home. She had to bathe him, comb his hair and dress him.


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[Assistant] This is why I'm questioning his, some, what happened.


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[Assistant] What happened? Something's off here. That's weird.


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[Assistant] Getting her to bathe you as a grown ass man? Yeah.


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[Assistant] And there were also times when he would just randomly become violent with her for no reason, like there was no trigger even in his own mind.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and she said he would sometimes hit me with his fist, sometimes just hit me with his whole arm, and of course I would run from him trying to protect myself by hiding in other rooms, but he would bust the door down. Oh my god. So he's just like...


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[Assistant] Now, although he may have felt powerful and dominant in his home life with his wife and his children, outside the home, Alvin was just a complete fucking failure of a human being.


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[Assistant] Uh, from the moment he began working, he struggled to maintain a job. He would travel from one town to the next in search of work and he would just drag his whole family with him. Of course. And eventually he became so demanding that Joanne


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[Assistant] Uhm, or he became so demanding that she finally agreed.


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[Assistant] When he brought up the idea of committing robberies of convenience stores that he worked at in Dalton and Calhoun, Georgia, because he was like, well I can't keep a job, so let's just steal money. Let's just rob places, come on kids. And she was so demanding and scary that she agreed.


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[Assistant] And she claimed out of fear for her safety and safety of their children. I believe that.


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[Assistant] Now at one point Joanne couldn't handle it anymore, so she ran away and left the children with him. Which I'm like, why did you leave the children with him? Yeaah.


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[Assistant] And he threatened to, like, kill them if she didn't return, so she did. That's the thing, like, you're leaving. That's the thing. I was like, that's scary.


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[Assistant] But she came back, and again, but we also have to remember she's a l- a child.


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[Assistant] Yeaah. Like she was 15. She's still a teenager probably at this point. Like at this point she's still a teenager. Wow.


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[Assistant] And so she brought her 13 year old sister with her when she came back, because like, I think she just thought it would be some kind of like comfort. I mean, yeah, I can't even imagine this.


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[Assistant] She thought her presence would maybe mitigate what was happening here.


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[Assistant] But she was mistaken because almost immediately Alvin began physically assaulting Joanne right in front of her 13 year old sister.


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[Assistant] And her sister returned home to her mother's house the next day completely traumatized. Of course.


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[Assistant] The cycle of abuse continued for several more months and Joanne would like every now and then just flee to her mother's house but was always brought back by him. So so sad. Until finally in 1977 she left for good and she left her three children with him. Huh.


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[Assistant] I don't get that, but that's just me. But I've never been in that position.


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[Assistant] Uhm, but I'm just saying personally I don't get leaving, leaving them with him. I would never leave my children with someone like that. No.


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[Assistant] But through her testimony in court, it was clear that Joanne Browning


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[Assistant] There, and there's no doubt that he is an abusive piece of shit, like for sure.


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[Assistant] But I guess there was questions about the, like how exaggerated some of the moments were, like the attorneys were questioning it. Yeah. Because there was like times when it didn't add up, so they thought maybe it was being like, like certain.


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[Assistant] Instances were being exaggerated a little bit. Okay. But either way, he was an abusive prick.


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[Assistant] You know? And what this shows is that he's one, violent as fuck, regardless of how...


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[Assistant] Like, I'm like, okay, that they're like trying to figure out the validity of the claims of each instance. It's like, okay, but either way, even her sister is claiming that this happened. So it's like, regardless of anything, he's fucked up. Clearly. But either way.


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[Assistant] As, like, finally their relationship ended for good, which is, which was a very good thing for Joanne. But he did keep the kids. I think eventually she was able to also...


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[Assistant] Yeah, and this girl was Judith Ann Adams. Okay. Is this part of the


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[Assistant] Now, unlike her future husband and eventually literal partner in crime, uhm,


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[Assistant] Judith did not have an idyllic childhood. No, not a festival of joy? No. She was born June 7th, 1964 in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. A Gemini. She was the third of five children. She had an older brother and sister and two younger brothers, so she was right in the middle. Yep.


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[Assistant] And they were a solidly middle-class family. You know, their father had steady work as a carpenter. He was a construction worker.


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[Assistant] And things, you know, even got better in 1973 because her father, James Adams, started his own construction company. Oh wow.


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[Assistant] And James worked a lot, obviously. He owned his own construction company, so he was gone a lot. And when he got home, he was kind of distant.


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[Assistant] There's such a different time, too. But by all accounts, he was not, um, outwardly abusive from what I've read, unless, you know, that just isn't, you know, knowledge. But according to Judy, she loved her dad. She had a very close bond with him, even though they didn't see each other a lot. She loved what she saw. Okay.


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[Assistant] And that's when tragedy struck on March 31st 1974, when James had a few beers and jumped on his motorcycle. Oh no. And the details of the accident aren't like completely clear, but somehow he hit a highway guard rail.


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[Assistant] Uhm, Thomas Cook said she had always been the quiet one, but for a long time after that she seemed to turn to stone.


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[Assistant] You know, her mother, Barbara, was left with, you know, her husband's small social security pension.


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[Assistant] Less than a year after James Adams died, Barbara began dating.


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[Assistant] When Barbara went out on a date one night and got into a very minor car accident.


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[Assistant] Uhm, but it was discovered that night that her boyfriend that she had been going out with for some time was a teenage boy. Oh. Mhm.


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[Assistant] Uhm, which is nice that she, uh, was a predator, uh, got caught being a predator and then just decided to hide away from her children and let them fend for themselves.


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[Assistant] Uh, and Judy, at a very young age, being right smack dab in the middle, she ended up taking over all the chores in the trailer, like taking care of her younger siblings, like she really took over.


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[Assistant] And after all this, the family really slipped into a bad way. Cause following their mothers


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[Assistant] Like a truck radio, kind of like candy cane, where she would meet men who would show up at the house with beers and just spend time with her.


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[Assistant] Uh, so Judy spent a lot of her time outside of the home trying to escape all this. I believe that, I would as well. She focused on school, she made honor roll. Wow. And joined the cheerleading team in 8th grade.


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[Assistant] And after school she participated in 4-H club and the future homemakers of America.


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[Assistant] Wow, I didn't even know that was a thing. Did not know that either. And she just really focused on school, was trying to, she wanted to become a nurse someday, she was like, she had dreams, she was like ready to go. It's crazy that like in this shitstorm she's kind of thriving in certain areas. She kind of is. But something


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[Assistant] And when you look at, you know, her, her mother there, something's off there, obviously. And so, you know, there was something in there that he just happened to, I don't know if he ended up, if he could see it or if he just


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[Assistant] So one afternoon in early 1979, Alvin Neely,


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[Assistant] And his friend Dan Hartley, two grown ass men. Yea, he's like 26 at this point.


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[Assistant] We're driving out to meet a woman Dan had met on the CB radio.


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[Assistant] Shut your fucking pie hole. Yep. Shut your fucking pie hole. He was talking, Dan, his friends was talking to Barbara on the CB radio.


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[Assistant] And Dan spotted a CBN 10 on top of the trailer and he was like, here it is. This is where she is. So she likes like younger men. Cause at this point she's in my shoulders. And he's like in his twenties.


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[Assistant] Dan was very excited to meet this gallant person, uh, but it was the woman's 15 year old daughter Judy that really caught Alvin's attention.


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[Assistant] So, Judy came out to talk to them because she was always in charge of everything, being like, Yea, you need a beer? Yea, and when Dan and Barbara, you know, Dan and Barbara went off and started drinking beers together in Barbara's room.


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[Assistant] They had a lot in common according to them.


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[Assistant] Which says a lot about Alvin. Sure does. Uh, they spent all night and well into the next morning talking and laughing.


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[Assistant] Uh, we have a grown ass man connecting and flirting with a 15 year old child.


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[Assistant] If anyone had stepped in between us, they'd have been burned up in the sparks. With a 15 year old.


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[Assistant] Like the amount of predators around this girl right now are outrageous. That is so, so gross. Now after this, they became inseparable.


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[Assistant] This was the moment that they met. Like you were wondering, how did these people come together? Well, don't worry.


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[Assistant] She thought she was a full adult at this point, like she's feeling like- She's dating a whole adult. And she's spending all her time with Alvin, especially since her siblings just hung around doing nothing and her mother was also just like a fucking loser and living with Dan Hartley now. Oh god. He moved in, he just never left. That's good.


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[Assistant] So now Dan Hartley is living in that trailer with her and all those kids. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. At the end of 1979, Alvin and Judy discussed marriage and she decided that she was going to leave high school.


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[Assistant] He finally ended up divorcing Joanne and Judy ended up moving in with Alvin's mother.


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[Assistant] In Cleveland, Tennessee and Alvin stayed in Murfreesboro to keep working and making money and then he was going to move in.


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[Assistant] Uh, they got a small apartment in Rome, Georgia, and then they ended up moving to a small motel room in Kennesaw, Georgia. They loved a motel room. That's upsetting. Um, Alvin found work at a convenience store across the street from this place. Judy, again, had quit school, so she started just hanging out at the store, stocking shelves, hanging out, helping out.


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[Assistant] Alvin was already back to his criminal bullshit because he couldn't hang on to a job. And one night after stealing the day's deposits from his job, they just ran away to Alabama to escape any of the consequences. Oh, okay. He stole the register's money. And just never came back. Yeah, and then just never came back.


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[Assistant] Alvin was shocked to see that Judy was very willing to be an accomplice.


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[Assistant] Their lives were a fucking mess together. That winter they would settle in some small town, find a job, usually at like a convenience store or some market. They would steal from the register and then they'd just hit the road again and get out of there. Wow.


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[Assistant] A stupid Bonnie and Clyde together. And the routine was briefly interrupted in mid-July because they stopped off in Ringhold, Georgia to get married.


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[Assistant] And then it was just right back to everything that they were doing before.


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[Assistant] More motel rooms, more convenience stores, just this grimy ass existence. Truly, grimy is the perfect word for it. That fall, Judy learned she was six months pregnant.


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[Assistant] Oh no. But they just kept on robbing, being assholes, continuing their life. And she's like 16, 17. Yea, and she found out she was 6 months pregnant. So it's like, wow, that's pretty pregnant.


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[Assistant] Yeah, that's more than halfway there. It's very, very pregnant.


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[Assistant] You know that all this craziness had to pause though because the fall of 1980 they were arrested when robbing a woman at gunpoint in the parking lot of the Riverbend Mall. Oh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, Alvin was sentenced to five years at the Walker Correctional Institute in Lafayette. And Judy was still underage. She was taken to the Rome Youth Development Center. Just pregnant and all. Remember, I don't know if you remember at the beginning of this, the Rome Youth Development Center?


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[Assistant] Uh, I don't know. Cause at six months I was, uhm...


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[Assistant] People were like, oh, you must be ready to pop, and I was like, I am not.


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[Assistant] People go, like, full-fledged. Yeaah, I mean, who knows? Like full-term. Wild.


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[Assistant] Uh, Alvin and Judy sent letters back and forth several times a week.


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[Assistant] Uhm, their correspondence, they, they mainly stayed like very romantic, very, like we love each other, we're obsessed with each other.


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[Assistant] He said. So he's basically like threatening her like, I'll, I'll leave you and go find someone else, like you don't love me.


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[Assistant] And Alvin wasn't the only paranoid one because Judy also was accusing him of being unfaithful and said a lot in her letters. She said, I'll take care of her when I get out.


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[Assistant] Referring to like an imaginary woman. Interesting. And she said none of them are women enough to try to take you from me when I get out.


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[Assistant] And how paranoid and like obsessive they were. Yeaah. It's like a weird, I don't know.


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[Assistant] But again, very strange, and they had this like strange and upsetting devotion to each other while also having this big disdain for the world and people around them.


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[Assistant] Like you said before, very us against everyone else mentality. They believed everyone was out to get them. No one understood them. They had to strike back at people.


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[Assistant] Judy was released from the Youth Detention Center in November 1981 and returned to Cleveland, Tennessee to live with Alvin's parents and the twins. Remember? Twin babies.


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[Assistant] Like, she wrote to Alvin at one point, talking about his dad, I can't stand that son of a bitch. Your dad still raises hell every now and then, but he won't say anything to me. If he ever does, he knows he'll regret it. This also leads me to believe like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Weird. Yeah, it's very strange. And it's very, and seeing her, how she's talking like, he won't say anything to me or he'll regret. It's like, I can see what's happening here. Like that's what I mean when I say like she had to be that way growing up. So she acts that way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But Alvin was finally released from the Walker Correction Institute at the end of April 1982 and Judy met him at the bus station and you know


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[Assistant] It went right back to what it was before, they were obsessed with each other, you know, they would, they had this like really, cause he had,


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[Assistant] Which is also like a red flag to me. He had this very like aggressively intense sex drive too. Which we see a lot in these cases where it's couples. It's like unfulfilling. In almost every case where it's couples actually. We see that the man usually has a strangely high. Like insatiable.


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[Assistant] An aggressive sex drive. Yeah. Like multiple times a day or he's gonna beat the shit out of you.


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[Assistant] And she's a child. Exactly. But soon reality set back in. They had no jobs, so they turned right back to the criminal ways. And they would steal checks from mailboxes, they would forge money orders, they would rob people and places. It was chaos. And sorry, they still have their children or no? Yea, they still have their kids.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And as the summer of 1982 came to an end, Judy was now angry, desperate.


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[Assistant] So one evening in early September 1982, and what we'll see is like, he was like, I don't want you anymore, but they stayed connected. Obviously they had children, but they,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was very strange. I can't understand and I don't ever want to understand the dynamic. I was going to say, it's probably better that you don't. So on the evening, uhm, in September 1982, Ken Dooley, who was a teacher at the Rome Youth Development Center, he was at home when his phone rang a little after 7pm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The voice on the other end was a young woman, claiming to be a friend of Ken's wife, Sherry.


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[Assistant] I doubt it. This person on the other end said she was going to be passing through the area soon and wanted to drop in to surprise Sherry. So Ken was like, oh that's great, like here's directions to my house.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sherry's probably like, I've never heard of that bitch in my life. Well, Sherry Dooley returned home a few hours later, uh, with the couple's son Robbie, and Ken said, told his wife, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Sherry said, I got a call. And when she asked who it was, she said it was, uh, she was, uh, it was a young girl and she wanted to know if he was home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Ken's mind was like, okay, like I teach girls at like young girls at the development center, but like, he was like,


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[Assistant] None of them have my phone number, like I don't give my phone number out to these girls. Of course not. Why would they be calling? Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was like, that's just weird. And she was like, yeah, I don't know. She wouldn't say who she was. So he had almost put it out of his mind, but then the phone rang that evening again and Sherry immediately was like, it's the girl again. I know it. And so he answered, but it was a man's voice and the man's voice said, you've screwed the last girl you're going to screw. And then he just hung up. Oh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he tried to put it out of his mind, but later that night as he was walking around checking locks because he was like,


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[Assistant] So the police arrived, but since no one identified the shooter and there was really no.


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[Assistant] Evidence, like no one even saw the car. Right. They couldn't do anything, they just told them you probably shouldn't sleep here tonight.


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[Assistant] Thank you. Like what the fuck? Jesus. Now the next day, September 11th, Linda Adair, the Assistant Director of the Youth Development Center, noticed that Ken seemed a little off at work.


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[Assistant] But she didn't want to like pry too much, so she didn't bother to ask what was wrong and just went about her day, but she said later like she very much saw that something was wrong.


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[Assistant] And she went, you know, she later that night, she went back home and her husband, Gary, you know, they went out to dinner together and then they came home and she just laid down on the couch, just relaxing a little. Everything's normal. And then the phone rings.


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[Assistant] And Linda could hear Gary answer and respond to the caller, and he called out to her to let her know that it was for her.


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[Assistant] And when she asked who it was, her husband said he didn't know but thought it sounded like a teenage girl.


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[Assistant] Now again, this couple was also freaked out, but that evening they got ready for bed, Gary was in the shower, and the phone rang again a little after 11.30.


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[Assistant] All of a sudden, she can, uh, when she answers the phone, she hears one of her neighbors.


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[Assistant] Linda got Gary out of the shower. He was in the shower. They fled the house for safety to the neighbor's house and watched as their home went up in flames.


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[Assistant] Now after that was all controlled, Linda told police that she heard the neighbors dog barking and chasing a car down the road seconds after the bomb must have hit the house. Right. And it turned out to be a Molotov cocktail.


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[Assistant] Like Judy. Sure does, yea. Solid pick. Yea.


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[Assistant] Uhm, neither Linda nor her husband could think of anyone who'd want to molotov cocktail their house. That's a good thing. And as far as she knew, she was like, I think the people at the youth development center like me, I haven't had any bad interactions in the recent past that I could think that would lead to anything like this. Like, she really couldn't think of anything.


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[Assistant] And then as the police were interviewing them both, the phone rang again. And Linda answered, and it was the voice of a young woman.


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[Assistant] Saying something about the shooting at Ken Dooley's house the previous night, and the fire at Linda and Gary's.


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[Assistant] So Linda was like, what the fuck? Because she was shocked to hear about the attack on Ken. She knew he was like in a shitty mood that day, but she was like, oh my God, he got shot at? And then why did I? What the fuck? And then the police asked her to listen to a recording of a 911 call that had been placed that night. The girl on the recording of the 911 call.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Had said to the 911 dispatcher that she was calling about the shooting at Ken Dooley's house and the fire at the Adair home.


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[Assistant] She said quote, for the sex abuse that I went through in the YDC.


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[Assistant] So these attacks were obviously done by Alvin and Judy, we found out later. After they had done this, they headed to Macon, I think it is, Macon? I think Macon.


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[Assistant] You know, it's one of those guys. Uhm, this time they went in separate cars. She went in a brown Dodge.


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[Assistant] And he went in a red ford granada. And they tried


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[Assistant] Like several times since he had been like I just don't like you anymore. And they did this together, right? They did this together.


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[Assistant] Even though, and like I said, even though their relationship wasn't the same that it was, they were still in that like, us against the world.


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[Assistant] Like we have to punish people together. Everyone hates us so we hate everyone kind of thing.


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[Assistant] Quote-unquote relationship. Their idea of romance. Their idea. But again, their shared disdain for humanity and the people around them was what was keeping them connected. Right. In this. It's very weird.


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[Assistant] Uhm, this was just the beginning of their big plan. And Dooley and Adair were only two of the names of the lists of a list of YDC employees that they were targeting. Oh no. Uh, Judy claimed it was for abuse. She suffered there.


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[Assistant] It should be said there is no evidence that Judy was abused or sexually assaulted during her time in juvenile detention, but


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[Assistant] There are countless examples of children being abused and similar.


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[Assistant] Institutional settings. And having it not be documented. So it is entirely possible. Yup. But there is no documented proof. Yup.


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[Assistant] So I just, you need to take it how it is. Like none of us know for sure, but there is no way that we can say that that is not true. I really hope she wasn't.


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[Assistant] Now once they reach their destination, Judy placed a call to the home of Linda Allen, who was a staff member at the YDC.


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[Assistant] Uh, Judy told Linda that her husband had been, she, so Judy was saying like, it's me, like I, I was one of the girls there.


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[Assistant] And she said her husband had been beating her and she needed Linda's help. She begged her for help.


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[Assistant] Now believing Judy to be in danger, Linda Allen agreed to meet her at a motel the following day. She was like, I'll help you out of this situation. Clearly she's a good person. But the next day someone from YDC called to say that Linda had been called out of town and wouldn't be able to make it. Linda literally dodged a bullet because Alvin and Judy planned to kill her.


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[Assistant] Uh, Judy believed that this man had been attracted to her.


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[Assistant] Uhm, having found his number, she called the house and got Brownlee on the phone.


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[Assistant] Now they decided to go with a new plan because they were like, you know what?


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[Assistant] We gotta go big now because this isn't working out how I want it to. So they were now going to simply track down each of the men Judy said had abused her, break into their homes, and then Alvin had a plan that he was gonna rape their wives in front of them as payback to what they had done. Oh wow. Yeah. It escalated very quickly.


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[Assistant] Now the more they talked, the more Alvin and Judy just like fed each other.


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[Assistant] And like we're feeding each other's fucked up-ness and just like rage and aggression and hate and all of this. This is so much. And the problem was though that finding the home addresses and phone numbers for all the employees at YDC was not easy. You didn't have like Google back then. That's a good thing.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and after a few days of driving around aimlessly, they decided to abandon this revenge fantasy and they headed back in the direction of Rome and decided we need a new terrible plan. And this one's really terrible. It's a trigger warning.


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[Assistant] On the afternoon of September 25th, 1982, Gail Henderson and six girls from the Ethel Harpst home, which was a facility for neglected and abandoned girls.


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[Assistant] Arrived at the Riverbend Mall in Rome to do some shopping.


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[Assistant] Uhm, after giving the five older girls very strict instructions to stay together while they were at the mall, Gail took the youngest of the girls with her to run some errands.


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[Assistant] She told the other girls, the older ones, meet her in front of the Radio Shack in one hour.


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[Assistant] Um, Gail regrouped about an hour later, but one of them, 13 year old girl, Lisa Millican, was missing.


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[Assistant] Now the girls told Henderson that Lisa had become separated from the group somehow.


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[Assistant] But they figured she would just meet them outside the radio shack when she realized the time.


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[Assistant] They waited for about 20 minutes and then they split into two groups and went in different directions to try to find Lisa.


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[Assistant] They couldn't find her, so now Gail was panicking. Of course. Went to mall security to explain the situation. They split up again now with guards to find nothing.


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[Assistant] So they called the police. A more formal search happened. Nothing. She just disappeared. Oh god. Months later, investigators in Rome interviewed several young women who recalled that day being approached by a teenage girl on that afternoon.


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[Assistant] Indicating that she was trying to meet someone and they hadn't shown up kind of thing.


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[Assistant] Most of them simply shook their heads and were like, okay bye. But a woman, Suzanne Klontz, who was at the Riverbend Mall that day with her husband, had a longer interaction with this girl. This girl was Judy.


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[Assistant] Uhm, according to Suzanne, she said the girl looked very dirty, like she hadn't bathed in a while. And she said she was looking for someone named Kim. And she said the girl asked Suzanne if she was alone at the mall.


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[Assistant] So Suzanne had no way of knowing it, but that afternoon at the Riverbend Mall, she was about to be abducted and killed. If she hadn't had her husband with her. Wow.


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[Assistant] Now, Lisa Millican, however, was not lucky. She had been lured and abducted by Alvin and Judy. She's 13.


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[Assistant] There wasn't a total motive here. Right. That's clear. Even maybe to begin with, potentially. Exactly.


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[Assistant] Uhm, so they abducted Lisa. They took her back to the Chattahoochee Motel in Rome.


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[Assistant] And that night, the night Claire, Claire Doherty said she noticed them right away when they came in. She thought it was an odd trio. Right. She said it was an old fucking guy with two teenage girls. Well, she was like, the man and the young woman seemed like they were a couple, like clearly, but she said that young girl with them was clearly not their child. Like she was too old to be their child. Like it was very strange.


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[Assistant] And the next morning when Doherty went to check on the room, uh, that the three of them were in, they had already checked out.


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[Assistant] Now the scene repeated itself again over the next two days. They checked into the Five Points Motel in Scottsboro, Alabama. And on the morning of September 28th, the motel's owner,


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[Assistant] Later that afternoon, just before 1pm, a call came into Rome Police Headquarters and was received by Watch Commander Lonnie Adcock.


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[Assistant] The caller was a young teenage girl, it seemed, who said, y'all looking for Lisa Ann Milliken on the run from the Harpstone? And then claimed to have information to help find her.


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[Assistant] She said go up to Little River Canyon in Alabama and then gave specific instructions where to find Lisa.


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[Assistant] The phrasing made them feel like they were not going to find her alive.


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[Assistant] They were skeptical, but they went out to Little River Canyon to take a look. Okay.


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[Assistant] As officers from Rome were driving up Lookout Mountain to reach the canyon.


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[Assistant] Jenny West, who was a news director at local station WRGA, received a tip from a young woman who called her desk.


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[Assistant] Is this us against the world, everyone's out to get us thing is just their shared delusion that they're using as an excuse to hurt people. Yeah, sounds like it. Cause now they're saying the Rome police are covering it up.


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[Assistant] And they have nothing to do with it. And the caller then gave some detailed directions to find Lisa's body and West interrupted and said, how was she killed? How was she killed?


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[Assistant] And she said she was shot by a female juvenile officer from the Harpstone this morning. She was at the Little River Canyon and she's still there. So now she's trying to blame the people from the home. Right.


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[Assistant] Now, unsure whether this was real or a prank, cause they'd already chased down a fake lead. Jenny West went to the Rome police headquarters and told them about it, and the detectives were like, yeah, like, we also got a similar message from that.


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[Assistant] And you know, she had disappeared from the Riverbend Mall about a week earlier, so like that name is absolutely true.


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[Assistant] And uhm, but they let the reporter know that they had gone out to the canyon and hadn't found any evidence of a murder or a body.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and they also investigated everyone who worked at the Harpstone, and no one had a history of violence or criminality. They were like, no one's a suspect there.


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[Assistant] Like we don't suspect anyone there. Right. And in all likelihood they said, we think she just ran away. Like that's the...


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[Assistant] Likely thing that happened here. Right. And you know, hopefully she would turn up eventually. We'll keep looking into leads and try to find her.


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[Assistant] And uhm, but they wanted to put the reporter's mind at ease and their own. So investigators told her, you know what, we're going to call the authorities in DeKalb County, Alabama, and let them know that a second tip has been received. Okay.


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[Assistant] So the next day on September 29th, the DeKalb County Sheriff's Office got a call from another young woman. Hmm. Wanting to know whether they had found the body in the canyon.


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[Assistant] But the officer was like, what the fuck? Like, no, we haven't. And the collar just hung up.


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[Assistant] So the young woman called again later that evening and gave more precise directions, like being like go, like wanting them to find her.


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[Assistant] So it took some time to get up the mountain to where this, she said the body would be.


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[Assistant] And the sun was actually started to set so it was getting dark in the canyon. Yikes. Uhm, but crawling on his stomach out to the edge of the mountain, Alabama, Alabama State Trooper Tommy Brock shined his flashlight down into the canyon and he said he immediately saw a pair of jeans hanging from a tree branch.


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[Assistant] So he was like, oh shit. So he swept the light across the canyon floor and illuminated the body of Lisa Ann Millican more than 80 feet below.


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[Assistant] What happened to her is horrific, and I just need you all to know that ahead of time, like it's gonna be rough. Yeah.


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[Assistant] Now once they were able to retrieve her body from the canyon floor, the DeKalb County Coroner, Ronald Berry, confirmed that she'd indeed been killed by a gunshot wound to the chest.


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[Assistant] Uh, crime scene technicians began searching the canyon floor and all around for evidence.


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[Assistant] They were sent in for more analysis and it was determined that whatever had been in the syringes was extremely acidic in nature.


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[Assistant] So, this seemed pretty unusual to lab technicians. They were confused by that. But then when you look at the autopsy results, you see that this makes sense.


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[Assistant] So the cause of death was obviously a shot to the chest. Uh, there was repeated sexual assault on this poor girl. And the autopsy technician found six puncture wounds in her neck.


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[Assistant] Uhm, so at some point before her death, Lisa Ann Milliken had been subjected to a form of chemical torture.


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[Assistant] What they would learn afterwards after they had been arrested, because luckily these fuckers do get arrested.


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[Assistant] Uhm, after they arrested investigators learned that while he was in jail, Alvin had heard from someone.


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[Assistant] That it would be nearly impossible for investigators to identify a death as a murder if the victim was injected with acidic chemicals.


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[Assistant] And that the death would be quick, like it's an easy way to kill someone. But then you also shot her.


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[Assistant] Uhm, well, of course, because it is entirely false that that would quickly kill someone.


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[Assistant] Uh huh. And it's entirely false that they wouldn't be able to detect it, but that didn't stop Judy.


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[Assistant] From injecting Lisa with those chemicals, it was Judy who injected her with Pladreno and liquid plumber.


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[Assistant] She had been tied, Lisa had been tied to a tree outside of the canyon.


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[Assistant] Judy simply shot Lisa in the chest and pushed her off the ledge into the canyon.


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[Assistant] So they now knew how, and they also knew a young woman was almost certainly involved at this point in the murder of Lisa, because at this point they didn't know it was Judy and Alvin.


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[Assistant] But they knew it was a young woman involved because she had called a hundred times to let them know.


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[Assistant] But they needed to find out who and also where Lisa had been in the days between when she was abducted and murdered. And what the fuck is going on here.


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[Assistant] That's where I'm going to leave for part one. Cause that's a lot. Because I have to take a minute after that because I- That's really heavy. It's the amount of abuse, neglect,


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[Assistant] Horrible trauma. It's, ugh, it's, this is a tough one. It's been, it's been, uh, requested many times. That's why I finally, I finally bit it and did it. But like, oof, this is a tough one. Everyone go hug someone you love. High five someone you love.


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[Assistant] Hurt people hurt people. Wow. Don't do that. And yeaah.


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[Assistant] And you know what? Go listen to an episode of The Rewatcher to kind of cool yourself down from this.


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[Assistant] And once you do that, you'll be ready for part two on Thursday. Perfect. Okay. So we got you covered all the way around and you can also listen to, you know, scream.


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[Assistant] Funny human beings with really funny funny guests if you need to totally disengage from anything dark.


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[Assistant] Got a lot of family stuff going on. Indeed. Can't take a break from anything.


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[Assistant] And honestly, after you hear this story, you'll be like, wow, I could go through anything because it's not as bad as this. Yeah, it puts it into perspective. Exactly. I have a little bit of a different case today. I'm going to be talking about Eastern Airlines Flight 401.


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[Assistant] Uhm, it was one of the most tragic plane crashes in United States history. Oh boy. Still is. And uhm, but it results in some interesting paranormal happening. So that's...


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[Assistant] I found it interesting to kind of get into the mechanics of planes and it weirdly made me feel better about this because this was just kind of


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[Assistant] At about 9.20 p.m., and it was bound for the Miami International Airport on what would roughly be, or what would be roughly a three hour flight. Yeah.


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[Assistant] Now the aircraft, it was a Lockheed L-1011-01 Tristar. It was a newly constructed medium to long range passenger jet.


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[Assistant] And Eastern Airlines was the first airline to even buy one of these planes. Wow.


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[Assistant] This particular jet had accumulated 936 hours of flight time.


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[Assistant] I'd landed 502 times, and that was pretty standard for similar models.


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[Assistant] And he had been flying with them since 1951 after, you know, doing all his training and everything. And earlier that year, actually, he had passed the L-1011 simulation tests.


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[Assistant] And even in the months leading up to this particular flight he had great ratings from every instructor he had. They all sang his praises.


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[Assistant] They both had similar, a similar level of experience to Robert Loft. Uh, they had also recently passed all the qualifying training and exams to pilot this L-1011.


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[Assistant] Uhm, the only thing worth pointing out, I suppose, is that Donald Repo's time with the L-1011 simulator, it was about a quarter of that of the other two airmen. Just, uh, he had logged 53 hours with the simulation. So a bit less.


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[Assistant] In the 24 hours before Flight 401's departure,


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[Assistant] Every single member of the flight crew had 14 hours of rest since their last 9 hour shift per FAA regulations.


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[Assistant] All 10 flight attendants had also received proper training.


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[Assistant] Once all 163 passengers had taken their seats, Captain Loft was given clearance to depart, and the plane took off for Miami just a little after 920 that night.


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[Assistant] The flight was very uneventful, everything was going swimmingly, until the flight crew began preparing for their descent into the Miami International Airport. So the first step in the process to land, or get ready for landing,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was, uh, for Robert Loft to move the landing gear handle down and into the downward position.


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[Assistant] Right, that's what that light was supposed to be indicating. So the light was burned out.


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[Assistant] It wasn't working at the moment. Oh boy. So you tried again, still no light.


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[Assistant] So now he was concerned that something might actually, it didn't maybe occur to him at this moment that it could be the light that had burned out.


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[Assistant] So he did radio the Tower at Miami International at 1134 PM to report the issue. He told them, uh, Tower, this is Eastern 401. Looks like we're gonna have to circle. We don't have a light on our nose gear yet.


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[Assistant] So the air traffic controllers from Miami airport responded a few seconds later and they just said climb straight ahead to 2000 feet.


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[Assistant] Thinking it would give them ample time to work out whatever was holding up the release of this landing gear.


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[Assistant] But still, we're unable to get that green light on the nose gear.


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[Assistant] Now, luckily, the aircraft was not in any danger of running out of fuel.


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[Assistant] Once you hear, especially, I'm sure if you have a fear of flying, once you hear that you're ready to land, you're like, okay, like good, but then when you're about to land and you,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who is still flying the plane to turn on the autopilot and attempt to fix whatever was causing this problem with the landing gear and the light.


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[Assistant] Now at this time, and this was 1972, remind you, this kind of plane actually had the most sophisticated autopilot in history. Wow. This autopilot could have landed the plane on its own if necessary. Damn. Like crazy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So Stock still acknowledged and engaged the autopilot and then he turned his attention to the light there that they were having issues with and he pulled the faceplate off of the


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To see if he could like literally blow into the area, unscrew the light bulb, re-screw it. Like this is a simple light problem. So as he did that and then he starts reassembling the panel. But as he was doing so, the light lens got jammed and he struggled to even get it back into place. Like they are having a lot of trouble and focusing very much on this light. So while that's going on,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Loft then instructed, uh, second officer Donald Repo.


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[Assistant] To go down into the forward electronics bay, which on this particular plane is right below the flight deck.


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[Assistant] He wanted him to go to the hellhole quote to visually check the alignment of the nose, uh, nose gear indices, I believe is how you say that. So.


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[Assistant] Basically, they're trying to stay calm, trying to assess what this problem is. He's going down into the hellhole to see if he can see the wheel lock in position. I was wondering if they would be able to do that, like, visually. That you would if the lights were on. Eek.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They didn't realize that the lights were not even on actually to check this.


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[Assistant] No, it's 1972. Completely. And even then I think that would most likely just reflect back at you.


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[Assistant] But as they're circling on autopilot, they still can't figure out why this light isn't illuminating. They can't tell.


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[Assistant] Loft radioed the Miami Tower crew once again to report that they were still trying to correct the problem.


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[Assistant] And that after that was when he sent Donald Repo back into the electronics bay.


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[Assistant] Repo popped his head through the hatch and told Loft, I can't see, it's pitch dark, I throw the light, I throw the little light, I get nothing.


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[Assistant] So he's basically saying, I have no fucking idea, dude. So from the tower at MIA.


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[Assistant] Which is at Miami International. The traffic controllers noticed that even though they had told the pilots to maintain an altitude of 2000 feet,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The plane had started to descend in the last minute or two since they had last spoken. At first it had just dropped a couple hundred feet, but then there was a second drop of about 900 feet.


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[Assistant] Now this is terrifying, so I'm sorry Elena and everybody else, but what Flight 401, the crew didn't realize was that as they were all focused on the landing gear extension light and trying to fix this problem, somehow the autopilot program had disengaged and the jet was free flying with nobody at the helm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Completely. Completely, like. And we'll get into actually everything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That when the investigation was done contributed to the crash.


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[Assistant] They took a lot from this, because we'll get into it, but at the time when this happened, it was the most tragic plane crash in U.S. history. Oh, I just feel so, I'm like, I'm picturing all these people and I'm like, oh, it's a lot. And when you, it's a lot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So at 1141 PM, the tower radioed the flight crew and instructed them to course correct because they were like, whoa, you have veered off. Loft acknowledged and requested permission to get back into position for their descent, but didn't, still didn't realize that they had free fallen as much as they had.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] About 20 seconds later, there was another transmission that came in from Flight 401, where stocks still can be heard saying on the recording, we did something to the altitude, we're still at 2000, right? Now a second or two later,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Lof's voice can be heard on the recording, shouting, hey, what's happening? Before the transmission just cut out entirely.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it was the engines. She looked over to her coworker, Stephanie Stanich, I believe is how you say it, and told her, those engines don't sound right. And Stephanie replied, they sound fine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But Beverly was like, no, they absolutely do not. And just seconds before the plane tilted violently forward and began a rapid descent, Beverly looked at Stephanie and said, no, they don't.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now just after that, Flight 401 eventually crashed violently into the densely forested swamps of the Florida Everglades.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The last transmission to the aircraft from the airport's tower actually went unanswered.


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[Assistant] And another plane ended up radioing the tower to say that they had just seen a great flash out west. And they weren't sure what it was, but they wanted to report it.


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[Assistant] So on the evening of December 29th, the temperature in Miami was a mild 72 degrees with clear weather and unrestricted visibility. It was a perfect night.


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[Assistant] Other than the fact that there was no moon that night. So the crash occurred in near total darkness.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the plane itself had crashed about 20 miles northeast of Miami International Airport.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And about eight miles north of, uh, I think it's Tommy's, uh, Tamiami Trail.


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[Assistant] It's a long stretch of highway that runs along the western edge of, uh, edge of Florida.


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[Assistant] Softened the impact of the plane that when it hit the ground, but it should be said that it was not an easier landing because of this. It was very much still a plane crash. Horrific.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In fact, when the plane struck on the earth, the left outer wing hit first, then the main engine, and then the left portion of the landing gear, and that caused the plane, that area of the plane to disintegrate into pieces.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now on top of that, when the wing hit the muddy earth, it sent the plane into a pinwheel motion, and that impact broke the plane into four sections.


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[Assistant] So people and things were just scattered everywhere.


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[Assistant] Later when investigators surveyed the wreckage, they found the right landing gear to be down and in a locked position. And then the right had been actually torn from the plane.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the landing gear lever in the cockpit was still in the gearward down position, meaning that it had been engaged before the crash, and that's what told them, like, they were about to land.


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[Assistant] And most disturbingly, the bulbs in the nose gear assembly, which had been the initial source of the trouble for flight 401, had simply burned out.


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[Assistant] So that's it. It was just burned out light bulbs. This entire crash came down to a $12 burned out light bulb. Wow.


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[Assistant] Wild. So now the passengers who did manage to survive, and there were quite a few that survived from this,


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[Assistant] Others had been thrown from the row and everybody, like I said, found themselves either sitting or lying in a mix of muddy swamp water that now had jet fuel leaking into it from the wreckage. Oh my god. Almost 22 tons of jet fuel had leaked into the swamp.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, one passenger, Ron Infantino, when he realized what was happening, he started to panic and he called out to his new wife, Lily. They had been married 20 days earlier.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And all he could do was sit there helpless as he quote, heard alligators and snakes splash around him. Because remember, they're in the Florida Everglades.