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[Assistant] And before long, he was opening up to her about everything in his life. His dad's death.


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[Assistant] How he didn't feel like he fit in and see Brooke at first, but then he found this great group of friends, you know.


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[Assistant] He also was not serious at all about Project Self-Esteem, but what he was serious about was Pam.


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[Assistant] As the weeks went on and he was spending more and more time with her in the administrative building, uh, which remember was in the high school.


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[Assistant] Billy though, he wasn't the only one wanting to spend more time with Pam. Cecilia Pierce, Billy's friend and fellow Project Self-Esteem volunteer, was also fascinated by her.


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[Assistant] Now, Cecilia was somewhat of like a wallflower, and she had big dreams of becoming a journalist.


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[Assistant] So Pam was the embodiment of what Cecilia wanted for herself.


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[Assistant] She seemed like she was attractive, successful and she had this commanding presence that Cecilia wanted to have, aspired to have.


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[Assistant] Uhm, her parents both worked full time, so they weren't home a lot.


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[Assistant] And Pam always seemed to be the one to make time for her. And then they also had a lot in common because she wanted to be a journalist and la-di-da-do. You know? Yea, makes sense. So.


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[Assistant] Would you like to intern, like, at the media center with me? And Cecilia jumped at the chance. Totally normal. Right then.


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[Assistant] She helped with typesetting the school board's newsletter, she cataloged the AV equipment, and basically did whatever else needed to be done.


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[Assistant] Now, of course, during her time as an intern, Cecilia and Pam got closer. Yeaah. Because remember, Pam is this young, uh,


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[Assistant] Administrator and Cecilia's looking up to her. She thinks she's so cool. Yeah. Cecilia said they only ever got into one argument and that Pam's response to the fight was asking Cecilia to please not be mad at her.


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[Assistant] She remembered thinking, here's this girl, she's 22, she's my friend, and she's actually apologizing to me.


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[Assistant] The attention that she was getting from Pam was intoxicating. Oh boy. Intoxicating. I was gonna say, what a word. I know, right?


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[Assistant] It would have been clear that Pam, uh, probably wasn't the best person for this position. No. The kids really didn't necessarily respect her as an authority figure. They just saw her as a peer. And she was not really good at setting professional boundaries.


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[Assistant] What could have been a positive mentoring experience pretty quickly spiraled into something wildly inappropriate. Pam really, really loved being the center of attention.


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[Assistant] And like I was saying earlier, she liked to be friends with people that she had power and influence over. There it is. So this new...


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[Assistant] Quote-unquote friendship that she had with Billy and Cecilia, aka their infatuation with her.


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[Assistant] Started to make up for the distance that she was feeling was growing between her and Greg. Yeah, it's like this is exactly what she wants. Her little high school friends who are like sophomores in high school are making up for the issues she's having with her husband. And while Greg was kind of like growing up,


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[Assistant] And losing interest in the music that they used to love and avoiding partying.


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[Assistant] Now in December, Cecilia saw a flyer on Pam's desk for the Florida Department of Citrus' annual high school video competition.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and their concept, which was a rap song describing orange juice in the life of a caveman.


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[Assistant] Wasn't really that original or clever. No? But, it meant that they got to spend more time with each other throughout the week, and by January of 1990,


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[Assistant] The group was meeting several times a week at the school, and eventually they started meeting up on Saturdays too.


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[Assistant] The video that they made did not win. It did not even get any kind of positive response from the Department of Citrus. Nobody really gave a shout about it. But the time that they spent making it led Pam and all the kids to get closer.


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[Assistant] And she was becoming especially close with Billy.


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[Assistant] Billy's mom, like I said, was working multiple jobs to support the family.


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[Assistant] I guess in public he was considered very quiet and polite.


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[Assistant] He didn't talk much about his feelings or really anything at all. He was quiet. His mother Elaine said of him,


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[Assistant] Outside of the family, people saw a kid that was polite and charming. Inside the family is where he took out his anger. At home, he could be whatever he was feeling like. And most of the time, he was feeling like a prick. Oh wow. Like, that's his mother. That's his mother? She was like, he was a dick. Damn.


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[Assistant] She tried actually because she could see that Billy was struggling. I mean, he had just lost his dad and now he's acting out. So she's like, okay, he needs help. Yeah. So she tried to get help for him and she went to her friends and family for advice on how to handle him.


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[Assistant] But she said, quote, everybody's solution was beat the shit out of him.


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[Assistant] And she really didn't have any interest in beating any of her children. Oh my god. So she just tried to keep the peace when she was home. I'm glad she didn't have interest in beating her children. Me too, I was happy to hear that. My goodness. But unfortunately, like we were saying, to provide that home, she wasn't able to be there much. Yeaah, cause she's gotta work.


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[Assistant] Billy was struggling emotionally and left mostly to his own devices.


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[Assistant] And then now he's really starting to struggle with p-feelings that he's having for Pam.


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[Assistant] He knows they can't be together because she's 22 and he's, uh, 15 at this point. Oh god.


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[Assistant] But, it's confusing for him because she seems to be paying special interest to him and she seems like she likes him too. So he's like,


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[Assistant] Her marriage was crumbling at that point. She and Greg barely had anything in common anymore. And one night around Christmas 1989,


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[Assistant] Now obviously it was just Greg and Pam when this happened, so none of us have any idea if this happened or not. No. Very well could have. Absolutely. Very well could not have. Who knows. It's unclear.


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[Assistant] But when Bill Smart confronted his son about it, Greg, Greg denied it and said, I haven't even touched her. She's a pain in the ass. I just told her to get the hell out of here.


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[Assistant] And then Pam would later claim that the slap was accidental.


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[Assistant] That incident kind of seemed to be the trigger point for the end of the marriage. Makes sense. You know? And it's one of those things where it's like


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[Assistant] Now, as Pam's life in Derry was, uh, rapidly disintegrating, she opted to spend more time in Hampton, where she was getting idolized by Cecilia and worshipped by Billy.


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[Assistant] Now by February, they were still meeting several times a week and Billy was still spending any free time he had hanging out with Pam either in her office or at her condo.


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[Assistant] And one day in early February, Pam brought some undeveloped film to Billy. He had previously told her that his upstairs neighbor, or one of his upstairs neighbors, owned a one hour Photoshop so he could get her a discount on photo processing.


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[Assistant] Okay. So later that day when the photos were ready to pick up, Pam and Billy drove together to get them.


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[Assistant] And Pam immediately opened them up in the parking lot and just started like, lolling to herself about them.


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[Assistant] She was, uh, posing seductively in her bra and underwear.


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[Assistant] And she then handed those pictures to Billy.


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[Assistant] To look at. Oh, I hate that a lot. Please remember that she's 22 and this boy is a motherfucking sophomore in high school. Yep. She knew exactly what she was doing. Yep. Also, the photos are laughable and you can Google them. Oh god. It's just like, what are you doing? Like, it's, you took those knowing that you were gonna give them to a 15 year old. Come on.


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[Assistant] So yucka yucka. It's very yucka yucka. The most yucka yucka.


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[Assistant] So the next day she brought the photos to work with her and she told Billy she didn't think any of them were very good so he could take any of them if he wanted to keep them.


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[Assistant] Like, how do you even have that conversation? I don't, I don't wanna know. How? How you ask? I, I retract.


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[Assistant] So later that afternoon, she called Cecilia into her office and she was like, I really have to talk to you about something, but it's personal. Now, clearly, like from the outside of this as adults,


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[Assistant] We're like, oh, she's grooming them. She's slowly testing the waters while she plans to lead up to something more shocking, crazy requests and then eventually straight up violations. She knows her audience, she knows that they're looking for positive attention, validation, and


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[Assistant] So once Cecilia went into Pam's office, Pam was like, oh my god, girl, sit down, I gotta talk to you.


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[Assistant] Now, Cecilia just smiled, uh, probably very unsure about what the fuck she was supposed to make of what Pam just said to her. Yeah. And...


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[Assistant] I mean, the idea was absolutely insane. Pam was an adult, Billy was a teenager.


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[Assistant] Pam asked her if she could pass a message along to Billy.


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[Assistant] She said, ask him to come by the media center after school so I can tell him myself.


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[Assistant] Oh my god. So Billy did as he was asked, but when he showed up in Pam's office, she was like really flustered and couldn't get what she wanted to say out. So he left because uhm, he had to catch the school bus home.


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[Assistant] Cause he's a child. He doesn't even have a license y'all. He's taking the school bus home. And his administrator was about to tell him that she's in love with him. I hate this. This full grown married individual is putting her two index fingers together like


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[Assistant] So the next day, Billy skipped his free study period and went to Pam's office again and he was like, what the fuck is going on? Like, why are you being so weird around me? This is coming out of nowhere. Yeah.


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[Assistant] So she started being like awkward and seemed like she was embarrassed and she put her head down to avoid eye contact with him and said,


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[Assistant] Do you ever think about me when I'm not around? Oh my god. And Billy was like, oh my gosh, I know exactly what you're talking about. Like yes, I always do.


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[Assistant] And, I mean, he was completely stunned, of course, but he was also over the fucking moon. Of course, he's a 15-year-old, she's 22. So he told her, yeah, I do think about you all the time. And then they, like, talked about their feelings for each other briefly.


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[Assistant] Before Billy had to go back to his high school classes. Oh my god, I hate it. He was like, yeah Pam, I really do think about you all the time, but uh, I gotta get back to biology. I have to go to fifth period. Like Jesus fucking Christ. That's so gross. So things were, uh, awkward in the days that followed, but eventually that awkwardness just went all the way to the wayside. Oh no.


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[Assistant] A few weeks later, Pam visited Billy at his home while his mother made dinner in the kitchen. And Pam went up to his bedroom


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[Assistant] Close the door behind her, try your best not to picture this, but Billy was laying on his bed, Pam was leaned against the door, and Starry Eyes by Motley Crue was playing in the background. I hate everything about this. Don't picture it. I'm not. Nope. Pam asked Billy if he was going to kiss her, you know, with the romance of Starry Eyes. And he was like, oh my gosh, totally. But being the timid BOY that he was.


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[Assistant] He wasn't getting up to make a move so Pam strode across the room.


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[Assistant] And Pam asked Billy if he would like to spend the night with her at her condo in Derry.


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[Assistant] So for Billy, who had been fantasizing about this very scenario since the moment he fucking met Pam,


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[Assistant] This entire thing is feeling surreal and he's like hell to the yeaah. I hate it. So he went and that night he


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[Assistant] They had dinner together, they watched nine and a half weeks, and then they retired to the bedroom.


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[Assistant] Pam dressed up in lingerie and danced seductively for Billy. Oh my god! Reenacting a scene from the film. And Billy would later tell a jury.


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[Assistant] She said she always wanted to dance for somebody like that, but there was never anybody she could do it for.


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[Assistant] And she is quickly, quickly escalating things between them. Now she's discussing her relationship with Greg with Billy.


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[Assistant] And according to Billy, Pam only married Greg, quote, because back then it was the thing to do.


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[Assistant] To marry the Greg. And also back then, it was like two years ago, you motherfucker. Back then.


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[Assistant] But she would always talk to Billy about the different ways that Greg was physically and emotionally abusing her, according to her, because again, we don't know. Yeah. I mean, it's abusive to spit beer in somebody's face. Absolutely, it is.


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[Assistant] But she said there was also supposedly a time where he locked her out of the house in the snow and she was only wearing her bra and underwear. Jesus. And I was like, I would hope not, cause like his parents lived, uh, five minutes away. Like, that's awkward. But we don't know if that's true. Yeah, we don't know.


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[Assistant] But she was very, very clearly trying to appear like she was a damsel in distress, a woman in need of saving, and it was working.


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[Assistant] Because Billy never liked Greg, obviously, because he's Pam's husband and a newfound rival.


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[Assistant] But now, he's hearing regular descriptions of domestic violence at Greg's hands. Yeah. So he hates Greg for what Pam claims he's doing to her. Of course. So a few weeks later...


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[Assistant] Pam reminded Billy of a time when she asked whether or not he knew somebody that would kill for money. I don't know how that had come up previously. You know, that doesn't often come up.


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[Assistant] So after a few weeks of hearing how terrible Greg was, Billy understood that Pam was angry and frustrated.


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[Assistant] Excuse me, Pam started crying and said the only way she could see for us to be together is if we kill Greg.


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[Assistant] The thing is, and I know he's 15, so like this isn't like, wow, he should understand that. Like when you're looking at it from an outside perspective, you're like,


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[Assistant] But there is no way for you two to be together because you're an adult and he is a child and that is not consensual or okay in any way. So whether your husband is dead or alive and you divorce him, you still can't be together. Nope, sure can't. It's still against all laws of goodness and law.


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[Assistant] No. The law of the land is what's stopping you from being together? You idiots. Like, are you kidding me? Well, so Billy did understand that there were other options. He was like, what about divorce?


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[Assistant] And she said divorce simply wasn't an option. Pam said quote, because everything was in Greg's name, er, I believe it was, um, Billy that said this, excuse me, because everything was in Greg's name and he'd take the car, the dog, the furniture, and the money, and she'd have to move in with her mother.


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[Assistant] Okay, well, if you guys have love, then that should be it, right? And also, like, she'd have to move in with her mother, she'd have to be an accessory to murder. Like, I think one outweighs the other. I think one is better.


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[Assistant] So knowing how attached and infatuated Billy was with her though, Pam took one thing- took things one step further. And she told Billy,


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[Assistant] We won't be able to spend time together outside of school as long as Greg's alive.


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[Assistant] From the moment though Pam brought up the potential of killing Greg, the subject became an almost constant topic of conversation.


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[Assistant] First, just between Pam and Billy, but then eventually between Pam, Billy, and Cecilia.


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[Assistant] Hello at first it was like an air of secrecy thing and it was like excitement around the affair.


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[Assistant] Their relationship was like part teenage romance. They would like pass notes and have sex in parking lots. Ew.


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[Assistant] Uhm, but it was also illegal and at the very least Pam would get fired if anybody found out.


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[Assistant] Her repeated appeals for Billy to kill Greg took on a way more serious and way more urgent tone, and it made it seem like she was ready and serious.


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[Assistant] So after a few weeks of badgering, Billy finally caved and agreed to kill Greg Smart.


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[Assistant] He would later say, I was afraid if I didn't do it she would leave me. And that would be it.


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[Assistant] So once Billy agreed to kill Greg, it was like there was literally no other sub-subject between them worth talking about. Just like she had with the orange juice video and every other project in her life, Pam took over.


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[Assistant] She planned the murder like it was a project she was working on for school.


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[Assistant] She settled on the old classic, they would make the murder look like Greg had been killed in a...


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[Assistant] You're gonna dress in all black. You're gonna park the car. He doesn't have one or a license to operate one. Nope. A few blocks from the condo. Then you're gonna walk to my house. And you're gonna wait for Greg to get home.


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[Assistant] And every day the plan was refined more and more. Billy should wear gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints. He should tie his hair back so nobody could identify him.


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[Assistant] Wreck the house to make it seem like they've been robbed and so on and so forth.


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[Assistant] Now Pam, meanwhile, was going to establish a strong alibi by going to a school board meeting in Hampton at the time of the killing. Genius! Genius!


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[Assistant] Brilliant. Oh my god Pam, how'd you come up with it? Wow, this is just the brain trust at work. Excuse me, I had to cough. Stop coughing, how dare you.


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[Assistant] But, what the plans seemed to lack was uhm, any realistic discussion of what it would be like to actually murder somebody, or how Billy should even go about murdering him in the first place. Yeaah, that'll just come.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She was there for many of the discussions between Pam and Billy and her knowledge would later make her an asset.


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[Assistant] Plam had everything planned down to the smallest detail.


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[Assistant] Thank you brother. Nailed it. Once inside he would bring the couples dog Halen into the basement so as not to cause any commotion. I always hate that part of things. I know. When they'll like throw a dog in like a bathroom or something to kill the owner and it's like.


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[Assistant] Then Billy would return to the first floor and wait for Greg to come home.


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[Assistant] At which point he was to shoot Greg in the head and then trash the apartment.


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[Assistant] Even as they planned meticulously, Cecilia definitely never thought that these two were actually gonna go through with the plan. She was just like, wow, this is fucking wild that you guys are talking about this. Guys, everybody stop assuming they're not gonna go forward in the plan. Every fucking story, I tell every fucking story. It's like,


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[Assistant] I heard them plan it, like, meticulously. But I didn't think they'd do it. But I never thought they'd do it. And it's like, yes, I understand. It sounds like you're like a more logical person, Cecilia, in that way, where you're saying, well, there's no way.


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[Assistant] In some way, in some part of their soul, they are planning to do this. It's true. Just a little PSA to everybody. You should go home and tell your mom. Yea, tell someone. Anybody. Now, she would later tell investigators that Billy just wasn't a violent kid. Sure he was angry, but enough that he would execute somebody in cold blood? Probably not.


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[Assistant] Probably not. So that was most likely why she continued to go along with it, even when they started brainstorming where Billy was gonna get a gun, because they plotted that whole part before they even had access to a gun.


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[Assistant] Now, Cecilia actually did contribute to the plan and suggested that Billy could use her father's gun.


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[Assistant] But she hadn't seen her dad in several years, so that wasn't really a viable option.


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[Assistant] And that actually seemed like a pretty easy option because Billy loved stealing things from vehicles. So he said, whoa, another one, let's go. Yeah, I love doing this.


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[Assistant] So, he hung around the parking lot of the Papaginos several nights in a row.


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[Assistant] Until he finally was able to break into the woman's car. But when he did, there was no gun in the compartment.


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[Assistant] So ultimately they would use a gun that they stole from JR's father. Okay. With hollow point bullets, Billy convinced a friend to buy for him.


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[Assistant] Now, he said the reason for the hollow points was, quote, because they would be the quickest and most painless. Ugh, this is like really chilling. It's so chilling.


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[Assistant] Now, Pam and Billy had spent so long talking about killing Greg that the whole thing kinda just seemed like a perverse game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And for that reason, it probably came as a shock to Billy when, one afternoon in late March, Pam insisted that it couldn't wait any longer and it needed to be done that night.


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[Assistant] But the problem was that Billy still didn't have a gun, did not have a car or a license to operate one. Because he's a child. Pam, your lover is a virgin who can't drive.


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[Assistant] Okay. That was a perfect insertion of that line. Thank you. Appreciate that. Now when Billy pointed all these facts out, all Pam had to offer was, well, hurry up and get them by tonight.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pam was in fact very angry that he didn't follow through with the murder of her current husband.


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[Assistant] Wow. Now this was the first time he had seen her pissed off because, uh, she's been grooming him, so she's been building him up, building him up, and building him up. And not showing any of her real self. And now she's about to fucking lose it on him.


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[Assistant] Now through tears he pro- he started crying and was like, okay next time I'm gonna go through with it.


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[Assistant] And then she slammed the phone on the receiver and hung up on him. That's so fucked up. It's so manipulative. That's so fucked up. This is a child. This is a 15 year old. And she knows that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, a 15 year old should know better than to murder someone. That is absolutely 100% true.


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[Assistant] There's wrongs here on each level, but her, this imbalance of power here is so beyond fucked. Absolutely, and remember everybody, it never would have happened if it weren't for Pam Smart. Yeah. Billy never would have murdered this man. He wouldn't have just randomly murdered this guy, like that wouldn't have happened. If it were not for Pam. He wasn't showing any kind of, like sure, he was like a little thief.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it's like- Even his mom was like, he was kind of a prick. He didn't really show like, true, like, who knows, none of us really know, but it's like, likely wouldn't have. No. No. No.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the next day, Cecilia pulled Billy aside and she said, Pam wants to see you. Now in her office in the media center, Pam apologized for yelling at Billy on the phone and said, don't worry.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's another school board meeting scheduled for next month, so you'll have another chance to kill Greg.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Billy said later, yea right, Billy said later, that's when I started getting serious about it. I thought that if I do something like, I thought that if I do something like not go through with it, she's gonna leave me and that's gonna be it. This is the time I really started talking to JR and Pete about it. Those were his two friends. And that is where we're going to wrap up for part one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But next week we're gonna get into the final plan. The night of the murder and the subsequent trials of those involved. But something to think about.


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[Assistant] More people are involved than you might think later on. Okay. This plan gets finalized with a lot more players than you're probably thinking at this moment. This is just so messy. It's a bunch of fucking malarkey. It's so messy. From the beginning of this marriage until the end, I'm sure, it's all


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Messy. It's absolutely terrible. These are two people that definitely should not have gotten married. No. These are, uh, two people that never should have met, like Billy and Pam. Yeah. And this is a relationship that never should have occurred. Exactly. Multiple relationships that never should have occurred between Billy and Pam.


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[Assistant] Hey Prime members, you can listen to Morbid early and ad free on Amazon Music. Download the app today.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It is, and we're just coming off of a little celebratory moment. We got to see obituary last night live in Somerville.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm happy about that. You know what Madison taught me last night? Madison from, uhm, obituary, which you should go see and buy tickets to. Plug, plug. They are amazing. She taught me to mix, and I think it's a Harry Styles song, to mix, uhm, Diet Coke and red wine, and, uhm, Cabernet specifically.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sounds like absolutely disgusting in a foul. And I was like, I trust you. I took a sip. Life changing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, so sign out of that, but then you might need to also, because I need to do this, you might need to unfollow morbid, which is so sad. So sad. But I follow morbid because like, it's my podcast.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, so I'll like scroll by and it gives you like that like little like two or three comments. I always see the meanest thing that's like, why can't Ash speak? And I'm like, because brain damage, okay? I don't know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well also, you're just like creating a negative space for yourself, and like, I speak from experience, if you put things out into the world that are negative, even if you're not talking shit, like even if you're just talking negatively, it comes back to you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One more thing. What? I just have to tell you, if you're doing that, I'm literally just picturing you sitting in a crusty basement picking your toe cheese. That's actually very true. That's exactly, cause I'm like, you're not happy and I know you have a fungal infection and I'm sorry about it, but.


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[Assistant] I have never written a nasty comment on somebody else's Instagram.


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[Assistant] Well, probably because they washed down the crime scene. Yeaah. That might have something to do with it.


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[Assistant] Do you think that was because the tip sucked or do you think that was because the police department sucked?


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[Assistant] I think I said it last time, or it might have been after we finished recording. If they hadn't cleaned up that crime scene, they could have dusted for prints.


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[Assistant] Okay, good, I feel like. Like that, like, do you get it, what I'm saying? Like your teacher would be like, okay, fill in this bubble with this specific pencil. Do not fill in the bubbles that are colored like this. And you're like, I have so much anxiety right now.


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[Assistant] So listen to your local gas station if they're informing you about a crime.


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[Assistant] Well, that's the thing. I feel like that's not, that's not even a typical robbery gone wrong. They're just gonna like...


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[Assistant] Cause the only people that I would think he would know are like his fellow high schoolers.


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[Assistant] Were the two female victims checked to see if they had like any signs that they had been raped?


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[Assistant] It's like, this guy did it. And did he say who he did it with or he wouldn't give them the name?


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[Assistant] Exactly, like, I think everybody kind of knows what happens at this point. And it's like,


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[Assistant] That's horrible for the family that they had that hope, but at the same time, I'm glad that he realized that they didn't have enough because if all those families had to go through trials and reopening all of that and then to have it end in a mistrial or not guilty, fuck that. Exactly, that's the thing.


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[Assistant] I can't blame them really. Cause it's like if I don't know for sure, then I don't want to harbor hatred and resentment toward one person that murder could not have done it.


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[Assistant] And also if that is, if that is the case with the whole cocaine charge, it's like,


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[Assistant] Two cops quit their jobs at a local theater because of encounters with an alleged demon. An isolated forest in Canada where people keep turning up headless.


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[Assistant] These are just a few of the unbelievable stories you'll hear on the Mr. Ballin podcast on Amazon Music.


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[Assistant] Each week you'll hear about inexplicable encounters, shocking disappearances, and other strange dark and mysterious stories. And they are all true. Like the case of Hailey Zaga.


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[Assistant] She disappeared on a hiking trail for 51 hours and when she was found again, she said a friend helped her survive. And this friend of hers exactly matched the physical description of a little girl who had gone missing in that exact spot 23 years earlier and who had never been found.


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[Assistant] Hey Prime members, listen to the Amazon music exclusive podcast, Mr. Ballin podcast, strange, dark and mysterious stories in the Amazon music app. Download the app today.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But now it's just in the nice afternoon after we've had a salad.


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[Assistant] Is it a world tour or is it like a national tour?


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[Assistant] Or else. Because that show is so fucking funny guys. They are so good. And they're like the most delightful people ever. So it's, support them.


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[Assistant] Yeah, it's pretty terrible and he's doing it in kind of the same way each time. He's got a really like pretty consistent MO. He uses rope. He strangles. He brings them out to the LA desert. Claims he doesn't want to do it. Claims he doesn't want to do it. It's all ridiculous. He's really annoying.


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[Assistant] Yeah. Own it! He's definitely a lying sack of shit. And we're gonna see at the end of this episode, you're gonna get a little glimpse at him that you're like,


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[Assistant] You're, yeaah, like you don't feel any worse whatsoever. And what's even worse about this is this took place in like the late fifties.


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[Assistant] And the LAPD for Ruth Mercado's murder, uh, her photo didn't appear in the LAPD bulletin. I said this at the end of the last episode, just to recap you. It didn't appear in there until two months after she had gone missing.


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[Assistant] And the notes on it were may seek employment at nude modeling or as a stripper and mental condition poor.


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[Assistant] Exactly, and it's like, who are you to say what is a valid profession and what isn't?


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[Assistant] You could say that about anything, like we're podcasters. That doesn't sound like a valid profession, like you know what I mean? Like- And I've had many people look at me, like it's not a-


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[Assistant] But we do it, it's a job, like it pays our bills, like that's what a job is. You go, you work, you work hard, you put your energy into it, and it pays your bills. That's supposed to be what it is at least.


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[Assistant] It's like, it's so fucked up. It is. I don't like it. That makes me mad. So unfortunately we ended on another murder, but we are going to enter into finally him getting caught and not because he was caught.


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[Assistant] Through like good ol' fashion police work. Never. This is the 50s, isn't it? Nope, he was caught because this bad, bad bitch.


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[Assistant] Yeah, he did not want to wait, but he did let six months pass by. He wanted to kill Red again, but he was, he knew there was some heat on, not necessarily on him, but he didn't want to slip up.


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[Assistant] Repairman, because remember he did that in Sing Sing Prison, like that was what he would make his money on on the side. Oh god, I forgot, but he went to Sing Sing. Yea, he sure did, he went to Sing Sing Prison. Uh, but at this point he was kinda starting to lose it a bit.


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[Assistant] And lose it in the sense that he could not stop thinking of abducting and killing women. Like he was obsessing over it.


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[Assistant] He would spend hours just going through the trophies he had stolen from them like the shoes and the underwear, the pieces of fabric, things from their purse.


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[Assistant] Like all he could think about was doing it again. He obsessed over it. I hate this. This also shows you he doesn't ever morse. No.


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[Assistant] You're not remorseful if you are just wanting to relive the situa- like if you're remorseful you never want to think of that situation again. No. Yeah. So in late October of 1958, he was officially back on the hunt.


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[Assistant] But he was so eager and so fucking lazy that he didn't even bother to use another fake name. He just went with Frank Johnson again, which was the same one he used last time.


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[Assistant] And he's going right back to them so he's losing it he's he's getting too eager.


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[Assistant] So he took to the paper to look for his next victim, and he ended up finding an ad for a modeling studio called the Diane Studio.


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[Assistant] It was a modeling agency on Sunset Boulevard and it specialized in pinup modeling. Okay.


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[Assistant] So on October 27th, he showed up to the Diane Studio and said he was Frank Johnson, a professional magazine photographer, and he needed models for a campaign. It's really gross to me that he does it this way because it's like, he's going to a place and he's just essentially purchasing women to murder. Yeah.


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[Assistant] Like he's paying like he's like i would like to hire a model i'm gonna pay for that.


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[Assistant] And then I'm just gonna take her out to the desert and murder her. Torture her and murder her. Yeah.


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[Assistant] It's like that is so fucked up that he is able to do that.


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[Assistant] This is him walking into a place saying, hello, I'd like to pay this much money for...


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[Assistant] To have this girl come so I can take pictures. And nobody knows. And nobody under knows because that is a legitimate job and that is a legitimate transaction.


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[Assistant] That's true. You're going to run out of places. They're going to start recognizing you and if you're using the same name like this idiot, then they're really going to start catching on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But what is even more wild about this is exactly what we were just saying. He had actually photographed Diane of the Diane Studio a few times before. She owns the studio.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Damn. And she must have been, you know, I think she was probably in the beginning when I told you he first moved to LA. Yeah. And he was trying to like work out how he would do all this and he was taking pictures without.


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[Assistant] And when he showed up on this day, she recognized him. But she had previously found him so creepy.


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[Assistant] She's like, I'm not sending you one of my girls. Oh no. Unfortunately, she didn't want to go with him. Oh no.


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[Assistant] But she said she would find a model for him.


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[Assistant] Because obviously I don't think there was like, uh, an intent.


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[Assistant] Why weren't you thinking of that? Like if you found this man creepy enough, putting enough that you yourself will not pose for him, why would you put another one of your girls on him?


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[Assistant] It gave me like a eugh. I was like, come on. That sucks. Especially because of what happens.


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[Assistant] You know what, I'm gonna give it a try. I want to make exactly some extra money. She wanted to change up her, her routine a little bit. She was like, you know what?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wow. And she got the call a little after 9pm that night saying that there was a job for her.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And she would be, and that Diane was going to be sending Frank Johnson by her apartment to pick her up within the hour.


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[Assistant] I feel bad for Lorraine here because she's like, okay. I'm already getting ready. She's only been here a few days. She probably doesn't feel like she can refuse a client at this point. And that's the thing, so she's like, okay, and then she's like, maybe because I'm new, Diane's just being extra cautious and like, overwarning me kind of thing, like,


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[Assistant] She didn't really think much of it because she was like, I'm new, so maybe she's just being extra cautious. Also, from a business standpoint, why would you want to give one of your newest girls a bad experience right


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[Assistant] A lot of this thought process. As Tatiana says, choices. Yea, choices truly. Uh, but you know, she was like, whatever. So a little past 10pm, Harvey knocks on Lorraine's apartment door. He says, hello?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I am frank johnson i'm a magazine photographer.


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[Assistant] And immediately she reminded him that Diane insists on getting the money up front. Ah, well that's good business. Good for Lorraine, Lorraine. She was like, mm-mm. You should always get your money up front. Always get your money up front.


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[Assistant] Never wait, because people will fucking- they'll-


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[Assistant] They'll fuck it up. Yeah, they'll fuck with you. People will fuck with you if they are allowed to fuck with you, so don't let people fuck with you. They might even keep your money. Yeah, they'll keep your money. So like, don't let them do that. And this, and Harvey,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're not getting my services if you're not paying for them. No, I don't work for free, mama. So she, they had agreed upon $22. Okay. Which again, this is in the 50s. I know, I'll do the conversion, you keep talking. So they had agreed upon $22. He decided that he was going to give her $10 and then he did convince her


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That he will give her the rest later. Oh, honey, no. He won't. Unfortunately, because people pleasing is a real thing, and we've all been there, that you're in a situation where you feel like you can't argue.


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[Assistant] She didn't argue and she just said, okay, she accepted it and she accepted his promise that he was going to give the rest before the session. And by the way, it would have been like 275. So there you go. That's a good amount of money. So he really, he gave less than half of that. Yeah. Fuck off. Which that's fucked up.


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[Assistant] So Lorraine was immediately put off by this Frank Johnson fucking character. I would have been put off by that shit too. Hell yea, and on top of being like, weird about the money situation, he smelled like cigarettes, she said, and he had BO. Ew. Which like, I, bleh, like, I would,


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[Assistant] That would have been it for me. Insult behavior. Yeah, he is such an insult. Take a goddamn shower. And she said he was every bit the creep.


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[Assistant] Cause that's the other thing I should say. The reason that like he would come pick her up at the house is cause a lot of times, especially in LA at this time, people didn't have cars.


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[Assistant] He says that there's a change of plans and that Diane had some other people coming into the studio, so it was taken up, so they would have to use his studio in Anaheim. Okay. So Lorraine was like,


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[Assistant] Alright, like she just kinda was reluctant, but she was like, ah, alright, whatever. Like, who am I?


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[Assistant] Target with all this this is probably the way things always go cuz that's the thing it's like when you're in when you're new to something like that you're probably like.


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[Assistant] Is this just par for the course? You know, like I am in LA.


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[Assistant] Because that's just how things go. Like people are going to give you less than what they owe you. Exactly. They're going to change plans on the way to the studio. And this is probably fine.


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[Assistant] So she was just like, okay, whatever. But she did say every alarm bell was ringing in her head.


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[Assistant] What are you gonna do at that point? Your only option at that point is tuck and roll. You gotta think of a plan basically, but that would be very stressful.


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[Assistant] And at the same time, Harvey is attempting to kind of like ease her anxiety, like cause he likes to get them comfortable. He likes to, he doesn't want everybody screaming and yelling. Remember, the second a woman turns around and challenges him in any way,


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[Assistant] He flees. Remember that's happened a few times. Like he cannot handle.


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[Assistant] So, but, but these women don't know that. So he, so his whole thing is that he likes to get them calm, he likes to get them to trust him until he has that gun out and then he can really control you. But before that, he's got to keep you docile. He doesn't want you jumping at him.


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[Assistant] So he's kinda just telling her about this fictional job that he has come up with, what they're gonna be shooting.


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[Assistant] But then as they kept driving south toward the desert, they got on the Santa Ana freeway and Lorraine is suddenly not feeling as at ease as she started to feel. Because she said,


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[Assistant] It's like, snap, they're a different beast. It's so true.


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[Assistant] Especially when he pulled off the freeway and onto the shoulder.


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[Assistant] And he tried to force her to get her hands behind her back so she, he could tie them.


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[Assistant] Today is not the day and I'm not the one, Harvey, or Frank, I should say. Oh my god. Yeah, grabbed it, she's yelling, he's yelling, she's trying to wrench it out of his hands and he's yelling, just do what I tell you and you won't get hurt.


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[Assistant] He can wipe everything down, he doesn't leave a trace. Guns leave traces of people. They sure do. So he's like, that can be traced back to me. And apparently he was so shocked, he just goes, I shot you. Oh my god. Like was you like shocked?


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[Assistant] They were on the side of the highway, albeit in a pretty desolate area, about like 200 feet off the actual highway, but it was a heavily traveled area. I was going to say anybody could drive by at any moment. Exactly. And you know, you know who did happen to come by? Like you said, at any moment?


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[Assistant] Like, had no idea that's what he was coming up on. Harvey is such a scared little bunny when he is confronted with any kind of authority, so he stopped immediately when he saw the cop.


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[Assistant] This allowed Lorraine to jump up off the ground and literally just like sprint at the patrolman. And she's screaming, he's trying to kill me, he's trying to kill me.


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[Assistant] Later, after Harvey had been arrested, Mulligan described Harvey as having a quote, lunatic stare. And he said it took quote, three or four minutes to get a hold of himself. Cause he was just like, out of it. That's scary. Yea, and he said a lunatic stare.


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[Assistant] Yep, and you can see, it is literally like a flick of a switch. It is. And what's crazy is later after talking about it, Lorraine actually


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[Assistant] If I had known how to fire it, I believe I could have killed him. But he just stood there and watched me and after a while the police came.


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[Assistant] And I don't want her to have that on her head that she had to kill someone. Because no matter who it is, that's a heavy load I imagine to take, so it's like I don't want that on her. So Harvey was taken to the local sheriff's station and he tried to explain that he had only been in California for a few months, he had met that girl that night,


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[Assistant] And then he said he didn't have any plan to hurt her. He was just trying to scare her. Were they like, what's with all the rope and the gun then? And also like, that's still fucked up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, fortunately they didn't, so he was booked into the Orange County Jail that night on charges of attempted rape and assault with a deadly weapon. Good asshole.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, this was good, we finally have him, and now that he's in custody and he's being charged, Harvey really tried to minimize all the events. I had a feeling that was gonna happen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He did, he did, so he minimized everything, but then he kind of essentially admitted that he was planning to sexually assault Lorraine. Oh good. But he was definitely not gonna tell them that he was planning to murder her, when he definitely was. Uh, at least not at first, he wouldn't admit that. He later does.


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[Assistant] He said that, you know, he was, he was just trying to assault her fellas, like come on.


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[Assistant] Everybody like, kind of like. Just guys being dudes. Just guys being dudes, locker room talk. The problem was, Harvey was never as smart or as stealthy as he thought he was or wanted to be. No.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this whole story was so fucking cobbled together. He had a long criminal history of attacking women that they now were privy to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And detectives were beginning to get the feeling that there was something much bigger happening here and not only just that he was planning to attack this woman and assault her, they were like, he was definitely going to hurt her at the very least, but we think he was going to try to kill her. And now they're sitting there going,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think he might have done this before. Like I think there's gonna be more here, we should look into this. Thank gosh they had that feeling. Yeah. And luckily they sent an alert out to all the law enforcement agencies in the area.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And detectives in Los Angeles thought, you know what, we have a few missing women and we should see if we can tie these to him. That's a good thought guys. There you go. Maybe I'm glad you're thinking. I like it. And they sent two detectives to Orange County to interview Harvey.


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[Assistant] Like he saw that needle go boop boop boop. Like he watched it happen. Like he knew that he was caught. And he goes, you can't beat the machine. I suppose you found my toolbox. You're just playing with me now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But they hadn't found his toolbox. They had not found his toolbox.


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[Assistant] Yeah, like it's one of those things. I don't think he wanted to stop, but I think he knows one, he doesn't want to go back to prison. No, he did not like prison.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And two, I think he knows like this just isn't gonna end. Like I might as well just give it up because like just kill me instead. I think he'd rather die than go back to prison or any of that. And I think he's just so fucking cocky. Yeah. Like I think it also has a lot to do with that.


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[Assistant] But like I said, they have not found his toolbox yet, which I'm also like, you didn't find it because they searched his apartment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, you didn't find that? So they, the LAPD detectives went back to the apartment to search again, and in a more thorough search they found the toolbox. I'm like, you missed that the first time around? So he hadn't said that. They wouldn't have found it. No, and that's like, I mean, those are literally smoking guns right there. And it was hidden in the garage.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. And when they got the toolbox, obviously they found 22 photos of Judy Dull, Shirley Bridgeford and Ruth Mercado, both alive and dead. That's horrible. And as well as all this stuff, all the trophies that he had taken from them. Now, these photos, we were just talking about it, they're really disturbing and it's not because they're graphic.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like she literally is crying. That's Shirley Bridgeford. It's moments before she was killed. It's horrific because these pictures.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Shirley Bridgeford one, she's in the desert, she's on a blanket, just like he said. You know how that night went, we talked about it in part one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She was not, uhm, she was not a model. This was the lonely hearts one that he did. She was the mom of two. She was just out on a date.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right. And so like there was no tying up going to be happening in any sense of the word, like for photos or anything like that. And in the photo she's tied up on a blanket in the middle of the desert, gagged, and she is crying.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it's one of those things, it's like, I feel like my opinion on crime scene photos has shifted a lot. Yeah. As we've gone through this podcast, I think, honestly. No, I agree. Looking at so many, I think it's like, it's changed the way I view them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I think I kind of look, looking at these, I was like, yeah, I don't, I don't think I'm supposed to see that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's not, that's not for public consumption. It really is. A photo, it changed my view a lot. A photo is a lot. It is. And I think it's because


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know. I don't know. These ones, these ones changed a lot of my view because they're different.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're a different kind of crime scene photo. They are. They're not of a dead body. They're not of a graphic in the bloody or gory sense of the word. But these ones are like emotionally graphic. They are. And I'm not used to that. You know, like seeing someone like uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause crime scene photos in general are usually taken by police officers or crime scene technicians.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But yeaah, I think that's what it is. I think it's that they're, they were taken by him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, but yeaah. That's just the evolution of our view on crime scene photos. Uhm, but the discovery of these photos and the trophies that were in the toolbox.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That was all detectives needed to tie the three murders to Harvey. Boom, here they are. Thank you for that box. He knew it at this point. So he was like, yep. So it almost seemed again, like he was, detectives thought he seemed relieved to be caught.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know if this has to do with some kind of like, you know, psychology here that he was...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Lose it, and he was beginning to lose his grasp on normal reality and being able to play the two sides of his life, which were, I'm a TV repairman, no, I'm this. And it's like, I think he wasn't able to straddle that line anymore. And so I think because he was unable to control his urges anymore.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That was becoming an issue and maybe that's why they saw it as him being relieved, but I don't know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, but now that he was safely in custody, he began telling detectives just every detail about the murders. And they said, and this is why I kind of like, go back and forth,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was almost boasting about how he'd found the women and lured them to their deaths.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, absolutely, because he did mention before he wanted to do something different. Right. And he wanted to be famous. And here you go. Now, the evidence in the toolbox, according to him, was kept so that if he was ever caught, he would be convicted.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He said, I quote, I didn't have the guts enough to give myself up. I wanted to, but I just couldn't.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He did not keep that toolbox just to get convicted. That's not what that was. Good try, Harvey. That was trophies. That was you because you were reliving them. You wanted to open it. You wanted to touch it. You wanted to think about it. You wanted to be back at that place.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Shut the fuck up with this. I wanted to be convicted. I just didn't have the guts to turn my- Shut up. Shut up. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just admit that you're a disgusting little worm person and that you like to open this toolbox and touch all the things that you had taken from these women and look at these photographs of them in their last moments that you took. And go back to that moment. And go back to that moment. Just admit it. You disgusting little worm. Yeah. Admit it. But you won't.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Harvey was determined not to go back to prison. He definitely didn't. He immediately asked for the death penalty.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So after the confession, he agreed to take the detectives out to the desert and to the crude grave sites of Shirley and Ruth. Because remember, Judy was found.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They were, but when they did unearth the remains, the San Diego coroner Al Gallagher said that the remains were quote, little more than a bag of bones. That's really sad. Which is very sad.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now on November 5th, 1958, he was taken to the San Diego County Sheriff's Office and he kept right on confessing, but this time they recorded it. So they have a whole record of it. He went through the details of each murder, how he did it, and he insisted he had


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which is like, that's not a motive, dude. Like, that's not, you're gross. Like, you can take photos and not murder people. He said, but aside from that, I was interested in having sexual relations. Relations.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You could have gotten on several dates and you could have gotten to know each other and then she would have been comfortable maybe becoming more intimate with you later. That's how you do things. He wanted what he wanted and he wanted to take it. Exactly. And it's like, fuck you. Stop calling it sexual relations.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Say you wanted to rape women. Cause you didn't want to have sex with them. No. Because if you did, you would have formulated a relationship and had consensual sex with people. Yup. But no, you wanted to take it. You wanted to rape. Exactly. You disgusting little worm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But he went into- Such a scary voice. He's so disgusting. He went into graphic detail. He included his bullshit thoughts about how he thought some of the women enjoyed themselves with him. That's so fucking beyond. So foul.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like the primary thing was he enjoyed using a rope. That's how he liked to do it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you know what, he had that since, like, that predilection since he was very young. Right. Obviously, like you said, I don't even think he, he might not have even recognized that that was what it was. Yeah. But it, that was what it was. Exactly. It absolutely was.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now from the moment he was arrested, San Diego and Los Angeles prosecutors constantly had to worry about him taking his own life because he was constantly talking about it, uhm, and they were also worried about


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Visited him in jail and on her way out of the jail she said to the press, talk to any of the people in the jail. He is not vicious. He's sick. Oh, feel ya.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Viciously raped and viciously murdered. He spent on his own admission five to ten minutes strangling them until there was no signs of life. That in and of itself, that little, like, that's not a little part of life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's a rapist, Ophelia. The entire operation, abducting women, is vicious. Like, come on. Like, I understand you're his mother, and I understand you wanting to say he is sick. And he is sick.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He shot her in the fucking leg and he's not vicious? It's like, come on, man. Like, girly girl.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's one of those things, like, I know you're his mother. Yeah, and I know that he's, like, yeah, he is sick. And I know this is a loss, you know, and this is a tragedy for you as well. This is your child who has done this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I understand again saying he's sick, and I'm, you know, you do you, whatever. But don't say he's not vicious. That's like, woah dude, like don't do that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So on November 8th, 1958, a grand jury convened in the San Diego Courth- County Courthouse, and he was indicted for the March 9th murder of Shirley Ann Bridgeford and July 24th murder of Ruth Mercado. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A few weeks later on November 21st, he appeared before Judge John, uh, I think it's Hewicker in Department 4 of Superior Court. He pled guilty and the sentencing was deferred until a later date. But we all knew that he was asking for the death penalty.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, again, this was a death penalty case, that's what they were, that was what was on the table.


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[Assistant] So there was gonna be a lot of red tape galore, but in the meantime,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ophelia just kept talking about Harvey just being girl shy and not understanding how to be around women.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ignoring the assaults and robberies he had committed over the years, just minimizing the straight up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they tried very hard to prove that he was simply mentally ill and not competent to stand trial, but it wasn't working. He was very clearly antisocial and very delusional, that is for sure, but he was clear


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When he was questioned, you know, that before committing the murders, he said that he was feeling some kind of way about it. That alone is you saying, I know what I was doing was wrong, but I went ahead and did it anyway. That's you saying I have a clear


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So on December 15th, 1958, he appeared in the superior court for the sentencing and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He definitely, he told his lawyers, do not stop me from getting the death penalty. But legally, they had an obligation amongst some kind of defense. They couldn't just be like, sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, to make it harder to do that, the prosecutor, William Lowe, he learned all about his criminal past.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the end, he was found guilty of two counts of first degree murder, and again, he wanted to be executed at the earliest possible date, but


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Neither Harvey nor his attorney had anything to say when the verdict was given. They were like, I'm not speaking because...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Judge Hewicker actually had a lot to say though. I love when the judge has a lot to say. Yea, he had been sitting here, he had listened to the entire thing, he heard the detailed descriptions of how he had murdered these women, and after everything had gone down, he said this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know there are a lot of people, people in high places that don't believe in capital punishment.


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[Assistant] Now if life imprisonment in California meant life imprisonment, that would be one thing. Life imprisonment in this state means confinement for seven years or more. And when I say more, it depends on the past record of the defendant.


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[Assistant] If a law could be passed and placed in the constitution so that each legislature couldn't come along and modify it, if they made life imprisonment, life imprisonment without the possibility of pardon or parole, that would be one thing. But we don't have that. We will never have it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And there are some crimes that are so revolting that in my opinion, there is only one penalty that can be imposed and that penalty is the death penalty.


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[Assistant] His was found, was heard by the Supreme Court of California on June 5th, 1959. So he did appeal. It's like an automatic appeal.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was seated, strapped into a chair. At 10.03am the cyanide tab was dropped, releasing gas into the room.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He apparently, according to witnesses, started inhaling very deeply. Uh, people think that that was probably the reason for, and what happens in these scenarios is you just kind of watch the pulse go boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, and it plummeted. He was pronounced dead at 10, 12 a.m. So from 10, 03 to 10, 12 is how long it took.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's not very long. I don't know how long these, those things normally take, but I was like, woah.


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[Assistant] That was the end of Harvey Glatman. Bye! But.


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[Assistant] If you remember, throughout the second half of the, if you remember, like if you remember, throughout the second half of the 20th century, do you remember that? I think I do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] California became a place of lots of serial killers. Of Bray Cray and the Bray Bray. Many serial killers and a lot of times as we got later and later, they got those crazy, you know, monikers in the press when we couldn't identify them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it kind of was like an epidemic, like it seemed like for a while.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But in 1958 when all this was going on, nobody really could even conceive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of harvey glattman, you know, like this, this was a monster that we had not yet studied and not yet understood. Not that we were going to understand, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Obviously he eventually got a nickname, like the Glamour Girl Slayer, because everybody always attributes a nickname to it. But when it was going on, he really, it wasn't a huge story. It was like a, it was a big story, but it wasn't what it would be now. Wasn't sensationalized. Or what it would be in like the 70s or the 80s, you know, like any of those.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But in April of 1954, after he had been released, this was before he had started this killing spree, it was after he had been released from Sing Sing, and before he'd moved from California, that little span of time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There was a body discovered. Oh shit. In that span of time where he was out of prison. Not in California. And this body was discovered in Boulder Hills, which is just a short drive from Denver. If you remember, he was living in Colorado.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So this was a nude body of a young woman. This woman was a Jane Doe for more than 50 years.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Until 2008, when investigators in Colorado said that they were tentatively identifying her.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As Katherine E. Ferrend-Dyer, which was a young woman who lived in a Denver boarding house, not far from where Harvey was staying with his parents. Oh shit. Now the investigation had been reported a short time earlier after various exchanges of information on a public message board that linked this Jane Doe to Harvey Gottman. People were starting to talk about it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The reason was the timeline fit, the methods fit, and a lot of the facts of the case were fitting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Facts like Jane Doe had been hit by a car just shortly before her death.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was like, no, they were mostly, he's like, I think they're all alive. And then he smirked and said, unless they've been run over. Yep.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Unless they've been run over and this girl was hit by a car. Why would you like that? Why would he say that? And he smirked. Wow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Add to this, the newly conducted autopsy found that the young woman had been bound at the wrist and ankles in exactly the same way that he would bind his other victims, and it fits his M.O.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But obviously Harvey had been long dead by this time. By the time she's identified. And it kinda seemed like they were never gonna connect the necessary dots. But a year after Colorado detectives first said that they identified this body, this is wild, the real Catherine Dyer


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was found alive in re- in, in Queensland, Australia. So they had falsely identified this. Now,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Apparently at this point, care workers were preparing to move this woman they knew as Barbara into an assisted living facility.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When they did that, they came across a ton of items that belonged to someone named Catherine Dyer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They dug a little deeper and they learned that Barbara was in fact Catherine Dyer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She had disappeared from Colorado more than a half century earlier and they were like, what the fuck is going on? But she wouldn't talk about it. Like she didn't want to say why she had disappeared. She didn't want to say any of that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So there was a press briefing on this story and Boulder detective, uh, Steve Ainsworth.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And in ju- in the fall of 2019, or excuse me, fall of 2009,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Through DNA technology, he was able to identify the remains as Dorothy Gay Howard, who was a 16 year old runaway from Phoenix, Arizona.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yep. It was actually in 2004 that historian, historian Sylvia Petum took to the, like she took some interest in this case, the Jane Doe, and she asked if they could exhume the Jane Doe's body.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And she was able to get, like they were able to do it, like official permission to do it. And then they were able to reconstruct what she looked like. And when they did that, they published this reconstruction in an article.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And she got in touch with authorities, gave her DNA, they connected them and were able to identify this Jane Doe that way. And so was she definitely murdered by Harvey, they think? Now Ainsworth, so that's the problem. So Ainsworth believes Dorothy had run away. That's why she was in Colorado. She ran away from her husband in Phoenix.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like a bad situation and had come to Denver to visit an aunt and a week later she disappeared without a trace.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now they said around this time scores of women and girls had vanished around this time in Boulder Canyon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It seemed like he was pretty confident, like you said, like he...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think you're right, I think he had done this before in some other capacity, and he found what worked.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wow. Because the fact that he drove her out to the desert, this guy drove like a hundred miles away to the desert.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He had the blanket in his back, in his trunk, he had the rope, he had it all set up, he did the same thing for each one. He had done that and figured it out before. He did leave Colorado pretty abruptly. That's what I was thinking, why did you leave? Right, he really had no reason to go out to California. He left because he figured he could do it out there now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wow. Because he's already been arrested in Colorado. And he had already photographed women in Colorado. Right. So he had already started that whole shtick. So I gotta start somewhere new. And it's like now he knows if he goes to LA he can get even more women even easier through that whole shtick. Holy shit. So he had perfected his way. I guarantee you,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It just fits too perfect. The fact that she was hit by a car and it matched the measurements of his car. The fact that she was bound in exactly the same way. She was very pretty. And then he said that. And then the fact that he said


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That was crazy. I need some spookay. Well, we'll do a listener tail. Yeah, we'll get a listener tail between there. Perfect. But then you're getting more carnage, so. Yeah, stay tuned. I got a rough one for ya. So stay tuned!


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hey Prime members, you can listen to Morbid early and ad free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Or you can listen ad free with Wondery Plus and Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's just a good liar that he can convince the juror that he wasn't involved.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But not somewhere that you have the same exact dream as your daughter and then like you don't even know why and you don't know what snakes symbolize in a dream but I've googled it for you and I'm gonna tell you in a second and then just like don't keep it that weird.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, but apparently, snakes symbolize a person in the dreamer's life who exhibits low, dirty, toxic, or poisonous behavior.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So it's maybe it's like you saved your daughter or even like saved your family from some kind of like toxic behavior. Look at that. I wonder if like, did you cut anybody out of your life at that time or like? Ooh, I want to know. Or, I don't know, did you like avoid a job that you were


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I have, I can't, I'm so obsessed with it. Also you and your husband are the fucking cutest couple ever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I love you a lot. I love you oh my god and your girls. I love you forever. Oh my god stop it. And you and your friend. Oh my god these children are fucking adorable.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A snake within a nightmare is a very good indication that your subconscious feels there's a toxic person in your life that is an immediate threat, meaning their toxic behavior has reached a point where your subconscious level has had it and it needs to slap you into attention.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Attached is my tale about a glitch in time. It is about a ten minute read.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ooh, I'm excited. I'm obsessed with this border. OMG. Hey weirdos and spooky best friends, Ash and Elena and Dub-Dub. I'm Liz and you can use my name. I found your podcast when you were only at episode five. Whoa. I especially like to listen when I'm feeling down or off just because you are both so kind and genuinely good people. Thank you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I found you guys because of my long commute to work years ago. I hated driving and needed a kick in the pants to want to get in my car and consider my pants kicked. Hell yeah. Because I look forward to driving now, even in the cold winters of the Albany area. That's a shitty drive, I know that. Yeah. I work in an emergency room and am soon to be an emergency room nurse. Oh, bad ass. Hell yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you mentioned wanting stories about glitches and time, this forgotten memory popped into my head and I figured I would share.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Let me set the scene. Also, ADHD brain warning.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a normal day in Buffalo. The sky's gray, it's still too cold to not wear a huge jacket, and the wind is blowing your hair around and numbing your face. I'm there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I walk from my little apartment to class, which takes about 25 minutes. I get to the room where my lecture is held and take off my big coat and attempt to fix my hair. Who am I trying to impress though? These nerds.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I forgot the hair and pull out my notebook. Oh, so I forget the hair.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I also never know what day it is and I like to write the date at the top, so I flip to the last page with the notes and see that the date was two days ago.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a Monday slash Wednesday type deal and today is Wednesday. I scan the top of the page for the date and my eyes stop on October 18th. My brow creases and the world stops for a second. That date seems wrong.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I dig my phone out and touch the screen. It is October 18th today. Oh, weird. I must have written the wrong date two days ago, so no big deal. That's definitely something I would do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I look down at the rest of the page and read the first thing I wrote down just as the professor starts his lecture.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But in my handwriting, and I don't remember writing it. What? I'm big confused at this point, y'all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm looking around the big lecture hall and no one else is confused. This goes on and on and I'm just following along with pages and pages of already written notes at this point. I would be in a cold sweat. I would be losing my shit. There's even little pictures drawn in the margins like how all my notes are.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The lecture ends and I turn to my friend near me and say, wow, that was weird, he literally gave the same lecture on Monday.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And she creased her brow and said, what? No he didn't. That was all new to me. Whaaat? I would cry. I would just cry cry cry cry cry.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the rest of the day was also not weird at all, except for the show that aired the next day. I watched it with a group of friends and I could recall that I had seen that episode before.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Even though it had never aired before. What? Walking Dead maybe? Nothing like that has ever happened to me before or since. I'm getting goosebumps right now just thinking about it. Did I travel to a new timeline or just pass through real quick and I don't know what's happening? Please help.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I guess I just pushed it down where all my other emotions go lol, and decided not to process it, and then I eventually forgot about it for years. I figured no one would even believe me if I told them anyway, so I've kept this one deep inside.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Until now. Hell yea. Keep it weird, but not so weird that you get to class already have the notes because some weird glitch in the time, but you have no memory of actually taking said notes, so you really should just have stayed home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was looking at a TikTok of it the other day and there were so many of them and I was like, no, that's not the correct version.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Everybody would know. Okay? You heard it here first. Government? No, I'm just kidding. It's not even the government. Alright.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, well my next one is, uh, Grandma Cassidy as a Banshee or 9-11 Morning Dream. Damn.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I also love all things spooky, so I really enjoy the episodes on the paranormal and the ghosts and the ghouls. My husband is not a believer, but I am and I have had some experiences that make me a true believer, especially in ghosts.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It took me a bit to want to write this tale because I cry almost every time when I think about what happened. I'm dyslexic so my spelling is even worse when I'm emotional, when I'm an emotional wreck.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I proofread this several times, so I hope it's legible. Uhm, already? I'm like, what dyslexia?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I have attached here a double-spaced Puttifa 14 font in Times New Roman. Hell yeaah. I would be honored if you read it on one of your listener tales. You can use my name. Below is a photo of myself and Gavin at the last wedding we attended together. It has been 21 years since he passed away. Awww. I'm sorry.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But you will always hold a special place in my heart. Keep it weird, stay your awesome selves, love Bridget. Bridget, you guys are cuties. I love you. Alright, let me see here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My grandmother lived in a neighborhood for just a few years before she passed away. Or lived in my neighborhood, excuse me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After this horrific attack, she was finally convinced to sell her home of more than 60 years and move closer to my family.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She moved into a row house a few blocks away from us. She was unhappy because she missed her butcher, her church, and especially the St. Jerome's Golden Age Society and the Rosary Society because church. Because church! She did not venture out much, aww.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sorry to bombard you with all the Catholic stuff, but my momma loved her rosary. In fact, she was often mistaken for a nun. Not the habit-wearing type, but the groovy, liberated, post-Vatican tube polyester suit-wearing type of nun. That type of nun. You know, just that kind.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And my pops love to complain about the long-ass sermons. This is a favourite pastime among grumpy Irish Catholic men. Truth.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Anyhoo, I was the teacher's pet. Yes, that one. Hermione had nothing on me. You're raising your hand like, do we have homework over the weekend?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I figured she was there for the Rosary Society meeting, and I had a very important missive to deliver the principal, and I was teacher's pet. I had a reputation to uphold, and I was a massive nerd. It's Leviosa, not Leviosa.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Grandma and I were close. I loved her costume jewelry and sleeping at her house when my parents went out, which wasn't often since my mom always wore a girdle and it took about a week for her to get in and out of that bad boy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He had his lymph nodes removed and the surgery really took its toll. We were all really worried that he might not survive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In early September 2001, I dreamt about my grandmother. In the dream, my grandmother was lying on the floor of an all-white room wrapped in a shroud.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was upset because I believed my grandma was trying to warn me about something awful.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I told Gavin about the dream and said I think it meant that someone was going to die.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He hugged me and told me that my dad was a tough old buzzard and he would live for a- he would live a long life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, on September 11th, 2001, Gavin got up early for work because he had a meeting. His dad was visiting and he was driving into Manhattan with Gavin to catch a bus to Mass. Gavin's aunt and uncle lived there. He kissed me goodbye and said, see you tonight. I fell back to sleep and got up about an hour later. At the time we lived in, is it Bayonne?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I got to the World Trade Center where Gavin worked around 8.55.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was in the mezzanine under the towers and heading toward the subway. I heard a loud pop.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The first tower was on fire and there was paper fluttering everywhere. I asked a man what happened and he said plane hit the building. Oh my God. I tried to call Gavin, but the cell service had cut. I asked the man, you think they'll evacuate the second tower? I was worried because Gavin worked in the second tower. He said definitely. So I decided to hop on the subway and go to court.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I thought that some untrained pilot like J.F. Gage Jr. had gotten confused and crashed their plane by accident into the building. That's what we all thought.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My knees gave way, someone grabbed me, and all I could say was, he's in the building. Completely, oh you're gonna like actually make me cry. Yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Completely dazed, I somehow made my way to the office. By the time I got to midtown the buildings had collapsed. We were notified in November 2001 that his remains had been recovered.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm always grateful that grandma visited me and tried to warn me. You see, Gavin and I usually commuted into the city together, but that day he had a 7am meeting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If I knew then what I know now, I would have tried to get him to stay home or commute, uh, and commute with me. He would be alive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Gavin visited a priest in a vision. The priest was clairvoyant and often received visitors. My cousin was on a religious retreat, because church, that the clairvoyant priest was running.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That was the first thing about him that let me know he was boyfriend material


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On a humorous note, Gavin had a very thick northern British accent. No one ever understood him. I often acted as a translator. I proudly say that I am fluent in Cockney English. I will be very excited if you share my tale about Grandma Cassidy as a banshee. You guys are awesome and your podcast makes my horrific commute bearable.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Stay lovably weird, love Bridget. Bridget! I'm so sorry that you went through that. I am so sorry.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh my god, guys, what is up? This is a podcast that I host with my friend, Delaina, who needs some help. She's actually my sister, just not my friend. Some of you think that we are cousins. Some of you think that we are brothers. Some of you are wrong. Some of you are right. We are just two human beings. I don't know where else


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's one of the most captivating stories that we've ever gotten on this podcast.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So thanks for those listener tales because, damn. You just rocked us. Yeah, I don't have words left, so I'm just going to say the usual.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Thank you for listening, and we hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just as weird as Kayla. Yeah, keep it that weird. Just as weird as Kayla with a C.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Decades before Anna Delvey began scamming her way into high society, Christian Karl Gerhardsreiter was infiltrating America's most elite circles with little more than a fake name and a lot of charm. Bold, ruthless, and willing to kill, Gerhardsreiter embarked on a caper across the West Coast, successfully evading the FBI for decades.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm Saachi Cole, co-host of Wondry's podcast, Scamfluencers, where we unpack the lives and schemes of some of the biggest scammers and con artists.


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[Assistant] In our recent two-part series, Three Weddings and a Funeral, High Society's top social circles become a playground for a fraudster. Follow Scamfluencers wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondry app.


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[Assistant] Kind of a cult, it's like they consider themselves a cult, but they're kind of like cults.


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[Assistant] They're just like a cult that has aspartame in it.


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[Assistant] Yeah, like Diet Coke, like it tastes really disgusting, but it does a lot of damage. I mean, I like Diet Coke, but Aspartame's really bad for you.


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[Assistant] So that's what they are. Their diet, they're like the diet soda of cults where


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[Assistant] It's bad, but it's like not the same as the regular, but it's somehow worse for you.


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[Assistant] Is anyone else dealing as like parents, are you dealing with like tons of school viruses? Apparently there's like a shit ton of them going around.


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[Assistant] And we've managed to get away from a lot of them, but they are weird and like quick and really just


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[Assistant] But you know what, here we are. Talking about diet cults. How's everybody feeling? Loopy. We keep seeing everybody getting their merch. That is pretty cool. So exciting.


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[Assistant] I'm so happy, and I'm so happy to hear that it's soft.


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[Assistant] That's exactly what we're looking for. And you know what? You guys are serving it up for us, like, back to us at least.


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[Assistant] Uh, so yeaah, it's, this is gonna be a really gnarly one. Just wanna, well it is you, wanna be clear. This is like, not super old timey.


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[Assistant] I wasn't even alive. But like, it's probably a little old timey to everyone else. Just not as old timey as I usually go.


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[Assistant] So we're gonna take you back to September 25th, 1991, and we are going to talk about the carnie cult. Ooh, I know. It's immediately, you're like, ooh. Yeah, I'm scared. Ooh, not gonna feel that. The carnie cult.


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[Assistant] Now, the guys involved in this whole thing are Jimmy Lee Penick, Mark Goodwin, and brothers Keith and David Lawrence. They were in a satanic cult, they started the whole thing.


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[Assistant] They claimed they were working off of Anton LaVey's satanic bible. I think they were just assholes, but you know, like I think we'll all make a decision at the end of this.


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[Assistant] Now Jimmy kind of, there's always one that becomes kind of the de facto leader of these kind of things. Yeah, every cult needs a leader. Every cult needs a leader. I don't even know if he was actually the cult leader, but he definitely got, like, he was the one that everybody kind of remembers from this.


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[Assistant] He was, he was really the one who did the most like dirty work too and he seemed to have a past of doing dirty work and doing bad things and hurting people and straight up murder. This is not his first rodeo that we're gonna talk about.


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[Assistant] Oh, yeah, like this is not his first rodeo and it's not his first ritual sacrifice. Okay. Yeah. But...


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[Assistant] Mark Goodwin had been into this Satan shit for a long time. I think Jimmy was kind of just like joining it just as like whatever when he got older, like into his twenties. But Mark Goodwin, he was the one that was into it since like elementary school.


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[Assistant] Damn. Yeah, which is like pretty early to get into Satanism, I would say. I would say so. I mean, uhm.


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[Assistant] Yeah, you know, I just feel like, okay, like how did that occur? But teachers and other students said he was super into it.