[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When especially like in New York City, like a place where there's like tons of shit going on, it's not okay, but you can see how it happens.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because it sounds like, I don't know what you have to go through to get a liquor license, but I know it's a pretty arduous process. I'm sure, yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That also leads you to believe that if somebody is capable of doing something that deranged and depraved, he probably did do whatever Lydia said he did.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's horrific. All because one man couldn't handle the fact that he was being broken up. One asshole.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That many people shouldn't have had to die such horrific deaths for you to take care of a problem. And if it was that quick and easy to put together the task force and they went right to it, that should have happened.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's the thing, I understand, I understand where he's coming from and he's not wrong that there are many things to blame. I don't think this was the time or the place to talk about those other things.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And no idea, like, that's the biggest thing right there, what you just said, and no idea that these


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I feel like we need a palate cleanser after that. We do. Uhm, because my next case is also very, very brutal, very, very senseless, and... So we're gonna need one. Really horrific, so we'll definitely need one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, so we'll figure that out hopefully in between these cases I think is a good idea to do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, it was, uh, after a drunken night downtown, and anyways, I was, uh, me and my buddies, we all parted ways, so they went back to Dartmouth, and anyways, I was gonna wait for a cab, uh, anyways, waiting for a cab, and then this guy pulls up, just like, waiting for a cab, and I was like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was also, you know, fairly intoxicated, but the way he said it like that, I kind of assumed, oh, this guy is a cab driver, but maybe he took his light off or something. So I get in the cab, or the car, and you know, first thing this guy was really cool because he picked me up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's like, all right, cool. And then, uh, yeah, we get driving and then yeah, he's just like, uh, you like gloves? I was like, what? So then he opens up the glove compartment and, uh, pulls out a pair of gloves and then it's just a light bulb kind of clicks. I'm like, wait a minute.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is this that fucking, that glove guy, that weirdo that I've seen the thing off, right? And I'm starting to think, holy shit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm in this guy's cab, or his car. Like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm actually like in the same car as this guy, like this is the guy. So I pull out my phone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I actually started texting my friend. He looked like he was like he was trying to peer at my phone, like trying to see what I was doing, right? So I kind of tilted it towards me, because then I'm really getting kind of weirded out at this point, right? He's like, uh, oh, you're probably, uh, you're probably trying to Google me, aren't you?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was like, no, no, I'm like, you know, I actually, I don't cut data, so I couldn't even do that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's like, okay, this guy is, yeah, this is weird. This guy is a weirdo.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I was gonna get him to just take me to the bank, but uh, Clayton Parker by the McDonalds. Anyways, he starts going...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] These weird directions that like, almost the complete opposite direction of where I was going. And then he pulls over, I'm like, okay, what is going on? Like, I'm kinda freaking out a little bit. He's like, don't worry, I'm gonna get you home, I'm gonna get you home. But first, just try on these gloves.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm just like, you know what? I'm just gonna go with this guy. I'm just gonna fuckin' do what he says and make him happy, cause I felt like for a minute I was in like, Jeffrey Dahmer's care or something, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, yeaah, I'm putting the gloves on, yeaah, yeaah, see, just stretch it just like that, yeaah, just pull it back, yeaah, nice like that, yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, he's like kinda breathing heavy and shit, right? It's really weird. I'm thinking at this point, like, is this guy like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Getting off to this right now? Cause he seems to be enjoying me like watching me put these gloves on. And then I see this, this paddy wagon drive by. I'm thinking, is this my chance? Do I just...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Get out the car and just run to this cop, like I don't know what to do right now. And, uh, so yeah, then yeah, he, you know, puts the, takes the gloves back and then we.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Keep going. So then he, you know, starts driving, starts going off towards, uh, Clayton Perricks. I'm like, okay, we're going in the right direction. Cool. So I'm just trying to make conversation, just whatever. You know. Then yeah, he's like, yeah, Charlie, knee gloves.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm like, uhm, alright, no, no, no, try them on. So I put the gloves on, am I okay?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah, these feel really nice. Yeah. So I take them off and he's like, no, no, keep them on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, yeaah, no, no, keep them on. So I just keep them on and we get to the bank. And then, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, so I was like, yeaah, I'm gonna go get your money. He's like, oh no, no, no, keep the gloves on, keep wearing them. I was like, no man, I'm going to the bank, it's five o'clock in the morning, and you want me to wear sketchy leather gloves. I'm like, no. Like, that's sketchy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just trying to make up any excuses this way. I don't want to keep your fucking gloves. I don't want to necessarily piss them off and say that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Try to be nice about the situation. Yeah, so anyways, uh, he said, okay, okay. So I get out and, you know, I go and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Grab 20 bucks at the thing, you know, I'm just, I mean, I could have just took off running.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I'm like, no, I'm just, I told this guy, give him 20 bucks, give him his 20, and you know, he'll leave me alone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I was like, oh, there's no way I'm leaving this guy back to my apartment. And uhm, walk up the stairs, I'm looking behind me, and the guy's still there. So, as soon as I get up the stairs, I just turn, take a left, and just run. And I just start running down the street. Uhm, but yeah, and then I got home, and I messaged my buddies, I'm like, you are not gonna believe what the f*** happened to me. And, yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I got a fucking splinter in the process and that's exactly why I don't do shit like this. And I took the splinter out. She did. It was very impressive because it was, well actually I thought it was small, but you thought it was big. It was a pretty big splinter. But it was like, it was like a small, like it was thin. Small, yea. That's, that's the dimensions of my splinter. Yea, exactly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not yet, I said. No bitch! Not yet, you can have some water. Uh, but yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Moral of this whole very long, very, uh, kind of stupid story of mine is that it's been a little crazy in here and now it's finally almost completely done and put together, so we're feeling very exhausted, but


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Very happy. Yeah, we painted it a different color. I think


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a lot going on at all times, so we need a tranquil color. Do it with me now. I'm not.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To chill everything out and make us feel good. And we also painted the molding, which to me just says,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, when you paint the molding in a room, you know, that's what this episode is about now. We're just gonna talk home design. Uh, it feels- This is our new HGTV show. No, we were talking the other day though. It feels velvety. It does feel velvety. Sorry, I cut you off entirely. That's okay. I was like, anyways, we were talking the other day. It feels velvety.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I bet they are. They might be. I bet HGTV is listening. As a whole. As a company.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, you know what? Speaking of careers, this, this actually, this segues pretty nicely into what we're going to be talking about today. Because we're going to be talking about the career girl murders. And I say it segues because this whole, this is a really horrific case.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the, it kind of ushered in this whole thought process of like the career girl, meaning the girl


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Coming out of the 1950s where like women were like, you know what? I don't have to get married. Like I don't have to get married right away. Like I can get my own thing going, become independent, kind of stand on my own two feet and then I can decide if I want to get married later. Like I'm a career girl.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So it's like, people, this whole, like, notion that society was putting in everyone's heads of like, women, you have to either choose...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To, you know, like, like you gotta get married, like right away, like out of school. That was all kind of going away and then this happened and it like shook a lot of people. Really? Because it made people think, well wait a second.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We stop them from being assholes. It's not women are vulnerable. It's people are depraved. Yeah, exactly. And it's like, let's concentrate on that and maybe stopping that first. So this takes place in New York City.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] New y'all. And it takes place in the early 60s, uhm, this was on the afternoon of August 28th, 1963. Patricia Tolis returned home from work to her apartment in New York City, and she found it ransacked. Ooh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was nothing like she had left it that morning. And she also ended up, and we're gonna get into the details of this, don't worry, but she found a bloody knife in the bathroom. And her roommates, Emily Hoffert and Janice Wiley,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're nowhere to be found initially. Okay. She, obviously she was young, like they were in their twenties, like they were in New York City living together, the three of them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She came into this apartment, saw it ransacked, found, like, took a quick glance of like what the fuck was going on. Didn't venture super far in because that's smart. I wouldn't. Yeah. Like she was like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, but the murders of Emily Hoffert and Janice Wiley shined a light also on ta- when it comes to like the career thing, we're gonna talk about that as well, but it also shined a light on how race and class


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Can influence a police investigation and a jury verdict, especially back then.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And how justice can be delayed or diverted completely.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the interest of efficiency and the illusion of safety, not actual safety, not actually taking bad people off the streets, just giving everyone the illusion that we caught the bad guy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's so fucked up. And especially in the 60s, at this point, it was like, we're gonna catch a bad guy, and we're gonna make you think that this is the perfect picture of what a bad guy is. When in reality, the bad guy was something totally different. Of course. They were like, look, over there. Yea, look at this. Like, everybody's fine, don't worry about it. Which is really fucked up in this case too, in any case.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't see it, like how do you not think about that? Like, you're, like, what they were doing back then is saying, let's put somebody up for this and make it seem like everything is okay. How are you not thinking?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's so fake. Yeah, they just wanted the pats on the back and they wanted everyone to shut up about it. That's, I can't imagine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this is gonna be a two-parter because there's a lot going on in this case and I think a whole part needs to be.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Totally talking about how fucked up the investigation and the trial and who ends up actually coming forward as the person. Okay. That's a whole thing in and of itself, so it needs some attention paid to it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, let's talk about the victims here. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Janice Lam Wiley was born March 6, 1942 in Evanston, Illinois.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She was one of two children. Her parents were Max and Isabelle Wiley.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not long after she was born, the family relocated to Manhattan, New York, and Max was actually working as an advertising exec.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And eventually transitioned into television production. Uh, most notably he was the co-creator of The Flying Nun from 1967 to 1970. Oh wow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So he was doing really well. I guess so. Uhm, and as the daughter of a very powerful and, you know,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A very confident, very self-assured person as well. So it was all like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Such a unique person in and of herself, which is really interesting because sometimes


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you hear about like high society kids, you know what I mean? Like they end up all just being very, um, spoiled, spoiled and yeah, like having, yeah, exactly. Silver spoon kind of thing. Yeah. You know, and she didn't seem like that was who she was. She had what she needed on her fingertips and she utilized it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And uhm, as she got older, she would find herself all the time the center of attention.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, she was beautiful, like truly beautiful, and she was beautiful inside and out. She loved hosting and attending parties, like she was such a like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Girl of the time, like, you know, I mean, like, she just wanted to be out there everywhere, meeting all kinds of people. Oh, that's fun. She was said to have dated, quote, more than the average woman at the time. Oh, fuck off. And she had, and also Janice dated both men and women. Hell yeah! Uh, which at the time, obviously,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I caught it inside of myself, but she had, you know, this beautiful blonde hair, she had stunning, what was described as like startling green eyes. She's so pretty, I'm looking at a picture right now. And someone once described her as the kind of woman, quote, who surrounded


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So she was just like, people were like, you met her, took one look at her.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She opened her mouth and talked and you were just like, shot off your feet. She's an enigma.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and it was likely this confidence that allowed her to, the confidence that she was able to build through her entire life here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where she and several other young women at the time spent their days clipping articles and pasting them into like huge reference books for journalists higher up in the magazine to look to use for their stories.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And again, she didn't really need the income. She came from a lot of money. She did it because she wanted to do it. She wanted to work and she wanted to make a name for herself. Good for her. And to Janice, the job at Newsweek was even more than an income because she really didn't need it. It was another opportunity for socialization. She loved being around people.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know you can probably buy me a place. Right, and pay for it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or help me buy my own place, but you know what? I'm gonna find two, two friends, we're gonna live together because I can afford this with my own shit. Which I was like, hell yea, Janice. That's really awesome. Now a few weeks after taking the job with Newsweek, uh, Janice's friend Pat Tolis asked her to share an apartment with her on the Upper East Side.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it was just a few blocks away from where Janice had actually grown up. So she was very familiar with the area.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And she knew because she was like a lifelong New Yorker at this point. Yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So let's spend a little more money and we'll live in a safer place. Worth the cost. That's so sad, like knowing what ends up happening. Right, it really is. Cause that extra money


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it was managed, it was like a very highly managed complex and doctors, dentists, other professionals were living in there. So it was like a very like, they felt safe. It was a well-to-do apartment building. And they were paying $208 per month on rent.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was a year that Janice met Emily Hoffert, who was a friend and former college roommate of Pat's, not Janice's. Oh, okay. Uhm, who was looking for a place to stay just for, like, temporarily for a short time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, because she was trying to work out like a longer term plan for herself. She just needed somewhere to kind of take a beat. Yea. And Emily grew up in, uhm, Adina, Minnesota. I hope I'm saying that right. A suburb just outside Minneapolis. And after graduating from high school, she ended up going out east to pursue a teaching degree at Smith College.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Newton, Massachusetts. Newton? I used to work in Newton. Oh, which is in case you were wondering, a suburb of Boston. Yeah. Uh, Emily decided that New England wasn't right for her, which I was like, okay, Emily. All right, that's fine. Emily. That's fine. You know, she was a New York girlie.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And in the fall of 1963, she relocated to New York where she just kinda like went into a few short term rentals with friends, just trying to look for work, figuring out what she wanted to do next.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And after bouncing from shared living arrangements like one to the other, Emily's friend Pat Tollis was like, hey, come stay with me and my roommate Janice for a little while, you know, until you find something more permanent. So Emily was like, that's amazing. Thank you so much. So in late July, 1964, she moved in with Pat and Janice.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So as far as roommates, when Emily Hoffert could not have been more different than Janice, like they were very different people. Yea.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But they got along. Like this wasn't to say they like, you know, butted heads or anything. So Janice, like we said, was very outgoing, very social, like just everywhere always. And Emily was like much more quiet, reserved, shy. Janice was this tall, like bombshell blonde.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] By, you know, by social standards of the time, very conventionally attractive. Sure. While Emily was, and this like upset me because look up these two women. They're both beautiful. They're both beautiful. But Emily was described as basically plain.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Both capable. Just want to put that out there because a lot of times Emily gets put down as like plain.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She had glasses, and it's like, okay. They were both beautiful. Get a grip, everybody.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But again too, Emily was friendly, sweet, very smart.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, just like Janice, they were both, and that's why they got along. Like they, it seems like they appreciated the differences in each other.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, I think Emily kind of like looked at Janice and was like, fucking Janice. Like, that crazy lady. And it's like, and Janice was like, here's my like, very reliable, like wonderful friend Emily. You know, like they just, it worked.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, and Emily's personality, how sweet she was and friendly and like very capable, it helped her in her professional life because she was an elementary school teacher. And in fact, their professional pursuits


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Were probably like the biggest thing that they had in common together, that they were both very driven, they had both intentionally put off any serious romantic relationships or marriage to build their own careers for themselves. Something that the press would make a great deal about after their deaths.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When in reality these were just two driven young women. Right. That's really as far as it went.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now despite their differences in personality, like I said, they got along very well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, but again, Emily, this was temporary for her. She never intended to stay at 57 East 88th Street for very long. Okay. Which makes this even more horrific. Yeaah, tragic.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now according to her friend Clark Montgomery, Emily had quote, a fairly clear list of priorities. Get a job teaching, preferably in a suburban school system, move at the end of August into an apartment on Park Avenue and 37th Street with two Smith classmates, and save enough money for a trip to Europe next summer. So she was like, let's go. Like doing it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] While her goals were ambitious, Emily was committed, and by the end of August, she had begun packing what few belongings she had at this apartment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And she was going to be moving, she was starting to move them to Park Avenue. So she had already.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On the morning of August 28th, Emily had gone by the apartment to pack up the last of her belongings and say goodbye to her friends.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Completely unaware that this would be the last time she spoke to anyone. Which makes this even more horrific.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, just as Janice, Emily, and Pat were kind of establishing their independence and starting out on their professional paths, like I was talking about before,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The nation as a whole was undergoing a kind of social identity crisis with regard to race, gender, sexuality.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the civil rights and feminist movements, sometimes referred to as the women's movement, were gaining traction, very much so in urban areas, and they were directly challenging those attitudes that we were just talking about, and the long held beliefs about what was appropriate and acceptable in social spaces. People were really striking out in different directions. For women, especially younger women,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is what I want to do. I want to get married. I want to have children. I want to be a homemaker. I want to be there. I want to cook dinner for my family. I don't want to go out and do anything else. Like I want to do this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But if you don't want to do that, then hell yea queen. You're both queens. No matter what you choose to do. You both get to choose what you want to do. And that's the key word.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The choice. You get to choose. Right. And whatever you choose and you, you are happy with it and you feel successful and you feel productive, fuck yea queen. Right. That's the whole point. Right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Whatever you want to do, nothing is the wrong choice here. Uhm, but for women, you know, that idea of marrying younger and all that, that was becoming less of like the, you have to do this at this point.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And according to women's studies scholar Marilyn Johnson, this quote produced a panic about career girls and crime that reinforced notions of women's vulnerability at a time when young women were enjoying greater autonomy and visibility.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now for the better part of the first half of the 20th century, the crime rate in New York City had actually remained relatively low. Uh, which kinda made everybody feel a little safe throughout the city. Like, nothing was really happening, so why wouldn't I feel safe?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Four homicides per 100,000 residents in the early 1950s to 7.6 per 100,000 in the early 1960s. Doesn't sound like a lot, but it's a jump. And it's a difference. So that has to be looked at.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And again, notable uptick in the grand scheme of things in violent crime. And even despite this, Janice felt really comfortable living in the neighborhood she'd grown up in. So she was like, I've grown up here. And she told her roommates, like, don't worry, nothing happens here. Like, I grew up here. I know this place like the back of my hand.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She's like, nothing ever happens here. Ugh, that's awful. Which is, you know, like why wouldn't you feel safe if you threw on a thing?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now on the morning of August 28th, Pat Tollis was rushing to get ready for work.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, 21 year old Janice slept in and 23 year old Emily was in the kitchen making coffee.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now after finishing an orange and drinking the last of the coffee, Pat rinsed the cup, took the trash out to the garbage chute,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Listened for the click of the automatic bolt that would lock the door behind her and she heard it and was on her way. And Emily followed Pat's exit a short time later.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And after loading a few items in the car that she was actually borrowing from her roommate sister, uhm, she drove the short distance to Anne Rosenberg's apartment in Riverside to return the car. Anne Rosenberg was who she was borrowing the car from. So she was going back to the apartment to drop it off.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And apparently like they, they kinda just like sat with each other, uh, Emily and Anne had a cup of coffee and then they ended up going there, respective ways. Sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now Pat was at her desk at the Time Life Company when her phone rang a little afternoon, and it was Janice's mother.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That she was maybe going to travel down to a march on Washington that was happening. So she was like, you know what, maybe she ended up doing that. I don't know if she called the job. I don't know. Maybe she got caught up there. Yeah, like who knows, but she didn't really tell anyone else about that. Like I think I'm the only one she mentioned it to. So she was like, you know what, maybe that's where she's gone. But whatever the case, Janice.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Would have definitely left a note. She was like, so I'll, I'm sure she left something about it. And it doesn't sound like she was the type to no call no show. No, she really wasn't. She wasn't irresponsible. So Pat promised to call Mrs. Wiley as soon as she got home. She was like, I'm sure I'll find a note when I get there and I'll let you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She was a little concerned. Like she was like, it was just like, nothing is outright, but she was like, something was a little off here. And so Pat called one of Emily's new roommates to see if Emily had arrived at the new apartment yet. Cause she was like, I just want to make sure everybody's good. Yeah. And the girl told Pat she hadn't seen Emily at all that day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, she was concerned, but she said she wasn't yet alarmed at this point, but she was like, huh. That makes this weirder. Something's off, like something's a little off. But Pat went about her day as normal because she was like, you know what, we'll figure this out later, like I'm sure they're wherever they need to be.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And she got home around 6.30pm and when she reached the front door of their third floor apartment, remember it's on the third floor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pat unlocked the door, which was still locked, walked in. Nothing seemed unusual when she first walked through the door, but when she reached the kitchen, the service door that led out to the garbage chute, the one that she heard click behind her, that was a jar.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Even though, again, she had heard it lock when she left for work.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So things were becoming even more alarming when she reached the bedroom she shared with Janice. She found it in shambles. Oh no. Like someone had torn through that room.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wildly. Clothes, shoes, papers, everything was scattered around the room. And two suitcases, which were always stored on a shelf in the closet, they were never taken out unless they were going somewhere, were open on the bed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She was like, we've definitely been burglarized so that's terrifying. So she left the room and didn't notice the heap of sheets lying just on one side of the bed. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Made our way into the bigger of the apartment's two bathrooms.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Blight was on in the bathroom when she went in there, which again was weird. And Pat immediately noticed that there was a large 12 inch carving knife just sitting on the edge of the sink. Oh my god. And so she's looking at the knife and she's like, why the fuck is that in the bathroom? And then she notices that there are streaks of blood on the handle. Just on the handle. Okay. Like somebody had rinsed the blade. Sure. And was like, oh no.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then she thought, she said her immediate thought was, oh no, Janice has slashed her wrists. Hmm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which, like, I'm not sure why that was, maybe that was just like, what else could've, I don't know what's happening here. Yeah. Cause she said she was just panicked. Like, this is panic.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And in that moment, nothing made sense to her. So she was like, that didn't make sense to me, but it was the f- I don't know what else to think. Like I'm just freaking out. Cause he- she didn't think Emily because she thought Emily left, like I know Emily left the apartment. Janice was the only one here, she was sleeping late. Right. And then when she didn't show up to work, she was like, oh my, like what happened? Like did something, yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He agreed to come over immediately. She was never able to remember exactly how the next hour unfolded. She was like, it was so panicked that I didn't know what to do. But she was like, I know that I called the police. I just don't know if it was the second phone call I made, the first or the third. I don't know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She called the police. And then she placed a call to Janice's parents. So she was like, I don't know what order.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And when Mrs. Wiley answered she asked to speak to Max instead. And she said, I wanted to speak to you so as to not alarm Mrs. Wiley.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now Pat told Janice's father, before explaining that she'd returned home, to find no note from Janice, and it appeared that someone had ransacked their apartment. Like, I don't know what's going on here. And she's like, I don't know where Janice is, and I did not find a note.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Max Wiley would later recall this to Bernard Lefkowitz.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he said I stepped into the bathroom and leaned over and looked at the knife and realized that although it had been put under the faucet and the blade was clean, there was a quarter inch of blood on the hasp. I was frightened and I went back to the bedroom that the two ladies were inspecting and told them to go into the living room and sit down and not touch anything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, Max entered Emily's bedroom and found it in a similar state of disarray. He said quote, when the door was half open, I saw the first of the two twin beds. There was a lot of luggage on the bed, but the second bed was completely saturated by blood.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And she had noticed this when she first walked in, cause she was so panicked. She's looking everywhere, I'm sure. Yea. He said it was complete, and you look at a crime scene photo, it is completely saturated by blonde. Oh man. He said it was a massive gore. That's how he described it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And appeared to be tied together with what they later found out was strips of bedsheets.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So this person, whoever had done this, had ripped strips from their own bedsheets, which takes a long time. He recalled, quote, and he's talking about his own child here, he said Janice was nude. Emily was dressed. Oh my god. Janice had been stabbed through the heart.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's how he described it. Oh my god. So he pulled the blanket from the bed and laid it across the girls. Then he went back out to the living room and called in the police to report the discovery. And it's like, that's his daughter. He walked in on that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Unfortunately, it affects him later. Of course, I bet it did. Now in reality, the attack on Janice and Emily was


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Seven of which were directly to Janice's heart. And this is very graphic.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Janice's intestines were, quote, out of her stomach. Oh my god. Yeah. And her father saw that? Yeah. So she was literally, like, she was disemboweled? Disemboweled.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And even worse somehow, the killer had actually initially stabbed them with a broken soda bottle. My god.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So he went back to the kitchen, found a large chef's knife and returned.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He used a knife in so much fury and rage that he broke that knife and then went and found a third weapon to continue stabbing them. This is insane. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now upon closer inspection, detectives realized that Janice and Emily had actually been tied at the wrists and the ankles separately, and then the killer tied them together. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So laying near the body, they also found the broken blade from that first knife, the broken bottle initially used in the attack, and an open jar of Noxema cream.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A Gillette razor blade, a pair of women's underwear and a piece of paper smeared with lipstick laying nearby Emily's head. Everything was completely saturated with blood.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm just thinking to myself right now, this was obviously like mid morning that this happened because


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One of them was expected to be at work, one of, like, Pat was at work and then like came back to this later in the, in the day. How did, nobody heard anything? It's wild. And they're in the, they're on the third floor, like no one heard anything?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's wild. This is, and just the fact that this happened mid morning, it sounds like. Yeah. And just so you know, we are going to find out what happened here. Okay. Like exactly what happened here. And like just as a quick little trigger warning.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause there is sexual assault involved in this, and I'm not gonna get into like the graphic details of it, but the open jar of Noxema cream came into play there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay. So this is how brutal this was. Oh my god. Just so you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now for the officers on the scene who had seen a lot of like horrors with their time on the police force, I mean they're in New York City, they're part of the homicide unit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The violence that they saw perpetrated against these two women was


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Overwhelming. I mean this is like on a completely galactic level. Like this is insane. They were shocked. Like just the fact that her intestines were out of her body.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And after hours in the apartment, Detective John Lynch came out into the hallway and was overheard to say,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] had finished the whole initial processing of the scene and the bodies were taken by ambulance to the morgue.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's all while Max Wiley had to take it upon himself to call Emily's parents and let them know what happened. So Max Wiley was the one who called Emily's parents, which


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He took on so much that day. Yeah, like, and his daughter was brutally attacked and killed as well. Yeah, and I'm like, who is taking care of him? That's remarkable that he even was able to do that. Yeah. Now,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, besides the complete brutality of this scene and just the absolute shock of all this happening, the crime scene was


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Baffling to investigators as well. Right. Because although the apartment was definitely ransacked, it was clearly


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As far as Pat could tell, nothing had been stolen. And was there any sign of like any break-in? No. No sign of forced entry. Right, because when she came home the door was still locked, which is so strange to me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, and all the jewelry was still on the dressers. Emily's purse was still at the scene.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then there were, you know, Emily and Janice's bodies themselves. Like I had mentioned before, again, trigger warning, Janice had been violently sexually assaulted. Her wounds were also more severe.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Any other apparent motive? Investigators determined that Janice was likely the primary victim and Emily's death might have been her being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Oh, that's awful. And just the fact that she was like not supposed to be in that place. Like that day, she was going to go to the other apartment. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And adding to the mystery was how, like you said, how the killer even gained access into the apartment in the first place. Because, like we said,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There was no sign of forced entry and the doorman didn't recall seeing anything unusual that day. And the building had no fire escape on the exterior. Cause that was going to be my next question because not only did they, like they got in somehow, but then they got out and the door remained locked. Exactly. So it's like, what? Is that somebody with a key?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, like we said, remember when Pat returned home, that door was still locked. The only notable thing


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was an open window. Okay. But remember, we're on the third floor in New York City.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So and all investigators determined was there was no way that someone could have gotten up there. You can't scale the building. You can't scale the building. There's no fire escape. So how the fuck did they get to the third floor? Like this doesn't make sense.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then also crazy that the windows opened and still nobody heard anything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they basically just kind of closed any kind of possibility that somebody broke in right away.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which we find out like might have been a little too soon that they did that. Okay. But investigators were basically operating on the assumption that the killer was definitely willingly invited into the apartment by one of the victims. It really is the only possibility that looked likely at the time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Likely, but then how did they lock the door on the way out? Well, they thought that's the thing, like how did they get out? That's what no one is really coming up with.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They were, they were so focused on it that they kind of negated the idea that there was a stranger involved here and they also said that they couldn't fathom


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That a random stranger would break in and inflict this much brutality on someone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which you get, but also that does happen. And you can't close off an avenue until you know that that avenue needs to be closed off. Like we've seen this time and time again. When you enter a crime scene with a preconceived narrative in your mind, it is almost always wrong. And you almost always fuck up the crime.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's true. And it's like, so, and also because of the status of the victims, daughters of an advertising executive and a surgeon. Yeah, wow. The murders were made the highest priority at the time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With roughly 150, uhm, officers and detectives assigned to the case, many of them were pulled from other precincts and boroughs, and in their first press conference, Chief of Detectives Lawrence McCurney told reporters, quote,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What they did though, what they did have was a basic theory that someone had come into the apartment either with a plan to murder Janice or something happened in the heat of the moment that led to her death. But again, no one can say how they got back out of the apartment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this was supported by the fact that Emily was known to have left, to have left to return the car to Riverside that morning. So her coming back to the apartment would have been a surprise to anyone in there. Like she wasn't supposed to be there. She had left. So if somebody was in there, they were like, oh shit, I thought she was gone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they're still running off this idea that it's Janice and Emily was just wrong, wrong time, wrong place.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And also, Emily hadn't been in New York for very long and really only knew a small number of people, so if the killer was known to the victims, as detectives really thought that they were,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was most likely going to be found among Janice's friend group. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now knowing that Janice had, like we had said before, a very rich social and dating life, investigators started running down the names in a small green address book that she had that they found in the top drawer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, this included dozens of men and women, many of whom she had actually dated. Um, and they were absolutely convinced it was somebody in that book, someone Janice knew.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the idea that she also could have been involved with women, really threw investigators for a loop.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They focused really solely on her. Like that was really it. And there's actually an ID discovery about this and there's this great quote about how this is a great example of cops plunging into a lifestyle that they were just way over their heads about.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And in the meantime, cause like they were, they were basically interviewing a couple, there was one woman that she was known to have I think lived with for a little while named Pearl. Okay. And Pearl was like this like brash, like just like


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The fuck do you wanna know kinda girl? Like she was just a hot shit. And she was just kinda like, I dunno, it's like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I clearly didn't kill her, you know what I mean? Like, but she was seemingly like, you know, fucked up about what had happened to Janice, but she was like, I don't know why you're thinking I would do this, like we cared about each other. And the cops were like, huh, like I don't know what to do. Cause remember, it's barely out of the 1950s at this point. So the cops were like, what?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Unfortunately, all the people in Janice's address book had alibis for the days that the girls were murdered. I say unfortunately, fortunately too, I guess, cause...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now similarly, the lead about the obscene phone calls really went nowhere. Couldn't really go anywhere.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, there were also other holes in the theory that they were running off of that really couldn't be ignored. For instance, Janice had planned to go to the march on Washington that day and would have otherwise been at work. So like, there was really no reason for her to be home. Like, this was out of her general routine and she wasn't even planning on being at home for the rest of the day. Right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the killer would have had to either know her plans that day, which seems unlikely since her own roommates didn't know her plans that day. Yeah. Or they would have had to have been watching the apartment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] People knew each other here, and they were on the lookout. Especially if that person was like noticeably out of place in any way, like people would be like, you're not from around here, like what are you doing staring at this apartment kind of thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And after all, based on the viciousness of the attacks and the


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Mutilations to the bodies, essentially. Janice and Emily's killer would have been


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Covered in blood. Covered. Which someone would have noticed in broad daylight. You would think.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're armed with this new theory of like, okay, now we gotta move away from that original one. An army of police officers descended on the Upper East Side neighborhood and started canvassing all the buildings around Janice and Emily's building. Cause they were like, it's gotta be someone around here. That nobody would notice. They wouldn't look at a place.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now among the investigators leading the canvas was Detective Eddie Bulger. Oh, I don't like that look. Yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was a detective from Brooklyn and he was brought on to assist in the case.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're gonna wanna kick Eddie Bolger in the fuckin' chin. I got that feeling immediately. You had this look in your eye when you said that fucker's name.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'll give it to the Detectives of Manhattan. They were not into him either, so I'll give them that much. They were appreciative of the help, because they needed all the help they could. Canvas, you know, there was a lot of people to talk to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, particularly the way he interacted with some of the residents in and around Janice's and Emily's neighborhood.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] According to Bulger. So according to this detective, Bulger.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That he had what he would call a sixth sense for knowing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not when any person was lying. When black people were lying.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] By bitch. They kicked him off the case almost immediately. Oh good, okay. They got some reports that he was interacting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But how fucked up is that? I know when a black person is lying? That's disgusting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I almost said without nothing. Now, a police spokesperson said, there's a complete lack of physical evidence, no description of the murderer, not one substantial clue, not one tangible motive. Huh. Which is so frustrating.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And despite having no new information or motive, investigators continued to reject the notion that the killer was quote, a psychotic stranger who entered the apartment by chance.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Instead, they remained committed to the belief that whoever killed Janice and Emily was most likely an acquaintance of Janice.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they were moving slightly away from the original theory, but still focusing on Janus. Which again, I get it. I get it, cause of what they're seeing, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm getting the sense though that it's like not. Well, this was also refuted by Max Wiley, Janice's father, who insisted, quote, I knew most of the men Janice dated. They were a very decent crowd.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And according to Max, he said quote, there was only one that I had my, that I had any deep inner disapproval of. Janice was infatuated with him. He was a liar. He was mean. He was cruel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so he reported the man's name to investigators. He was like, here you go, go check him out. He was instantly checked out and cleared because he had a rock solid alibi. Oh, so he's just an asshole. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now despite thousands of man hours and the offer of $10,000 in a reward put up by Newsweek where Janice worked, which now would be like $100,000. Oh wow. Uh, the one year anniversary of the murders was coming up quick and they didn't find a single piece of evidence that was going to help them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now months later, on April 14th, 1964, a 46 year old cleaning woman and mother of five named Minnie Edmonds was murdered. She was stabbed to death near Sutter Avenue and Chester Street in Brooklyn by a man who was trying to steal her purse. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This ended up being kind of the first break in the case because what they didn't know it at the time and what really ended up being what like


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I guess kind of broke the, was the first break in the case was another young woman in Brooklyn was then reported to police that she had been attacked like right like a week later after Minnie Edmonds was killed. Oh wow. And she was attacked in the same area and her name was Elba Barrero.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And she was also in Brooklyn, and it was around 1.30am, uh, again, a week after Minnie, and she was grabbed from behind by a man who held her by the throat, and then according to her, dragged her into a doorway and was trying to steal her purse. Hmm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, Elba screamed, and I guess he had told her, like, if you scream, I'll kill you. Yea. But she started to scream, obviously. You gotta try. Yea, you gotta try. And her attacker ended up running off. Oh, okay. So, he ran off.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And before he ran off, she tore a big button off of his overcoat. Smart girl. And a nearby patrol officer, Frank Azola,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And originally thought he was shorter and thinner, like didn't match the build of the person that he saw running away from the scene and who, uhm, who Barrero had described him as looking like. So he kind of lost sight and he was just like, I don't know about that. But the following day,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, Detective Azola and his partner, Detective Richard, um, Adala, was on patrol in the same neighborhood. They spotted Whitmore again. George Whitmore? Sure. And just arrested him. Oh? Now it should be noted he's a black man.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Why did they arrest him when he didn't match the suspect that he saw with his own eyeballs running away from the scene? I don't know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What charge are you, what are you charging him with out of nowhere? Well, what's, what's even better is they called, uhm, Elba up and they were like, hey, we have a suspect, uh, we need you to go identify him. Which like, ooh, oof, tainted already. You can't say that he's, nope, like that's not how that works.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they asked her if she could identify him, and she was like, well I never saw his face.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they still said, come on down. And she was like, but yeah, I can identify him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But you just said you never saw his face. I don't know about that. A million people in this world have the same build, not usually the same face. Yep. Oh, but honey. And so- I was in your corner for a minute there. What you think is that they would put him in like a proper lineup, correct? Just him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's how this works? I don't know if I would think that, but yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's even worse because they brought Elba to the door of the interrogation room where Whitmore was sitting and said,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is that the guy? We just arrested him. And we think he's the guy. Is that the guy? Can you look at him in that interrogation room?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No. Where he is very clearly looking like a suspect? No. You literally can't do that. Like you can't do that. No, of course you can't. And she hesitated and she was like, I don't know. And then she said, can I hear him speak?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they had him say something, and she was like, yep, that's him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What? Yeah, so as Elva Barrera was helping to identify her attacker and she was overheard,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] By a detective who happened to be in the area. No, don't you even. A detective by the name of, uh, Eddie Bolger. No, not this fucker. I knew we hadn't seen the last of him. I felt it in my bones. Yeaah. He happened to work in the same precinct. Oh goody. He was also very bitter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That this is a twisty, turny series of events that is going to happen right now. Oh man. Because remember,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Elba Barrero grabbed a button off of this person, so that's going to be a thing. Yes. They have a button. She's identified him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] George Whitmore, and now Detective Bulger here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who he's saying, I just found these pictures, I was just claiming it was my girlfriend, I was just trying to be cool.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And now Detective Bulger is like, that's Janice Wiley. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You would think with all that, you're like, wow, okay, that's a little weird. We got them, right? We don't. So yeah, I had a feeling we did.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Stay, uh, stay tuned for part two because it's going to get very frustrating, but uhm, in the end, there's at least a tiny bit of justice. Do we get the right person eventually? We'll know who did it. Oh no.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like I, we just, we, we were in a state and we were like, oh, it's fine. Now, I feel like we're both, I'm like elevating my style game and I feel like I see the same in you. Oh, thank you. Yeah, not that your, your style game needed elevating, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it just feels, you know, it's chaotic, it's out of control. Uh huh. So we decided last week, we were like, fuck that, let's make this our tranquil, beautiful, tranquil, full of tranquil, full of tranquil.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the other thing, and I know you guys have like, cause we record these like, um, stupidly ahead of time, like way ahead of time, so sometimes we can't be like us on top of things, you know, that happen in the world. As much as we wish we could. We could, but we can't.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I, I don't dislike it, and I think I might love it, but it's one of those movies where you're like, how did I feel about it? I will say, I, so there, obviously there's the scenes that everybody knows about. The scenes, I was like, alright, like they, they were shocking, some of them, but like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Weirdly, it's a mishmash of so many different movies for me and I can't pinpoint them all. But there's a hint.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like I'm into this. I liked the whole thing. I was in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Beginning dance. Yeah, no, I think I, I think I've decided that I really, really liked it. I feel bad for Oliver in the beginning. Oh yeah, you do. I was shocked by Oliver at one point. Like, I'm not like, I'm not one of the girlies who's like, and boyies who's like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and then by the end you're kinda like, wow, okay, uh, go after what you want, I guess. Yeah, you know, manifest. You know, manifest.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The, the idea behind that movie is a little distressing to me. Oh, is it? Yeah, it's not, it's not my cup of tea. Okay, we'll talk, we'll talk later.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, there's this, apparently there, I don't know, apparently, apparently, I don't know like a lot about it, but I want to look more into it, but there's energy, like that just like, like with the, like planets and everything that we've never experienced before, like in this entire span of the earth.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't believe it. Cause I'm feeling some type of way right now. Yea, I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing. It doesn't feel bad to me. It feels like fresh. Like it feels like I'm like, clean it all out. Clean it all out and I'm, I'm, let's go.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm so happy about that for you. I have the worst end of the world anxiety that I've ever had in my entire life. No, I'm like, let's go until the asteroid hits us.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just sliv, you know, get your coffee and sliv. Make your pod laugh the way you want it to be. You know, all that shit. Fuck it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, we are in part three of a case right now. Yes, let's get to it. And we've had, we've, we've chitty-chatted.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's gonna get got. Fuck yeah. Yeah, we're fine, we're gonna get to the point where he gets got. I love it. And when we last left you, I was talking about how


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They needed a fucking task force for this. Like, and people were screaming for it. I mean, even investigators were trying to get it done and it just wasn't getting done. Right. Finally, they got a task force. Good. So as state officials work to assemble their team, Ronald Dominique,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was back out on the streets. This guy would not stop. Even when they were breathing down his neck he wouldn't stop. That's scary.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On April 28, 2005, less than two weeks after the discovery of August Watkins, a farmer discovered the partially clothed, decomposing body of a 23-year-old man. My god. His name was Kurt Cunningham, and he was found in a drainage ditch about 50 yards from the side of Highway 307.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now according to the investigators, it seemed like his body had been lying face down in the muddy water in this ditch.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they thought it was asphyxiation, which fits right into the pattern.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, they didn't find any bullet wounds, no punctures, which again, not likely in the other ones either. So like Ronald Dominique's other victims, Kurt Cunningham kind of bounced around, is how it was described, he bounced around from home to home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He'd been arrested a few times, you know, just for like, you know, pretty minor offenses, like nothing crazy, disturbing the peace kind of thing, you know what I mean? Like just things like whatever. And at the time of his death, he was living in Thibodeau, the small town where Ronald Dominique had been born and raised actually. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now in the press, Kurt Cunningham was yet more proof that a serial killer was preying on men in the Holma area. Yea. They haven't at this time really put together like the larger picture that there were actually more victims than they even knew at this point.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now in mid-May, the front page of the Shreveport Times featured mugshots of Leret, Cunningham, Woods, Barnett, Watkins, and Jones. And they were above a headline that said, Serial Killer Theory Floats Around Case. The article described the similarities between the cases, all noting,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of course that the victims all led what they described as high risk lifestyles and quote hung out on the streets. And you know how we feel about that. They made sure to include quote on average they were involved with drugs in some way and they generally were known to trade sexual favors for food, shelter, rides, alcohol or other drugs.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Much on all the other stuff. Let's focus on the shit that doesn't matter in this situation because they were killed. Exactly. Like that's what drives me crazy. It's like it doesn't matter. Whether they were in the wrong place at the wrong time doing whatever they were doing. Yep. Doesn't matter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, like you said, if they had said it like, here's what they had been doing, but...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Please just be more aware of who you're interacting with. Exactly. Because we care that everybody stays alive. Right. Like that's...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a way to do that. There is. So despite the not so subtle inference of victim blaming there, the article did also luckily attempt to emphasize the more human costs of what was happening here. Well that's good. Um, Kurt Cunningham's father Richard Cunningham shared photographs of his son with the reporter and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He acknowledged his son's mistakes, which makes me sad that he even had to. Yeaah. It's not about that. It's not. It's not about any mistakes he made in his life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What he said was quote, Kurt was on a path and was too young to wake up, but he was a victim, not a criminal.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He didn't try to put his problems off on nobody and wouldn't ask for help unless he was really bad off. And it's like, don't worry. Like, don't worry about that. Nobody who is a decent person should give a shit about that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's like, I hate that you had to say that, like thank you for saying that, but I hate that you had to say that. Right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It should just be like, this is the kind of person he was. Yea, this was my son. And this could be yours. And this is what he meant to us. Yea. But a quote from, and this one's gonna...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean when I tell you the rage when you hear this, a quote from a local Homa resident easily summed up the public sentiment around the murders at the time and their effect on feelings of safety in the area. They said, with so much audacity, this resident who is not named, quote,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't see any panic here. Whoever it is attacking men who are involved in drugs and prostitution, it's almost like somebody's trying to get the trash off the street. That's weird, cause they didn't come and get you, so...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's beyond callous. You should be so fucking ashamed of yourself. That's crass, callous, cold. Somebody's trying to take the trash out, essentially, by killing innocent men. They gave me chills and like a, that just like chilled my blood. Because who, I'm sorry, are you a fucking murderer? Like Jesus Christ. Like it's not like there's a guy on the side of the street.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Kids, jobs, like significant others, they all had friends, they all had family, they all had parents, they all, most of them were like, like you said, working jobs and like really taking care of their shit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And also it's like, they were people. Yea, at the end of the day. And they weren't shitty people. You shouldn't even have to make these arguments. These are just kind people.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's just our existing. That's all it is. And how would you feel if anyone in your family had that happen to them? That's the thing. That person, I want to be like, what makes you any less trash? What, what is it about you? Exactly. That you'll sit there and on record call somebody trash? Does that make you less trash to me?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You are the one who seemed like trash there. Like that's the trashiest shit you could ever say. And also, name em.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A baby that they held in their arms one, one day. Oh god, they're like putting it like that. That's the thing. And it's like, and to hear like a grown ass piece of shit be like, well, they're trash anyways. So somebody took them out. It's like, fuck you. You didn't know any of these people. You're not perfect. Who the fuck are you? Fuck off. That's what I hate. I hate like the,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're not a piece of trash because you've made some mistakes in your life. So if you're listening right now and you feel like you've made mistakes in your life, you're not fucking trash. No. You've made mistakes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But you're doing just fine, okay? So don't let anyone call you trash, because you fucked up once in a while, okay? Everyone fucks up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Detectives on the interagency task force were really going nose to the grindstone for this case. They were behind the scenes really working on it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, according to Detective Dennis Thornton, I believe it is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The idea was that every time there was a killing, the evidence would go to the same lab, take the same path, and we'd do the same core investigative work. So they were really trying to make sure nothing got fucked up here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Still, they didn't have a lot to work with. There was not a lot left at these scenes. There was really nothing they could go on. Which is really crazy when you think about how many people he's murdered at this point and he's been able to stay. And like how personal the manner in which he kills these people.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're not up at, like, we're in the early 2000s right now. Yeah, at this point we've got the DNA. I mean, it's still in its infancy, infancy really, but you would think there's something, but I'll wait. Yeah, I'll wait. Don't worry.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Unfortunately, that didn't change much when the next victim was discovered less than two months later. No. On July 2nd, 2005, the fully clothed body of 28-year-old Alonzo Hogan was discovered in a cane field off Highway 306 in St. Charles Parish.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] According to the coroner, he had been raped and strangled, but there was no additional evidence on the body or at the scene to conclusively link Hogan to any of the other bodies either. That was one of the other issues they were working with. Not only was there nothing to connect these bodies to a killer, there wasn't anything to connect these bodies to each other.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they were in so many different places that it was hard to connect them. Cause they were probably sitting there like how could this guy be everywhere? Exactly. So this was putting detectives absolutely no closer to catching this killer. And in the absence of evidence leading to the killer's identity, detectives continued working to connect those victims. They were like if we can't,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Find him right now, we gotta connect them and maybe it'll lead to him, because there's gotta be something here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But that work was interrupted by yet another murder. Just two months after the discovery of Alonzo Hogan's body. This time in Terrebonne Parish. I hope I said that right. I looked up the pronunciation. I bet you did. It's like Terrebonne. Terrebonne.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was discovered in a drainage ditch off Bayou Grand Cayou. Like Kurt Cunningham, Wayne Smith had been in the water for several days.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, this made his identity and the cause of death a big challenge for investigators and technicians with the coroner's office. Uhm, it kinda seems like this was on purpose.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was officially listed as undetermined because they just couldn't confirm it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And none had seen or heard anything that would lead to an answer. This doesn't make sense that he would just go with someone like this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now at the time of his death, Wayne Smith was a senior, uh, at Ellender Memorial High School. And despite having a little bit of a history of behavioral issues at one point, he had begun taking his future much more seriously as of late. So again,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Smith's mother told reporters quote, he was taking welding and had totally changed his life over. I didn't even get to see the body before Wayne's burial because of what that man did to his body. And then she said, I buried a box.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now despite the lack of physical evidence, detectives working on the task force had started finally making connections between some of the victims. And this was starting to finally create a larger picture about how this serial killer was operating.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Several of the victims were picked up what they found, they ended up finding out that several of them were picked up at the Sugar Bowl Motel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's what the investigators were thinking. They had started making what felt like real progress at this point, uhm, in the summer of 2005, but then, remember, this timeline is the summer of 2005, so everything got sidelined very unexpectedly by Hurricane Katrina on August 29th.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One of the worst natural disasters to ever hit the Gulf Coast. So remember, this was still happening and Ronald Dominique was still terrorizing Louisiana while residents were dealing with the trauma and devastation of Katrina. It's like, how did he even manage to get around? His entire community.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is dealing with one of the worst things you could ever deal with. Just devastation. Yeah. And he is traumatizing them even further.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like it's just, wow. It's beyond, it's beyond. Unbelievable.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So as law enforcement and other state and federal organizations across Louisiana work to clean up the physical, social, and psychological damage of Katrina, Ronald Dominique used the chaos to his advantage. He quickly ended up picking up another victim.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He killed 40-year-old Homer resident Christoville.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To investigators, Christoville was just one more name on a seemingly endless list of missing people in the wake of Katrina. Cause that's the other thing. A lot of people were missing. So many people ended up going missing. And he used this because you don't know where they went. Right. You're, you're blaming it on Hurricane Katrina when it's actually this guy. Ronald Dominique.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's not the only reason that he wasn't, Christoville wasn't immediately recognized as one of Dominique's victims. He also


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He had very close and maintained very close relationships with all his family and friends. Which a lot of the other victims had close relationships with friends and family. Yeaah. But some of them, there was like a little bit of a pattern where it was like an in and out kind of thing. Sure. You know like going through hiccups and what not.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This one just seemed a little more stable in that part of his life. Yeaah, he's also a little bit older. He was a little older too, so, but still, Christoville was one of Dominique's victims. His storm ravaged remains were found in mid-October.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When a farmer in Napoleonville spotted his skull in a field off Highway 1.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The rest of his body was discovered a short time later in a drainage ditch because he had been through the storm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like he had killed him and left his body to be ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. It's incredible that he was ever even found. Yea, it really is. Like wow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, like the more recent victims, the state of the remains made it impossible for investigators to determine the cause of Christoville's death. But the best the coroner could say was that he died sometime in September.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now according to family members, DeVille was last seen at his mother's house in early September when he'd stopped by to help clean out her refrigerator after Katrina. But he hadn't been seen since he left her house that afternoon. Oh my god.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now as the body count continued to rise at this point, investigators on the task force were reaching a point of frustrated exhaustion.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because every time they take a step forward, it's like 15 steps back. And every time they take a step forward, he kills someone else. And it just adds another layer to it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it was made worse by those higher up on the command chain demanding closure of this case. So they're feeling pressure now. Yea, sometimes that's not gonna help. No. And they were fairly certain they knew how the killer was getting his victims to go with them for the most part.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so many of them showed signs of having been bound, but there was no other evidence of a struggle, which is what


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was a little confusing to them at first, because they're like, they're not struggling. Seems like they're going willingly. Why are they bound?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Why were so many people willingly agreeing to be tied up by this person? Like what was he doing to get them in that position? It just seems a little out of the ordinary. No, it does. So as detectives pondered how the killer seemed to subdue his victims with such ease. Is it just because he's like a really big guy? No, he has a way of doing it. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, as this was happening, recent parolee, John Banning, was relaying an incredibly strange story to his parole officer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] His parole officer was Tom Lambert, who also happened to be part of the serial killer task force. Oh wow. Now according to Banning, he had been walking down the highway when he said a white guy in a pickup truck pulled to the side of the road and waved him over to the driver's side window.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How'd you like to fuck this attractive white girl? What the fuck?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was like, uhm, I don't know about this. And he was like, nah, I'm out. And he ran out of the trailer cause he was like, I don't.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like not happening with me. So he said he ran towards the highway where he hitched a ride back home completely unaware he had just escaped one of the worst serial killers in American history. Holy shit. So what Ronald Dominique seems to be doing according to Banning, and it does fit, why some of these men, that's the other thing. Not all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause there are some of these men who have family members, mothers, other family members who have come out and said, and I want to respect that, that they've said there's no way, like they either had a significant other or you know, there was no way they would have agreed to this proposition. So I want to be clear about that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This seems like it could have been a way that some of these happen, but this is not a blanket over everybody. Like I'm sure he had different ways of doing this with each victim to make it work for him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But this seems like it could have been true for banning. I think that is, he had no reason to lie about this. He was just like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like you just said, it does account for some of the...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Exactly. And again, he has no reason to lie about it. Like, why would he make this up? And why would it fit so well? And not every victim was bound. Not every victim was bound, but most of them were bound.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, now after Banning relayed the story to his parole officer, he offered to show Lambert where the man lived in Bayou Blue. Okay. And that's the other thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He doesn't just say the story, he brings the receipts. And eventually what we find out is, yes, Ronald Dominique did use this technique sometimes. Not always, once again, but sometimes he did.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now a few weeks later, Lambert called Dennis Thorton and told him the story about the man in the trailer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which prompted Detective Thornton and Don Bergeron to take a trip out to the property.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When they'd arrived, Bergeron popped open the mailbox and flipped through the mail. The letters all seemed to be addressed to a woman, but then he reached, she reached an envelope addressed to Ronald J. Dominique.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now a few days later, detectives brought Ronald Dominique in for questioning.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is the closest we've gotten here. They'd explained they received a complaint from Banning, but Dominique brushed it off, telling Bergeron and Thornton, quote, I'm gay. Tying up John was just part of a sex game. Nothing more than that. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To further demonstrate his innocence, Ronald willingly agreed to allow technicians to take a cheek swab for DNA.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, once they'd finished questioning Dominique, the detectives gave him a ride home and thanked him for his cooperation. Later that afternoon, it occurred to Dennis Thornton that while they had checked and rechecked the sex offender registry several times at this point, they'd only checked for individuals who'd been convicted of sex crimes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This time he looked at arrests for which there were no convictions. And he found exactly what he was looking for. Ronald Dominique's arrests for sexual assault in the 90s. He had several.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now investigators on the task force were fairly certain this was their guy. They were like, this is it. They just felt it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they set about digging into his background and trying to build a bigger case.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But although they were working on behalf of an interagency task force, they were still working across the lines of several different jurisdictions, which made it way slower and more daunting than it probably should have been. So complicated. Now while Thornton and Bergeron tried to find connections between Dominique and the victims, Ronald Dominique


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was back out on the streets. So he knows that there- This man got brought in for questioning and did a cheek swab.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He knows they're onto him. Wild. And he still went back out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That afternoon, Pellegrin was in need of money and had signed up for some day labor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, which is what had brought him to this house that, uh, Ronald Dominique was reading a meter for in the first place. Confident in his approach, Dominique offered money in exchange for sex, to which, according to him, Pellegrin agreed, but first he said he needed to finish up his day of work.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The two men made arrangements for Dominique to return later that afternoon and he did and returned several hours later and he drove Nick Pellegrin back to the trailer on Dominique's sister's property that he was staying on. The fact that he's also staying on his sister's property. And doing these things on her property. Like what?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Four days later, a truck driver discovered Nick Pellegrin's fully closed body in a remote wooded area in La Forge Parish, just south of Thibodeau.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Put something in his head to make him stop looking for his next victim. Right. They were hoping they had planted in his head like, we're onto you buddy, like don't make any stupid moves. So they felt a little like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They, they felt like guilt. They were like, we wanted to stop him before he could do this. Which of course it's not their fault. Like they need a strong case. Now Thornton called the lab to find out at this point, cause he's so mad and he's like, fuck, like somebody else just lost their life. Like what the fuck.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So Detective Thornton called the lab and was like, where are you in the process of analyzing that DNA that was taken from Dominique? Because even though he gave it willingly, people...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Are, hubris is a thing. And maybe he did it thinking he's indestructible. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So after demanding a rush on the analysis, the DNA sample came back as a match to the hairs found on Oliver LeBanks' body. Okay. Seven years earlier. I knew there had to be a hair. I knew it. But. But. It was a mitochondrial match.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Meaning it could easily have been explained away as being from a relative of Dominique's.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Mitochondrial DNA, we've talked about this before, but I think it's been a long time since we've talked about it. Yeah, it's ringing a bell, but. Mitochondrial DNA is inherited from your maternal side, so any person whose direct maternal line intersects with your own could be a match to mitochondrial DNA. So it involves a lot of people. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Thornton and Bergeron knew this wouldn't be enough for conviction. They knew in their heart, this is the guy. Of course. And this is proving it. But they need even more. But legally, this isn't gonna hold up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it was enough to convince the higher ups to commit more resources to the investigation because they were getting more, they're getting hotter on the trail.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now soon after, Ronald Dominique was being monitored 24-7. Nice. And investigators were determined to catch him before he could kill again.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The press immediately latched onto the murder of Nick Pellegrin.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Correctly assuming him to be yet another victim of the serial killer that was stalking the bayou.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pilgrim's mother, on the other hand, was steadfast in her belief that her son had not been killed by the serial killer, but had in fact been murdered by some of his friends, quote unquote, to whom he owed money for drugs.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] His mother Veronica said, quote, they were all on drugs. They all did drugs together. They did everything in the book together.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She was very angry with investigators for not believing her when she said it was these friends who did it. And if she really believed that, then I get why she was frustrated. She was like, you're going the wrong way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Again, there was also a lot in this investigation being held close to the chest.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So she also didn't have all the information to work with on her side that we have right now with the benefit of hindsight. Right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Police, like intense police surveillance and scrutiny that he was under at this moment, but it's very likely he had some idea.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Thank goodness. Cause they were like, finally we get a minute to actually focus on the evidence and like get it going. Right. And they were running cause they were like, we don't know when he's gonna suddenly crack and do it again. So we gotta get the shit in. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In that time, another mitochondrial DNA match was made, this time to the semen collected from Angel Mejia's body in 1999. Okay. Boom. That's something right there. Now that we have two mitochondrial DNA matches, it's like that's at least something.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So Dominique's resistance to the urges driving him to kill finally did fail him. On October 15th, 2006, he picked up 27-year-old Christopher Sutterfield on the side of the road in Houma. And uh, where are the police? Not sure how this happened. Not sure. Everything was the same.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, Sutterfield had been discovered fully clothed, he had ligature marks on his wrists and neck, and he'd been raped and strangled before being dumped in a drainage ditch off Highway 69 in southern Iberville Parish.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know. I can't for sure say how this occurred. But it's awful that it occurred.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, that was the only difference was that obvi- obviously,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who'd grown tired of the police surveillance and asked him to leave her property.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Without anywhere else to park his trailers and nowhere else to stay, Ronald found a room in a single room occupancy in Houma.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This place was somewhere typically relied on by oil rig workers and other short-term renters. It was just somewhere you need to stay on the way somewhere else.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was Ronald's sister who actually directed Detective Thornton and Bergeron to her brother's new address when they knocked on her door to serve the warrant. His poor sister. No, you can go find him here. Yeah, and having to deal with that, like, and obviously not knowing exactly what was going on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now further complicating matters, someone had leaked the information about the arrest to the press.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Dominique appeared calm and confident at first as Thornton and Bergeron began the interrogation process. He thinks he's a hundred steps ahead. Oh yeah, just the fact that he gave that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They had arrested him on warrants for the murders of Oliver Labanks and Manuel Reed. So Thornton's plan was to keep the conversation to those murders only.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Dominique claimed it was entirely common for this to happen in the quarter, you know, offers of sex happened often, disease, like everyone, like don't worry about it, like he's acting like, I don't know why you're, don't be scandalized. And


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wanting to keep him talking, neither detective was going to challenge that. They were just like, yes, absolutely. Cool, keep going.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, so Ronald claimed after the two had finished, you know, fooling around in the backseat of his car, LeBanks, he claimed, had pulled a knife on him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Indicating that he was planning to rape Ronald if he didn't hand over all his money. Supposedly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Acting in self-defense, Ronald claimed he grabbed the tire iron from the floor and swung it at LeBanks' head.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When he realized he'd killed Oliver Labanks, Ronald told detectives he drove around for hours until he found the dark overpass where he dumped Labanks' body, then returned home. I just wanna be clear.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's a lying sack of shit. Hundred percent. And that's not how that happened. No, of course it's not. I'm sure some of those injuries are how Oliver LeBanks was injured. Right. But, no.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, so Thornton and Bergeron could see that Dominique was


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Definitely like, they were like, okay, so we can see exactly what he's going to do from here on out. He's going to do the self-defense angle. Right. He's going to claim that all of these men just attacked him. That's crazy. People just attacking you left and right. So they were careful about how they asked their questions because they were like, we, I will give it to them. They were like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We have him, we cannot lose him. We gotta be really strategic about this, we can't fuck this up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now moving on to Manuel Reed, Dominey claimed he'd also met Reed in a bar, and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Manual Read had approached him with an offer. Same thing. I want you guys to look up Ronald Dominique.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And tell me that these men are approaching him. The answer is a big old no. I don't know about that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and again, Manuel Reed walked up to him and asked if he would like to fool around. So the exact same story as Oliver L. Banks. Isn't that wild? It was crazy. Isn't that such a weird coincidence? It's worth noting, Ronald demonstrated a certain degree of discomfort when discussing sex with the detectives. He would bounce back and forth between, like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Childish euphemisms almost, like very juvenile euphemisms. Yea. And then oddly clinical language. Really? Like there was no in-between, it was very strange they said, it was like uncomfortable how he was.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause he seemed uncomfortable at times, and then he would seem very like clinical about it. And then like get like too comfortable? Yea, they just couldn't get comfortable with how he was talking about it. Weird. It's clear that he's obviously paying men, like some of these men for sex, that he claims that they solicited him every single time. That is just not true.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, which he repeatedly refers to as fooling around. Like he uses the term fooling around all the time. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Again, just showing how uncomfortable he is even in this space. Yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now Dominique's description of the murder of Manuel Reed is very similar to that of Oliver LeBanks. He claims they went back to the car and began having sex, this is according to Ronald Dominique, but Reed began quote unquote sexually assaulting him at a certain point.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No. That doesn't even make sense. So he said he grabbed the tie iron from the floor and hit the man in the head.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Once he'd incapacitated Manuel Reed, Dominique tried to, claims he tried to tie the man's hands, so quote, he wouldn't hurt me no more.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, come on. According to Dominique, Reed came to a few minutes later and managed to get his hands free of the ropes, which is when Ronald Dominique wrapped the rope around his neck and began choking him.