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Speaker 3: I'm going to tell you a story, right, and it's
Speaker 3: gonna be one story all the way through. Everything I'm
Speaker 3: going to tell you is completely true apart from three things.
Speaker 4: There are three lies in this story.
Speaker 3: So on twenty second of July twenty and fifteen, about
Speaker 3: half past ten, I leave the gig. I go to
Speaker 3: my parents' house, wake up about twenty minutes after I
Speaker 3: fell asleep, and at the end of my bed there
Speaker 3: is someone standing. It's my mum. She's scared, she's really scared.
Speaker 3: She says the words to me. Whatever you do, do
Speaker 3: not turn on the lives. Whoever's in the front garden
Speaker 3: whatever's in the front garden. At this stage, I don't
Speaker 3: know how many people, how many things, what it could be,
Speaker 3: but my dad is looking at it and he won't
Speaker 3: go downstairs. Doesn't make sense, so I think, all right,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna call the police. I find out what's going on.
Speaker 4: I call the police. It rings a couple of times.
Speaker 4: Someone answers.
Speaker 3: I said, Hey, my name's Ed. I'm calling from forty
Speaker 3: Benfield Avenue. Someone's banging on our front door. I think
Speaker 3: it's a drunk but my parents are acting really weird
Speaker 3: and it's kind of shaken me up.
Speaker 4: Could you send an officer down just to check this out.
Speaker 4: On the other end, the phone says, I'm sorry, where.
Speaker 3: Did you say you were calling from? I said forty
Speaker 3: Bentfield Avenue, just in sophrom Walden, and the officer says,
Speaker 3: mister Hedges, we're very aware of the situation. Please barricade
Speaker 3: yourself inside the house and do not engage with anyone
Speaker 3: you meet. And then they hang up.
Speaker 4: I'm like, rude. Fuck.
Speaker 1: That first night in Edinburgh, my head was spinning and
Speaker 1: I wasn't alone. Ed had just started his set like
Speaker 1: any other stand up comedian, but suddenly we were all
Speaker 1: side eyeing each other in the audience.
Speaker 5: Should we laugh or brace ourselves.
Speaker 3: I walk into the hallway back with my parents and
Speaker 3: I said, guys, I've just called the police, and the
Speaker 3: acting kind of odd, and my mum does this. I
Speaker 3: go quiet, and I listened, and the banging has stopped,
Speaker 3: and it's been the rep by the sound of footsteps
Speaker 3: going down the front of our house and then the
Speaker 3: sound of an old iron gate getting pushed open. I
Speaker 3: know the iron gate because that's the iron gate I
Speaker 3: used to use when I come back from the pub
Speaker 3: drunk with the cricket team.
Speaker 4: I pushed the iron gate open.
Speaker 3: I'd walk down the side of my house into the
Speaker 3: back garden and I would go into the back door
Speaker 3: because the back door is always unlocked.
Speaker 4: The back doors always unlocked, and we can hear them
Speaker 4: through the windows.
Speaker 3: They go down the side of the house into the
Speaker 3: back garden, walk up to the back door. They put
Speaker 3: the hand on the door handle and they pull it
Speaker 3: down and it doesn't go And the second it made
Speaker 3: that chunk noise, my dad to my mum went, that
Speaker 3: is why I did that.
Speaker 5: I'm Jody Tovey.
Speaker 1: And this is Wisecrack Episode two who's there.
Speaker 3: There was an incident at this When I was a kid,
Speaker 3: my dad took me to the fair. I've never been
Speaker 3: before because I didn't really have any friends, and he
Speaker 3: took me, my mum and him to the local fair.
Speaker 4: They're not like your fairs. I've seen it. Your fairs
Speaker 4: you fry everything. Can you throw people in the air.
Speaker 4: We don't. We don't do that. We like to have fun.
Speaker 4: And my dad was driving us to the fur. I
Speaker 4: was so excited, and then we pulled over.
Speaker 3: In front of my aunt's house and my cousin, Jasper,
Speaker 3: walked out.
Speaker 4: And I was livid because I hate Jasper. We all
Speaker 4: hate Jasper. I need you to be on board with me.
Speaker 4: We hate Jasper. Right, He's such a weird kid.
Speaker 3: He was the kind of kid that would sit on
Speaker 3: the bottom deck of a double decker right live a
Speaker 3: little twat's so it's so weird.
Speaker 4: I can't explain it.
Speaker 3: He's he got into the car and he was wearing
Speaker 3: a three piece suit to go to the fair.
Speaker 4: Oh. I hate him so much, it makes me stronger.
Speaker 3: We went to the fair. I'm only a couple of
Speaker 3: years older than Jasper. At this point, I'm like turning.
Speaker 3: He's like a and we're looking for something to go on,
Speaker 3: and my dad's getting more and more annoyed. He's like,
Speaker 3: I've taken a day off work. I've bought these kids
Speaker 3: to the fair, not going on anything. What's the point
Speaker 3: in this. I've had a day of work. I'm losing
Speaker 3: a day's money. What is going on here? And after
Speaker 3: a little while he kind of erupted. He was like, kids,
Speaker 3: get on a ride. Now, we're going right home. And
Speaker 3: Jasa was like, we'll go on the dodgems. And you
Speaker 3: don't know what the dodgems are. You call them bumper cars, right, cool?
Speaker 3: Because you like to bump into them, but we like
Speaker 3: to dodge them.
Speaker 4: We're so similar.
Speaker 3: Which had just stop stop fighting your silly gooses, Ah,
Speaker 3: were called dodgems.
Speaker 4: I got on.
Speaker 3: I sat down in the bumper car. I was actually
Speaker 3: quite excited. Jaspa setting next to me. He wasn't allowed
Speaker 3: to drive because he's wearing a suit. And the second
Speaker 3: I sit down, I see in front of me is
Speaker 3: Ryan Goddard.
Speaker 1: Ryan Goddard is Ed's childhood bully who relentlessly tormented him
Speaker 1: all throughout grade school.
Speaker 3: Now, at this point, Ryan Godard has been bullying me
Speaker 3: for about four years.
Speaker 4: I'm terrified of him. He's already like good at sport.
Speaker 4: I am shitting my pants. I'm so scared.
Speaker 3: He sees me and starts heading straight for me and
Speaker 3: me and Jasper and I didn't know what to do.
Speaker 4: So I've realized I had two options.
Speaker 3: Either I bend down, I press the pedal and I
Speaker 3: still around Ryan, or I hit him straight on. I
Speaker 3: know my dad would prefer My dad would prefer me
Speaker 3: to hit him straight on, to do the manly thing
Speaker 3: to be, to be a man, to tackle.
Speaker 4: The problem head on. But I wanted to go around him.
Speaker 3: I just didn't want to have the conflict, and it
Speaker 3: was an internal struggle for me. I was tossing up
Speaker 3: between hitting him and going around him, Option A, Option B,
Speaker 3: Option A, Option B. In the end, I went for
Speaker 3: option C, which was undo my belt and leave the vehicle.
Speaker 3: There is not a reality that exists where I can
Speaker 3: describe how hard Jasper got hit by that car. And
Speaker 3: on that day, Jasper lost all of his front teeth.
Speaker 3: He also broke his nose. My dad grabs Jasper, he
Speaker 3: pulls him out of the car. He turns to me,
Speaker 3: and he goes, you're a coward, and he said get
Speaker 3: in the car, and I went right cool.
Speaker 4: We got in the car. He was angry.
Speaker 3: He was angry than he's been for a long time.
Speaker 3: I could feel the heat coming off the back of
Speaker 3: his neck, that kind of anger where people are like
Speaker 3: radiating energy. I sit in the car. Jasper's next to me.
Speaker 3: His suit is now read. My mum sits in the
Speaker 3: passenger seat. Does it's in the driver's seat. I'm sitting behind.
Speaker 3: We start driving. We're driving at about eighty miles.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 3: My dad's angry and he was mumbling under his breath.
Speaker 3: I could hear what he was mumbling. But he was like,
Speaker 3: why can't he just be normal? Why can't he be
Speaker 3: like the other kids? And my mom said, John, stop it,
Speaker 3: and he said, why can't he be like any of
Speaker 3: the other kids. Tony's boy was there, Ian, he was
Speaker 3: playing sports. Jackie's daughter was there, she was going on
Speaker 3: the slide. Susan's daughter was there. Ran he was like,
Speaker 3: he was there. They were all there, all the normal
Speaker 3: kids were there, and I've got this one.
Speaker 4: I was like, ah shit.
Speaker 1: When you see his set live, you quickly realize Ed
Speaker 1: is actually performing three shows at once. The first show
Speaker 1: is Ed's endearing comedy side splitting stories about growing up chubby, dyslexic, asthmatic,
Speaker 1: and just kind of strange in a small town outside
Speaker 1: of London. The second plot is Ed's retelling of this
Speaker 1: terrifying night when he returned to his childhood village for
Speaker 1: the first time as an adult, years after leaving to
Speaker 1: pursue his dreams of stand up comedy. After Ed finished
Speaker 1: his show, he had a few pints with old friends,
Speaker 1: walked back to his childhood home and passed out in
Speaker 1: his small bedroom until he was awoken by his parents
Speaker 1: and the violent knocking of an intruder trying to get
Speaker 1: into the front door.
Speaker 3: And then we hear them walk back up the pathway
Speaker 3: into the front garden and it goes quiet.
Speaker 1: But there is a third show going on. When he's
Speaker 1: on stage. It's what Ed is not telling you. He's
Speaker 1: already warned us that there are three lies built into
Speaker 1: the show, and at this point in the set he's
Speaker 1: only divulged one, but you can sense there's something yet
Speaker 1: to be revealed.
Speaker 3: And my mom tells to my dad and she says,
Speaker 3: I think they've gone, And as she starts to say,
Speaker 3: like the g in gone. The sound of someone drop
Speaker 3: kicking our front door comes. First kick smashes the glass,
Speaker 3: second kick, the wood starts to break. My mom grabs
Speaker 3: me and my dad and pushes us into the toilet,
Speaker 3: shuts the door behind us, she locks it.
Speaker 4: She's fully crying. At this point.
Speaker 3: She turns around to me and she says, Edward, promise
Speaker 3: me you won't leave, promising you'll stay here. This is
Speaker 3: the only room that has a lock and running water.
Speaker 3: We'll be safe if we're just saying here. The sound
Speaker 3: is getting louder. The wood is breaking. We can hear it.
Speaker 3: Whoever's outside is breaking down the door. We can hear
Speaker 3: it falling to pieces. My mum is crying, HI am panicking.
Speaker 3: My dad is sitting on the floor. And then I
Speaker 3: realize it. I look at my dad and I realize it.
Speaker 3: Why I couldn't get a grasp on what he was doing.
Speaker 4: He was scared. How fucked is that? It's like twenty
Speaker 4: three years old, and I just realized that my dad
Speaker 4: was scared the first time in my life.
Speaker 3: Here's this unit of a man. I'd never seen him
Speaker 3: scared before. He is terrified. He can't control the situation.
Speaker 3: He's lost control completely. He is so scared. And this
Speaker 3: wall of a man, this thing that used to terrify me,
Speaker 3: covered an eggshells. I had to step around for the
Speaker 3: first time in my life, showed a bit of weakness,
Speaker 3: and I can't think of what's outside because I'm just
Speaker 3: looking at him, thinking, you're like a human man. The
Speaker 3: noise is getting more and more, and Mum's having a
Speaker 3: full panic attack. She has a condition called angina. Her
Speaker 3: heart is going to brickly. And just before the door
Speaker 3: gets broken in, we hear a helicopter and then we
Speaker 3: see the lights of police cars pulling onto our street.
Speaker 3: The banging stops. It goes quiet again in the village,
Speaker 3: and then a polite knock comes from the front door.
Speaker 3: It's the creepiest thing. All this banging and then just
Speaker 3: a polite knock courtesy freaked me out. We didn't answer it,
Speaker 3: and then Mom gets a phone call. She stands up,
Speaker 3: she unlocks the door, she goes downstairs. My dad stands up.
Speaker 3: He follows her. I stand up and I walk into
Speaker 3: the bedroom. I tell my parents it's because I'm tired
Speaker 3: and I can't be asked. In actual fact, I'm having
Speaker 3: a full panic attack for the first time in my life.
Speaker 4: I go and lay down in my bed.
Speaker 3: I shut my eyes and I start to count, just
Speaker 3: to try and make yourself go to sleep.
Speaker 4: And then I wake up. I wake up.
Speaker 3: It's a beautiful day, Sun's out, birds are chopping. I'm
Speaker 3: happier than I've ever been because I realize it's just
Speaker 3: a dream.
Speaker 4: And then I hear my mom crying downstairs. I think, fuck,
Speaker 4: that's not.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 4: I get up.
Speaker 3: I walk downstairs. The blinds are down, all the doors
Speaker 3: are shut. I can't see anything at all. I can't
Speaker 3: see the front door. The TV is off, Mum and
Speaker 3: Dad are on the sofa, Mum's crying, and on the
Speaker 3: coffee table there are pancakes. And I started eating the pancakes.
Speaker 3: And I turned to my dad. I said, what was
Speaker 3: all that last night then? And he didn't answer me.
Speaker 3: He just picked up the TV rote and turned on
Speaker 3: Sky News. And on Sky News is my house. My
Speaker 3: house is covered in police tape, and on the street
Speaker 3: there are a few police officers. And that's how I
Speaker 3: learned about what happened on the night for the twenty
Speaker 3: second of July twenty fifteen, between eleven and twelve o'clock
Speaker 3: at night, the twenty three year old man named Ryan Goddard,
Speaker 3: my school bully, had killed his family. He stabbed his
Speaker 3: mother forty two times his stepfather fifty six, using seven
Speaker 3: different blunt knives from the kitchen, and they identified him
Speaker 3: by the shape of his shoeprint left on the side
Speaker 3: of his mother's skull. And then he came to my house.
Speaker 3: Things didn't go Ryan's way after I left the village.
Speaker 3: He broke his hip and he couldn't play football anymore.
Speaker 3: He was playing for a semi professional team and he
Speaker 3: had to move home with his family, became a milkman,
Speaker 3: had to knock on people's doors every day. This local
Speaker 3: celebrity is now ankman.
Speaker 4: And I knew Susan. She was good. Susan his mum
Speaker 4: was a good person. And it's yeah, it's I didn't
Speaker 4: know what to say. I sort of sat there.
Speaker 3: He wants something so bad you can't look left or right,
Speaker 3: and you're just soaking it in. And I wanted to
Speaker 3: make it better. I wanted to to fix it, and
Speaker 3: I couldn't. I couldn't fix it. But my dad, John,
Speaker 3: the hero of the house man, he saved the day,
Speaker 3: as he always does. He put his hand on my shoulder.
Speaker 3: He put his hand around my mum, and he said,
Speaker 3: it's fine, Okay, we've got each other still, We're alive.
Speaker 3: We're safe thanks to the Titan seventeen windows. Now here's
Speaker 3: a second lie of the show. He did not say that,
Speaker 3: And while I'm at it.
Speaker 4: I'll tell you the third lie.
Speaker 3: The third lie, just so you're aware, is that I've
Speaker 3: changed the names and the places and the people's names just.
Speaker 4: Out of respect for the dead. I thought I was right.
Speaker 4: I think to do.
Speaker 3: We all sort of processed it in different ways. That
Speaker 3: was really interesting to see. So my mum was really healthy.
Speaker 3: She talked to people and like she sawt of support network.
Speaker 3: My dad buried himself in his work, and I immediately
Speaker 3: started gigging again. I buried myself in my work, and
Speaker 3: then I realized I was doing what my dad was doing.
Speaker 3: So I did this. They just kind of pretended it
Speaker 3: never happened. Was I don't know if you've seen hot files,
Speaker 3: but it was genuinely it was like that. They were like,
Speaker 3: don't talk about it, don't report it, lock this shit down.
Speaker 3: And then you'd walk up to me and be like,
Speaker 3: did you hear about the murders? And they'd be like,
Speaker 3: lovely day we're having.
Speaker 4: All right.
Speaker 3: One thing I do know, because I'm eternally grateful to
Speaker 3: you all for coming tonight.
Speaker 4: My name is A Hedges. Thank you very much. Listen
Speaker 4: to my story say, and just.
Speaker 1: Like that it was over. Ed got a standing up,
Speaker 1: but he didn't stick around for the applause. His face
Speaker 1: lost all expression as he left stage, like he had
Speaker 1: somewhere to be. It was the strangest mic drop I'd
Speaker 1: ever seen. The audience quickly gathered their belongings and slipped
Speaker 1: back into the rain, casually chatting about what they'd just seen.
Speaker 1: But I stayed seated, stunned. Had I really just heard
Speaker 1: a true story of a double homicide wrapped in a
Speaker 1: comedy set, told by a comedian who was almost the
Speaker 1: third victim?
Speaker 5: Or did he make the whole thing up? I had
Speaker 5: to know.
Speaker 1: I ran out to the stage door to introduce myself,
Speaker 1: but Ed Hedges had long left the venue. The stage
Speaker 1: manager advised me to return the next day to catch
Speaker 1: him before his performance, but I didn't want to wait
Speaker 1: that long. I grabbed a coffee and scoured my phone
Speaker 1: for any trace of Ed Hedges. Most budding comedians have
Speaker 1: big so social media presences, but not Ed. He had
Speaker 1: a single Twitter account and his last post was weeks old.
Speaker 1: I dmmed him anyway, but nothing back. When I googled him,
Speaker 1: I found a lot of promos and press releases, but
Speaker 1: nothing about his hometown. When he was only twenty, Ed
Speaker 1: won the So You Think Your Funny Contest, a British
Speaker 1: comedy competition. He had a few runs at the Soho
Speaker 1: Theater in London to great reviews, but his career had
Speaker 1: slumped since then. I searched for the village he mentions.
Speaker 4: And you wouldn't have heard of. It's called Sophomoreton.
Speaker 1: It's a real town, but no double homicide and more curious,
Speaker 1: Ed never specifically says where he's from in interviews, like
Speaker 1: he's going out of his way to keep his past unclear.
Speaker 3: You're not going to be able to google this one.
Speaker 3: I've hidden it well enough that you won't be able
Speaker 3: to find anything.
Speaker 1: Despite trying for hours, I couldn't find anything. So the
Speaker 1: next day I went back to his show, and this
Speaker 1: time I recorded it on my iPhone seven. Apologies for
Speaker 1: the sound quality, but this is the first time I
Speaker 1: ever captured Ed's performance.
Speaker 5: Red Blooded Colored Comics is going to be like, Hey,
Speaker 5: wasn't it drue to come?
Speaker 4: I'm not, how answered.
Speaker 1: The show was almost identical to the night before. Some
Speaker 1: names changed, but every sharp line written and performed with
Speaker 1: an intentional vagueness.
Speaker 4: That night in twenty three year old Whale and Christian
Speaker 4: Gotd had killed his.
Speaker 1: Family, And this time I darted to the stage door
Speaker 1: when Ed's set came down. In fact, I think I
Speaker 1: scared him a little. I stuck out my hand told
Speaker 1: him I was a television producer specializing in true crime,
Speaker 1: and I would like to talk to him about his show.
Speaker 1: Immediately Ed became dismissive, eyes down, shuffling his feet, looking
Speaker 1: for an excuse to leave the conversation. Ed said he
Speaker 1: needed to prepare for his next set, but perhaps intrigued
Speaker 1: by something I said, we exchanged numbers and planned to
Speaker 1: meet for a drink after his last show. As he
Speaker 1: reached for the stage door, I lobbed one last question, Hey,
Speaker 1: can you at least tell me the name of your bully?
Speaker 1: He glanced around to see if anyone was listening, looked
Speaker 1: back at me, and quietly said Brett Rogers. That simple
Speaker 1: name unlocked everything for me.
Speaker 3: They found the lifeless body of Gillian Phillips fifty four,
Speaker 3: slumped on the sofa and covered in her own.
Speaker 2: Repeatedly stabbed and caused a fatal head injury to David Oaks,
Speaker 2: who had stayed with her overnight. Since the death of
Speaker 2: a woman and a man in stanced at Mount Fidgett
Speaker 2: had been opened.
Speaker 1: With the name Brett Rogers, I could almost confirm everything
Speaker 1: that happened that terrible night, not in Saffron, Morgan, but
Speaker 1: in a small town called Stansteae, Mount Fitchett, thirty five
Speaker 1: miles northeast of London. Even more fascinating, everything that Ed
Speaker 1: said on stage about the murders themselves was true, verifiable,
Speaker 1: right down to the amount of stab wounds found on
Speaker 1: Brett's mother's body. Missus Phillips suffered at least forty one
Speaker 1: stab wounds to the head, neck and torso, plus fourteen
Speaker 1: blunt force injuries and defensive wounds.
Speaker 3: She was pronounced dead at the scene.
Speaker 1: The number of articles published in the wake of the
Speaker 1: murders were in the dozens, but they all reported the
Speaker 1: same scant superficial facts. Since Ed had moved away from Stanstead,
Speaker 1: Brett's life had fallen apart. With few job opportunities, Brett
Speaker 1: took a job as the local milkman, delivering fresh dairy
Speaker 1: to lifelong neighbors, who were all aware of his downfall.
Speaker 1: He was constantly in trouble with the law, everything from
Speaker 1: drug use to violent fights, and eventually landed himself in
Speaker 1: prison for three years. When he was released, he had
Speaker 1: nowhere to live except his mother's house, his childhood home,
Speaker 1: the one three doors down from ed. Then came the
Speaker 1: night of July twenty second, twenty fifteen. The terror started
Speaker 1: at nine pm. Both Brett's mom, Jillian Phillips, and her
Speaker 1: friend David Oakes, had been heavily drinking. There was no
Speaker 1: way either could have fought off the attack. Their thinned
Speaker 1: blood would account for the red soaked couch and floor
Speaker 1: where Gillian and David were found, respectively. Both their heads
Speaker 1: were bruised and fractured, consistent with violent blunt force trauma.
Speaker 1: Once they were incapacitated, Brett repeatedly stomped on their faces,
Speaker 1: leaving a bloody footprint from his Nike air trainer on
Speaker 1: his mother's cheek. A forensic scientist later confirmed that the
Speaker 1: butchery Brett committed that night would have taken him at
Speaker 1: least one hour or longer. At eleven pm, Brett Rogers
Speaker 1: left his house and wandered onto the Common Green, a
Speaker 1: small shared outdoor yard with pinches. There, Brett called nine
Speaker 1: nine nine. For some reason, either the call was dropped
Speaker 1: or he hung up. Brett did not speak to an officer. Inexplicably,
Speaker 1: Brett returned to his house while the victims bled out downstairs.
Speaker 1: Brett climbed upstairs, tracking blood on the treads. He changed
Speaker 1: out of the blood soaked size eight Nike trainers and
Speaker 1: into size nine shoes. Approximately thirty to forty five minutes later,
Speaker 1: Brett calls nine nine nine again, this time requesting help.
Speaker 1: Around midnight, a lone officer arrived to find Brett in
Speaker 1: a side alley beside Ed's house. He was clutching a
Speaker 1: white plastic bag, His arms and hands were slick with blood,
Speaker 1: and he was grinning laughing to top it all off.
Speaker 1: On the way to the station after his arrest, Brett
Speaker 1: turned to the officer and asked if they could swing
Speaker 1: by McDonald's first, but the crime scene had yet to
Speaker 1: reveal Two of the most baffling parts of the murders.
Speaker 1: The following day, during a methodical search of Jillian's overflowing
Speaker 1: kitchen trash can, the murder weapons were discovered.
Speaker 5: Inside.
Speaker 1: Seven knives were found, four black, ones, one red, one yellow,
Speaker 1: and one blue, indicating that Brett went back and forth
Speaker 1: over the course of an hour or so, randomly choosing
Speaker 1: a new instrument every time a knife broke or dulled.
Speaker 1: Some of the knives were missing handles due to the
Speaker 1: violent force used to thrust the blades into the victim's bodies.
Speaker 1: Investigators also found Brett's discarded nikes, his gray sweatpants, several towels,
Speaker 1: and a pillowcase, all soaked in blood. He had also
Speaker 1: thrown away cash, two hundred and twenty pounds in twenty
Speaker 1: pound notes, and a pair of women's animal print underwear.
Speaker 1: But perhaps the strangest discovery lay outside in another trash ben,
Speaker 1: evidence of a different side to Brett's breakdown. Sometime during
Speaker 1: the murders, he had scrawled a message, a letter of
Speaker 1: sorts three words written over and over at least thirty times,
Speaker 1: I and love and much. Then he destroyed the message,
Speaker 1: tearing it into three hundred small pieces.
Speaker 5: I kept pouring.
Speaker 1: Over the articles because one question kept nagging at me.
Speaker 1: Why what sent Brett over the edge that night? I
Speaker 1: couldn't wait to ask Ed? But it turns out i'd
Speaker 1: have to Ed stood me up. I waited in that
Speaker 1: pub for two hours. I sent him a message on WhatsApp, nothing,
Speaker 1: not even a courtesy text, saying I can't make it.
Speaker 1: I crawled in bed that night, bombed and frankly a
Speaker 1: little pissed. Young comedians come to the Fringe Fest for
Speaker 1: one reason, to show their talent to the world, to
Speaker 1: find new collaborators and expand their audiences. I thought Ed
Speaker 1: and I might make a great team. Why would he
Speaker 1: not show Maybe he's already working with someone else, or
Speaker 1: isn't interested in a wider audience, or maybe he's decided
Speaker 1: that I'm not the perfect fit for his ambitions. After all,
Speaker 1: I'm a crime producer and he's a stand up. And
Speaker 1: that's when it hit me. Despite what Ed said on stage,
Speaker 1: a double murder in a small town, the killer coming
Speaker 1: to his house, all on the one night in four
Speaker 1: years that Ed happened to be back home.
Speaker 4: He had no idea though I was there.
Speaker 1: This was just my questionence a coincidence that's certainly possible
Speaker 1: but probable, or maybe Ed was trying to convince himself
Speaker 1: of that narrative.
Speaker 3: That's a story, thank you.
Speaker 1: Whatever the truth was, Ed was going through it for
Speaker 1: his audiences, cackling through his forty five minute set.
Speaker 5: This was just another comedy.
Speaker 1: Routine for Ed. It was trauma therapy with dozens of
Speaker 1: people looking on. The Next night, I waited at the
Speaker 1: stage door again, and this time I didn't hold back.
Speaker 1: I told Ed why I thought he was avoiding me.
Speaker 1: I told him why I think he changes all the
Speaker 1: names and places in the story, and then I told
Speaker 1: him why I think he performs this set in the
Speaker 1: first place. He too, wants to know why Brett did
Speaker 1: what he did and if his presence in town that
Speaker 1: night had anything to do with his bully's meltdown. Ed
Speaker 1: was speechless, and then he unloaded his thoughts on me,
Speaker 1: telling me that Brett never mentioned him by name after
Speaker 1: he left, that he already had mental problems, and that
Speaker 1: Brett would have never known that Ed was in town
Speaker 1: for one night only. Rather than pushback, I simply asked
Speaker 1: Ed a question. I asked if he would like to
Speaker 1: explore everything that led up to those murders in hopes
Speaker 1: of unearthing Brett's motivations that night, that maybe a deeper
Speaker 1: understanding of Brett might unshackle him from any of his
Speaker 1: darker feelings. He got very quiet, shook his head and
Speaker 1: told me he would think about it. And that was
Speaker 1: the last time I talked to Ed Hedges until two
Speaker 1: years later when he called me pis drunk. He told
Speaker 1: me he'd been considering my offer for years. It had
Speaker 1: always stuck in the back of his mind. He said,
Speaker 1: if I was still up for it, he was in.
Speaker 5: Why now? I thought, what's changed? Then he said one thing,
Speaker 5: though Brett's dead. Next time on wisecrack.
Speaker 4: In most cases they swing their fists around. Yes, plausible,
Speaker 4: it's believable, and you've had a fight, but you don't
Speaker 4: kill your mum.
Speaker 6: The forensic scientists took a huge number of photographs, not
Speaker 6: all of which we showed to the jury. Some of
Speaker 6: them were just too horrific to do so. The thing
Speaker 6: that struck me most about it was the sheer quantity
Speaker 6: of bloodshed. It literally was a blood bath.
Speaker 1: Wisecrack is a production of Tenderfoot TV and iHeart podcasts
Speaker 1: in association with Star White Productions. I'm the host Jody Tovey.
Speaker 1: The show is written by Charles Forbes. Stand up comedy
Speaker 1: written and performed by Ed Hedges, with additional writing contributions
Speaker 1: by Charles Forbes. Executive producers for Tenderfoot TV are Donald
Speaker 1: Albright and Payne Lindsay. Executive producers for Star White Productions
Speaker 1: are Jody Tovey and Charles Forbes. Lead producer is Alex Vespestad,
Speaker 1: with additional production by Stephen Perez, Joe Grizzle, ja Ja Muhammad,
Speaker 1: Jamie Albright, and Jordan Foxworthy. Lead editor is Stephen Perez,
Speaker 1: with additional editing by Dylan Harrington and Liam Luxon. Coordinating
Speaker 1: producers are John Street and Tracy Kaplan. Research by Jim
Speaker 1: Nally and Misty Showalter. Original music by Jay Ragsdale with
Speaker 1: additional music by Makeup and Vanity Set, mixed by Cooper Skinner.
Speaker 1: Artwork by Byron McCoy. Special thanks to Orren Rosenbaum and
Speaker 1: the team at UTA, Nate Ranson, Alexander Kaplan and The
Speaker 1: Sinner Clubhouse, and the Nord Group. For more podcasts like Wisecrack,
Speaker 1: search Tenderfoot TV on your favorite podcast app, or visit
Speaker 1: us at tenderfoot dot tv. Thanks for listening. Episode three
Speaker 1: will release next week, but you can binge the rest
Speaker 1: of the season right now, completely add free by subscribing
Speaker 1: to tenderfoot Plus on Apple Podcasts or at tenderfootplus dot com.