WEBVTT - The Murder Years S2: Ep. 3, Cornflake Girl 0:00:00.720 --> 0:00:05.640 The following podcast contains explicit descriptions of violence, including sexual violence, 0:00:05.680 --> 0:00:09.440 that some listeners may find upsetting. Continue at your own risk. 0:00:12.920 --> 0:00:15.920 Oh yeah, you didn't have to be a fan if 0:00:15.960 --> 0:00:18.320 you followed popular culture in the nineties, if you were 0:00:18.320 --> 0:00:21.480 into music at all, hell, if you were in your 0:00:21.520 --> 0:00:27.000 twenties or even anywhere near him. You remember Kurt Cobain's suicide. 0:00:28.200 --> 0:00:30.800 You don't necessarily remember the date, like nine to eleven. 0:00:30.880 --> 0:00:32.240 Well I do. 0:00:33.200 --> 0:00:36.080 It was April the nineteen ninety four. That's the day 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:40.080 they found his body. Anyway, he'd been dead a couple days. 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:44.159 Crazy right, one of the biggest stars on the planet, 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:46.200 and his dead body was rotting in the room above 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:50.599 his garage for days. It wasn't even family who found him. 0:00:50.680 --> 0:00:52.760 It was some electrician dude who came over to install 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:53.400 some lighting. 0:00:56.000 --> 0:00:59.240 That's Connor Langford remembering one of the seminal events of 0:00:59.280 --> 0:01:03.320 the nineteen nine the suicide of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:07.600 You may remember from our previous episodes that Connor is 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:11.360 the son of Domino Beach City councilman Greg Langford and 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:13.160 one of the two men who found the body of 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:17.119 the Domino Beach killer's first victim anyway. 0:01:17.959 --> 0:01:22.639 Shocked under the head blame no more Nirvana. He quoted 0:01:22.680 --> 0:01:26.120 Neil Young in a suicide note. You know it's better 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:31.760 to burn out than to fade away. I don't know, 0:01:33.080 --> 0:01:35.120 maybe he was right. 0:01:36.240 --> 0:01:39.000 Here's Maya Morales, Connor's girlfriend at the time. 0:01:39.640 --> 0:01:42.680 Oh yeah, when the news hit, I was working first 0:01:42.720 --> 0:01:46.200 shift at Gravel Records. Spring break was just kicking up, 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:49.200 so there were a lot of college kids in town. 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:53.000 By noon the next day, we had sold out of 0:01:53.080 --> 0:01:59.600 every Nirvana ced, every vinyl record, every cassette, every T shirt, poster, 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:03.080 even those little metal buttons you pinned on your jacket, 0:02:03.200 --> 0:02:07.520 remember those. Yeah, all of a sudden, Nirvana was everyone's 0:02:07.560 --> 0:02:12.040 favorite band, a bunch of posers. 0:02:12.600 --> 0:02:13.600 They were really fans. 0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:16.119 Don't you think that they would have already had all 0:02:16.200 --> 0:02:16.880 that stuff. 0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:21.600 I was twenty three years old in April of ninety four, 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:23.680 and I have to admit I was one of the 0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:26.840 posers I was talking about. I was dating a guy 0:02:26.880 --> 0:02:28.919 who was in med school at USC at the time 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:33.160 and was a huge grunge fan. So he was absolutely devastated. 0:02:33.800 --> 0:02:36.440 And I don't really know why, but I fell victim 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:40.400 to the collective sadness of it all, Nirvana wasn't really 0:02:40.520 --> 0:02:43.239 my kind of band. I was still mostly into eighties 0:02:43.360 --> 0:02:45.919 music back then, and if you haven't figured it out 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:49.480 by now, I was desperately uncool in my twenties. But 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:53.000 Nirvana had had such an impact on popular music and 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:56.200 a huge influence on so many of my fellow gen xers. 0:02:57.600 --> 0:03:00.720 In the weeks after Cobain's death, I listened to them 0:03:00.760 --> 0:03:04.160 more than I ever had before or since. I mean 0:03:04.240 --> 0:03:06.519 to be honest, the only reason I bought their breakthrough 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:09.280 CD never Mind in the first place was to hear 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:12.320 the song Paully that the Murderer of Vera Kendrick had 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:16.160 quoted a year and a half earlier. To say Cobain's 0:03:16.200 --> 0:03:21.040 death was a big deal is an understatement. It may 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:23.760 have affected us all in different ways. Some of us 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:26.600 would miss his music, some of us related to the 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:30.480 depression he felt. Some of us were simply saddened by 0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:33.160 the idea of a twenty seven year old musical genius 0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:37.400 at the top of his game checking out. And there 0:03:37.400 --> 0:03:40.040 are those who believe his suicide had an impact on 0:03:40.120 --> 0:03:44.360 the Domino Beach Killer because what he did next was 0:03:44.400 --> 0:04:05.880 a major escalation. I'm Courtney Barnes and this is the 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:09.960 Murder Years, Episode three, Cornflake Girl. 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:28.279 You got to understand. April is when Domino Beach started 0:04:28.320 --> 0:04:31.080 to wake up after the lean winter months. 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:34.919 That's Damon Stokes retired Sheriff of Delsoul County. 0:04:36.160 --> 0:04:38.640 As soon as the spring breakers started rolling into town, 0:04:38.720 --> 0:04:43.400 the population tripled and everything opened up. Shops, restaurants, and 0:04:43.440 --> 0:04:45.200 bars that were only opened two or three days a 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:47.960 week from September to March were open pretty much now 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:48.880 twenty four to seven. 0:04:49.800 --> 0:04:51.240 Almost every hotel. 0:04:50.880 --> 0:04:54.200 And rental house was packed and booked solid until the 0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:54.919 end of August. 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:58.520 It's like everything really came to life all of a sudden. 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:01.800 I was a local. It was truly something to. 0:05:01.760 --> 0:05:06.440 See, it really was. Nineteen ninety four marked my second 0:05:06.440 --> 0:05:09.240 spring break spent in Domino Beach, and by then I 0:05:09.320 --> 0:05:12.039 had become a full fledged reporter on the payroll of 0:05:12.080 --> 0:05:16.279 the SoCal Journal. Glenn Sherman was still covering crime in 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:19.320 politics and for the most part not letting me anywhere 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:23.159 near it. My beat was lifestyle and entertainment, which, to 0:05:23.279 --> 0:05:26.479 be honest, I was pretty happy about covering the murder 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:28.720 of Via Kendrick right out of the gate and then, 0:05:28.800 --> 0:05:31.320 shadowing Glenn for a year had led me to the 0:05:31.360 --> 0:05:34.279 conclusion that I did not want to be a crime reporter, 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:39.640 at least not yet. Even a small tourist town like 0:05:39.720 --> 0:05:43.320 Domino Beach had crime. Besides the two unsolved murders of 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:46.320 Via Kendrick and Billy Boy Reeves, there was the inland 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:51.080 drug trade and everything that comes with that, prostitution, muggings, 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:53.839 some shootings, you know, that sort of thing, and then 0:05:53.920 --> 0:05:58.839 you had domestic abuse cases, burglaries, bar fights. It was 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:02.159 just too much for me. It's weird for me to 0:06:02.200 --> 0:06:05.039 think of myself like that, to remember there was a 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:08.200 time before the world and all its cynicism burned away 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:14.160 any sense of innocence and naivete I once had. Anyway, 0:06:14.680 --> 0:06:17.480 I'd been promoted over the winter, so spring break was 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:20.159 going to be my first chance to shine, to plant 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:23.240 my flag and really own my beat. I'd spend time 0:06:23.279 --> 0:06:26.240 on the crowded beaches writing about all that the college 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:28.920 kids were doing. I'd eat it all the restaurants in 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:31.640 town and review the ones I liked. And remember, this 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:34.440 was long before the birth of Yo, when everyone and 0:06:34.480 --> 0:06:38.960 their brothers suddenly became a food critic. Although unlike most yelpers. 0:06:39.000 --> 0:06:41.920 I promised to never pan a place fight didn't like it. 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:44.719 I'd follow the if you can't say anything nice, don't 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:47.360 say anything at all rule. I still had to live 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:50.719 with these people, and of course I'd cover the spring 0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:53.680 break nightlife, listening to live music and dive bars and 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:57.080 watching half naked college kids rive on outdoor dance floors 0:06:57.120 --> 0:07:01.039 overlooking the ocean. It's going to be fun. It was 0:07:01.080 --> 0:07:04.440 supposed to be fun, and I have no doubt that's 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:08.200 exactly what Holly Blake, Mary Crouch, and Sandra Gerard thought 0:07:08.200 --> 0:07:11.200 when they drove all the way from Arizona State University 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:12.480 to Domino Beach. 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:20.480 The way I understand it, Holly Blake had an unclehole 0:07:20.480 --> 0:07:23.320 in the house where they stayed. He never lived there himself, 0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:26.320 though you know it only met him once or twice. 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:28.840 It was purely a rental property for him, you know, 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:30.640 a money maker and a good one. 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:31.840 Can you describe it? 0:07:32.480 --> 0:07:36.880 Well, sure, it's a long time since you know. It's 0:07:37.000 --> 0:07:40.200 torn down now, as you know, but I remember it 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:44.560 pretty clearly. It was one level, three bedrooms, I mean 0:07:44.880 --> 0:07:47.240 maybe four, but I think three, and it was a 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:52.000 modern kitchen, A couple of decent sized bathrooms, massive back deck. 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:54.480 On stilts that overlooked the ocean. It's real beauty. 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:58.080 Booked all summer long, but it was, you know, usually 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:00.800 empty during the spring break. It was one of the 0:08:00.840 --> 0:08:04.880 most expensive rentals in town, too much for most college kids. 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:08.280 So you know it was going to stay empty most 0:08:08.320 --> 0:08:08.800 of April. 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:12.600 I guess miss Blake's uncle decided he might as well 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:14.800 let her and her friends just use it. 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:15.960 Oh. 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:18.360 It was in a very active part of Domino Beach too, 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:21.880 within walking distance of downtown and not too far from 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:24.920 Senior Gusto, the beach front bar of choice for the 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:30.040 spring Breakers. Cheap shots, live music, some nights of DJ others, 0:08:30.280 --> 0:08:33.320 wet t shirt contest, karaoke, and know all that nonsense. 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:37.559 Holly, Mary and Sandra must have felt like they'd hit 0:08:37.600 --> 0:08:41.840 the jackpot. They were three fun, pretty college girls staying 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:44.280 in one of the hottest houses on the coolest part 0:08:44.280 --> 0:08:47.440 of the beach, and yeah, it proved too good to 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:59.160 be true. 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:02.160 The way it went down was like this. Nine to one. 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:04.160 One got a call a little after three in the 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:10.240 morning on April twenty first. It was oh god, Thursday, Yeah, right, 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:11.000 it's Thursday. 0:09:12.280 --> 0:09:14.600 The house next door was home to the Gillen family. 0:09:15.080 --> 0:09:18.400 Adam Gillen was a lawyer who worked in San Diego's wife, Darla, 0:09:18.480 --> 0:09:21.200 was a TV writer in Hollywood. I don't remember what 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:23.120 shows she worked on. I didn't watch a lot of 0:09:23.160 --> 0:09:27.080 TV back then. Well, they were year round residents. Darla 0:09:27.120 --> 0:09:30.679 worked from home most times and Adam commuted back and 0:09:30.720 --> 0:09:34.280 forth from San Diego. Well, they didn't think too much 0:09:34.280 --> 0:09:36.560 of these spring breakers. I mean, like I said before, 0:09:36.679 --> 0:09:39.000 the house these girls were staying and was usually vacant 0:09:39.080 --> 0:09:43.079 during spring break, but that week the house was party central. 0:09:43.720 --> 0:09:45.600 Didn't take too long for those girls to become the 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:49.080 most popular tourists in town. During the daytime, there were 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:52.400 upwards of twenty kids going in and out from the beach, 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:55.360 beating the heat or refilling their drinks and so on. 0:09:57.120 --> 0:09:59.400 And at night the girls invited half the town over 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:01.560 to keep the park going after the bar has closed. 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:03.720 I mean, you know they were doing it up. 0:10:04.720 --> 0:10:09.000 So anyway, it was after three am Thursday morning, April 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:11.800 twenty first, nine to one one gets a call from 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:12.480 Adam Gillen. 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:15.880 Apparently there'd been some loud music. 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:19.120 Coming from the house next door all night and he 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:20.760 couldn't take it anymore. He had to go to work 0:10:20.800 --> 0:10:23.640 the next morning, so he walked over there in a huff. 0:10:24.280 --> 0:10:27.480 He's in his bathrobe and slippers, and he wants to 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:30.040 ask him to turn it down. When he got there, 0:10:30.960 --> 0:10:34.600 he found the front door standing wide open, says He 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:37.080 called out, but the music was so loud you could 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:41.160 barely hear himself, so he took a few steps inside. 0:10:43.240 --> 0:10:46.840 What Adam Gillen saw inside the house made him turn 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:50.760 right around, run outside, throw up in the bushes, and 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:53.120 then hurry back to his house to call nine one one. 0:10:54.880 --> 0:10:59.640 What I saw when I arrived, I mean, it was 0:11:00.080 --> 0:11:04.480 just horrific. The deputy on duty beat me there, but 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:08.040 only about by ten minutes. The nine one one dispatcher 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:12.000 called me at home, told me that if what Adam 0:11:12.040 --> 0:11:14.560 Gillen was saying turned out to be true, I better 0:11:14.600 --> 0:11:15.640 go see it for myself. 0:11:17.080 --> 0:11:19.120 And what did you see when you got there? 0:11:20.800 --> 0:11:25.080 The first thing I saw was blood, lots of it, 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:31.280 silking in the pale gray carpet of this living room. 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:34.320 And lying in the middle of that blood is twenty 0:11:34.400 --> 0:11:35.640 year old Sandra Gerard. 0:11:39.600 --> 0:11:41.400 She was wearing shorts and a tank. 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:45.480 Top, but you know, a nice one summertime going out closed. 0:11:46.880 --> 0:11:48.320 The top was torn up pretty good. 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:51.600 She had the stab wounds all over her body, at 0:11:51.679 --> 0:11:54.920 least a couple of dozen. She was lying face down, 0:11:55.200 --> 0:11:58.520 the wrist tied behind her back, the plastic zip tie. 0:12:00.280 --> 0:12:03.160 There was another puddle of blood on the carpet right 0:12:03.200 --> 0:12:07.160 next to her, quite so big, and the start of 0:12:07.200 --> 0:12:10.640 a long red smear that went all the way across 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:14.920 the living room carpet into the kitchen tile. And that's 0:12:14.920 --> 0:12:18.000 where twenty one year old Holly Blake was found. And 0:12:18.120 --> 0:12:22.760 she was wearing one of those summer dresses like her 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:27.360 friend Sandra. She was just covered in stab wounds, had 0:12:27.400 --> 0:12:32.920 her hands bound. It look like sh she'd been dragged 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:36.200 and reguled her way into the kitchen and probably trying 0:12:36.200 --> 0:12:37.880 to get to the phone call for help. 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:40.520 But you know she I don't know, she didn't make it. 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:43.760 And what about Mary Crouch? 0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:50.120 We found Mary, also twenty one years old, uh in 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:52.479 the master bedroom. 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:53.560 She was found naked. 0:12:55.320 --> 0:13:00.560 She'd been raped, beaten, uh, and she had been strangled 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:01.160 to death. 0:13:01.840 --> 0:13:03.079 Just like Vera Hendrick. 0:13:03.480 --> 0:13:07.520 That's right. 0:13:09.520 --> 0:13:12.680 Adam Gillen, the next door neighbor who found the bodies, 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:15.600 had come over to complain about the loud music coming 0:13:15.640 --> 0:13:19.079 from the house. As if the volume hadn't been annoying enough, 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:22.240 it was the same song playing over and over for 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:25.959 at least an hour that really got to him, Cornflake 0:13:26.000 --> 0:13:30.880 Girl by Tory Amos. The source of the music was 0:13:30.880 --> 0:13:34.000 a ninety minute cassette tape with that one song recorded 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:37.200 onto it, repeating itself over and over on the living 0:13:37.280 --> 0:13:40.480 room stereo. Apparently the killer had played it during his 0:13:40.559 --> 0:13:42.800 assault on the women and let it play while he 0:13:42.960 --> 0:13:47.760 raped and strangled Mary Crouch, then repeatedly stabbed Sandra Gerard 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:50.719 and Holly Blake. Then he cranked up the volume and 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:53.600 left it playing on his way out the door, likely 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:56.000 because he wanted the bodies to be found sooner rather 0:13:56.040 --> 0:13:58.640 than later. He was proud of what he'd done and 0:13:58.720 --> 0:14:02.920 wanted others to see his work. But why that song? 0:14:03.720 --> 0:14:05.439 Why Cornflake Girl? 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:09.920 Cornflake Girl was kind of like a feminist anthem of 0:14:09.960 --> 0:14:13.000 the nineties. I was more of a hip hop R 0:14:13.040 --> 0:14:16.600 and B girl myself back then, so Tori Amos wasn't 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:19.840 my jam. But it was a pretty good song, I 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:22.720 admit it. Supposedly it was about how some women will 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:26.000 screw over other women, even if they're good friends and 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:28.280 that's what a cornflake girl is. 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:33.840 In retrospect, it's not surprising that the Domino Beach killer 0:14:33.840 --> 0:14:37.240 would subvert a feminist song like that, letting it play 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:40.240 while he raped and murdered these young women. He probably 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:43.360 got some weird kind of pleasure out of it. If 0:14:43.360 --> 0:14:46.240 you listen to the lyrics. There are some ominous sounding 0:14:46.280 --> 0:14:49.600 phrases in there, like she's gone to the other side, 0:14:50.080 --> 0:14:53.760 and a nervous sounding stuttering of this is not really happening, 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:57.960 followed by Amos almost screeching you bet your life it is. 0:14:58.960 --> 0:15:04.000 It's weirdly haunted. But that's not why the killer chose 0:15:04.040 --> 0:15:07.880 that song, at least it wasn't the only reason. 0:15:09.400 --> 0:15:12.480 So the story, and I heard this before the murders, 0:15:12.640 --> 0:15:15.320 but back when I was working at Gravel Records, is 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:18.240 that Torri Amos had read some book. 0:15:18.040 --> 0:15:21.640 And was possessing the Secret of Joy. Huh, Possessing the 0:15:21.680 --> 0:15:24.120 Secret of Joy by Alice Walker. That was the book. 0:15:24.760 --> 0:15:26.720 Are you telling this or am I? 0:15:27.840 --> 0:15:28.200 You are? 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:28.600 Maya? 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:33.840 So she read this book which apparently talked about the 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:38.160 practice of female genital mutilation in some parts of Africa, 0:15:38.680 --> 0:15:41.680 and I guess it was pretty common for a girl's 0:15:41.760 --> 0:15:45.440 friend or aunt or cousin or whatever to betray the 0:15:45.520 --> 0:15:49.680 girl and either do the deed themselves or bring them 0:15:49.720 --> 0:15:52.960 to someone who did sick, twisted shit right. 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:58.240 Mary Crouch, the victim who was found raped and strangled 0:15:58.240 --> 0:16:00.880 to death in the bedroom, had her literal glands and 0:16:01.000 --> 0:16:04.360 labia minora sliced off with the same knife used to 0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:05.760 stab her friends to death. 0:16:07.200 --> 0:16:11.160 What we determined was after the party cleared out, the 0:16:11.240 --> 0:16:14.520 killer came in. Girls may have left the door unlocked, 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:17.960 or maybe they he had been at the party. We 0:16:17.960 --> 0:16:20.960 weren't sure, but there was no sign of forced entry. 0:16:21.920 --> 0:16:24.600 He attacked the women, all three of them who had 0:16:24.640 --> 0:16:28.200 been drinking heavily that night, and tied them up, then 0:16:28.200 --> 0:16:31.080 put on the music and took Mary into the bedroom, 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:34.640 where he raped and strangled her. Then he went into 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:38.760 the kitchen, grabbed a knife, murdered Holly and Sandra, and 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:44.600 went back into the bedroom and did what he did 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:45.040 to Marry. 0:16:46.120 --> 0:16:48.560 At least you know, she was already dead. 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:53.320 The knife was found on the floor next to the bed. 0:16:54.000 --> 0:16:56.520 The removed genitalia were never recovered. 0:16:57.200 --> 0:16:59.720 These were not only the most violent murders ever committed 0:16:59.720 --> 0:17:03.400 by the Domino Beach Killer, they were the most violent 0:17:03.480 --> 0:17:06.879 murders I have ever seen in my career and still 0:17:06.920 --> 0:17:08.160 are to this day. 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:14.520 Maybe everyone, myself included, had fallen under the spell of 0:17:14.600 --> 0:17:19.560 Councilman Langford's there's nothing to see here rhetoric. But prior 0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:22.720 to the murders of Holly, Sandra and Mary, the thought 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:25.600 of a serial killer in Domino Beach had never even 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:29.480 entered my mind. Not in September nineteen ninety two, when 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:32.960 Vera Kendrick was murdered, Not in July of ninety three, 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:35.960 when the body of teenage junkie and prostitute Billy Boy 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:38.400 Reeves was found with his throat slit ear to ear 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:42.359 in the dumpster behind Triple Bes. Those two murders still 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:46.840 felt completely disconnected. No one even considered they were related. 0:17:47.720 --> 0:17:50.080 Up until then, there had been no real sense of 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:54.200 fear and certainly no panic in Domino Beach. But all 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:59.840 that changed in April nineteen ninety four. I remember being 0:17:59.840 --> 0:18:03.080 in the journal offices the day Holly, Sandra and Mary's 0:18:03.080 --> 0:18:07.719 bodies were found, watching a pale, uncharacteristically quiet Glenn Sherman 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:10.720 bang out the story on his old clunky mat. He 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:13.800 wasn't nervous just because he suspected whatever he wrote would 0:18:13.840 --> 0:18:16.520 be picked up by other papers all across the country, 0:18:16.840 --> 0:18:21.600 which it was. No he had other concerns. It's hard 0:18:21.680 --> 0:18:24.600 to write about things like women being butchered in such 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:27.760 horrible ways and still sound like you're being respectful to 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:32.280 the victims and their families. And Glenn he was never 0:18:32.359 --> 0:18:35.240 the tight to hold back. He was looking to walk 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:39.000 right up to the line where detailed accuracy becomes unnecessary 0:18:39.119 --> 0:18:43.760 exploitation without crossing it. And to his credit, I think 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:49.400 he was successful. That was a rough year for our 0:18:49.400 --> 0:18:50.840 little town of Domino Beach. 0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:56.440 Well, my fucking dad couldn't exactly sweep that one under 0:18:56.480 --> 0:18:59.840 the rug, could he? Vera even though she was a 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:03.880 of mine, didn't rate. Can you imagine that your own 0:19:03.880 --> 0:19:05.359 son is trying to get you to help solve the 0:19:05.440 --> 0:19:07.720 murder of someone he cared about and your response is 0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:12.040 essentially fuck it. She was just a homeless hippie, right, 0:19:13.640 --> 0:19:15.920 and she never contributed any money to the community. 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:16.679 Who cares? 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:21.640 But those girls, they went to college, They had families, 0:19:21.680 --> 0:19:24.440 families with money. Their murders got talked about on the 0:19:24.520 --> 0:19:28.879 national fucking news. There was no hiding this one, huh. 0:19:28.920 --> 0:19:32.840 And my father always true to fucking form. He saw 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:36.719 it as a goddamn opportunity. He had his political sights 0:19:36.840 --> 0:19:39.160 set on a bigger office, and he saw this as 0:19:39.160 --> 0:19:41.600 a way to get his name out there, get people 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:44.160 all over the country to know who he was off 0:19:44.160 --> 0:19:49.000 the backs of three mutilated college students piece of shit. 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:52.760 Writing It's true. 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:56.879 Counsel in Laneford leaned on me hard, especially when there 0:19:56.880 --> 0:19:59.760 were cameras around, said if I didn't solve those murders 0:19:59.760 --> 0:20:01.680 by the end of tourist season, I might as well 0:20:01.720 --> 0:20:04.440 just pack up and leave, because he'd make sure his 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:07.159 hell I didn't win my next election, and he had 0:20:07.200 --> 0:20:11.840 the pull to make that happen too. So I started 0:20:11.840 --> 0:20:15.000 working on the only lead I had, Stan Majors. 0:20:18.520 --> 0:20:21.880 If you remember from last episode, Stan Majors was an 0:20:21.880 --> 0:20:25.760 ex con, registered sex defender and person of interest in 0:20:25.800 --> 0:20:28.080 the nineteen ninety two murder of Vera Kendrick. 0:20:29.200 --> 0:20:31.679 I admit that I never believed Majors was involved in 0:20:31.680 --> 0:20:34.440 the murder of the Asu girls, but we. 0:20:34.400 --> 0:20:37.240 Didn't have anywhere else to go. There were no usable 0:20:37.280 --> 0:20:40.920 fingerprints on the murder weapon or anywhere else on the scene, 0:20:41.560 --> 0:20:44.679 No semen or hair was found, no skin or blood 0:20:44.760 --> 0:20:47.399 under any of the girl's fingernails. No one saw a 0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:51.240 goddamn thing, you know. So the girls had thrown a 0:20:51.280 --> 0:20:54.480 party that night. There were at least two or three 0:20:54.520 --> 0:20:57.080 dozen kids at the house, most of them from out 0:20:57.119 --> 0:20:57.480 of town. 0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:00.359 We talked to every single one of them got nowhere. 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:03.360 No one would admit to being the last one to leave, 0:21:04.200 --> 0:21:06.280 and no one said there was anyone who looked. 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:07.080 Suspicious or shady. 0:21:07.080 --> 0:21:11.600 There either, just a bunch of kids getting drunk, getting high, dancing, 0:21:11.840 --> 0:21:15.840 hooking up. So I didn't see the harm in bringing 0:21:15.920 --> 0:21:18.120 Stan Majors back to the station for a word or two. 0:21:19.440 --> 0:21:21.480 But you know I was wrong. 0:21:23.800 --> 0:21:26.400 There was plenty of out of town press in Domino Beach. 0:21:26.400 --> 0:21:29.040 In the days after the murders of the ASU students 0:21:29.080 --> 0:21:32.399 and councilman Langford leaked to reporters from TV stations in 0:21:32.440 --> 0:21:35.480 Los Angeles and San Diego that Stokes was bringing in 0:21:35.520 --> 0:21:40.520 a suspect for questioning. This wasn't exactly true, since Stan 0:21:40.600 --> 0:21:43.720 Majors was never officially declared a suspect in any of 0:21:43.720 --> 0:21:46.639 the Domino Beach murders. But when Stokes arrived at the 0:21:46.680 --> 0:21:49.280 station with Majors in the backseat of his car. 0:21:49.640 --> 0:21:51.880 It was a shit show, is what it was. Goddamn 0:21:51.920 --> 0:21:52.720 media circus. 0:21:53.359 --> 0:21:55.040 It took me about an hour to make the round 0:21:55.040 --> 0:21:57.000 trip all the way to and from the gas. 0:21:56.800 --> 0:21:59.800 Station where Majors was working, and when I pulled up. 0:21:59.720 --> 0:22:02.639 To the sh station, if you have thought it was 0:22:02.680 --> 0:22:04.040 the red carpet of the oscars. 0:22:05.520 --> 0:22:09.280 Here's some archive footage from Sheriff Stokes interview with Stan 0:22:09.359 --> 0:22:10.240 Major's that day. 0:22:12.040 --> 0:22:16.800 No, I haven't been to Domino Beach in uh not 0:22:16.880 --> 0:22:18.480 since maybe last October. 0:22:19.320 --> 0:22:20.240 Why are you lying to me? 0:22:20.320 --> 0:22:22.960 Stan? I'm not lying? 0:22:23.760 --> 0:22:25.439 Yeah you are now. 0:22:25.440 --> 0:22:28.320 Maybe you killed those girls and maybe you didn't. I didn't. 0:22:28.520 --> 0:22:29.680 I didn't kill either way. 0:22:29.760 --> 0:22:32.600 Stan, you're lying to me right now, and I don't 0:22:32.640 --> 0:22:35.240 care for it. You were at that party that night, 0:22:35.280 --> 0:22:35.840 weren't you? 0:22:35.880 --> 0:22:35.960 What? 0:22:36.760 --> 0:22:39.840 No, you think they'd led me into that house. They 0:22:39.880 --> 0:22:42.199 were from out of town. Stand they didn't know you. 0:22:42.480 --> 0:22:45.280 They didn't know what you've done. What you're capable of. 0:22:46.160 --> 0:22:49.480 I'm not capable of that. I couldn't hurt anyone. 0:22:49.240 --> 0:22:52.280 Like you've done it before. You beat a minor half 0:22:52.359 --> 0:22:57.640 unconscious because she turned you down. That what happened here? 0:22:58.000 --> 0:23:00.520 You tried to get with Mary and what after you 0:23:00.920 --> 0:23:01.600 made you mad. 0:23:02.840 --> 0:23:05.840 No, I don't know who that is. I never seen 0:23:05.960 --> 0:23:07.040 those girls. 0:23:06.880 --> 0:23:08.680