Speaker 1: This episode contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners.
Speaker 1: Please check the show notes for more information. Disgraceland is
Speaker 1: a production of Double Elvis. The stories about Winona Ryder
Speaker 1: are insane. She nearly drowned when she was just twelve
Speaker 1: years old. She once stole more than five thousand dollars
Speaker 1: worth of designer clothes on a whim, even though she
Speaker 1: was a super famous and successful actress at the time. Earlier,
Speaker 1: she was raised by beat nicks off the grid in
Speaker 1: northern California. Her godfather was LSD pioneer Timothy Leary, aka
Speaker 1: the Most Dangerous Man in America. Winnowna's unique upbringing molded
Speaker 1: her into an A list actress and into America's endearing weirdo.
Speaker 1: Her weirdness drew from the deep fears that she experienced
Speaker 1: when assimilating from a sheltered early childhood to a more
Speaker 1: typical nineteen eighties media overload when her family moved to California,
Speaker 1: and when one of those fears came true in her
Speaker 1: new California hometown, she found herself in an unlikely role
Speaker 1: trying to draw attention to a horrific crime to help
Speaker 1: solve a kidnapping case. Before and after her involvement in
Speaker 1: that case, Winoda Ryder made great films and Winna Rider
Speaker 1: made time with some great musicians as well, musicians who, well,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm gonna say, musicians who made great music.
Speaker 1: Unlike that music I played for you at the top
Speaker 1: of the show. That wasn't great music. That was a
Speaker 1: preset loop from my melotron called Johnny Forever MK one.
Speaker 1: I played you that loop because I can't afford the
Speaker 1: rights to dream Lover by my Mariah Carey. And why
Speaker 1: would I play you that specific slice of five octave cheese?
Speaker 1: Could I afford it? Because that was the number one
Speaker 1: song in America on October first, nineteen ninety three, and
Speaker 1: that was the day Polyclass was abducted from her home,
Speaker 1: opening a kidnapping case that would rattle California and Winona
Speaker 1: Ryder to her core. On this episode, near Drowning Designer
Speaker 1: theft a deadly kidnapping in America's Ald Sweetheart, Winona Ryder,
Speaker 1: I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgraceland. Winona Rider had
Speaker 1: seconds to determine whether she was going to live or die.
Speaker 1: The seconds ticked by slowly and the undertoe moved quickly,
Speaker 1: a current with Winona's body around like a rag doll
Speaker 1: that yanked her in circles, shook her like a snow gloab,
Speaker 1: and the ocean closed in on her from every angle.
Speaker 1: It dragged her farther into the deep five feet below
Speaker 1: ten feet below. Win Ona wasn't sure, but she knew
Speaker 1: she was fully submerged. Down, was up? Left? Was right?
Speaker 1: She spun until she had no clue which direction would
Speaker 1: lead her to safety. This was not a riptide. Winona
Speaker 1: Rider could not calmly bob the surface of the water
Speaker 1: and flag down help someone who could pull her back
Speaker 1: up the shore. She was caught in the undertoe, and
Speaker 1: the incoming waves bent Winona to their will, thrashed her
Speaker 1: arms and legs. She was motivated entirely by desperation. She
Speaker 1: struggled to wriggle free from the ocean's grasp, and the
Speaker 1: more she jerked her body around, the harder it was
Speaker 1: to focus. Keeping her mouth clamped shut, she held out
Speaker 1: as long as she could. She clung to one thought,
Speaker 1: don't breathe, don't breathe, and the sudden yank of the
Speaker 1: undertoe pried open her lips anyways, a silent scream. A
Speaker 1: stream of air bubbles from her mouth, more than she
Speaker 1: ever knew she had in her Her air supply was
Speaker 1: racing towards the surface, and there was only water now.
Speaker 1: A surge of seawater gushed into her mouth. The salt
Speaker 1: seared her windpipe as it forced its way into her lungs.
Speaker 1: Winoda couldn't stop the flow. It burrowed into her chest,
Speaker 1: deeper and deeper, until it felt like her lungs would pop.
Speaker 1: She choked as her body tried to cough, tried to puke,
Speaker 1: tried to do anything that would stop her from sinking
Speaker 1: to the ocean floor. Pruney and ragged, lungs ready to rupture,
Speaker 1: Winona's limbs slipped away. She lost all feeling in her
Speaker 1: arms and legs. She surrendered to the ocean. She surrendered
Speaker 1: to the ability to feel much of anything at all.
Speaker 1: Her peripheral vision darkened. Black curtains shrouded her sight. Her
Speaker 1: view narrowed to a fine tunnel a thousand yards long,
Speaker 1: and she stared down the corridor, empty, quiet, numb. She
Speaker 1: didn't feel it what. A lifeguard hoisted her from the
Speaker 1: water and laid her down on the sandy beach. Her
Speaker 1: body was limp, her skin a ghastly shade of porcelain.
Speaker 1: She had no pulse. Twelve year old Winona Rider was dead.
Speaker 1: The lifeguard started to perform CPR, even though she looked
Speaker 1: like a lost cause, it was what he was trained
Speaker 1: to do. He pushed down on her chest over and over.
Speaker 1: He tilted her head back, pinched her nose tight with
Speaker 1: his fingers, put his mouth on her blue lips, and
Speaker 1: tried to breathe life back into her. Suddenly she twitched
Speaker 1: to life. She shot salt water into the sand by
Speaker 1: the mouthful. Winona's friends watched from the sidelines, stupefied or
Speaker 1: too stone to understand the severity of what had just happened,
Speaker 1: what almost happened, and their glazed eyes watched the vomit
Speaker 1: bring a blush of color back to Winona's cheeks, and
Speaker 1: then a thought dangled in the back of their daised minds,
Speaker 1: our parents are going to fucking kill us. This was
Speaker 1: the mid nineteen eighties. There were no smartphones, there was
Speaker 1: no internet. It was easy for preteens to go missing
Speaker 1: for a few hours. In fact, it was expected. Legions
Speaker 1: of suburban latch key kids went to school, came home
Speaker 1: if they felt like it, fucked off down to the
Speaker 1: river or into the woods, or even to the beach,
Speaker 1: and just be home by dinner. And looking back at
Speaker 1: the eighties from the twenty twenty two point of view,
Speaker 1: it might seem like disconnection was standard operating procedure, and
Speaker 1: it kind of was. You might not even notice that
Speaker 1: the kids were missing until the street lights came on.
Speaker 1: That's what Winona Ryder and her friends were counting on
Speaker 1: when they cut class or that day. The group left
Speaker 1: the drama of Junior High in their lockers and rolled
Speaker 1: up to Dylan Beach instead, where they rolled the skinny
Speaker 1: joint and sunned their stone cells on the shore. Young
Speaker 1: Wenona declined the drugs. She embraced the ocean instead, right
Speaker 1: until the undertow hugged her back so tightly that it
Speaker 1: almost didn't let her go. Winona survived that day barely.
Speaker 1: The cold clench of death lingered in her bones. Later
Speaker 1: that evening, she felt it prying at her skin, pulling
Speaker 1: her under. Fresh dose of fear followed her home to Petaluma,
Speaker 1: trailed her like a shadow, climbed into bed with her
Speaker 1: laid by her side, like an old friend, right next
Speaker 1: to all her other old childhood fears. The tally in
Speaker 1: her head was impressive. There was the Holocaust, for one,
Speaker 1: the horrors of Nazi Germany that claimed so many of
Speaker 1: our ancestors. No one could convince Monona those ghosts weren't real.
Speaker 1: There was also the ever present fear of nuclear annihilation,
Speaker 1: but that was nothing that the ordinary for all kids
Speaker 1: in the nineteen eighties. Then there were the neighbors. She
Speaker 1: wanted to get inside their heads, know what they thought
Speaker 1: when her parents hippie van pulled into the driveway every day.
Speaker 1: What they thought of this new family. Some implants plucked
Speaker 1: from a progressive commune in northern California. Well, commune wasn't
Speaker 1: even the right word, but that's what everyone kept calling it.
Speaker 1: Commune sounded like a cult, and there was no cult
Speaker 1: where Winona came from. That was a flat out misconception.
Speaker 1: Other details were correct, though it was true that her
Speaker 1: last home had no electricity, no phone, no TV. Winnoona's
Speaker 1: hippie parents replaced technology with freethinking, traded the paranoia of
Speaker 1: broadcast news with nature. It was idyllic, idyllic until you
Speaker 1: tried to explain it to anyone else. Winona worried the
Speaker 1: neighbors would misunderstand their family conspire against them. She wondered
Speaker 1: if they would connect the dots that her godfather was
Speaker 1: quote the most dangerous man in America on quote well,
Speaker 1: according to Richard Nixon. Anyway, Wanova's parents appointed psychologists and
Speaker 1: LSD advocate Timothy Leary as her godfather, the guru of
Speaker 1: turning on, tuning in, and dropping out. He told Wanona
Speaker 1: to question everything, so she did, just like she was
Speaker 1: in bed right now, wide eyed, staring at the ceiling,
Speaker 1: driving herself right up the wall, questioning. Sleep frequently escaped her.
Speaker 1: Winoa didn't know the word insomnia. Yet, What if the
Speaker 1: neighbors turned on us? She thought? What if they try
Speaker 1: to lock us away? There was another question burning a
Speaker 1: hole in Wanona's restless mind. Why did children keep disappearing
Speaker 1: in California? That was the one fear that dwarfed all
Speaker 1: the others, the one that tortured her every time she
Speaker 1: indulged in the new luxury of watching television. Winona Rider's
Speaker 1: worst fear was getting kidnapped. Gone were the days of
Speaker 1: living in a secluded bubble cozy amongst the company of
Speaker 1: her parents and their fellow freethinking friends. Now that Wenoda
Speaker 1: lived in Petaluma, California, she heard everything. There was no
Speaker 1: shelter from reality, not with a TV in the house
Speaker 1: beckoning to her at all hours. Kidnappings colored the screen
Speaker 1: on a regular basis. Some cases went in circles for
Speaker 1: months until they reached a tragic dead end emphasis on dead.
Speaker 1: Others never ended at all. Winona knew some of the victims'
Speaker 1: names by heart. Tara Burke, three years old, held in
Speaker 1: captivity for ten months by sexual predators. Stephen Stainer, seven
Speaker 1: years old, trapped for seven years by a child molester.
Speaker 1: He only escaped because the sick bastard who abducted him
Speaker 1: wanted to lure in another boy, and the two kids
Speaker 1: made a mad dash together. Then there was Kevin Collins,
Speaker 1: ten years old. He was from the same neighborhood as Wenona,
Speaker 1: her older sister, even babysat at once. His buck to
Speaker 1: smile was printed across billboards in National magazine covers a
Speaker 1: literal milk curtain kid. He was still out there somewhere,
Speaker 1: dead or alive. Nobody knew, No one might ever know.
Speaker 1: The chill of fear burrowed deeper into winter on his bones.
Speaker 1: She pulled the covers over her head. Her fingers trembled,
Speaker 1: but no one could convince her she was overreacting, that
Speaker 1: her fears were unrealistic or childish. She almost died today.
Speaker 1: Anything could happen to anyone without rhyme or reason, and
Speaker 1: that might be the part that scared her the most.
Speaker 1: His blood ran cold when he saw the red and
Speaker 1: blue flicker against the trees. The colors were getting brighter
Speaker 1: and deeper. He knew the cops would show up eventually.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a matter of if, it was a matter
Speaker 1: of when. Deep breaths, he coached himself. He casually leaned
Speaker 1: against the hood of his car as the cruiser pulled over.
Speaker 1: He paced his breathing. He practiced his story in his head.
Speaker 1: But Richard Davis still didn't feel prepared sightseeing. He was
Speaker 1: just sightseeing, that's all. Pulled over to admire the great
Speaker 1: outdoors on a warm evening. Then he realized that sedan
Speaker 1: was stuck in a ditch. Wrestled with the damn car
Speaker 1: for hours, even crawled underneath at one point. Benny here
Speaker 1: Ever since, Yeah, that would work, Davis recited the story
Speaker 1: word for word. When a pair of police officers approached him.
Speaker 1: Their version of the story was slightly different. They had
Speaker 1: received a call about a mysterious man camped out on
Speaker 1: the side of the road on private property. It was
Speaker 1: all over the police scanner that night, Channel three. To
Speaker 1: be precise, Channel three covered all the Sonoma Valley San
Speaker 1: Pablo Bay to Santa Rosa, but it did not extend
Speaker 1: to Pedaluma, a city seventeen miles away. In Pedaluma, the
Speaker 1: scanner had different. In Petaluma, a twelve year old girl
Speaker 1: had been kidnapped by a stranger, the very same girl
Speaker 1: Richard Davis just dumped in the woods. Little polyclass left
Speaker 1: a window open on October first, nineteen ninety three. Or
Speaker 1: maybe her mother left at a jar right before passing
Speaker 1: out on a sleeping pill to escape a tedious migraine.
Speaker 1: Didn't matter, it was too late now. The window offered
Speaker 1: an invitation, and Richard Davis accepted it. He made quick
Speaker 1: clean work. He slithered right through the open window and
Speaker 1: into the house. Picked up a knife in the kitchen,
Speaker 1: He cut the chords from video game controllers, ripped up
Speaker 1: some bed sheets too. He'd need binding materials for this
Speaker 1: to go smoothly, and the strips of cloth did not
Speaker 1: to be big children had itty bitty wrists and ankles.
Speaker 1: Davis barged into Polly's bedroom as the family clock chimed.
Speaker 1: Ten thirty PM may as well be midnight to a
Speaker 1: twelve year old, or so Davis thought. He wasn't expecting
Speaker 1: to find Polly's slumber party just heating it up. Davis
Speaker 1: saw a panic flood the eyes of every girl in
Speaker 1: the room. He lingered in the doorway, the edge of
Speaker 1: the knife glimmered against the glow of Polly's clamshell night light.
Speaker 1: Davis kept his instructions simple. Scream and I'll slit your throats.
Speaker 1: They obeyed, shaking in silence. Davis then bound and gagged
Speaker 1: each girl, tied them up with their own sheets and
Speaker 1: video game cables, and then he bagged their heads with pillowcases.
Speaker 1: From Polly's bed. He blinded all the girls except Polly.
Speaker 1: He had other plans for her. Davis bent down on
Speaker 1: his knees, eye level with the trembling hoods. Count to
Speaker 1: one thousand. He ordered, Polly will be back by then.
Speaker 1: Polly would not be back. Polly was tied up in
Speaker 1: the woods in Santa Rosa, California, and the local police
Speaker 1: force had no idea all because they were tuned to
Speaker 1: the wrong channel on the police scanner, Channel three. One
Speaker 1: cop used a flashlight to look Davis up and down.
Speaker 1: Leaves and twigs poked out of his shaggy haircut, beads
Speaker 1: of sweat on his cheeks. His body language betrayed him.
Speaker 1: Davis just looked nervous, not car tutel. Nervous, like when
Speaker 1: you're stranded at midnight with a flat the guilty kind
Speaker 1: of nervous, one hand in the cookie jar. Nervous, but
Speaker 1: looking nervous wasn't against the law. And the other cop
Speaker 1: returned to the cruiser. He pulled up a report that
Speaker 1: summarized Richard Davis's driving record. Technology failed the police's second
Speaker 1: time that night, and the cursory report didn't include anything
Speaker 1: about Davis's criminal history, which would have revealed that he
Speaker 1: was a convicted felon. In fact, he was recently paroled
Speaker 1: after an eight year prison sentence for kidnapping, but with
Speaker 1: their limited nineteen ninety three technology, all of that went uncovered.
Speaker 1: The police found no dirt on Richard Davis. Beyond the
Speaker 1: dirt that covered his hair and clothes, which he claimed
Speaker 1: was a result of trying to freeze car from the ditch.
Speaker 1: After a tow truck dragged Davis's car back to the road,
Speaker 1: the police escorted him to the highway. He killed time
Speaker 1: in the fast lane for twenty minutes before he circled
Speaker 1: back to retrieve his stolen treasure. Davis parked properly this time,
Speaker 1: and he ducked back into the woods to find poll Class.
Speaker 1: He dodged branches and knotted tree roots by the light
Speaker 1: of the moon and found Polly where he left her
Speaker 1: a few hours earlier. He slung her over his shoulder.
Speaker 1: He untensed his muscles and released the nervous energy that
Speaker 1: had been racking his body since the police arrived. But
Speaker 1: Pedaluma's panic was only just beginning. There was a long
Speaker 1: standing rule when it came to child kidnappings, the chances
Speaker 1: of finding an abducted child alive or at all shrank
Speaker 1: significantly after the first forty eight hours. The Pedaluma Police
Speaker 1: Department had to act quickly, Polly's life could depend on it,
Speaker 1: and the FBI joined the case. Overnight, bloodhounds, helicopters, detectives
Speaker 1: rang up scores of ex cons. They interviewed sex offenders
Speaker 1: in surrounding counties, alibis checked out. Every volunteer and investigator
Speaker 1: came back empty handed except for one thing. The perpetrator
Speaker 1: left behind, a PONWM print pressed into Polly's bed frame.
Speaker 1: The FBI's database didn't include POWM prints in nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 1: This was unmapped territory, but it was literally all they had,
Speaker 1: and the clock kept ticking. The case spread like a
Speaker 1: California wildfire. Banners decorated the haunted town. Write down Petaluma Boulevard,
Speaker 1: Let Polly go. The signs cried scribbled and sloppy handwriting
Speaker 1: of school children. Polly's image covered public buildings. Her face
Speaker 1: cried out from flyers scattered across parks, library, shopping malls.
Speaker 1: Her story never left The News and Information hotline was
Speaker 1: a regular fixture on TV screens, and viewers were implored
Speaker 1: to call. Over the course of the case. That hotline
Speaker 1: received more than twelve thousand calls. That's twelve thousand leads,
Speaker 1: all dead ends. The hotline rang again late in the night,
Speaker 1: about ten days after Polly disappeared. A volunteer picked up
Speaker 1: the receiver soft sobs echoed on the other end of
Speaker 1: the line. The caller was moved to tears. She claimed
Speaker 1: she once lived only two neighborhoods away from Polly's house,
Speaker 1: and that they even went to the same junior high school.
Speaker 1: She just saw the news as she was calling from
Speaker 1: the lobby of a Los Angeles hotel, and the volunteer
Speaker 1: asked for her name, Winona. She didn't have to say
Speaker 1: her last name. The volunteer could tell who it was
Speaker 1: from her voice alone. The sulky, unaffected teen and Beetleshue,
Speaker 1: the love interest of Johnny Depp and Edward sciss her Hands,
Speaker 1: and in real life, for that matter, the girl who
Speaker 1: literally killed her classmate on screen as part of a
Speaker 1: cool series of fixed suicides in the dark comedy Heathers.
Speaker 1: But this call wasn't an act. Win Ona Writer's sorrows
Speaker 1: spoke volumes, her tears practically trickled through the phone. Winoa
Speaker 1: couldn't believe such a tragedy had struck Petaluma. Polly's parents
Speaker 1: couldn't believe someone as notable as Winona a rider wanted
Speaker 1: to pitch in, and there was perhaps no greater force
Speaker 1: that could pull Polly back to them. Paullie was a
Speaker 1: one own a super fan. One of her greatest wishes
Speaker 1: was to meet her in person. Then again, most tweens, teens,
Speaker 1: and fully grown adults felt the same. In nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 1: Winona Rider was the nineties. She was cool as shit.
Speaker 1: Her head's toe black ensembles were of gothlight legend. Her
Speaker 1: eyes brooded with attitude. Her smile could slice your heart open.
Speaker 1: She was on par with the other brilliant movie beauties
Speaker 1: of the day, sure, Julia Roberts, Zuma Thurman, Nicole Kidman.
Speaker 1: But Winona was different. She was weird, wicked, wonderful, all
Speaker 1: wrapped into one peculiar package. She was named after her
Speaker 1: town in Minnesota, For fuck's sake, no one was quite
Speaker 1: like her. Winona's assistance with the poly class Case wavered
Speaker 1: between low key and high profile. She could answer the
Speaker 1: information hotline and join in person searches just the same
Speaker 1: as any ordinary volunteer, Yet her celebrity status meant everyone
Speaker 1: listened when she spoke. Tabloids, fans, film critics. Winona witnessed
Speaker 1: the world's unquenchable thirst for a look into her private life.
Speaker 1: Then she yielded it to her advantage. If Wanona accepted interviews,
Speaker 1: she automatically drew more national attention to Polly's disappearance. Certain
Speaker 1: news outlets had no interest in reports about Polly without
Speaker 1: their precious q And as for Winona. First, Winona forced
Speaker 1: America to pay attention to the case. Then she put
Speaker 1: a price on it. Winona Writer offered two hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars to any person who could safely return Polly to
Speaker 1: her parents. Weeks dragged on months, Paully's parents published a
Speaker 1: letter to the kidnapper in the San Francisco Chronicle, imploring
Speaker 1: the stranger to bring their girl home. They left a
Speaker 1: note for Polly too, our darling, if you can read this,
Speaker 1: please know that your mommy and daddy love you so
Speaker 1: much and we will continue to search for you until
Speaker 1: we can hold you safely in her loving arms again.
Speaker 1: Every time Winona returned home from volunteering, she peeled the
Speaker 1: optimistic smile from her face. She would lay in bed
Speaker 1: and let the insomnia knock around all the bad thoughts
Speaker 1: in her brain again. The hope never left Winona, but
Speaker 1: it waned her childhood fear of kidnapping. Not at it.
Speaker 1: Winona almost died when she was twelve years old too,
Speaker 1: and this could have been her. Anything can happen to anybody.
Speaker 1: You could become a mega movie star, or a sink
Speaker 1: like a stone to a watery grave at the bottom
Speaker 1: of the ocean, or vanish from your bedroom, never to
Speaker 1: be seen again. Winona rolled over and turned her back
Speaker 1: on the fear, but it waded behind her and alongside
Speaker 1: her in bed, just like it had ten years ago.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after this. We're were were. The
Speaker 1: police did find Polyclass, but they didn't find her alive.
Speaker 1: A cool breeze whipped across an abandoned mill yard and
Speaker 1: overlooked iyesore in Cloverdale, California, right off Highway one oh one,
Speaker 1: thirty miles from Petaluma. Richard Davis trudged through the empty field,
Speaker 1: dry grass crunched under his boots. The police followed close
Speaker 1: behind him. He was taking them directly to Polly. This time,
Speaker 1: Davis wasn't hiding anymore. He couldn't. The secrets he stashed
Speaker 1: in the woods were out in the open now. Davis
Speaker 1: was sloppier than he realized on that night two months ago.
Speaker 1: The police made a panic on the night of the
Speaker 1: kidnapping and his heart pounded, the sound drowned out his
Speaker 1: careful calculations, his attention to detail slipped away. Kidnapping tools
Speaker 1: slipped out of his grasp, and left a trail of
Speaker 1: evidence in the forest. A piece of silk fashioned into
Speaker 1: a hood, strips of packing tape perfect for binding of girls,
Speaker 1: Tights tied into a knot, complete with a tangle of
Speaker 1: human hair. A resident of Santa Rosa uncovered the clues
Speaker 1: when laggers cleared a portion of the woods on her
Speaker 1: property in December of nineteen ninety three. She was familiar
Speaker 1: with the class case by now most of California was
Speaker 1: after hearing about Paully's disappearance for weeks on end, and
Speaker 1: now it was her turn to dial the information hotline.
Speaker 1: But there was something else. The jarring discovery in the
Speaker 1: woods jogged the woman's memory. There was a man stranded
Speaker 1: on her property not too long ago, sweaty, panic stricken,
Speaker 1: roughly two months prior, read around the same time Polly
Speaker 1: went missing. When the police came to retrieve the items
Speaker 1: from the woods, she reminded them about the trespasser. They
Speaker 1: summoned the Santa Rosa Police records for good measure. On
Speaker 1: October first, police called the tow truck for a man
Speaker 1: named Richard Davis, and they knew that much to be true.
Speaker 1: But back at the station, there was more information about
Speaker 1: this man than just a flimsy p doubt of his
Speaker 1: driving record. Davis was an ex con. His criminal record
Speaker 1: never seem to end. Burglary, assault with the deadly weapon,
Speaker 1: assault with intent to rate auto theft, kidnapping, kidnapping. Richard
Speaker 1: Davis did eight years in prison for kidnapping. He was
Speaker 1: paroled in June of nineteen ninety three after serving only
Speaker 1: half of a sixteen year sentence. Three months before Polly
Speaker 1: went missing. On October first, police had their prime suspect
Speaker 1: in the kidnapping of Polyclass right there, standing in front
Speaker 1: of them, and then they escorted him to his escape rope.
Speaker 1: Investigators poured over his criminal record. Police even wrangled Davis
Speaker 1: a second time later in October, arrested for drunk driving.
Speaker 1: Davis then violated his parole by failing to appear in court.
Speaker 1: A warrant was out for his arrest. Bingo police had
Speaker 1: their inn they weren't letting Richard Davis slip away. A
Speaker 1: third time, they found him cruising around town in a
Speaker 1: van not far from where he was staying on the
Speaker 1: Coyote Valley Indian Reservation, about seventy five miles north of Petaluma.
Speaker 1: Police booked him on violation of his probation, cuffed him,
Speaker 1: tossed him in the clink, and then they took his
Speaker 1: pomp print. It was an exact match for the print
Speaker 1: found on Polly's bed frame. Investigators shared a knowing glance.
Speaker 1: The search for Polly's kidnapper was over. Davis knew it
Speaker 1: was over, too. He cracked after a few days. I
Speaker 1: screwed up big time, he told the police. And now
Speaker 1: Davis was retracing his steps, with the police by his side.
Speaker 1: He paused at a collection of weathered lumber mushrooms spread
Speaker 1: it from the heat, and he thrust his shin towards
Speaker 1: the rotting pile. Investigators overturned the pile board by board,
Speaker 1: and they found Polly resting underneath, haphazardly tucked into a
Speaker 1: shallow grave. Polly's family had prayed their search would end soon.
Speaker 1: They just didn't imagine it ending like this. Shattered the
Speaker 1: class family, now one member too small. It shattered Winona
Speaker 1: Ryder too. Her heart shriveled up and shrank. It reverted
Speaker 1: back to being twelve years old, beating at a ragged
Speaker 1: pace like she was a preteen, tortured by the undertow,
Speaker 1: once again barely clinging to life. Maybe Polly once felt
Speaker 1: the same when she was tied up in Davis's sedan.
Speaker 1: Winona would never know, she would never get the chance
Speaker 1: to facilitate Polly's happy ending. Winona struggled through the premiere
Speaker 1: of her new film, Reality Bites in February nineteen ninety four.
Speaker 1: The irony of the title sunk its teeth into Wanona's soul.
Speaker 1: She successfully convinced Universal Pictures to make the Los Angeles
Speaker 1: debut of the movie a benefit for the Poly Class Foundation,
Speaker 1: but her work still felt unfinished, woefully inadequate. Paully's greatest
Speaker 1: wish had been to meet Winona in real life, and
Speaker 1: that couldn't happen now. So Winona did the next best thing.
Speaker 1: She reached for Polly through fiction. Winona accepted the role
Speaker 1: of Joe marsh and a new movie adaptation of Little Women.
Speaker 1: It was Polly's favorite book. Winowa brought the story to
Speaker 1: life and dedicated her performance to Polly's memory. The role
Speaker 1: was a breath of fresh air for Wanona. For once,
Speaker 1: she wasn't the weirdo, she wasn't bewitchy. She was the
Speaker 1: strong female lead, determined and dependable, just like she had
Speaker 1: been for Polly's family for two months. Winona used Little
Speaker 1: Women to shoot away the darkness crowding her life, the
Speaker 1: same shadows that housed her fears and lingered by her
Speaker 1: side when she couldn't get any shut eye. Life didn't
Speaker 1: have to be a big dark room all the time.
Speaker 1: Maybe through her performance in Little Women, directors and casting
Speaker 1: agents would see that too, And if they didn't, win
Speaker 1: Onwa had to escape on her own before that big
Speaker 1: dark room caved in on her completely, she would have
Speaker 1: added it all up. As she could think clearly. Winona
Speaker 1: Rider's hands made quick work on the floor of a
Speaker 1: Beverly Hills fitting room. A Mark Jacob's cashmere sweater seven
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty dollars, a niece Saint Laurent Blause, another
Speaker 1: seven hundred and fifty four handbags. Those were at least
Speaker 1: two grand, a handful of expensive hair bows and bands
Speaker 1: worth about six hundred dollars, and six pairs of socks
Speaker 1: just for good measure, and those were eighty Bucks it
Speaker 1: with the snip of each security tag were known a
Speaker 1: snucker contraband into a Sacks Fifth Avenue shopping bag, the
Speaker 1: same bag from earlier that afternoon, her first shopping spret
Speaker 1: he already gave her credit card a three thousand dollars workout,
Speaker 1: but a fall when is planned. The second round's going
Speaker 1: to be on the house. Wanona crinkled a handful of
Speaker 1: tissue paper in the bag to cover the sound of
Speaker 1: her sniffs. When space ran out in the Sacks bag,
Speaker 1: she stuffed the stolen clothes in a bag she brought
Speaker 1: from home. A shopping assistant knocked on the door. Went
Speaker 1: own a froze in her position, bent over on her
Speaker 1: hands and knees, scissors in one hand and a pair
Speaker 1: of Cashmere Donnic Karen socks in the other. The clerk
Speaker 1: asked that the A list client needed anything. A coke
Speaker 1: went on, I said, a coke from the Sacks Fifth
Speaker 1: Avity cafeteria. Apparently shoplifting made her thirsty. The assistant's designer
Speaker 1: heels clicked on the tile floor towards the cafeteria. Fuck.
Speaker 1: She used that distraction once already didn't she Winona rubbed
Speaker 1: her forehead now or was she right? The bags filled,
Speaker 1: The bags blend in, then bust out of there went
Speaker 1: own A loaded the bags onto her arms. She walked
Speaker 1: towards the exit with confident strides. Her gate spoke for her. Why, yes,
Speaker 1: of course, I already bought all this. I'm a celebrity,
Speaker 1: Why would I shoplift? Security didn't buy her charade. Instead,
Speaker 1: they wanted to know when she planned on buying the
Speaker 1: designer goods visibly stashed in her arm full of bags. First,
Speaker 1: she played dumb insisted her assistant had already paid for
Speaker 1: the clothes. Then she switched stories and claimed the employees
Speaker 1: were keeping track of her massive haul and would just
Speaker 1: add the items to her first bill as if designed
Speaker 1: her department stores let you keep an open tab like
Speaker 1: a bar. And by the time the police arrived, Winnowna
Speaker 1: confessed to the crime, using a uniquely Hollywood excuse. She
Speaker 1: explained that a director instructed her to shoplift as research
Speaker 1: for her upcoming role in a movie called Shopgirl or
Speaker 1: was it called White Jazz. Winnowna's web of incoherent tales
Speaker 1: impressed no one. She left the Beverly Hills department store
Speaker 1: in handcuffs on December twelfth two thousand and one. They
Speaker 1: wanted strange and unusual. She would show them strange and unusual.
Speaker 1: It was a new century, now a new millennium even,
Speaker 1: but pop culture still wanted the Winona of the nineties,
Speaker 1: a dark haired goth girlfriend to tantalize them. In Tim
Speaker 1: Burton films, a cute, cuckoo like girl interrupted her most
Speaker 1: recent smash hit from nineteen ninety nine. Winona's heart thudded
Speaker 1: with fear as she ducked into the back of a cruiser.
Speaker 1: Yet a snicker spread across her lips. She could be
Speaker 1: a felon now she was still the outcast, still the
Speaker 1: weirdo typical. One year later, Winona Rider was not snickering.
Speaker 1: She was sweating. Her dark eyes darted across the courtroom
Speaker 1: from one stone faced lawyer to another. She understood about
Speaker 1: half this legal jargon they were spouting off, but she
Speaker 1: knew two things to be true. One, she was already guilty.
Speaker 1: She was a felon. It was right there in the
Speaker 1: shoplifting charges, felony, grant theft. There would be repercussions. Two.
Speaker 1: One of those repercussions could be jail time. Apparently, her
Speaker 1: lawyer is one hund real defense that Winona was too
Speaker 1: fashionable to shoplift didn't carry any weight. In a Beverly
Speaker 1: Hills courtroom, Winona uncrossed her legs for the seventh time
Speaker 1: that day. Fidgeting didn't speed the sentencing up. This was
Speaker 1: one story she couldn't flip to the end of the
Speaker 1: script and spoil the ending. She had to sit through
Speaker 1: a bunch of men in suits bickering over her character,
Speaker 1: not a character, her character, not just another dark haired
Speaker 1: beauty throwing smoldering glances across haunted mansions at movie sets.
Speaker 1: The people gathered in that courtroom had to see Winona.
Speaker 1: For Winona, her actions, not her acting, would determine her future,
Speaker 1: which may or may not involve trading her pile of
Speaker 1: stolen design her booty for an orange jumpsuit. Winona's defense
Speaker 1: brought forward her extensive involvement in the Polyclass kidnapping as
Speaker 1: the clearest example of her sterling character. Sure, she had
Speaker 1: donated a fat stack of cash to the poly Class Foundation,
Speaker 1: but she rolled up her sleeves alongside other regular volunteers too.
Speaker 1: It was a tender, eagleless gesture that Winona repeated for weeks.
Speaker 1: Maybe her help hadn't brought Polly back, but her murderer,
Speaker 1: Richard Allen Davis, was on death row, and that was
Speaker 1: the second best case scenario, and the prosecution refused to soften. Instead,
Speaker 1: they snapped, what's offensive to me is to trot out
Speaker 1: the body of a dead child, the opposing lawyer retorted.
Speaker 1: Winona sprang out from the bench, her eyes welled with tears.
Speaker 1: Her lawyer objected before she could defend her involvement, and
Speaker 1: before she could explain why that case still rattled her
Speaker 1: to this day. How seeing her worst fear, the fear
Speaker 1: of being kidnapped, come to life and a little girl
Speaker 1: not unlike herself, shattered her heart. Maybe no one really
Speaker 1: knew Winona at all. She plopped back into her seat
Speaker 1: with a sigh. Winona sighed again when the judge announced
Speaker 1: her penance four hundred and eighty hours of community service
Speaker 1: and nearly ten thousand dollars in fines and restitution, no
Speaker 1: prison sentence. The judge emphasized that if her sticky fingers
Speaker 1: ever stole again, she'd undoubtedly be pouting behind bars next time.
Speaker 1: The happy ending to her trial also created a happy
Speaker 1: ending for Weanona's witting streak at the box office. For
Speaker 1: most actresses, an acting hiatus would be devastating. For Winona,
Speaker 1: it was a relief. She actually called her arrests the
Speaker 1: best thing that could have happened in court that day,
Speaker 1: December sixth, two thousand and two. Winona was thirty one.
Speaker 1: She started acting in films when she was barely sixteen,
Speaker 1: and she never stopped. Winona Rider performed at more than
Speaker 1: twenty movies in the span of fifteen years. A break
Speaker 1: was long overdue. After her sentencing, she veered away from
Speaker 1: her strict regiment of back to back leading roles, took
Speaker 1: a step away from movie sets, and set new boundaries
Speaker 1: for herself, ones that would keep acting burnout at bay.
Speaker 1: She broke her newfound bliss sporadically for her special roles,
Speaker 1: a hilarious turn as commandment breaking puppet loving Kelly Lafonda
Speaker 1: and David Wayne's in two thousand and seven JJ Abrams
Speaker 1: Star Trek reboot. In two thousand and nine, Tim Burton's
Speaker 1: clamation creation Franken Weeny Darren Aronovsky's Nora Our thriller Black Swan,
Speaker 1: which involved Wanona repeatedly plunging a steel nail file into
Speaker 1: her cheeks but another script came across her desk years
Speaker 1: later that contained the real comeback gold. Something happened to
Speaker 1: Wanona when she took that break, something inevitable. She aged
Speaker 1: by the twenty tens, she was in her forties. Casting
Speaker 1: agents couldn't picture her as a twenty something love interest
Speaker 1: in movies anymore. That's when Netflix called. They gave her
Speaker 1: a shot at a roll that would be more age appropriate.
Speaker 1: A mother, your average suburban mom in the early eighties,
Speaker 1: totally normal, a little nervous, perhaps, but with the stranger
Speaker 1: danger panic at the time, what parent wasn't They needed
Speaker 1: her to portray a woman who would be tested, a
Speaker 1: woman who could portray gut wrenching fear and grief in
Speaker 1: her eyes without uttering a word. A woman whose son
Speaker 1: would vanish without a trace. It's an uncanny coincidence, but
Speaker 1: stranger things have happened, and that is anything but a disgrace.
Speaker 1: I'm Jake Brennan in this this disgrace LAMB.
Speaker 2: All right, thanks for riding on this Winona train with
Speaker 2: me here through Disgraceland. Apple podcast listeners, make sure you
Speaker 2: have auto downloads turned on, and guys, this week's question
Speaker 2: of the Week, which actress, most Embodies gen X for
Speaker 2: you and why is it Winona, Drew, Cameron, Penelope let
Speaker 2: me know six one seven nine six six six three
Speaker 2: eight with your answers via voicemail, text and add disgracelamd
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Speaker 1: Comes some credits.
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Speaker 2: partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be
Speaker 2: found on the show notes page at disgracelampod dot com.
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