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Speaker 1: This program features the individual opinions of the hosts, guests,

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Speaker 1: and callers, and not necessarily those of the producer, the station,

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Speaker 1: it's affiliates, or sponsors. This is True Crime Tonight.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to True Crime Tonight on iHeartRadio, where we talk

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Speaker 2: true crime all the time. We have made it to Monday.

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Speaker 2: It is January twenty six, and we have a stacked

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Speaker 2: night of headlines. Indetop it. Are you serious? A stacked

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Speaker 2: night of head Yes, we.

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Speaker 3: Do what I know.

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Speaker 2: So I am Courtney Armstrong. I am so lucky to

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Speaker 2: be here with my buddy Boddy.

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Speaker 3: Move in.

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Speaker 2: Stephanie Leidecker is at Sundance, which is so exciting, and

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Speaker 2: Kati Studio's Murder one oh one documentary will be premiering,

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Speaker 2: and so we are sending good wishes and yeah, we're

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Speaker 2: here with producer Taha. And here's kind of the quick rundown. So,

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Speaker 2: an Olympic snowboarder turned FBI fugitive has surrendered to authorities.

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Speaker 2: And that's a crazy story. Body's going to fill us

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Speaker 2: in on Oh it's crazy. And sadly there's a fifteen

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Speaker 2: year old child and he is still missing. His family

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Speaker 2: believes he left to meet someone from Roadblocks and we'll

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Speaker 2: get into the details of that.

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Speaker 4: You know what, Courtney, it's the fourth one in January

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Speaker 4: alone that has been Wow, we're going to get into that,

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Speaker 4: So stay tuned for that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's important stuff for us to know and understand.

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Speaker 2: We also have the story of a super upscale California

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Speaker 2: chef turned bank robber.

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Speaker 4: Which I don't know who who is robbing banks these days,

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Speaker 4: Like I didn't even know that bank robbers were still

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Speaker 4: a thing exactly.

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Speaker 2: So anyway, we'll dig in to that one. And we're

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Speaker 2: so excited because later pop culture King Doroano Fear himself

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Speaker 2: he's joining us to unpack both the infamous Black Dahlia

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Speaker 2: murder and fill us in on the club Kid murders.

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Speaker 4: I went on a Black Dahlia kick a while ago.

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Speaker 4: I was down some rabbit holes. I'm hoping Deron maybe

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Speaker 4: dig up some of those for me, because yeah, I was.

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Speaker 4: I was down one of those rabbit holes for a

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Speaker 4: hot minute.

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Speaker 2: It's a really compelling case that has kept attention of

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Speaker 2: everyone for a long long time. Yeah, and then quick update,

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Speaker 2: we were going to be following both the Banfield Off

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Speaker 2: Pear trial as well as the Alexander Brothers child but

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Speaker 2: both were canceled today due to the snowstorm, and we'll

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Speaker 2: get into them tomorrow once my back in session.

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Speaker 4: I know snow, the weather, I feel so terrible. I'm

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Speaker 4: out west, so I'm not experiencing it, but I'm watching

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Speaker 4: and seeing a lot of my frenz these icicles that

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Speaker 4: are hanging from their their roofs.

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Speaker 2: They're huge. Yeah, like, oh my gosh. I just worry

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Speaker 2: about everybody.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely.

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Speaker 5: So one of our staffers, Whitney, said, tomorrow it's supposed

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Speaker 5: to be negative thirty.

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Speaker 3: Degrees in the area. Stop it negative thirty. I can't imagine.

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Speaker 2: That's like Antarctica.

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Speaker 3: What right?

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Speaker 2: So hopefully everyone is staying safe. Hopefully you are cozy

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Speaker 2: in this moment, and yeah, we're so excited to be

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Speaker 2: here with you and body. Why don't you kick us

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Speaker 2: off with that Olympic snowboarder.

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Speaker 4: Case I am happy to So his name is Ryan Wedding, Okay,

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Speaker 4: and he is a former Olympic snowboarder, and he's from Canada.

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Speaker 4: So he's a Canadian Olympic snowboarder. And he turned into

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Speaker 4: one of the FBI's top ten most wanted fugitives well,

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Speaker 4: he's been arrested in Mexico and he pled not guilty

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Speaker 4: in US federal court today. So Ryan Wedding he competed

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Speaker 4: for Canada in twenty twenty two Salt Lake City Winter

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Speaker 4: Olympics before later being convicted in the United States. Forget

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Speaker 4: this cocaine distribution. Like, he went to federal prison for

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Speaker 4: a cocaine distribution and he was released in twenty eleven

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Speaker 4: and he went back to Canada. All right, Well, prosecutors

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Speaker 4: alleged that Ryan Wedding then built after he was released

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Speaker 4: from prison. After serving his time, he decided I'm gonna

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Speaker 4: you know, I'm gonna make this bigger. He then built

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Speaker 4: a billion dollar trans national drug trafficking organization, operating under

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Speaker 4: the protection of the Cineloa cartel. All so, he didn't

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Speaker 4: learn anything, but while he was operating under the Sinaloa cartel,

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Speaker 4: he orchestrated killings murders to protect this criminal enterprise that

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Speaker 4: he had built. So he goes to prison, Okay, he

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Speaker 4: does his time, he's not a reformed man. Allegedly, he

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Speaker 4: gets out, goes back home and goes, you know what, Yeah,

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Speaker 4: I'm gonna I'm gonna do it again and I'm gonna

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Speaker 4: make it bigger and then' gonna kill people on top

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Speaker 4: of it.

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Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, this is this is.

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Speaker 2: Like, uh, you know the next Ozar, you know what.

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Speaker 4: Literally when we were going through the story, that's who

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Speaker 4: I thought of was Ozar because I was like, oh

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Speaker 4: my gosh. So he's forty four years old. His name

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Speaker 4: is Ryan Wedding. He was a citizen and former Olympic snowboarder.

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Speaker 4: He competed in twenty twenty two and he finished twenty

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Speaker 4: fourth in the men's parallel giant slalom.

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Speaker 2: I had to go look that up because I didn't

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Speaker 2: know how to pronounce it. Well, that's the one where

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Speaker 2: they're going like through the poles left and.

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Speaker 4: Right, show the red and blue poles. Yeah, ok, yeah,

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Speaker 4: So it's called slaloms. And you know they say this

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Speaker 4: operation that he built, you know, in his under the

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Speaker 4: umbrella of the Sineloa cartel, traffic cocaine from Columbia to Mexico,

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Speaker 4: then into southern California up through the States into Canada

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Speaker 4: and they use boats, planes, trucks, with Southern California serving

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Speaker 4: as a major storage and distribution hub. Authorities believe Ryan

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Speaker 4: Wedding operated under the protection of the Sineloa cartel, and

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Speaker 4: he had been hiding in Mexico for more than ten

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Speaker 4: years following his release from you as prison.

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Speaker 2: Wow, unbelievable. Yeah, I was looking into this a little

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Speaker 2: bit as well when you brought it up, and I

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Speaker 2: think he was running up to sixty metric tons of

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Speaker 2: cokaanes per year, per year. I can't even sort of

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Speaker 2: visualize that. But I wonder if in prison, if he

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Speaker 2: didn't start networking with members of the cartel. I'm wondering.

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Speaker 4: I'm wondering the same thing because he gets out and

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Speaker 4: he's like, yeah, I'm gonna do it bigger. Maybe he

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Speaker 4: had made like a contact right while he was in

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Speaker 4: prison and hooked up at when he got out. The

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Speaker 4: murder allegations include directing the twenty twenty three killings of

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Speaker 4: two members of Canadian family in retaliation for a stolen

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Speaker 4: drug shipment, and he also is supposedly ordered the twenty

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Speaker 4: twenty four killing of somebody over a drug debt and

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Speaker 4: orchestrating the January killing of a federal witness in Colombia.

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Speaker 4: So this is like an international situation and he was

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Speaker 4: on the top ten most wanted and they caught him

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Speaker 4: and he pled not guilty today. He was previously convicted

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Speaker 4: in you you know, in the United States in twenty

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Speaker 4: ten for conspiracy to distribute cocaine and was released about

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Speaker 4: a year later. He faces separate Canadian drug charges dating

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Speaker 4: back to twenty fifteen. And I looked this up because

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Speaker 4: I wondered because, like, you know, the Canadian couple. When

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Speaker 4: I say couple, the two people and you know that

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Speaker 4: were murdered, that they alleged he did, why isn't Canada,

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Speaker 4: you know, getting that's a good question. And so even

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Speaker 4: though they are okay, So even though Canadian authorities are

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Speaker 4: separately pursuing charges, his most serious charges fall within the

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Speaker 4: United States, and we filed first, and international criminal law

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Speaker 4: authorities from different countries can charge someone for the same conduct,

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Speaker 4: but the country that first obtains custody usually prosecutes first.

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Speaker 2: And that applies here.

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Speaker 3: Oh, I did not know that.

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Speaker 4: I didn't know either. That's why I wanted to go

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Speaker 4: find out because I didn't know. I was like, well,

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Speaker 4: I wonder why he's not you know.

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Speaker 5: So if I commit a crime, or don't use me

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Speaker 5: as an example, if someone committed a crime, if they

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Speaker 5: commit a crime in two different countries. Uh huh, and

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Speaker 5: you whichever gets does the charges first is the where that.

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Speaker 3: Price will wind up going to jail more than rights.

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Speaker 4: And so he could still be prosecuted in Canada under

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Speaker 4: separate charges and they could still go forward later, but

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Speaker 4: no information right right now at this moment suggests that

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Speaker 4: Canada formally going to prosecute him.

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Speaker 5: Fascinating saying this is a wild case.

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Speaker 2: Listen with this true crime tonight on iHeartRadio. And if

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Speaker 2: you are just joining us, I'm Courtney Armstrong. I'm here

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Speaker 2: with Body Movin and we've got producer Taha and we

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Speaker 2: are knee deep in the Ryan Wedding case. He's the

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Speaker 2: former Canadian Olympic snowboarder who turned into an FBI Top

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Speaker 2: ten fugitive. So body, you were just saying, how the

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Speaker 2: charges stand?

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Speaker 4: Right, So he was the subject of a multinational manhunt.

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Speaker 4: It lasted about a year and involved all these countries. Okay,

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Speaker 4: it was the United States, Mexico, Canada, Columbia, and the

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Speaker 4: Dominican Republic.

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Speaker 2: So this is like very international.

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Speaker 4: He appeared at Federal court today wearing a jail jump

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Speaker 4: shoot and he was shackled at the legs. He pled

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Speaker 4: not guilty to charges and was ordered held without bail.

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Speaker 4: He has an attorney, his name Miss Anthony Colombo.

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Speaker 3: Where was Colombo?

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Speaker 2: Colombo? Didn't just have a Colombo? I was gonna say,

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Speaker 2: we absolutely did.

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Speaker 4: Right, and uh Anthony Columbo. His lawyer said that Ryan

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Speaker 4: Wedding is in good spirits. He insists that Ryan Wedding

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Speaker 4: was being apprehended and did not turn himself in, which

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Speaker 4: is apparently the FBI said he turned himself in, but

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Speaker 4: his lawyer is contradicting that story. Hmm, now this is interesting.

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Speaker 4: He had he had been on the FBI's ten most

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Speaker 4: Wanted Fugitive list since March of twenty twenty four.

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Speaker 2: So not that long.

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Speaker 4: Wow, it's been about a year a little angree? Well, no,

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Speaker 4: a year and a half. Right, yeah, I still think

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Speaker 4: it's twenty twenty five.

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Speaker 3: You guys, Oh I do?

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Speaker 2: I still think it's twenty twenty ten, so quickly, right.

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Speaker 4: And authorities were offering a fifteen million dollar reward for

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Speaker 4: information leading to his arresting conviction. Fifteen million. Can you

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Speaker 4: imagine your down a metrical award, right, and you see

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Speaker 4: this guy coming to your you know, restaurant or something,

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Speaker 4: maybe fifteen million dollars. But if you do, you got

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Speaker 4: to tell yeah, a cartel on you Like I scary.

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Speaker 2: I mean, that's it's a tough one. It just seems

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Speaker 2: such a stressful road to go down. I mean, being

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Speaker 2: outside the law. It just seems like I couldn't do it. No,

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Speaker 2: I need to all these countries that he's involved with

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Speaker 2: and the complications and.

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Speaker 5: To go from you know, an esteem actor. You know,

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Speaker 5: how do you go from the path of an Olympian.

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Speaker 2: I mean, think of what it takes to become an Olympian.

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Speaker 5: Well, now I'm wondering if there's crossover. Maybe you're definitely

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Speaker 5: dedicated and you're focused. So it's completely focused on this

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Speaker 5: industry that he was working in.

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Speaker 4: So I just I find it. I just find it

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Speaker 4: really crazy when people go to prison for something like

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Speaker 4: drug distribution and then they get out and immediately say, yeah,

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Speaker 4: I'm going to build an empire office even though I

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Speaker 4: just got out of federal prison in the United States.

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Speaker 2: It's crazy, like craziness to me.

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Speaker 4: So the the investigation was known as Operation Giant Slolom.

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Speaker 4: Can you believe that means Operation Giant Slam after his

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Speaker 4: you know, Olympic event that he placed twenty fourth in

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Speaker 4: But yeah, so that's Ryan. But I just can't get

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Speaker 4: over the fact that he was just like, yeah, whatever,

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Speaker 4: I want to talk a little.

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Speaker 2: Bit if it's okay about the murder charges.

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Speaker 4: Okay, So just very quickly, So it was November of

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Speaker 4: twenty twenty three, and he's alleged to have killed Jaguar

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Speaker 4: Sindhu and Harbajohn Sindhu fifty five and fifty seven, and

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Speaker 4: the couple reportedly were killed in Ontario, Canada, and it

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Speaker 4: was again allegedly a retaliation for a stolen drug shipment. Okay,

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Speaker 4: so they were being you know, retaliated against, right, Like

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Speaker 4: it's kind of like a movie like The Mob, right,

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Speaker 4: like go after one mentioned right. Less than a year later,

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Speaker 4: in May of twenty twenty four, he's a aledged to

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Speaker 4: have killed Mohammed Safar thirty nine, also in Canada, and

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Speaker 4: that is alleged to be related to drug debts. So

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Speaker 4: maybe the guy got his distribution and didn't pay Ryan.

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Speaker 2: The fees or whatnot.

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Speaker 4: In January of twenty twenty five, so just a year ago,

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Speaker 4: there was a murder in Colombia of a US federal witness.

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Speaker 4: I mean, this is like a big witness. Right, This

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Speaker 4: was a cooperating informant, and it was allegedly done to

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Speaker 4: prevent his testimony and you know, derail the extradition.

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Speaker 2: Efforts of this person.

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Speaker 4: So it must have been a Colombian informant, right, that

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Speaker 4: was going to be testifying in federal court in the

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Speaker 4: United States. He was going to be extradited, and he

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Speaker 4: was going to be testifying against maybe one of Ryan

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Speaker 4: Wedding's associates, right, and Ryan when everyone was like nope,

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Speaker 4: not going to have that. This is why he was

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Speaker 4: on the top ten list. I mean, only is he

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Speaker 4: bringing drugs into this country, right, He's working with the cartel, right,

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Speaker 4: and he's killing people all over the world.

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Speaker 5: Oh gosh, that is as I hear this, maybe it's

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Speaker 5: the producer in me.

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Speaker 3: I'm like, this sounds like the making for a great movie.

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Speaker 2: It really does. And the analogies not to make light

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Speaker 2: of it, but the snow and the snow and the

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Speaker 2: powder and the like.

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Speaker 4: Right, It's just so we went and looked at the

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Speaker 4: current FBI Top ten lists, and interestingly enough, three have

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Speaker 4: been captured, which is great, Right, So there's seven left.

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Speaker 4: I'm sure that three will be rotated in very soon.

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Speaker 4: But two of them are women.

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Speaker 2: Wow, this okay, I'm so glad we got to this

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Speaker 2: because I absolutely wanted to pause on that fact as well.

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Speaker 2: You know, we just happened to cover the FBI's top ten.

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Speaker 2: You know, we covered it right start you but the

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Speaker 2: fact that two out of ten obviously are women, right,

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Speaker 2: But then statistic it was like point zero one percenter women.

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Speaker 2: So it's just curious. It's very curious.

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Speaker 4: I'm going to be interested to see who they replace

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Speaker 4: these three with. I think we should probably maybe we

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Speaker 4: should do like a week where we go into each

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Speaker 4: one of these people and see what they did.

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Speaker 3: I think that's a great I love that idea.

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Speaker 4: We can call it the SBI week or something.

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Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I mean listen, stick around. When we come back,

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Speaker 2: we're gonna give you the details about that fifteen year

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Speaker 2: old who vanished allegedly after meeting someone from roadblocks, and

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Speaker 2: how AI is being used to threaten kids. Later, we're

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Speaker 2: going to be joined by pop culture expert Dorano Fear

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Speaker 2: keep it here True Crime Tonight.

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Speaker 4: Welcome back to True Crime Tonight on iHeartRadio, where we're

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Speaker 4: talking true crime all the time. I'm body movin and

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Speaker 4: I'm here with use her extraordinaire Courtney Armstrong and producer

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Speaker 4: Extraordinary number two. We have Sam on the board, so

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Speaker 4: give us a call at eighty eight thirty one Crime.

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Speaker 4: If you want to give us a call, we would

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Speaker 4: love to hear from you, or you can download the

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Speaker 4: iHeartRadio app and leave us a talkback in Boom.

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Speaker 2: You're on the show.

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Speaker 4: Later in the show, we're going to have Doronto Fear,

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Speaker 4: our pop culture expert. He's going to be telling us

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Speaker 4: all about the back Black Dahlia. Her name is Elizabeth Short.

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Speaker 4: Keep it right here. It's going to be amazing. I

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Speaker 4: can't wait for it because I was down some rabbit

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Speaker 4: holes on that one. But first we don't want to

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Speaker 4: waste any time. Courtney, what do you got?

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Speaker 2: Okay? This is important and this is terrifying, and this

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Speaker 2: is something that we all need to know. If you

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Speaker 2: have a child, know a child, are aware the children

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Speaker 2: is around?

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Speaker 3: Yes?

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Speaker 2: Brother, yeah, Okay. This case is about a fifteen year

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Speaker 2: old boy named Thomas Medlin and he's gone missing after

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Speaker 2: reportedly traveling from Long Island to my Hattan to meet

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Speaker 2: someone he met on roadblocks. Is what is being alleged

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Speaker 2: and Medlin lives in Saint James, New York, and went

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Speaker 2: missing back on January ninth, so he's been gone a

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Speaker 2: little more than two weeks at this point. So on

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Speaker 2: January ninth, he left school and took the train into

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Speaker 2: Manhattan and has not been heard from since. If you're unaware, roadblocks.

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Speaker 2: It's a massively popular multiplayer online gaming platform, and it

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Speaker 2: has faced longstanding criticism for sexual predation, financial exploitation, extremist content,

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Speaker 2: as well as inadequate moderation, and experts have warned that

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Speaker 2: this may put vulnerable children like Thomas Medlin, who were

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Speaker 2: speaking about at risk. This is crazy, it really is.

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Speaker 2: So just a couple of the sort of salient details.

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Speaker 2: Thomas Medlin left his Stony Brooks school at about three

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Speaker 2: point thirty pm on that January ninth. Police are saying

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Speaker 2: that he ran to the Stony Brook Long Island Railroad station,

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Speaker 2: and surveillance and transit information do show that he boarded

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Speaker 2: a train heading west.

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Speaker 3: So yeah, that we know, we did get it.

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Speaker 4: And I think that's where there's a I think there's

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Speaker 4: a photo that's been released of him in that train

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Speaker 4: station and he's carrying something like that looks kind of heavy.

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Speaker 2: I don't know what it is. I know he's wearing

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Speaker 2: a backpack. So this was a photo release from the

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Speaker 2: Suffolk County Police Department. And the last time that Thomas

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Speaker 2: Medlin was definitively seen was at Grand Central Terminal about

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Speaker 2: five thirty on January ninth. And yeah, Boddy, he he

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Speaker 2: did have He was wearing a backpack as a child

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Speaker 2: coming from school and was carrying I don't, I don't

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Speaker 2: know what's the size of it is because like a

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Speaker 2: yoga it's not round like a yoga ball, but it's big.

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Speaker 2: It's like it's.

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Speaker 5: Big, it's you know what it is, like maybe bigger

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Speaker 5: than a I don't know basketball, So like, I don't know.

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Speaker 2: It's bigger than a basketball. It just looks awkward.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, it looks and it looks a little weighted or heavy.

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Speaker 5: Something about it seems like it's cumbersome and heavy.

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Speaker 2: Okay, And if you happen to be in and around

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Speaker 2: New York and within the sound of our voices, please

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Speaker 2: have traced his possible movements near Cherry and Rutgers Streets

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Speaker 2: in Lower Manhattan and sand Sands and Jay Streets in Brooklyn.

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Speaker 4: Now, I don't I'm not familiar with I really want

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Speaker 4: to go to New York, but I've never been there.

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Speaker 4: Is it is the is it far from one another?

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Speaker 2: Of those things? Those places?

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Speaker 5: Well his Saint James, Saint James, New York to Manhattan

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Speaker 5: is about about an hour and a half to two hours.

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Speaker 3: Oh my god, fifty five to sixty minutes to get there. Yeah. Wow?

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Speaker 4: Clearly Now is Lower Manhattan close to Brooklyn?

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Speaker 5: Oh that's good. As a former New York I should

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Speaker 5: know this. Lower Manhattan is close to Brooklyn. I'm pretty

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Speaker 5: sure ave's probably cringing right now.

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Speaker 2: I know I've never been there. I don't know.

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Speaker 4: Well, I just wondered, like, how would he how would

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Speaker 4: he get there? How would he know where to go?

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Speaker 2: So Lower Manhattan? And ps, I'm looking this up even

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Speaker 2: though being fit. No, it's fine, I should know. I

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Speaker 2: just curious. But Lower Manhattan is actually immediately adjacent to Brooklyn.

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Speaker 2: But it's across the East River, right, so it would

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Speaker 2: mean more transit. Is there a subway that goes to it?

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Speaker 3: Yes?

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Speaker 2: There, okay, so yes, take the subway. Okay, that's right,

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Speaker 2: all right, that's right. So wow. And so if Thomas

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Speaker 2: Medlin he is five feet four inches tall, he is

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Speaker 2: about one hundred and thirty pounds. He wears glasses, and

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Speaker 2: he is biracial. He is both Caucasian as well as Asian.

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Speaker 2: The last known thing Thomas Medlin was wearing was a

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Speaker 2: black jacket with red stripes, dark sweatpants with white stripes,

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Speaker 2: and again that black backpack. And can you imagine the

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Speaker 2: family must be out of their brain.

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Speaker 4: I understand that they've conducted searches, right, They kind of

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Speaker 4: organize search parties across Long Island and including Manhattan and

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Speaker 4: going into homeless shelters and whatnot. So they have been

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Speaker 4: very active. That's my understanding. They've been very active in

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Speaker 4: the search.

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Speaker 2: That's right. And his mother, Evayanne spoke out saying that

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Speaker 2: this was very out of character for for Thomas, that

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Speaker 2: he never left us, and of course she was very tearful,

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Speaker 2: and she just reiterated how much everybody loves him and

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Speaker 2: wants him to be home safe. And you know, the father,

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Speaker 2: James Medline is is he's just as shock besides beside himself.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, he said, I can't I just can't believe why

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Speaker 4: he left in the first place.

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Speaker 5: You know, well, I mean that there's a lot we'll

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Speaker 5: probably dive into with that. But I was just going

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Speaker 5: to answer really quick. I'm getting text from friends in

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Speaker 5: New York.

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Speaker 2: Oh no, they're cringing at me, aren't they?

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Speaker 5: She on me either, like sham and you talk. You

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Speaker 5: should obviously know that Lower Manhattan SIT's right next to Brooklyn.

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Speaker 5: It's only separated by the East River. You can take

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Speaker 5: the Brooklyn Bridge the Manhattan Bridge and it's literally like

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Speaker 5: one to three train stops away. So, like we're talking

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Speaker 5: fifteen minute five, I.

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Speaker 4: Would imagine that they're CCTV all over.

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Speaker 3: Well, that's the other part that So they must.

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Speaker 4: Have him on camera walking around, getting off the subway,

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Speaker 4: et cetera. They must, I would, I mean, I would hope.

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Speaker 4: So a Rollblocks spokesperson said that the company isn't assisting investigators,

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Speaker 4: and they said that they're deeply troubled by this incident

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Speaker 4: and they are working with law enforcement to support their investigation.

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Speaker 4: So they must have something that he was communicating with

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Speaker 4: someone for sure, that's right.

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Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, absolutely, And by the way, the Suffolk County

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Speaker 2: Police are asking anybody with any sort of information you

402
00:23:37,119 --> 00:23:41,600
Speaker 2: can either contact the fourth Squad Detectives. Their number, which

403
00:23:41,600 --> 00:23:45,160
Speaker 2: we'll give again is six three one eight five four

404
00:23:45,600 --> 00:23:48,800
Speaker 2: eight four or five to two. But they also emphasize

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Speaker 2: that listen, if you have a tip and you think

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Speaker 2: that you have seen James Medlin or know anything, you

407
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Speaker 2: can just call nine one one.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, And even if you I mean, even if you

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Speaker 4: your look and you're like, god, I wonder if that's

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00:24:01,040 --> 00:24:03,840
Speaker 4: Thomas Medlin, look them google him, look at his picture,

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Speaker 4: and even if you think it, there's a possibility, call

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00:24:06,440 --> 00:24:10,080
Speaker 4: nine one one, even if you live in Vermont, right,

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Speaker 4: like right, you just never know where he could be.

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Speaker 3: At this point in time. Could be helpful.

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Speaker 4: So, right, roadblocks is a problem I got the first

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Speaker 4: time I've heard there's been four this month.

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Speaker 3: Are you serious?

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Speaker 4: No? I swear, so January alone, these kids all went

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Speaker 4: missing due to roadblocks related luring. Thomas Medlin, who we're

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Speaker 4: talking about right now, he is still missing. Hama's cart right.

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Speaker 4: He was found safe in San Diego, thank goodness. And

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Speaker 4: then down in Mexico. Mary Baby she was sixteen, and

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Speaker 4: Sabine Yohoomi she was ten. They were both found safe.

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Speaker 4: I could have sworn this is January alone. So that's

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Speaker 4: four in a month. So by the end of the year,

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Speaker 4: there'll be what forty eight kids lured from playing roadblocks,

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Speaker 4: and I know every parent is like, oh my kids.

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Speaker 4: You know, I watch what they do and I listen.

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Speaker 4: I respect that. I'm so happy that you're that involved.

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00:25:07,920 --> 00:25:11,119
Speaker 4: But I mean, I mean, I see it.

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Speaker 5: I feel like we've covered this and they put in

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Speaker 5: new safety measures.

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Speaker 2: They do all the time.

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Speaker 4: No, well, you know, speaking of that, lawsuits from attorney

435
00:25:18,440 --> 00:25:24,160
Speaker 4: generals from Tennessee, Texas, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Florida are

436
00:25:24,200 --> 00:25:28,639
Speaker 4: accusing Roadblocks of misrepresenting those safety measures and it's enabling

437
00:25:29,040 --> 00:25:33,800
Speaker 4: predator access, allowing inappropriate content, and failing to implement proper

438
00:25:33,840 --> 00:25:38,159
Speaker 4: age verification, with some states seeking stronger protections, you know,

439
00:25:38,359 --> 00:25:40,240
Speaker 4: or they're going to face business restrictions.

440
00:25:40,480 --> 00:25:43,080
Speaker 3: Wow. Yeah, as they should to be honest.

441
00:25:42,960 --> 00:25:43,720
Speaker 2: Right right.

442
00:25:43,760 --> 00:25:46,000
Speaker 4: This is your Crime Tonight on iHeartRadio, where we're talking

443
00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:47,560
Speaker 4: true crime all the time. We're right in the middle

444
00:25:47,600 --> 00:25:52,880
Speaker 4: of talking about missing fifteen year old Thomas Medlin. He's fifteen,

445
00:25:52,920 --> 00:25:55,560
Speaker 4: he's missing, he's presumed to be in New York City,

446
00:25:56,200 --> 00:25:59,719
Speaker 4: and we're talking about how he was lured from roadblocks

447
00:25:59,760 --> 00:26:02,200
Speaker 4: And I wanted to tell you guys. Over the weekend,

448
00:26:02,440 --> 00:26:05,920
Speaker 4: I found a Facebook post. You know of a reporter

449
00:26:06,040 --> 00:26:10,720
Speaker 4: I follow in Tennessee and his name is Nick Barris. Okay,

450
00:26:11,680 --> 00:26:18,440
Speaker 4: and he got a story and it says this they

451
00:26:18,440 --> 00:26:20,879
Speaker 4: are starting to use AI to threaten kids who have

452
00:26:21,040 --> 00:26:24,359
Speaker 4: not sent photos of themselves or cave to their demands.

453
00:26:26,040 --> 00:26:27,919
Speaker 4: So a parent reached out to him. They did the

454
00:26:27,960 --> 00:26:32,720
Speaker 4: story and it says that, hello, this is this is

455
00:26:32,760 --> 00:26:36,120
Speaker 4: the information he got. This is something that parents need

456
00:26:36,160 --> 00:26:39,159
Speaker 4: to be aware of. My son received a fake nude

457
00:26:39,280 --> 00:26:42,520
Speaker 4: photo of himself. The person who sent it said that

458
00:26:42,560 --> 00:26:45,040
Speaker 4: if he did not send them money, they will post

459
00:26:45,080 --> 00:26:48,200
Speaker 4: it on social media. My son is a good boy.

460
00:26:48,680 --> 00:26:51,960
Speaker 4: He is an all a student and a great athlete

461
00:26:51,960 --> 00:26:54,560
Speaker 4: who wants to play, you know who plans to play

462
00:26:54,600 --> 00:26:57,679
Speaker 4: in college. And the threat scared her son so badly.

463
00:26:58,680 --> 00:27:01,119
Speaker 4: You know, he sent money, you know before his parents

464
00:27:01,160 --> 00:27:04,840
Speaker 4: and the police became involved. And I mean it's terrifying.

465
00:27:04,840 --> 00:27:08,959
Speaker 4: And the point is this does happen, right, This is

466
00:27:08,960 --> 00:27:10,960
Speaker 4: not really related to rollblocks. This is just you know,

467
00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:14,199
Speaker 4: predators in general. But the interesting thing about this post

468
00:27:14,400 --> 00:27:20,040
Speaker 4: is that he posted proof of the people extorting him.

469
00:27:20,200 --> 00:27:21,520
Speaker 3: Okay.

470
00:27:21,560 --> 00:27:24,639
Speaker 4: In the comments of this Facebook post, there were parents

471
00:27:24,720 --> 00:27:27,159
Speaker 4: that said this happened to my son or this happened

472
00:27:27,160 --> 00:27:27,399
Speaker 4: to me.

473
00:27:27,800 --> 00:27:32,680
Speaker 2: Even so they're just just so I'm wrapping my head

474
00:27:32,720 --> 00:27:33,359
Speaker 2: clearly around it.

475
00:27:33,359 --> 00:27:36,240
Speaker 5: They're taking the person's photograph like their face, their faith,

476
00:27:36,800 --> 00:27:38,240
Speaker 5: a nude body, and.

477
00:27:39,960 --> 00:27:42,000
Speaker 2: Right to extort kids.

478
00:27:42,320 --> 00:27:44,760
Speaker 4: Again, this is not the same story as Thomas Medline.

479
00:27:44,800 --> 00:27:49,080
Speaker 4: Thomas Medlin was lured potentially via rollblocks. This is more

480
00:27:49,119 --> 00:27:52,199
Speaker 4: in relation to you know, sex, shortation and whatnot. But

481
00:27:52,200 --> 00:27:55,080
Speaker 4: it's the same vein. So when we were talking about

482
00:27:55,080 --> 00:27:56,560
Speaker 4: the story, it just kind of reminded me of that,

483
00:27:56,600 --> 00:27:59,040
Speaker 4: and I wanted to bring it up because it's another

484
00:27:59,200 --> 00:28:02,280
Speaker 4: layer of possible conversations that you might need to have

485
00:28:02,400 --> 00:28:02,960
Speaker 4: with your child.

486
00:28:03,040 --> 00:28:06,000
Speaker 2: Right, that's right, And the communication is key. We have

487
00:28:06,200 --> 00:28:11,840
Speaker 2: Katie Greer, a safety expert, and it really is communication

488
00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:18,280
Speaker 2: that these things are out there and just to make

489
00:28:18,359 --> 00:28:21,639
Speaker 2: kids aware in an effort to make them feel comfortable,

490
00:28:21,880 --> 00:28:24,160
Speaker 2: to hopefully tell you should anything happen to that.

491
00:28:24,200 --> 00:28:26,600
Speaker 4: Right, because if you if your kids know that, you

492
00:28:26,680 --> 00:28:29,520
Speaker 4: know it's a possibility. Right, they might be like, Okay,

493
00:28:29,520 --> 00:28:31,119
Speaker 4: well mom knows this could have happened. I'm going to

494
00:28:31,200 --> 00:28:34,159
Speaker 4: go talk to her or even aunts and uncles.

495
00:28:34,200 --> 00:28:39,239
Speaker 2: Right, that's right. I'm aware and on Roadblocks. I mean

496
00:28:39,280 --> 00:28:44,840
Speaker 2: there's games such as condos or even a public bathroom simulator. Yes,

497
00:28:45,280 --> 00:28:50,120
Speaker 2: and they have allowed sexualized role play. One parent reported

498
00:28:50,160 --> 00:28:56,400
Speaker 2: her child's avatar was sexually assaulted in the game. And Taha,

499
00:28:56,440 --> 00:28:59,120
Speaker 2: you had asked, aren't isn't roadblocks? Did you hear that

500
00:28:59,160 --> 00:29:03,800
Speaker 2: there are more safe things being put in Yes. In

501
00:29:03,920 --> 00:29:06,440
Speaker 2: late twenty twenty five and the very very beginning of

502
00:29:06,440 --> 00:29:10,720
Speaker 2: this year, Roadblocks implemented age verification and it's via facial

503
00:29:10,800 --> 00:29:14,760
Speaker 2: recognition and ID and what it does is restrict social

504
00:29:14,840 --> 00:29:20,120
Speaker 2: hangouts and private spaces to older users. However, there's a

505
00:29:20,280 --> 00:29:24,600
Speaker 2: backlash to these modifications and people are really concerned that

506
00:29:24,640 --> 00:29:30,120
Speaker 2: the system misidentifies children and doesn't address the root issue

507
00:29:30,120 --> 00:29:35,640
Speaker 2: of predators on the platform and even ps. You put

508
00:29:35,720 --> 00:29:39,760
Speaker 2: up a road block and then kids find a way

509
00:29:39,840 --> 00:29:44,400
Speaker 2: around it, such as you can use a picture of

510
00:29:44,440 --> 00:29:48,480
Speaker 2: someone older, and then this is something I had heard about,

511
00:29:48,480 --> 00:29:51,440
Speaker 2: so child can just simply use a picture of someone older.

512
00:29:52,280 --> 00:29:56,200
Speaker 2: But then what's worse is they then have siloed themselves

513
00:29:56,720 --> 00:29:58,760
Speaker 2: into a group that's an.

514
00:29:58,640 --> 00:30:03,880
Speaker 4: Older age and there's a bunch of content creators like

515
00:30:04,040 --> 00:30:06,200
Speaker 4: it's very in the vein of to catch a predator.

516
00:30:06,520 --> 00:30:10,040
Speaker 4: You know that show, right, there's there's content creators that

517
00:30:10,120 --> 00:30:16,240
Speaker 4: specifically create Roadblocks accounts and try to catch predators on Roadblocks. Well,

518
00:30:16,320 --> 00:30:18,720
Speaker 4: Roadbox has sued it issues issued c and ds to

519
00:30:18,760 --> 00:30:19,480
Speaker 4: some of those people.

520
00:30:20,120 --> 00:30:21,560
Speaker 3: They're doing something.

521
00:30:21,600 --> 00:30:22,960
Speaker 2: It's bad press for them.

522
00:30:23,320 --> 00:30:27,840
Speaker 4: Oh they're mean, They've legally gone after some of these people.

523
00:30:27,920 --> 00:30:30,200
Speaker 4: I follow some of them on YouTube because they used

524
00:30:30,200 --> 00:30:33,800
Speaker 4: to make good videos showing how easy, how easy it

525
00:30:33,880 --> 00:30:36,680
Speaker 4: was for them to get lured like they were. They

526
00:30:36,680 --> 00:30:40,040
Speaker 4: were posing as children, adults were talking to them, right,

527
00:30:40,680 --> 00:30:43,680
Speaker 4: and then the content creator would make a video exposing it,

528
00:30:44,360 --> 00:30:48,600
Speaker 4: and Roadblocks issued cease and desist letters to those vigilante

529
00:30:48,680 --> 00:30:53,160
Speaker 4: users attempting to you know, combat the grooming and preditation

530
00:30:53,280 --> 00:30:54,600
Speaker 4: that happens on that platform.

531
00:30:55,040 --> 00:30:57,400
Speaker 5: Yeah, because they don't want the bad press. But while

532
00:30:57,440 --> 00:30:59,160
Speaker 5: that person is actually doing something.

533
00:31:00,000 --> 00:31:02,560
Speaker 4: Worst press is another kid going missing because they got

534
00:31:02,560 --> 00:31:03,480
Speaker 4: lord playing your game.

535
00:31:03,800 --> 00:31:09,200
Speaker 2: That's worst press. Agree, that's right, that's right, And I

536
00:31:09,240 --> 00:31:11,240
Speaker 2: did just because I said I would repeat it just

537
00:31:11,440 --> 00:31:14,400
Speaker 2: very quickly. If you think you have any information on

538
00:31:14,520 --> 00:31:17,560
Speaker 2: James Medlin, the fifteen year old boy, you can call

539
00:31:17,680 --> 00:31:20,360
Speaker 2: nine one one or six three one eight five four

540
00:31:20,600 --> 00:31:24,240
Speaker 2: eight four five two later in the show, we are

541
00:31:24,520 --> 00:31:28,640
Speaker 2: very very excited because the pop culture king himself, Dorono Fear,

542
00:31:28,880 --> 00:31:32,280
Speaker 2: is joining us and he's going to unpack both the

543
00:31:32,320 --> 00:31:38,680
Speaker 2: infamous Black Dahlia murder Dan is coming in hot yes always,

544
00:31:39,240 --> 00:31:45,440
Speaker 2: and also the club kid murders communities. I'm so interested

545
00:31:45,480 --> 00:31:49,320
Speaker 2: to learn. I know, he's so knowledgeable about class culture.

546
00:31:49,400 --> 00:31:50,960
Speaker 3: It's juicy mm hmm.

547
00:31:51,800 --> 00:31:54,360
Speaker 2: And uh, you know, as always, we want to hear

548
00:31:54,400 --> 00:31:56,880
Speaker 2: from you, so you don't just have to call us

549
00:31:56,920 --> 00:32:00,640
Speaker 2: at eighty eight three one crime, but you can, you know,

550
00:32:00,760 --> 00:32:03,760
Speaker 2: leave us a talk back or dm us, which you

551
00:32:03,800 --> 00:32:06,640
Speaker 2: guys do, and we read every one of them, and

552
00:32:06,720 --> 00:32:10,080
Speaker 2: actually one listener sent something that made us want to

553
00:32:10,120 --> 00:32:13,680
Speaker 2: dig into our next story. So taha, could you read

554
00:32:13,760 --> 00:32:14,840
Speaker 2: that DM.

555
00:32:15,200 --> 00:32:19,560
Speaker 5: You got it? This DM is from a listener named Emil.

556
00:32:20,040 --> 00:32:23,479
Speaker 5: Emil says, I listen to you guys every day and

557
00:32:23,840 --> 00:32:27,720
Speaker 5: love it. Thank you, Emil. She says, you all should

558
00:32:27,840 --> 00:32:31,400
Speaker 5: check out the Kevin West trial. The verdict just came

559
00:32:31,440 --> 00:32:35,360
Speaker 5: in and it was mind blowing. I highly recommend it.

560
00:32:36,400 --> 00:32:39,280
Speaker 2: So there's so many cases that I don't know about.

561
00:32:40,000 --> 00:32:41,160
Speaker 3: Oh it's hard to be that.

562
00:32:41,240 --> 00:32:46,360
Speaker 4: Possible because you can't know everything right, there's you know,

563
00:32:47,080 --> 00:32:51,080
Speaker 4: I mean amazed, like the dearth of knowledge that I have,

564
00:32:51,920 --> 00:32:55,800
Speaker 4: right but for Meil, thank you so much for that.

565
00:32:55,960 --> 00:33:01,120
Speaker 4: We we absolutely did look into it, and it actually

566
00:33:01,200 --> 00:33:04,880
Speaker 4: is takes place in location of one of our affiliates.

567
00:33:04,920 --> 00:33:10,800
Speaker 2: It's now one five point one in Seattle. So Kevin

568
00:33:10,840 --> 00:33:15,720
Speaker 2: West he was a former fire department battalion chief in

569
00:33:16,160 --> 00:33:20,400
Speaker 2: Washington State and he was just convicted last week of

570
00:33:20,560 --> 00:33:24,360
Speaker 2: murdering his wife. This was back on January eighth, in

571
00:33:24,440 --> 00:33:29,560
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four. And you guys, the motivation behind it

572
00:33:29,600 --> 00:33:33,960
Speaker 2: is as old as time. It was to pursue an

573
00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:35,080
Speaker 2: extramarital affair.

574
00:33:35,720 --> 00:33:38,560
Speaker 3: Oh boy, it's ridiculous.

575
00:33:38,560 --> 00:33:41,719
Speaker 4: I hold policemen, I hold fireman in such high regard.

576
00:33:41,840 --> 00:33:44,239
Speaker 4: I don't want to hear the story now that I know.

577
00:33:45,400 --> 00:33:49,880
Speaker 2: I know firemen are really they are the armist. I

578
00:33:49,920 --> 00:33:53,760
Speaker 2: have a lot of firemen in my family. Still, you're alrish,

579
00:33:53,840 --> 00:33:56,600
Speaker 2: of course, I I have a fireman, a garbage man,

580
00:33:56,760 --> 00:34:01,560
Speaker 2: which are you know, unbelievable city jobs. But yeah, that's so,

581
00:34:01,800 --> 00:34:06,320
Speaker 2: it's so whish. I can say that because I'm also yes,

582
00:34:08,239 --> 00:34:12,160
Speaker 2: so you know this guy, and I mean just we've

583
00:34:12,200 --> 00:34:15,160
Speaker 2: said it before. Murders never the answer, get a divorce,

584
00:34:15,320 --> 00:34:19,719
Speaker 2: Get a divorce, and it's just it's terrible, sad. So

585
00:34:20,000 --> 00:34:23,960
Speaker 2: Kevin West, I don't have to say. Allegedly, he's convicted

586
00:34:24,080 --> 00:34:29,080
Speaker 2: of strangling his wife Marcel. She went by Marcy West,

587
00:34:29,880 --> 00:34:33,560
Speaker 2: and this happened in their home. And what he did

588
00:34:33,760 --> 00:34:38,120
Speaker 2: was Kevin West. He initially reported her death as a seizure.

589
00:34:38,160 --> 00:34:40,360
Speaker 2: He called nine one one and said, hey, my wife's

590
00:34:40,360 --> 00:34:47,839
Speaker 2: having a seizure. And Kevin West's affair had begun, and

591
00:34:48,080 --> 00:34:51,880
Speaker 2: that woman is now his fiance, a woman named Cynthia Ward.

592
00:34:52,920 --> 00:34:58,520
Speaker 2: And in addition to this budding romance outside of his marriage,

593
00:34:58,680 --> 00:35:04,399
Speaker 2: there were a parent financial motives and it was the

594
00:35:04,440 --> 00:35:10,120
Speaker 2: great the forensic examiners, you know, their results that showed

595
00:35:10,120 --> 00:35:14,439
Speaker 2: physical trauma to Marcy West's neck and that's what led

596
00:35:14,480 --> 00:35:22,120
Speaker 2: to the first and second degree murder convictions. Wow, okay,

597
00:35:22,200 --> 00:35:27,040
Speaker 2: so little backstory on this one. So Kevin again was

598
00:35:27,080 --> 00:35:30,280
Speaker 2: married to the victim who lost her life, Marcy West.

599
00:35:31,840 --> 00:35:34,879
Speaker 2: He met this woman, Cynthia Award, and had a very

600
00:35:34,920 --> 00:35:37,239
Speaker 2: brief affair all the way back in two thousand and four,

601
00:35:37,640 --> 00:35:41,239
Speaker 2: oh so like twenty two years ago. Okay, yes, but

602
00:35:41,320 --> 00:35:45,160
Speaker 2: the past did not stay in the past because somehow,

603
00:35:45,200 --> 00:35:49,640
Speaker 2: nearly twenty years later, just in twenty twenty three, they

604
00:35:49,760 --> 00:35:54,080
Speaker 2: reconnected secretly and it initiated what became a serious relationship

605
00:35:54,120 --> 00:35:59,720
Speaker 2: and they're now engaged. And so the crime itself. Kevin,

606
00:36:00,200 --> 00:36:03,919
Speaker 2: he called nine one one around four thirty am said,

607
00:36:03,960 --> 00:36:06,360
Speaker 2: you know, of course, my wife. She's having a seizure.

608
00:36:06,600 --> 00:36:11,839
Speaker 2: She has stopped breathing, and ultimately Marcy West was pronounced

609
00:36:11,920 --> 00:36:15,600
Speaker 2: dead after they tried to revive her, just at five eleven.

610
00:36:15,880 --> 00:36:22,240
Speaker 2: This was in the home and he, you know, according

611
00:36:22,239 --> 00:36:24,400
Speaker 2: to his story, it was totally normal. They're watching movies,

612
00:36:24,440 --> 00:36:27,640
Speaker 2: eating Chinese food. Nothing to see here. She had a

613
00:36:27,640 --> 00:36:33,840
Speaker 2: little headache. But again the medical examiner found things injuries

614
00:36:33,880 --> 00:36:37,440
Speaker 2: consistent with strangulation. There were bruises under her jawline and

615
00:36:37,440 --> 00:36:41,080
Speaker 2: ear lobes, it was brain swelling, that was bilateral, subcutaneous

616
00:36:41,120 --> 00:36:45,839
Speaker 2: hemorrhaging on her neck, and ultimately the cause of death

617
00:36:46,000 --> 00:36:48,280
Speaker 2: was ruled homicide by exphyxia.

618
00:36:50,239 --> 00:36:53,680
Speaker 6: But yeah, I mean, what what drives and I had

619
00:36:53,880 --> 00:36:58,239
Speaker 6: subcutaneous hemorrhaging. Right, That's that's something that we should talk

620
00:36:58,239 --> 00:37:02,160
Speaker 6: to Joseph about when we have him next, because because

621
00:37:02,160 --> 00:37:05,319
Speaker 6: it's it's an interesting thing with your in between your

622
00:37:05,360 --> 00:37:10,280
Speaker 6: brain and your skull is from what I understand. Oh interesting,

623
00:37:10,560 --> 00:37:14,160
Speaker 6: and they can they can tell listen, you cannot fool

624
00:37:14,280 --> 00:37:15,160
Speaker 6: medical examiner.

625
00:37:15,320 --> 00:37:17,880
Speaker 2: It's not going to happen. You can't.

626
00:37:18,200 --> 00:37:18,520
Speaker 3: That's right.

627
00:37:18,600 --> 00:37:21,720
Speaker 2: Don't even try. I think Joseph's coming on soon.

628
00:37:21,840 --> 00:37:24,239
Speaker 3: Taha, right, you are correct, He's actually going to be

629
00:37:24,239 --> 00:37:25,040
Speaker 3: coming tomorrow.

630
00:37:25,160 --> 00:37:28,040
Speaker 5: So I'm actually making notes of this as you're saying it,

631
00:37:28,200 --> 00:37:29,759
Speaker 5: because I would love.

632
00:37:30,040 --> 00:37:31,880
Speaker 2: Maybe we could review this one with him.

633
00:37:32,320 --> 00:37:34,680
Speaker 4: I mean, I don't know if it's too soon after

634
00:37:34,719 --> 00:37:37,759
Speaker 4: we just covered it tonight, but maybe we could just

635
00:37:37,760 --> 00:37:41,200
Speaker 4: talk about uh, strangulation because there's been a lot of

636
00:37:41,239 --> 00:37:43,160
Speaker 4: cases that we've been talking about lately that have been

637
00:37:43,239 --> 00:37:49,160
Speaker 4: you know, involving strangulation and hemorrhaging, particular hemorrhaging, subcandanious hemorrhaging.

638
00:37:49,480 --> 00:37:51,560
Speaker 2: Maybe we could talk about what those are.

639
00:37:52,000 --> 00:37:53,000
Speaker 3: I think that's a great idea.

640
00:37:53,040 --> 00:37:55,080
Speaker 2: I think that is absolutely a great idea.

641
00:37:55,320 --> 00:37:59,840
Speaker 4: You're getting brainstorming live on the show is a sausage?

642
00:38:00,120 --> 00:38:02,600
Speaker 2: Is sorry? Sorry, you have.

643
00:38:02,520 --> 00:38:07,080
Speaker 3: A brainstorming ideas out there? Listeners? Oh yeah, I can

644
00:38:07,239 --> 00:38:08,800
Speaker 3: call us and give us some other ideas.

645
00:38:09,040 --> 00:38:15,960
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I mean really, but it wasn't only the medical examiner,

646
00:38:16,880 --> 00:38:20,360
Speaker 2: the sheriff's office in Clark County. They were actually receiving

647
00:38:20,440 --> 00:38:27,080
Speaker 2: tips about Kevin West's affair with Cynthia Ward. So KEYL knew. Yes,

648
00:38:27,160 --> 00:38:32,320
Speaker 2: people knew. And from those steps they recovered texts and letters,

649
00:38:32,640 --> 00:38:35,319
Speaker 2: and you know, they he sealed his own faith. Those

650
00:38:35,400 --> 00:38:39,880
Speaker 2: letters indicated he planned to leave his wife to pursue Cynthia.

651
00:38:40,480 --> 00:38:43,200
Speaker 4: Listen, if the fire chief, I don't know if this

652
00:38:43,280 --> 00:38:45,360
Speaker 4: is a small town or not. Maybe somebody who is

653
00:38:45,440 --> 00:38:47,600
Speaker 4: listening on the affiliate, Now what is it?

654
00:38:47,640 --> 00:38:47,799
Speaker 3: One?

655
00:38:47,840 --> 00:38:47,960
Speaker 7: Now?

656
00:38:48,000 --> 00:38:48,560
Speaker 2: One o five?

657
00:38:49,400 --> 00:38:51,879
Speaker 4: Maybe now one of five point one? Maybe if somebody

658
00:38:51,960 --> 00:38:54,200
Speaker 4: is listening, you can call us and let us know.

659
00:38:54,320 --> 00:38:57,040
Speaker 4: Is this a small town? Because listen, if the police

660
00:38:57,120 --> 00:39:00,120
Speaker 4: chief or fire chief is having an affair everyone, he's

661
00:39:00,160 --> 00:39:03,160
Speaker 4: going to be talking about it. Right, How are you

662
00:39:03,160 --> 00:39:03,799
Speaker 4: going to hide this?

663
00:39:04,719 --> 00:39:04,879
Speaker 7: Right?

664
00:39:04,920 --> 00:39:06,080
Speaker 2: What are he's going to be talking about it?

665
00:39:06,080 --> 00:39:06,719
Speaker 3: That's a good point.

666
00:39:06,719 --> 00:39:11,680
Speaker 2: What a jerk? Yeah, it really is. And and Kevin

667
00:39:11,680 --> 00:39:15,480
Speaker 2: West he testified at his trial, and we've spoken about

668
00:39:15,480 --> 00:39:17,880
Speaker 2: how how rare that is because it really opens you

669
00:39:18,040 --> 00:39:21,759
Speaker 2: up to cross examination that can turn everything down. But

670
00:39:21,800 --> 00:39:27,560
Speaker 2: he testified just on January eighteenth, so you know, eight

671
00:39:27,640 --> 00:39:32,440
Speaker 2: days ago and He maintains that his wife's death was natural.

672
00:39:33,080 --> 00:39:39,120
Speaker 2: He denied everything, but the jury listen, they only deliberated

673
00:39:39,200 --> 00:39:40,800
Speaker 2: for two hours.

674
00:39:41,480 --> 00:39:41,799
Speaker 3: That's right.

675
00:39:43,360 --> 00:39:48,360
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, it was quick. So it was two hours.

676
00:39:48,440 --> 00:39:53,319
Speaker 2: And the sentencing is set for February twenty seventh. OK

677
00:39:53,680 --> 00:39:57,960
Speaker 2: so in about a month and he could face life

678
00:39:57,960 --> 00:40:01,799
Speaker 2: in present. Does he still engaged to that chick? He

679
00:40:01,920 --> 00:40:06,600
Speaker 2: remains engaged to Cynthia Ward. Absolutely. She testified during trial

680
00:40:06,719 --> 00:40:11,080
Speaker 2: about their long standing relationship and plans for the future.

681
00:40:11,560 --> 00:40:14,200
Speaker 2: I don't know if she did so for the defense

682
00:40:14,280 --> 00:40:19,279
Speaker 2: of the prosecution. I don't know. Maybe yeah, yeah, but

683
00:40:19,480 --> 00:40:22,120
Speaker 2: you know, it's it's terrible, said Marcy West. Did not

684
00:40:22,239 --> 00:40:29,040
Speaker 2: need to die. No, she shared two adult children with her,

685
00:40:29,239 --> 00:40:33,520
Speaker 2: you know husband Kevin, and the friends and family and

686
00:40:33,600 --> 00:40:43,759
Speaker 2: colleagues are they're outraged and grieving. Wow, but let's body, Yeah,

687
00:40:43,840 --> 00:40:46,799
Speaker 2: had something else I do? I do.

688
00:40:46,920 --> 00:40:50,600
Speaker 4: This is coming from another affiliate now ninety three point

689
00:40:50,640 --> 00:40:53,000
Speaker 4: three out of San Diego. Shout out to San Diego,

690
00:40:53,040 --> 00:40:55,200
Speaker 4: I miss you very much. They're still there for hot

691
00:40:55,200 --> 00:40:58,960
Speaker 4: minute and now one oh five point one in you know,

692
00:40:59,200 --> 00:41:03,919
Speaker 4: various cal Fornia markets. This is about the celebrity chef

693
00:41:03,920 --> 00:41:08,240
Speaker 4: turned bank robber. This is Valentino Luken. He's a sixteen

694
00:41:08,320 --> 00:41:12,319
Speaker 4: year old or sixteen sixty two year old. He lived

695
00:41:12,320 --> 00:41:14,719
Speaker 4: in the Bay Area. He was a celebrity chef, and

696
00:41:14,760 --> 00:41:20,239
Speaker 4: he's facing federal charges after allegedly robbing three San Francisco

697
00:41:20,320 --> 00:41:24,640
Speaker 4: banks in September of twenty twenty five, marking his second

698
00:41:24,719 --> 00:41:28,160
Speaker 4: high profile bank robbery case since twenty eighteen, so he's

699
00:41:28,160 --> 00:41:32,360
Speaker 4: been convicted of this before. Valentino he was once the

700
00:41:32,480 --> 00:41:36,960
Speaker 4: executive chef at Rose Pistola and the owner of the

701
00:41:37,000 --> 00:41:38,440
Speaker 4: now closed Otavio.

702
00:41:38,920 --> 00:41:41,040
Speaker 2: Those are all very fancy restaurant names.

703
00:41:41,520 --> 00:41:44,120
Speaker 4: And he previously robbed a city bank in May of

704
00:41:44,160 --> 00:41:48,600
Speaker 4: twenty eighteen, taking over fifteen thousand dollars and serving six

705
00:41:48,640 --> 00:41:53,319
Speaker 4: months in county jail for that robbery. Financial struggles, bankruptcy,

706
00:41:53,320 --> 00:41:56,480
Speaker 4: and personal hardships have been cited as a contributing factor

707
00:41:57,040 --> 00:41:59,920
Speaker 4: to both, you know, the twenty eighteen and twenty two

708
00:42:00,000 --> 00:42:04,319
Speaker 4: twenty five robberies. He was born in Venice and he

709
00:42:04,360 --> 00:42:11,239
Speaker 4: began his culinary career at fifteen. He was in Italy. Yeah, Venice, Italy. Sorry,

710
00:42:11,239 --> 00:42:12,719
Speaker 4: I should have been more clear because we were talking

711
00:42:12,719 --> 00:42:16,960
Speaker 4: about California. Yeah, Venice, Italy. Yeah, and he was an apprentice,

712
00:42:17,280 --> 00:42:20,240
Speaker 4: and he was an apprentice in a regional Italian cuisine.

713
00:42:20,880 --> 00:42:23,319
Speaker 4: And he later relocated to New York and he worked

714
00:42:23,320 --> 00:42:26,000
Speaker 4: in Seattle, and he worked in luxury hotels in Orlando

715
00:42:26,160 --> 00:42:28,440
Speaker 4: and Hawaii. So he was getting around and he was

716
00:42:29,000 --> 00:42:30,680
Speaker 4: a pretty good Italian chef.

717
00:42:30,880 --> 00:42:31,080
Speaker 2: Right.

718
00:42:32,480 --> 00:42:37,440
Speaker 4: He became an executive chef at Rose Pistola and that's

719
00:42:37,480 --> 00:42:41,520
Speaker 4: in San Francisco in twenty seventeen, and he gained acclaim

720
00:42:42,280 --> 00:42:43,640
Speaker 4: for this Italian cuisine.

721
00:42:43,640 --> 00:42:47,080
Speaker 2: I mean he's from Italy, right, and started at fifteen yes, right,

722
00:42:47,160 --> 00:42:48,680
Speaker 2: and doing it for a while.

723
00:42:49,320 --> 00:42:52,239
Speaker 4: So he was fired within a year due to conflicts

724
00:42:52,239 --> 00:42:57,400
Speaker 4: with staff and other management issues. He opened Otavio in

725
00:42:57,480 --> 00:43:00,759
Speaker 4: Walnut Creek. I love Walnut Creek. Oh my god, it's

726
00:43:00,760 --> 00:43:01,479
Speaker 4: so nice there.

727
00:43:02,160 --> 00:43:03,200
Speaker 2: Oh that's so beautiful.

728
00:43:03,280 --> 00:43:05,799
Speaker 4: It's just it's like a suburb of like Oakland, I

729
00:43:05,800 --> 00:43:08,719
Speaker 4: would say, and yeah, it's just a.

730
00:43:08,680 --> 00:43:15,879
Speaker 2: Great Sam is disagreeing in the Creek. Well, I'm sort

731
00:43:15,920 --> 00:43:17,560
Speaker 2: of from there, so oh are you?

732
00:43:18,080 --> 00:43:18,279
Speaker 8: Yeah?

733
00:43:18,360 --> 00:43:19,960
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm the next.

734
00:43:19,760 --> 00:43:22,600
Speaker 2: Town over, So I'm like, I like it, but I'm

735
00:43:22,600 --> 00:43:24,600
Speaker 2: also like, yeah, I.

736
00:43:24,520 --> 00:43:26,279
Speaker 4: Love Walnut Creek. It's just I don't know, it's just

737
00:43:26,360 --> 00:43:30,200
Speaker 4: got a good feel to it. So he opened a

738
00:43:30,239 --> 00:43:32,160
Speaker 4: Tavio and that was in Walnut Creek in twenty ten,

739
00:43:32,200 --> 00:43:36,759
Speaker 4: and he had a partner named Kenneth Mariacci okay or Marsini,

740
00:43:37,320 --> 00:43:40,440
Speaker 4: and Valentino and his wife Michelle took full ownership of

741
00:43:40,480 --> 00:43:44,520
Speaker 4: twenty thirteen, agreeing to pay the partner one hundred thousand

742
00:43:44,560 --> 00:43:47,800
Speaker 4: dollars over the next five years. Well, he faced multiple

743
00:43:47,840 --> 00:43:50,720
Speaker 4: lawsuits from suppliers and employers, and he ended up being

744
00:43:52,239 --> 00:43:57,360
Speaker 4: having seventy four thousand dollars in unpaid wages. What right,

745
00:43:57,640 --> 00:44:02,040
Speaker 4: So I feel like he's felt desperate to write banks. Right,

746
00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:08,000
Speaker 4: So he robbed this city bank in Rinda in May

747
00:44:08,080 --> 00:44:12,320
Speaker 4: of twenty eighteen. He wore black hoodie, sunglasses, latex gloves,

748
00:44:12,360 --> 00:44:15,560
Speaker 4: He carried a Duffel bag and brandished a BB.

749
00:44:15,520 --> 00:44:17,680
Speaker 2: Gun to turn the sack by.

750
00:44:18,040 --> 00:44:21,360
Speaker 4: Well, he got away with eighteen thousand dollars and he

751
00:44:21,520 --> 00:44:25,040
Speaker 4: fled in his black Mercedes. He was arrested the same

752
00:44:25,160 --> 00:44:27,680
Speaker 4: day and pled guilty to second degree robbery and he

753
00:44:27,760 --> 00:44:28,640
Speaker 4: served six months.

754
00:44:28,719 --> 00:44:31,719
Speaker 2: Right, and he worked in the kitchen while he was

755
00:44:31,760 --> 00:44:32,200
Speaker 2: in jail.

756
00:44:32,239 --> 00:44:36,400
Speaker 4: And this is kind of like the Agy, So fast

757
00:44:36,480 --> 00:44:40,560
Speaker 4: forward right to twenty twenty five, he robbed three banks

758
00:44:40,560 --> 00:44:44,960
Speaker 4: in San Francisco September tenth, twenty twenty five, at CTBC

759
00:44:45,320 --> 00:44:48,600
Speaker 4: Bank in Chinatown, BMO Bank, and Bank of America in

760
00:44:48,640 --> 00:44:52,200
Speaker 4: the Central District, and he allegedly was passing notes demanding

761
00:44:52,280 --> 00:44:55,839
Speaker 4: cash to bank employees, again wearing a black mask, but

762
00:44:55,880 --> 00:44:59,760
Speaker 4: there were no weapons this time. So those two successful

763
00:44:59,800 --> 00:45:02,480
Speaker 4: robb he's they only totaled twenty eight hundred dollars and

764
00:45:02,560 --> 00:45:04,880
Speaker 4: one they just didn't give him anything at all, So

765
00:45:04,920 --> 00:45:06,360
Speaker 4: he just left empty handed.

766
00:45:06,160 --> 00:45:09,640
Speaker 2: Twenty versus reward. Right, it's not great.

767
00:45:10,080 --> 00:45:12,960
Speaker 4: Right, So he was arrested in San Francisco and he's

768
00:45:13,000 --> 00:45:16,560
Speaker 4: being held on a two hundred thousand dollars bail. He

769
00:45:16,640 --> 00:45:20,560
Speaker 4: pled not guilty to four felony counts to second degree

770
00:45:20,640 --> 00:45:24,520
Speaker 4: robbery and to attempt it because again he failed. Right,

771
00:45:26,120 --> 00:45:29,520
Speaker 4: there's a public defender, and they're seeking mental health diversion

772
00:45:29,600 --> 00:45:33,560
Speaker 4: for substance abuse and mental health treatment because clearly there's something,

773
00:45:35,000 --> 00:45:39,600
Speaker 4: you know, Goofy. He has expressed remorse and he acknowledges

774
00:45:39,640 --> 00:45:43,080
Speaker 4: that you know, these personal hardships leading to, you know,

775
00:45:43,160 --> 00:45:46,960
Speaker 4: all these alleged crimes. And he's currently incarcerated at the

776
00:45:47,000 --> 00:45:51,960
Speaker 4: San Bruno correuction facility. He engages in fitness, yoga, and reading,

777
00:45:52,040 --> 00:45:55,400
Speaker 4: and he envisions a future restaurant.

778
00:45:55,239 --> 00:45:59,719
Speaker 2: Give all my the a friend he wants to.

779
00:46:00,200 --> 00:46:04,600
Speaker 4: He envisions a future restaurant employing formally incarcerated individuals. That

780
00:46:04,800 --> 00:46:08,560
Speaker 4: I actually thought, that's great, that sounds I mean, that's

781
00:46:08,600 --> 00:46:11,200
Speaker 4: a good idea, right, that's a that's a great idea.

782
00:46:11,239 --> 00:46:14,800
Speaker 4: But listen, get your finances in order first, mister, Yes,

783
00:46:15,040 --> 00:46:19,160
Speaker 4: don't rob Banks anymore. We appreciate this story. Out of

784
00:46:19,200 --> 00:46:22,040
Speaker 4: our affiliates. Now ninety three point three in San Diego

785
00:46:22,160 --> 00:46:24,480
Speaker 4: and now one oh five point one.

786
00:46:25,719 --> 00:46:27,480
Speaker 3: I have to say, don't. I didn't even think people

787
00:46:27,560 --> 00:46:29,320
Speaker 3: rob banks. I think you brought that up earlier.

788
00:46:29,480 --> 00:46:31,600
Speaker 4: I feel like it's an old Western thing or something

789
00:46:31,640 --> 00:46:32,879
Speaker 4: that people would do right like.

790
00:46:33,160 --> 00:46:36,200
Speaker 3: In this day with the camera.

791
00:46:36,480 --> 00:46:38,600
Speaker 2: I mean, just grab your baby gun and head to

792
00:46:38,640 --> 00:46:42,200
Speaker 2: the local teller. I don't know, I don't know. Well,

793
00:46:42,440 --> 00:46:45,800
Speaker 2: I hope he's enjoying yoga. But everyone out there stick

794
00:46:46,000 --> 00:46:49,560
Speaker 2: around because Doronto Fear is going to be joining us

795
00:46:50,120 --> 00:46:52,600
Speaker 2: and we're going to be talking about the black Dahlia

796
00:46:52,800 --> 00:46:55,480
Speaker 2: young woman, a brutal killing, and a mystery that never

797
00:46:55,600 --> 00:47:00,279
Speaker 2: went away. I'm so into it True Crime Tonight, talking

798
00:47:00,320 --> 00:47:13,719
Speaker 2: true crime all the time. Welcome back to True Crime

799
00:47:13,760 --> 00:47:16,680
Speaker 2: Tonight on iHeartRadio. We talk true crime all the time.

800
00:47:17,520 --> 00:47:21,120
Speaker 2: I'm Courtney Armstrong. I am here as always with crime Analyst.

801
00:47:21,200 --> 00:47:26,000
Speaker 2: Body move in. Stephanie Leidecker, our beloved is so fancy

802
00:47:26,040 --> 00:47:29,839
Speaker 2: and out at Sundance Kat Studios, Murder one oh one

803
00:47:30,239 --> 00:47:34,120
Speaker 2: is premiering the first of three episodes. We couldn't be

804
00:47:34,160 --> 00:47:38,520
Speaker 2: more excited or proud. And with Stephanie out, we have

805
00:47:38,640 --> 00:47:43,359
Speaker 2: Dorono fear in. So he is going to talk to

806
00:47:43,440 --> 00:47:47,680
Speaker 2: us about a couple of cases. And listen, don't forget.

807
00:47:47,719 --> 00:47:49,480
Speaker 2: If you have missed any part of the show, you

808
00:47:49,520 --> 00:47:53,160
Speaker 2: can always just grab us on the podcast. And as always,

809
00:47:53,160 --> 00:47:55,319
Speaker 2: we want to hear from you. Call us. We're at

810
00:47:55,360 --> 00:47:57,880
Speaker 2: eighty eight three to one crime or get with us

811
00:47:57,880 --> 00:48:01,160
Speaker 2: on our socials. We are at True Crime Tonight's show

812
00:48:01,440 --> 00:48:05,680
Speaker 2: on TikTok and Instagram and True Crime Tonight on Facebook.

813
00:48:06,040 --> 00:48:09,120
Speaker 2: So and your dms of course, which led to an

814
00:48:09,120 --> 00:48:11,560
Speaker 2: earlier case. So yeah, we read it all, we listened

815
00:48:11,560 --> 00:48:14,960
Speaker 2: to it all and your feedback is everything to us.

816
00:48:15,840 --> 00:48:19,520
Speaker 2: But let's get into it with our very very favorite

817
00:48:19,840 --> 00:48:25,839
Speaker 2: pop culture crime expert producer extraordinaire Doronto Fear welcome back.

818
00:48:25,840 --> 00:48:26,440
Speaker 2: We're thrilled.

819
00:48:26,800 --> 00:48:28,600
Speaker 3: Hello, Hello, Hello, and good evening.

820
00:48:28,840 --> 00:48:30,560
Speaker 4: Oh you sound so good. I'm so happy you're on

821
00:48:30,560 --> 00:48:31,480
Speaker 4: the microphone tonight.

822
00:48:31,600 --> 00:48:33,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love right. I'm trying to keep my voice

823
00:48:33,920 --> 00:48:35,000
Speaker 3: resonance clear.

824
00:48:35,400 --> 00:48:36,000
Speaker 2: You sound great.

825
00:48:36,800 --> 00:48:38,840
Speaker 3: It's really good to be back, and thanks for having me.

826
00:48:38,840 --> 00:48:40,799
Speaker 2: You always, it's good to see you.

827
00:48:41,520 --> 00:48:44,520
Speaker 3: So yeah, I will have the last night. Body.

828
00:48:44,719 --> 00:48:47,279
Speaker 7: I figured I had to like jump on. I'm so sorry,

829
00:48:47,360 --> 00:48:50,239
Speaker 7: because here's the deal. I came to talk about what

830
00:48:50,280 --> 00:48:53,480
Speaker 7: I believe is actually the first real true crime media obsession.

831
00:48:54,160 --> 00:48:56,879
Speaker 3: Let's just be clear about it. And for me, it's

832
00:48:56,920 --> 00:48:57,680
Speaker 3: the Black Dahlia.

833
00:48:57,920 --> 00:48:59,840
Speaker 7: Yes, and for those that don't know, they might know

834
00:48:59,840 --> 00:49:01,719
Speaker 7: the name, they might know the sort of the idea

835
00:49:01,760 --> 00:49:05,120
Speaker 7: of the films, but take everything you know and delete

836
00:49:05,160 --> 00:49:08,719
Speaker 7: it because it's all been fictionalized. And I've got some

837
00:49:08,760 --> 00:49:11,280
Speaker 7: of the real basis here in real conversations to start,

838
00:49:11,360 --> 00:49:13,959
Speaker 7: like your audience hopefully going down their own rabbit hole.

839
00:49:15,160 --> 00:49:17,600
Speaker 7: So the Black Dahlia, I'm just going to paint the picture.

840
00:49:17,760 --> 00:49:21,719
Speaker 7: In January of nineteen forty seven, Elizabeth Short was just

841
00:49:21,760 --> 00:49:24,480
Speaker 7: twenty two years old, a young woman, just trying to

842
00:49:24,480 --> 00:49:27,239
Speaker 7: make it in Hollywood. When her body was found in

843
00:49:27,320 --> 00:49:30,440
Speaker 7: a vacant lot in Los Angeles. She was brutally murdered

844
00:49:31,080 --> 00:49:35,480
Speaker 7: and deliberately posed. And what followed was not just an investigation.

845
00:49:35,560 --> 00:49:39,640
Speaker 7: It was the perfect storm of media frenzy, celebrity, corruption, spectacle.

846
00:49:39,719 --> 00:49:42,440
Speaker 7: It was everything that true crime is. Yeah, but this

847
00:49:42,600 --> 00:49:46,280
Speaker 7: was really the first. And that's why this case didn't

848
00:49:46,320 --> 00:49:49,920
Speaker 7: just shock a country. It literally has become legend and

849
00:49:50,000 --> 00:49:51,440
Speaker 7: it still has not been solved.

850
00:49:53,040 --> 00:49:56,560
Speaker 2: Wow, which I feel like only adds to the you know,

851
00:49:56,640 --> 00:49:59,160
Speaker 2: the mystery or the mystique around it and why people

852
00:49:59,520 --> 00:50:03,600
Speaker 2: simply can't let go. What what do you think? So

853
00:50:03,640 --> 00:50:05,920
Speaker 2: you said she was posed? Can you kind of explain

854
00:50:06,000 --> 00:50:08,879
Speaker 2: a little bit about the crime scene or what went on.

855
00:50:09,320 --> 00:50:12,120
Speaker 7: A woman was walking her baby in a stroller by

856
00:50:12,160 --> 00:50:15,000
Speaker 7: a vacant lot in Los Angeles when Los Angeles has

857
00:50:15,000 --> 00:50:17,120
Speaker 7: still not been overly built, so where there are like

858
00:50:17,160 --> 00:50:19,799
Speaker 7: home stretches now there was just like vacant lots, and

859
00:50:19,840 --> 00:50:21,520
Speaker 7: she saw something from the side of her eye that

860
00:50:21,600 --> 00:50:25,600
Speaker 7: she thought was a mannequin. The woman's body was found

861
00:50:25,800 --> 00:50:30,240
Speaker 7: and it was cleanly hut clear. It was dream blood.

862
00:50:30,600 --> 00:50:34,400
Speaker 7: It was posed. No witnesses, no blood at the scene,

863
00:50:34,920 --> 00:50:37,400
Speaker 7: and immediately.

864
00:50:37,600 --> 00:50:41,520
Speaker 3: This killer starts taunting the police and the press. It's

865
00:50:41,600 --> 00:50:42,440
Speaker 3: not just a murder.

866
00:50:42,800 --> 00:50:45,960
Speaker 7: This was performance, you know, this was this and it

867
00:50:46,040 --> 00:50:48,960
Speaker 7: was done publicly, and that combination is brand new.

868
00:50:49,000 --> 00:50:50,000
Speaker 3: It had never been done before.

869
00:50:50,040 --> 00:50:52,320
Speaker 7: And that's why I think kind of it's the birth

870
00:50:52,360 --> 00:50:53,680
Speaker 7: of the true crime spectacle.

871
00:50:54,120 --> 00:50:55,279
Speaker 2: Yeah.

872
00:50:55,320 --> 00:50:59,920
Speaker 4: Absolutely, and those pictures, unfortunately, are widely available online for

873
00:51:00,040 --> 00:51:03,680
Speaker 4: people that go to see And Doran's not exaggerating. She

874
00:51:03,840 --> 00:51:07,560
Speaker 4: was cleanly cut in half anne posed and like it

875
00:51:07,920 --> 00:51:11,040
Speaker 4: was very she was nude, right.

876
00:51:12,200 --> 00:51:17,200
Speaker 7: She was new. Well, she was nude, she was clean, yeah,

877
00:51:17,239 --> 00:51:19,040
Speaker 7: and she was posed. And I and you know, I

878
00:51:19,040 --> 00:51:20,600
Speaker 7: have it sort of in my head about how I

879
00:51:20,600 --> 00:51:23,040
Speaker 7: can sort of explain them, Oh, this is you know,

880
00:51:23,120 --> 00:51:25,560
Speaker 7: the posing of it all, because it all fits into

881
00:51:26,160 --> 00:51:31,560
Speaker 7: the current idea of what the suspect is because they

882
00:51:31,560 --> 00:51:33,960
Speaker 7: seem to have you know, isolated what it is. But

883
00:51:34,040 --> 00:51:35,560
Speaker 7: let me, like again, you need to paint the picture

884
00:51:35,600 --> 00:51:37,319
Speaker 7: of the time. You know, for those people, you know,

885
00:51:37,360 --> 00:51:40,680
Speaker 7: I'm a film you know, pop culture person, and for me,

886
00:51:40,960 --> 00:51:44,319
Speaker 7: film noir is everything and this is that era. And

887
00:51:44,360 --> 00:51:46,799
Speaker 7: in the noir if you looked at movies like Double Indemnity,

888
00:51:46,920 --> 00:51:49,000
Speaker 7: or even Chinatown or La Confidential.

889
00:51:49,480 --> 00:51:51,919
Speaker 3: That's the world we're in, and it was true.

890
00:51:51,960 --> 00:51:55,000
Speaker 7: And this is at a time when the LAPD and

891
00:51:55,200 --> 00:51:58,080
Speaker 7: the the the DA we're very corrupt.

892
00:51:58,239 --> 00:51:59,160
Speaker 3: This is gangsters.

893
00:51:59,640 --> 00:52:02,520
Speaker 7: This is an era when think about it's nineteen forty seven,

894
00:52:02,719 --> 00:52:06,560
Speaker 7: We're coming out of World War two, A wonderful life.

895
00:52:06,600 --> 00:52:08,840
Speaker 7: You know, that movie had just premiered at the Pantagious

896
00:52:08,880 --> 00:52:13,000
Speaker 7: Theater on Hollywood Boulevard, and literally the next morning this

897
00:52:13,080 --> 00:52:16,719
Speaker 7: body is found. The contrast of that is cinematic in

898
00:52:16,760 --> 00:52:19,840
Speaker 7: every single way, and it puts you in the smack

899
00:52:19,880 --> 00:52:21,600
Speaker 7: of in the middle of a time when Los Angeles

900
00:52:21,760 --> 00:52:28,279
Speaker 7: is overrun by power, corruption, secrecy, and institutions protecting themselves

901
00:52:28,840 --> 00:52:30,080
Speaker 7: strangely similar.

902
00:52:29,760 --> 00:52:32,840
Speaker 3: To the times we live in now. Yeah, right, true.

903
00:52:33,520 --> 00:52:37,360
Speaker 4: Imagine like the reporters with those cameras and the flashbulbs,

904
00:52:37,400 --> 00:52:40,920
Speaker 4: and the cops are wearing suits with fedoras.

905
00:52:40,960 --> 00:52:42,440
Speaker 2: I mean that's literally the.

906
00:52:42,719 --> 00:52:45,960
Speaker 7: Black cars, the black packards, and the rain and the slickness.

907
00:52:46,520 --> 00:52:49,160
Speaker 7: I mean, so that's the imagery behind it, and that's

908
00:52:49,200 --> 00:52:52,040
Speaker 7: why I find it fascinating from a visual point of view.

909
00:52:52,280 --> 00:52:54,960
Speaker 7: But we need to not forget that the black Dahlia

910
00:52:55,200 --> 00:52:56,160
Speaker 7: is a brand.

911
00:52:56,719 --> 00:52:59,680
Speaker 3: Yes, this was a person. I mean she was twenty two.

912
00:53:00,360 --> 00:53:05,160
Speaker 7: She was a gorgeous black Irish girl from Medford, Massachusetts.

913
00:53:05,160 --> 00:53:07,080
Speaker 7: And when I say black Irish, I mean it's the

914
00:53:07,080 --> 00:53:11,200
Speaker 7: contrast that's given to the Irish that came. She had

915
00:53:11,200 --> 00:53:15,160
Speaker 7: this this jet black hair, this alabaster porcelain white skin.

916
00:53:15,760 --> 00:53:18,640
Speaker 7: You know, she had this translucently deep blue eyes.

917
00:53:19,160 --> 00:53:22,680
Speaker 3: She was striking. She was memorable. She was like, when

918
00:53:22,719 --> 00:53:23,000
Speaker 3: you think.

919
00:53:22,920 --> 00:53:25,000
Speaker 7: About it, she's the starlet without the star you know.

920
00:53:25,080 --> 00:53:29,080
Speaker 7: She arrived in a Greyhound, you know, with that one suitcase.

921
00:53:28,920 --> 00:53:30,360
Speaker 2: And dreams in her eyes.

922
00:53:30,520 --> 00:53:33,600
Speaker 3: Right, and the city ate her up.

923
00:53:33,920 --> 00:53:36,279
Speaker 7: She was broken, she was drifting, She was trying to

924
00:53:36,320 --> 00:53:39,480
Speaker 7: make it in Hollywood. You know, the media. Again, this

925
00:53:39,520 --> 00:53:41,240
Speaker 7: is one of the first times that the media decided

926
00:53:41,239 --> 00:53:46,600
Speaker 7: to label her before it was actually true. And they

927
00:53:46,800 --> 00:53:48,840
Speaker 7: and this is a crime that not only she was murdered,

928
00:53:48,880 --> 00:53:50,920
Speaker 7: but then she was murdered again in her afterlife.

929
00:53:51,080 --> 00:53:53,560
Speaker 4: And well she was stripped of her identity by calling

930
00:53:53,600 --> 00:53:54,640
Speaker 4: her the black Dahlia too.

931
00:53:54,719 --> 00:53:57,080
Speaker 7: Right, Well, they picked at her as a prostitute and

932
00:53:57,160 --> 00:54:00,239
Speaker 7: you know that meant start just because it was convenient. Yes,

933
00:54:00,280 --> 00:54:01,799
Speaker 7: she was poor, she was ambitious. She was in the

934
00:54:01,800 --> 00:54:04,720
Speaker 7: city that choose people up. But once she was killed,

935
00:54:04,760 --> 00:54:07,360
Speaker 7: the press branded her and then the nickname came the

936
00:54:07,360 --> 00:54:10,480
Speaker 7: Black Dahlia. It came after her death, not before, and

937
00:54:10,520 --> 00:54:13,120
Speaker 7: from that point on she stopped really being a person.

938
00:54:13,200 --> 00:54:15,800
Speaker 7: She just became an image and they used the Black Dahlia.

939
00:54:15,840 --> 00:54:17,560
Speaker 7: They took it from a movie called The Blue Dahlia,

940
00:54:17,560 --> 00:54:19,880
Speaker 7: which was about a nightclub. It was a film noir movie,

941
00:54:20,120 --> 00:54:21,640
Speaker 7: and you know, she did wear flowers on her hair,

942
00:54:21,719 --> 00:54:23,080
Speaker 7: so they made this thing. But that was the first

943
00:54:23,080 --> 00:54:25,840
Speaker 7: time they started labeling things like this and rather than

944
00:54:25,920 --> 00:54:29,000
Speaker 7: label of the killer, because this is not like, you know,

945
00:54:29,080 --> 00:54:32,440
Speaker 7: the Ripper. This isn't you know, the midnight strangler. This

946
00:54:32,560 --> 00:54:36,759
Speaker 7: is the Black Dahlia. It's the victim, right, And that's

947
00:54:36,920 --> 00:54:40,239
Speaker 7: really really sad, you know. And when we talk about

948
00:54:40,320 --> 00:54:42,640
Speaker 7: again the crime scene, you're looking at something that was

949
00:54:42,640 --> 00:54:44,799
Speaker 7: really horrific because it was the precision of it all.

950
00:54:45,160 --> 00:54:48,160
Speaker 7: The body was bisected using a technique that you know,

951
00:54:48,200 --> 00:54:51,160
Speaker 7: the medical industry calls like, I'm gonna mispronounce this, but

952
00:54:51,200 --> 00:54:56,360
Speaker 7: it's like HEMI corp barrectomy, so hev corporrectomy. There was

953
00:54:56,400 --> 00:54:58,919
Speaker 7: no blood, you know that means that she was killed

954
00:54:58,920 --> 00:54:59,439
Speaker 7: somewhere else.

955
00:55:00,080 --> 00:55:05,680
Speaker 2: It's amazing. I mean the fact that there was no blood,

956
00:55:06,480 --> 00:55:09,560
Speaker 2: I mean that does it leads to someone who I

957
00:55:09,560 --> 00:55:13,040
Speaker 2: feel like has to know also what they are doing.

958
00:55:13,160 --> 00:55:15,480
Speaker 2: And listen, if you're just joining us, we're here with

959
00:55:15,560 --> 00:55:18,880
Speaker 2: Dorona Fear, who is breaking down a lot of details

960
00:55:18,880 --> 00:55:21,439
Speaker 2: that some of us don't know about the Black Dahlia case.

961
00:55:22,200 --> 00:55:25,680
Speaker 2: So yeah, explain, keep going where you're going.

962
00:55:26,280 --> 00:55:29,000
Speaker 7: Okay, So the killer, you're Courtney, You're absolutely right. This

963
00:55:29,080 --> 00:55:31,680
Speaker 7: is somebody that had to have medical knowledge. And you know, look,

964
00:55:31,719 --> 00:55:32,440
Speaker 7: this wasn't done.

965
00:55:32,320 --> 00:55:35,440
Speaker 3: In panic a rage. This wasn't an angry killing. This

966
00:55:35,560 --> 00:55:36,160
Speaker 3: was planned.

967
00:55:36,400 --> 00:55:39,600
Speaker 7: It was controlled somebody who understood anatomy to the point

968
00:55:39,640 --> 00:55:41,280
Speaker 7: that they can do with surgical precision.

969
00:55:42,000 --> 00:55:44,640
Speaker 3: You know, her mouth, this is just it just makes

970
00:55:44,680 --> 00:55:45,600
Speaker 3: it makes me want to cross.

971
00:55:46,320 --> 00:55:50,920
Speaker 7: Her mouth was severed ear to ear, shaped into a

972
00:55:50,960 --> 00:55:52,440
Speaker 7: maniacal permanent smile.

973
00:55:52,880 --> 00:55:56,960
Speaker 3: No, and that takes it to a whole other level.

974
00:55:57,000 --> 00:55:59,200
Speaker 7: And there's some either even more salacious things that I'll

975
00:55:59,280 --> 00:56:02,040
Speaker 7: keep off of this now. I'll let the imagination kind

976
00:56:02,080 --> 00:56:03,879
Speaker 7: of tell that story because I just don't even want

977
00:56:03,880 --> 00:56:06,840
Speaker 7: to put words into it. Yeah, but that created the

978
00:56:06,880 --> 00:56:10,080
Speaker 7: frenzy that became insane, and then you go into who

979
00:56:10,080 --> 00:56:13,040
Speaker 7: did it right, and there was hundreds of suspects.

980
00:56:13,080 --> 00:56:14,760
Speaker 3: Now, this was at a time.

981
00:56:14,640 --> 00:56:17,319
Speaker 7: When girls it was dinner and a dime, you know,

982
00:56:17,480 --> 00:56:19,400
Speaker 7: like where if you didn't have any money and you

983
00:56:19,520 --> 00:56:21,439
Speaker 7: arrived to Los Angeles, you went on dates for dinner

984
00:56:21,480 --> 00:56:23,440
Speaker 7: and that's how they ate because they couldn't afford food.

985
00:56:24,160 --> 00:56:26,080
Speaker 7: And there's a lot of conversation about one of the

986
00:56:26,080 --> 00:56:28,680
Speaker 7: main suspects, which owned the Florentine Gardens, which is a

987
00:56:28,760 --> 00:56:31,880
Speaker 7: nightclub here, and that he had this sort of house

988
00:56:31,920 --> 00:56:34,080
Speaker 7: in Hollywood that all the starlets and the dancers would

989
00:56:34,120 --> 00:56:35,919
Speaker 7: live in, and that he was obsessed with her.

990
00:56:36,560 --> 00:56:39,640
Speaker 3: I'm not going to weigh into that story right now, because.

991
00:56:39,360 --> 00:56:43,480
Speaker 7: He was, you know, acquitted of all suspect.

992
00:56:42,840 --> 00:56:44,719
Speaker 3: He didn't have the knowledge.

993
00:56:44,840 --> 00:56:46,880
Speaker 7: And this goes back to what you said, which is

994
00:56:47,400 --> 00:56:49,640
Speaker 7: it had to have been somebody with medical training. And

995
00:56:49,719 --> 00:56:54,040
Speaker 7: from my understanding, they interviewed some three hundred different medical students,

996
00:56:54,040 --> 00:56:57,920
Speaker 7: everyone from UCLA, USC et cetera, to find out like who, what, when,

997
00:56:58,000 --> 00:57:01,160
Speaker 7: and if any of them had contact with Elizabeth. Well,

998
00:57:01,719 --> 00:57:04,000
Speaker 7: now let's go into a different story here, because there

999
00:57:04,080 --> 00:57:10,120
Speaker 7: is a doctor named doctor George Hoades, and he is

1000
00:57:10,160 --> 00:57:14,000
Speaker 7: the most plausible. First of all, he was a very wealthy,

1001
00:57:14,239 --> 00:57:19,080
Speaker 7: ostentatious nightlife guru. He would throw these extravagant parties in

1002
00:57:19,120 --> 00:57:21,880
Speaker 7: the house that the son of Frank Lloyd Wright built

1003
00:57:22,240 --> 00:57:25,120
Speaker 7: right on Franklin Avenue. It is an epic landmark in

1004
00:57:25,120 --> 00:57:30,000
Speaker 7: Los Angeles. That was his home. He ran the Hollywood

1005
00:57:30,040 --> 00:57:34,760
Speaker 7: General Disease Clinic, which treated sexually transmitted diseases. Think about

1006
00:57:34,800 --> 00:57:37,600
Speaker 7: that for a second. Think about the time. That gave

1007
00:57:37,640 --> 00:57:40,960
Speaker 7: him access to vulnerable women. It was built into the

1008
00:57:41,000 --> 00:57:44,320
Speaker 7: culture of secrecy. He had the power. He knew how

1009
00:57:44,360 --> 00:57:47,960
Speaker 7: to potentially blackmail people. He was deeply embedded in the

1010
00:57:47,960 --> 00:57:52,720
Speaker 7: Hollywood elite social circles. He had eleven children by multiple women,

1011
00:57:53,200 --> 00:57:56,280
Speaker 7: and he was known for hosting the most infamous parties

1012
00:57:56,360 --> 00:58:02,920
Speaker 7: within that home. Now here's where things get fun. So

1013
00:58:03,400 --> 00:58:09,480
Speaker 7: she has a daughter, Tamara. Tamara is young, we're talking like,

1014
00:58:09,560 --> 00:58:14,040
Speaker 7: grows up in this house, is severely abused sexually by

1015
00:58:14,120 --> 00:58:19,919
Speaker 7: not only him, but as guests. And she runs away

1016
00:58:19,960 --> 00:58:23,240
Speaker 7: in around nineteen forty nine and goes to the police

1017
00:58:23,520 --> 00:58:27,280
Speaker 7: and finally gives her evidence. And her evidence is that

1018
00:58:27,360 --> 00:58:31,280
Speaker 7: she and doctor Hoades is now arrested for incest.

1019
00:58:32,080 --> 00:58:34,480
Speaker 2: Okay, let's get.

1020
00:58:34,360 --> 00:58:35,240
Speaker 3: Into this for a second.

1021
00:58:35,320 --> 00:58:38,360
Speaker 7: So you know, she is accusing him of sexual abuse,

1022
00:58:38,920 --> 00:58:41,320
Speaker 7: that she was being used as a sexual object and

1023
00:58:41,360 --> 00:58:44,640
Speaker 7: in an environment where she was passed around. Another celebrity

1024
00:58:44,640 --> 00:58:47,000
Speaker 7: connection to all of this is the singer Michelle Phillips

1025
00:58:47,000 --> 00:58:48,080
Speaker 7: from The Mamas and the Papas.

1026
00:58:48,520 --> 00:58:51,880
Speaker 3: Oh, they were best friends, and she came forward and said,

1027
00:58:52,160 --> 00:58:54,400
Speaker 3: I'm aware of all of this, and her father.

1028
00:58:54,280 --> 00:58:56,120
Speaker 2: Did it all, so she corroborated it.

1029
00:58:56,320 --> 00:58:59,160
Speaker 7: She corroborated. He gets arrested, they go to the police.

1030
00:59:00,000 --> 00:59:03,960
Speaker 7: As a trial, he gets acquitted. The jury acquits him.

1031
00:59:04,120 --> 00:59:08,880
Speaker 7: Why because multiple family members and members of the society

1032
00:59:09,600 --> 00:59:11,800
Speaker 7: Ammon said that he was a man of perfect honor

1033
00:59:12,720 --> 00:59:14,880
Speaker 7: and that they all claim that she lied.

1034
00:59:15,680 --> 00:59:17,360
Speaker 3: And what's insane.

1035
00:59:16,960 --> 00:59:19,360
Speaker 7: About this is is that it was This is again

1036
00:59:19,680 --> 00:59:23,040
Speaker 7: power and privilege protecting an insidious human.

1037
00:59:24,200 --> 00:59:25,680
Speaker 3: This is all true, by the way.

1038
00:59:26,080 --> 00:59:29,120
Speaker 4: And this is like the world they're living in at

1039
00:59:29,120 --> 00:59:29,760
Speaker 4: the time, right.

1040
00:59:30,800 --> 00:59:35,400
Speaker 7: It's starlets, it's sexual abuse, it's child trafficking, and there's

1041
00:59:35,400 --> 00:59:37,080
Speaker 7: another side here. Let me get into the art world

1042
00:59:37,120 --> 00:59:38,680
Speaker 7: for a second, because you know, I love an art world.

1043
00:59:38,880 --> 00:59:41,720
Speaker 7: So man Ray, the world famous photographer. He was one

1044
00:59:41,760 --> 00:59:45,760
Speaker 7: of George, doctor George Hodell's best friends, and he one

1045
00:59:45,800 --> 00:59:47,960
Speaker 7: of his most famous photos is something called the Minotaur,

1046
00:59:48,200 --> 00:59:50,960
Speaker 7: and it's a black and white, very greeny photograph and

1047
00:59:51,080 --> 00:59:53,520
Speaker 7: it's of a woman's upper torso and a man and

1048
00:59:53,560 --> 00:59:55,600
Speaker 7: it's her arms above her head and it sort of

1049
00:59:55,600 --> 00:59:59,760
Speaker 7: gives you the illusion of a minotaur's horns. Well, Elizabeth

1050
01:00:00,080 --> 01:00:05,840
Speaker 7: its body was in that pose, which is another interesting

1051
01:00:05,920 --> 01:00:07,680
Speaker 7: tell and one of and one of man raised not

1052
01:00:07,720 --> 01:00:11,080
Speaker 7: the most famous art pieces is something called the Lovers,

1053
01:00:11,560 --> 01:00:16,720
Speaker 7: which is an which is an enlarged mouth, which again

1054
01:00:16,920 --> 01:00:17,600
Speaker 7: mirrors the.

1055
01:00:18,200 --> 01:00:21,800
Speaker 3: Slashing of that sort of joker, you know, gesture face.

1056
01:00:23,000 --> 01:00:27,040
Speaker 7: And people think that doctor George Hodell, which by the way,

1057
01:00:27,160 --> 01:00:29,920
Speaker 7: he also was not a surgeon because he operated the

1058
01:00:29,920 --> 01:00:33,360
Speaker 7: sexual clinic, right, but he was a surgeon in school,

1059
01:00:33,760 --> 01:00:36,080
Speaker 7: so he had the ability to do what was what

1060
01:00:36,120 --> 01:00:39,240
Speaker 7: they claimed that they did, and he he So he's arrested,

1061
01:00:39,480 --> 01:00:41,120
Speaker 7: but not for the Elizabeth Short thing.

1062
01:00:41,360 --> 01:00:42,800
Speaker 3: He's arrested for that thing.

1063
01:00:43,080 --> 01:00:46,240
Speaker 7: But while the case is happening in trial, they find

1064
01:00:46,240 --> 01:00:49,400
Speaker 7: the connection to Elizabeth Short, that Elizabeth Short was at

1065
01:00:49,440 --> 01:00:56,280
Speaker 7: his home. Elizabeth Short knew each other as these parties.

1066
01:00:54,640 --> 01:00:55,880
Speaker 2: The daughters see her.

1067
01:00:56,000 --> 01:00:58,400
Speaker 3: Ever two other things.

1068
01:00:58,440 --> 01:01:00,760
Speaker 7: Now, so now this now I'm throwing child number two,

1069
01:01:02,280 --> 01:01:04,919
Speaker 7: and this is where things get really funny. So let's

1070
01:01:05,120 --> 01:01:09,040
Speaker 7: pause the timeline for a second. Okay, flash forward. A

1071
01:01:09,120 --> 01:01:12,160
Speaker 7: boy grows up in Los Angeles and becomes literally a

1072
01:01:12,160 --> 01:01:15,800
Speaker 7: lieutenant in the LAPD. That boy is George Hodell's son.

1073
01:01:16,400 --> 01:01:18,560
Speaker 2: Yes, And upon.

1074
01:01:18,360 --> 01:01:22,400
Speaker 7: George's death, George, after getting acquitted for the sexual crimes,

1075
01:01:22,520 --> 01:01:23,960
Speaker 7: he left the country for forty years.

1076
01:01:24,080 --> 01:01:25,080
Speaker 3: He didn't even come back.

1077
01:01:25,640 --> 01:01:28,840
Speaker 7: And upon his death, his father was given a box

1078
01:01:29,440 --> 01:01:34,240
Speaker 7: with pictures and the son sees a photo that remarkably

1079
01:01:34,280 --> 01:01:36,320
Speaker 7: looks like the black Dahlia.

1080
01:01:37,880 --> 01:01:40,600
Speaker 3: To investigate his own father because he was five at

1081
01:01:40,600 --> 01:01:41,000
Speaker 3: the time.

1082
01:01:41,320 --> 01:01:42,200
Speaker 2: Stop it drawn.

1083
01:01:43,200 --> 01:01:45,920
Speaker 7: And this is where it gets because he's the one

1084
01:01:45,920 --> 01:01:49,120
Speaker 7: who really blew the whistle and said, I remember these things.

1085
01:01:49,200 --> 01:01:51,400
Speaker 3: He corroborated the stuff with the sister.

1086
01:01:51,800 --> 01:01:53,880
Speaker 7: And what's even crazier is that house that I'm talking

1087
01:01:53,880 --> 01:01:55,520
Speaker 7: about had a panel on a.

1088
01:01:55,480 --> 01:01:58,640
Speaker 3: Secret wall to a whole of the room that was.

1089
01:01:58,680 --> 01:02:02,560
Speaker 7: Never investigated, never did blood forensics, they never did any

1090
01:02:02,600 --> 01:02:02,760
Speaker 7: of that.

1091
01:02:03,360 --> 01:02:05,560
Speaker 3: And by the way, I'll end before.

1092
01:02:05,320 --> 01:02:11,520
Speaker 7: Our break, the police after the trial had broke into

1093
01:02:11,520 --> 01:02:13,400
Speaker 7: the home and put in a wire tap, and they

1094
01:02:13,400 --> 01:02:16,440
Speaker 7: tapped him twenty four to seven for forty days. And

1095
01:02:16,480 --> 01:02:21,200
Speaker 7: they also have thought Hotell something words that even if

1096
01:02:21,200 --> 01:02:23,520
Speaker 7: he killed the Black Dahlia, they couldn't prove it. Now

1097
01:02:24,040 --> 01:02:27,040
Speaker 7: they can't talk to my secretary anymore because she's dead.

1098
01:02:27,520 --> 01:02:30,520
Speaker 7: His secretary, Ruth Spaulding was found dead, suspected in overdose.

1099
01:02:31,600 --> 01:02:32,960
Speaker 2: Wasn't kill her.

1100
01:02:33,240 --> 01:02:36,040
Speaker 7: It was not a legal confection confession. But it's super

1101
01:02:36,120 --> 01:02:37,720
Speaker 7: chilling and I think he did.

1102
01:02:38,440 --> 01:02:43,320
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness. Well, listen, stick around. We have a

1103
01:02:43,360 --> 01:02:46,800
Speaker 2: lot more coming up with Deroan of Fear. We're going

1104
01:02:46,880 --> 01:02:50,320
Speaker 2: to continue this as well as get into the club kids.

1105
01:02:50,920 --> 01:02:53,560
Speaker 2: Keep it here. True Crime Tonight, we're talking true crime

1106
01:02:53,760 --> 01:02:54,800
Speaker 2: all the time.

1107
01:03:04,960 --> 01:03:07,800
Speaker 4: Welcome back to True Crime Tonight on iHeartRadio, where we're

1108
01:03:07,840 --> 01:03:10,800
Speaker 4: talking true crime all the time. I'm body and I'm

1109
01:03:10,840 --> 01:03:14,680
Speaker 4: here with producer Kartney Armstrong and producer Taha House, and

1110
01:03:14,720 --> 01:03:17,120
Speaker 4: we are so lucky to be joined by pop culture

1111
01:03:17,160 --> 01:03:20,640
Speaker 4: and crime expert Deron Ofear. We were just talking about

1112
01:03:20,720 --> 01:03:25,080
Speaker 4: the Black Dahlia Elizabeth Short in the previous segment, but

1113
01:03:25,120 --> 01:03:27,720
Speaker 4: we're going to continue because listen, I'm invested and I

1114
01:03:27,760 --> 01:03:29,040
Speaker 4: want to hear more, and I'm not ready to give

1115
01:03:29,080 --> 01:03:31,720
Speaker 4: up yet. As I went down some black Dahlia rabbit

1116
01:03:31,760 --> 01:03:34,960
Speaker 4: holes myself and all this talk about this doctor is

1117
01:03:35,000 --> 01:03:37,200
Speaker 4: bringing back all these memories and doron, I wanted to

1118
01:03:37,240 --> 01:03:40,280
Speaker 4: ask you. They had all this evidence, they did this

1119
01:03:40,360 --> 01:03:44,479
Speaker 4: wire tapping. The son, who's now an LAPD detective, gets

1120
01:03:44,480 --> 01:03:47,040
Speaker 4: this box full of pictures and Elizabeth in there.

1121
01:03:47,320 --> 01:03:48,200
Speaker 2: What happened to all that?

1122
01:03:48,520 --> 01:03:49,280
Speaker 3: Well, buckle up.

1123
01:03:49,480 --> 01:03:53,120
Speaker 7: The only reason that we know what doctor Hodes said

1124
01:03:53,240 --> 01:03:57,440
Speaker 7: was because the only thing remaining in the LAPD's files

1125
01:03:57,160 --> 01:03:59,720
Speaker 7: once the sun. By the way, let's go back for

1126
01:03:59,720 --> 01:04:03,720
Speaker 7: a second, okay. Steve Hodell, the son of doctor George Hodell,

1127
01:04:04,200 --> 01:04:08,200
Speaker 7: is a decorated lap D lieutenant. He becomes part of

1128
01:04:08,200 --> 01:04:11,760
Speaker 7: the District Attorney's office before his retirement. He is somebody

1129
01:04:11,800 --> 01:04:14,680
Speaker 7: that the city knows, that respects. He's a good man.

1130
01:04:15,320 --> 01:04:18,480
Speaker 7: This is a man that spends his life. He convicted

1131
01:04:18,520 --> 01:04:21,480
Speaker 7: three hundred cases something like that. Like this is not

1132
01:04:21,680 --> 01:04:24,880
Speaker 7: just like a weird side reporter who's into conspiracy theories.

1133
01:04:25,200 --> 01:04:27,400
Speaker 7: He gets this box upon the death of his father

1134
01:04:27,440 --> 01:04:28,880
Speaker 7: and always knew that he grew up in a weird

1135
01:04:28,880 --> 01:04:30,920
Speaker 7: house with a weird stuff, but he was by right.

1136
01:04:32,480 --> 01:04:33,680
Speaker 3: To only see this picture.

1137
01:04:33,760 --> 01:04:36,640
Speaker 7: That then triggers this, and then he begins to write

1138
01:04:36,680 --> 01:04:39,880
Speaker 7: this book because he begins looking into this black dahlia.

1139
01:04:39,920 --> 01:04:42,120
Speaker 7: He gets haunted by this. And there's a lot of

1140
01:04:42,160 --> 01:04:45,360
Speaker 7: controversy around this theory. But for me, as somebody who

1141
01:04:45,400 --> 01:04:48,520
Speaker 7: likes to put true crime conspiracy on the map, this

1142
01:04:48,560 --> 01:04:51,480
Speaker 7: gets really kind of nuts. So doctor Hoades in the

1143
01:04:51,480 --> 01:04:55,080
Speaker 7: transcript talks about that Secretary Ruth's faulding, right, just put

1144
01:04:55,080 --> 01:04:56,720
Speaker 7: a mental note on that, because we'll circle back into

1145
01:04:56,760 --> 01:04:57,280
Speaker 7: that in a second.

1146
01:04:57,480 --> 01:04:59,640
Speaker 2: Secretary Ruth, it's in my head, right.

1147
01:04:59,720 --> 01:05:03,960
Speaker 7: So now, while this is all going on, the actual

1148
01:05:04,080 --> 01:05:09,080
Speaker 7: killer is haunting the lapd and sending handwritten cards.

1149
01:05:10,280 --> 01:05:11,959
Speaker 3: And he not only sends the hendritten cards.

1150
01:05:12,680 --> 01:05:15,440
Speaker 7: When her body was found, her purse was missing, so

1151
01:05:15,480 --> 01:05:18,520
Speaker 7: he sends to the to the Ellie Times, the purse

1152
01:05:19,000 --> 01:05:24,160
Speaker 7: mediculously cleaned, with the address book, newspaper clippings, and all

1153
01:05:24,240 --> 01:05:27,200
Speaker 7: of her stuff, her you know, a shoe, her makeup compact,

1154
01:05:27,520 --> 01:05:31,040
Speaker 7: her red lipstick, you know, and the press keeps publishing

1155
01:05:31,040 --> 01:05:33,760
Speaker 7: the details before the detectives can even control the investigation.

1156
01:05:34,400 --> 01:05:37,560
Speaker 2: And deron was this going over a protracted amount of

1157
01:05:37,640 --> 01:05:40,400
Speaker 2: time or was it like one box, well, going.

1158
01:05:40,240 --> 01:05:44,040
Speaker 7: From nineteen forty seven really to nineteen nineteen fifties, like

1159
01:05:44,400 --> 01:05:45,800
Speaker 7: is the is the timeline?

1160
01:05:46,280 --> 01:05:47,760
Speaker 3: So you got to realize the three year thing.

1161
01:05:47,800 --> 01:05:50,840
Speaker 7: But this becomes global news and it's on the front

1162
01:05:50,840 --> 01:05:53,320
Speaker 7: page of every newspaper. It becomes a media obsession. It

1163
01:05:53,360 --> 01:05:56,840
Speaker 7: contaminates everything, and you know, again it's the dream of.

1164
01:05:56,760 --> 01:05:57,520
Speaker 3: This poor girl.

1165
01:05:57,880 --> 01:06:00,360
Speaker 7: But then she becomes something else and the news then

1166
01:06:00,400 --> 01:06:02,040
Speaker 7: says that she you know, like did she deserve it?

1167
01:06:02,080 --> 01:06:04,320
Speaker 7: But she nobody deserves that. Let's just be very clear.

1168
01:06:05,600 --> 01:06:07,400
Speaker 7: And by the way, there was never an arrest, so

1169
01:06:08,160 --> 01:06:12,000
Speaker 7: let's talk about that. Because the entire Kala case collapses

1170
01:06:12,080 --> 01:06:15,720
Speaker 7: in nineteen fifty the district attorney abruptly drops the investigation.

1171
01:06:15,920 --> 01:06:19,080
Speaker 7: The LAPD and the DA completely stop investigating the Black

1172
01:06:19,120 --> 01:06:19,960
Speaker 7: Dhalia altogether.

1173
01:06:21,200 --> 01:06:21,960
Speaker 3: Now let's take.

1174
01:06:21,840 --> 01:06:26,520
Speaker 7: This too, well, there was evidence, there was an entire investigation.

1175
01:06:26,960 --> 01:06:30,920
Speaker 7: It all disappeared, the files, the physical evidence, it just vanished.

1176
01:06:31,160 --> 01:06:34,480
Speaker 7: The quotings from the twenty four to seven wiretaps where

1177
01:06:34,560 --> 01:06:35,480
Speaker 7: they had him.

1178
01:06:35,320 --> 01:06:37,960
Speaker 3: Say what he said, gone, can.

1179
01:06:37,840 --> 01:06:42,160
Speaker 4: You repeat for our listeners what he said on the wiretap?

1180
01:06:43,640 --> 01:06:45,760
Speaker 3: The actual quote, Yes, I can let me.

1181
01:06:45,680 --> 01:06:46,720
Speaker 2: Just well, no, it's okay.

1182
01:06:46,880 --> 01:06:49,320
Speaker 4: He said something about like they're never gonna get me

1183
01:06:49,400 --> 01:06:51,760
Speaker 4: to admit that I killed the black Dahlia, something along

1184
01:06:51,840 --> 01:06:52,680
Speaker 4: those lines.

1185
01:06:52,600 --> 01:06:54,680
Speaker 3: Correct, and that you know that because she's dead. His

1186
01:06:54,720 --> 01:06:57,800
Speaker 3: secretary was dead, so she died of a drug overdose.

1187
01:06:58,200 --> 01:07:01,680
Speaker 7: So the actual quote was, you know, even if I

1188
01:07:01,800 --> 01:07:04,920
Speaker 7: killed the black Dahlia, they couldn't prove it now and

1189
01:07:05,000 --> 01:07:05,880
Speaker 7: they can't.

1190
01:07:05,600 --> 01:07:08,120
Speaker 3: Talk to my secretary anymore because she's dead.

1191
01:07:08,160 --> 01:07:11,840
Speaker 7: And she died of a sussed of a suspected overdose.

1192
01:07:11,920 --> 01:07:12,760
Speaker 3: He suspected.

1193
01:07:12,840 --> 01:07:16,480
Speaker 7: Look, it's not a legal con confession, but it's very chilling,

1194
01:07:16,480 --> 01:07:19,400
Speaker 7: and there's a pattern here between and his best friend

1195
01:07:19,800 --> 01:07:21,080
Speaker 7: man Ray and all of that.

1196
01:07:21,120 --> 01:07:23,080
Speaker 3: And by the way, Tamara.

1197
01:07:22,720 --> 01:07:26,200
Speaker 7: Hoades, who's the daughter who went to the police to

1198
01:07:26,200 --> 01:07:29,760
Speaker 7: begin with, she also implicated man Ray in photographing her

1199
01:07:29,800 --> 01:07:33,440
Speaker 7: as early in nude, as early as the age of twelve.

1200
01:07:34,200 --> 01:07:36,440
Speaker 3: So there is corroborating evidence on all sides.

1201
01:07:36,480 --> 01:07:41,160
Speaker 7: How could the LAPD and the DA completely stop this investigation,

1202
01:07:41,480 --> 01:07:43,000
Speaker 7: lock up the files and disappear.

1203
01:07:43,480 --> 01:07:45,200
Speaker 3: Is when Steve decides to.

1204
01:07:45,160 --> 01:07:48,800
Speaker 7: Investigate his father, he gets access through the DA's department

1205
01:07:48,840 --> 01:07:50,920
Speaker 7: and gets the box of all of this stuff. When

1206
01:07:50,920 --> 01:07:54,000
Speaker 7: he finally gets the LAPD to open the thing, it's

1207
01:07:54,040 --> 01:07:57,440
Speaker 7: all gone. And how do you lose three years of

1208
01:07:57,440 --> 01:07:58,760
Speaker 7: investigative evidence?

1209
01:07:58,960 --> 01:08:00,200
Speaker 2: Right?

1210
01:08:00,200 --> 01:08:03,280
Speaker 4: Well, it's very reminiscent of today with the Epstein files,

1211
01:08:03,360 --> 01:08:04,080
Speaker 4: right for a book.

1212
01:08:04,120 --> 01:08:05,080
Speaker 2: I mean, do you feel that.

1213
01:08:05,160 --> 01:08:09,000
Speaker 7: It's power and corruption covering up for itself for powerful people?

1214
01:08:09,320 --> 01:08:12,200
Speaker 7: You know, there is an argument here that Steve Hoades

1215
01:08:12,320 --> 01:08:14,720
Speaker 7: did this as a type of daddy dearest, you know, for.

1216
01:08:14,720 --> 01:08:16,120
Speaker 3: Being the terrible father.

1217
01:08:16,760 --> 01:08:19,720
Speaker 7: His book was called The Black Dahia Avenger, but he

1218
01:08:19,840 --> 01:08:21,800
Speaker 7: maintained still this day that his father may not have

1219
01:08:21,840 --> 01:08:23,960
Speaker 7: only killed Black Dahlia herself, but he might have killed

1220
01:08:24,000 --> 01:08:24,920
Speaker 7: dozens of other women.

1221
01:08:28,840 --> 01:08:31,599
Speaker 2: Yeah. I had the honor to to speak with Steve

1222
01:08:31,680 --> 01:08:36,160
Speaker 2: Hodell and yeah, he is fascinating.

1223
01:08:36,680 --> 01:08:39,360
Speaker 3: Hello, he is fascinating.

1224
01:08:39,479 --> 01:08:43,160
Speaker 2: And yes, Stephanie as well, that I mean went well

1225
01:08:43,160 --> 01:08:46,120
Speaker 2: down the rabbit hole. He is an unbelievably interesting guy

1226
01:08:46,240 --> 01:08:48,439
Speaker 2: and he has really compelling stuff.

1227
01:08:48,600 --> 01:08:51,040
Speaker 4: Very it's very reminiscent of what's happening right now, what

1228
01:08:51,120 --> 01:08:54,320
Speaker 4: we're experiencing a current day with you know files you

1229
01:08:54,320 --> 01:08:59,200
Speaker 4: know not being released and you know, abuse of children, you.

1230
01:08:59,280 --> 01:09:05,400
Speaker 7: Abusefu how look styles don't disappear, right, actual audio tapes, reels,

1231
01:09:06,280 --> 01:09:09,559
Speaker 7: you know, physical of the time, Right, they don't disappear.

1232
01:09:10,000 --> 01:09:13,640
Speaker 3: They were they were the advantaged. They took it and

1233
01:09:13,680 --> 01:09:14,600
Speaker 3: they destroyed it.

1234
01:09:14,640 --> 01:09:18,120
Speaker 7: Why because during those forty days, my assumption is too

1235
01:09:18,160 --> 01:09:22,800
Speaker 7: many people of power were implicated. Those parties were notorious.

1236
01:09:22,880 --> 01:09:27,960
Speaker 7: They were drug fueled debauchery. They were called orgies. There's

1237
01:09:28,040 --> 01:09:30,919
Speaker 7: an entire line of some of the most famous directors

1238
01:09:30,960 --> 01:09:32,840
Speaker 7: of the time had attended these parties.

1239
01:09:34,000 --> 01:09:36,920
Speaker 4: Right, So this is true crime tonight on iHeartRadio, we're

1240
01:09:36,920 --> 01:09:38,840
Speaker 4: talking true crime all the time. I'm body here with

1241
01:09:38,880 --> 01:09:42,320
Speaker 4: Courtney and Drown. Who's giving us the deats on the

1242
01:09:42,360 --> 01:09:44,320
Speaker 4: Black Dahlia? And if you want to know more and

1243
01:09:44,439 --> 01:09:47,599
Speaker 4: you want to dig deeper, we're suggesting maybe you check

1244
01:09:47,680 --> 01:09:52,200
Speaker 4: out The Black Dalli Avenger, the book apparently written by

1245
01:09:52,240 --> 01:09:56,280
Speaker 4: the Sun right or La Confidential Doron. But I understand

1246
01:09:56,280 --> 01:09:58,679
Speaker 4: you have another tale for us tonight. What do you got?

1247
01:09:59,280 --> 01:10:02,559
Speaker 2: Oh well, I heard, I don't remember anything about this one.

1248
01:10:02,760 --> 01:10:04,880
Speaker 7: Get in a time go into a time machine because

1249
01:10:04,880 --> 01:10:06,000
Speaker 7: we're going to head to the nineties.

1250
01:10:07,680 --> 01:10:10,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, now we're talking and we're gonna go east. So

1251
01:10:11,400 --> 01:10:12,600
Speaker 3: think New York City.

1252
01:10:12,760 --> 01:10:14,800
Speaker 7: This is a case that became a cultural obsession, and

1253
01:10:14,840 --> 01:10:18,240
Speaker 7: it became a cultural obsession in real time. I'm talking

1254
01:10:18,240 --> 01:10:20,360
Speaker 7: about the Party Monster murder. And for those that don't

1255
01:10:20,360 --> 01:10:22,120
Speaker 7: know what this is, this was set in the mid

1256
01:10:22,160 --> 01:10:25,920
Speaker 7: nineteen nineties. There was a boy with stars in his

1257
01:10:26,000 --> 01:10:28,639
Speaker 7: eyes who arrived in New York City on a Greyhound

1258
01:10:28,720 --> 01:10:31,360
Speaker 7: bus with a suitcase. And his name was Michael Alec

1259
01:10:32,520 --> 01:10:34,559
Speaker 7: and he became the face of the club kids scene.

1260
01:10:35,080 --> 01:10:37,800
Speaker 7: It was a movement, It was an explosion that was

1261
01:10:37,800 --> 01:10:42,040
Speaker 7: based on excess Foreman's fame at any cost, you know

1262
01:10:42,080 --> 01:10:46,639
Speaker 7: when it was it was it was he became Andy

1263
01:10:46,680 --> 01:10:49,880
Speaker 7: Warhol factory, done on a grand scale in a city

1264
01:10:50,439 --> 01:10:52,639
Speaker 7: that had been reeling after the death of the pop

1265
01:10:52,800 --> 01:10:57,920
Speaker 7: art and a crime happened, and the death of Andre

1266
01:10:58,040 --> 01:11:02,200
Speaker 7: Melendez known as Angel was really murdered. Crime didn't just

1267
01:11:02,240 --> 01:11:06,200
Speaker 7: expose them con though, it exposed an entire era of celebrity, drugs,

1268
01:11:06,240 --> 01:11:08,680
Speaker 7: media exploitation, and moral collapse.

1269
01:11:08,520 --> 01:11:11,720
Speaker 3: Similar to the Black Lint. Yeah yeah, we've got a theme.

1270
01:11:11,800 --> 01:11:12,519
Speaker 2: We've got a theme.

1271
01:11:13,000 --> 01:11:15,360
Speaker 3: That's why went theme. And it wasn't just a murder

1272
01:11:15,400 --> 01:11:16,160
Speaker 3: hero like this is not.

1273
01:11:16,280 --> 01:11:18,880
Speaker 7: This was an implosion of an entire scene and it's

1274
01:11:18,960 --> 01:11:22,599
Speaker 7: one that actually sent queer identity back into the closet

1275
01:11:22,640 --> 01:11:23,799
Speaker 7: for almost twenty years.

1276
01:11:24,360 --> 01:11:24,839
Speaker 3: Wow.

1277
01:11:25,200 --> 01:11:27,200
Speaker 5: Really, And I can I jump in real quick because

1278
01:11:27,280 --> 01:11:29,040
Speaker 5: I think maybe some people when they hit the word

1279
01:11:29,080 --> 01:11:31,360
Speaker 5: club kid, they may not know exactly what that is like.

1280
01:11:31,479 --> 01:11:34,080
Speaker 5: In New York at that time period, there were all

1281
01:11:34,120 --> 01:11:38,080
Speaker 5: of these decade and beautiful, large nightclubs and spaces, and

1282
01:11:38,160 --> 01:11:39,800
Speaker 5: a lot of the people that would go to these

1283
01:11:39,800 --> 01:11:44,400
Speaker 5: clubs they had these gorgeous outfits or costumes and it

1284
01:11:44,479 --> 01:11:45,879
Speaker 5: was a really big scene.

1285
01:11:45,960 --> 01:11:49,360
Speaker 3: And am I describing it accurately? Drawn? Is that more? Like? Yeah?

1286
01:11:49,360 --> 01:11:51,360
Speaker 7: Because from you know, from the late eighties early to

1287
01:11:51,400 --> 01:11:54,000
Speaker 7: the mid nineties, New York was, you know, undergoing the

1288
01:11:54,479 --> 01:11:57,640
Speaker 7: post the mid aides like put crisis, right, it was

1289
01:11:57,680 --> 01:11:58,479
Speaker 7: pre nine to eleven.

1290
01:11:59,040 --> 01:12:00,440
Speaker 3: Clubs were the episoder.

1291
01:12:00,840 --> 01:12:04,360
Speaker 7: Yeah, and nightlife was the definition of identity.

1292
01:12:04,360 --> 01:12:06,960
Speaker 3: It was a way of escaping right now. Two things. Now,

1293
01:12:06,960 --> 01:12:07,400
Speaker 3: this is a.

1294
01:12:07,320 --> 01:12:10,479
Speaker 7: Controversial opinion that I'm going to have, but you were

1295
01:12:10,479 --> 01:12:17,000
Speaker 7: also in a place where illness was people were terrified

1296
01:12:17,000 --> 01:12:19,040
Speaker 7: of it, right, and you didn't want to look ill.

1297
01:12:19,720 --> 01:12:24,960
Speaker 7: So the idea of changing your visual to become art

1298
01:12:25,560 --> 01:12:28,400
Speaker 7: was a type of mask. And this is where this

1299
01:12:29,240 --> 01:12:33,680
Speaker 7: overt performance art was born and it became identity. The

1300
01:12:33,680 --> 01:12:37,519
Speaker 7: club kids weren't just partiers, they were branding themselves. You know,

1301
01:12:37,560 --> 01:12:40,639
Speaker 7: these were Lady Gaga's little monsters before while she was.

1302
01:12:40,560 --> 01:12:41,240
Speaker 3: Still a child.

1303
01:12:41,520 --> 01:12:45,439
Speaker 7: This was outrageous costumes, gender bending performances like currency. You know,

1304
01:12:45,479 --> 01:12:47,840
Speaker 7: this was fame. It mattered more than anything else. It

1305
01:12:47,840 --> 01:12:51,479
Speaker 7: was the fifteen minutes that Warhol promised, and it was.

1306
01:12:52,200 --> 01:12:55,679
Speaker 7: It was, and it exploded and it resonated with everybody

1307
01:12:55,720 --> 01:12:58,960
Speaker 7: of that generation because it also was gender expression and

1308
01:12:59,479 --> 01:13:02,640
Speaker 7: self in that reinvention thrown into a blender like this was.

1309
01:13:02,960 --> 01:13:04,760
Speaker 7: This is how, this is everything that we deal with

1310
01:13:04,800 --> 01:13:07,559
Speaker 7: now with identity of pronouns and things started there.

1311
01:13:08,520 --> 01:13:12,240
Speaker 4: So who were Michael and Angel to each other before

1312
01:13:12,720 --> 01:13:13,479
Speaker 4: this went sour?

1313
01:13:14,080 --> 01:13:16,000
Speaker 3: Okay? Well, like I said, Michael came on of us.

1314
01:13:16,000 --> 01:13:18,840
Speaker 7: He was a small town kid who from Bloomington, Indiana,

1315
01:13:19,479 --> 01:13:23,280
Speaker 7: and he arrived to this metropolitan city and he reinvented himself.

1316
01:13:23,880 --> 01:13:25,559
Speaker 3: You know, he literally built a movement.

1317
01:13:25,600 --> 01:13:28,400
Speaker 7: He took an army of gender bending, non conforming living

1318
01:13:28,439 --> 01:13:32,720
Speaker 7: performance artists and put them all under this tutelage of

1319
01:13:32,760 --> 01:13:35,280
Speaker 7: the definition of a club kid. And he crowned himself

1320
01:13:35,360 --> 01:13:37,799
Speaker 7: king of the New York club kids. He was a promoter,

1321
01:13:37,960 --> 01:13:40,280
Speaker 7: he was a provocator. He was literally a ring master.

1322
01:13:40,760 --> 01:13:44,680
Speaker 7: But he was the genius at understanding spectacle instinctively. And

1323
01:13:44,720 --> 01:13:46,320
Speaker 7: he didn't want to just be seen. He wanted to

1324
01:13:46,320 --> 01:13:48,439
Speaker 7: dominate for attention. And as his fame.

1325
01:13:48,280 --> 01:13:49,840
Speaker 3: Grew, so does ego.

1326
01:13:50,600 --> 01:13:53,719
Speaker 7: Drugs entered it, cruelty entered it, and for a time

1327
01:13:54,120 --> 01:13:56,519
Speaker 7: he dominated the world's largest city and made a fortune

1328
01:13:56,560 --> 01:13:59,800
Speaker 7: to hang it. So now you're talking big money and

1329
01:14:00,000 --> 01:14:03,200
Speaker 7: Angel Melendez. So in the army of people, he created

1330
01:14:03,200 --> 01:14:08,519
Speaker 7: a hierarchy, and this hierarchy of sort of elite groups.

1331
01:14:09,280 --> 01:14:12,559
Speaker 7: Angel was considered a wannab He was a pseudo drug dealer, hanger.

1332
01:14:12,600 --> 01:14:16,479
Speaker 7: Honor Michael dismissively called him this wannabe thing. And he's

1333
01:14:16,479 --> 01:14:18,200
Speaker 7: also somebody that kind of knew too much because he

1334
01:14:18,240 --> 01:14:20,960
Speaker 7: was on the inside. He was vollowed, old, he was messy,

1335
01:14:21,000 --> 01:14:22,880
Speaker 7: you know. You know, it was increasingly seen as a

1336
01:14:22,920 --> 01:14:24,960
Speaker 7: liability within the club kid world.

1337
01:14:25,400 --> 01:14:28,000
Speaker 3: And their relationship wasn't fueled just by drugs, but it was.

1338
01:14:27,960 --> 01:14:31,559
Speaker 7: Also like a power imbalance. And Angel was straight and

1339
01:14:31,720 --> 01:14:33,840
Speaker 7: he was in a queer world. So there is a

1340
01:14:33,920 --> 01:14:37,719
Speaker 7: mutual exploitation here that happens. So this wasn't really friendship,

1341
01:14:37,760 --> 01:14:40,000
Speaker 7: it was really more dependency.

1342
01:14:40,040 --> 01:14:42,839
Speaker 3: And he was violently murdered.

1343
01:14:43,600 --> 01:14:44,839
Speaker 2: So Angel was murdered.

1344
01:14:45,160 --> 01:14:48,760
Speaker 3: Angel was murdered. So here's where the crime comes in.

1345
01:14:49,000 --> 01:14:53,519
Speaker 7: After setting that whole like space, Yeah, it's March nineteen

1346
01:14:53,560 --> 01:14:56,559
Speaker 7: ninety six, and during an argument in Michael Alec's apartment,

1347
01:14:57,200 --> 01:15:01,360
Speaker 7: Angel is beaten with a hammer and strength. Michael Allig

1348
01:15:01,400 --> 01:15:04,200
Speaker 7: and his then roommate Robert Riggs, who was known as Freeze.

1349
01:15:04,200 --> 01:15:08,160
Speaker 7: Every club kid had a suitable handle in a sort

1350
01:15:08,160 --> 01:15:10,400
Speaker 7: of like their drag name if you understand drag culture.

1351
01:15:11,200 --> 01:15:14,680
Speaker 7: They kill him and it was violent and personal and

1352
01:15:14,800 --> 01:15:17,479
Speaker 7: chaotic and deeply drug fueled.

1353
01:15:17,880 --> 01:15:21,400
Speaker 3: This wasn't like a premeditated genius. This was just reckless brutality.

1354
01:15:22,040 --> 01:15:25,000
Speaker 7: And when they realized what they did and they came

1355
01:15:25,080 --> 01:15:29,559
Speaker 7: down off of this, they lost their minds both and

1356
01:15:29,640 --> 01:15:34,160
Speaker 7: they dismembered his body and it's rumored that they injected

1357
01:15:34,160 --> 01:15:37,439
Speaker 7: it with dreno. They put it in a box and

1358
01:15:37,479 --> 01:15:40,760
Speaker 7: they dropped that box into the Hudson River. And what

1359
01:15:40,920 --> 01:15:44,479
Speaker 7: makes this case so much even more disturbing is that

1360
01:15:44,479 --> 01:15:48,639
Speaker 7: they didn't hide it. They kept partying, and they bragged

1361
01:15:48,680 --> 01:15:53,400
Speaker 7: about it, and they joked about it. And now on

1362
01:15:53,439 --> 01:15:55,120
Speaker 7: a personal note, I was living in this world at

1363
01:15:55,160 --> 01:15:57,479
Speaker 7: the time. I was part of this club kid movement.

1364
01:15:57,479 --> 01:15:59,160
Speaker 7: I knew a thousand of these club kids. I knew

1365
01:15:59,200 --> 01:16:01,519
Speaker 7: the different faction of them. I knew the fashion version,

1366
01:16:01,560 --> 01:16:04,679
Speaker 7: the clown version, the drag version. And we were young,

1367
01:16:04,840 --> 01:16:08,000
Speaker 7: and this was at a time when again we were

1368
01:16:08,040 --> 01:16:10,400
Speaker 7: losing an entire generation of people around us.

1369
01:16:10,439 --> 01:16:13,400
Speaker 3: So this was a way of sort of escaping ape

1370
01:16:13,600 --> 01:16:14,080
Speaker 3: of course.

1371
01:16:14,120 --> 01:16:17,719
Speaker 7: And so there was this this this debauchery that existed

1372
01:16:17,800 --> 01:16:19,800
Speaker 7: in the world. And this all took place within the

1373
01:16:19,880 --> 01:16:24,960
Speaker 7: nightclubs of like Limelight, you know, Tunnel Palladium USA. These

1374
01:16:24,960 --> 01:16:27,640
Speaker 7: were mega clubs, millions and millions of dollars and they

1375
01:16:27,680 --> 01:16:30,920
Speaker 7: were all run by one man, Peter Geisher. And one

1376
01:16:30,960 --> 01:16:33,599
Speaker 7: of the biggest parties was it was Wednesday night that

1377
01:16:33,640 --> 01:16:35,719
Speaker 7: Michael had lined and it was called Disco two thousand

1378
01:16:35,800 --> 01:16:37,639
Speaker 7: and it was inside the Limelight, which, by the way,

1379
01:16:37,640 --> 01:16:38,920
Speaker 7: if you don't know what the Limelight is, it was

1380
01:16:38,960 --> 01:16:42,800
Speaker 7: a former church, a massive cathedral that was turned into

1381
01:16:42,800 --> 01:16:46,040
Speaker 7: a night life pantheon. It was also a lot of

1382
01:16:46,080 --> 01:16:47,920
Speaker 7: people attributed it to the to the birth of rave

1383
01:16:47,960 --> 01:16:48,759
Speaker 7: and techno music.

1384
01:16:49,880 --> 01:16:53,240
Speaker 3: So it was actually there. It's a cool space because

1385
01:16:52,400 --> 01:16:57,160
Speaker 3: it hurt. Yeah, it looks like a church and you're

1386
01:16:57,200 --> 01:16:57,639
Speaker 3: in a church.

1387
01:16:57,640 --> 01:16:59,120
Speaker 7: And not only that, it had the rectory and it

1388
01:16:59,160 --> 01:17:01,160
Speaker 7: had where the nuns, so you can go into different

1389
01:17:01,240 --> 01:17:02,960
Speaker 7: rooms and lose yourself in different bars.

1390
01:17:03,000 --> 01:17:04,760
Speaker 3: I mean it was a maze. I want Tom.

1391
01:17:05,439 --> 01:17:09,040
Speaker 7: So he decides, after murdering Angel, he throws a party

1392
01:17:09,080 --> 01:17:11,880
Speaker 7: called Blood Feast, which is based on the theme of

1393
01:17:11,880 --> 01:17:15,439
Speaker 7: the nineteen seventies like Gore horror move So even in

1394
01:17:15,479 --> 01:17:17,920
Speaker 7: the flyers that they handed out, it was pictures of

1395
01:17:18,000 --> 01:17:22,680
Speaker 7: like club kids all disembodied. The theme inside Limelight was

1396
01:17:22,680 --> 01:17:27,439
Speaker 7: trans It was decorated in mannequin limbs and you know,

1397
01:17:27,960 --> 01:17:31,120
Speaker 7: headless corpses, and everybody dressed the part because everything was

1398
01:17:31,120 --> 01:17:33,120
Speaker 7: done in theme, and everything was done like a circus.

1399
01:17:33,400 --> 01:17:35,160
Speaker 3: So every one of the club kids were told to

1400
01:17:35,200 --> 01:17:36,080
Speaker 3: come in in Gore.

1401
01:17:36,600 --> 01:17:41,080
Speaker 2: So this happened after the murders. Were they not caught. Okay,

1402
01:17:41,400 --> 01:17:42,200
Speaker 2: I know nothing about that.

1403
01:17:42,280 --> 01:17:44,639
Speaker 3: Let's talk about corruption in New York.

1404
01:17:44,680 --> 01:17:50,280
Speaker 7: What happens when a pseudo drug dealer, potentially queer guy disappears.

1405
01:17:50,280 --> 01:17:52,480
Speaker 2: Nothing nobody cares.

1406
01:17:53,880 --> 01:17:56,559
Speaker 7: So it wasn't really being investigated, and it was only

1407
01:17:56,960 --> 01:18:02,800
Speaker 7: Angel's own family that continued to fight for something. But

1408
01:18:03,000 --> 01:18:07,280
Speaker 7: within the scene, as club kids, we started pieces of

1409
01:18:07,320 --> 01:18:10,639
Speaker 7: the puzzle together, oh so much so that a house

1410
01:18:10,800 --> 01:18:13,519
Speaker 7: track was released and in the vocals it kept saying

1411
01:18:13,800 --> 01:18:14,559
Speaker 7: Michael did it.

1412
01:18:16,200 --> 01:18:18,280
Speaker 3: In one of the songs, we actually said that, Oh

1413
01:18:18,320 --> 01:18:19,160
Speaker 3: my gosh.

1414
01:18:18,840 --> 01:18:20,200
Speaker 2: I just got chills.

1415
01:18:20,640 --> 01:18:22,799
Speaker 3: I didn't know about the song. That's wild.

1416
01:18:23,439 --> 01:18:26,280
Speaker 4: Well, stick around. I kind of want to finish this conversation.

1417
01:18:26,360 --> 01:18:29,360
Speaker 4: Doron You're not going anywhere. We're going to continue to

1418
01:18:29,439 --> 01:18:32,000
Speaker 4: keep talking to about the club kid murders with pop

1419
01:18:32,000 --> 01:18:34,439
Speaker 4: culture expert Dorna Fear. Keep it right here at True

1420
01:18:34,439 --> 01:18:37,439
Speaker 4: Crime Tonight, We're talking true crime all the time.

1421
01:18:47,920 --> 01:18:50,920
Speaker 2: Welcome back to True Crime Tonight. We're on iHeartRadio and

1422
01:18:50,960 --> 01:18:54,679
Speaker 2: we are talking true crime all the time. I'm Courtney Armstrong.

1423
01:18:54,880 --> 01:18:57,960
Speaker 2: I'm here with crime analyst Body Movin, and we are

1424
01:18:58,160 --> 01:19:02,799
Speaker 2: joined by the most riveting storyteller ever, pop culture expert

1425
01:19:02,960 --> 01:19:07,320
Speaker 2: Doron O Fear. Listen, don't forget. If you've missed any

1426
01:19:07,320 --> 01:19:10,040
Speaker 2: part of the show, catch us on the podcast. You

1427
01:19:10,080 --> 01:19:12,000
Speaker 2: can call us any time. We're at eighty to eighty

1428
01:19:12,000 --> 01:19:15,040
Speaker 2: three to one Crime or get with us on socials

1429
01:19:15,360 --> 01:19:18,439
Speaker 2: at True Crime Tonight show on TikTok and Instagram and

1430
01:19:18,479 --> 01:19:21,760
Speaker 2: True Crimesnight on Facebook. But right now, if you're just

1431
01:19:21,840 --> 01:19:26,720
Speaker 2: joining us, we are diving back into a crime that

1432
01:19:26,800 --> 01:19:30,519
Speaker 2: Doran has been honestly schooling us about, and it happened

1433
01:19:30,560 --> 01:19:34,200
Speaker 2: in the nineteen nineties in New York and is known

1434
01:19:34,280 --> 01:19:39,559
Speaker 2: as the Party excuse me, the Party Monster murder. And

1435
01:19:40,040 --> 01:19:42,759
Speaker 2: Doran tell us what was going on at this time

1436
01:19:43,320 --> 01:19:45,360
Speaker 2: with the media, like what was happening.

1437
01:19:45,800 --> 01:19:48,080
Speaker 7: So what's interesting about this is that the media largerly

1438
01:19:48,120 --> 01:19:52,320
Speaker 7: ignored this Angel's family, his brothers, his sister is, his mom,

1439
01:19:52,320 --> 01:19:55,200
Speaker 7: and his dad knew that something had gone wrong and

1440
01:19:55,240 --> 01:19:57,519
Speaker 7: they started to put a posters of Angel all over

1441
01:19:57,560 --> 01:19:57,920
Speaker 7: the city.

1442
01:19:58,280 --> 01:20:00,679
Speaker 3: Now, just so you know, the to costumes.

1443
01:20:00,680 --> 01:20:03,519
Speaker 7: When it comes to the visuals, Angel Melendez entered the

1444
01:20:03,560 --> 01:20:07,280
Speaker 7: world of the club kids visually by wearing huge white

1445
01:20:07,320 --> 01:20:10,960
Speaker 7: feathered angel wings. So he would always be head to

1446
01:20:10,960 --> 01:20:13,120
Speaker 7: toe in white with these big angel wings, and everywhere

1447
01:20:13,120 --> 01:20:14,559
Speaker 7: he went he went in these angel wings.

1448
01:20:14,560 --> 01:20:15,840
Speaker 3: So that's another reason why his name.

1449
01:20:15,880 --> 01:20:18,960
Speaker 7: The moniker became Angel, and the club kids all had

1450
01:20:18,960 --> 01:20:22,200
Speaker 7: these monikers of all different kind of you know, various

1451
01:20:22,240 --> 01:20:26,439
Speaker 7: named Walt Paper and really my you know living in

1452
01:20:26,520 --> 01:20:28,360
Speaker 7: at the time. The person, why I actually think is

1453
01:20:28,400 --> 01:20:30,000
Speaker 7: the true club King of the club Kids is a

1454
01:20:30,000 --> 01:20:33,000
Speaker 7: man named James Saint James, who you know, I'm going

1455
01:20:33,040 --> 01:20:34,759
Speaker 7: to give the plug to here because he actually wrote

1456
01:20:34,760 --> 01:20:37,200
Speaker 7: the book dis Go Bloodbath, which is the story.

1457
01:20:36,880 --> 01:20:39,040
Speaker 3: Of this because him and Michael Aleid were best friends.

1458
01:20:39,600 --> 01:20:42,560
Speaker 7: And when the scene started to realize that Angel was

1459
01:20:42,640 --> 01:20:46,880
Speaker 7: missing and Angel was dead, it was like we knew

1460
01:20:47,479 --> 01:20:49,240
Speaker 7: that Michael Aalad had killed him.

1461
01:20:49,560 --> 01:20:51,479
Speaker 3: We knew that Freeze had something to do with it.

1462
01:20:51,520 --> 01:20:53,559
Speaker 7: We knew that his behavior had gone to the point

1463
01:20:53,560 --> 01:20:55,559
Speaker 7: that he was about to destroy an entire world, an

1464
01:20:55,720 --> 01:20:59,479
Speaker 7: entire scene. That he had built an empire that defined

1465
01:20:59,520 --> 01:21:02,600
Speaker 7: an entire generation in New York City, and that empire

1466
01:21:02,840 --> 01:21:03,799
Speaker 7: extended outwards.

1467
01:21:04,200 --> 01:21:05,360
Speaker 3: Because the club Kids were on the.

1468
01:21:05,280 --> 01:21:07,360
Speaker 7: Front page of New York Magazine, they were on the

1469
01:21:07,400 --> 01:21:10,200
Speaker 7: front page of The Village Voice. They were consistently being

1470
01:21:10,280 --> 01:21:15,960
Speaker 7: branded as as fashion icons. The club Kids were the

1471
01:21:15,960 --> 01:21:20,080
Speaker 7: modern day influencers before internet existed, and they held each one.

1472
01:21:20,360 --> 01:21:24,040
Speaker 7: Not only Michael wielded a ton of power. Everything was

1473
01:21:24,120 --> 01:21:27,280
Speaker 7: laid out for them. Every hotel, every restaurant, if the

1474
01:21:27,280 --> 01:21:30,040
Speaker 7: club kids showed up, it was a party and you

1475
01:21:30,120 --> 01:21:31,799
Speaker 7: got head billing.

1476
01:21:32,479 --> 01:21:36,759
Speaker 2: Oh, because then they would bring with them came the press, attention,

1477
01:21:37,160 --> 01:21:39,439
Speaker 2: and the publicity for the Actisosophers.

1478
01:21:39,960 --> 01:21:42,920
Speaker 7: What Michael allc did was he took the idea of

1479
01:21:42,960 --> 01:21:45,840
Speaker 7: fame and celebrity and made it attainable to anybody as

1480
01:21:45,840 --> 01:21:48,920
Speaker 7: long as you created yourself a look unique.

1481
01:21:48,680 --> 01:21:51,000
Speaker 2: Enough to be like spectacular.

1482
01:21:50,439 --> 01:21:52,559
Speaker 7: And your spectacular and it didn't matter what you looked

1483
01:21:52,600 --> 01:21:54,679
Speaker 7: like you known't. It wasn't about weight, it wasn't about

1484
01:21:55,439 --> 01:21:58,639
Speaker 7: love beauty. It was about self expression, which is everything

1485
01:21:58,680 --> 01:22:01,519
Speaker 7: that this identity movement has now. But this was done

1486
01:22:01,640 --> 01:22:04,960
Speaker 7: organically and it was done with a megaphone because of

1487
01:22:05,000 --> 01:22:08,519
Speaker 7: the era that we were in now. Heraldo he had

1488
01:22:08,560 --> 01:22:11,479
Speaker 7: a daytime talk show that was hugely popular. He put

1489
01:22:11,560 --> 01:22:14,040
Speaker 7: the club kids on it with some of their parents,

1490
01:22:14,360 --> 01:22:16,200
Speaker 7: and again some of these club kids were wealthy Upper

1491
01:22:16,240 --> 01:22:16,879
Speaker 7: East Siders.

1492
01:22:16,880 --> 01:22:17,760
Speaker 3: It was a mix.

1493
01:22:17,800 --> 01:22:20,000
Speaker 7: It was a mix of you know, street denizens and

1494
01:22:20,080 --> 01:22:22,280
Speaker 7: the ultra rich. But nobody knew because you were dressed

1495
01:22:22,320 --> 01:22:25,880
Speaker 7: as a character. When that episode aired at four pm,

1496
01:22:25,920 --> 01:22:29,000
Speaker 7: across the entire country, it was lit like a fire

1497
01:22:29,640 --> 01:22:32,439
Speaker 7: and in a matter of three months, buses from all

1498
01:22:32,479 --> 01:22:35,720
Speaker 7: over America were arriving in New York City filled with

1499
01:22:35,800 --> 01:22:39,120
Speaker 7: kids who had seen that episode had either run away

1500
01:22:39,120 --> 01:22:41,360
Speaker 7: from home, dropped out of college and decided to come

1501
01:22:41,360 --> 01:22:42,519
Speaker 7: to New York City to be a part of this

1502
01:22:42,560 --> 01:22:43,240
Speaker 7: club kid movement.

1503
01:22:43,240 --> 01:22:44,880
Speaker 3: Wow, you're talking thousands.

1504
01:22:45,560 --> 01:22:47,920
Speaker 7: And when they arrived, they were all going to the

1505
01:22:47,960 --> 01:22:51,799
Speaker 7: club dressed up, announcing themselves as you know, I'm poison ivy.

1506
01:22:51,840 --> 01:22:54,519
Speaker 7: You know it was, And they were all taken in

1507
01:22:54,520 --> 01:22:57,200
Speaker 7: into these sort of counter surfing apartments.

1508
01:22:57,240 --> 01:22:58,759
Speaker 3: Everybody adopted somebody.

1509
01:22:59,040 --> 01:23:00,760
Speaker 7: It sort of the definition of sort of the gay

1510
01:23:00,840 --> 01:23:03,639
Speaker 7: queer family and the mothers of the houses.

1511
01:23:03,720 --> 01:23:05,320
Speaker 3: This is a very similar.

1512
01:23:05,040 --> 01:23:07,720
Speaker 7: Vibe that's happening in this city at the time. And

1513
01:23:07,760 --> 01:23:11,200
Speaker 7: this so the rumor spread about the death. It was

1514
01:23:11,240 --> 01:23:15,080
Speaker 7: confirmed when a body washes off on the shores of

1515
01:23:15,080 --> 01:23:17,920
Speaker 7: Staten Island in a box and now the police had

1516
01:23:17,960 --> 01:23:20,639
Speaker 7: no choice. The media was like, a body shows up

1517
01:23:20,760 --> 01:23:25,320
Speaker 7: and it's identified as the body of Angel Melendez, and

1518
01:23:25,720 --> 01:23:28,720
Speaker 7: Michael gets wind of this and he takes off.

1519
01:23:28,840 --> 01:23:31,759
Speaker 3: He flees New York and a nation wide manhunt happens.

1520
01:23:32,400 --> 01:23:35,600
Speaker 7: The club kids begin to tell their story of what

1521
01:23:35,640 --> 01:23:38,719
Speaker 7: they had heard, what had been admitted to them. He

1522
01:23:38,920 --> 01:23:43,320
Speaker 7: was finally arrested, he confessed, He was convicted of manslaughter.

1523
01:23:43,840 --> 01:23:46,240
Speaker 7: He was sentenced to ten to twenty years. He was

1524
01:23:46,240 --> 01:23:48,720
Speaker 7: there the whole twenty years, and the king of the

1525
01:23:48,720 --> 01:23:50,679
Speaker 7: party scene ends up in not only in a prison

1526
01:23:50,680 --> 01:23:54,840
Speaker 7: cell detoxing from faban drugs, he effectively.

1527
01:23:54,240 --> 01:24:00,639
Speaker 3: Destroyed an entire movement overnight. Wow Jiuliani was New York.

1528
01:24:01,160 --> 01:24:04,519
Speaker 7: We put the city that never sleeps to sleep. Because

1529
01:24:04,560 --> 01:24:07,360
Speaker 7: these nightlife venues were open twenty four seven. You could

1530
01:24:07,400 --> 01:24:08,800
Speaker 7: go in at nine pm at night and not leave

1531
01:24:08,800 --> 01:24:10,439
Speaker 7: for three days, kind of.

1532
01:24:10,360 --> 01:24:12,280
Speaker 2: Like out here where I live. Yeah, it was a.

1533
01:24:12,200 --> 01:24:15,040
Speaker 3: Different time, and it put the city that never sleeps

1534
01:24:15,080 --> 01:24:15,360
Speaker 3: to sleep.

1535
01:24:15,360 --> 01:24:18,280
Speaker 7: It's a really crazy thing, and it was so big

1536
01:24:18,320 --> 01:24:20,519
Speaker 7: at the time. And this wasn't just about Michael. This

1537
01:24:20,560 --> 01:24:22,519
Speaker 7: was about the enablers and the clubs and the media

1538
01:24:22,560 --> 01:24:24,720
Speaker 7: and the promoters and the audiences. It was everything all

1539
01:24:24,720 --> 01:24:27,519
Speaker 7: in one in a vacuum. And it was a culture

1540
01:24:27,520 --> 01:24:31,040
Speaker 7: that was addicted by spectacle. And when the media finally

1541
01:24:31,240 --> 01:24:34,360
Speaker 7: told the story, they reframed The story is that you know,

1542
01:24:34,439 --> 01:24:36,800
Speaker 7: we were freaks. You know that the freaks came out

1543
01:24:36,840 --> 01:24:40,519
Speaker 7: at night and they jumped on that and it effectively

1544
01:24:40,520 --> 01:24:42,200
Speaker 7: what I mean by putting it back in the closet,

1545
01:24:42,280 --> 01:24:47,479
Speaker 7: it forced that identity movement to take off the makeup.

1546
01:24:48,000 --> 01:24:51,120
Speaker 4: Right, you speak like you you know a lot about this.

1547
01:24:51,240 --> 01:24:53,720
Speaker 4: Do you have personal knowledge of these guys.

1548
01:24:55,200 --> 01:25:01,639
Speaker 7: Sonally separated from murders. It wasn't only Kunanan. This happened before.

1549
01:25:01,840 --> 01:25:03,280
Speaker 7: This was when I was still in New York. So

1550
01:25:03,360 --> 01:25:05,400
Speaker 7: in New York, by the time I was fifteen years old,

1551
01:25:05,400 --> 01:25:07,360
Speaker 7: I was already going to the night clubs. And you

1552
01:25:07,439 --> 01:25:09,320
Speaker 7: got to remember that the age, the drinking age wasn't

1553
01:25:09,320 --> 01:25:11,679
Speaker 7: twenty one yet, it was eighteen, so which effectively allowed

1554
01:25:11,720 --> 01:25:14,679
Speaker 7: us in front clubs of fourteen fifteen, and club kids

1555
01:25:14,680 --> 01:25:15,840
Speaker 7: were the actual definition.

1556
01:25:16,280 --> 01:25:19,040
Speaker 3: We would sit on the bars and be notoriously terrible

1557
01:25:19,240 --> 01:25:21,320
Speaker 3: and take over and run them up.

1558
01:25:21,360 --> 01:25:25,960
Speaker 7: And it was the fust, and it was emerging straight

1559
01:25:26,000 --> 01:25:28,960
Speaker 7: and gay and rich and poor, and suddenly all of

1560
01:25:29,000 --> 01:25:32,600
Speaker 7: this exuberance and this creativity. You know, I was a

1561
01:25:32,640 --> 01:25:34,559
Speaker 7: door person. I used to run the door to various

1562
01:25:34,600 --> 01:25:37,200
Speaker 7: clubs all throughout New York and in Miami. That's you

1563
01:25:37,240 --> 01:25:40,240
Speaker 7: know again, how I met and Lid in Miami. From

1564
01:25:40,280 --> 01:25:41,080
Speaker 7: a previous.

1565
01:25:40,760 --> 01:25:42,840
Speaker 2: Episode, Yeah, Andrew Knonogy Jason.

1566
01:25:43,000 --> 01:25:46,360
Speaker 3: You know, did you have a name that you used

1567
01:25:46,439 --> 01:25:47,160
Speaker 3: or the same name.

1568
01:25:47,240 --> 01:25:48,720
Speaker 7: Well, it was Derawn, but it was spelled to you

1569
01:25:48,840 --> 01:25:51,519
Speaker 7: our ah and I was coined that name and given

1570
01:25:51,600 --> 01:25:51,960
Speaker 7: that name.

1571
01:25:52,080 --> 01:25:53,000
Speaker 2: Are you kidding me?

1572
01:25:53,160 --> 01:25:53,360
Speaker 3: Yeah?

1573
01:25:53,400 --> 01:25:55,519
Speaker 7: By like my father of the House, which is another

1574
01:25:55,720 --> 01:25:57,200
Speaker 7: famous club kid. It was on the cover of New

1575
01:25:57,240 --> 01:26:00,439
Speaker 7: York magazine named Michael Tron And you know, a lot

1576
01:26:00,439 --> 01:26:03,080
Speaker 7: of what's funny is is that Michael Aleg used to

1577
01:26:03,080 --> 01:26:05,360
Speaker 7: throw these outlaw parties where he would take over at

1578
01:26:05,360 --> 01:26:07,880
Speaker 7: midnight without anybody knowing he would. Thousands of people would

1579
01:26:07,880 --> 01:26:10,200
Speaker 7: show up and take over a burger in Times Care

1580
01:26:10,360 --> 01:26:13,439
Speaker 7: or over Central Park. My twenty first birthday was the

1581
01:26:13,479 --> 01:26:16,800
Speaker 7: taking over of the subway station the Sea Line and

1582
01:26:16,840 --> 01:26:20,920
Speaker 7: on Fourteenth Street. And if you see, now where's my

1583
01:26:20,960 --> 01:26:24,840
Speaker 7: pop culture connection. So this was done as a documentary

1584
01:26:24,880 --> 01:26:28,160
Speaker 7: called Party Monster, the Shockumentary, and it's available.

1585
01:26:28,680 --> 01:26:31,000
Speaker 3: That is all the real people, it's the entire story.

1586
01:26:31,560 --> 01:26:34,519
Speaker 7: Michael's in it, all of the footage from the Manhattan

1587
01:26:34,520 --> 01:26:37,200
Speaker 7: time it was there. The party I'm talking about on

1588
01:26:37,240 --> 01:26:41,160
Speaker 7: the subway stage in the subway is filmed. You see tunnel,

1589
01:26:41,240 --> 01:26:45,200
Speaker 7: you see that pladium and all of the media around it.

1590
01:26:45,200 --> 01:26:47,960
Speaker 7: It's a brilliant documentary. You should watch it. In two

1591
01:26:48,000 --> 01:26:50,320
Speaker 7: thousand and three, they made a theatrical film of it,

1592
01:26:50,360 --> 01:26:55,320
Speaker 7: starring Seth Green and Macaulay Culkin, Macaulay Colkin playing Michael

1593
01:26:55,360 --> 01:26:58,880
Speaker 7: Allig and Seth Green playing James Saint. James who wrote

1594
01:26:58,960 --> 01:27:01,559
Speaker 7: Disco Blood Bath, which was the book that it's fired

1595
01:27:01,600 --> 01:27:03,759
Speaker 7: the documentary and then made the movie.

1596
01:27:05,640 --> 01:27:06,559
Speaker 3: And I have no.

1597
01:27:06,520 --> 01:27:09,160
Speaker 2: Idea about yeah this, so did you actually know?

1598
01:27:09,360 --> 01:27:13,400
Speaker 3: It's called New York history that will go down forever.

1599
01:27:13,800 --> 01:27:15,519
Speaker 3: It's the way.

1600
01:27:15,400 --> 01:27:18,639
Speaker 7: Studio fifty four is kind of Yeah, this is sort

1601
01:27:18,680 --> 01:27:21,320
Speaker 7: of the gay version of it, but at the same token,

1602
01:27:21,479 --> 01:27:22,559
Speaker 7: it was a defining era.

1603
01:27:23,280 --> 01:27:27,760
Speaker 3: And where is Michael now? You know?

1604
01:27:27,880 --> 01:27:31,160
Speaker 7: He There was a second follow up to the Party

1605
01:27:31,200 --> 01:27:35,600
Speaker 7: Monster documentary that followed his release. It's Diabolical and you

1606
01:27:35,600 --> 01:27:40,880
Speaker 7: should watch it. He was released in twenty fourteen. He

1607
01:27:41,000 --> 01:27:45,559
Speaker 7: served seventeen years from manslaughter. When he got out, he

1608
01:27:45,640 --> 01:27:49,559
Speaker 7: wanted to it's wild to watch the documentary because here's

1609
01:27:49,560 --> 01:27:51,880
Speaker 7: a person that helped shape media the way we see

1610
01:27:51,880 --> 01:27:54,360
Speaker 7: it now and suddenly he's walking into the world that

1611
01:27:54,439 --> 01:27:57,320
Speaker 7: has in a lot of ways, it birthed the imagination

1612
01:27:57,400 --> 01:27:59,400
Speaker 7: of who what he was trying to create in the

1613
01:27:59,479 --> 01:28:03,240
Speaker 7: late eighties, and so it's that weird fish out of water.

1614
01:28:03,280 --> 01:28:05,680
Speaker 7: It's really wild to watch how his mind works. And

1615
01:28:05,720 --> 01:28:08,000
Speaker 7: he realizes that the clubs were gone, the culture moved on,

1616
01:28:08,640 --> 01:28:12,000
Speaker 7: shocked no longer shocked right, and he returned to New York.

1617
01:28:12,000 --> 01:28:14,360
Speaker 7: He dabbled in art, dabbled in podcasts, and he attempted

1618
01:28:14,400 --> 01:28:16,640
Speaker 7: to sort of a reinvention, but the myth, you know,

1619
01:28:17,000 --> 01:28:18,040
Speaker 7: didn't really hold.

1620
01:28:18,479 --> 01:28:19,479
Speaker 3: He did die.

1621
01:28:19,280 --> 01:28:22,320
Speaker 7: In December of twenty twenty of a heroin overdose at

1622
01:28:22,360 --> 01:28:23,200
Speaker 7: the age of fifty four.

1623
01:28:23,920 --> 01:28:26,920
Speaker 3: So there's no comeback arc for him, no reseemption tour.

1624
01:28:27,000 --> 01:28:28,960
Speaker 7: It's a quiet ending to a story that went screamed

1625
01:28:28,960 --> 01:28:32,720
Speaker 7: for attention, and that's really sad. But the truth of

1626
01:28:32,720 --> 01:28:35,240
Speaker 7: the Party Monster is is that the culture rewards excess

1627
01:28:35,240 --> 01:28:37,639
Speaker 7: that eventually abandoned the people at Crowns, and it eats

1628
01:28:37,720 --> 01:28:40,519
Speaker 7: the celebrities that it creates. And I want to make

1629
01:28:40,560 --> 01:28:42,560
Speaker 7: it clear that Angel Melendez was a human, He was

1630
01:28:42,600 --> 01:28:46,599
Speaker 7: a person. He was murdered violently, and the celebration around

1631
01:28:46,680 --> 01:28:48,320
Speaker 7: the Party Monster legend.

1632
01:28:49,479 --> 01:28:50,880
Speaker 3: Seems to always forget that part.

1633
01:28:51,600 --> 01:28:54,720
Speaker 4: They often get overshadowed, right, the victims, They get overshadowed

1634
01:28:54,720 --> 01:28:57,599
Speaker 4: by the bigger story in some cases.

1635
01:28:57,680 --> 01:28:58,840
Speaker 3: Right, well, that's blocked.

1636
01:28:59,360 --> 01:29:01,200
Speaker 7: It's not about the crime, it's about the culture that

1637
01:29:01,240 --> 01:29:03,799
Speaker 7: allowed it to happen, right right right?

1638
01:29:05,000 --> 01:29:07,800
Speaker 2: And is the documentary that you mentioned, is it a

1639
01:29:07,960 --> 01:29:10,160
Speaker 2: Glory Days the Life and Times of.

1640
01:29:11,120 --> 01:29:14,160
Speaker 7: That's the that's the follow up Glory after One. It's

1641
01:29:14,240 --> 01:29:18,439
Speaker 7: called it's called Party Monster, the Shockumentary. It's available on Amazon,

1642
01:29:18,439 --> 01:29:23,240
Speaker 7: it's available on the Wow app, it's available on I

1643
01:29:23,280 --> 01:29:28,400
Speaker 7: think two B It's out there, it's accessible and it's wild.

1644
01:29:28,880 --> 01:29:32,040
Speaker 2: Well we are so not to speak for you body,

1645
01:29:32,240 --> 01:29:36,200
Speaker 2: but you're so grateful that you were able to spend

1646
01:29:36,280 --> 01:29:38,320
Speaker 2: some time and come on and share.

1647
01:29:38,640 --> 01:29:38,920
Speaker 4: Yeah.

1648
01:29:39,000 --> 01:29:43,160
Speaker 2: We always as a story and the personal story as well.

1649
01:29:43,760 --> 01:29:44,320
Speaker 3: The connection.

1650
01:29:45,160 --> 01:29:46,519
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's a connection with Doran.

1651
01:29:46,600 --> 01:29:49,120
Speaker 3: It's crazy, I.

1652
01:29:49,160 --> 01:29:52,200
Speaker 2: Know it is. And listen as always, we just we

1653
01:29:52,240 --> 01:29:55,200
Speaker 2: adore having you here. And if you want more Doran

1654
01:29:55,400 --> 01:29:59,120
Speaker 2: in your life, who does not, you can follow Doran

1655
01:29:59,400 --> 01:30:05,360
Speaker 2: at drawn oh fear casting dot com or also you

1656
01:30:05,400 --> 01:30:09,200
Speaker 2: can go on his socials at doran oh fear Cast.

1657
01:30:10,160 --> 01:30:11,880
Speaker 2: So yeah, thank you again.

1658
01:30:12,160 --> 01:30:15,960
Speaker 3: We're so thrilled, Like, tell the story.

1659
01:30:16,040 --> 01:30:17,920
Speaker 2: I never he looks super handsome tonight.

1660
01:30:20,439 --> 01:30:22,519
Speaker 3: I have a voice for radio and Facebook. Stop it?

1661
01:30:22,600 --> 01:30:24,000
Speaker 2: You know? Done?

1662
01:30:24,360 --> 01:30:26,600
Speaker 3: True? I disagree, thank you do?

1663
01:30:30,280 --> 01:30:33,240
Speaker 2: Of course? Is he not the best? He is so fun,

1664
01:30:34,120 --> 01:30:36,440
Speaker 2: so fun listening.

1665
01:30:36,080 --> 01:30:39,080
Speaker 4: Like with my hands, like my chin in my hands.

1666
01:30:41,960 --> 01:30:46,800
Speaker 2: I know, I'm all yeah, we're all physically storyteller. He's

1667
01:30:46,800 --> 01:30:50,519
Speaker 2: a great storyteller. He's magnetic, he knows his stuff. Well,

1668
01:30:50,640 --> 01:30:52,000
Speaker 2: we got a few minutes left. You want to go

1669
01:30:52,000 --> 01:30:54,160
Speaker 2: to a talk bed, I'd love it. Let's do it.

1670
01:30:54,479 --> 01:30:57,680
Speaker 8: Hi, it's Carol and I am just listening to your

1671
01:30:57,720 --> 01:31:01,599
Speaker 8: program from last night. You were just talking about pulling

1672
01:31:01,600 --> 01:31:05,920
Speaker 8: over for the police. And in Pennsylvania you have Philadelphia

1673
01:31:06,200 --> 01:31:09,760
Speaker 8: and you have Pittsburgh. Everything in between is farmland and

1674
01:31:09,840 --> 01:31:13,519
Speaker 8: woods and teeny little towns. So if you do not

1675
01:31:13,760 --> 01:31:16,280
Speaker 8: want to pull over, if you don't feel safe, you

1676
01:31:16,400 --> 01:31:19,320
Speaker 8: go to the nearest place that is well lighted and

1677
01:31:19,360 --> 01:31:23,360
Speaker 8: that people are around, like a convenience store, gas station

1678
01:31:24,000 --> 01:31:27,120
Speaker 8: or something that is well lighted. People are there, and

1679
01:31:27,160 --> 01:31:30,400
Speaker 8: you pull in where the people will see you. That's

1680
01:31:30,439 --> 01:31:33,240
Speaker 8: what we were always told by Carol.

1681
01:31:33,320 --> 01:31:35,680
Speaker 4: That's such a good talk back, and you're so right, right,

1682
01:31:35,720 --> 01:31:39,800
Speaker 4: go somewhere public, well lit, where there's people in case,

1683
01:31:39,960 --> 01:31:40,559
Speaker 4: you know, listen.

1684
01:31:40,760 --> 01:31:43,439
Speaker 2: In most cases, it's going to be the police, right right.

1685
01:31:43,760 --> 01:31:46,360
Speaker 4: I mean we don't we don't often hear where people

1686
01:31:46,360 --> 01:31:49,439
Speaker 4: are lured by a fake you know, siren, but it does.

1687
01:31:49,600 --> 01:31:52,400
Speaker 4: It has happened. So it's you know, if you're if

1688
01:31:52,439 --> 01:31:55,599
Speaker 4: you're alone and maybe a woman, and you know, even

1689
01:31:55,640 --> 01:31:58,760
Speaker 4: a man can be a victim. Let's not let's be real, right,

1690
01:31:58,920 --> 01:32:02,200
Speaker 4: or of course, yeah, pull over to a gas station.

1691
01:32:02,280 --> 01:32:06,040
Speaker 4: That's really really good advice, Carol, Thank you so much. Yeah, back,

1692
01:32:06,080 --> 01:32:07,000
Speaker 4: we totally agree.

1693
01:32:07,160 --> 01:32:09,479
Speaker 2: I love that. Yeah, I mean that's what my mom

1694
01:32:09,520 --> 01:32:10,760
Speaker 2: told me. Yeah, me too.

1695
01:32:11,200 --> 01:32:14,080
Speaker 4: Driving My mom always told me to go to the substation,

1696
01:32:14,560 --> 01:32:17,799
Speaker 4: but the sheriff substation. But I grew up in southern

1697
01:32:17,800 --> 01:32:20,880
Speaker 4: Orange County and there was only a couple of you

1698
01:32:20,880 --> 01:32:24,840
Speaker 4: know substations. I knew exactly where they were. So yeah, no,

1699
01:32:24,960 --> 01:32:26,880
Speaker 4: that's a good that's a really good talk. Somebody did

1700
01:32:26,880 --> 01:32:30,120
Speaker 4: anything about you go to a well lit with lots

1701
01:32:30,120 --> 01:32:33,040
Speaker 4: of people, grocery stores McDonald or McDonalds.

1702
01:32:33,080 --> 01:32:34,160
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, but.

1703
01:32:34,240 --> 01:32:36,479
Speaker 5: Likely her point the concern would be if you're like

1704
01:32:36,520 --> 01:32:40,640
Speaker 5: in a long stretch of fields and you know, I

1705
01:32:40,640 --> 01:32:42,720
Speaker 5: think it was someone who said, logically, like you know,

1706
01:32:43,320 --> 01:32:45,479
Speaker 5: going a little slower, making some sort of.

1707
01:32:45,400 --> 01:32:47,800
Speaker 3: Gesture so that they know that you're going. But you

1708
01:32:47,840 --> 01:32:48,799
Speaker 3: know all those things.

1709
01:32:48,880 --> 01:32:50,960
Speaker 4: Well, I mean and even today. I mean, when I

1710
01:32:51,000 --> 01:32:53,360
Speaker 4: was growing up, we didn't have cell phones. I wonder

1711
01:32:53,400 --> 01:32:55,200
Speaker 4: if you could call the cops and be like, is

1712
01:32:55,240 --> 01:32:56,160
Speaker 4: there a cop behind me?

1713
01:32:56,439 --> 01:32:57,080
Speaker 2: I don't even know.

1714
01:32:57,240 --> 01:32:59,320
Speaker 5: Actually that's a really good idea, Like you could actually

1715
01:32:59,320 --> 01:33:00,799
Speaker 5: call nine and say, listen.

1716
01:33:00,640 --> 01:33:01,240
Speaker 3: I'm being followed.

1717
01:33:01,280 --> 01:33:05,080
Speaker 2: I wouldn't call nine one one, You wouldn't okay, no, well,

1718
01:33:05,240 --> 01:33:07,400
Speaker 2: I don't know. I feel literally because if you're by

1719
01:33:07,479 --> 01:33:10,000
Speaker 2: yourself and literally concerned.

1720
01:33:09,640 --> 01:33:11,920
Speaker 4: Is an emergency though, I mean, do you want to yes,

1721
01:33:12,080 --> 01:33:15,760
Speaker 4: if you I don't know, I'm asking. I would think

1722
01:33:15,800 --> 01:33:19,080
Speaker 4: so if I had some reason, we called three one one,

1723
01:33:19,439 --> 01:33:22,679
Speaker 4: you know, if the car was driving erradically or if

1724
01:33:22,720 --> 01:33:26,599
Speaker 4: I actually had reason, Yes, of course, if you had

1725
01:33:26,640 --> 01:33:29,439
Speaker 4: like reason, like if it was shady. I mean, but

1726
01:33:29,479 --> 01:33:31,400
Speaker 4: if it's just a I don't know, I don't know

1727
01:33:31,400 --> 01:33:33,200
Speaker 4: that it would call nine one one. But I can

1728
01:33:33,240 --> 01:33:35,120
Speaker 4: see that I would if it was like I thought

1729
01:33:35,120 --> 01:33:36,160
Speaker 4: it was shady or something.

1730
01:33:36,720 --> 01:33:38,200
Speaker 2: Three I don't three.

1731
01:33:38,200 --> 01:33:39,720
Speaker 3: I don't know about three one one. We might have

1732
01:33:39,760 --> 01:33:40,360
Speaker 3: to unpack that.

1733
01:33:40,439 --> 01:33:41,960
Speaker 2: Oh, three one one's non emergency.

1734
01:33:42,800 --> 01:33:45,679
Speaker 3: Oh how did I not know this all these years? Really?

1735
01:33:46,200 --> 01:33:47,719
Speaker 2: Is it just? Is it just the Las Vegas?

1736
01:33:47,920 --> 01:33:50,160
Speaker 3: I don't know. I'm going to look into it.

1737
01:33:50,160 --> 01:33:52,880
Speaker 4: It's it's in the non emergency like police line like

1738
01:33:53,320 --> 01:33:53,519
Speaker 4: you know.

1739
01:33:54,560 --> 01:33:57,360
Speaker 5: Okay, huh, well, good tonight.

1740
01:33:57,479 --> 01:34:01,320
Speaker 2: Didn't really is that only your am I crazy? Well? No,

1741
01:34:01,680 --> 01:34:04,000
Speaker 2: I mean I just might not have heard of that.

1742
01:34:04,640 --> 01:34:07,040
Speaker 5: I think you're giving us the four one on.

1743
01:34:10,760 --> 01:34:11,880
Speaker 3: You all right?

1744
01:34:12,240 --> 01:34:14,439
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, look it up in your area non

1745
01:34:14,439 --> 01:34:17,439
Speaker 2: emergency number. It might be different. Yes, well, listen, this

1746
01:34:17,640 --> 01:34:22,280
Speaker 2: was a great night you guys, and we uh yeah,

1747
01:34:22,320 --> 01:34:24,880
Speaker 2: I learned a lot. And tomorrow we're going to talk

1748
01:34:24,880 --> 01:34:29,880
Speaker 2: about the accused a pair. The plot mastermind, Brandom Banfield

1749
01:34:29,960 --> 01:34:32,760
Speaker 2: is slated to take the stand that more on True

1750
01:34:32,800 --> 01:34:33,360
Speaker 2: Crime tonight