Speaker 1: Of the Law and Order franchises, SVU is considered especially watchable.
Speaker 2: We are the amateur detectives who kind of investigate the
Speaker 2: vicious felonies.
Speaker 3: These episodes are based on. These are our stories, done done.
Speaker 2: Hello, Welcome to That's Messed Up an SVU podcast.
Speaker 3: My name is Lisa, Hello, my name is Kara. Hello.
Speaker 1: And every week we recap an episode of Law and
Speaker 1: Order SVU. We tell you the true crime that it
Speaker 1: was based on, and then we talk to someone from
Speaker 1: the episode. And today's no different. We've got somebody great
Speaker 1: and Lisa, Now we just chatterrow, what's up with you?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: What if one day we're like in today's guests not
Speaker 2: that good, but we couldn't find anyone better. So enjoy
Speaker 2: this dick hole. I have a question for you and
Speaker 2: the listeners. I don't know what's up. So my friend's
Speaker 2: birthdays coming up. So I went on our street, you know,
Speaker 2: our main our main street of stores and did a
Speaker 2: little circle, did a little you know, a little gift
Speaker 2: bag from all our favorite stores gift and so we're
Speaker 2: at daughter and while the employee, not the owner, is
Speaker 2: like packaging all the gifts I got and like making
Speaker 2: them really cute, like she made everything very cute, and
Speaker 2: she's talking about the store across the street, crush Art things.
Speaker 2: She goes, yeah, I buy paints there, and I go, oh,
Speaker 2: do you love to paint? And the energy shifted in
Speaker 2: a way that I had asked her like can I
Speaker 2: touch her pussy? Like it really like all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: she just stared at me and got quiet and weird.
Speaker 2: And I looked at Michael and I was like, was
Speaker 2: that a weird question? I'm sorry, and she goes, no, no,
Speaker 2: it's it's.
Speaker 3: Really nice of you.
Speaker 2: And then that was that, and then it just became
Speaker 2: dead silence for like two minutes, and then we picked
Speaker 2: back up and we ended on a good note. But
Speaker 2: I just don't understand what all I said was do
Speaker 2: you love to paint? And I don't know what I
Speaker 2: did to cause such because then when we left, I go,
Speaker 2: that was weird, right, and he goes, that was I
Speaker 2: don't know what was going on. She fully shut down, like,
Speaker 2: I don't understand why I was so I don't know
Speaker 2: why I was inappropriate, but I'm obviously in my head
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 3: He said that maybe like she.
Speaker 2: Doesn't have that much of personal conversations like that's not personal.
Speaker 2: She said she bought paint. I asked if she loves
Speaker 2: the paint. We were me, our friend Michael, and the employee.
Speaker 2: We were all just small chatting.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a tiny neighbor not a tiny neighborhood.
Speaker 3: But they're no, I always chat to the people in
Speaker 3: that store.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm there all that's there's only like five stores
Speaker 2: next to my house and that's where everything comes from now.
Speaker 2: So yeah, the employee just fully shut down and became
Speaker 2: so weird, and I just like didn't know if I
Speaker 2: did something wrong.
Speaker 3: I don't think you did anything wrong.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's so bizarre.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Michael was like, you know, you shut down and
Speaker 2: got very bashful. I go, yeah, because I didn't know
Speaker 2: what I did. I started like looking at my shoes.
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, it's not like you. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: not like you were like, oh you do threesomes? Like yeah,
Speaker 1: it wasn't like a full that's so that's really high.
Speaker 3: But it was like, what have I done? It was weird.
Speaker 1: I wonder if you said it like you said it genuinely,
Speaker 1: but maybe she read it as sarcastic in a weird
Speaker 1: way like, oh do you love to paint?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 2: You do?
Speaker 1: Like maybe you know what I mean? Like what if
Speaker 1: she read it that way, like completely erroneously. I'm sure
Speaker 1: you weren't doing that, but like and then she was like, okay, bitch,
Speaker 1: I was just trying to tell you that that's where
Speaker 1: I buy paint, Like I don't know, That's the only
Speaker 1: thing I can think of that.
Speaker 2: I just needed something that it wasn't like me being
Speaker 2: the worst social person in the world. I was like,
Speaker 2: what have I done at my favorite store? But yeah,
Speaker 2: maybe she's thought it was disingenuous.
Speaker 3: I just try not to.
Speaker 2: I don't like asking me like what do you do
Speaker 2: for money or for a living? Like I like the
Speaker 2: idea of not having a person be defined by their
Speaker 2: job type of thing, And so I didn't want to
Speaker 2: be like, oh, you're trying to paint or like, yeah,
Speaker 2: what do you pay? Like I didn't want so either.
Speaker 2: Thought the way to talk about painting in a positive
Speaker 2: way was like, oh, you enjoy painting? Yeah, And she
Speaker 2: was like and then for two minutes we sat in silence,
Speaker 2: but then she said, no, it's a.
Speaker 3: Nice question, it's not weird.
Speaker 2: I'm like, the why have you ruined my mental stability
Speaker 2: now for days.
Speaker 3: Maybe you were making her really.
Speaker 1: Like look inward and be like, I do like to paint,
Speaker 1: and instead I'm just packing up your chochkeys for your
Speaker 1: friend's birthday at this retail job, and I just want
Speaker 1: to paint, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah they were chochkeys. That's funny. Well you know what
Speaker 3: I mean, so much choch keys for her birthday?
Speaker 1: Oh are you forty? Here's forty choch keys. Oh that's
Speaker 1: like for my sixteenth birthday. My mom got me sixteen
Speaker 1: gift certificate and I like loved it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I love that for you, and I think
Speaker 2: it's a great idea and I just love buying gifts.
Speaker 2: But then you know when you go to buy someone
Speaker 2: at present and then you spend more money on yourself
Speaker 2: at the store.
Speaker 3: I did that too, you Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: That store is dangerous for that for sure, because I
Speaker 1: remember we went there to buy a friend a birthday
Speaker 1: present and you were trying on clothes.
Speaker 3: But the clothes are never my style.
Speaker 2: I will never be a girl wearing clogs and like
Speaker 2: a flufy cotton linen dress that's in all way.
Speaker 3: But I try every time I'm in.
Speaker 2: There, I'm like I will wear a pillowy onesie and
Speaker 2: these fucking clogs from Sweden.
Speaker 3: But what else is going on? Well, you have you
Speaker 3: have an insane story. I have an insane story.
Speaker 1: I really want to tell you on the podcast because
Speaker 1: I just feel like our listeners would be into this.
Speaker 2: Well I've heard it now three times and every time
Speaker 2: it gets more insane, not.
Speaker 3: Like it doesn't, it doesn't have more.
Speaker 2: It becomes more like whoa the earth, like the universe
Speaker 2: is nuts?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so okay, so let me tell you guys what happened.
Speaker 1: So I don't know some of you may have noticed.
Speaker 1: A couple of weeks ago, I guest hosted My Favorite
Speaker 1: Murder and this I get this DM the day that
Speaker 1: that comes out from this guy who's like, hey, this
Speaker 1: is crazy, but I just heard you on My Favorite Murder.
Speaker 1: And then I went to my mailbox and I pulled
Speaker 1: out this and he sends a photo of a letter
Speaker 1: from like the ACLU or something addressed to me and
Speaker 1: my husband at our old address in West Hollywood, because
Speaker 1: this guy lives in our old apartment, which I was like,
Speaker 1: that's crazy to hear me on a podcast. Go check
Speaker 1: your mail and find out I used to live in
Speaker 1: your apartment, Like already, that's like a weird, serendipitous, crazy thing.
Speaker 1: And so I look at his bio. This guy, we've
Speaker 1: got friends in common. He's a writer, like a TV writer.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, okay, I feel cool talking to this guy.
Speaker 1: Like this isn't like a full stranger, right. So we're
Speaker 1: talking and he's telling we're talking about the building. And
Speaker 1: I had a notoriously bonkers building manager at my old building,
Speaker 1: just like harmless sponkers, just like very la lady that
Speaker 1: I've like, I've always noticed like she was very pretty
Speaker 1: and had like a really great body, even though she
Speaker 1: was sixty years old, and I was always like, I
Speaker 1: bet she came out here to be an actress and
Speaker 1: it didn't work out. Now she's like a building manager
Speaker 1: who drives a BMW and like I just thought, she
Speaker 1: has like a very like a weird backstory. And she
Speaker 1: smoked tons of weed but was also the most uptight
Speaker 1: person you've ever talked to, even though she would always
Speaker 1: like love to smoke weed and she was definitely nutty.
Speaker 1: She would talk shit to me about other tenants in
Speaker 1: the building and I'd be like, I don't care. And
Speaker 1: so he told me. He goes, he said to me
Speaker 1: on this h while we're dming, he goes, how soon
Speaker 1: did I'll call her Sandra? How soon did Sandra tell
Speaker 1: you about her mom? And I go, what, like, she
Speaker 1: told me a lot of crazy shit, but she never
Speaker 1: mentioned her mom to me, and he goes, girl in
Speaker 1: capital letters, and then he sends me three voice memos. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I immediately did into these voice memos, and he
Speaker 1: tells me this whole story about how when he came
Speaker 1: to sign his lease, she started talking shit to him
Speaker 1: about a current tenant, you know, very her, very her vibe,
Speaker 1: and was talking about a tenant shooting porn in the
Speaker 1: in the building and in the sorry in his room
Speaker 1: in his apartment. And he was kind of like, I'm
Speaker 1: not into talking shit about that. I don't care if
Speaker 1: that this tenant was shooting porn, Like that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: anything to me, Like that's sex, work, is work, whatever.
Speaker 1: And Sandra could tell that he was not into the gossip,
Speaker 1: and so she was like, well, I'm no prude or anything.
Speaker 1: I mean, I live through the seventies, I've done heroin.
Speaker 1: My mom was murdered by John Holmes, and I was
Speaker 1: like what the fuck. John Holmes is the porn star
Speaker 1: that Boogie Knights was based on, And what she's talking
Speaker 1: about are the Wonderland Murders, which are a notorious, horrifically
Speaker 1: violent murders that happened in Los Angeles between kind of
Speaker 1: like warring groups of drug dealers and very LA type,
Speaker 1: very seventies LA types of people. This happened in very
Speaker 1: early eighties. But do yourself a favor in google the
Speaker 1: Wonderland Murders. It is fascinating. And my old building manager's mother.
Speaker 3: Was murdered as part of it.
Speaker 1: I had no idea, and I knew this woman for years,
Speaker 1: still have her phone number. I don't think there's a
Speaker 1: way I can bring it up.
Speaker 2: Now, but and that you found out through a letter
Speaker 2: that arrived the day this man listened to your guest
Speaker 2: host episode of a podcast.
Speaker 3: It's so insane, isn't it.
Speaker 2: It's just magical, And I feel bad for people who
Speaker 2: don't see the magic in wonder and coincidences of the world.
Speaker 2: Obviously it's fucked up to call this like murder a
Speaker 2: magic thing, but yeah, to be connected in these stories
Speaker 2: and how we all are bound together as pretty.
Speaker 1: Beautiful, really fully informs to me how Sandra was. I mean,
Speaker 1: like the way she was in, like her life, Like
Speaker 1: she's a lifelong Angelino probably who had this like mother
Speaker 1: who was drug addicted and murdered, and like it's just
Speaker 1: wild to me, like the whole thing. Oh, I wish,
Speaker 1: I wish there was a way I could have spoken
Speaker 1: to her about it at the time, because actually I
Speaker 1: think that conversation would have been very unomfortable because she's
Speaker 1: very intense.
Speaker 3: But maybe we could have smoked weed and had some fun.
Speaker 3: Who knows. Do you think you're gonna ever hang out
Speaker 3: with this neighbor? You know what?
Speaker 1: I literally think he seems really cool and cute and gay.
Speaker 1: So I was like, next time I go to West
Speaker 1: Hollywood to like watch drag Race, I might just message
Speaker 1: him and be like, want to meet up and talk about.
Speaker 3: Sandra during commercial?
Speaker 2: Maybe we could do the worst thing and try to
Speaker 2: hook up this random gay man with your high school
Speaker 2: friend friend and be like, well, we know two gays
Speaker 2: in West Hollywood.
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe you like each other.
Speaker 1: Well, this guy is Jed's type, Okay, so maybe I
Speaker 1: will maybe I will set them up.
Speaker 2: I don't even know if this guy, this guy could
Speaker 2: have a husband for.
Speaker 3: All I know, Like, I mean, I have no idea.
Speaker 3: We can assume it might be open.
Speaker 1: No, anyway, I know I took up a lot of
Speaker 1: Today's than that is amazing.
Speaker 2: I mean I took up I took up ten minutes
Speaker 2: with a curb your enthusiasm boring story. So I think
Speaker 2: a serendipitous murder connection is better than me being like,
Speaker 2: am I a free? Am I a social freak? What
Speaker 2: am I doing wrong? But I yeah, she became so uncomfortable.
Speaker 3: But hey, I love your curb moments. Should we jump
Speaker 3: into today's app? What do you think?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a real laugh riot a barn Burner laughs
Speaker 2: a minute, just like a party episode of SVU.
Speaker 3: They actually all go to Cancun.
Speaker 2: It's like, I don't know why we'd waited so long
Speaker 2: to do the Cancun.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it is weird. All inclusive resort. Oh my god.
Speaker 2: I hope this podcast becomes so popular we can do
Speaker 2: an all inclusive resort party.
Speaker 3: Oh my show festival. A cruise.
Speaker 1: You guys, tell your friends we need to do a
Speaker 1: that's messed up cruise. I would never go on a cruise.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I'm anti cruise but I would go on
Speaker 1: a that was just people that like SVU.
Speaker 3: Why are you.
Speaker 2: Dow, Why are you demoting it? We both don't like cruises.
Speaker 2: We don't like what they do for the environment. I
Speaker 2: bring up doing an all inclusive resort and you go, no,
Speaker 2: let's do the thing we both hate.
Speaker 3: Oh oh sorry.
Speaker 2: The only reason I said it is because because different
Speaker 2: shows and podcasts do cruises.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we're gonna do it at a resort.
Speaker 1: You're right, you're right, We're gonna break them old. You're right,
Speaker 1: you're right, Lisa, I'm a fucking follower. I was just like, well,
Speaker 1: we have to do the thing that other people have done.
Speaker 1: You're right, We're doing a fucking all inclusive you gotta
Speaker 1: fly there and then you're part of the magic and
Speaker 1: we all just party in where we go in kN
Speaker 1: Kun to Cancun.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So yeah, what isn't there like a saying like see
Speaker 2: you in Italy or something?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: Is that not the thang you cheers and say something
Speaker 3: like see you in Italy?
Speaker 2: Is that not a saying like a cheers you do
Speaker 2: like when somebody will see you on the flip side, whatever,
Speaker 2: We'll see you guys in Mexico.
Speaker 3: If we've become popular.
Speaker 2: Enough, I'm raising a glass and saying, see you all
Speaker 2: in Mexico.
Speaker 3: Let's talk charisma.
Speaker 1: You sickos asked for it and we are delivering It.
Speaker 1: Is season six, episode seven, one of the scariest episodes.
Speaker 3: Let's get into it.
Speaker 1: We open on an emergency room where Benson and a
Speaker 1: doctor are engaging in a classic walk and talk and
Speaker 1: Benson has sort of a short, short, mid length. Bob, Lisa,
Speaker 1: what would you say? It's like very two thousand and four.
Speaker 1: If you can pull off short hair in two thousand
Speaker 1: and four, it's very like politician v. Hillary Clinton to me.
Speaker 1: But this doctor is famous Ali Reza. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: know I've worked with him.
Speaker 2: I don't know where, but he wrote on SNL and
Speaker 2: Inside Amy Shuter, like he has all these comedy credits.
Speaker 3: But I feel like I've worked with him. Okay, well,
Speaker 3: here's who he is. I was about to say.
Speaker 1: The side note is the guy playing the doctor is
Speaker 1: Bill as Ali Raza, who's been on a handful of
Speaker 1: episodes of S you as this doctor. But if you
Speaker 1: dig a bit deeper because you recognize him, which I did,
Speaker 1: his full name is Ali Raisa Paranakian and he is
Speaker 1: the founder of the Pit, the People's Improv.
Speaker 3: Theater in New York. Lol.
Speaker 1: Okay, So if you've ever walked into the Pit, you
Speaker 1: know that the pit is covered in artistic renderings of
Speaker 1: Ali Paranakian. Like he literally decorated his own theater with
Speaker 1: just photos of himself and paintings of himself. So that's
Speaker 1: he was originally, I believe, like the lore of New
Speaker 1: York comedy is that he was part like he was
Speaker 1: in with the UC before and then he like ren
Speaker 1: and did his own thing, and that's why the People's
Speaker 1: Improv Theater aka the Pit came about. We spoke to
Speaker 1: actress Lee Hubilia. She had done some stuff at the Pit.
Speaker 1: We've talked about it before on this podcast. So anyway,
Speaker 1: that's who he is. They are talking about someone who
Speaker 1: is thirty weeks so long in a pregnancy. She won't
Speaker 1: say who the father is, and Scarring suggests that she's
Speaker 1: been pregnant and delivered before. She refuses to tell us
Speaker 1: where her parents are, and then the big reveal is
Speaker 1: that she is twelve and a half years old.
Speaker 3: Done done.
Speaker 1: She is going to be in the hospital for ten
Speaker 1: weeks until the baby is born, probably because of her
Speaker 1: age and because she's had some bleeding, and her name
Speaker 1: is Melanie. Olivia goes to talk to her and she
Speaker 1: kind of asked her about her first baby, and she
Speaker 1: says that first baby died. My mom says he's with
Speaker 1: God now, So now we know that she has a mom,
Speaker 1: and she says she's not supposed to tell anyone where
Speaker 1: her mom is.
Speaker 3: But then Olivia classic Benson.
Speaker 2: Really relates to her and says, if I was your mom,
Speaker 2: I'd want to be here with you.
Speaker 3: And so the girl writes down the address, and she's cute.
Speaker 1: This girl's like a little redhead, freckle face, like very cute,
Speaker 1: twelve and a half year old girl. And she tells
Speaker 1: Olivia that the baby's father is named Abraham. This is
Speaker 1: not a fellow sixth grader. She says, he's my husband.
Speaker 1: So we're already getting some ideas that this is not
Speaker 1: a great situation. Olivia shows up at a brownstone, ostensibly
Speaker 1: the address that Melanie has given her with a couple
Speaker 1: of unis and they knock on the door. This adorable
Speaker 1: little boy answers the door. There's three other kids standing
Speaker 1: behind him. They all have dead eyes. And then a
Speaker 1: man who has haunted my dreams for my entire life
Speaker 1: because he was in a bunch of scary movies I watched.
Speaker 1: As a kid comes to the door. He has a
Speaker 1: snake tattoo on his hand that goes up his wrists. Liza,
Speaker 1: I love your thoughts. Olivia asked him to step outside.
Speaker 1: He goes, I can't do that, and he slams the
Speaker 1: door in her face. Olivia is about to call in
Speaker 1: back up when suddenly gunshots ring out and that's the credits.
Speaker 3: Any thoughts on the tattoo, Lisa.
Speaker 2: Yeah, snakes are in no, but they're scary to me.
Speaker 2: And I get how they're pretty tattoos, but snakes scare me.
Speaker 3: And maybe I'll get one. I don't know. Well, we
Speaker 3: do get a reference to it later, but yeah, no thoughts.
Speaker 2: But usually if you decide to get hand tattoos or
Speaker 2: tattoos that are that visible, you are committing to a
Speaker 2: life without like conventional rules. You're not gonna work at
Speaker 2: a bank, you're not gonna have a job like Most
Speaker 2: Steven tattoo shops are hesitant to give people like hand
Speaker 2: or neck tattoos that aren't already fully covered because it
Speaker 2: does dramatically change your life.
Speaker 1: So we know that this guy is off the grid
Speaker 1: for sure. I was thinking for you, though not a snake,
Speaker 1: but in the snake family. Do you have any feelings
Speaker 1: towards Lowlyworm from the Richard Scary books.
Speaker 3: He's very cute.
Speaker 2: I have a toy of him in an apple car
Speaker 2: with wheels, so I do.
Speaker 3: I am a fan and I have It's almost as
Speaker 3: if I know you. Okay, wait, did you know I
Speaker 3: had the toy? No, not at all.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 3: I think about getting him tattooed all the time.
Speaker 1: I literally thought about it because somebody just gave Rosia
Speaker 1: Richard Scary book and I was like, oh, I forgot
Speaker 1: about this little guy.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 3: He's always in my heart. He's always on your mind. Okay.
Speaker 1: So now at the top of act one, Stabler's on
Speaker 1: the scene. Olivia is like fully out of breath, giving
Speaker 1: him the full rundown. Like I don't know if she
Speaker 1: ran around the block before she did this scene with him,
Speaker 1: but she's like, okay, here's the story, Like she's giving
Speaker 1: him the whole rundown.
Speaker 2: Well, and I think she has a spidy sense of
Speaker 2: like shit ain't good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is and there's all these kids in the house. Yes,
Speaker 1: the house is listed as being owned by Abraham o Fion.
Speaker 1: He's not responding to hostage negotiators. There's no phone service,
Speaker 1: there's no electricity in that house for eight years. Also
Speaker 1: not a great sign. So as they're strategizing for how
Speaker 1: to get into the house with like the it's not
Speaker 1: a swat team, but it's like the emergency response team,
Speaker 1: I think, is what they are. They hear more shots
Speaker 1: fire off and they immediately go in and you hear
Speaker 1: over the radio call ems get ems here now.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: So as Benson and Stablers start running towards the building,
Speaker 1: officers Erminio who's played by John Ortiz, who's an actor
Speaker 1: you've seen in many, many, many things.
Speaker 3: Everything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like he is his IMDb blew me out of
Speaker 1: the water, like he's done so much. He staggers out
Speaker 1: of the building saying that the purpose is gone, and
Speaker 1: he goes they're dead.
Speaker 3: They're all dead.
Speaker 1: So here you go, guys, this is the episode you wanted.
Speaker 1: Just kidding, we kind of did too, but I mean
Speaker 1: it's this episode's not fun for a lot of reasons.
Speaker 1: So they go into the house. It's now We've got
Speaker 1: Finn and Munch and Benson and Stable or the whole
Speaker 1: gang is there, and this house is like full cults.
Speaker 1: There's bibles strewn about, there's drawings on the wall of
Speaker 1: scripture stuff, and then there's just like a pile of
Speaker 1: dead children. I don't know how other way to put it.
Speaker 1: There's all these all the kids we've seen earlier are dead,
Speaker 1: I think additional children. There's like a pacifier next to
Speaker 1: a pool of blood. I mean, they are not sparing
Speaker 1: you at all.
Speaker 3: On this episode.
Speaker 1: There's PJ like you see like little bits of kids.
Speaker 1: Qutpj's like it's just really really awful. They do close
Speaker 1: up shots of Benson's face, Stabler's face, Munch and Finn
Speaker 1: like no one's doing well. And Olivia walks over and
Speaker 1: sees the kid who opened the door for her, and
Speaker 1: her face is just like so haunted.
Speaker 3: I know we use that word a lot, but like
Speaker 3: she's just like.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I just saw this kid alive twenty
Speaker 1: minutes ago or however long ago it was. So Back
Speaker 1: at the squad, we find out that Abraham has escaped
Speaker 1: via tunnels under the house, and they also find out
Speaker 1: that eight years ago he tried to gain tax exempt
Speaker 1: status for what his organization called the Church of Wisdom
Speaker 1: and Sight. So basically, we are dealing with a cult here.
Speaker 1: Craigan's like, we might be dealing with a cult. No, Craigan,
Speaker 1: it's fully one hundred percent cult. The department is providing
Speaker 1: non optional psych support for all the officers and detectives,
Speaker 1: and Stabler immediately looks huffy about it.
Speaker 3: We know how he feels about mental health.
Speaker 2: I know, but it's like, you just saw a house
Speaker 2: of dead children? Can you just talk to a therapist?
Speaker 2: Like this denial of everything, Like it is so hard
Speaker 2: to watch these old episodes.
Speaker 3: He is so annoying, I know.
Speaker 1: And he's very like this is a waste of time.
Speaker 1: We got to get to our jobs. And it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 3: It's a house of dead children. Just talk to George. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So Huang steps in and is like, I can talk
Speaker 1: to you right now, Like, let's get over with If
Speaker 1: speed is your issue, let's do it now. So Huang
Speaker 1: interviews Stabler, and we're now intercutting between Huang interviewing all
Speaker 1: four of the main cast. Stable's trying to be a
Speaker 1: tough guy, like, oh, what do you want me to say,
Speaker 1: you know, uh yeah, there's some dead kids, Like he's
Speaker 1: just being a dick. Munch is kind of trying to
Speaker 1: be cynical, but Houang is like, this is actually proof
Speaker 1: that you can still be repulsed. After everything you've seen
Speaker 1: in the world. You're this big conspiracy theorist. You always like,
Speaker 1: you know, have your cynical edge, but you still can
Speaker 1: be shocked, and like this has obviously shocked you and
Speaker 1: repulsed you. Olivia looks so upset, like this is such
Speaker 1: a great scene for her, Like she's such a good
Speaker 1: actor in this scene, like you really truly feel like
Speaker 1: you're talking to someone who has you're seeing someone who
Speaker 1: has experienced a profound trauma. Finn's kind of trying to
Speaker 1: play it cool, but he's a little bit more vulnerable.
Speaker 1: He's like, I ate dinner and I call my kid.
Speaker 1: I kind of realized that nobody's safe, you know. And
Speaker 1: then you think Stabler is getting a little little bit
Speaker 1: more into it because he says he there was one
Speaker 1: girl wearing a Teddy Bear shirt that his daughter has,
Speaker 1: and you're like, oh, okay, maybe Stabler's actually giving up
Speaker 1: a little bit of vulnerability here, and then Olivia says
Speaker 1: she's afraid she won't be able to handle it. She
Speaker 1: kind of breaks down, and like we just like, I
Speaker 1: feel like we don't see these kind of moments from
Speaker 1: her anymore now that she's a captain. We just don't
Speaker 1: see these moments from Olivia just fully being like the
Speaker 1: shit I see day in and day out on this
Speaker 1: job is just going to break me at some point.
Speaker 1: And I just was wondering if they submitted this episode
Speaker 1: for an Emmy, because she did a really amazing job
Speaker 1: in this episode in my opinion.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like tears building the eyes, but not dropping yes,
Speaker 2: plan that like just enough quivering of the lip.
Speaker 1: Like later she does some real yelling but doesn't get
Speaker 1: too like it's she's really great. So then after everyone's
Speaker 1: sort of out of their psychological thing, Olivia gets an
Speaker 1: id on Abraham based off of one of his fingerprints
Speaker 1: in the house.
Speaker 3: His name is Eugene Hoff.
Speaker 1: He's got a long record for check theft all kinds
Speaker 1: of stuff. So basically we're getting the idea this guy's
Speaker 1: just like a snake oil salesman and this religious stuff
Speaker 1: is a cover for how he steals. But it's like,
Speaker 1: if you're stealing money and doing check fraud. Howard do
Speaker 1: you not have money for electricity for eight years?
Speaker 3: But I guess to each their own what you want
Speaker 3: to spend your money on.
Speaker 1: Finn comes out and is like, I'm taking off. He's
Speaker 1: going to take a quick leave. He's like, sometimes you
Speaker 1: just got to step back, Like you gotta love Finn.
Speaker 1: He's like, I just need a moment after seeing what
Speaker 1: I saw live, is like, they're definitely gonna send me home.
Speaker 3: I got way too emotional.
Speaker 1: And then Elliott gets called in and guess what, he
Speaker 1: gets sent home because this dude does not process shit,
Speaker 1: and they even take his gun.
Speaker 3: Interesting.
Speaker 1: Benson and Munch get paired up and we continue to
Speaker 1: the rest of the episode. I guess Stabler is going
Speaker 1: to be Stabler had I don't know an OS reunion
Speaker 1: to shoot that day.
Speaker 3: I don't know. But he's not there anymore.
Speaker 1: They look up an old church that he used to
Speaker 1: be a part of, which was a Pentecostal church. A hello,
Speaker 1: my husband grew up in the Pentecostal church, very very
Speaker 1: speaking in tugs very that very Sentropez and it's called
Speaker 1: the Christian Tabernacle of Grace. And they go and they
Speaker 1: talk to. It's not like a priest, it's like a
Speaker 1: church businessman. And he's like I was tricked, Like I
Speaker 1: believed this guy was super into religion and people were
Speaker 1: very drawn to him.
Speaker 3: But he preached that the serpent was Christ. And that's
Speaker 3: a little nod to the tattoo.
Speaker 1: I don't really know the serpent that convinced Adam and
Speaker 1: Eve to eat the apple, I guess is Jesus.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but now I'm remembering the coloring of
Speaker 2: his tattoo is also I think a poison snake, isn't
Speaker 2: it like when it's red and black and somebody else
Speaker 2: that's like danger afoot.
Speaker 1: I guess I didn't even know that about snakes, But yeah,
Speaker 1: you didn't know.
Speaker 2: That's the more bright a reptile or animal, the more
Speaker 2: dangerous they are. No, Yeah, like frogs that are like
Speaker 2: super electric blue and cool colors.
Speaker 3: It's basically like.
Speaker 2: A warning to any predators, like you better stay away
Speaker 2: on poisonous as fuck.
Speaker 3: Wow, well, Lisa, I'm so excited to know the fact
Speaker 3: that you didn't know nature channels over here. Thank you.
Speaker 3: But it's crazy and hard about snakes.
Speaker 2: Is like there's somewhere if it's like red black yellow,
Speaker 2: like chill. But if it's like yellow black, red, you're dead. Yeah,
Speaker 2: something like wild. I don't know the patterns. You have
Speaker 2: to know the patterns. But the most beautiful.
Speaker 3: Creatures are usually the most poisonous and deadly. That's interesting.
Speaker 2: I'm sure there's a lot of metaphors with like woman
Speaker 2: Killer movies where they are dressed fancy.
Speaker 1: Or like a Circle of Deceptions during Diane Neil, I
Speaker 1: miss our friends. I know, I mean her character was
Speaker 1: a femme fatale, not her. So this guy tells them
Speaker 1: that ten families left the parish with Eugene when he
Speaker 1: was fired.
Speaker 2: Eugene aka Abraham. I mean my name was Eugene. I
Speaker 2: would change it too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, we have a friend who has a friend.
Speaker 3: It just came through my brain and I said that
Speaker 3: I love Well.
Speaker 2: I have to stop just saying I hate names on
Speaker 2: this podcast because people are like, ah, I think it's
Speaker 2: fine to not like a name.
Speaker 3: To say a name's not for you doesn't mean you
Speaker 3: hate the person.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: But Gene, I've been noticing, is popular. Like our friend
Speaker 1: has a friend named Jean. Amy Schumer's baby is named Jean.
Speaker 3: Like I don't know.
Speaker 1: And then on Mad Men, there was baby Gene a
Speaker 1: few years ago. That was a big thing.
Speaker 3: My friend's dog is named Gene. Okay, that counts. I
Speaker 3: see a lot of dogs named Rosie on Instagram. Just fyi.
Speaker 3: But okay, So back into the story.
Speaker 1: Eugene takes ten families with him when he leaves this
Speaker 1: Pentecostal church, but one family left him after a few years,
Speaker 1: so maybe you should go talk to them. Okay, now
Speaker 1: we're talking to them. Carl and Simone, Buckman and queens.
Speaker 1: They said Abraham was magnetic. He made you feel special,
Speaker 1: even in a room full of people. And he then
Speaker 1: like they eventually were kind of like he got a
Speaker 1: little bit kooky, you know. He started telling them that
Speaker 1: the government was going to kill them, and they started
Speaker 1: collecting weapons and storing food.
Speaker 3: And then he.
Speaker 1: Started separating the married couples and surprised, surprised, the women
Speaker 1: slept on his floor and he paid. He would talk
Speaker 1: about the sanctity of children, but he paid most attention
Speaker 1: to little girls.
Speaker 3: And at one point.
Speaker 1: They caught him in their four year old's room in
Speaker 1: his underwear, and she swears he never touched her, but
Speaker 1: they pieced out that night because it sounds like it
Speaker 1: was only a matter of time. They give the cops
Speaker 1: a VHS tape of Abraham and now we are watching
Speaker 1: this him do a sermon of like the soldiers of
Speaker 1: Satan are coming to murder you and your children.
Speaker 3: And all this kind of stuff that you would expect. Well,
Speaker 3: did you watch the We Work documentary? No?
Speaker 2: No, okay, Well, because this reminds me of this where
Speaker 2: this couple is saying like he was magnetic, amazing, and.
Speaker 3: Then you watch the footage and you're like, he's a creep.
Speaker 2: And that's how I felt with We Work, Like everyone
Speaker 2: that was tricked by him were.
Speaker 3: Like he was amazing and funny part and then you
Speaker 3: see him.
Speaker 2: Talk the whole doc and you're like, I would spit
Speaker 2: on this person if I saw him.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's the same with Keith Ranieri. People are
Speaker 3: like he was so magnetic.
Speaker 1: I'm like, he looks like add volleyball dork, Like, what
Speaker 1: are you talking about? Like, I don't know, I'm not
Speaker 1: getting the magnetism, but I guess maybe you have to
Speaker 1: be in.
Speaker 3: The room with them. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, people would say maybe they don't feel that way
Speaker 1: about I'm a Chamberlain, but you do, so who knows?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 2: I like, I'm a Chamberlain and I'm not like you
Speaker 2: for her. Yeah, I'm not selling off my possessions in
Speaker 2: like squirreling in her backyard, ready to serve, Like I
Speaker 2: just buy some merch.
Speaker 3: Sometimes you're not doing those things, Lisa promise.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 2: I mean I have been an obsessive fan before. Did
Speaker 2: I bid on Anthony Ketis's shorts on eBay?
Speaker 3: Yes? But you definitely have a healthy version vision.
Speaker 2: You have a healthy way of being a fan that
Speaker 2: does not cross over into culhood.
Speaker 3: And I was not suggesting that I'm just messing.
Speaker 2: When Steve O was at a night club, did I
Speaker 2: wait in line, pay twenty dollars get in to meet him?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 3: Twenty dollars to meet Steve O doesn't sound that crazy
Speaker 3: to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah. When I opened firm, I showed him this seleutty
Speaker 2: photo of me at twenty sneaking into clubs to meet him.
Speaker 3: So tan, so blonde. But well, I mean, can we
Speaker 3: get that photo up on our Instagram?
Speaker 2: I would love to let everyone know what I looked
Speaker 2: like in my youth. I was a clubber. Tan highlighted
Speaker 2: psychopaths well, I've sold the story how I had memberships
Speaker 2: some multiple tanning salons so I didn't have to wait
Speaker 2: twenty four hours. I could keep tanning. Like that's that's
Speaker 2: the vibe you're about to see.
Speaker 1: I mean, I tanned so much in college, and I
Speaker 1: think I went to places that didn't even do the
Speaker 1: twenty four hour thing. Like I went to places where
Speaker 1: the packages were five dollars a session, like I was.
Speaker 3: It was crazy.
Speaker 2: How a couple of years ago, I think I tanned
Speaker 2: before I went to a wedding or something and I
Speaker 2: went to the La tan and Skochie and the woman
Speaker 2: was like, whoa, you haven't been here since twenty eleven.
Speaker 3: Like she said a date that. Like she looked at
Speaker 3: me like how.
Speaker 2: Old are you? But I hadn't been there in like
Speaker 2: so long. But still in the system. Still in the system.
Speaker 3: So funny.
Speaker 1: Okay, now let's get back to back to a murderous
Speaker 1: pedophile cult leader. So after they're watching his little sermon,
Speaker 1: you know, they're all sort of just talking about him.
Speaker 1: Huang's kind of profiling and being like a lot of
Speaker 1: cult leaders were known to have sexual relationships with children.
Speaker 2: To go back, I'm sorry, but when the parents are
Speaker 2: talking to the detective. Their daughter's making a sandwich, like
Speaker 2: a peanutater and jelly sandwich in the background, and then
Speaker 2: they like tell her to go to her room, but
Speaker 2: then she leaves the fully made sandwich on the counter, Like,
Speaker 2: who'd you make the sandwich for?
Speaker 1: Did not clock that? I guess she's not allowed to
Speaker 1: eat in her room. I don't know I clocked it.
Speaker 1: I was like, the sandwich is made.
Speaker 2: She put the knife on the finished sandwich, and I
Speaker 2: was like, take it with you. But they had like
Speaker 2: jelly and a squeeze bottle and everything. But yeah, I
Speaker 2: guess when you start watching sv most of your week,
Speaker 2: you end up noticing background peanut butter.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So Huog is telling them that a lot of cult
Speaker 1: leaders were known to have sexual relationships with children.
Speaker 3: Koresh had a ten year old bride.
Speaker 1: There's another call leader he mentions that had like fourteen
Speaker 1: you know, young victims. Could I didn't catch the name
Speaker 1: of the of the call leader in that one. But
Speaker 1: then in the middle of this, someone calls the precinct
Speaker 1: asking if one of the boys found as a nine
Speaker 1: year old with brown hair and a scar on his leg.
Speaker 1: They're like trace the call, Wong calls in his like
Speaker 1: special tracing credentials and is like, this is Agent Hwang
Speaker 1: number seven to whatever whatever whatever put a trace on
Speaker 1: this line.
Speaker 3: I didn't know that was how it worked, really, but
Speaker 3: I guess.
Speaker 2: But then we also see like back in the day
Speaker 2: technology because then Marishka is like taping the phone call
Speaker 2: on speaker on a little tape recorder with little tape,
Speaker 2: so it is like very of the time that she
Speaker 2: has a little handheld tape recorder too, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3: And she's just like begging to know.
Speaker 1: Like it was there, a little boy, was their little boy,
Speaker 1: and you know, Craigan's got her on the hook. He's like,
Speaker 1: why don't you come in. You can identify the boy yourself.
Speaker 1: You can look at all the kids and see if.
Speaker 3: You know any of them or whatever. And obviously she's like,
Speaker 3: I can't tell you.
Speaker 1: She hangs up, and they trace the call to a
Speaker 1: payphone at Saint Catharine's, which is the hospital where we
Speaker 1: started the episode, which is where Melanie is. So Olivia
Speaker 1: goes to see Melanie and she's like, I can't tell
Speaker 1: you anything, and you know, Olivia kind of lays down
Speaker 1: the law with her and it's like, listen, bitch, sorry,
Speaker 1: I know you're twelve, but Abraham is a liar. He's
Speaker 1: going to kill your mom, et cetera, et cetera. And
Speaker 1: she says something like they're in a safe place. And
Speaker 1: then the next thing we know, we're seeing a sign
Speaker 1: that says like a safer nation or something, and we're
Speaker 1: in some kind of army navy shop or like a
Speaker 1: libertarian gift shop. I have no idea what it is,
Speaker 1: but it's some kind of a shop where the guy's like,
Speaker 1: this is against my rights. And then in the back
Speaker 1: they find a bunch of women gathered to get there,
Speaker 1: you know, cross legged in a circle praying, and this
Speaker 1: one woman starts freaking out like you're the soldiers of
Speaker 1: Satan whatever. And they find a ton of guns. They're
Speaker 1: like stockpiling guns. So now we're at the precinct with
Speaker 1: all these women. They're all kind of wearing khaki and
Speaker 1: like various loose linen blouses, and they are not giving
Speaker 1: up any information on Abraham. None of them have id
Speaker 1: on them, and they don't know where he is. According
Speaker 1: to Huang Wong's like that's why they're scared. They don't
Speaker 1: know where he is.
Speaker 3: They're basically a.
Speaker 1: Flock without their drained shepherd, so they're they're freaking out
Speaker 1: and they're.
Speaker 3: Trying to just like play it cool.
Speaker 1: Then they get a call from the medical examiner, Tamaratuni,
Speaker 1: always flying in with some crazy news at a perfect time.
Speaker 1: She's got bad news for the cops. Abraham is not
Speaker 1: the one who killed the kids. The oldest victim is
Speaker 1: around twenty years old.
Speaker 2: We've never seen her, we don't know who this person is,
Speaker 2: but she's the oldest victim.
Speaker 1: She's twenty years old. Her wounds are self inflicted, her
Speaker 1: prints are the only prints on the gun, and she
Speaker 1: has gunshot residue all over her hands. So Munch is
Speaker 1: like Abraham is still responsible.
Speaker 3: He had total control over all of them.
Speaker 1: And Warner also discovers that all of these kids have
Speaker 1: the same father except for the shooter, so basically he's
Speaker 1: an incestuous pedophile.
Speaker 3: Like and if you shoot all your kids, no one
Speaker 3: can testify to that except for Melanie. So now it's
Speaker 3: very very important that we.
Speaker 1: Get INtime, we make sure Melanie is safe and that
Speaker 1: she can testify. Obviously, Live gets to the hospital and
Speaker 1: she's gone, and they say her dad took her home.
Speaker 3: Uh, oh, that's not her dad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's like, even if that is her dad,
Speaker 2: or whatever version of a dad that is, it's a
Speaker 2: twelve year old who's pregnant. So the dad's not doing
Speaker 2: a good job, you know what I mean? Right, maybe
Speaker 2: don't release her.
Speaker 1: Wait, Aye's checking her out of a hotel of a
Speaker 1: hospital when she's supposed to be on bed rest until
Speaker 1: she delivers. What's he saying, I'm going to take her
Speaker 1: home into a home birth. Like, I'm surprised he was
Speaker 1: even allowed to discharge her.
Speaker 3: I guess against medical.
Speaker 1: So at the squad, they are listening to one woman
Speaker 1: named Sarah talk to one of the cups and they
Speaker 1: recognize her voice from the call, which Olivia yes does
Speaker 1: have on.
Speaker 3: A tiny handheld recorder.
Speaker 1: And when she came in, she has a piece of
Speaker 1: paper with numbers in her pocket and she won't say
Speaker 1: what the numbers are. She does admit to being Melanie's mother.
Speaker 1: Eventually they they're like, we know you're Melanie's mom, and
Speaker 1: she says that Melanie's father abandoned them when Melanie was
Speaker 1: a baby, and then Olivia goes fucking off on her
Speaker 1: like blames her for the whole thing, for all the
Speaker 1: kids being killed. She's screaming at her. It's like it's
Speaker 1: honestly some of Benson's best yelling. Oh yeah, this scene
Speaker 1: as powerful as fuck. She I mean she also she
Speaker 1: looks stunning, gorgeous in every way, incredible acting like sometimes
Speaker 1: with the Stan Marishka accounts, I'm like, Okay, you guys
Speaker 1: are creepy and you need to relax. And then you
Speaker 1: see a scene like this and you're like, okay, are
Speaker 1: you our.
Speaker 3: Cult leader, because I will.
Speaker 2: I will drop anything and do anything you need, Like
Speaker 2: I will sell everything in my apartment to keep you safe.
Speaker 3: Like she just kills it.
Speaker 1: And like she just like to be able to scream
Speaker 1: and still look so beautiful, like while you're screaming with anger.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's like a upper lip sweat and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 2: so now you're making upper lip sweat look good too.
Speaker 1: So you think that Olivia is gonna break her with
Speaker 1: this beautiful screaming she's doing. But unfortunately Sarah is fully
Speaker 1: brainwashed and is.
Speaker 3: Like this is a test and I will not be tempted.
Speaker 3: Typical cult shit.
Speaker 1: Munch finds out that the numbers on the piece of
Speaker 1: paper in her pocket are bank account numbers, and someone
Speaker 1: has recently cleared them all out, and it's about six
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars. And a lot of these are counterfeit
Speaker 1: checks from large corporations, which are easier to counterfeit because
Speaker 1: large corporations don't, like you know, keep such track of
Speaker 1: like every penny, like the way I guess like a
Speaker 1: small business would do. So he does all of his
Speaker 1: bogus banking in one place, and they're like, he must.
Speaker 3: Have an inside guy there. So I love this detail.
Speaker 2: They go to the bank and when they show up,
Speaker 2: this fucking loser guy who you can tell is Abraham's
Speaker 2: guy on the inside is talking to trying to romance
Speaker 2: some lady on the phone, and he goes, we could
Speaker 2: go someplace special, I don't know, go to Tampa. Like,
Speaker 2: who are you that Tampa is the place you're trying
Speaker 2: to bring? No offense to anybody from Tampa. I've spent
Speaker 2: a lot of time there. I have family in Sarasota.
Speaker 2: I fly into Tampa all the time.
Speaker 1: It's just not the place that you're trying to like
Speaker 1: romance whisk a woman off to Okay, wait.
Speaker 2: Isn't that where real house sives of Atlanta. Drew's husband
Speaker 2: went to Tampa.
Speaker 3: He went to where he went. He went to Tampa.
Speaker 2: It's the stripper capital in the world or in America
Speaker 2: or something like strip club capital.
Speaker 3: It's big strip club territory.
Speaker 2: I keep saying world, but I'm sure there's another country
Speaker 2: that has more strip clubs.
Speaker 3: What do you think.
Speaker 1: I feel like the US has the market cornered on
Speaker 1: strip clubs.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but Hannah will type and find out
Speaker 2: number number country to the club.
Speaker 3: It's gonna be sometime. It's gonna be like Lincoln Stein
Speaker 3: for the US. It's Portland.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they have fifty four in Portland. That doesn't feel
Speaker 2: like fifty four is my lucky number. So Portland beats Tampa, Wow,
Speaker 2: and Atlanta. I mean, I feel like Atlanta has a
Speaker 2: lot of strip clubs.
Speaker 3: I mean like there's a lot.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm but I've always known my dad told me that,
Speaker 1: which is sad. My dad told me Portland was the
Speaker 1: strip club capital, so it's always stuck.
Speaker 3: In my head. Well, they're also full nake in Portland.
Speaker 1: Oh, they go full I'm a I'm a full nude
Speaker 1: type of bitch. As we learned from watching Zola me
Speaker 1: and I.
Speaker 3: Was about to say Zola. They go to Tampa. Yeah, yeah, So.
Speaker 1: I just think it's funny that this guy's about to
Speaker 1: be like somewhere special like Tampa.
Speaker 3: So they confront him about Abraham.
Speaker 1: They're like, look, the FBI is involved, just like get
Speaker 1: your already bucked, so just don't even try it with us,
Speaker 1: And he's like, okay, Abraham's coming in later. Today he's
Speaker 1: closing out one last account. It has more money in
Speaker 1: it than all of them. I feel like this next
Speaker 1: scene is very reminiscent of Fault, even though Fault is
Speaker 1: season seven, right, It's just a similar kind of scene.
Speaker 1: It's like asking a civilian to kind of like play
Speaker 1: a role to lure a guy in to get money.
Speaker 1: And then there's like a whole next slitting thing. Even
Speaker 1: though it happens to Olivia and the Fault one, the guy,
Speaker 1: you know, it's just to me.
Speaker 3: I was getting a lot of Fault echoes in this
Speaker 3: even though this episode came first.
Speaker 2: But it's also this bank guy is like it's like
Speaker 2: it's like, what is your loyalty to this guy?
Speaker 3: Just turn him over to the FBI.
Speaker 2: Like it felt like he was like struggling to do this.
Speaker 2: Maybe it was just nerves, maybe maybe.
Speaker 1: Thought he was gonna kill him, but not never as
Speaker 1: bad as that fucking guy from Fault who worked at
Speaker 1: the check cashing place. Fuck that guy forever. So Reggie
Speaker 1: is the name of the bank teller guy like uh.
Speaker 1: Abraham walks in and Reggie's immediately like sweating through the glass.
Speaker 3: You can tell he's very nervous. He's fucking it up.
Speaker 1: Munch is like, Reggie's blowing this, We're blown, blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: Craigan pulls his gun. All these people pull guns. Abraham's
Speaker 1: totally cornered. He pulls out a knife and says like
Speaker 1: into the darkness.
Speaker 3: Or something like that. I don't remember. I didn't write
Speaker 3: down the actual quote, but it's some kind of like,
Speaker 3: you know, faux religious bullshit.
Speaker 1: Almost slits his own throat and then Olivia jumps on
Speaker 1: him out of nowhere to stop it. And at the
Speaker 1: top of act four, we've got more. I swear they
Speaker 1: must have nominated her for an Emmy for this episode.
Speaker 1: We should look it up because there's so many good scenes.
Speaker 1: This is another great scene. She's interviewing Abraham by herself.
Speaker 3: Okay, she's not.
Speaker 1: There's no Stabler tag tag team. She's alone, one on
Speaker 1: one with this freaky ass cult leader, and he tries
Speaker 1: to turn the tables on her, like how can you
Speaker 1: invite all this depravity of your job into your mind,
Speaker 1: your body, your soul. It's going to eat you like
Speaker 1: a cancer, Like why is this so important to you?
Speaker 3: Are you? Have you been raped? Like you know he's
Speaker 3: trying to get to her.
Speaker 2: It's also like didn't you just see a bunch of
Speaker 2: dead child like you are creating the thing.
Speaker 3: I cut this out. This makes no sense. I'm just
Speaker 3: in a rage. I would actually counter and say, do
Speaker 3: not cut this out.
Speaker 1: So Olivia is speaking to him, but the way that
Speaker 1: they're shooting it, it almost looks like she's doing like
Speaker 1: a monologue like into the camera, and she's basically like
Speaker 1: telling Abraham like she has his number and he's not
Speaker 1: going to fucking get in her head like and she's like,
Speaker 1: you're pathetic, like you actually believe your own hype. You've
Speaker 1: conned yourself. And then she kind of walks out of
Speaker 1: the room and he does have a look on his
Speaker 1: face like fuck this woman, like knows what I'm up
Speaker 1: to or whatever and uh back behind the one way glass. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: Novak is like, without Melanie's testimony, we don't have a case.
Speaker 1: A reminder, he has moved Melanie somewhere and we do
Speaker 1: not know where she is after he took her out
Speaker 1: of the hospital. So a lawyer shows up and says
Speaker 1: that somehow this guy, this fucking cult leader who hasn't
Speaker 1: had a like tricity in eight years, but I guess
Speaker 1: does have six hundred thousand dollars of stolen money, was
Speaker 1: able to get like.
Speaker 3: A hot shot lawyer.
Speaker 1: Because this guy shows up and kind of knows what's up,
Speaker 1: and he's like, you're never going to get him on
Speaker 1: statutory rate because it's only the Emmy's estimation of how
Speaker 1: old this girl is, so that's not concrete enough for
Speaker 1: any judge that'll rule out statutory rape.
Speaker 3: And without that, you're not going to get incested. And
Speaker 3: I still think.
Speaker 1: You'd get all this with DNA. So I'm a little
Speaker 1: bit confused. How the lawyer comes in just like bing
Speaker 1: bang bong and like it's done. But and he's like,
Speaker 1: and your murderer killed herself. So Casey's like, we're pretty screwed,
Speaker 1: like this guy's right. I hate to say it, but
Speaker 1: this guy's right, Like, we don't really have a case
Speaker 1: without Melanie, and monchur Craigan says, what about Manson?
Speaker 3: And that's what originally I thought of.
Speaker 1: I was like, Manson went to jail and he never
Speaker 1: killed anybody specifically as far as I know. And they're like,
Speaker 1: Manson had followers who testified.
Speaker 3: So that's the problem. That's why we need Melanie.
Speaker 2: Melanie what a popular girl. Everyone wants a piece of
Speaker 2: her exactly.
Speaker 1: The account that Abraham was trying to out at this
Speaker 1: bank actually has over a million dollars in it and
Speaker 1: it was under the name of John Kramer in Englewood,
Speaker 1: New Jersey. Now they go and they talk to some
Speaker 1: private investigator who investigated his disappearance. So it turns out
Speaker 1: this guy, John Kramer, vanished with his wife and two
Speaker 1: year old daughter named Melanie, ten years earlier.
Speaker 3: So we're starting to get a picture here.
Speaker 1: We find out that from this private investigator, who the
Speaker 1: wife's parents had hired to find her and the family
Speaker 1: because they all just disappeared, We find out from him
Speaker 1: that Melanie has a trust fund with two million dollars
Speaker 1: in it that she gets when she turns twenty one
Speaker 1: or she has a baby, whichever one comes first. The
Speaker 1: last trace of John that this investigator found was buying
Speaker 1: construction materials on his credit card that his mom paid
Speaker 1: for I guess ten years ago. Month remembers that there
Speaker 1: had been a noise complaint against Abraham's Brownstone from people
Speaker 1: doing middle of the night construction. So we searched that
Speaker 1: house up to up top of to bottom, they say,
Speaker 1: but we didn't check the wall.
Speaker 3: So now we're back at the house.
Speaker 1: We've got a lady with a blueprint and she's like,
Speaker 1: we're basically looking for a room that shouldn't be there.
Speaker 1: They find this wall basically attached to a bathroom and
Speaker 1: they're like, this is this is supposed to be the
Speaker 1: exterior wall of the house. Like, this isn't right. They
Speaker 1: x ray it, they see a skeletal hand. They cut
Speaker 1: open the wall and they find skull and bones sitting
Speaker 1: in a pile of kitty litter to hide the scent.
Speaker 2: This is one of my favorite SVU things, is like
Speaker 2: a body behind the wall.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they do it a few times. Yeah. I
Speaker 3: do love when they fine. I like it.
Speaker 1: It's fucked up, but I like it. It is interesting
Speaker 1: because we both lived in New York. There's only so
Speaker 1: many places you can hide a fucking body in New York.
Speaker 1: We are not in Iowa, where we can go dump
Speaker 1: bury a body in a cornfield or the desert or
Speaker 1: any of that shit. Like, New York is a very
Speaker 1: densely populated, tight place. We don't have a lot of space.
Speaker 1: So if you want to try to get rid of
Speaker 1: a body, it's like there's not that many options, you know,
Speaker 1: Like people try throwing bodies in the river, but they
Speaker 1: always float to the surface.
Speaker 3: So if you want a body where you can keep
Speaker 3: an eye on it, Allah.
Speaker 1: Dory and Corey in Fucking Uh Paris is Burning documentary.
Speaker 1: This drag performer who killed a john they believe, but
Speaker 1: probably was attacked by the john and killed in self defense,
Speaker 1: kept the body in a trunk in her closet for
Speaker 1: years until it mummified, and it was only found when
Speaker 1: she when she died.
Speaker 2: But this isn't because they're Party Monster, that movie with
Speaker 2: mcaulay Culkin that's based on James Saint James and all
Speaker 2: this weird stuff.
Speaker 3: There was a body hidden. I don't know if that's
Speaker 3: the same story. No, but they killed like a random
Speaker 3: person and kept him in a trunk.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, Okay, so I'm saying trunks walls, we got
Speaker 1: to make We got to improvise in New York if
Speaker 1: you're going to try to hide a body.
Speaker 3: And so I guess is the body? Where is the body?
Speaker 1: And I guess some people feel better knowing where bodies
Speaker 1: are rather than just like ditching it and like living
Speaker 1: with the paranoia of somebody finding it.
Speaker 2: Well, and it's like the ultimate trophy too. Yeah, Like
Speaker 2: you're not even keeping a little bracelet. You're keeping right
Speaker 2: if you're like a Sierra body.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So this guy still has his wallet in his pants.
Speaker 1: It's literally like bones in a pair of jeans, and
Speaker 1: like he has a wallet.
Speaker 2: I love the way you say bones. I can hear
Speaker 2: you say bones all day long.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, thank you.
Speaker 1: So they pull out his bank card and it is
Speaker 1: John Kramer. Okay, So now this whole picture is starting
Speaker 1: to come together that Abraham killed this man to get
Speaker 1: to his wife and child. We find out also that
Speaker 1: the wife her name is Cindy, So she goes by
Speaker 1: Sarah in the cult, but her name is Cindy in
Speaker 1: her before life. They show Sarah slash Cindy the wallet,
Speaker 1: and they show her pictures of this dead body, this
Speaker 1: the bones. They tell her, this is your husband. He
Speaker 1: was shot in the back of the head and he
Speaker 1: was buried in the wall of your house. And she's like,
Speaker 1: this isn't true. He left us, he fell in love
Speaker 1: with another woman. This is what Abraham told me. I
Speaker 1: believe Abraham.
Speaker 3: And then Olivia's got the smoking gun.
Speaker 1: She just sort of flicks a little baggy with a
Speaker 1: wedding ring in it at her and goes, he was
Speaker 1: wearing it when he died.
Speaker 3: So then the woman is really.
Speaker 1: Starting to understand I've been completely fleeced and I've allowed
Speaker 1: my daughter to be impregnated by a cult leader. So
Speaker 1: Olivia definitely lets her feel the guilt and says, where's Melanie.
Speaker 1: He's going to take her money and then he's going
Speaker 1: to kill her when she has this baby. The lawyer's like,
Speaker 1: what's in it for her? And the mom's just like,
Speaker 1: she's up north in a warehouse.
Speaker 3: What's in it for her? Not a dead daughter? Yes,
Speaker 3: so true.
Speaker 1: So now we're at this warehouse, they find Melanie. She's
Speaker 1: in this little like storeroom on like a blow up
Speaker 1: bed or whatever, and it's Benson and officers Remainno from
Speaker 1: the earlier part of the episode. They go into the room.
Speaker 1: They're like, Melanie, we're here to get you out of here.
Speaker 1: And then he Abraham slashed Eugene comes back. They have
Speaker 1: him up against the wall and he's encouraging Melanie like, see,
Speaker 1: I told you they were going to come for us,
Speaker 1: Like you got to stop them, you got to stop them.
Speaker 1: Suddenly she Officers Ormagno gets shot in the leg and
Speaker 1: we wheel around and see that Melanie, this cute little
Speaker 1: twelve year old girl with freckles, is like holding a
Speaker 1: gun and she has just shot.
Speaker 3: This cop in the leg.
Speaker 2: Well, and this is kind of like a callback to
Speaker 2: what happened in the house where it's like he obviously
Speaker 2: makes women do the crime and all the work too, right,
Speaker 2: you know, he's not going to get his fingerprints on
Speaker 2: that gun. He'd rather give it to this pregnant twelve
Speaker 2: year old, right, and he obviously gave it to her.
Speaker 2: Earlier room was like if anyone comes in, shoot them
Speaker 2: and whatever.
Speaker 3: So he's busy.
Speaker 2: I wonder if people run up to Jeffkober in the
Speaker 2: streets and go, how dare you, like, I wonder if
Speaker 2: people don't know well, so then more shades of fault
Speaker 2: to me where there's that time there's that standoff where
Speaker 2: it's like shoot him, Livia, Oh you gonn shoot me, Lyvia,
Speaker 2: what are you gonna do?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 1: So there's that whole thing that happens here where both
Speaker 1: Eugene slash Abraham and Olivia are screaming things at Melanie,
Speaker 1: being like, I'm here to help you know, I'm your father,
Speaker 1: I'm your husband, whatever. Like They're both going at it
Speaker 1: like screaming at the same time and stressing around, and
Speaker 1: we're upping the tension and upping the tension.
Speaker 3: We don't know what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: And Abraham says, they're afraid of me because I am
Speaker 1: greater than man and I am greater than God, and
Speaker 1: they're afraid of what I can do. And then in
Speaker 1: that moment, a shot rings out and Abraham is shot
Speaker 1: and Melanie has shot Abraham, and Benson goes to her.
Speaker 1: They hug and she's Melanie's crying in her arms and
Speaker 1: she's like, that was a lie. He said he was
Speaker 1: greater than God, but nobody is. So in a way,
Speaker 1: religion kind of saved.
Speaker 3: The day here in a weird way.
Speaker 1: And it's good that she's going to have that two
Speaker 1: million dollar trust fund to pay for her lifetime of therapy.
Speaker 3: And that is the end of charisma.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much, Kara, and stay tuned for the real
Speaker 2: life horrors.
Speaker 3: As we say, get ready to get sad.
Speaker 2: So this is based on the case of Marcus Wesson.
Speaker 2: And of course, like there's vibes of Dave Koresh and
Speaker 2: like Jim Jones and all that, but those are such giant,
Speaker 2: well known cases that I thought I would focus on
Speaker 2: them Marcus Wesson case, and it's like fully one hundred
Speaker 2: percent unfortunately exactly what happened, Like it's since it's this
Speaker 2: Sun's really sad.
Speaker 3: It is upsetting. It did take a lot out of me.
Speaker 2: And the guy is super super scary and all the children.
Speaker 3: Are very very cute, beautiful children.
Speaker 2: So this case of Marcus Wesson is in Fresno, California,
Speaker 2: and he has one of my worst qualities physic. I
Speaker 2: hate matted dreads. Like, if you're gonna have dreads, take
Speaker 2: care of that. I just like there's you know when
Speaker 2: you just see one big clumped out dread with someone
Speaker 2: and you're like, I don't want to be near you.
Speaker 3: That's how you feel. I just really don't like dirty dreads.
Speaker 3: So he has dirty dreads.
Speaker 2: And Marcus is the leader of an ancestual cult founded
Speaker 2: on the beliefs of vampires and that he was God.
Speaker 2: So it's a very like vampire Christian situation because it's
Speaker 2: like Jesus gave up his blood and that's like what
Speaker 2: vampires do.
Speaker 3: So okay, it's pretty strange.
Speaker 2: And they also could have been considered Seventh day Adventists
Speaker 2: as well, but then it morphed into this weird vampire situation,
Speaker 2: and the prosecutors described him as a domineering patriarch who
Speaker 2: controlled his family with religious teachings and sexual abuse, so
Speaker 2: pretty close to the truth. He had a wife named
Speaker 2: Elizabeth who he met when she was eight years old,
Speaker 2: so Elizabeth was his girlfriend's daughter. So like, he came
Speaker 2: home from the army and he moved in with this
Speaker 2: older woman named Rosemary Selario.
Speaker 3: You're Italian? Is that son Italian? Yeah? Yeah, it could be.
Speaker 3: It makes me want pizza, Okay, So.
Speaker 2: Rosemary Scelario is this older woman that he moved in
Speaker 2: with when he came home from the army, and she
Speaker 2: had several children from a previous relationship. She had a
Speaker 2: kid with Marcus, but then he strayed in onto this
Speaker 2: eight year old daughter. So he basically said like she's
Speaker 2: meant for me and you I own you, and that
Speaker 2: was that, and the mom was like, okay, cool, but
Speaker 2: you can't get married till she's a teenager. And so
Speaker 2: basically like let her boyfriend date her eight year old
Speaker 2: daughter and they spoke. I've watched an interview with the
Speaker 2: daughter as like a grown woman, and she was just like,
Speaker 2: I believed everything he said and thought that the Lord
Speaker 2: like picked me to be with him. So she felt
Speaker 2: like special that she was chosen to be with this person,
Speaker 2: even if like things sucked.
Speaker 3: She was like, I'm so special. God shows me.
Speaker 2: So in nineteen seventy four, when she was fourteen and
Speaker 2: he was twenty seven, they got married and that was
Speaker 2: the Mother of Rosemary's rule, like you have to wait
Speaker 2: to get married, it's so fucking sick. She gave birth
Speaker 2: Elizabeth to eleven children with Wesson from the ages of
Speaker 2: fourteen to twenty six. One died as an infant, but
Speaker 2: she had like ten children with this man, and incest
Speaker 2: was a big part of their religion and life in
Speaker 2: quotes like he would say, one produces the seed of
Speaker 2: perfection of oneself, so legit, his children slash grandchildren have
Speaker 2: been had been fathered with his daughters and nieces, so
Speaker 2: very ancestual cults. He also moved the family around a lot,
Speaker 2: like they lived in tents, boats, shacks, trailers, a school
Speaker 2: bus for a while, in various houses, and like you know,
Speaker 2: when they lived on boat, no electricity or running water,
Speaker 2: and he made the entire family live below decks so
Speaker 2: no one would see him. For twelve years, they lived
Speaker 2: in an army tent and then finally purchased this old
Speaker 2: office building and that's where they lived. And their life
Speaker 2: was very much welfare food stamps. He made children go
Speaker 2: dumpster diving while he ate fast food and did whatever
Speaker 2: he wanted. When he was arrested, he was fifty seven
Speaker 2: years old and weighed over three hundred pounds. So these
Speaker 2: children are dumpster diving and on food stamps and barely
Speaker 2: have enough food and he's just constantly eating.
Speaker 3: Fast food all the time. Oh my god.
Speaker 2: They did not go to school, obviously, he took care
Speaker 2: of their education.
Speaker 3: Yes, safe to say he's a proponent of homeschooling.
Speaker 2: I would get yeah, And his lessons were mostly Bible
Speaker 2: studies that were based on the fact that he was
Speaker 2: God and that Jesus Christ was a vampire, which could
Speaker 2: be a funny show.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: That's what sucks about all this Jesus Christ vampire is
Speaker 2: pretty fun, but he didn't make it fun. And then
Speaker 2: Sin's lessons that also sounds like a fun like pretzel school,
Speaker 2: you know, like there's just lessons, ugh.
Speaker 3: But not that fun of lessons.
Speaker 2: A lot of the lessons were just sexual technique, like
Speaker 2: that was a big part of the girl's curriculum, was
Speaker 2: learning sexual technique. And they were also in charge of
Speaker 2: washing his dreads and like scratching his head and armpits
Speaker 2: and stuff for him, like they had to take care
Speaker 2: of him physically. Psychiatrist Edward Hallowell described the cult as
Speaker 2: being run on fear as a tool for manipulation, and
Speaker 2: this tactic forced the children to act against their own
Speaker 2: self interest. Keeping the family together was the most important thing,
Speaker 2: and more important than life itself, was staying together as
Speaker 2: a family, and he taught them that the police were
Speaker 2: the devil in disguise and that suicide was an.
Speaker 3: Okay way to escape them. This is upsetting.
Speaker 2: He purchased caskets months before this mass murder, so he
Speaker 2: had caskets ready for everyone in the house, like in
Speaker 2: a room, because that's part of the lesson where it's
Speaker 2: like death over separation. So it didn't seem like this
Speaker 2: horrible thing. I don't know, but he had caskets ready
Speaker 2: for everybody. One of the boys, Sarafino explained, like the
Speaker 2: life was terrible. He was one of the survivors, one
Speaker 2: of the boys. But he said punishments would last up
Speaker 2: to thirty days.
Speaker 3: It would be like, you know, sixty three hits a day.
Speaker 2: Twenty one in the morning and then twenty one in
Speaker 2: the afternoon, twenty one in the evening, for like days
Speaker 2: on end. And some of the girls in the house said,
Speaker 2: like they would have to remind him of their punishments
Speaker 2: because he would forget, so you would have to go
Speaker 2: to him and be like, you forgot to whip me
Speaker 2: today twenty one times, Like you had to constantly remind
Speaker 2: him to beat you.
Speaker 3: But that's how like Culty this really was.
Speaker 2: And like Sarafino said, the punishment of getting beat thirty
Speaker 2: days was because he stole a spoonful of peanut butter,
Speaker 2: and that reminds me of Nix Marie brown Kis, where
Speaker 2: it's like just such small things and such violent fucking
Speaker 2: consequences and it's just really really sad. He would beat
Speaker 2: them with Bat's electrical chords and like even worse stuff
Speaker 2: that I really don't need to be mentioning, but you
Speaker 2: can imagine it sucked, and like what sucks on top
Speaker 2: of it all is the children didn't know any better.
Speaker 2: They had no access to the outside world and were
Speaker 2: born into the cult, so they didn't know what life
Speaker 2: should have looked like. Keanie, one of the girls, said
Speaker 2: that Wesson started raping her at age a and she
Speaker 2: thought it was okay, like that's all she knew. And
Speaker 2: then but one of the kids, Gypsy, said she knew
Speaker 2: it felt wrong. And when they were old enough to work,
Speaker 2: they were expected to and they had to hand over
Speaker 2: all of their wages to Marcus and he of course
Speaker 2: refused to work and was on welfare, and then everyone
Speaker 2: else when they hit the work the age of work,
Speaker 2: had to go work. This guy had total control over
Speaker 2: his family. Obviously, you guys get that. Even when they
Speaker 2: were allowed to have jobs out of the house. Nobody
Speaker 2: said anything to anybody. No one said anything to coworkers
Speaker 2: or to the cops. And I mean they also just
Speaker 2: had such hatred for law enforcement. And like one of
Speaker 2: his favorite celebrities David Koresh and he fucking loved David Koresh.
Speaker 2: Oh surviving boys said that, like they would watch him
Speaker 2: on TV and he'd be like, that's my brother, Like
Speaker 2: that's like me and him. He had a fascination in
Speaker 2: kinship with this fellow cult leader, and he thought they
Speaker 2: were both children for the Lord, and they both like
Speaker 2: believed that they were both making children for the Lord,
Speaker 2: and they both just had a lot of similarities and
Speaker 2: he looked up to him.
Speaker 3: He made a suicide pack that.
Speaker 2: If any government official ever tried to take the kids
Speaker 2: away or split up the family, that the mothers were
Speaker 2: to kill their children and themselves, and held monthly meetings
Speaker 2: to discuss the details of the plans.
Speaker 3: So they had like five drills but for the suicide.
Speaker 1: Pact, which in essence is just to like cover his
Speaker 1: own tracks, really right, like, yeah, he doesn't believe this shit.
Speaker 1: So he's basically just like we all if the cops
Speaker 1: come in, we all have to die so that like
Speaker 1: I don't get in trouble.
Speaker 2: He's truly one of the scariest people I've ever seen.
Speaker 2: We really we research a lot of horrific crimes, but
Speaker 2: like when you look into his eyes, it's like a
Speaker 2: shark or a crocodile, Like there's nothing there.
Speaker 3: It's really no soul in those eyes.
Speaker 2: So what happened on this day of March twelfth, two
Speaker 2: thousand and four is when everything came together.
Speaker 1: And this is coincidentally, like months before this episode of
Speaker 1: U S for You, So it's definitely based on this.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, Yeah, So what happened on March in this
Speaker 2: March twenty March two thousand and four was police officials
Speaker 2: said that in the afternoon, the officers were called to
Speaker 2: the house for a child custody to dispute. They say,
Speaker 2: as they arrived, two women were outside the house and
Speaker 2: they were there to pick up their kids, but Marcus
Speaker 2: would not let them in. And these two women were
Speaker 2: two nieces that ran away and then they returned to
Speaker 2: take their babies with them. So that's Ruby or Tease
Speaker 2: and Sophina Slario were the nieces that left and he
Speaker 2: let them leave but said they had to leave their
Speaker 2: own children behind, but they were so desperate to.
Speaker 3: Get out of there. They agreed.
Speaker 2: They realized that this isn't good, and like they were
Speaker 2: not happy with their lives and they had to get
Speaker 2: out of there.
Speaker 3: And so then so they escaped, leaving their children behind.
Speaker 2: But then once they got adjusted to the world outside
Speaker 2: and started getting like they started to understand what he
Speaker 2: had done to them and everything that they had been through,
Speaker 2: and they got they were like, fuck, he's doing this
Speaker 2: to the rest of our family.
Speaker 3: We have to help.
Speaker 2: So, like I said, March twelfth, two thousand and four,
Speaker 2: they gathered several relatives for support and went back to
Speaker 2: the home to rescue their children, and like I said,
Speaker 2: refuse to let them in. And the rest of the
Speaker 2: family was call like yelling at them Judas whoors commanding
Speaker 2: them to bow down to your master. So everyone in
Speaker 2: the home still fully like in his grip, and so
Speaker 2: they're screaming horrific things at these women that are just
Speaker 2: trying to save their children. And they were in a
Speaker 2: really tough situation, like they couldn't get to their kids.
Speaker 2: But then they also knew about the suicide packs. So
Speaker 2: if the cops or authorities showed up. They knew what
Speaker 2: could happen, So they're really in a fucked up situation
Speaker 2: where they need help of authorities or like a greater
Speaker 2: power to get these children, but like are scared of
Speaker 2: the results. But also I can't I can't imagine what
Speaker 2: these people are going. So when the police arrived, they
Speaker 2: the women are trying to communicate to the cops like, no,
Speaker 2: they're in danger. He will hurt these children, please help them,
Speaker 2: And the cops didn't listen to the warnings and didn't
Speaker 2: consider they had enough evidence to force enter the house.
Speaker 2: So they arrive and these women are pleading with the
Speaker 2: police officers like you need to enter the home and
Speaker 2: get our children out of there.
Speaker 3: They are in grave danger, and.
Speaker 2: The cops were like, yo, we don't have enough evidence
Speaker 2: for a warrant and didn't enter.
Speaker 3: Wesson did meet the.
Speaker 2: Police at the door and told them to like wait
Speaker 2: and he'd be right back, and disappeared back into the house.
Speaker 3: They allowed it at first.
Speaker 2: Wesson, I guess told the officers that he would release
Speaker 2: the children, but then instead ran into this bedroom and
Speaker 2: locked the door and then shots rang out that the
Speaker 2: cops deny they heard, even though.
Speaker 3: Neighbors heard them. What so, oh my god.
Speaker 2: When he appeared again, he was covered fully in blood
Speaker 2: and nine of the children were dead. There was an
Speaker 2: hour long standoff before he surrendered. When the officers entered
Speaker 2: the home, they found a pile of bodies in one
Speaker 2: room and ten coffins in different sizes like in another room. Good.
Speaker 2: The victims were six females, three males, ranging from the
Speaker 2: age of one to twenty four. Yeah, and they were
Speaker 2: all related, and all the children were shot in the head.
Speaker 2: It's awful, so police described. Wesson is very calm during
Speaker 2: his arrest after emerging blood covered from his home, like
Speaker 2: just I guess he was chill as fuck. His bail
Speaker 2: was set at nine million dollars. Wesson did not take
Speaker 2: the stand at his trial, which is probably a good
Speaker 2: choice by the defense, Like he's the scariest person ever.
Speaker 2: And that trial started June two thousand and five. His
Speaker 2: attorneys tried to say the kids killed themselves or the
Speaker 2: older daughter did it, and it's like, go fuck yourself,
Speaker 2: and nobody bought it. Even like we talked about in
Speaker 2: the episode, like even if he didn't pull the trigger,
Speaker 2: the fucker is guilty. Yeah, and he was found guilty
Speaker 2: of nine counts of murder and fourteen counts of rape
Speaker 2: and melestation. So on June twenty seventh, two thousand and five,
Speaker 2: he was sentenced to one hundred and two years of
Speaker 2: rape for rape and molestation charges, and then for the
Speaker 2: murder of his children and grandchildren, he received the death
Speaker 2: penalty and he's never eligible for parole. And then the
Speaker 2: governor there's a memoriatorium or whatever on the death penalty
Speaker 2: in California. So he's in San Quentin on death row
Speaker 2: right now. But we don't know what will happen. But
Speaker 2: I am against the death penalty, but I'm just like
Speaker 2: light this motherfucker up. This is considered the worst mass
Speaker 2: murder in Fresno history. And the cops who found the
Speaker 2: pile of bodies were so traumatized they all had to
Speaker 2: seek counseling. No stablers in the bunch. They were all
Speaker 2: really fucking traumatized. And what is twisted is when he
Speaker 2: was first arrested, a number of the indoctrinated kids were
Speaker 2: defending him. Like one of the kids met with a
Speaker 2: reporter and was like kept trying to clear his father's
Speaker 2: name and saying that he's the best dad ever I
Speaker 2: watched the footage of the kids like kind of crying
Speaker 2: and being like, no, he's the best dad we could
Speaker 2: have ever had.
Speaker 3: Like they just truly.
Speaker 2: Were fully brainwashed, and it took years of deprogramming and
Speaker 2: separation from him that any of them finally realized what
Speaker 2: they had all been through. And there's there are interviews
Speaker 2: with like the children and they're really upset, like when
Speaker 2: they're talking about it, even though they're out of it.
Speaker 2: It was like kind of shame a little bit too.
Speaker 2: Like one of the sons said, I believed he was
Speaker 2: gone until I was nineteen years old, Like, you know,
Speaker 2: I just can't imagine the way of all this. And
Speaker 2: so I did find an update as of August twenty
Speaker 2: twenty of where all the like niece's nephews and children are.
Speaker 2: Three of his sons were finally able to say their
Speaker 2: dad was a psychotic, narcissistic and a deluded person. And
Speaker 2: then Alicia Sophios is a reporter who interviewed Sara Fino,
Speaker 2: who's one of the sons, and she said she like
Speaker 2: couldn't just sit and watch this, and she did break
Speaker 2: journalism rules, and like, I guess there's a rule in journalism,
Speaker 2: you cannot become part of the story. But she could
Speaker 2: not just stand by and watch, so she invited three
Speaker 2: of the women to live with her. So Elizabeth, Gipsy
Speaker 2: and Keanna like they had never been to school, didn't
Speaker 2: have any money, nothing, so she so the four women
Speaker 2: lived in an apartment together. Gypsy and Keana all have
Speaker 2: children of their own now. Sarah Fino, one of the sons,
Speaker 2: is married and has three children, and Alicia Sophios wrote
Speaker 2: a book about the family if you want to know more,
Speaker 2: and it's called Where Hope Begins.
Speaker 3: Damn, And that's kind of it. And it's just sad and.
Speaker 2: It's scary to think like this could be happening to.
Speaker 3: Someone right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not to leave everyone on a terrible, terrible note,
Speaker 2: but it's just like off the grid, Like you said,
Speaker 2: I don't even think it's only money about no electricity
Speaker 2: in the episode are with him. It's also like you
Speaker 2: can't trace them, you can't track it. You don't know
Speaker 2: where who's there, how many people are living there, Like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I just wonder.
Speaker 1: What was going through his mind when he went into
Speaker 1: that bedroom and killed all those kids, Because it's like,
Speaker 1: if you're not going to get all of them, You're
Speaker 1: still going to be implicated. And he didn't take his
Speaker 1: own life, So it's like, what did you think was
Speaker 1: gonna happen? The cops are at your front door? What
Speaker 1: did you think was going to happen? Like, those kids
Speaker 1: didn't have to die. No, it's just so I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe he thought he was sending.
Speaker 2: Them to heaven or whatever, if he believed his own religion. No,
Speaker 2: I think he's just like an evil, evil person. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't know, I have no idea. And then I
Speaker 2: was really shocked that we don't know more about this
Speaker 2: case because it is so heinous and horrific and terrible.
Speaker 2: But in the same area, during the same time, Scott
Speaker 2: Peterson's trial was happening, and so because of that, that
Speaker 2: case got so much attention, it seems like this one
Speaker 2: kind of got swept under the rug. And this also
Speaker 2: brings up what SVU covers a lot and hopefully this changes.
Speaker 2: But these victims were black, and I just wonder if
Speaker 2: this family being black kind of fucked with the news
Speaker 2: coverage in media and attention that it got because Lacy
Speaker 2: was like this all American, pregnant girl.
Speaker 3: Beautiful white woman.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Oh my god, that makes it so sad
Speaker 1: that like that. I'm so surprised. I don't know about
Speaker 1: this case, and that's totally why.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a black family and so no one cared.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but it does seem like one of
Speaker 2: the most horrific crimes I've ever looked at. So it
Speaker 2: is shocking that it's not anywhere at all. It's a bummer,
Speaker 2: but it sucks that this wasn't a bigger case because
Speaker 2: maybe those the children could have gotten more funds or
Speaker 2: support help, Like I don't know how much support they
Speaker 2: had without this journalist. I'm going to have to read
Speaker 2: this book if I can manage being sad for a
Speaker 2: long time.
Speaker 1: Well, we've done it, Charisma, we've done it. We made it.
Speaker 3: Through and now we have a guest as always and it's.
Speaker 1: A good one, all right, you guys. I am beyond
Speaker 1: psyched for this interview because this is someone who has
Speaker 1: truly haunted me in his work since I was a child,
Speaker 1: and we talk about it in the interview. But you
Speaker 1: guys might know him from shows like China Beach or
Speaker 1: Sons of Anarchy. He's been on The Walking Dead and
Speaker 1: a little movie called the first power that traumatized me
Speaker 1: as a child. He was recently nominated for a Daytime
Speaker 1: Emmy for his portrayal of Cyrus Renault on General Hospital,
Speaker 1: But you guys know him as the terrifying Abraham. On
Speaker 1: this week's episode of Charisma, check out our interview with
Speaker 1: mister Jeff Kober.
Speaker 2: This is one of our most requested episodes with all
Speaker 2: of our listeners, and we kept denying them. We're like,
Speaker 2: it's too scary, it's too sad, we refuse, and then
Speaker 2: we're obviously when we found out we got to talk
Speaker 2: to you. We had to do it. And do you
Speaker 2: feel like our listeners need help?
Speaker 4: Absolutely?
Speaker 5: It's a horrifying episode and I just saw it for
Speaker 5: the first time this week.
Speaker 4: I had never watched it before.
Speaker 2: And do you not watch any of your work or
Speaker 2: just when you're playing someone really scary?
Speaker 4: I don't watch a lot of my work.
Speaker 5: Every once in a while, I do, but it's you know, hell,
Speaker 5: could be watching yourself on video, your whole life, here's
Speaker 5: your whole life on video, sit and watch.
Speaker 4: But this one.
Speaker 5: I sat down with my family to watch it, and
Speaker 5: when I saw how horrifying this person was, I had
Speaker 5: to leave the room.
Speaker 4: It was too much.
Speaker 3: Oh, so, how do you prep for a role like that?
Speaker 4: Well, I.
Speaker 5: Learned something extraordinary on this job, which is the situation
Speaker 5: adds the horror. I played it as a man of God.
Speaker 5: I was really trying to be helpful to Rishka.
Speaker 4: When I was. She was interviewing me, but I was
Speaker 4: actually interviewing her. Yeah, and I thought that I was,
Speaker 4: you know, I was.
Speaker 5: I was speaking the words of Jesus and really trying
Speaker 5: to help people out. Though there were how twenty four
Speaker 5: children killed.
Speaker 3: Something some a bad number of the children, for sure.
Speaker 2: Do you think he's the worst character you've ever played
Speaker 2: or have there been worse?
Speaker 5: Let's see, Well I played I played a Richard Ramirez
Speaker 5: type character in The First Power. Yes.
Speaker 1: And if I could jump in here right now and
Speaker 1: just say that that's a movie I saw you in
Speaker 1: when I was ten years old, and I was truly
Speaker 1: terrified by you for a very long time.
Speaker 4: That was horrifying. That was that guy was sick.
Speaker 3: And we talked to Lou Diamond Phillips about you. Also. Oh,
Speaker 3: because we brought up that movie.
Speaker 4: Lou, we had fun. It was good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that movie is I think I was just like
Speaker 1: it was on like HBO or something when I was ten,
Speaker 1: and my brother and I thought we would be edgy
Speaker 1: and watch it, and I just was like, I thought
Speaker 1: you were so so scary in it. So you're You've
Speaker 1: always been a great actor in my mind because you've
Speaker 1: terrified me as a child, But now such a pleasure
Speaker 1: to be talking to you.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 5: I actually we shot that while Richard Ramirez was on trial.
Speaker 5: I actually went to his trial and that was extraordinary
Speaker 5: because the banality of evil was so amazing. He was like, yeah,
Speaker 5: they got me. Yeah, he had no conception of what
Speaker 5: it was he'd done.
Speaker 3: What was the vibe in that courtroom?
Speaker 4: Well, it was.
Speaker 5: Courtrooms are a lot more boring than they are on
Speaker 5: SPU and they were just going through a lot of
Speaker 5: procedural stuff. But he every time the door opened, he
Speaker 5: would spin around to see who walked into the room.
Speaker 5: And one time he spun around and I was sitting
Speaker 5: in the back row and our eyes locked for a moment,
Speaker 5: and it was like something you'll never be able to unsee.
Speaker 3: Could you tell his eyes?
Speaker 2: I'd like, no soul, like wore his eyes different than
Speaker 2: other people you look at.
Speaker 4: Yes, there was no soul.
Speaker 5: Soul was buried so deep in him that it had
Speaker 5: never made it to his eyes.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 3: So did you you go to the trial to research
Speaker 3: for the movie?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I was very much into research at that time
Speaker 5: in my life, and I overdid it on that movie.
Speaker 4: I have to say.
Speaker 5: We shot in a Catholic church on Sunset Boulevard and
Speaker 5: they had me standing on the altar making you know,
Speaker 5: a crucifix gesture and saying something about come and get me,
Speaker 5: buddy boy or whatever. And the pre came along and
Speaker 5: he hadn't been inside the church when we were in there.
Speaker 5: He said, hope you're not doing anything to bring down
Speaker 5: the wrath of God on us.
Speaker 3: We were, Oh, no, that's so.
Speaker 2: And so we've talked to Neil bar a couple times.
Speaker 2: He's one of our regular FAV guests and we saw
Speaker 2: that you guys work together in China Beach and was
Speaker 2: this how you SVU came about? Was I'm assuming it
Speaker 2: was an offer only? Like right, No, no, I read
Speaker 2: for it. I think no way, I think so. Really,
Speaker 2: I think so.
Speaker 4: You know what it's It's only was almost twenty years ago.
Speaker 3: I know, I know it's okay if you don't remember something.
Speaker 5: I don't even smoke pot anymore. I actually don't. It
Speaker 5: might have been an offer, could have been.
Speaker 1: We just were we were just putting that, we put
Speaker 1: the pieces together. When we saw that you'd done China Beach,
Speaker 1: we thought maybe Neil Bear brought you in or something.
Speaker 5: It's it's it's possible. I'd have to ask someone with
Speaker 5: a better memory than than I.
Speaker 3: We could ask Neil because he remembers everything.
Speaker 2: Okay, and then one of the other shocking things besides
Speaker 2: the murder in the episode is like a pregnant young child.
Speaker 2: And so how was it like working with the kid
Speaker 2: with the pregnant belly the gun?
Speaker 3: You're evil? Like, what's that process?
Speaker 5: Like? Well, again, you you have to play it like
Speaker 5: it's a love story. And you know, people say she
Speaker 5: was twelve, I'd say twelve and a half.
Speaker 4: And again, God told.
Speaker 5: Me to do it, so I it was she was
Speaker 5: the right person for the job. You know, you have
Speaker 5: to ignore the fact because this character was not horrified
Speaker 5: by what he was doing.
Speaker 4: Right, he was doing what he thought was right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, she even says that in the in the interview,
Speaker 5: she says, you know, the really sad thing is you've
Speaker 5: bought your own height, you know, And so yeah, he was.
Speaker 4: He was not just a scam artist.
Speaker 5: He was a scam artist because, as God told him,
Speaker 5: he needed money.
Speaker 2: That face that you make when she says that to
Speaker 2: you is like the best acting ever.
Speaker 3: It was real. It was a great face.
Speaker 4: I think she won an Emmy for that episode.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: I literally kept saying, did Maurshika get nominated for an
Speaker 1: Emmy for this episode?
Speaker 3: Because I just thought she was so great in that episode?
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, yeah, and she you know, we talked because
Speaker 5: I did my half of the interrogation first because of
Speaker 5: just camera angles, and then we talked about what she
Speaker 5: should do.
Speaker 4: She said, I never get to do scenes like this.
Speaker 5: I'm always just saying, you know, if you think of anything,
Speaker 5: call me and hance people a card. And so to
Speaker 5: have actual interaction back and forth with another actor was
Speaker 5: just so exciting for her based on what she'd been
Speaker 5: doing up to that point.
Speaker 4: So we had a lot of fun.
Speaker 2: There any other stories from the set and your experience
Speaker 2: that you feel our listeners would be thrilled to hear about.
Speaker 4: We shot that it was springtime in New York.
Speaker 5: Everyone seemed to be very tired and wanted to go home.
Speaker 4: Okay, And and they actually sent.
Speaker 5: Iced Tea and uh and Chris Maloney they in the
Speaker 5: in the story they get sent home or Ic decides
Speaker 5: to go home.
Speaker 4: We did a movie together too, Ic Tya and another.
Speaker 3: One was it Girl or Yeah the Kangaroo. What did that?
Speaker 2: Someone just sent us that. I remember seeing that and
Speaker 2: I have to watch that. I can't wait to watch
Speaker 2: him be at Kangaroo.
Speaker 4: Yeah, both of us were kangaroos.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and we'd all we all One
Speaker 5: of the things about being a kangaroo was that we
Speaker 5: remember we were engineered kangaroos, and you're able to remember
Speaker 5: what your past life was. And and he was a
Speaker 5: cop and I was a dog, but I was a
Speaker 5: really good dog. So I got to move up to
Speaker 5: kangaroo in this life.
Speaker 3: And he was a bad guy, so he moved down
Speaker 3: to kangaroo.
Speaker 4: No, he was.
Speaker 5: He was a cop and now he was which was
Speaker 5: just funny because there was Iced Tea and cop Killer
Speaker 5: and all that.
Speaker 4: No, he was a good guy. We were heroes. We
Speaker 4: were the hero kangaroos.
Speaker 3: Wow did it?
Speaker 2: And you guys you remembered each other on set? Did
Speaker 2: you reminisce about your Kangaroo days.
Speaker 5: Not much because we didn't actually act together. All my
Speaker 5: stuff was with Marishka. You know, we said hello. I
Speaker 5: think that was it.
Speaker 1: Do you remember this scene where she jumps on your
Speaker 1: back when you're about to slit your own throat?
Speaker 5: That was actually surprising to me. I didn't remember that
Speaker 5: scene at all. I remember so much the stuff in
Speaker 5: the interrogation scene and the scene where the little girl
Speaker 5: shot me, and.
Speaker 4: I remember one of the one of the takes on
Speaker 4: that I don't know.
Speaker 5: It was horrible, I think, but I called her a
Speaker 5: little bitch for shooting me.
Speaker 4: Bitch, all in good fun.
Speaker 3: Of course.
Speaker 2: So then when you're offset, do you have to be
Speaker 2: like extra nice to her when you're not in action?
Speaker 3: Like do people explain?
Speaker 4: I had no, it was It was.
Speaker 5: So interesting because I had no problem being nice in
Speaker 5: that in that job, because I just didn't think of
Speaker 5: myself as a bad guy. And in watching it, I
Speaker 5: was a little horrified for the little girl. Oh my god,
Speaker 5: what they put her through. I looked her up on IMDb.
Speaker 5: I don't think she's worked since two thousand and six
Speaker 5: or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of the kids in the show, sometimes
Speaker 1: like either are so good, and then we look them
Speaker 1: up and they've quit acting, and we're like, what a waste.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask, like, do you I mean, did
Speaker 1: I know this came out a while ago, but like,
Speaker 1: do you ever get recognized for this role or for
Speaker 1: like other roles where you play like these terrifying characters.
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Because I was going to say, I when
Speaker 1: we were obviously researched sing you for this. I watched
Speaker 1: all the seasons of Sons of Anarchy. I've seen every
Speaker 1: episode of Sense of Anarchy. I did not clock that
Speaker 1: you were that character because you just are like not
Speaker 1: You're not like evil in that show. No bad, You're
Speaker 1: just like a bad You're a regular bad guy. You're
Speaker 1: not as terrifying. You're more politically a politician bad right.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, so it's just fun, I mean you, but
Speaker 1: it speaks to your you know, ability as an actor
Speaker 1: to go in and out of these different roles, because
Speaker 1: I thought maybe you just played like terrifying, creepy roles,
Speaker 1: but you really do many other things.
Speaker 4: Oh thank you, not just not.
Speaker 1: Just totally not just not just the guy who scared
Speaker 1: me to when I was ten.
Speaker 5: Now, the one thing personally that was going on for
Speaker 5: me at that time was I had just learned how
Speaker 5: to properly meditate a couple of months before we shot that,
Speaker 5: and that was really helpful in terms of letting it go,
Speaker 5: you know when when I was offset and I remember
Speaker 5: it was a beautiful springtime in New York and uh
Speaker 5: like meditating in Union.
Speaker 4: Square Park and uh, just just.
Speaker 5: Being present in a way that I hadn't hadn't been before.
Speaker 3: Yeah, are you still a meditator?
Speaker 4: Yeah? I teach meditation now.
Speaker 3: Wow wow right you love it?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Well, it just did.
Speaker 5: It did transform my life, so I kind of ended
Speaker 5: up having to, you know, be able to offer it
Speaker 5: to others.
Speaker 3: Amazing.
Speaker 2: We also saw that you are like a horse guy, Yeah,
Speaker 2: rancher nature.
Speaker 4: Uh well, I I was raised on a farm.
Speaker 5: Uh so I I and I've had some horse experience.
Speaker 5: I wrote a lot with a friend here in la
Speaker 5: and Chloe Webb and I have written a lot together.
Speaker 5: She was on China Beach with Me. You remember Chloe
Speaker 5: from Sid and Nancy And she was also on Aimless.
Speaker 4: She played the ex wife.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I love Yes, I love shameless.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Did you go back to those roots during.
Speaker 2: COVID times like did you go back to Montana or anything?
Speaker 3: Were you in La No?
Speaker 4: I stayed in La Yeah.
Speaker 5: Montana is kind of uh, it's a place to visit,
Speaker 5: but not to stay understood.
Speaker 2: And then again, I know this is a long time ago,
Speaker 2: but going back to the scene in the bank with
Speaker 2: the knife, curious about special effect? What was that made
Speaker 2: out of? What do like, what are the fake knives
Speaker 2: made out of rubber?
Speaker 3: They are rubber?
Speaker 4: They are rubber.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And then sometimes you'll just have one that is
Speaker 5: really dull, but like in a scene like that where
Speaker 5: you're going to get tackled, it's almost always a rubber
Speaker 5: so that you don't hurt yourself.
Speaker 3: Or that Marishka Harget doesn't hurt you.
Speaker 4: Right because she's taught. How many episodes have they.
Speaker 1: Done, like for it just they just wrapped the twenty
Speaker 1: second season and I believe it was around the five
Speaker 1: hundredth episode.
Speaker 3: So it's like nuts, so many episodes.
Speaker 4: So many episodes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you're one of the most heinous of twenty
Speaker 2: two seasons.
Speaker 3: You're one of the scariest episodes.
Speaker 4: That's well, that's that's something right.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Well, if you were to come back to SVU,
Speaker 2: they love to bring people back. What would kind of
Speaker 2: be what would you love to be?
Speaker 5: I would like to be a man of God, you know,
Speaker 5: some kind of a preacher who is not quite as creepy.
Speaker 3: Well, you did play something like that in Bosh too.
Speaker 4: I did, but he was creepy.
Speaker 3: You come on, I'm telling you.
Speaker 4: He was a creepy man of God.
Speaker 1: But then you weren't the killer. But you weren't the
Speaker 1: bad guy even though you were creepy.
Speaker 4: I was the red hairring.
Speaker 3: You were the red herring. Yeah, Kara loves Bosh. I
Speaker 3: love Bosh. She talks about it all the time.
Speaker 4: I taught Titus out to meditate.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, well he's an svulum too.
Speaker 4: Oh all right.
Speaker 5: We did a movie together too that c. Thomas Howell directed.
Speaker 5: I killed him on a It was on a table saw.
Speaker 5: I leaned him over a table saw and then turned
Speaker 5: it on. I kissed him as I was turning it on,
Speaker 5: and then sort of I don't remember.
Speaker 3: Well, I'll be checking your IMDb.
Speaker 4: I'll have to look it up.
Speaker 2: Well, how did you get into acting? Like growing up
Speaker 2: on a ranch farm style? What was the moment?
Speaker 5: I followed a woman from college down to LA and
Speaker 5: that relationship broke up at about the same time that
Speaker 5: a band I was in broke up, and I was
Speaker 5: working in my first and only ever office job for
Speaker 5: Getty Oil Company.
Speaker 4: I was a temporary paralegal.
Speaker 5: And I remember that being in college, going to classes
Speaker 5: made sense. You like, studied something, you took a test,
Speaker 5: You knew who you were, at least within those parameters.
Speaker 4: And I was completely lost. And I thought, I need
Speaker 4: to go to a class.
Speaker 5: And one of the women that I was working with said,
Speaker 5: I go to this acting class.
Speaker 4: I think you really like it.
Speaker 5: And so I went to an acting class and it
Speaker 5: was you know, I was this big emotional mess and
Speaker 5: there are people going on stage and being big emotional messes.
Speaker 5: And I went, oh god, I'm home and and that's
Speaker 5: that's where it started.
Speaker 1: Wow, well, thank god that girlfriend broke up with you, right, Yeah.
Speaker 5: She she I don't I don't know what happened to her.
Speaker 3: So were you? I bet Kara was a Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was speaking of girlfriends and and and you know,
Speaker 1: I we read that you and your wife co authored
Speaker 1: a book about called The Art that Pays The Emerging
Speaker 1: Artist Guide to Making a Living.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we want to know what the tips are
Speaker 3: we are the tips? We're artists, we're emerging. What's our tips?
Speaker 3: How do we make money?
Speaker 4: Which you love? You're doing it?
Speaker 5: This is it?
Speaker 4: Just keep doing? You know?
Speaker 5: I act, I teach meditation, I write and take I
Speaker 5: do tin type photography. These are all things that I
Speaker 5: do for free, and somehow I'm able to make a
Speaker 5: living by doing those things. And I do it because
Speaker 5: I've been just absolutely incapable of working for anyone else.
Speaker 5: I get fired from every job I have, you know,
Speaker 5: so that's a gift because I've had to do well.
Speaker 5: If I'm going to not be able to do anything else,
Speaker 5: I might as well do what I love.
Speaker 4: And somehow I've been able to make a living at it.
Speaker 3: And they don't fire you from acting jobs.
Speaker 5: That's never had No. I got fired from a play
Speaker 5: in Williamstown because the writer of the play wanted to
Speaker 5: do the role.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, so he just got you booted.
Speaker 2: Yeah wow, I'd like the listeners to know I rolled
Speaker 2: my eyes is.
Speaker 3: Beyond? Do you still do theater? Y?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Yeah, when I when I can, when when they let me,
Speaker 5: when it's good?
Speaker 3: And what are you writing? What do you like to write?
Speaker 5: I hate to admit it, but I'm actually about finished
Speaker 5: with a memoir.
Speaker 3: Why do you want not want to admit that?
Speaker 5: Well, because it's I I loath the memoir. I don't
Speaker 5: want I don't want to read someone talking about themselves,
Speaker 5: and you know we have so much of that in life,
Speaker 5: like to have to read it too.
Speaker 4: But if I've you know, I I have a story
Speaker 4: to tell and it turns out that that's the way
Speaker 4: that the story wants to be told.
Speaker 3: So cool, that's all thrilling.
Speaker 2: Would you like, is there anything that is coming out
Speaker 2: or you're working on that you would like people to
Speaker 2: know about?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 5: I uh, I wrote a movie that is out. They
Speaker 5: can watch it on I believe it's on Amazon and
Speaker 5: Apple is called Lie Exposed, with Leslie Hope and Bruce Greenwood.
Speaker 5: It's about a woman who's is based on a play
Speaker 5: that I wrote about people coming home from an art show,
Speaker 5: and the art show turns out to have been a
Speaker 5: series of images of woman's private parts, and it turns
Speaker 5: out that she's dying of ovarian cancer, and she hooks
Speaker 5: up with this artist who takes pictures of her and
Speaker 5: she ends up putting on a show of it. It's
Speaker 5: a very strange. Yeah, I don't know where it came from.
Speaker 3: Yeah, where did the inspiration come from? You have no clue.
Speaker 5: Well, I was writing a screenplay with a friend and
Speaker 5: we had to have a scene of two actors working
Speaker 5: in this screenplay on a play, and I'd never written
Speaker 5: a play, So I wrote a scene of these two
Speaker 5: people coming home from a show where they were arguing
Speaker 5: whether it was art or pornography. And I was teaching
Speaker 5: acting at the time, and I had my actors work
Speaker 5: on this scene so I could hear it out loud
Speaker 5: and make it better, and they said, this is great.
Speaker 5: Are there any other scenes? And I said, well, there
Speaker 5: must be other people who went to the same show.
Speaker 5: So I started writing all these people coming home from
Speaker 5: this art show.
Speaker 4: And in the play you don't have to see the images.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know it's.
Speaker 5: But then Leslie Hope wanted to use it as her
Speaker 5: swan song to acting. She's gonna she's directing now, and
Speaker 5: so we turned it into a screenplay. And in the
Speaker 5: screenplay you can't talk about these kind of images the
Speaker 5: whole time, and they never see them. So I had
Speaker 5: to then take images ten type images of a friend,
Speaker 5: intimate intimate images a friend, Yeah, a very good friend.
Speaker 4: Who's who who really.
Speaker 5: Went above and beyond to like show up because it
Speaker 5: was hours of shots and trying to make something not
Speaker 5: look pornographic though it's exposing humans intimacy.
Speaker 4: It was a challenge, but a fun one.
Speaker 3: That's cool.
Speaker 2: I want to watch it, okay, exposed. All right, I'm
Speaker 2: so glad you're No. We knew you weren't going to
Speaker 2: be evil, but I definitely you know, it's nice to
Speaker 2: learn about the meditation and writing, and you just seem
Speaker 2: like you're creatively, very fulfilled.
Speaker 4: I have a great life.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, I'm always doing something fun, always doing
Speaker 5: something creative. Uh, and I get paid for it. You know,
Speaker 5: this this general hospital thing. I'd never done soap oppers,
Speaker 5: but they hired me just before COVID happened, and then
Speaker 5: we started working sooner than just about anyone during COVID,
Speaker 5: and so that kept me, you know, fed amazing the
Speaker 5: last year and a half.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I used to watch gh as A as a young
Speaker 1: person as well. And are Luke and Laura still there
Speaker 1: or what's.
Speaker 5: Laura is actually the mayor of Port Charles, Oh my god.
Speaker 5: And as it turns out, she is my half sister,
Speaker 5: so we had a lot of work to do together.
Speaker 4: It was a lot of fun.
Speaker 3: Now is your character.
Speaker 2: I think your character's name is Cyrus, which I always
Speaker 2: feel like it is a bad guy name, and so
Speaker 2: you're a bad guy, okay.
Speaker 4: Really so bad.
Speaker 5: If you read the Twitter feed from when my character
Speaker 5: first came on, it was like, who is his bastard?
Speaker 4: Get rid of him? He should die. Cyrus needs to die.
Speaker 4: They're so intensely.
Speaker 1: Want though from soap opera characters. I think, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: the bad guy in Conne is Cyrus.
Speaker 2: And she Kara's never seen it. I need her to
Speaker 2: see conn Air. Have you seen conn Air?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 4: I didn't see conn Air.
Speaker 2: It's one of my favorites. It's yeah, CON's on a plane.
Speaker 3: I loved it.
Speaker 4: Do you have any con phals?
Speaker 3: No, we've never written anyone in jail? I have it.
Speaker 3: I speak for myself.
Speaker 2: Lisa, No, I haven't, and it is really tough. So
Speaker 2: I don't know if you know. But part of this
Speaker 2: podcast we then research the real crimes that the episodes
Speaker 2: are based on, and this one took a lot out
Speaker 2: of me. I was my turn to research the crime,
Speaker 2: and we just we researched really awful things.
Speaker 3: And I don't know.
Speaker 2: If I can, I don't know, But your character is
Speaker 2: based on a guy who truly did do like something
Speaker 2: exactly like this.
Speaker 3: Like the episode's very closely based. So it's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: there's a.
Speaker 1: True crime you know, there's a true crime addiction happening
Speaker 1: in this country right now.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you know about it.
Speaker 4: What do you think that's about? What?
Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 1: But and it's a lot it's it's very female too,
Speaker 1: like I mean, it's not it doesn't exclude men, but
Speaker 1: it's very like women make up the majority I think
Speaker 1: of true crime consumers.
Speaker 3: And I don't know if it's like we're all scared
Speaker 3: we're going to get murdered, I don't know what it is.
Speaker 5: Do you think it's because people are frightened and they
Speaker 5: need to have some place to aim.
Speaker 2: That maybe, And I think people learn tips, Like there
Speaker 2: was a new story last month where a little girl
Speaker 2: because she watched so much SVU, someone tried to kidnap
Speaker 2: her and she knew how to fight them off and
Speaker 2: leave evidence and.
Speaker 3: What to do to escape the situation because of the show.
Speaker 2: And there's a Forensic Files where this happened to a
Speaker 2: young woman was kidnapped and she was able to like
Speaker 2: leave fingerprints and like look at things and cues and
Speaker 2: look at the details of the car and was able
Speaker 2: to like catch this serial killer because of her knowledge.
Speaker 2: So unfortunately, I do think we get tips from the show. Wow,
Speaker 2: do you watch crime stuff? Like what do you watch?
Speaker 4: No, well, I watch I like detective stuff. I don't
Speaker 4: like slasher stuff. Yeah, that's that. I don't like that.
Speaker 4: But you know, like broad Church, Oh, I love Church.
Speaker 4: Church was great, so good.
Speaker 5: And there's the Bridge Dust Broke to the It was
Speaker 5: a Danish Swedish co production.
Speaker 4: I like Swedish noir a lot of the Bridge.
Speaker 3: Did they make that into a US one with Diad?
Speaker 4: Yeah? I watched that. Yeah, I didn't see the American version.
Speaker 1: I only watched the American version, and I'm sure you're
Speaker 1: I'm sure the foreign version.
Speaker 3: Was way better.
Speaker 1: That's like the broad Church that I watched as the
Speaker 1: British You probably that's the one you watched, and the
Speaker 1: one I don't think was as good. Another good British
Speaker 1: one is Happy Valley.
Speaker 4: I've heard this from so many people.
Speaker 3: If you're into that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right there, and that just I think another
Speaker 2: part of the crime is, like we do like heroes
Speaker 2: in the way when these people are caught, Like maybe
Speaker 2: it is a fake sense of safety when you find
Speaker 2: out that these people.
Speaker 1: Are Yeah, and that's what you does for people at least,
Speaker 1: because it ties up every scenario kind of in a bow, right,
Speaker 1: and you know, like even if it's even if it's
Speaker 1: not a great outcome. I mean, in your episode, many
Speaker 1: children are not no longer living, but like you know,
Speaker 1: we still you get the guy and you know, they.
Speaker 5: Kind of skip. I mean they it's they don't spend
Speaker 5: a lot of time being horrified about the dead children,
Speaker 5: do they know? I mean they do have you know,
Speaker 5: they send Chris Maloney's character home and Ice Tea goes
Speaker 5: home to spend time with his kids, you know, and
Speaker 5: and she's very upset with me.
Speaker 2: Yes, talking, But Marishka is like other triggers of cases
Speaker 2: that really.
Speaker 3: Not the character.
Speaker 4: Has she been on your show?
Speaker 3: That's the holy grail.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: Once we get her, we got to end the show,
Speaker 3: so we can't make it last.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we had one listener, right, and like, hey, you
Speaker 2: should get Marishka harget On the show, and it's a
Speaker 2: great idea, but we also we kind of want to
Speaker 2: meet her in person. We we've obviously built up fantasy.
Speaker 3: In our hand. Yeah, going to New York and going
Speaker 3: to set and seeing her.
Speaker 4: You know, I support you in that.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 5: One day she'll do it, I think, because she's she
Speaker 5: is just she is just so open and full and
Speaker 5: alive and really just a normal person.
Speaker 2: I mean, Lisa, that was such a great conversation. I
Speaker 2: just like love talking to him. I want to go
Speaker 2: ride a horse with him in Malibu. What's going on? Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was amazing and it just shows I don't know,
Speaker 2: especially in our line of work. I was actually doing
Speaker 2: two people's podcasts that are like successful and they were like, well,
Speaker 2: I think we'd be more successful if we did this,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, you.
Speaker 3: Guys are successful, and I think there's so much of.
Speaker 2: A rat race at times, or you never think you're fulfilled,
Speaker 2: or there's always someone doing more, having more, And it
Speaker 2: is so nice to talk to someone that's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm living the dream, Like I'm getting paid for creative work,
Speaker 2: I'm working on stuff. If I audition for projects, I
Speaker 2: don't know. I ride a horse like that that should
Speaker 2: be more people's vibes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he kind of makes me want to get into meditation.
Speaker 1: I've tried many times to meditate.
Speaker 3: I don't think I can do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right, but he but but Jeff, you made
Speaker 1: me want to try again.
Speaker 3: So that's saying something.
Speaker 2: I'll get high and go to yoga.
Speaker 3: I'll get high and go watch a sunset.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I will do whatever, but I'm not going to
Speaker 1: listen to meditation.
Speaker 3: Do meditation. No, every I always fall asleep. I also
Speaker 3: don't believe it.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm sure people could get to a meditative state,
Speaker 2: Like just because I can't experience it doesn't make it
Speaker 2: not real.
Speaker 3: But like, I don't believe.
Speaker 2: It for you, No, I don't believe people are I
Speaker 2: think they're pretending. I think it's like when people talk
Speaker 2: in tongues or like they think they're like, oh Jesus,
Speaker 2: talk to me.
Speaker 3: I don't believe it.
Speaker 1: That's so funny because my husband, who grew up in
Speaker 1: a church where people speak in tongues like, loves meditation
Speaker 1: and says it really chills them out and really like
Speaker 1: he says, it really works for him. But then of
Speaker 1: course he stopped doing it. For like a while and
Speaker 1: has to always rediscover it. I feel like that's everybody's
Speaker 1: journey with meditation. It's the best thing ever that you
Speaker 1: forget about doing for months at a time, and then
Speaker 1: you have to keep rediscovering it.
Speaker 2: The only people that I know that do it regularly
Speaker 2: are our friends Sam and Eric, and I've stayed with
Speaker 2: them before, and I would ruin Eric's meditation every time.
Speaker 3: I would just bust into his office without.
Speaker 2: Knocking, and he'd be like, I'm meditating, Like I would
Speaker 2: just know.
Speaker 1: You're You Know what's funny is I had a boss.
Speaker 1: I had a like a like an executive boss. I
Speaker 1: was his assistant for a while in New York, and
Speaker 1: he would always go, I'm going to be meditating, and
Speaker 1: he was napping. He was always just napping, Like he
Speaker 1: was on the couch in his office, closing his eyes
Speaker 1: and going to sleep. And I was like, you can
Speaker 1: call it meditating, but you are taking a full.
Speaker 2: Nap, which is closer to God than anything I've ever
Speaker 2: exp A nap.
Speaker 1: Yeah, nap over anything. I can only do shorty naps.
Speaker 1: I can't do those long naps. They make me feel crazy.
Speaker 1: But let's get into our post mortem, we can talk
Speaker 1: about a napping in our post mortem these Unfortunately, the
Speaker 1: children in this episode were not napping.
Speaker 3: They were dead, And this was such a tough episode
Speaker 3: to watch.
Speaker 1: But I think that when you experience something, what we learned,
Speaker 1: as we always learn and what we always tell people,
Speaker 1: is like, when you experience something traumatic, it's okay to
Speaker 1: go to get help, It's okay to talk to somebody stabler.
Speaker 1: So that's like always a lesson. I feel like we
Speaker 1: pull from this show. It's like, oh, yeah, I did
Speaker 1: see something pretty fucked up. Maybe I'll go talk to
Speaker 1: someone and try to process that instead of burying it
Speaker 1: deep and in the world.
Speaker 2: When someone's acting a fool, instead of right away judging them,
Speaker 2: maybe take a moment and go maybe they were in
Speaker 2: an incest vampire cult and escaped, and maybe we should
Speaker 2: be nicer. Yes, I just think more people around us
Speaker 2: constantly are going through violent traumas that we can't even imagine,
Speaker 2: and that we are just so mean. And I'm including
Speaker 2: myself and including most criminals, I mean almost every criminal.
Speaker 3: I feel like they traumatic.
Speaker 2: Past because I'm someone that's not always patient with others,
Speaker 2: and it's like a reminder to be like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: you just don't know what people have been through.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and escaped and then yeah, listen to Benson.
Speaker 2: Or to the women that were like the kids will
Speaker 2: be harmed, please help them, and the cops go, we'll
Speaker 2: be fine. It's like, yeah, I don't even know. Listen
Speaker 2: to mothers.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know if that's the lesson, but it's
Speaker 2: like I guess with police or you just never know
Speaker 2: what the right decision is, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think if you're a shady bank guy
Speaker 1: who's helping a cult leader in buzzle money and you
Speaker 1: want to take a lady out for a nice vacation,
Speaker 1: it's not going to be Tampa. Dog, that's not the place.
Speaker 1: That's not the place. It's not Tampa. Let's go Miami.
Speaker 1: Let mean, let's avoid Florida right now. But you know,
Speaker 1: somewhere I don't know a little bit more. What's a
Speaker 1: good romantic whisk away for the weekend? Place Santa Barbara.
Speaker 2: I don't know any anywhere it can be romantic, including Tampa. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the Baxtrey boy they're from there. I would go visit
Speaker 2: all their houses.
Speaker 3: So romantic. Oh my god, is this AJ's house? Whit Wait,
Speaker 3: is that a Backstreet Boy? Yeah? Okay, I thought maybe
Speaker 3: I did an instinct by accident.
Speaker 2: Wait, Lisa, I can't believe I've never told you this,
Speaker 2: because I think this is a pretty funny thing about me.
Speaker 1: When I was the summer between my junior and senior
Speaker 1: year in college, I went I lived in Boston. I
Speaker 1: took a year off camp. I decided to go to Boston,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to get an internship to like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, help me get a job or something after college.
Speaker 3: I had no idea what I was doing.
Speaker 1: I ended up getting a internship at the Boston Sports Museum.
Speaker 1: I have no fucking idea. I applied too late. There
Speaker 1: were no internships that left. It was terrible. But they
Speaker 1: also had concerts, and so I was like, okay, like
Speaker 1: the Boston Sports Museum like had con It was because
Speaker 1: it was part of a stadium, so there would be
Speaker 1: concerts there, and I was like, all right, at least
Speaker 1: I'll get to see some cool concerts. The Backstreet Boys
Speaker 1: canceled their concert because AJ got one into rehab, and
Speaker 1: I was like, I quit. I quit the job based
Speaker 1: on the Backstreet Boys pulling out of a concert. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I got a waitressing job, and I had the
Speaker 1: summer of my life.
Speaker 2: Well, because I was about to say it's weird you
Speaker 2: could you didn't suck up any sports information from interning
Speaker 2: at the Boston Sports Museum.
Speaker 3: But now I understand you quick. It lasted one week.
Speaker 2: No, waitressing's way more fun than an internship. Yeah, it
Speaker 2: was much more fun.
Speaker 1: I thought I needed it to like pad my resume
Speaker 1: or whatever because I was going out into.
Speaker 3: The cruel, cold world a year later. But look look
Speaker 3: what happened. I'm fine. I do comedy. Well.
Speaker 2: I think another lesson that I learned in terms of
Speaker 2: acting is like Jeff had no idea he was playing
Speaker 2: a bad guy. Yeah, like to really get into that
Speaker 2: and be like, no, I'm helping everybody Like that is
Speaker 2: a That's something I don't know what it is, but
Speaker 2: just something to think about if I ever get a
Speaker 2: role as a killer.
Speaker 1: I also find it wild how many people we interview
Speaker 1: that say that they don't watch themselves. I feel like
Speaker 1: I would watch my thing and like like analyze it
Speaker 1: and be like obsessed with watching it.
Speaker 3: But maybe that's just because I have a nurse iistic.
Speaker 2: Personality watching it. I mean, we watched The King of
Speaker 2: Staten Island together. I loved watched it since. But that
Speaker 2: was really fun and exciting and it was a small part.
Speaker 2: But if I was like getting assaulted and crying on
Speaker 2: the stand, that might be more difficult to watch, right
Speaker 2: to watch over? Yeah, watch many times.
Speaker 1: But also I'm sure your friends text you and are
Speaker 1: like your episodes on or whatever because SVU is constantly
Speaker 1: running on twelve different channels.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's cool and it's and it's interesting to
Speaker 2: know that like someone that we of course assumed just
Speaker 2: got an in was like auditioning.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, totally, never be back out, never be too
Speaker 1: proud to audition, and that he was.
Speaker 2: You know, went to the Richard Ramirez. I mean, is
Speaker 2: this that postmortam just how much we're in love with
Speaker 2: Jeff and we'll do any kind of he could be
Speaker 2: a cult leader.
Speaker 1: I think we're watch Jeff as he could be a
Speaker 1: nice guy cult leader. He's like a good he's he's
Speaker 1: definitely has like a great like and magnetic personality, but
Speaker 1: not in a way that tells you to like, you know,
Speaker 1: never bathe and live without electricity for eight years.
Speaker 3: Okay, let's move on.
Speaker 1: Speaking of Cults for this week's what would Sister Peg Do,
Speaker 1: which is our weekly segment where we point you to
Speaker 1: an organization or an article or some kind of resource
Speaker 1: that can help you get more information on the subjects
Speaker 1: we touched on in today's episode. This week, we wanted
Speaker 1: to direct you towards another episode of a podcast. There
Speaker 1: is a podcast called Cults, and there is an episode
Speaker 1: called The Wesson Vampire Clan and it's just a more
Speaker 1: in depth look at you know, we only have half
Speaker 1: of our episode to hit on the crime and this
Speaker 1: just has a more in depth look into what happens
Speaker 1: to that poor family and Marcus Wesson's evil ways. So
Speaker 1: check out our show notes for the link to that,
Speaker 1: or you can just go find Cults wherever you podcast
Speaker 1: and find that episode.
Speaker 2: And next week's episode join us as we will be
Speaker 2: talking about Dissonant Voices Season fifteen, episode seven, So watch
Speaker 2: it on Hulu, p talk and anywhere any streaming service
Speaker 2: in the country that you're in, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: or a fire stick I hear that's a thing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: hit us up, message us.
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2: Hi, that's messed up as an exactly right production.
Speaker 1: If you have compliments you'd like to give us or
Speaker 1: episodes you'd like us to cover, shoot us an email
Speaker 1: at That's Messed Up Pod at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2: Follow the podcast on Instagram at That's Messed Up Pod
Speaker 2: and on Twitter at messed Up Pod, and follow us
Speaker 2: personally at Karaklank and at glitter Cheese.
Speaker 1: As always, please see our show notes for sources and
Speaker 1: more information.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much to SBU super fan and our
Speaker 2: incredible producer Hannah Kyle Kraton.
Speaker 1: And to our sound engineer and personal hero, Analie Snilson,
Speaker 1: and to Henry Kaperski for our theme song, to Carly
Speaker 1: Jean Andrews for our artwork. Thanks to our executive producers
Speaker 1: Georgia Hardstar, Karen Kilgariff, Daniel Kramer, and everybody at Exactly
Speaker 1: Right Media.
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