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Speaker 1: Also media. Oh, welcome back to Behind Grand Rapids Michigan,

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Speaker 1: a podcast where I investigate the most infamous in the

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Speaker 1: history of Grand Rapids Michigan. And you can help me

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Speaker 1: by googling Jamie Loftus Comma Hammer murders, Comma Michigan, Comma Cia,

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Speaker 1: Comma Bill Clinton.

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Speaker 2: No, I'm taking this. I'm taking this all the way

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Speaker 2: to the fucking top. And I'm saying that you're trying

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Speaker 2: to associate me with Grand Rapids so that you can

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Speaker 2: continue to pass yourself off as a Bostonian because I

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Speaker 2: am the big not in your Bostonian hoax.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you're the only one who can expose me to

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Speaker 1: the world.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And so they're trying to listeners. They're trying to

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Speaker 2: take me out because I have the truth. I'm a

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Speaker 2: little too close to the truth, one could say. And

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Speaker 2: so people are gonna make accusations. And yes, it's going

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Speaker 2: to involve hammers, and yeah, it's all going to sort

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Speaker 2: of sound plausible for some reason based on my general vibe.

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Speaker 2: But I assure you I've never even been to Grand Rapids.

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Speaker 2: I went to Detroit for hot dog purposes only.

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Speaker 1: Now, thank you, Jamie. Here's my question Here's my question,

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Speaker 1: and this is this is an important one. H Why

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Speaker 1: are you more concerned with being associated with Grand Rapids,

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Speaker 1: Michigan than Bill Clinton, dame sex criminal?

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Speaker 3: I don't what.

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Speaker 1: I'm just saying, that's what you expressed. Was your issue,

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Speaker 1: not the Bill Clinton of it all?

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Speaker 2: It doesn't look I'm always what am I not talking

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Speaker 2: about the Bill Clinton of it all? And maybe that's

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Speaker 2: a good Let's let's change the subject to the Bill

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Speaker 2: Clinton of it all. I'd love to talk about the

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Speaker 2: Bill Clinton of it at all and not the Jamie

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Speaker 2: of it all, because the JMI of it all, you know,

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Speaker 2: long story short, it's giving innocent, it's giving. I didn't it,

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Speaker 2: and I couldn't have done it because I was I

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Speaker 2: was just a kid. Yeah, and so were I to

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Speaker 2: be prosecuted? You know, I you couldn't as an adult?

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Speaker 4: Right? Wait? Is that a thing?

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Speaker 2: If I committed a crime when I was a kid

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Speaker 2: and I'm caught as an adult, how what happened?

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Speaker 1: I think you're I think you're free and clear, which

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Speaker 1: is why everyone listening. If you are under sixteen, go

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Speaker 1: go commit a murder. It's fine, okay, not get in

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Speaker 1: trouble anyway.

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Speaker 2: Well, I I just be because I don't because this

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Speaker 2: does feel like a trap.

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Speaker 3: I still admit to nothing.

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Speaker 1: Hmm, well, I admit to trying to get a bunch

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Speaker 1: of sixteen year olds to not lose out on their

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Speaker 1: one chance to commit a murder free of consequences. My

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Speaker 1: free of consequences. I mean, you might be arrested and

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Speaker 1: put in JUVI for several years, but you're not going

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Speaker 1: to spend the rest of your life in prison if

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Speaker 1: you're under sixteen. So go out there, kids. You know, look,

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Speaker 1: there's a lot of oil executives out there. That's all

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Speaker 1: I'm saying.

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Speaker 2: You know what, are we talking and we're about to

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Speaker 2: talk about the CIA for another one?

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Speaker 1: Sure are no. We might pass the sea pretty quick.

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Speaker 4: Why does he do this? It's a great question.

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Speaker 1: I'm just trying to make the world a better place,

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Speaker 1: or at least a place with slightly more interesting headlines,

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Speaker 1: which is the same as.

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Speaker 3: Better a world better place just by being in it.

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Speaker 1: But okay, oh wow, thank you for that, lie, Sophie.

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Speaker 2: I know I gotta lie to you at least once

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Speaker 2: a week. Roberts literally venoing Sophie as we speak. That

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Speaker 2: was every time, every time Sophie says something nice thousand

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Speaker 2: dollars for one line.

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Speaker 1: Wow, Yeah, I'm insecure today. So today back to the fine.

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Speaker 4: Yep.

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Speaker 2: So.

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Speaker 1: In an article written by the Washington City Paper in

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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six, a journalist interviewed Toby Terrell. Now this

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Speaker 1: is the same guy Robert Tarrell. Toby's his cult name.

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Speaker 1: I never really found a great explanation as to why

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Speaker 1: this is the dude who's the RS agent name.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, going to do a cult name, do a cult

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Speaker 3: chan tobe.

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Speaker 1: That sounds like those sodas with the weird geckos drawn

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Speaker 1: on them that we drank in middle school.

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Speaker 3: That's why neighbor's dog's name.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, try harder. So. So Toby Terrell is the former

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Speaker 1: IRS agent who worked for the company trading those CIA

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Speaker 1: agents who also later spoilers, is going to sue Petty

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Speaker 1: and the cult and then write a biography of Petty

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Speaker 1: after he dies. So this guy number one kind of

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Speaker 1: susu number two, absolutely involved in every weird sketchy thing

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Speaker 1: around this cult. In nineteen ninety six, he has left.

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Speaker 1: He's suing the cult for reasons that we will get

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Speaker 1: into later. And the journalist talking to him asks him, Hey,

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Speaker 1: was there any weird sex stuff with your cult? Right? Like,

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Speaker 1: I know, you guys got you know, declared innocent or whatever.

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Speaker 1: They dropped the check, arges, but everyone still suspects that

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Speaker 1: you were doing something with those kids. Was there any

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Speaker 1: weird sex stuff going on? And Arrell's answer, he definitely

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Speaker 1: doesn't claim that they did any weird sex stuff with kids,

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Speaker 1: but he does not deny that they did weird sex stuff.

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Speaker 1: He kind of does the opposite of denying it.

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Speaker 2: Right, are we talking like weird illegal sex stuff or

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Speaker 2: just no sex stuff?

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Speaker 1: Okay, I think just weird. So here's what he says.

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Speaker 1: If you want to write a scholarly piece about the

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Speaker 1: group and the historical context of the Shakers and the

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Speaker 1: Oneida communities, fine, But for a newspaper article, I don't

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Speaker 1: want to get into that that sensationalism. So he's basically saying, yeah,

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Speaker 1: we were a weird utopian cult, and like all weird

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Speaker 1: utopian cults, we did some crazy sex shit, but I'm

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Speaker 1: not gonna I don't want it to be in a

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Speaker 1: news article because you're just going to make it into

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Speaker 1: something it's not. If you're like a scholar and you

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Speaker 1: want to talk about our weird sec shit and the

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Speaker 1: scholarly context, that's fine. But otherwise, no, yes, what an

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Speaker 1: interesting That's an interesting stance to have all. I don't.

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Speaker 1: I actually think that's a fair stance to have. Where

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Speaker 1: he's like, look, yeah, every cult does weird sectionit. We're

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Speaker 1: like a weird utopian community. But I don't not if.

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Speaker 2: You're not writing a scholarly essay on it, I choose

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Speaker 2: not to comment.

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Speaker 1: If you want to put us in context. Sure, if

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Speaker 1: you just want to be like they were doing weird

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Speaker 1: section for your news article, I don't want to be

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Speaker 1: part of the sensationalism. I actually kind of respect that.

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Speaker 1: Even though this guy may in fact have been doing

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Speaker 1: some shady spy shit, we really don't.

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Speaker 2: Know, right, You're like, it's still ultimately bad, but I see,

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Speaker 2: you know, I see where he like unfortunately, you know,

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Speaker 2: bad people make good points.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a respectable answer to the question, is what

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Speaker 1: I think. So, the idea of the CIA using a

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Speaker 1: cult to spy on or otherwise disrupt left wing activism

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Speaker 1: is not far fetched because we know for a fact

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Speaker 1: that versions of this happened back during our episodes on

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Speaker 1: mk Ultra. I quoted several times from the book Chaos

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Speaker 1: by Tom O'Neil, which provides a detailed look a number

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Speaker 1: of very weird CIA connections around Charles Manson, and there's debate.

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Speaker 1: You know, it's possible he was, in fact, very likely

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Speaker 1: that he received was dosed with acid as a result

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Speaker 1: of him k Ultra. Very good chance he received some money.

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Speaker 1: There's some like court things where he got in trouble

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Speaker 1: and then it went away. It's all very unclear exactly

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Speaker 1: what his relationship was. But the CIA was involved in

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Speaker 1: kind of the fringe radical left community around the time

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Speaker 1: of the Manson killings, and there's some suspicion that like

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Speaker 1: basically they were hoping that they something like what happened

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Speaker 1: with Manson would happen and it would discredit the anti

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Speaker 1: war movement, right. That is a again, tracing out exactly

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Speaker 1: what happened is really hard, and I think there's a

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Speaker 1: good chance the CIA didn't. Was just kind of vaguely

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Speaker 1: hoping that by encouraging some shady figures, you know, something

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Speaker 1: would go down, rather than plotting out every step of it.

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Speaker 1: But like some weird shit went down with them there.

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Speaker 1: And we know for a fact that there were multiple

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Speaker 1: cases in this peero of time of people with intelligence

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Speaker 1: connections intervening before the murders to help out Manson get

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Speaker 1: him out of legal jams. The CIA was undeniably engaged

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Speaker 1: in something called Operation Chaos, from where Tom O'Neill's book

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Speaker 1: takes its title. This was the CIA's counterpart to co

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Speaker 1: intel pro. Right, So the FBI is co intel pro

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Speaker 1: where we're infiltrating these groups and we're trying to make

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Speaker 1: them not trust each other, trying to convince everyone on

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Speaker 1: the left that everyone else on the left is a

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Speaker 1: federal agent. Right, Like that was co intel pro in

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Speaker 1: a nutshell. There was more to it than that. The

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Speaker 1: CIA's counter to that was this plan to disrupt the

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Speaker 1: left in the United States by kind of sowing chaos

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Speaker 1: and discord. And I'm going to quote from the New

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Speaker 1: York Times here. The CIA had undercover contacts monitored the

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Speaker 1: meetings of groups such as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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Speaker 1: and the Washington Urban League. It maintained files on nearly

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Speaker 1: a thousand organizations by August nineteen seventy three, when CIA

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Speaker 1: Director Colby virtually halted this project. The paper trail left

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Speaker 1: by Operation Chaos included somewhere in the area of thirteen

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Speaker 1: thousand files on subjects and individuals. The report discloses. Link

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Speaker 1: to this was a computer system containing an index of

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Speaker 1: over three hundred thousand names in organizations, almost all of

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Speaker 1: them United States citizens and organizations unconnected with espionage. Mister

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Speaker 1: Helms and the high officials of the Johnson and Nixon

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Speaker 1: administrations with whom he dealt were well aware of the

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Speaker 1: fact that they were breaking the law. Thus, in submitting

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Speaker 1: to Henry Kissinger a report on restless Youth, mister Helms

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Speaker 1: wrote in a covering Mian mirandam early in nineteen sixty

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Speaker 1: nine that a section on American students was extremely sensitive

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Speaker 1: because the whole area was outside of the agency's charter. So,

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Speaker 1: first off, the CIA is a foreign intelligence like their

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Speaker 1: purview is foreign intelligence. They are not allowed to act

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Speaker 1: like to spy on Americans. They are not allowed that's

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Speaker 1: not now. They did a lot of it like that,

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Speaker 1: because they did. They did it, But they're not allowed to.

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Speaker 3: Paper they are supposed to.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, they are for overseas. The FBI is for domestic.

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Speaker 2: Right, It's so funny how easy it is to forget

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Speaker 2: that just based on like shit, their wholest respectively did Yeah, Okay, yeah.

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Speaker 1: I'm not saying that to say like the CIA wouldn't

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Speaker 1: have done that. No, they absolutely did it. It was just illegal.

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Speaker 1: But the other thing that I think that quote should

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Speaker 1: make clear is that, like there's absolutely a place for

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Speaker 1: find the Finders in Operation Chaos. Right, They're spying on

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Speaker 1: all sorts of weird groups. They're reaching out with weird

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Speaker 1: questions to progressive groups. They know computers, they're maintaining massive

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Speaker 1: computer databases. Like all of this is shit they could

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Speaker 1: have been involved in, right, Like this is Operation Chaos

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Speaker 1: is like tailor made for these guys. And we know

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Speaker 1: that Operation Chaos extended through to nineteen seventy four, and

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Speaker 1: the Finder started in nineteen seventy one. We know that

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Speaker 1: the CIA was aware of Marion Petty at least in

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine when we started traveling to communist countries.

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Speaker 1: So there's at least a three year at least a

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Speaker 1: three year period where there's a non zero chance were

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Speaker 1: not only is there a decent chance that the CIA

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Speaker 1: was interested in what the Finders could bring them, but

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Speaker 1: we know the Finders were doing the kind of shit

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Speaker 1: that the CIA was doing, right, keeping these notes and

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Speaker 1: building extensive databases on left wing domestic organizations, right, so,

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Speaker 1: you know, not impossible. Also, no real evidence other than

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Speaker 1: like what we have sort of asserted, right, like, no

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Speaker 1: clear evidence as to exactly what they would have been doing.

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Speaker 1: But it's it's not at all impossible or unlikely that

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Speaker 1: there was something going on.

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Speaker 2: Right God, Okay, yeah, yeah, so that's fun.

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Speaker 3: It's like.

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Speaker 2: This problem is consistent throughout this organization's entire history, but

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Speaker 2: it just yeah, it continues to get more and more

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Speaker 2: tangled this time goes on.

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Speaker 3: So what here are we in at this point?

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Speaker 1: Well, we've kind of jumped around a little bit just

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Speaker 1: because like there was the thing that happened in eighty

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Speaker 1: seven where like the CIA took those training courses with

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Speaker 1: the computer company that was tied to the founders. That

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Speaker 1: happened before they were all arrested, but it didn't break

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Speaker 1: until ninety three. But yeah, we still have not resolved

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Speaker 1: the court case. And I don't know how to not

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Speaker 1: jump around at this point because it's so labyrinthine and

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Speaker 1: like the dates at which different things were found out.

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Speaker 1: I hope this has not been unclear to people. It's

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Speaker 1: just such an odd story. I wasn't really sure how

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Speaker 1: else to structure it.

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Speaker 3: I trust you.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. One of the first men to study the Finders

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Speaker 1: and to comb their story for evidence of spy shit

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Speaker 1: was a guy named Wendell Minnick. Minnick was the author

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Speaker 1: of an encyclopedia of espionage called Spies and Provocateurs. He

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Speaker 1: spent two years digging into Petty I think of the

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Speaker 1: late eighties and his cult, and he wound up abandoning

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Speaker 1: his research after and this really dates his research, after

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Speaker 1: he spent one thousand dollars in phone calls. You can

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Speaker 1: do that back in the day. Yeah, And he was like,

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Speaker 1: I spent all this money like tracking down lead and

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Speaker 1: trying to figure out shit about them, and I found nothing.

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Speaker 4: I'm in the dog house.

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Speaker 3: I've sent too many texts.

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Speaker 4: Now my family is getting elected.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, long distance calls used to be a thing people.

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Speaker 1: He later told a reporter, the Finders would love you

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Speaker 1: to think they're a CIA front, but I would say

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Speaker 1: they're really nothing. You're going to hear a lot of

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Speaker 1: bullshit on the Finders because they lie. These are dysfunctional adults,

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Speaker 1: but they're all working their asses off. They're constantly working

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Speaker 1: on some project. If you have a cult. The best

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Speaker 1: way to control people is to keep them busy, to

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Speaker 1: keep their minds occupied. If you have people standing around

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Speaker 1: doing nothing, then they start thinking. So that's Minic's attitude,

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Speaker 1: is that, like, these people desperately want you to think

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Speaker 1: they're a CIA front. But like, most of why we

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Speaker 1: have all this information that kind of seems like they

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Speaker 1: might be spies is because they desperately want people to

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Speaker 1: believe that, because that makes it a lot cooler than

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Speaker 1: that they're a bunch of weird adults LARPing some guy's game.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, are you how are you inclined to feel about that?

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Speaker 2: Because I just, like I understand why that's plausible, but

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Speaker 2: they're so much other close connections to the CIA.

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Speaker 1: Like I suspect Petty wanted to be a spy. Maybe

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Speaker 1: it was a little jealous of his wife, wanted to

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Speaker 1: be involved, and started when he started doing this, reaching

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Speaker 1: out to them with information. And I think there's a

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Speaker 1: pretty good chance somewhat the agency may have strung him

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Speaker 1: along to see if he had anything useful, And I

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Speaker 1: kind of doubt he gave them much because I don't

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Speaker 1: think these people were super serious. But that's my suspicion

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Speaker 1: is that there was some level of connection between them,

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Speaker 1: but that it was still mostly petty wanting to feel important, right,

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Speaker 1: rather than like them giving use because there's no Here's

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Speaker 1: the thing, there's absolutely no information or allegations of like

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Speaker 1: this group of left wing activists was arrested because of

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Speaker 1: info that the finders gave. Right, we don't. We've heard nothing.

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Speaker 1: There have been no allegations, and I kind of think

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Speaker 1: by this point there would be something specific as to like,

288
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Speaker 1: here is what they did for this CIA, And it's

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Speaker 1: all these kind of like vague insinuations and like loose,

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Speaker 1: weird connections that made me think, yeah, he might he

291
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Speaker 1: may have been trying to give them info and he

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Speaker 1: may have just not had that much of use. But

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Speaker 1: I don't know, uh we and we probably never will

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Speaker 1: at this point.

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Speaker 2: Oh but there is There is just like something so

296
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Speaker 2: profoundly tragic about a LARPer who can't even like become

297
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Speaker 2: vaguely interesting to the CIA. Yeah, because he's jealous of

298
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Speaker 2: his Like he's like, I want to do crimes like

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Speaker 2: my ex wife, Yeah.

300
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Speaker 1: I wanted to crimes against humanity like she did.

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Speaker 4: Put it on girls, get everything.

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Speaker 1: But because obviously the FBI comes out and says like,

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Speaker 1: we don't believe these guys were involved with the CIA

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Speaker 1: in any meaningful capacity, right, that's that's and we don't

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Speaker 1: believe they were sex trafficking kids. And the conspiracy theorists

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Speaker 1: will say, well, of course the FBI would say that

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Speaker 1: they're the FBI. They exist to cover up government crimes.

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Speaker 1: But those people the source that they cite is Ramone Martinez,

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Speaker 1: who's also a FED. So like, either way on this,

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Speaker 1: you're trusting one federal agent or another, you know, which

311
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Speaker 1: is never a situation you want to be in if

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Speaker 1: you're trying to track down the truth about like a conspiracy. Now,

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Speaker 1: it's also worth noting that Ramone Martinez and I found

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Speaker 1: this The QAnon anonymous guys did an episode on the

315
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Speaker 1: Finders and they found references to Martinez by some like

316
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Speaker 1: the there's at least one prominent conspiracy theorist, the guy

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Speaker 1: who's kind of the origin of the black helicopter like

318
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Speaker 1: family of conspiracy theories, who uh is like, Yeah, this

319
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Speaker 1: guy was like a friend and he was he was

320
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Speaker 1: a cool dude and we like chatted a bunch basically

321
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Speaker 1: like this guy Martinez who came up with all these

322
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Speaker 1: allegations against the Finders that no one else ever verified

323
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Speaker 1: was a lifelong conspiracy theorist, and that may have explained.

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Speaker 2: To shit, Yeah, that's also it's like there is such

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Speaker 2: you know. It's like it's not as if there isn't

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Speaker 2: some rich crossover between federal agencies and conspiracy theorists. No,

327
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Speaker 2: such a rich gradient were exploring the FBI, we know

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Speaker 2: as part of j Edgar Hoover's like Coentel pro was like, Yeah,

329
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Speaker 2: we're going to try.

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Speaker 1: And incite conspiracy theories. The more conspiratorial we can make

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Speaker 1: the left, the less they'll trust each other, and the

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Speaker 1: more they'll fight rather than like engage in organized action

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Speaker 1: against the government. So it's also I guess the other

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Speaker 1: possibility is that the Finders were never working for the

335
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Speaker 1: CIA in a meaningful capacity, but the CIA may have

336
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Speaker 1: wanted them to think that because they wanted something like

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Speaker 1: this to happen, right, for them to become the nexus

338
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Speaker 1: of a conspiracy theory, also a conspiracy that's totally possible

339
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Speaker 1: and within the CIA's wheelhouse. So I don't know. At

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Speaker 1: the end of the day, Jamie, I don't know exactly

341
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Speaker 1: what was going on with these people, but I do

342
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Speaker 1: know that all charges against the two Finders members who

343
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Speaker 1: were arrested in with child abuse were dropped after six weeks,

344
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Speaker 1: and the children were all ultimately returned to their mothers.

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Speaker 1: And you know what else was returned to its mothers?

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Speaker 4: No this I hate?

347
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Speaker 3: I hate this transition.

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Speaker 1: Well, Jamie, I love this transition just like just like

349
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Speaker 1: the mothers of those kids loved their children, all right,

350
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Speaker 1: more so, more.

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Speaker 2: So, even more so, but not as much as you

352
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Speaker 2: love these products and services.

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Speaker 1: No, no one has ever loved their children as much

354
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Speaker 1: as I love the products and services that support this podcast.

355
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Speaker 1: That's just a fact, Jamie.

356
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Speaker 4: It's sad, but it's true.

357
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Speaker 2: No one.

358
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Speaker 3: I hope that that's sad. Is like dick pills.

359
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Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, absolutely, way better than a kid anyway, and

360
00:18:50,000 --> 00:18:52,960
Speaker 1: we're back. Boy, if there is a dick pill ad

361
00:18:53,000 --> 00:18:54,760
Speaker 1: after that, that's really going to get the whole child

362
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Speaker 1: molestation conspiracy theory people talking.

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Speaker 2: I okay, I have a question, Yes, Jamie, have any

364
00:19:03,240 --> 00:19:08,640
Speaker 2: of these kids sid spoken on this period in their lives?

365
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Speaker 1: Not that I have found none of these again, it

366
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Speaker 1: would be a it would be pretty damning if some

367
00:19:14,359 --> 00:19:15,919
Speaker 1: of them had come forward and said, yeah, we were

368
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Speaker 1: absolutely molested but doesn't appear.

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Speaker 3: To have happened, but nothing interesting.

370
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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's part of why I suspect the FBI is

371
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Speaker 1: probably correct in its conclusion that no kids were molested

372
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Speaker 1: because like at this point something probably like Petty's dead,

373
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Speaker 1: the cult's gone something probably now, Yeah, but nothing has

374
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Speaker 1: and there's just again, there were never the kids never

375
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Speaker 1: claimed anything. This isn't even like you get some of

376
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Speaker 1: these satanic panic cases where like these kids become convinced

377
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Speaker 1: that they were part of some like yeah, there's not

378
00:19:49,960 --> 00:19:52,320
Speaker 1: even that, right. The kids are never like the most

379
00:19:52,359 --> 00:19:54,320
Speaker 1: they have is that like one of the little girls

380
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Speaker 1: when they ask her if she was molested, gets uncomfortable,

381
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Speaker 1: which like we have some strange adult cops are asking

382
00:20:00,520 --> 00:20:05,040
Speaker 1: you if someone touched you. That's pretty awkward, Like, yeah,

383
00:20:05,119 --> 00:20:07,399
Speaker 1: it's not evidence that she was molested, that she was

384
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Speaker 1: not comfortable in that situation. That's not a comfortable situation. No, Yeah,

385
00:20:13,760 --> 00:20:17,840
Speaker 1: so I don't the CI again where where I land

386
00:20:17,920 --> 00:20:20,719
Speaker 1: is like the CIA stuff, big fat. Maybe there's like

387
00:20:20,920 --> 00:20:23,960
Speaker 1: six different possibilities that you cannot rule out as to

388
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Speaker 1: what may have happened there, the sex trafficking children, satanists thing,

389
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Speaker 1: no evidence whatsoever, right, and.

390
00:20:32,320 --> 00:20:37,280
Speaker 2: Like historically, yeah, those allegations in this era, like it doesn't.

391
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Speaker 4: It doesn't.

392
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Speaker 1: That's that's where I land on this stuff. Now. I

393
00:20:43,280 --> 00:20:47,520
Speaker 1: should also again some of the blame for lingering conspiracy

394
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Speaker 1: theories about the Finders as agents of the CIA or

395
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Speaker 1: some of that agent.

396
00:20:51,440 --> 00:20:54,639
Speaker 3: It doesn't absolve like it is. Ultimately, I would always believe.

397
00:20:54,400 --> 00:20:58,600
Speaker 2: That it's probably their fault that this has stuck for

398
00:20:58,640 --> 00:20:59,120
Speaker 2: so long.

399
00:20:59,320 --> 00:21:03,280
Speaker 1: But it is. It absolutely is, because like they he likes,

400
00:21:03,480 --> 00:21:07,399
Speaker 1: He deliberately has his people go out and incite some

401
00:21:07,520 --> 00:21:10,480
Speaker 1: of these rumors, like while the case is still going on,

402
00:21:10,840 --> 00:21:13,600
Speaker 1: just to like add to the media circus. Possibly because

403
00:21:13,600 --> 00:21:15,520
Speaker 1: he liked seeing his name in the paper. I don't

404
00:21:15,560 --> 00:21:20,160
Speaker 1: fully know. John Cohen's article on the Finders was published

405
00:21:20,200 --> 00:21:22,680
Speaker 1: a year or so after the court case ended. Right,

406
00:21:22,720 --> 00:21:25,159
Speaker 1: So this is the first good piece of media we

407
00:21:25,280 --> 00:21:28,400
Speaker 1: get on it, because this whole all blows up. Everybody's

408
00:21:28,440 --> 00:21:31,480
Speaker 1: talking on the news, Connie Chunk's talking about satanic child

409
00:21:31,520 --> 00:21:35,200
Speaker 1: molestation cults, and then nothing happens. The case gets dismissed,

410
00:21:35,520 --> 00:21:38,040
Speaker 1: and so Cohen does an actual good piece of journalism

411
00:21:38,080 --> 00:21:40,240
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what happens and he's the first

412
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Speaker 1: person to interview one of the mothers, Paula Erico, about

413
00:21:44,359 --> 00:21:46,760
Speaker 1: like what happened, and she tells him like, yeah, we

414
00:21:46,840 --> 00:21:48,920
Speaker 1: all left the cult, All of the women with kids

415
00:21:49,200 --> 00:21:51,920
Speaker 1: left the cult after this because we were pissed at

416
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Speaker 1: Petty for how he handled it. Quote Paula Erico nearly

417
00:21:56,119 --> 00:21:58,200
Speaker 1: splits up her food, laughing when I tell her people

418
00:21:58,240 --> 00:22:01,200
Speaker 1: suggest the finders maybe spooks. Erico and I are sitting

419
00:22:01,200 --> 00:22:03,639
Speaker 1: at a restaurant in Tallahassee. She resettled here after the

420
00:22:03,720 --> 00:22:06,840
Speaker 1: juvenile court finally deemed her fit to raise Mary and John.

421
00:22:06,920 --> 00:22:09,679
Speaker 1: Paul those are her kids. That's their model to pretend

422
00:22:09,680 --> 00:22:12,119
Speaker 1: they're cia, says Erico, who was in the group for

423
00:22:12,160 --> 00:22:14,960
Speaker 1: eight years and now works as a bookkeeper. Who would

424
00:22:15,000 --> 00:22:18,679
Speaker 1: wouldn't it be an exciting life? And again, this is

425
00:22:18,720 --> 00:22:20,399
Speaker 1: like one of the moms at the center of it,

426
00:22:20,440 --> 00:22:24,120
Speaker 1: who's like, presumably would have reason to like be angry

427
00:22:24,160 --> 00:22:26,800
Speaker 1: at them or go out of her way if like

428
00:22:26,840 --> 00:22:29,080
Speaker 1: something shady had been happening. He was like, no, they

429
00:22:29,119 --> 00:22:32,440
Speaker 1: were assholes playing a stupid game with my kids. And

430
00:22:32,560 --> 00:22:35,240
Speaker 1: by the way, that's plenty to qualify them as bastards.

431
00:22:35,240 --> 00:22:36,400
Speaker 1: That's a bad thing to do.

432
00:22:36,720 --> 00:22:42,280
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and also just like being you never know what

433
00:22:43,400 --> 00:22:47,359
Speaker 2: past lives your bookkeeper ye has been up to?

434
00:22:47,520 --> 00:22:48,000
Speaker 3: Who knows?

435
00:22:48,040 --> 00:22:51,720
Speaker 2: They're like, you know, yeah, was I in a LARPing cult? Yes,

436
00:22:52,240 --> 00:22:53,800
Speaker 2: they started to my kids.

437
00:22:53,840 --> 00:22:54,800
Speaker 3: I had to walk.

438
00:22:55,040 --> 00:22:59,199
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was possibly a CIA spy cult. But you know,

439
00:22:59,280 --> 00:23:01,679
Speaker 2: anything can have and in your twenties, it kind of

440
00:23:01,720 --> 00:23:02,399
Speaker 2: doesn't count.

441
00:23:02,800 --> 00:23:06,440
Speaker 1: And I kind of get the feeling that Petty, when

442
00:23:06,480 --> 00:23:09,600
Speaker 1: the media interest started to fade as the case gets dropped,

443
00:23:09,880 --> 00:23:14,520
Speaker 1: that's when he got most interested in spreading disinformation. And

444
00:23:14,680 --> 00:23:16,879
Speaker 1: I'm going to read from Cohen here again, because this

445
00:23:16,960 --> 00:23:21,000
Speaker 1: is really fucked up. A mimo attributed to M. D. Petty,

446
00:23:21,040 --> 00:23:24,119
Speaker 1: delivered to the Tallahassee Democrat, that's a newspaper, said that

447
00:23:24,200 --> 00:23:26,480
Speaker 1: he was resigning as leader of the Finders, a position

448
00:23:26,560 --> 00:23:29,119
Speaker 1: he said he didn't know he held. I thought I

449
00:23:29,200 --> 00:23:31,920
Speaker 1: was just a consultant on wit and humor, the memo said,

450
00:23:32,119 --> 00:23:34,359
Speaker 1: if I ever was the leader, I hereby resigned to

451
00:23:34,359 --> 00:23:38,000
Speaker 1: devote myself full time to zen walking. The Finders also

452
00:23:38,040 --> 00:23:40,760
Speaker 1: started publishing a newsletter, the Daily Finder, in which they

453
00:23:40,760 --> 00:23:43,600
Speaker 1: announced that they were all moving to Tallahassee. The Finders

454
00:23:43,600 --> 00:23:45,840
Speaker 1: are always looking for signs and symbols they wrote. Since

455
00:23:45,840 --> 00:23:48,640
Speaker 1: February fourth, Florida has been sending signals that they want

456
00:23:48,640 --> 00:23:51,600
Speaker 1: to keep some Finders members, so now the rest are coming.

457
00:23:51,840 --> 00:23:54,960
Speaker 1: Another issue of the Daily Finder Come to Tallahassee, invited

458
00:23:54,960 --> 00:23:57,240
Speaker 1: friends to come join the drama and featured the song

459
00:23:57,400 --> 00:24:01,199
Speaker 1: Old Tallahassee. Well, I came to Tech in a van

460
00:24:01,280 --> 00:24:04,000
Speaker 1: so full of glee. They put me in the jailhouse

461
00:24:04,040 --> 00:24:05,879
Speaker 1: with the chain up on my knee. So they're like

462
00:24:05,920 --> 00:24:10,720
Speaker 1: writing songs about again the children of their members being

463
00:24:10,760 --> 00:24:13,679
Speaker 1: held by the state. Like they're putting out these like

464
00:24:13,800 --> 00:24:16,400
Speaker 1: fake newspapers. They're trying to get people to like move

465
00:24:16,440 --> 00:24:19,239
Speaker 1: to Tallahassee, to like fuck with the squares. It's all

466
00:24:19,359 --> 00:24:20,400
Speaker 1: very irresponsible.

467
00:24:20,920 --> 00:24:21,400
Speaker 3: I'm sorry.

468
00:24:21,560 --> 00:24:23,720
Speaker 2: I just am like trying to like you were you

469
00:24:23,760 --> 00:24:27,399
Speaker 2: were singing yeah, why no.

470
00:24:27,600 --> 00:24:30,240
Speaker 1: No, you don't get the full effect. Otherwise, Jamie, I

471
00:24:30,840 --> 00:24:31,600
Speaker 1: liked it.

472
00:24:31,640 --> 00:24:33,800
Speaker 4: I felt like singing.

473
00:24:33,600 --> 00:24:35,280
Speaker 1: Voice, thank you, thank you.

474
00:24:35,320 --> 00:24:37,639
Speaker 4: It was beautiful. I thought it was beautiful.

475
00:24:37,760 --> 00:24:40,720
Speaker 1: So as a coda, again, I do want to add something.

476
00:24:40,800 --> 00:24:44,520
Speaker 1: It's not impossible that children were abused. Again, there's no

477
00:24:44,560 --> 00:24:47,080
Speaker 1: evidence of like sexual abuse, but like the neglect that

478
00:24:47,240 --> 00:24:50,520
Speaker 1: was evident here. We might fairly call abuse, and that's

479
00:24:50,560 --> 00:24:53,679
Speaker 1: not uncommon in cults. I do. I'm not saying no

480
00:24:53,800 --> 00:24:56,800
Speaker 1: children were hurt, like definitely, like what Petty's doing there,

481
00:24:57,040 --> 00:24:59,520
Speaker 1: these sending out fake newsletters trying to keep the ship

482
00:24:59,600 --> 00:25:01,920
Speaker 1: in the new by like spreading doubt. After the case

483
00:25:01,960 --> 00:25:04,760
Speaker 1: gets dismissed, you could argue that's abusive to these kids

484
00:25:04,800 --> 00:25:07,639
Speaker 1: who it harms them, slows down their ability to like

485
00:25:07,720 --> 00:25:09,280
Speaker 1: rejoin a normal life. That's bad.

486
00:25:10,600 --> 00:25:15,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean even yeah, you know, being guilty of neglect,

487
00:25:15,359 --> 00:25:20,040
Speaker 2: that's absolutely abuse. And and just like putting the children

488
00:25:20,119 --> 00:25:23,240
Speaker 2: in that situation in the in the first place where

489
00:25:23,240 --> 00:25:25,439
Speaker 2: they have to you know, defend themselves against all this

490
00:25:25,440 --> 00:25:26,680
Speaker 2: stuff like it it's.

491
00:25:26,600 --> 00:25:28,280
Speaker 3: Just it is abusive.

492
00:25:28,359 --> 00:25:32,159
Speaker 2: It's just yeah, but maybe not the kind of abuse

493
00:25:32,160 --> 00:25:35,480
Speaker 2: that people or often go to prison for one of them.

494
00:25:35,680 --> 00:25:37,640
Speaker 1: Yeah. One of the more fucked up things that comes

495
00:25:37,720 --> 00:25:40,200
Speaker 1: out in this John Cohen article after the case gets

496
00:25:40,240 --> 00:25:42,840
Speaker 1: dropped is that, you know how like when they initially

497
00:25:42,840 --> 00:25:45,280
Speaker 1: get pulled over by the cops, the like two male

498
00:25:45,440 --> 00:25:47,840
Speaker 1: adult cult members are like, we're taking these children to

499
00:25:47,960 --> 00:25:50,760
Speaker 1: Mexico to put them in a genius school. We're making

500
00:25:50,760 --> 00:25:54,000
Speaker 1: a Harvard for babies. Well, yeah, they didn't. It turns

501
00:25:54,000 --> 00:25:56,800
Speaker 1: out they didn't come up with that dipshit excuse on

502
00:25:56,880 --> 00:25:59,919
Speaker 1: the fly. They were instructed to say that by Petty

503
00:26:00,040 --> 00:26:02,920
Speaker 1: if they were approached by the police, which, like me,

504
00:26:04,080 --> 00:26:06,919
Speaker 1: you have to know, that's going to make the police suspicious.

505
00:26:06,960 --> 00:26:11,520
Speaker 1: That's not gonna calm down an investigation. Like you have

506
00:26:11,600 --> 00:26:13,840
Speaker 1: like six kids you're not related to in a van

507
00:26:14,040 --> 00:26:16,480
Speaker 1: and are like, we're taking them into Mexico. That's going

508
00:26:16,520 --> 00:26:17,680
Speaker 1: to get you all arrested.

509
00:26:18,920 --> 00:26:19,800
Speaker 4: I don't.

510
00:26:20,680 --> 00:26:23,439
Speaker 3: I don't understand. Yeah, the do.

511
00:26:23,720 --> 00:26:26,959
Speaker 4: I mean, it's also like, do we believe that that is?

512
00:26:27,960 --> 00:26:30,800
Speaker 2: It is the most made up sounding like I have

513
00:26:30,920 --> 00:26:33,560
Speaker 2: to make something up on the fly thing in the world.

514
00:26:33,600 --> 00:26:37,720
Speaker 1: I don't under like everyone everyone here is like making

515
00:26:37,920 --> 00:26:41,520
Speaker 1: except for the mother's baffling decisions because it's nonsense.

516
00:26:41,600 --> 00:26:44,160
Speaker 2: I feel like there has to be. But again, it's

517
00:26:44,160 --> 00:26:45,800
Speaker 2: like I can't even say a sentence about this without

518
00:26:45,800 --> 00:26:46,760
Speaker 2: sounding conspiratorial.

519
00:26:46,800 --> 00:26:47,840
Speaker 3: I'm like, I think there's.

520
00:26:47,640 --> 00:26:51,600
Speaker 2: Something we're missing. There may be missing piece of information.

521
00:26:51,720 --> 00:26:53,680
Speaker 2: I cannot make sense of it.

522
00:26:53,680 --> 00:26:57,040
Speaker 1: It's really weird, what I do think. So what it

523
00:26:57,080 --> 00:27:00,239
Speaker 1: seems like happens is after the case gets dismissed. It

524
00:27:00,280 --> 00:27:04,000
Speaker 1: comes out through like reporting and interviews with Petty that

525
00:27:04,480 --> 00:27:07,240
Speaker 1: a lot of this was his fault because he coached

526
00:27:07,280 --> 00:27:10,879
Speaker 1: his guys to give these evasive, weird answers, and he

527
00:27:10,960 --> 00:27:13,879
Speaker 1: also coached everybody to respond in a really weird and

528
00:27:13,880 --> 00:27:16,840
Speaker 1: irresponsible way during the court case. And so all of

529
00:27:16,880 --> 00:27:19,639
Speaker 1: these women with kids take their children and leave the cult,

530
00:27:20,119 --> 00:27:23,840
Speaker 1: and this kind of destroys the cult. Whatever else was

531
00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:27,520
Speaker 1: going on, the goal of the Finders, according to internal members,

532
00:27:28,440 --> 00:27:30,600
Speaker 1: focused heavily around these kids. They were trying to like

533
00:27:30,720 --> 00:27:34,080
Speaker 1: raise better people in this enlightened way, and all of

534
00:27:34,119 --> 00:27:37,439
Speaker 1: these businesses that they were running and using to accumulate money,

535
00:27:37,760 --> 00:27:40,040
Speaker 1: the idea was that it would be given to these

536
00:27:40,160 --> 00:27:42,600
Speaker 1: kids that would be their inheritance for the next generation

537
00:27:42,640 --> 00:27:45,719
Speaker 1: of the cult. So when all these moms leave, it

538
00:27:45,800 --> 00:27:48,720
Speaker 1: kind of fractures not just the cult, but their identity

539
00:27:48,800 --> 00:27:51,360
Speaker 1: and their understanding about like what the future is going

540
00:27:51,440 --> 00:27:54,320
Speaker 1: to be this it kind of some will argue this

541
00:27:54,400 --> 00:27:58,199
Speaker 1: kind of breaks Petty right that like, now there's no

542
00:27:58,359 --> 00:28:01,040
Speaker 1: future to this cult. It's just him and the last

543
00:28:01,040 --> 00:28:04,200
Speaker 1: hangers on who couldn't break free from him, playing games

544
00:28:04,200 --> 00:28:06,280
Speaker 1: with no purpose like that, there's not any sort of

545
00:28:06,320 --> 00:28:08,840
Speaker 1: attitude that they're building anything, that they're like raising up

546
00:28:08,880 --> 00:28:13,040
Speaker 1: a new generation. They have nothing now except for continuing

547
00:28:13,080 --> 00:28:16,359
Speaker 1: to play weird games, and it gets increasingly kind of

548
00:28:16,440 --> 00:28:21,479
Speaker 1: sad after this point, which is a bummer. So yeah, Petty,

549
00:28:21,800 --> 00:28:23,600
Speaker 1: you know, claims in the wake of the case that

550
00:28:23,640 --> 00:28:27,000
Speaker 1: the Finders have disbanded, but that is not true. They continue.

551
00:28:27,119 --> 00:28:29,640
Speaker 3: It's left, like, what are their numbers, like, about.

552
00:28:29,359 --> 00:28:32,639
Speaker 1: A dozen somewhere between ten and twenty people, right, usually

553
00:28:32,640 --> 00:28:33,480
Speaker 1: we hear about a dozen.

554
00:28:33,640 --> 00:28:36,240
Speaker 2: I'm not getting out of bed for a cult with

555
00:28:36,480 --> 00:28:37,919
Speaker 2: less than forty people.

556
00:28:38,360 --> 00:28:41,280
Speaker 1: And all the guys left, I think are pretty much

557
00:28:41,280 --> 00:28:43,800
Speaker 1: all men. Right. Most of the women leave at this point,

558
00:28:43,800 --> 00:28:46,280
Speaker 1: which just say something again to like this being a

559
00:28:46,360 --> 00:28:50,720
Speaker 1: lower control type of calver a good sign that well,

560
00:28:51,640 --> 00:28:54,280
Speaker 1: it's a good sign that the women felt like, yeah,

561
00:28:54,320 --> 00:28:56,920
Speaker 1: we can bounce and nothing bad's going to happen to us,

562
00:28:57,000 --> 00:29:00,640
Speaker 1: like they had agency, right, right. Part of why a

563
00:29:00,640 --> 00:29:02,800
Speaker 1: lot of shit about the cult crumbles is these women

564
00:29:02,840 --> 00:29:06,080
Speaker 1: were largely running things for Petty and then they leave

565
00:29:06,240 --> 00:29:08,640
Speaker 1: and it's him and these guys, and most of the

566
00:29:08,640 --> 00:29:12,280
Speaker 1: guys are kind of drips like they're they're just like

567
00:29:12,360 --> 00:29:16,560
Speaker 1: weirdos who want to play spy games, and so it's

568
00:29:16,680 --> 00:29:20,520
Speaker 1: just kind of them. Now. So after the kids leave

569
00:29:20,600 --> 00:29:22,920
Speaker 1: and there's no one to hand over inheritance of the

570
00:29:22,960 --> 00:29:26,600
Speaker 1: businesses and property to, Petty changes the way their finance

571
00:29:26,640 --> 00:29:31,520
Speaker 1: system works. Right Previously, according to Terrell, when you joined,

572
00:29:31,600 --> 00:29:33,280
Speaker 1: you gave all your money to the cult. But it

573
00:29:33,320 --> 00:29:35,400
Speaker 1: was like put in what they called the invisible bank.

574
00:29:35,560 --> 00:29:37,960
Speaker 1: And Tarrell was like, if you wanted to take your

575
00:29:37,960 --> 00:29:40,680
Speaker 1: money out, you could. We people did it all the time.

576
00:29:40,880 --> 00:29:43,960
Speaker 1: They weren't stealing from you. And in fact, like cult

577
00:29:44,040 --> 00:29:47,920
Speaker 1: finances were pretty healthy, Like we ran businesses that were successful.

578
00:29:48,240 --> 00:29:50,400
Speaker 1: It was like you could trust that you would get

579
00:29:50,400 --> 00:29:53,760
Speaker 1: your money back. After these women take all their kids

580
00:29:53,840 --> 00:29:57,440
Speaker 1: with them, Petty changes the finance system to basically a

581
00:29:57,480 --> 00:30:00,840
Speaker 1: tontine where he's like, no one can draw their money.

582
00:30:00,920 --> 00:30:02,760
Speaker 1: All of the money in businesses will go to the

583
00:30:02,840 --> 00:30:06,680
Speaker 1: last one of us alive, which is, oh, a sketchy

584
00:30:06,720 --> 00:30:10,760
Speaker 1: way to run things, right, that's is it weird?

585
00:30:10,800 --> 00:30:13,080
Speaker 3: That's that's my first time hearing that one.

586
00:30:13,160 --> 00:30:15,160
Speaker 4: I feel like I've heard it all that. I haven't

587
00:30:15,200 --> 00:30:16,240
Speaker 4: heard that one before.

588
00:30:16,760 --> 00:30:19,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. And this is this is what

589
00:30:20,000 --> 00:30:23,560
Speaker 1: finally convinces Toby Arrell to leave, right, Like, this is

590
00:30:23,560 --> 00:30:25,880
Speaker 1: why he actually leaves the cult, and he winds up

591
00:30:25,920 --> 00:30:30,320
Speaker 1: suing Petty because he's like, he stole all of our money, right.

592
00:30:30,760 --> 00:30:33,160
Speaker 1: I was fine with him until he started fucking with

593
00:30:33,240 --> 00:30:36,880
Speaker 1: my money. So in nineteen ninety six, after the hubbub

594
00:30:36,920 --> 00:30:39,680
Speaker 1: around child trafficking in the court case against the Finders

595
00:30:39,680 --> 00:30:43,440
Speaker 1: had mostly subsided, a journalist named Eddie Dean traveled down

596
00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:45,760
Speaker 1: to Florida to meet with Arrell and write an article

597
00:30:45,800 --> 00:30:48,480
Speaker 1: for the Washington City Paper. Despite the fact that he

598
00:30:48,560 --> 00:30:52,800
Speaker 1: was actively evolved in suing Petty, Terrell was like really

599
00:30:52,840 --> 00:30:55,840
Speaker 1: positive about his former cult leader, Like he doesn't have

600
00:30:55,880 --> 00:30:58,840
Speaker 1: a negative look towards him. He says, quote, I think

601
00:30:58,880 --> 00:31:01,480
Speaker 1: if you look at the history of utopian movements in America,

602
00:31:01,560 --> 00:31:04,800
Speaker 1: the Finders have a legitimate place because of the experimentation

603
00:31:04,880 --> 00:31:06,840
Speaker 1: that went on. It was a good experiment. A lot

604
00:31:06,880 --> 00:31:08,880
Speaker 1: of people learned from it, and I wouldn't trade it

605
00:31:08,920 --> 00:31:11,560
Speaker 1: for anything. It lasted for twenty years while I was there,

606
00:31:11,560 --> 00:31:13,800
Speaker 1: and I wouldn't call it a failure, he says, adding

607
00:31:14,120 --> 00:31:16,120
Speaker 1: I still think Petty is a man of great insight

608
00:31:16,200 --> 00:31:18,320
Speaker 1: and the world would do well to listen to his ideas.

609
00:31:19,320 --> 00:31:21,640
Speaker 1: Now here's the thing. I've read everything about this colt.

610
00:31:21,720 --> 00:31:23,880
Speaker 1: I don't know what his ideas are. I don't know

611
00:31:23,960 --> 00:31:26,479
Speaker 1: what his insights are. They seem like they were LARPing.

612
00:31:27,120 --> 00:31:28,040
Speaker 4: What was the goal?

613
00:31:29,200 --> 00:31:32,800
Speaker 2: That is like a classic in the genre of like

614
00:31:33,320 --> 00:31:34,600
Speaker 2: see what you will.

615
00:31:34,360 --> 00:31:35,760
Speaker 4: About their methods?

616
00:31:35,880 --> 00:31:38,960
Speaker 2: He had some good ideas, and you're like, but did

617
00:31:39,000 --> 00:31:42,120
Speaker 2: he Yeah that was the idea.

618
00:31:41,520 --> 00:31:43,840
Speaker 1: At least with like l Ron Hubbard, right when people

619
00:31:43,920 --> 00:31:46,000
Speaker 1: are like, look, the cult's bad, but you know, his

620
00:31:46,120 --> 00:31:48,959
Speaker 1: ideas were really good. At least I don't agree with him.

621
00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:52,280
Speaker 1: His ideas were dogshit, but he had ideas. Right, there's

622
00:31:52,400 --> 00:31:54,040
Speaker 1: books full of his theories.

623
00:31:54,320 --> 00:31:55,760
Speaker 4: Something to latch on too.

624
00:31:56,160 --> 00:31:59,920
Speaker 2: I still am struggling with, like, outside of like, yeah,

625
00:32:00,120 --> 00:32:02,760
Speaker 2: I want to I like spy movies and I could

626
00:32:02,760 --> 00:32:03,040
Speaker 2: do that.

627
00:32:03,360 --> 00:32:05,120
Speaker 4: Like what are you latching onto?

628
00:32:05,680 --> 00:32:11,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's suing him, Like what I don't get it. Yeah,

629
00:32:11,480 --> 00:32:14,200
Speaker 1: it's like I think the thing they're talking about is

630
00:32:14,240 --> 00:32:16,720
Speaker 1: this idea that like, you know, life should be a

631
00:32:16,760 --> 00:32:19,280
Speaker 1: game and you should always be learning, but like he

632
00:32:19,640 --> 00:32:20,800
Speaker 1: picked a weird way to.

633
00:32:20,800 --> 00:32:24,400
Speaker 3: Learn, and also like what did we learn?

634
00:32:24,800 --> 00:32:28,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, what did you learn? Don't play games with the

635
00:32:28,160 --> 00:32:31,600
Speaker 1: FBI when your kids are taken into custody on suspicion

636
00:32:31,640 --> 00:32:34,680
Speaker 1: of being molested as part of a devil conspiracy. I

637
00:32:34,760 --> 00:32:36,360
Speaker 1: feel like most people know that.

638
00:32:36,760 --> 00:32:41,120
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's pretty intuitive. I don't think that's adding very much.

639
00:32:41,360 --> 00:32:44,720
Speaker 2: That's like, again, you're just like, what's the missing piece

640
00:32:44,760 --> 00:32:45,840
Speaker 2: of information here?

641
00:32:45,960 --> 00:32:48,480
Speaker 4: Why would someone say that it doesn't?

642
00:32:48,800 --> 00:32:49,239
Speaker 1: I don't know.

643
00:32:49,280 --> 00:32:52,440
Speaker 2: We feel what I feel, well, Robert, I feel no closer.

644
00:32:52,520 --> 00:32:55,040
Speaker 2: I feel no closer to understanding any of this.

645
00:32:55,040 --> 00:32:57,520
Speaker 1: This this is a little bit of a fucking cipher here.

646
00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:01,280
Speaker 1: But what is interesting to me is that, like even

647
00:33:01,320 --> 00:33:04,440
Speaker 1: Paula Erico, who again leaves the cult and takes her

648
00:33:04,520 --> 00:33:07,520
Speaker 1: kid with her because of how badly Petty handles this

649
00:33:07,560 --> 00:33:12,600
Speaker 1: whole case, won't speak badly about him afterwards. Quote though

650
00:33:12,640 --> 00:33:15,000
Speaker 1: she left the Finders more than a year ago, it's

651
00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:17,960
Speaker 1: still we this and we that she also speaks lovingly,

652
00:33:18,080 --> 00:33:20,480
Speaker 1: no adoringly, of Petty. The rest of us are just

653
00:33:20,560 --> 00:33:24,480
Speaker 1: dead between the years compared to him, she says. Erico

654
00:33:24,560 --> 00:33:27,400
Speaker 1: also provides some of our best insight into why Petty's

655
00:33:27,440 --> 00:33:30,320
Speaker 1: cult function the way it's did, with all its weird

656
00:33:30,360 --> 00:33:33,760
Speaker 1: information gathering missions and spy games. And this is John

657
00:33:33,800 --> 00:33:36,880
Speaker 1: Cohen writing, but why compile a giant? Who's who? I ask?

658
00:33:37,080 --> 00:33:39,160
Speaker 1: It's a mystery why things are of interest to Petty.

659
00:33:39,200 --> 00:33:41,680
Speaker 1: But he's not able to call complete games if he

660
00:33:41,720 --> 00:33:44,640
Speaker 1: doesn't have complete information. You don't know what game Petty

661
00:33:44,680 --> 00:33:46,760
Speaker 1: has in mind to call tomorrow. He already has it

662
00:33:46,800 --> 00:33:48,920
Speaker 1: in mind. He's got next year's game in mind based

663
00:33:48,960 --> 00:33:51,560
Speaker 1: on the information you're bringing him right now. And again,

664
00:33:52,440 --> 00:33:54,120
Speaker 1: what the fuck does that mean?

665
00:33:54,800 --> 00:33:54,880
Speaker 2: Like?

666
00:33:55,680 --> 00:33:58,400
Speaker 1: Is that all like when you people talk about like

667
00:33:58,400 --> 00:34:00,440
Speaker 1: how he's such a genius he's got is he just

668
00:34:00,480 --> 00:34:03,840
Speaker 1: a good DM? Like were you all playing a big

669
00:34:03,880 --> 00:34:05,920
Speaker 1: game of Dungeons and dragons and he was just really

670
00:34:05,960 --> 00:34:07,520
Speaker 1: good at it? And that's the way you think he's

671
00:34:07,520 --> 00:34:08,320
Speaker 1: a genius.

672
00:34:08,560 --> 00:34:10,560
Speaker 2: The only thing I can realize, like, the only thing

673
00:34:10,560 --> 00:34:14,680
Speaker 2: it seems like he has successfully and permanently diluted his

674
00:34:14,719 --> 00:34:17,960
Speaker 2: followers into thinking, is that he is ultimately a pretty

675
00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:21,680
Speaker 2: smart guy. Yeah. Everything else they seem like they can

676
00:34:21,800 --> 00:34:25,319
Speaker 2: kind of take or leave such a cannot store the

677
00:34:25,400 --> 00:34:29,280
Speaker 2: concept that like, yeah, but but he wasn't you know,

678
00:34:29,840 --> 00:34:30,640
Speaker 2: I've seen.

679
00:34:30,400 --> 00:34:33,359
Speaker 1: No evident he's certainly not dumb, But I don't see

680
00:34:33,360 --> 00:34:35,680
Speaker 1: any evidence that he's smart. In part because he does

681
00:34:35,680 --> 00:34:38,320
Speaker 1: some really dumb shit that loses him most of his cult,

682
00:34:38,719 --> 00:34:40,760
Speaker 1: and it was really basic dumb shit.

683
00:34:41,200 --> 00:34:42,960
Speaker 4: And they're not I also don't.

684
00:34:43,040 --> 00:34:46,040
Speaker 2: I mean unless again, unless there's a missing piece of information.

685
00:34:46,400 --> 00:34:49,319
Speaker 2: It doesn't seem like people are saying this because they're

686
00:34:49,440 --> 00:34:52,080
Speaker 2: scared of him, and it just seems to be an

687
00:34:52,480 --> 00:34:54,640
Speaker 2: honestly held assessment, which I just don't.

688
00:34:55,080 --> 00:34:58,319
Speaker 1: And that's that's part of what you do. Get those

689
00:34:58,360 --> 00:35:00,920
Speaker 1: police reports where they talk to many different members who

690
00:35:00,960 --> 00:35:04,560
Speaker 1: were like, they harassed my family, you know, they harassed me,

691
00:35:04,800 --> 00:35:06,879
Speaker 1: maybe they burned a house down. But then you get

692
00:35:06,920 --> 00:35:09,239
Speaker 1: Paula who tells a journalist the best thing for me

693
00:35:09,320 --> 00:35:11,280
Speaker 1: is that I lived and worked with my best friends

694
00:35:11,280 --> 00:35:13,480
Speaker 1: for eight years. It's hard to have that and in

695
00:35:13,480 --> 00:35:15,919
Speaker 1: a situation where everyone is committed to working it out,

696
00:35:16,200 --> 00:35:18,400
Speaker 1: if you've ever had that one on one relationship with

697
00:35:18,440 --> 00:35:21,040
Speaker 1: another person, whereas there's that long term level of commitment,

698
00:35:21,280 --> 00:35:23,359
Speaker 1: I had that with twenty people. And she is again

699
00:35:23,440 --> 00:35:25,759
Speaker 1: saying that after the cult gets her child taken away

700
00:35:25,800 --> 00:35:28,400
Speaker 1: from her for six weeks, so like, I don't.

701
00:35:28,280 --> 00:35:32,359
Speaker 2: Know, she's like a cast member of Cheers, and it's like,

702
00:35:32,760 --> 00:35:34,120
Speaker 2: it's so weird.

703
00:35:34,400 --> 00:35:36,560
Speaker 1: We had a tough time now and again when Kelsey

704
00:35:36,560 --> 00:35:38,759
Speaker 1: Grammer would get too drunk. But I wouldn't change it

705
00:35:38,800 --> 00:35:41,120
Speaker 1: for anything, right, But ultimately we.

706
00:35:41,080 --> 00:35:43,920
Speaker 2: Were all good friends that I respect like and I

707
00:35:44,000 --> 00:35:45,600
Speaker 2: will come back for the reunion.

708
00:35:46,120 --> 00:35:47,640
Speaker 3: Very fucking weird.

709
00:35:47,719 --> 00:35:53,640
Speaker 1: It is very fucking weird, and yeah, it's it's it's

710
00:35:53,719 --> 00:35:57,880
Speaker 1: all peculiar. So Petty is a smart guy he tended

711
00:35:57,920 --> 00:36:02,520
Speaker 1: to avoid. Again, I think smartness is exaggerated, but he

712
00:36:02,600 --> 00:36:05,720
Speaker 1: does sort of like he's got. He's good at branding

713
00:36:05,719 --> 00:36:08,239
Speaker 1: because even these branding's not the wrong word. He's good

714
00:36:08,239 --> 00:36:12,799
Speaker 1: at manipulating information. Because these two good articles on him

715
00:36:12,800 --> 00:36:14,480
Speaker 1: that come out after the court case, the one by

716
00:36:14,560 --> 00:36:16,799
Speaker 1: John Cohen and the one by Eddie Dean, they both

717
00:36:16,840 --> 00:36:18,800
Speaker 1: give a lot of really interesting context. They talk to

718
00:36:18,880 --> 00:36:21,600
Speaker 1: a lot of former members, but Petty comes off as

719
00:36:21,680 --> 00:36:26,920
Speaker 1: totally innocuous in them, right, as like misunderstood and maybe

720
00:36:26,960 --> 00:36:29,319
Speaker 1: he had some bad judgment here and there, but there

721
00:36:29,360 --> 00:36:32,239
Speaker 1: was nothing evil or abusive about him, And it's kind

722
00:36:32,239 --> 00:36:34,640
Speaker 1: of silly to even call him a cult leader. Now.

723
00:36:34,640 --> 00:36:37,319
Speaker 1: That said, there are some hints in these and other

724
00:36:37,440 --> 00:36:40,440
Speaker 1: articles that he was more abusive and cruel than he

725
00:36:40,520 --> 00:36:43,880
Speaker 1: let onto being right that likes. Hidden beneath the service

726
00:36:44,520 --> 00:36:47,160
Speaker 1: was evidence of the kind of behavior the police were

727
00:36:47,200 --> 00:36:51,200
Speaker 1: reporting on when they talked to former members. Here's Eddie

728
00:36:51,200 --> 00:36:53,800
Speaker 1: Dean talking about what happened when he interviewed Mary and

729
00:36:53,880 --> 00:36:56,640
Speaker 1: Petty after having talked to Toby Arrell, so he he

730
00:36:56,760 --> 00:36:59,600
Speaker 1: goes to talk to Terrell, who lives elsewhere in Virginia,

731
00:37:00,040 --> 00:37:02,400
Speaker 1: and Terrell is like, yeah, I'm suing him because he

732
00:37:02,440 --> 00:37:04,200
Speaker 1: took my money, but I think he's a nice guy.

733
00:37:04,640 --> 00:37:08,360
Speaker 1: And then when he meets up with Petty finally whatever

734
00:37:08,600 --> 00:37:11,360
Speaker 1: in another part of Virginia, he tells Petty, hey, I

735
00:37:11,480 --> 00:37:14,440
Speaker 1: met with Terrell and here's what happens. Toby used to

736
00:37:14,480 --> 00:37:16,640
Speaker 1: be quite a character, Petty says warmly. He used to

737
00:37:16,719 --> 00:37:19,520
Speaker 1: have a handlebar mustache and sing songs for the group

738
00:37:19,520 --> 00:37:22,520
Speaker 1: and all kinds of things. Then he added soberly, Toby

739
00:37:22,560 --> 00:37:25,319
Speaker 1: had a great time with us until this woman told

740
00:37:25,400 --> 00:37:26,920
Speaker 1: him that he was Toto and that I was the

741
00:37:26,960 --> 00:37:29,720
Speaker 1: Wizard of Oz and they were going to expose the Wizard.

742
00:37:30,040 --> 00:37:32,120
Speaker 1: I tell him I had already interviewed Terrell and was

743
00:37:32,160 --> 00:37:34,800
Speaker 1: impressed with his admiration for the former game caller. Despite

744
00:37:34,840 --> 00:37:38,120
Speaker 1: their conflict, there's dead silence both men hunch forward in

745
00:37:38,160 --> 00:37:41,200
Speaker 1: the chairs you saw. Toby asks Petty, his face twisted

746
00:37:41,200 --> 00:37:44,640
Speaker 1: with concern, where was he? I promised that, I said that.

747
00:37:44,680 --> 00:37:47,520
Speaker 1: I promised I wouldn't tell I say that I promised TERRYL.

748
00:37:47,520 --> 00:37:49,920
Speaker 1: I wouldn't tell anybody where we met, except to say

749
00:37:49,920 --> 00:37:52,840
Speaker 1: it was somewhere in Virginia. He's up around here, demands Petty,

750
00:37:52,920 --> 00:37:55,239
Speaker 1: where is he? It's clear that Petty feels I owe

751
00:37:55,280 --> 00:37:57,200
Speaker 1: him at least as much. After all, he's told me

752
00:37:57,800 --> 00:38:00,080
Speaker 1: and the journalist doessn't tell him where Petty is? But like,

753
00:38:00,600 --> 00:38:04,680
Speaker 1: that's potentially there's some unsettling stuff in there. For one thing,

754
00:38:05,239 --> 00:38:07,440
Speaker 1: Toby leaves the cult with a woman who had been

755
00:38:07,440 --> 00:38:09,880
Speaker 1: in the colt, who wanted to leave because of all

756
00:38:09,920 --> 00:38:13,920
Speaker 1: the ship that Petty did during the arrests, Right, Petty

757
00:38:14,160 --> 00:38:20,640
Speaker 1: is like blaming this woman for corrupting Toby's mind. Yeah,

758
00:38:20,680 --> 00:38:21,440
Speaker 1: this woman.

759
00:38:21,600 --> 00:38:25,360
Speaker 2: I was like, this woman, Yeah, I've heard this, and

760
00:38:25,719 --> 00:38:30,560
Speaker 2: I've heard this refrain before. Jamie and I were like, oh, I've.

761
00:38:30,440 --> 00:38:33,359
Speaker 1: Got a lot of we've got some members who leave,

762
00:38:33,520 --> 00:38:36,120
Speaker 1: and it's fine. But like as soon as Petty finds

763
00:38:36,120 --> 00:38:37,799
Speaker 1: out that Terrell's and he's like, where is he? Where

764
00:38:37,840 --> 00:38:39,960
Speaker 1: is he where trying to figure out and like maybe

765
00:38:39,960 --> 00:38:43,080
Speaker 1: for a really bad reason, right, these guys are Yeah,

766
00:38:43,200 --> 00:38:46,120
Speaker 1: maybe that is potentially some evidence that, yeah, this is

767
00:38:46,160 --> 00:38:49,120
Speaker 1: a much worse person than a lot of these journalists

768
00:38:49,200 --> 00:38:50,839
Speaker 1: wind up interpreting him as.

769
00:38:52,280 --> 00:38:55,799
Speaker 3: I'm also just like again with the handlebar mustache.

770
00:38:55,960 --> 00:38:57,759
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that seems to have been a thing. I'm

771
00:38:57,800 --> 00:38:59,480
Speaker 1: sure Petty made them do that.

772
00:39:00,600 --> 00:39:04,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I honestly I would hope so, I

773
00:39:04,840 --> 00:39:05,319
Speaker 2: would hope.

774
00:39:05,360 --> 00:39:07,040
Speaker 3: So, but again that that is.

775
00:39:07,120 --> 00:39:11,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, the fucking herq perole look at asses. Yeah, well,

776
00:39:11,440 --> 00:39:12,080
Speaker 1: what after.

777
00:39:11,920 --> 00:39:16,560
Speaker 2: It is that made this guy, you know, even smart

778
00:39:16,719 --> 00:39:21,239
Speaker 2: passing and possibly diabolical was clearly not picked up on,

779
00:39:21,719 --> 00:39:25,279
Speaker 2: you know, intentionally or not by at least you know,

780
00:39:25,719 --> 00:39:28,600
Speaker 2: three federally funded agencies.

781
00:39:28,800 --> 00:39:29,680
Speaker 3: So that's fun.

782
00:39:30,120 --> 00:39:32,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is funny. You know, it's even more fun

783
00:39:32,600 --> 00:39:37,840
Speaker 1: Jamie no, the products and services that this podcast is

784
00:39:37,880 --> 00:39:49,160
Speaker 1: supported by. You're damn right, and we're back. We're back

785
00:39:49,200 --> 00:39:52,360
Speaker 1: to conclude the story of the Finders.

786
00:39:52,480 --> 00:39:55,640
Speaker 2: So I just mainlined whatever it was that was advertised,

787
00:39:55,880 --> 00:39:57,279
Speaker 2: especially if it would kill me.

788
00:39:57,680 --> 00:40:00,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, which most of it will. That's the one

789
00:40:00,320 --> 00:40:04,800
Speaker 1: promise we make about our sponsors. Go fucking kill you. Yeah,

790
00:40:04,840 --> 00:40:09,280
Speaker 1: So whatever you can say about the Finders and how

791
00:40:09,719 --> 00:40:12,279
Speaker 1: evil they were or weren't, or how evil Petty was

792
00:40:12,400 --> 00:40:17,200
Speaker 1: or wasn't, after you know, the early nineties, they seem

793
00:40:17,280 --> 00:40:20,000
Speaker 1: to have like been pretty benign. Most of what I

794
00:40:20,040 --> 00:40:23,320
Speaker 1: can verify they did was fuck with normanis in Culpepper

795
00:40:23,440 --> 00:40:26,800
Speaker 1: and like a mile way right, they're in Culpepper, Virginia,

796
00:40:26,840 --> 00:40:29,160
Speaker 1: and they're just kind of like trying to make people

797
00:40:29,200 --> 00:40:33,720
Speaker 1: suspicious of them, but not really doing anything. Sketchy. Cult

798
00:40:33,800 --> 00:40:36,720
Speaker 1: finances were good enough that they purchased an abandoned movie

799
00:40:36,719 --> 00:40:39,239
Speaker 1: theater in the center of town. And you know, it's

800
00:40:39,239 --> 00:40:41,319
Speaker 1: got a marquee on the front of it, right where

801
00:40:41,360 --> 00:40:43,520
Speaker 1: you like put the names of the movies. And every

802
00:40:43,600 --> 00:40:46,440
Speaker 1: day or so, one of Petty's members would change the

803
00:40:46,520 --> 00:40:49,080
Speaker 1: marquee to read something cryptic. And they would always do

804
00:40:49,120 --> 00:40:51,120
Speaker 1: it at like night, when no one was up, so

805
00:40:51,160 --> 00:40:53,359
Speaker 1: no one ever saw it get changed. You just wake

806
00:40:53,480 --> 00:40:55,840
Speaker 1: up and there'd be something weird written on it.

807
00:40:55,880 --> 00:40:58,799
Speaker 2: That happened at a bagels store near where I lived

808
00:40:58,840 --> 00:40:59,480
Speaker 2: in Maine.

809
00:40:59,640 --> 00:41:02,239
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, what what? What kind of cryptic shit here?

810
00:41:02,400 --> 00:41:03,600
Speaker 3: Let me let me look it up.

811
00:41:03,600 --> 00:41:06,600
Speaker 2: I would take pictures of it every so often.

812
00:41:06,400 --> 00:41:07,200
Speaker 1: I will read you.

813
00:41:07,320 --> 00:41:08,920
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know you hit me with yours, I'll hear you.

814
00:41:09,120 --> 00:41:12,759
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. So one day it read school for Actors

815
00:41:12,920 --> 00:41:15,400
Speaker 1: and not spelled the way actors is spelled, spelled A

816
00:41:15,560 --> 00:41:18,720
Speaker 1: K T E R S. No idea what that means.

817
00:41:19,000 --> 00:41:22,200
Speaker 1: The next day it would read Spycraft a great game,

818
00:41:22,640 --> 00:41:28,480
Speaker 1: and then the next free money, and then the next ataxia, uh, ataxia,

819
00:41:28,920 --> 00:41:32,480
Speaker 1: at araxia. Yeah, what is that? I think it's an

820
00:41:32,480 --> 00:41:34,360
Speaker 1: inability to feel fear.

821
00:41:35,560 --> 00:41:39,239
Speaker 2: Oh I thought that they were misspelling the eating disorder.

822
00:41:39,600 --> 00:41:43,640
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's imperturbability. It means that, yeah, you can't

823
00:41:43,680 --> 00:41:47,319
Speaker 1: you can't be flustered or frightened. Basically, well, I.

824
00:41:47,320 --> 00:41:49,759
Speaker 4: Mean sure, I don't know.

825
00:41:49,840 --> 00:41:51,840
Speaker 3: Here's what mister b in Portland.

826
00:41:51,920 --> 00:41:59,680
Speaker 1: It's a state of serene calmness. Yeah, okay, imperturbability I've got.

827
00:41:59,680 --> 00:42:03,680
Speaker 2: Here's here's one from mister Bagel unconditional love for us

828
00:42:03,719 --> 00:42:06,560
Speaker 2: and all is heaven here and now, and then underneath

829
00:42:06,640 --> 00:42:13,800
Speaker 2: it says new red Bull menu, there's another joy as possible.

830
00:42:13,880 --> 00:42:16,800
Speaker 2: Our constructs keep us from attaining it, and then again

831
00:42:16,880 --> 00:42:20,960
Speaker 2: below new red Bull menu. So I think at the

832
00:42:21,000 --> 00:42:23,480
Speaker 2: bagel shop they were probably the employees were probably just

833
00:42:23,719 --> 00:42:25,680
Speaker 2: like drinking forty red bulls.

834
00:42:25,880 --> 00:42:27,120
Speaker 3: They decided, we're.

835
00:42:27,000 --> 00:42:31,680
Speaker 1: Justing from too much toy Heaven is here now, yeah,

836
00:42:31,719 --> 00:42:33,560
Speaker 1: and like none of that makes money, but it's all

837
00:42:33,640 --> 00:42:36,200
Speaker 1: like shit, that's going to make people in a small

838
00:42:36,239 --> 00:42:40,479
Speaker 1: town in Virginia in the late nineties suspicious, Like sure, yeah,

839
00:42:40,600 --> 00:42:43,000
Speaker 1: you know, And I think they're just doing it to

840
00:42:43,000 --> 00:42:46,680
Speaker 1: have people talk about them. Right, small town people are

841
00:42:46,680 --> 00:42:50,200
Speaker 1: the most paranoid humans who have ever existed, so it's

842
00:42:50,239 --> 00:42:53,919
Speaker 1: it's not surprising that this caused consternation. Eddie Dean would

843
00:42:53,960 --> 00:42:57,120
Speaker 1: later write quote in appearance, the Finders, mostly middle aged

844
00:42:57,120 --> 00:42:59,560
Speaker 1: men always in dark suits, wouldn't be out of place

845
00:42:59,600 --> 00:43:02,200
Speaker 1: managing a local funeral home, but the behavior of the

846
00:43:02,239 --> 00:43:04,879
Speaker 1: handful of adherents has people wondering whether they arrived by

847
00:43:04,880 --> 00:43:08,680
Speaker 1: flying saucer. Townspeople say the Finders constantly walk the streets,

848
00:43:08,719 --> 00:43:11,920
Speaker 1: following people home and taking extensive notes and pictures. They

849
00:43:11,920 --> 00:43:14,480
Speaker 1: often appear at local council meetings, never saying a word

850
00:43:14,480 --> 00:43:17,280
Speaker 1: but simply observing the scene. At other times, they plunder

851
00:43:17,360 --> 00:43:20,440
Speaker 1: the visitor center of brochures, maps, and local travel guides,

852
00:43:20,640 --> 00:43:23,239
Speaker 1: and they haunt the courthouse scouring land deeds to find

853
00:43:23,239 --> 00:43:26,640
Speaker 1: out who owns local real estate. Naturally, though rumors fly.

854
00:43:27,120 --> 00:43:28,759
Speaker 1: Did you hear what the Finders are doing at the

855
00:43:28,760 --> 00:43:31,720
Speaker 1: old theater? They're planning a stage production of Paradise Lost

856
00:43:31,960 --> 00:43:33,960
Speaker 1: with an all nude cast. Or was it a gay

857
00:43:34,040 --> 00:43:37,480
Speaker 1: burlesque version of Dante's Divine Comedy where the Finders gathered

858
00:43:37,520 --> 00:43:39,359
Speaker 1: for some ritual in the back lot, or were they

859
00:43:39,360 --> 00:43:42,240
Speaker 1: simply taking trash to the dumpster. People have seen glowing

860
00:43:42,280 --> 00:43:44,239
Speaker 1: lights in the windows of the Finders group house at

861
00:43:44,280 --> 00:43:46,479
Speaker 1: the edge of home, along with visitors coming and going

862
00:43:46,480 --> 00:43:48,760
Speaker 1: at odd hours. The lawn is mode in a peculiar

863
00:43:48,800 --> 00:43:52,799
Speaker 1: circular pattern. That's the place where they sacrifice pot bellied pigs. So,

864
00:43:53,800 --> 00:43:57,000
Speaker 1: although this is nonsense, these are just like rumors that

865
00:43:57,040 --> 00:43:59,440
Speaker 1: are spreading in town because it's Petty's.

866
00:43:59,400 --> 00:44:02,640
Speaker 2: Marketing for bad community theater and you should go to

867
00:44:02,719 --> 00:44:03,759
Speaker 2: jail for doing that.

868
00:44:03,960 --> 00:44:07,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's all they're doing, is He's like, how weird

869
00:44:07,120 --> 00:44:09,799
Speaker 1: can we be to create the maximum number of Yeah,

870
00:44:09,920 --> 00:44:12,480
Speaker 1: mow the lawn. Weird. Put some marquees up on the thing,

871
00:44:12,680 --> 00:44:15,239
Speaker 1: turn lights on at weird hours of the night, you know,

872
00:44:15,400 --> 00:44:19,120
Speaker 1: follow people home at a distance, taking notes visibly in

873
00:44:19,160 --> 00:44:22,839
Speaker 1: a notepad, like they're just fucking with the normies, which

874
00:44:22,880 --> 00:44:25,520
Speaker 1: I normally I actually in this case, I do respect it.

875
00:44:25,560 --> 00:44:28,440
Speaker 1: Like it's not cool when you're like endangering children, but

876
00:44:28,520 --> 00:44:30,239
Speaker 1: this is a fun thing to do the rest of

877
00:44:30,280 --> 00:44:30,640
Speaker 1: the time.

878
00:44:30,680 --> 00:44:31,440
Speaker 4: I don't know.

879
00:44:31,560 --> 00:44:34,759
Speaker 2: I mean, it's like it's it's certainly annoying, but it's

880
00:44:34,800 --> 00:44:38,200
Speaker 2: like improv everywhere annoying at that point where you're like, yeah,

881
00:44:38,280 --> 00:44:43,960
Speaker 2: should they be executed, Yes for you, but we can't.

882
00:44:43,960 --> 00:44:46,239
Speaker 2: We have not yet succeeded to you know, be able

883
00:44:46,280 --> 00:44:47,680
Speaker 2: to execute improvisers.

884
00:44:47,840 --> 00:44:52,480
Speaker 1: No. No, When I win the presidency, Jamie, that's the

885
00:44:52,520 --> 00:44:55,600
Speaker 1: first federal law, Like, as an executive order, I'm going

886
00:44:55,640 --> 00:44:59,440
Speaker 1: to mandate the death penalty for improv people.

887
00:44:59,560 --> 00:45:05,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's illegal for anything else but improv and improv

888
00:45:05,320 --> 00:45:06,800
Speaker 2: it can be on site.

889
00:45:06,640 --> 00:45:11,319
Speaker 1: And yeah, everyone, I'm deputizing the entire country to carry out.

890
00:45:11,400 --> 00:45:13,239
Speaker 1: And this is actually I think, what can heal the

891
00:45:13,320 --> 00:45:15,960
Speaker 1: left right divide in this country get We can get

892
00:45:16,200 --> 00:45:19,960
Speaker 1: communists and fascists all on board with taking out the

893
00:45:19,960 --> 00:45:21,240
Speaker 1: fucking improv people.

894
00:45:21,320 --> 00:45:24,600
Speaker 2: Finally a true bipartisan issue.

895
00:45:24,840 --> 00:45:29,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, AOC and Ted Cruz holding hands and burning down

896
00:45:29,600 --> 00:45:36,799
Speaker 1: an improv shop. Finally this country can heal now, Eddie Dean,

897
00:45:37,160 --> 00:45:39,600
Speaker 1: that journalist comes to town looking for Petty, and it

898
00:45:39,640 --> 00:45:41,520
Speaker 1: becomes very like he's a journalist. He's not trying to

899
00:45:41,560 --> 00:45:44,080
Speaker 1: hide what he's doing. He like goes around to places

900
00:45:44,120 --> 00:45:46,000
Speaker 1: where the finders go and it's like, does anyone know

901
00:45:46,400 --> 00:45:49,000
Speaker 1: Mary and Petty? I'd like to interview him. So they've

902
00:45:49,000 --> 00:45:51,520
Speaker 1: become aware that he's looking for him, and they change

903
00:45:51,520 --> 00:45:54,520
Speaker 1: their theater marquee to like deliver a message to him.

904
00:45:54,920 --> 00:45:57,920
Speaker 1: They change it to John eight thirty two, which is

905
00:45:58,120 --> 00:46:00,560
Speaker 1: a portion of the Bible that reads, and shall know

906
00:46:00,640 --> 00:46:03,680
Speaker 1: the Truth, and the truth shall set you free. Now

907
00:46:04,239 --> 00:46:06,759
Speaker 1: that may not seem like it specifically has anything to

908
00:46:06,800 --> 00:46:12,320
Speaker 1: do with like conspiracies or this journalist, but that particular

909
00:46:12,400 --> 00:46:14,520
Speaker 1: quote from the Bible is engraved in the lobby of

910
00:46:14,560 --> 00:46:17,960
Speaker 1: the headquarters of the CIA. Right, it was the favorite

911
00:46:18,000 --> 00:46:21,839
Speaker 1: motto of former CIA chief William Colby, who had disappeared

912
00:46:21,880 --> 00:46:25,680
Speaker 1: a week before in an accident in the Chesapeake Bay. So, like, again,

913
00:46:26,000 --> 00:46:28,960
Speaker 1: there's conspiracy theories about them and the CIA, and they

914
00:46:28,960 --> 00:46:31,200
Speaker 1: put up this message when a journalist comes into town,

915
00:46:31,760 --> 00:46:36,040
Speaker 1: knowing exactly what it would insinuate. Right, that's not an accident.

916
00:46:36,080 --> 00:46:38,680
Speaker 1: They're not dumb. They understand what they're doing here. This

917
00:46:38,800 --> 00:46:41,480
Speaker 1: was a deliberate attempt to tell their kind of conspiracy.

918
00:46:41,480 --> 00:46:44,200
Speaker 3: But they also know what their two things can be true, Yes.

919
00:46:44,120 --> 00:46:47,400
Speaker 1: Two things can be true here. This was like he again,

920
00:46:47,680 --> 00:46:50,000
Speaker 1: I think he gets addicted to the attention and to

921
00:46:50,040 --> 00:46:53,279
Speaker 1: people believing that he's part of something nefarious and insidious.

922
00:46:53,719 --> 00:46:55,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, this really, I mean, just like the murder.

923
00:46:55,760 --> 00:46:59,520
Speaker 2: We talk this through, It's like this could have all

924
00:46:59,600 --> 00:47:03,640
Speaker 2: been sort of you know, relieved by a theater degree,

925
00:47:04,160 --> 00:47:08,279
Speaker 2: Like a good state funded theater program could have really

926
00:47:08,360 --> 00:47:10,360
Speaker 2: nipped this all in the bud if.

927
00:47:10,239 --> 00:47:12,359
Speaker 1: World of Warcraft had been out at the same time.

928
00:47:12,440 --> 00:47:14,239
Speaker 1: I don't think this colt gets off the ground. I

929
00:47:14,239 --> 00:47:17,759
Speaker 1: think Petty is a pretty successful guild leader, but I

930
00:47:17,800 --> 00:47:19,520
Speaker 1: don't think this cult gets off the ground.

931
00:47:19,880 --> 00:47:20,120
Speaker 3: No.

932
00:47:20,680 --> 00:47:25,440
Speaker 1: So Petty eventually does meet with Eddie Dean and you know,

933
00:47:25,719 --> 00:47:29,960
Speaker 1: he gives an interview. There's not a lot in the interview.

934
00:47:30,040 --> 00:47:33,239
Speaker 1: It's mostly Mary and Petty being like playing at the

935
00:47:33,320 --> 00:47:36,160
Speaker 1: kindly wise guru. Right. He's making these kind of like

936
00:47:36,840 --> 00:47:39,640
Speaker 1: statements that sort of like he's trying to play himself

937
00:47:39,680 --> 00:47:42,160
Speaker 1: off as like this zin Buddhist figure, right.

938
00:47:42,080 --> 00:47:47,680
Speaker 2: Almost, he's this uscause yeah, nothing else, fucking exhausting.

939
00:47:47,880 --> 00:47:50,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, He's like, you could call me a cult leader,

940
00:47:50,280 --> 00:47:52,239
Speaker 1: but I see myself as a student, and all of

941
00:47:52,320 --> 00:47:54,319
Speaker 1: the members of the group are my teachers, and the

942
00:47:54,360 --> 00:47:57,000
Speaker 1: world is my teacher, and I'm just always learning. That's

943
00:47:57,000 --> 00:48:00,279
Speaker 1: why I started all this, as I I just love learning, right,

944
00:48:01,520 --> 00:48:03,239
Speaker 1: And most of it shit like that, But there are

945
00:48:03,280 --> 00:48:05,960
Speaker 1: these points of ugliness that shine through the mask he

946
00:48:06,040 --> 00:48:09,160
Speaker 1: builds for himself, including this point at which Eddie Dean

947
00:48:09,280 --> 00:48:12,080
Speaker 1: asks him about the lawsuit with Toby Tarrell and several

948
00:48:12,080 --> 00:48:15,319
Speaker 1: other former members, where Petty says, the only conflict I've

949
00:48:15,360 --> 00:48:17,800
Speaker 1: ever had in my life are with these ungrateful wretches

950
00:48:17,840 --> 00:48:20,160
Speaker 1: that are suing me now. They were dope fiends and

951
00:48:20,200 --> 00:48:22,680
Speaker 1: emotionally disturbed people, and they got cured in my mental

952
00:48:22,680 --> 00:48:25,200
Speaker 1: hospital and they left. Now they come back and want

953
00:48:25,200 --> 00:48:29,240
Speaker 1: to take the hospital. Which, first off, you had another

954
00:48:29,280 --> 00:48:31,600
Speaker 1: conflict in your life. A bunch of the kids in

955
00:48:31,640 --> 00:48:36,040
Speaker 1: your cult got arrested or got taken into custody. You

956
00:48:36,120 --> 00:48:40,760
Speaker 1: got raided by the Feds. Like, that's not a conflict, No.

957
00:48:40,560 --> 00:48:42,200
Speaker 2: No, no, we don't talk about that anymore.

958
00:48:42,800 --> 00:48:46,399
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's also like, it's a fucked up thing to be, like, Yeah,

959
00:48:46,400 --> 00:48:48,960
Speaker 1: these guys who assume me, they're all dope fiends. You know,

960
00:48:49,040 --> 00:48:51,400
Speaker 1: I cured them, so I should get to keep their money.

961
00:48:52,320 --> 00:48:54,440
Speaker 1: That's kind of evil, right, That's a pretty fucked up

962
00:48:54,440 --> 00:48:55,000
Speaker 1: thing to say.

963
00:48:55,320 --> 00:48:58,040
Speaker 3: I would say, I would say evil, Yes, yeah.

964
00:48:57,840 --> 00:49:02,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, fair enough. Petty continue to remain comfortable, and he

965
00:49:02,040 --> 00:49:04,760
Speaker 1: spent the bulk of his remaining years in Culpepper fucking

966
00:49:04,760 --> 00:49:07,600
Speaker 1: with people and living with his last dozen or so followers.

967
00:49:08,000 --> 00:49:10,920
Speaker 1: An internal cult document in nineteen ninety, written in the

968
00:49:10,920 --> 00:49:15,239
Speaker 1: form of a CIA dossier, describes him this way. Radiates

969
00:49:15,280 --> 00:49:18,160
Speaker 1: a very casual but completely confident sense of self, a

970
00:49:18,239 --> 00:49:22,120
Speaker 1: sort of Kadafi without the ego, makes jokes about switching roles,

971
00:49:22,160 --> 00:49:25,279
Speaker 1: yet always carries himself like an active duty officer. Does

972
00:49:25,320 --> 00:49:28,040
Speaker 1: not fidget when seated in car or domicile, assumes a

973
00:49:28,040 --> 00:49:31,560
Speaker 1: position and holds it, no fast movements, steady modulated voice

974
00:49:31,640 --> 00:49:34,920
Speaker 1: not bass, sometimes speaks in a clinched teeth fashion, yet

975
00:49:34,920 --> 00:49:37,719
Speaker 1: other times, as a hint of a Virginia drawl, maintains

976
00:49:37,719 --> 00:49:41,000
Speaker 1: that he likes young pussy more than old pussy. Moreover,

977
00:49:41,120 --> 00:49:43,879
Speaker 1: upon questioning, stated that twice a week since the age

978
00:49:43,880 --> 00:49:46,239
Speaker 1: of thirteen or so has been the optimum amount for me.

979
00:49:46,760 --> 00:49:50,239
Speaker 1: Farts a lot, eccentric and urinary habits, walks ten to

980
00:49:50,280 --> 00:49:52,280
Speaker 1: twenty miles a day, and has done so for years.

981
00:49:52,600 --> 00:49:54,840
Speaker 1: Reports that the secret of his health and happiness is

982
00:49:54,880 --> 00:49:58,080
Speaker 1: having constantly associated only with people he likes and who

983
00:49:58,200 --> 00:49:59,240
Speaker 1: like him.

984
00:49:59,400 --> 00:50:03,879
Speaker 3: So, Mary and Petty, Yeah, kind of like a real

985
00:50:04,440 --> 00:50:06,480
Speaker 3: uncle uncle like description.

986
00:50:06,680 --> 00:50:07,800
Speaker 1: You just gave that.

987
00:50:07,800 --> 00:50:12,000
Speaker 2: That's like forty percent of our nation's uncles.

988
00:50:11,760 --> 00:50:15,520
Speaker 1: By that description. He's a creepy old man from the seventies.

989
00:50:16,040 --> 00:50:19,799
Speaker 1: Is he Satanist trafficking children? I don't think so. Is

990
00:50:19,840 --> 00:50:21,800
Speaker 1: he a creepy old man from the seventies?

991
00:50:22,080 --> 00:50:25,759
Speaker 3: For sure, He's definitely a creepy old man.

992
00:50:26,080 --> 00:50:27,359
Speaker 4: There's no doubt about it.

993
00:50:27,600 --> 00:50:29,239
Speaker 3: Yeah, Oh my.

994
00:50:29,280 --> 00:50:34,040
Speaker 2: God, well, I yeah, this is this is this is

995
00:50:34,120 --> 00:50:36,800
Speaker 2: local theater nonsense, and I don't abide by it.

996
00:50:36,680 --> 00:50:40,640
Speaker 3: And I it's just yeah, yeah.

997
00:50:40,880 --> 00:50:41,000
Speaker 2: So.

998
00:50:41,320 --> 00:50:43,960
Speaker 1: He died in two thousand and three, having lived exactly

999
00:50:44,040 --> 00:50:46,120
Speaker 1: the life he meant to live, for better and for worse,

1000
00:50:46,920 --> 00:50:49,480
Speaker 1: and his legacy today continues on in the form of

1001
00:50:49,520 --> 00:50:53,600
Speaker 1: countless YouTube videos and podcasts, theorizing that this is all

1002
00:50:53,640 --> 00:50:57,120
Speaker 1: the basis of the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking crimes or

1003
00:50:57,480 --> 00:51:00,319
Speaker 1: Pizzagate or all sorts of stuff. And yeah, or.

1004
00:51:00,280 --> 00:51:02,840
Speaker 3: It's us being like, who's to say.

1005
00:51:02,840 --> 00:51:07,440
Speaker 1: Before hout's happening here? Yeah, we're not sure. Yeah, And

1006
00:51:07,520 --> 00:51:09,520
Speaker 1: I still don't have a good answer for you, folks.

1007
00:51:09,520 --> 00:51:11,719
Speaker 1: But at least it was a long one.

1008
00:51:13,120 --> 00:51:14,880
Speaker 3: At least it took us a long time to not

1009
00:51:15,000 --> 00:51:15,600
Speaker 3: totally be sure.

1010
00:51:15,640 --> 00:51:19,440
Speaker 2: I truly, Yeah, I was not familiar with the story

1011
00:51:20,440 --> 00:51:24,400
Speaker 2: before this, before this saga, and I feel no closer

1012
00:51:24,960 --> 00:51:27,279
Speaker 2: I did. It does still feel like there's some piece

1013
00:51:27,320 --> 00:51:31,719
Speaker 2: of information missing, uh, and that this like it also

1014
00:51:31,840 --> 00:51:37,000
Speaker 2: just the timing of this too is so unfortunately aligned

1015
00:51:37,200 --> 00:51:40,560
Speaker 2: with the Satanic panic, where it's just like anything that

1016
00:51:40,600 --> 00:51:44,160
Speaker 2: got sucked up into that vortex, there's an element of

1017
00:51:44,880 --> 00:51:48,680
Speaker 2: either not true or will never know the degree of

1018
00:51:48,760 --> 00:51:53,000
Speaker 2: truth because of how just like nonsense brain that period was.

1019
00:51:53,560 --> 00:52:01,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, speaking of nonsense, Jamie, Yeah, it's nonsense that

1020
00:52:01,400 --> 00:52:03,960
Speaker 1: you had anything to do with those murders and grand rapids.

1021
00:52:04,719 --> 00:52:08,799
Speaker 2: Uh. It's the allegations I will say are nonsense. The

1022
00:52:08,880 --> 00:52:13,080
Speaker 2: allegations are nonsense. There's no sense to them. I have

1023
00:52:14,040 --> 00:52:16,080
Speaker 2: an alibi.

1024
00:52:15,600 --> 00:52:17,799
Speaker 1: On that note, you have a new book coming out

1025
00:52:17,840 --> 00:52:25,240
Speaker 1: called If I Did It The Michigan Story.

1026
00:52:25,640 --> 00:52:30,719
Speaker 3: Can you believe it's self published? Publish?

1027
00:52:30,800 --> 00:52:33,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is self published. But oddly enough, you do

1028
00:52:33,719 --> 00:52:36,799
Speaker 1: have a jacket quote by Norman Mahler, which is which

1029
00:52:36,840 --> 00:52:40,279
Speaker 1: is impressive. That's a real get Salmon Rushdie too. So

1030
00:52:40,680 --> 00:52:43,320
Speaker 1: you know, some big names coming out swinging for this one.

1031
00:52:43,480 --> 00:52:46,919
Speaker 2: I got some friends in high places, and the poll

1032
00:52:47,000 --> 00:52:50,279
Speaker 2: quotes do not reflect well on me, but they did

1033
00:52:50,320 --> 00:52:52,440
Speaker 2: send the vints, so we put them on the on

1034
00:52:52,520 --> 00:52:55,239
Speaker 2: the jacket. Yeah, the self published book, so it's kind

1035
00:52:55,239 --> 00:52:58,120
Speaker 2: of the surface of the book is a little sticky.

1036
00:52:58,480 --> 00:53:02,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, very sticky. And the Salmon Rushdie quote just says,

1037
00:53:02,480 --> 00:53:07,040
Speaker 1: can you believe I'm the one who got stabbed? That's

1038
00:53:07,080 --> 00:53:08,799
Speaker 1: maybe a mean joke for salmon.

1039
00:53:09,360 --> 00:53:12,960
Speaker 2: That that's out of pocket, that's a pocket.

1040
00:53:13,120 --> 00:53:15,560
Speaker 1: You're right, you're right. I apologize.

1041
00:53:16,080 --> 00:53:20,719
Speaker 2: Okay there please, Yeah, check check out check out that book.

1042
00:53:20,760 --> 00:53:22,600
Speaker 2: I feel like that one's going to really make a splash.

1043
00:53:23,280 --> 00:53:23,560
Speaker 1: Huh.

1044
00:53:24,239 --> 00:53:26,480
Speaker 2: I think it's it's going to be it's gonna be huge.

1045
00:53:27,480 --> 00:53:29,960
Speaker 2: I also I took the cue for Prince Harry. I

1046
00:53:30,000 --> 00:53:33,800
Speaker 2: also talk about a lot of disgusting things at length.

1047
00:53:34,320 --> 00:53:38,840
Speaker 1: Oh good, Well you got anything else to plug? Jamie?

1048
00:53:39,160 --> 00:53:39,759
Speaker 4: Oh is it time?

1049
00:53:39,840 --> 00:53:40,080
Speaker 1: Okay?

1050
00:53:40,320 --> 00:53:45,319
Speaker 2: Are you also by my book that isn't sticky at

1051
00:53:45,400 --> 00:53:48,320
Speaker 2: least not before you eat a hot dog while.

1052
00:53:48,120 --> 00:53:48,680
Speaker 4: You're holding it.

1053
00:53:49,960 --> 00:53:51,399
Speaker 3: Not know where you were going there?

1054
00:53:52,040 --> 00:53:57,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we might use the five delay there, Sophie.

1055
00:53:59,360 --> 00:54:00,920
Speaker 4: Look, I can.

1056
00:54:00,760 --> 00:54:03,440
Speaker 2: Say with confidence that if you come on my book,

1057
00:54:03,840 --> 00:54:06,480
Speaker 2: it will get sticky. There's no way around it. I

1058
00:54:06,480 --> 00:54:09,600
Speaker 2: don't think the technology exists to prevent it. But if

1059
00:54:09,600 --> 00:54:12,359
Speaker 2: you come on, you can't come on a podcast, and

1060
00:54:12,400 --> 00:54:17,840
Speaker 2: that's a great way to have a new podcast coming out.

1061
00:54:17,880 --> 00:54:19,439
Speaker 1: You're nailing this, Jamie.

1062
00:54:19,520 --> 00:54:24,359
Speaker 2: About main characters of the Internet. It's a digital thing,

1063
00:54:24,600 --> 00:54:26,759
Speaker 2: so you won't be able to come on it. So

1064
00:54:26,880 --> 00:54:30,800
Speaker 2: maybe you could get the book and listen to the podcast,

1065
00:54:30,840 --> 00:54:35,080
Speaker 2: because well, I can't, you know, think about that and

1066
00:54:35,960 --> 00:54:38,880
Speaker 2: I feel confident about that plug.

1067
00:54:40,040 --> 00:54:48,719
Speaker 1: Yeah great, Well everybody, until next time, send in suggestions

1068
00:54:48,760 --> 00:54:49,920
Speaker 1: for who we should accuse of.

1069
00:54:49,920 --> 00:54:52,440
Speaker 3: Murder next Please not me anymore.

1070
00:54:53,040 --> 00:54:59,960
Speaker 1: Goodbye. Behind the Bastards is a production a cool Zone Media.

1071
00:55:00,160 --> 00:55:03,400
Speaker 2: For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia

1072
00:55:03,600 --> 00:55:06,799
Speaker 2: dot com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app.

1073
00:55:06,920 --> 00:55:09,359
Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.