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Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.

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Speaker 2: You know, I think it's easy to look back on

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Speaker 2: this and go, oh, that was a weird request. He

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Speaker 2: beat himself up and saying I should have said no.

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Speaker 2: I was too smart for that.

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Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor

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Speaker 1: in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co host of the

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Speaker 1: podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right, and throughout my career,

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Speaker 1: research for my many audio and book projects has taken

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Speaker 1: me around the world. On Wicked Words, I sit down

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Speaker 1: with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists, filmmakers,

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Speaker 1: and podcasters who have investigated and reported on notorious true

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Speaker 1: crime cases. This is about the choices writers make, both

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Speaker 1: good and bad, and it's a deep dive into the

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Speaker 1: unpublished details behind their stories. For years, a predator paraded

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Speaker 1: on gay men in Atlanta. He was known as the

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Speaker 1: handcuff Man. He attacked male sex workers, disfigured them horribly,

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Speaker 1: and then left them for dead. Journalist Hallie Lieberman wrote

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Speaker 1: a fantastic piece for the Atavist magazine called The Devil

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Speaker 1: Went down to Georgia Well let's get started, And I

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Speaker 1: know you want to start with Max, see somebody you

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Speaker 1: actually know. So what a unique interviewee for you to have,

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Speaker 1: What a great source.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I actually like got to meet him in person

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Speaker 2: and he showed me. So. Max grew up in Atlanta

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Speaker 2: in the nineteen seventies, sixties and seventies, and he came

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Speaker 2: from like a really rough home. His dad was not

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Speaker 2: really in the picture. He was mostly raised by his mom.

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Speaker 2: His mom was an alcoholic and she worked at this

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Speaker 2: diner in Atlanta. And near the diner when Max became,

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Speaker 2: you know, a teenager, there are a bunch of boys

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Speaker 2: who hung out there and they were selling sex. And

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Speaker 2: when I say boys, they were like thirteen years old,

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Speaker 2: twelve years old, really insanely young, and they would sit

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Speaker 2: on the yellow newspaper boxes that were near this theater,

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Speaker 2: the Plaza Theater, and men would drive by and look at,

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Speaker 2: you know, the boys and decide if they wanted to

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Speaker 2: hire one for sex or you know whatever sex act.

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Speaker 2: So Max started doing this or the other boys would

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Speaker 2: actually walk to the back of the Plaza theater and

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Speaker 2: he showed me this, like we did this at age

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Speaker 2: fifty nine. He showed me what he did at thirteen,

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Speaker 2: because these buildings are still here. He walked to the

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Speaker 2: back that's where the man would have the car and

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Speaker 2: would pick him up and then they would do the act.

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Speaker 2: They would pay the money and then he'd be off

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Speaker 2: and Max would have some and that was his job.

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Speaker 2: And he was also getting into like gangs, and he

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Speaker 2: was doing all this kind of stuff because that was

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Speaker 2: he had a really rough home life. They didn't have

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Speaker 2: a lot of money. He was kind of trying to

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Speaker 2: make money, trying to live in Atlanta, and that was

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Speaker 2: how he started doing sex work.

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Speaker 1: Set the scene for that time period separately from the

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Speaker 1: view of being gay, homosexual, whatever term they would have used,

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Speaker 1: and then going into sex work, which is you know,

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Speaker 1: another part of this what was it like for Max

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Speaker 1: or an adult a male sex worker in this time period.

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Speaker 1: I mean, were they constantly harassed by police or did

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Speaker 1: people intervene to try to help?

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Speaker 2: They did not intervene as much as they should have.

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Speaker 2: As Max said, like this was you know, He's like,

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Speaker 2: we would call it child mole station today and I

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Speaker 2: was like, well, when we've called it child molization then too,

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Speaker 2: but at the time, like for being a sex worker,

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Speaker 2: so it was a time in fast forward to when

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Speaker 2: he was a little older in the nineteen seventies nineteen eighties,

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Speaker 2: time when being gay was illegal, even in the early seventies,

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Speaker 2: and it was in the DSM as a mental disorder,

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Speaker 2: so it was a mental disorder. Sex work was illegal.

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Speaker 2: Sex were still legal except in Nevada and a few

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Speaker 2: counties in the US, and AIDS came to the four

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Speaker 2: starting in the nineteen eighties, and that's when Max was

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Speaker 2: really working, you know, as a young adult. AIDS was

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Speaker 2: a death sentence, and many people argue that gay men

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Speaker 2: deserved it. And the thing was, since since being gay

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Speaker 2: or having gay sex was illegal and sex work was illegal,

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Speaker 2: the police didn't really distinguish between gay mail sex worker

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Speaker 2: and just a gay man. If you and a lot

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Speaker 2: of gay men were having sex in the same places

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Speaker 2: that the sex workers were, so they were harassing both

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Speaker 2: of them. So like you just like and you were

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Speaker 2: harassed by the police, then you were harassed by people

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Speaker 2: in the community. Like every gay man who was alive

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Speaker 2: at this time has talked about bottles being thrown at them,

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Speaker 2: talking about all this stuff. So it was even in

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Speaker 2: the gay neighborhoods, it was just a culture of harassment.

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Speaker 1: How long is Max doing this before he becomes a

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Speaker 1: major part of your story.

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Speaker 2: So Max is doing sex work for about eight years

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Speaker 2: as a teenager before like teenager and young adult before

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Speaker 2: he becomes a part of his story because he started

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Speaker 2: at age thirteen. So that was a pretty crazy you know,

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Speaker 2: it's crazy that he was so young.

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Speaker 1: So is that when he first encounters the handcuff man.

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Speaker 2: Max was twenty one. When he first encountered the handcuff man.

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Speaker 2: Max knew this job was dangerous. So someone had pulled

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Speaker 2: a gun on him. You know, when he was a teenager,

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Speaker 2: a female sex worker who was his friend had been killed.

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Speaker 2: He said they found her head in one dumpster, her

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Speaker 2: body and the other her limbs in the other, so

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Speaker 2: like in a horrific way. So he was a street

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Speaker 2: savvy kind of guy. I mean he had to be.

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Speaker 2: You had to be to literally survive in this time.

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Speaker 2: So it wasn't like we had this naive guy who

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Speaker 2: just got into sex work. He'd been doing it for

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Speaker 2: a long time. He had to vet his clients for

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Speaker 2: a really good reason. But what happened was so this

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Speaker 2: was April nineteen eighty five, HIV is spreading through the

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Speaker 2: gay community. People. There are all sorts of rumors about

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Speaker 2: how you get it, and so people don't know. So

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Speaker 2: gay men people are staying far away from them. So

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Speaker 2: there's all that stuff going on. But it was April

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Speaker 2: nineteen eighty five. Max was hustling on Ponce de Leon Avenue,

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Speaker 2: a popular street in Atlanta, and a thin man drove up,

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Speaker 2: rolled down his car window. He was in a Lincoln

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Speaker 2: town car, and asked him if he wanted to make

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Speaker 2: some money. This was not unusual. This was a you know,

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Speaker 2: the kind of transaction he did all the time. This

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Speaker 2: guy looked like a professional or not a professional, but

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Speaker 2: like not intimidating. He was. He wore glasses, he had

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Speaker 2: a pressed shirt. He seemed like a normal guy. The

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Speaker 2: man asked Max to drink some alcohol with him, and

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Speaker 2: Max said, okay, sure, you know, I'll do this for

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Speaker 2: a little cash. So he's standing there he's drinking alcohol

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Speaker 2: with the man. He starts to feel funny. Wasn't sure

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Speaker 2: what's going on. Had the man slipped him something. Max

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Speaker 2: collapses to the ground and the man pulls him into

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Speaker 2: the car. Max is begging, don't hurt me. As this

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Speaker 2: happens he knew something was off, but he was completely

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Speaker 2: out of it on you know, the alcohol or whatever

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Speaker 2: was mixed into the alcohol, and Max drank a lot

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Speaker 2: so he could handle his alcohol. So he gets in

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Speaker 2: the car. He is stuck with this man who's picked

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Speaker 2: him up. The man drives him to a wooded area.

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Speaker 2: He parks. He drags Max into this patch of kudzu,

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Speaker 2: and Max is like, what the hell is going on?

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Speaker 2: You know, this is not a normal hookup, like usually

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Speaker 2: it would just have sex and it would be over

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Speaker 2: in fifteen minutes whatever. So he's in this remote area,

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Speaker 2: he's in this foliage and then he sees the guy

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Speaker 2: who picked him up pour this liquid onto his groin

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Speaker 2: and then light a match, And as he lights a match,

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Speaker 2: it illuminates the man's face in this this ghoulish way.

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Speaker 2: Then Max could never forget. Then the man drops the

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Speaker 2: match onto Max's crotch and Max catches fire. He is

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Speaker 2: in excruciating pain, and he starts drifting in and out

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Speaker 2: of consciousness, in so much pain, on fire. He cries

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Speaker 2: for help when he has the energy, but he doesn't

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Speaker 2: have a lot of energy obviously, because he's been drugged

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Speaker 2: and he's on fire. Around nine point thirty PM, a

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Speaker 2: man who happened to be a nurse was driving home

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Speaker 2: with his girlfriend when he spotted a naked figure on

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Speaker 2: the side of the road. So somehow Max had managed

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Speaker 2: to move in somewhere where people could see him. The

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Speaker 2: nurse stopped, saw Max's condition, rushed home to call the police,

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Speaker 2: and got some blankets to wrap Max in. And Max

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Speaker 2: thought to himself, I guess God had sent him. That

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Speaker 2: was how close Max was to dying.

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Speaker 1: Where in the timeline are we, as far as you're concerned,

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Speaker 1: what you think the timeline is for the handcuff man.

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Speaker 1: Is this sort of at the beginning of when he

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Speaker 1: was targeting young men or is it the middle? Or

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Speaker 1: where are we?

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Speaker 2: We are in the middle of the timeline. He had

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Speaker 2: been targeting young men for at least nine years because

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Speaker 2: he'd been kicked out, or ten because he'd been kicked

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Speaker 2: out of Tawanda, Pa literally by the sheriff.

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Speaker 1: So Max is lucky to be alive because a lot

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Speaker 1: of these young men that he and boys that he

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Speaker 1: encounters don't end up alive. So are you thinking that

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Speaker 1: the handcuffed man is intending that this is going to

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Speaker 1: kill him? Absolutely? This is the way that it's going

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Speaker 1: to happen or or what do you think the mindset was.

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Speaker 2: So it seemed like the mindset was and obviously have

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Speaker 2: no way of knowing, but the mindset was, I don't

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Speaker 2: care if this person lives or dies. I mean, if

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Speaker 2: you're lighting someone on fire, leaving them in like somewhere

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Speaker 2: in Atlanta, like in the early morning hours, I mean

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Speaker 2: the chances that this person are survived, I mean, who knows,

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Speaker 2: like fifty to fifty Like, he didn't care. He didn't

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Speaker 2: value the life of the men he was doing this too.

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Speaker 2: They were very low on the totem pole of society.

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Speaker 2: They were people. And this is why predators target sex workers,

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Speaker 2: because there are people they assume that society doesn't care about.

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Speaker 2: They assumed that they won't be missed. I've interviewed sex workers.

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Speaker 2: The sex worker who used to be a LAPD cop,

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Speaker 2: and she said they had a nickname for crimes a

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Speaker 2: murders involving sex workers and it was nhi no human involved.

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Speaker 1: It's awful, totally awful.

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Speaker 2: And that was in the eighties, and so that was

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Speaker 2: around this time. And so if you're a criminal, if

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Speaker 2: you're a murderer, you're someone violet. You are going to

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Speaker 2: target this person who police are going to go. Oh,

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Speaker 2: their life doesn't matter.

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Speaker 1: So an ambulance comes, I'm assuming to find Max. Thank

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Speaker 1: god for that nurse.

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Speaker 2: Max was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. His

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Speaker 2: burns were so severe that he stayed there for six weeks.

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Speaker 2: He had to wear a diaper, like because the burns

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Speaker 2: were on his genitals. He wasn't sure if his penis

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Speaker 2: would ever work again. That's how he was making money.

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Speaker 2: And just also, like, your quality of life is terribly

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Speaker 2: he burns on his thighs. I mean it was excruciatingly

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Speaker 2: painful during this time. The police came to see him once,

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Speaker 2: they left a business card and meanwhile, I mean Max

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Speaker 2: is suffering. He's not completely there. You know, he's recovering.

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Speaker 2: They left this business card and said to call if

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Speaker 2: he wants to talk. He misplaced the card and never

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Speaker 2: heard from the cops again. And that was that.

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Speaker 1: This is specifically on the lower part of his body,

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Speaker 1: right where this liquid was poured. It wasn't on his

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Speaker 1: face orning. It was a lower part of the body. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So that says to you, what just initially, if you

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Speaker 1: were an investigator on the scene, the lower part of

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Speaker 1: the body. What do you think that would indicate to someone?

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Speaker 2: It was? It was so like seemed targeted to gay

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Speaker 2: men's sexuality, Like pinpointed, like, I'm pouring this liquid on

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Speaker 2: men's genitals. I'm preventing them from ever expressing their sexuality

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Speaker 2: like that. To me, that's what it reminded me of.

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Speaker 1: So did Max say that when he was first encountering

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Speaker 1: this man? I know, he was excited about the forty

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Speaker 1: or fifty bucks and the alcohol and everything. Did he

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Speaker 1: have like a gut feeling that he ignored? I read

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Speaker 1: about that a lot like that. People who survive assault.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes they're like, I had a gut feeling, but I

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Speaker 1: just ignored it. Did he talk about that to you

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Speaker 1: at all?

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Speaker 2: He didn't say that he had a gut feeling, but

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Speaker 2: he said that the guy was a little weird. So

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Speaker 2: I guess that was his version of gut feeling. You know.

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Speaker 2: I think it's easy to look back on this and go, oh,

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Speaker 2: that was a weird request because that was not a

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Speaker 2: normal request for him. And you know what, he beat

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Speaker 2: himself up, Max, like in saying I should have said no,

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Speaker 2: I was too smart for that, and that's the whole

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Speaker 2: like victims blaming themselves thing. But I think maybe that

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Speaker 2: was his gut feeling, like he thought this was a

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Speaker 2: little too good to be true, this was a weird request,

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Speaker 2: but I need the money, you know. I mean, it's

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Speaker 2: really hard when you're doing survival sex, when you're doing

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Speaker 2: this work and you need the money so much, you

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Speaker 2: are going to do things that you wouldn't otherwise do

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Speaker 2: because you're motivated by your basic needs. And so I think, like,

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Speaker 2: I think that was his gut feeling, was this is

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Speaker 2: a weird request. This guy's a little weird, but I

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Speaker 2: need the money.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, okay. So Max is in the hospital recovering,

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Speaker 1: and then the police are virtually ignoring him. They're kind

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Speaker 1: of doing the bare minimum, which is, if you want

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Speaker 1: to talk about this, we'll talk to you, but we're

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Speaker 1: not going to pursue. You know, don't call us, we'll

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Speaker 1: call you kind of deal. After a while, Max, what

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Speaker 1: does he do after he's recovered and he can walk

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Speaker 1: and move around and everything. Does he get out of

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Speaker 1: sex work or does he return He.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, he returns to sex work. He doesn't really have

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Speaker 2: any you know, a lot of skills, and so that's

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Speaker 2: what he does. But he also went throughout the city

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Speaker 2: of Atlanta looking for the handcuff man. He was like,

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Speaker 2: I'm going to get this guy who got me. He

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Speaker 2: never found him, but he was like so mad obviously,

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Speaker 2: so that was the thing. But he does return turn

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Speaker 2: to hustling.

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Speaker 1: Well in the article, you say scores at all, which

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Speaker 1: is incredible.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but he told me and this was really sad.

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Speaker 2: You know, when I met him, he's like, every time

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Speaker 2: I shower, I see the scars, and I'm reminded of

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Speaker 2: the tack, Like he can never get away from that,

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Speaker 2: like because it's a part of him, and that is

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Speaker 2: really messed up.

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Speaker 1: Does he have a positive life moving forward after this event?

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Speaker 1: I mean, I'm assuming he eventually gets out of sex work.

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Speaker 2: He does. He eventually gets out of sex work. And

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Speaker 2: so when I met him, he was with his boyfriend

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Speaker 2: who he'd been with for like twenty years, twenty five years.

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Speaker 2: He got in a good relationship with a guy who

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Speaker 2: loves him, and so that is actually a happy ending

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Speaker 2: in that sense. You know, this literally scarred him and

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Speaker 2: emotionally scarred him. But yeah, he did find love, So

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Speaker 2: that was nice.

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Speaker 1: To transition to you know, another victim of the handcuff Man.

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Speaker 1: Let me ask, did Max say any of his friends said, oh,

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Speaker 1: I've seen that guy before, I didn't get in the

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Speaker 1: car with him. Or was this just like this ghost

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Speaker 1: that pops up and nobody else had seen him except

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Speaker 1: Max in that part of the community.

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Speaker 2: So within the gay community and within gay bars at

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Speaker 2: the time, there were all these rumors that there was

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Speaker 2: this guy called the handcuff Man because there were a

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Speaker 2: bunch of unusual attacks were happening. So at this time,

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Speaker 2: between nineteen eighty four and nineteen eighty six, which is

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Speaker 2: the period Max was attacked in eighty five, gay men

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Speaker 2: were being attacked and murdered in Atlanta. Incidents of gay

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Speaker 2: bashing often went unsolved if they were investigated at all,

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Speaker 2: and at least eighteen gay men died at the hand

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Speaker 2: of unidentified perpetrators. So there was this culture of fear.

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Speaker 2: It was so bad in the investigations. The police were

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Speaker 2: so bad at not investigating these things because they didn't

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Speaker 2: care or whatever the reason was, or homophobia, that the

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Speaker 2: Atlanta Gay Center actually set up training for police officers

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Speaker 2: and said, please, like give a shit about our community.

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Speaker 2: But during this time, there were these attacks that were

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Speaker 2: even unusual for the time. They were around Midtown, which

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Speaker 2: is where Max applied his trade. There were all these

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Speaker 2: rumors that there's a serial predator who approached gay men,

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Speaker 2: offered to pay them to drink, then beat or burn

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Speaker 2: them and left them for dead. And sometimes he handcuffed

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Speaker 2: them to polls, which is where the nickname handcuffed Man

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Speaker 2: came from. So there were rumors. But the rumors, you know,

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Speaker 2: people didn't know is this a boogeyman? Like is this

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Speaker 2: a real guy? Are these just rumors? You know, they're

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Speaker 2: always like no one knows who this guy is, so

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Speaker 2: maybe it's not real. Maybe people are exaggerating, like no

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Speaker 2: one knew what it was. This weird like nebulous like

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Speaker 2: specter like hanging over the gay community.

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Speaker 1: And this is not limited to just male sex workers, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, we are talking about kind of a whole

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Speaker 1: gay community feeling vulnerable, particularly the male gay community, feeling

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Speaker 1: really vulnerable during this time period and feeling like nobody

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Speaker 1: is on their side.

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Speaker 2: Right Exactly, It wasn't just sex workers and plus sex

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Speaker 2: workers and gay men were hanging out in the same clubs.

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Speaker 2: They were just like certain areas for the hustlers and

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Speaker 2: certain areas for the non hustlers. So yeah, no, it

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Speaker 2: was a whole community was feeling like if I get

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Speaker 2: beaten up or anything, the cops won't care. And a

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Speaker 2: lot of times it was the cops doing the abuse too,

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Speaker 2: or the cops saying, hey, give me a blowjob, and

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Speaker 2: I want to rest you for being gay.

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Speaker 1: I mean, these are all significant cases, but let's talk

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Speaker 1: about kind of the next step for you. Is that

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Speaker 1: Michael Jordan. Yes, tell me before we talk about his

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Speaker 1: interaction or his you know, being becoming the victim of

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Speaker 1: that handcuff man, tell me about what you know about

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Speaker 1: Michael befo all this happens.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so Michael. I know less about Michael than I

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Speaker 2: did about Max. I'd never met him, and he had

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Speaker 2: the name, you know, his name was the name of

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Speaker 2: a famous basketball player, so he's harder to track down.

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Speaker 2: So he was visiting from Florida twenty one years old,

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Speaker 2: around the same age as Max, coming on vacation, and

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Speaker 2: ended up in a neighborhood called Midtown, which is the

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Speaker 2: neighborhood you would be if you were a gay man

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Speaker 2: visiting from Florida. The issue with and this is nineteen

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Speaker 2: ninety one. This is six years after Max, after Max

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Speaker 2: gets attacked. By this time in the nineties, the gay

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Speaker 2: community really really knows about this handcuff man. I mean,

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Speaker 2: it's like one of the first things, especially if you're

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Speaker 2: a hustler, there's a handcuff man. You got to watch

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Speaker 2: out for this guy. Here's hismo. He's going to drive

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Speaker 2: up in a car, he wears glasses, he's in his forties.

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Speaker 2: He's going to ask you to drink something, you know,

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Speaker 2: And so people were like had the red flag. So

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Speaker 2: at this time, handcuff Man was trying to find a

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Speaker 2: lot of victims. But finding people were out of town

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Speaker 2: was good for him because they didn't have this knowledge.

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Speaker 2: And this is before the internet, you know, wouldn't get

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Speaker 2: this warning anywhere. So you get someone who doesn't know

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Speaker 2: what's going on. So the first day in the city,

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Speaker 2: the evening of May twelfth, Jordan is milling around midtown

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Speaker 2: when he's approached by a man in a white Lincoln

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Speaker 2: town car, similar to how what happened with Strader. He said,

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Speaker 2: do you want to make some money? And Jordan responded, well,

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Speaker 2: what do I have to do? The man said Okay,

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Speaker 2: I'm conducting a study and I'm going to pay you

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Speaker 2: fifty dollars to drink vodka. Very similar to the trader thing,

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Speaker 2: but in this case, he said, I'm going to watch

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Speaker 2: as you become more and more anebriated, and I'll take notes.

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Speaker 2: So Jordan said, okay, you know, good way to make

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Speaker 2: some money. I'd agreed to meet the man at the

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Speaker 2: corner of Fifth in Juniper Streets. Jordan was on the

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Speaker 2: side of the street. Man arrived, motioned for him to

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Speaker 2: get in his car. He handed him a fifth vodka

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Speaker 2: and told him to drink it fast. Jordan down's about

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Speaker 2: half his bottle. The man leaves the car says, okay,

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Speaker 2: I'm gonna go get a mixer. When he came back,

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Speaker 2: the man asked Jordan to get hard. Said he wanted

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Speaker 2: to see a masturbate, and Michael's like, uh, you know

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Speaker 2: it's going to be hard to do, given that, like

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Speaker 2: you gave me all this alcohol, I'm too drunk. He

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Speaker 2: drank more and blacked out. That's the last Michael remembers

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Speaker 2: of this encounter. Then what happens is a hotel clerk

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Speaker 2: finds someone curled up in the fetal position, on the

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Speaker 2: ground of the parking lot behind the Ponce d Lyon

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Speaker 2: hotel and this is near where Max was working. The

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Speaker 2: person on the ground was Michael. He was naked, his

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Speaker 2: genitals had been wrapped in a rubber band. He had

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Speaker 2: blood in his mouth and nose. The hotel clerk calls

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Speaker 2: nine one one. The clerk thought this man was like

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Speaker 2: thirty to thirty five because he was so and then

393
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Speaker 2: once he got cleaned up, he's like, oh my god,

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Speaker 2: this is just a kid, and a twenty one year

395
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Speaker 2: old Michael's Russian and ambulance to the hospital, and like Max,

396
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Speaker 2: he had to remain there for a month. But what

397
00:22:11,119 --> 00:22:15,000
Speaker 2: was crazy or similar to Max is police were slow

398
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Speaker 2: to respond to the scene. They didn't seem to care.

399
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Speaker 2: Again and this is six years later and they don't care.

400
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Speaker 2: And then the hotel clerk reached out to a gay

401
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Speaker 2: rights advocate working with George's chapter of the ACLU, and

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Speaker 2: her name is Kathy Willard, and she said she called

403
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Speaker 2: up the police and said what are you doing? And

404
00:22:36,520 --> 00:22:39,280
Speaker 2: she got nothing but run around, as she said, so,

405
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Speaker 2: they had deck designated the crime as a biased crime

406
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Speaker 2: because you know, Michael was gay. But Kathy thought that

407
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Speaker 2: that was also the reason they weren't taking the crime

408
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Speaker 2: seriously because he was labeled gay. So I mean, it

409
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Speaker 2: was a horrific, horrific crime.

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Speaker 1: So Okay, within this six year period, there's two that

411
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Speaker 1: are very clearly connected that it seemed very obvious that

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Speaker 1: the same man committed both of these crimes.

413
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Speaker 2: Absolutely, although there are so many other attacks at this

414
00:23:07,520 --> 00:23:10,280
Speaker 2: time that are happening, but these are the ones that

415
00:23:10,520 --> 00:23:14,320
Speaker 2: actually get traction, like are reported to the police and

416
00:23:14,359 --> 00:23:17,960
Speaker 2: people know about them. But there are other attacks, including

417
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Speaker 2: in Florida at this time, that are similar. But this

418
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Speaker 2: is before police are really communicating. Well, so you could

419
00:23:25,240 --> 00:23:27,760
Speaker 2: have attacks. You could be a criminal doing things in

420
00:23:27,800 --> 00:23:32,399
Speaker 2: different states and you could send a teletype saying I

421
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Speaker 2: have an unusual crime, like they told me about this

422
00:23:34,560 --> 00:23:37,800
Speaker 2: in Florida, like that you could do this. But unless

423
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Speaker 2: you know you did that and thought that this was

424
00:23:40,600 --> 00:23:42,960
Speaker 2: a predator in multiple states, you could get away from

425
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Speaker 2: with going from state to state. I hopefully things have

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Speaker 2: changed now. I don't know.

427
00:23:47,240 --> 00:23:51,119
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, that's interesting, and I know that jurisdictional issues

428
00:23:51,160 --> 00:23:54,199
Speaker 1: pop up, and not in this case necessarily, But what

429
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Speaker 1: about the media. I mean, this seems like a story

430
00:23:56,200 --> 00:23:59,040
Speaker 1: of the media would just be crazy about yellow journalism

431
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Speaker 1: kind of thing.

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Speaker 2: You would think so, but the media, So with Michael

433
00:24:04,840 --> 00:24:08,720
Speaker 2: Jordan's attack, the media starts covering this a little more.

434
00:24:08,800 --> 00:24:14,439
Speaker 2: You have basically the media who's covering this attack in

435
00:24:14,480 --> 00:24:16,760
Speaker 2: the first like, or covering the attacks in the first

436
00:24:16,760 --> 00:24:20,879
Speaker 2: ten years, it's gay media. Gay media are saying there

437
00:24:21,000 --> 00:24:24,119
Speaker 2: is this predator in our community. And we had robust

438
00:24:24,200 --> 00:24:27,199
Speaker 2: gay media here at etc. Or Etc. Magazine like we

439
00:24:27,280 --> 00:24:29,560
Speaker 2: had that, and they were covering they were saying there

440
00:24:29,600 --> 00:24:33,639
Speaker 2: all these attacks. Mainstream media, Atlanta Journal, Constitution or it

441
00:24:33,680 --> 00:24:37,960
Speaker 2: was Atlanta Journal then not covering it for the most part,

442
00:24:38,000 --> 00:24:40,920
Speaker 2: except for in nineteen eighty four, the year before Max's attack,

443
00:24:41,080 --> 00:24:45,280
Speaker 2: Susan Fuluti, the famous like feminist writer who was working

444
00:24:45,280 --> 00:24:49,080
Speaker 2: for the Atlanta Journal at the time. She covered a

445
00:24:49,160 --> 00:24:52,800
Speaker 2: story on hustlers and she's mentioned that there was this

446
00:24:53,040 --> 00:24:56,840
Speaker 2: character called the handcuff Man. So did get that press,

447
00:24:57,440 --> 00:25:02,040
Speaker 2: but it wasn't until the Michael Jordan attack. News of

448
00:25:02,080 --> 00:25:05,639
Speaker 2: that reached a man called Richard Rear and he was

449
00:25:06,119 --> 00:25:09,119
Speaker 2: a beat cop working the night shift five pm to

450
00:25:09,160 --> 00:25:13,040
Speaker 2: one am at the Atlanta Journal, and he had hung

451
00:25:13,080 --> 00:25:16,280
Speaker 2: around cops and other reporters for long enough that he

452
00:25:16,320 --> 00:25:18,160
Speaker 2: was like, oh, this sounds like the handcuff man. I've

453
00:25:18,160 --> 00:25:20,880
Speaker 2: heard these rumors. And again Richard did not know if

454
00:25:20,920 --> 00:25:22,960
Speaker 2: that was a real guy or whatever, but he's like, oh, wow,

455
00:25:23,000 --> 00:25:25,800
Speaker 2: this actually sounds like this. So he'd heard like an

456
00:25:25,840 --> 00:25:29,840
Speaker 2: officer mentioned them. The cops as well, thought like the

457
00:25:29,880 --> 00:25:34,560
Speaker 2: handcuff Man was a myth, but Richard thought, wait, this

458
00:25:34,640 --> 00:25:37,720
Speaker 2: is actually you know, here, we have evidence that this

459
00:25:37,840 --> 00:25:40,920
Speaker 2: may not be a myth. So Richard actually and Richard's

460
00:25:40,960 --> 00:25:45,119
Speaker 2: brother was gay, and so Richard was more sympathetic to

461
00:25:45,240 --> 00:25:49,520
Speaker 2: the gay community. And then I think other reporters and

462
00:25:49,600 --> 00:25:52,080
Speaker 2: beat cops because he had a family member who was

463
00:25:52,160 --> 00:25:55,440
Speaker 2: and he went to the gay bars and he drove

464
00:25:55,480 --> 00:25:57,399
Speaker 2: down there and he gave his card instead of you

465
00:25:57,440 --> 00:26:00,560
Speaker 2: if you've heard anything like this, I'm looking for the

466
00:26:00,600 --> 00:26:03,240
Speaker 2: handcuff man. I'm really digging into this story. And he

467
00:26:03,440 --> 00:26:06,080
Speaker 2: was the first reporter to say I'm going to dig

468
00:26:06,160 --> 00:26:09,760
Speaker 2: into this. And he would get phone calls where people

469
00:26:09,760 --> 00:26:12,800
Speaker 2: would be like, I saw him, he's here, come down,

470
00:26:12,880 --> 00:26:15,600
Speaker 2: and so Richard would drive down and he'd be gone.

471
00:26:15,640 --> 00:26:20,000
Speaker 2: But Richard did not let up. Like he then was

472
00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:23,280
Speaker 2: given a name of who this guy was, and that

473
00:26:23,400 --> 00:26:27,080
Speaker 2: became a huge debate in the newsroom. So he started collecting.

474
00:26:27,160 --> 00:26:29,720
Speaker 2: He connected with a cop who worked at the gay

475
00:26:29,720 --> 00:26:34,600
Speaker 2: bar's JD. Kirkland, and this guy's like, yeah, I know

476
00:26:35,440 --> 00:26:38,400
Speaker 2: who is doing this. There's a guy who's been banned

477
00:26:38,480 --> 00:26:40,520
Speaker 2: from the Gallas, one of the gay bars. They have

478
00:26:40,560 --> 00:26:43,520
Speaker 2: a picture in there. You know, it seemed like everyone,

479
00:26:43,840 --> 00:26:47,040
Speaker 2: if you really dug deep, people knew that there was

480
00:26:47,080 --> 00:26:49,800
Speaker 2: a guy who was possibly doing this, but they didn't

481
00:26:49,800 --> 00:26:51,520
Speaker 2: have enough evidence. It was really weird.

482
00:26:51,880 --> 00:26:54,879
Speaker 1: Okay. So Kirkland, who is he's doing? Is he the

483
00:26:54,880 --> 00:26:57,280
Speaker 1: one who does security? He's the one who's doing security? Okay?

484
00:26:57,640 --> 00:26:59,960
Speaker 1: And what's the name of the place where he's doing secure?

485
00:27:00,320 --> 00:27:03,480
Speaker 1: You just said it. I think the Gallas The Gallas? Okay.

486
00:27:03,800 --> 00:27:06,560
Speaker 1: So from what I remember from your piece, he's told,

487
00:27:06,680 --> 00:27:08,840
Speaker 1: you know, we have this. I don't know how big

488
00:27:08,880 --> 00:27:10,840
Speaker 1: it is, but it sounds like we have this this,

489
00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:13,880
Speaker 1: you know, file of people who we aren't letting back

490
00:27:13,920 --> 00:27:16,439
Speaker 1: in here because they've caused problems for skipping out on

491
00:27:16,480 --> 00:27:20,240
Speaker 1: the bill or being disruptive or whatever it is. Keep

492
00:27:20,240 --> 00:27:23,720
Speaker 1: an eye out. So at some point does he encounter

493
00:27:23,840 --> 00:27:25,640
Speaker 1: the handcuff man yeah.

494
00:27:25,720 --> 00:27:28,280
Speaker 2: So one of the owners of the bar, the Gallas,

495
00:27:28,320 --> 00:27:31,679
Speaker 2: said Kirkland with a comb of dirty Harry and the

496
00:27:31,720 --> 00:27:35,760
Speaker 2: sheriff for gun smoke. And Kirkland was not gay, but

497
00:27:35,840 --> 00:27:40,399
Speaker 2: he's you know, sympathetic and empathetic to gay men. So

498
00:27:41,040 --> 00:27:44,440
Speaker 2: patrons were willing to talk to Kirkland. Gay men were

499
00:27:44,480 --> 00:27:47,679
Speaker 2: willing to talk to him. They told him what the

500
00:27:47,720 --> 00:27:52,000
Speaker 2: handcuff man looked like. So Kirkland was was scoping around

501
00:27:52,240 --> 00:27:55,520
Speaker 2: like he had you know, his radar op for someone

502
00:27:55,520 --> 00:27:59,800
Speaker 2: who looked like a man in his mid forties, brown hair, glasses,

503
00:28:00,320 --> 00:28:04,840
Speaker 2: about five ten, very skinny, like one hundred and thirty pounds.

504
00:28:05,400 --> 00:28:09,280
Speaker 2: So on November fourth, nineteen eighty three, a man comes

505
00:28:09,359 --> 00:28:13,080
Speaker 2: into the Gallas who looks like what they're describing to him.

506
00:28:13,560 --> 00:28:17,760
Speaker 2: So Kirkland wrote a trespass notice. He takes a polaroid

507
00:28:17,840 --> 00:28:22,320
Speaker 2: of this man and he puts it in the barred

508
00:28:22,480 --> 00:28:25,560
Speaker 2: book where they eject the patrons who, yeah, are being

509
00:28:25,640 --> 00:28:28,480
Speaker 2: rowdy like you mentioned, or have him paid their bill,

510
00:28:28,800 --> 00:28:32,960
Speaker 2: and Kirkland kicks him out, and handcuffed man is kicked

511
00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:35,879
Speaker 2: out for good. They say, you're you know, you're completely banned.

512
00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:39,400
Speaker 2: Unlike the other people never come back, and Kirkland says,

513
00:28:39,480 --> 00:28:44,320
Speaker 2: after taking his picture, what's your name? The man says,

514
00:28:44,840 --> 00:28:49,320
Speaker 2: his name is Robert Lee Bennett Junior. I'm an attorney,

515
00:28:49,480 --> 00:28:51,520
Speaker 2: he added, and I'm going to sue you.

516
00:28:52,280 --> 00:28:54,480
Speaker 1: What was his mindset by doing all of that? Was

517
00:28:54,520 --> 00:28:56,720
Speaker 1: it to try to get this guy's name, or was

518
00:28:56,760 --> 00:28:58,400
Speaker 1: it to try to just get him out of this

519
00:28:58,520 --> 00:29:01,640
Speaker 1: bar so that people know he's dangerous or what was it?

520
00:29:01,880 --> 00:29:04,000
Speaker 2: I don't know because he had died so I couldn't.

521
00:29:04,040 --> 00:29:06,720
Speaker 2: I interviewed his daughter, and his daughter was a little

522
00:29:06,840 --> 00:29:08,920
Speaker 2: kid at the time, and she said, you know, it

523
00:29:09,000 --> 00:29:11,080
Speaker 2: was one of the few cases he talked about, but

524
00:29:11,960 --> 00:29:15,280
Speaker 2: she didn't hear a lot. But I think that his

525
00:29:15,440 --> 00:29:19,160
Speaker 2: mindset was a, you know, get him out of the bar.

526
00:29:19,640 --> 00:29:23,200
Speaker 2: They didn't have evidence to show this was the guy

527
00:29:23,240 --> 00:29:26,840
Speaker 2: committing the crimes, or even they didn't have this as

528
00:29:26,880 --> 00:29:30,760
Speaker 2: before Max's incident. I don't know if they had investigated

529
00:29:30,800 --> 00:29:33,400
Speaker 2: any incidents like this, so it was all rumor myth.

530
00:29:33,840 --> 00:29:37,840
Speaker 2: But they knew enough. Kirkland knew enough and had heard

531
00:29:37,920 --> 00:29:39,920
Speaker 2: enough from the patrons to be like, this guy shouldn't

532
00:29:39,920 --> 00:29:42,760
Speaker 2: be here. He's causing so much trouble, he's scaring people

533
00:29:42,840 --> 00:29:45,480
Speaker 2: that he shouldn't be here. They just didn't have enough

534
00:29:45,520 --> 00:29:47,959
Speaker 2: evidence to time. There were a lot of rumors, but

535
00:29:48,320 --> 00:29:51,200
Speaker 2: didn't know how dangerous this man could be.

536
00:29:52,080 --> 00:29:54,440
Speaker 1: So tell me what ends up happening. Now we have

537
00:29:54,520 --> 00:29:56,880
Speaker 1: an I mean, I don't think it's going to be

538
00:29:56,920 --> 00:29:59,000
Speaker 1: a spoiler alert to say this is our guy, this

539
00:29:59,080 --> 00:30:02,680
Speaker 1: is the guy, this is handcuff guy. And you know

540
00:30:02,880 --> 00:30:06,479
Speaker 1: he makes two big statements, one that his name is

541
00:30:06,720 --> 00:30:09,520
Speaker 1: Robert Bennett Junior and the other is that he's an attorney.

542
00:30:10,240 --> 00:30:14,960
Speaker 1: What happens next? Does Kirkland go to his superiors in Atlanta,

543
00:30:15,080 --> 00:30:17,000
Speaker 1: the police, or what does he do that?

544
00:30:17,160 --> 00:30:20,160
Speaker 2: I don't know because there weren't records. I don't know

545
00:30:20,200 --> 00:30:24,000
Speaker 2: if he went there, but he kept working at the Gallas, so,

546
00:30:24,240 --> 00:30:27,880
Speaker 2: I mean, he knew he'd gotten handcuff man Robert Lee

547
00:30:27,880 --> 00:30:30,920
Speaker 2: Bennett Junior, who he suspected was the handcuff man out

548
00:30:30,960 --> 00:30:34,960
Speaker 2: of this bar. What seemed to happen was in action,

549
00:30:36,040 --> 00:30:41,440
Speaker 2: and I don't know how much he ended up doing.

550
00:30:41,560 --> 00:30:44,480
Speaker 2: At one point, Don Honeywell, the owner of the Gallas,

551
00:30:44,720 --> 00:30:47,520
Speaker 2: the police, Kirkland hired him to work for the police

552
00:30:48,000 --> 00:30:49,719
Speaker 2: to try to start looking and this did not make

553
00:30:49,760 --> 00:30:52,440
Speaker 2: it into my story, but to start looking for the

554
00:30:52,480 --> 00:30:55,760
Speaker 2: handcuff man. And around this time, a bunch of children

555
00:30:55,840 --> 00:31:00,120
Speaker 2: were being murdered in Atlanta and they were all in

556
00:31:00,240 --> 00:31:04,360
Speaker 2: the hunt for the Atlanta child murderer. And this is

557
00:31:04,360 --> 00:31:08,160
Speaker 2: the other thing police did. They thought this Atlanta child

558
00:31:08,280 --> 00:31:11,440
Speaker 2: murderer was a gay man. They began scoping out like

559
00:31:11,600 --> 00:31:14,840
Speaker 2: gay bars and things like that. A handcuff man, Robert

560
00:31:14,880 --> 00:31:18,240
Speaker 2: le Bennett or actually it was Robert Lee Bennett Junior

561
00:31:18,240 --> 00:31:20,880
Speaker 2: who was on their radar and he was taken in

562
00:31:20,920 --> 00:31:23,280
Speaker 2: for questioning. He was a suspect for a while, and

563
00:31:23,320 --> 00:31:26,840
Speaker 2: then they dismissed him. So this guy was on their radar.

564
00:31:26,960 --> 00:31:31,000
Speaker 2: That was the craziest thing. He'd been arrested for kidnapping

565
00:31:31,040 --> 00:31:34,680
Speaker 2: a police officer in the nineteen seventies. So this man

566
00:31:34,760 --> 00:31:38,320
Speaker 2: whose name they found was not like just some unknown man.

567
00:31:38,960 --> 00:31:41,800
Speaker 2: I don't know what investigation they had done, because a

568
00:31:41,920 --> 00:31:45,640
Speaker 2: year before they found this same man had been arrested

569
00:31:45,680 --> 00:31:49,000
Speaker 2: in connection with murder. So it was a lot.

570
00:31:50,080 --> 00:31:54,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, So when are they finally making that connection

571
00:31:54,680 --> 00:31:59,200
Speaker 1: between Robert Bennett Junior and the handcuff man? And you know,

572
00:31:59,280 --> 00:32:03,400
Speaker 1: these horror mutilations that are happening to these men in Atlanta,

573
00:32:03,520 --> 00:32:05,160
Speaker 1: and it sounds like Florida too.

574
00:32:05,840 --> 00:32:10,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, so what happened was really the media pushing this.

575
00:32:10,960 --> 00:32:14,440
Speaker 2: So two weeks so, this assault on Michael happens, the

576
00:32:14,480 --> 00:32:19,760
Speaker 2: police start investigating more. Richard, the journalist starts investigating more.

577
00:32:20,440 --> 00:32:24,480
Speaker 2: He publishes an article in the Atlanta Journal saying gay

578
00:32:24,560 --> 00:32:28,840
Speaker 2: prostitutes in fear of sadists, He doesn't name the handcuffed man,

579
00:32:28,960 --> 00:32:32,440
Speaker 2: even though he has the name, because of Kirkland, right,

580
00:32:32,760 --> 00:32:36,200
Speaker 2: not really, Actually it wasn't because of Kirkland. It was

581
00:32:36,320 --> 00:32:40,760
Speaker 2: because they were worried. The paper was worried about being sued. Basically,

582
00:32:40,880 --> 00:32:45,680
Speaker 2: Richard knew or thought Robert was the guy. But if

583
00:32:45,720 --> 00:32:49,520
Speaker 2: they falsely published this allegation, if it wasn't true, a

584
00:32:50,240 --> 00:32:54,600
Speaker 2: the guy you're charging is a lawyer, so he's already

585
00:32:54,600 --> 00:32:57,320
Speaker 2: threatened a lawsuit. You know, if they got it wrong,

586
00:32:57,600 --> 00:33:00,479
Speaker 2: they could be in trouble. So didn't name it. He

587
00:33:00,520 --> 00:33:06,280
Speaker 2: wrote a few articles tying Bennett. You know, Richard did

588
00:33:06,320 --> 00:33:09,920
Speaker 2: some amazing digging found out that Robert Lee Bennett Junior

589
00:33:09,960 --> 00:33:13,000
Speaker 2: had been a suspect in the Lena child murders. He

590
00:33:13,080 --> 00:33:16,600
Speaker 2: published multiple articles and the paper kept saying, do not

591
00:33:16,800 --> 00:33:19,600
Speaker 2: name him, do not name him. And finally Richard was like,

592
00:33:20,120 --> 00:33:22,280
Speaker 2: I feel like there's going to be another attack coming.

593
00:33:22,360 --> 00:33:23,920
Speaker 2: We have to name him. We have to get this

594
00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:26,400
Speaker 2: man off the streets. And so there's a back and

595
00:33:26,440 --> 00:33:30,680
Speaker 2: forth in the newsroom and finally the newsroom agreed to

596
00:33:30,760 --> 00:33:33,880
Speaker 2: let him name him. Wow, and that this was May

597
00:33:34,480 --> 00:33:40,440
Speaker 2: thirty first. Richard's reporting said Michael had identified Robert Lee

598
00:33:40,480 --> 00:33:43,440
Speaker 2: Bennett Junior as the last person he saw before losing

599
00:33:43,480 --> 00:33:47,880
Speaker 2: consciousness during his attack. The shocking part about this story

600
00:33:48,360 --> 00:33:53,560
Speaker 2: was that Richard found out that police still hadn't spoken

601
00:33:53,600 --> 00:33:57,719
Speaker 2: to Robert Lee Bennett Junior at all. It's like, what, like,

602
00:33:57,880 --> 00:34:00,280
Speaker 2: you know, you have this brutal attack, this guy been

603
00:34:00,280 --> 00:34:02,680
Speaker 2: on your raidar, this guy's been a suspect in Atlanta

604
00:34:02,760 --> 00:34:06,960
Speaker 2: child murders. You're not speaking to him? Like it was infuriating.

605
00:34:08,040 --> 00:34:11,400
Speaker 1: At what point do we move towards this being something

606
00:34:11,440 --> 00:34:14,319
Speaker 1: that's chargeable that you know the police are finally saying, okay,

607
00:34:14,360 --> 00:34:16,120
Speaker 1: well we obviously I would think it would have been

608
00:34:16,120 --> 00:34:20,120
Speaker 1: with the media, especially with a newspaper, the newspaper in Atlanta,

609
00:34:20,680 --> 00:34:22,240
Speaker 1: But I mean, does it take more time?

610
00:34:22,719 --> 00:34:27,560
Speaker 2: Well that sped things up a bit, but it does

611
00:34:27,640 --> 00:34:30,839
Speaker 2: take more time, and it also takes the involvement of

612
00:34:30,880 --> 00:34:36,280
Speaker 2: a Florida case. So a few months before Richard names

613
00:34:36,440 --> 00:34:41,120
Speaker 2: Robert Lee Bennett Junior, there's a man in Florida who

614
00:34:41,560 --> 00:34:45,759
Speaker 2: meets Robert Lee Bennett outside the Salvation Army. This guy

615
00:34:45,960 --> 00:34:50,080
Speaker 2: is a downs luck guy, has children, same sort of

616
00:34:50,200 --> 00:34:53,200
Speaker 2: mo o, gets picked up, says hey, want to drink something.

617
00:34:53,600 --> 00:34:58,040
Speaker 2: He gets in the car, he drinks the thing. The

618
00:34:58,080 --> 00:35:00,160
Speaker 2: next thing he knows, who wakes up and he's on

619
00:35:00,239 --> 00:35:04,360
Speaker 2: fire in the mangroves. The police find this guy because

620
00:35:04,360 --> 00:35:07,200
Speaker 2: there's a report that there's a fire in the mangroves. Well,

621
00:35:07,280 --> 00:35:10,640
Speaker 2: and this is in the Tampa, Florida area. Well, they

622
00:35:10,640 --> 00:35:12,759
Speaker 2: come over, it's a human body on fire. That is

623
00:35:12,760 --> 00:35:15,759
Speaker 2: not what they were expecting. The burns were so bad

624
00:35:15,880 --> 00:35:19,319
Speaker 2: that both his legs had to be amputated. The doctors thought,

625
00:35:19,440 --> 00:35:22,040
Speaker 2: this guy's not going to live overnight. So they're trying

626
00:35:22,080 --> 00:35:23,719
Speaker 2: to figure out who did this to who did this

627
00:35:23,840 --> 00:35:26,440
Speaker 2: to you? The man, his name was Gary Klapp, is

628
00:35:26,480 --> 00:35:29,000
Speaker 2: going in and out of consciousness, doesn't know and they're like,

629
00:35:29,239 --> 00:35:32,320
Speaker 2: he's gonna die, he won't know. He manages to survive

630
00:35:32,560 --> 00:35:36,680
Speaker 2: and some of the prosecutors told me who I interviewed,

631
00:35:36,719 --> 00:35:40,160
Speaker 2: were like, we think the high alcohol content helped him survive.

632
00:35:40,320 --> 00:35:43,280
Speaker 2: For some reason. He had like this ridiculously high alcohol

633
00:35:43,400 --> 00:35:46,560
Speaker 2: content in his body. He had fourth degree burns on

634
00:35:46,640 --> 00:35:50,759
Speaker 2: nearly half his body. And the detectives interview him and

635
00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:54,040
Speaker 2: he starts recovering. He said that the man who attacked

636
00:35:54,080 --> 00:35:58,600
Speaker 2: him drove a Lincoln town car. He described all these people,

637
00:35:58,760 --> 00:36:02,920
Speaker 2: and you know, he's forty five years old. He describes

638
00:36:03,080 --> 00:36:10,040
Speaker 2: Robert Lee Bennett Junior, the investigator in Atlanta. He sees

639
00:36:10,400 --> 00:36:14,680
Speaker 2: a teletype about the handcuffed man and about these attacks

640
00:36:14,680 --> 00:36:17,799
Speaker 2: happening in Atlanta, and he calls in Atlanta and says,

641
00:36:17,840 --> 00:36:21,000
Speaker 2: we got the same thing in Florida. And they start

642
00:36:21,040 --> 00:36:26,520
Speaker 2: connecting dots and they the Florida police are the first

643
00:36:26,520 --> 00:36:29,760
Speaker 2: ones to issue a warrant. So we had the Michael

644
00:36:29,800 --> 00:36:33,080
Speaker 2: Jordan attack happening in May, but it wasn't there wasn't

645
00:36:33,080 --> 00:36:35,960
Speaker 2: a warrant even though it was connected with Robert Lee Medditt.

646
00:36:36,040 --> 00:36:41,920
Speaker 2: The first warrant was happening in June in Tampa. Finally,

647
00:36:42,400 --> 00:36:46,680
Speaker 2: at that time, Atlanta police finally bring Robert Lee Bennett

648
00:36:46,760 --> 00:36:51,440
Speaker 2: Junior in for questioning in Atlanta. He's taken into custody

649
00:36:51,480 --> 00:36:55,200
Speaker 2: for the Tampa warrant. So that's when things start happening.

650
00:36:55,200 --> 00:36:57,279
Speaker 2: You have to ask. You have someone who loses their

651
00:36:57,400 --> 00:37:02,759
Speaker 2: legs and another person who's severely burned, and that's when

652
00:37:02,840 --> 00:37:04,200
Speaker 2: things start to shift.

653
00:37:04,440 --> 00:37:07,319
Speaker 1: What does Bennet say about this? So he's brought in

654
00:37:07,360 --> 00:37:08,799
Speaker 1: and does he say, I have no idea what you're

655
00:37:08,800 --> 00:37:09,320
Speaker 1: talking about.

656
00:37:09,560 --> 00:37:14,640
Speaker 2: Yes, So he keeps maintaining his innocence and he is,

657
00:37:14,920 --> 00:37:17,480
Speaker 2: you know, full of himself, and he is kind of,

658
00:37:17,640 --> 00:37:22,120
Speaker 2: you know, an asshole and obviously but he is kind

659
00:37:22,120 --> 00:37:26,800
Speaker 2: of like pretentious and like it's strange. So he said,

660
00:37:26,880 --> 00:37:29,000
Speaker 2: I'm here to tell the Atlanta police and this is

661
00:37:29,040 --> 00:37:31,239
Speaker 2: on video two in the city of Atlanta. I am

662
00:37:31,360 --> 00:37:35,759
Speaker 2: not the handcuffed man. He maintains his innocence and he

663
00:37:35,880 --> 00:37:38,520
Speaker 2: complains about the jail because he's like, I'm a lawyer.

664
00:37:38,719 --> 00:37:41,160
Speaker 2: He's like, oh, I wasn't breakfast, you know all this stuff.

665
00:37:41,239 --> 00:37:43,480
Speaker 2: It's like, what you went to breakfast? Why do you

666
00:37:43,800 --> 00:37:47,719
Speaker 2: you know? So anyway, he yeah, he claims he has

667
00:37:47,719 --> 00:37:48,600
Speaker 2: nothing to do with it.

668
00:37:48,960 --> 00:37:51,239
Speaker 1: What do we know about him as a person. We

669
00:37:51,280 --> 00:37:53,080
Speaker 1: know he's an attorney. What else do we know.

670
00:37:53,680 --> 00:37:57,720
Speaker 2: So Bennett was adopted. He came from this wealthy family

671
00:37:57,840 --> 00:38:02,319
Speaker 2: in Twanda, Pia, this small town, and his dad was

672
00:38:02,400 --> 00:38:05,480
Speaker 2: owner of a bank there. His mom was a homemaker

673
00:38:05,520 --> 00:38:07,400
Speaker 2: and social life. But if you go I went to

674
00:38:07,440 --> 00:38:10,160
Speaker 2: Twana for the story, you go to the Bennett's names

675
00:38:10,280 --> 00:38:15,120
Speaker 2: are still on the historical Society. The Bennett mansion has

676
00:38:15,200 --> 00:38:18,719
Speaker 2: like a little plaque like they were the Kennedys of Twanda.

677
00:38:19,000 --> 00:38:22,359
Speaker 2: Every single thing they did was put in the newspapers,

678
00:38:22,400 --> 00:38:24,560
Speaker 2: like you look at all the old records, like, oh,

679
00:38:24,960 --> 00:38:28,279
Speaker 2: you know missus Bennett, like Annabelle Bennett, like went on

680
00:38:28,320 --> 00:38:30,640
Speaker 2: a trip to Africa. Okay, we're gonna put that in

681
00:38:30,680 --> 00:38:34,240
Speaker 2: the paper. All this stuff, and he was like the

682
00:38:34,520 --> 00:38:38,319
Speaker 2: prodigal son. He was adopted at twenty two months. I

683
00:38:38,360 --> 00:38:40,160
Speaker 2: don't know if he ever knew his birth parents. I

684
00:38:40,200 --> 00:38:44,040
Speaker 2: don't think he did. But he was super wealthy. He

685
00:38:44,080 --> 00:38:47,880
Speaker 2: grew up in a Victorian mansion that his mom nicknamed Nirvana.

686
00:38:48,840 --> 00:38:54,520
Speaker 2: It had tiffany shirling silver, it had pianos. He lived

687
00:38:54,680 --> 00:38:58,840
Speaker 2: the life and everyone I talked to his best friend

688
00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:02,000
Speaker 2: at the time, woman who was also his girlfriend a

689
00:39:02,040 --> 00:39:06,120
Speaker 2: little bit, but she said everyone would come over to

690
00:39:06,120 --> 00:39:08,960
Speaker 2: his house. Most of his friends were the girls. Everyone

691
00:39:09,040 --> 00:39:11,160
Speaker 2: sort of knew he was a feminine. They didn't call

692
00:39:11,239 --> 00:39:14,319
Speaker 2: it gay. Then he didn't come out, and he was

693
00:39:14,360 --> 00:39:17,719
Speaker 2: like popular. He was in the glee club. He liked

694
00:39:17,719 --> 00:39:20,759
Speaker 2: to cross stitch. He was in the student newspaper. The

695
00:39:20,840 --> 00:39:23,320
Speaker 2: worst thing his best friend told me that he ever

696
00:39:23,520 --> 00:39:26,640
Speaker 2: did when they were growing up, and they were very tight,

697
00:39:26,760 --> 00:39:28,920
Speaker 2: very close. They went to prom together. All this stuff

698
00:39:29,920 --> 00:39:32,759
Speaker 2: was throw pumpkin off the bridge. So that was the

699
00:39:32,800 --> 00:39:34,440
Speaker 2: worst thing. So it wasn't like, you know, there's some

700
00:39:34,480 --> 00:39:37,120
Speaker 2: stories of people who in their life they were torturing animals.

701
00:39:37,120 --> 00:39:41,440
Speaker 2: He was not that person torturing animals. He was a

702
00:39:41,480 --> 00:39:45,600
Speaker 2: popular kid. He didn't get bullied, He didn't you know,

703
00:39:45,760 --> 00:39:49,359
Speaker 2: he wasn't reclusive. He was involved in the community, in

704
00:39:49,400 --> 00:39:50,320
Speaker 2: the school community.

705
00:39:50,560 --> 00:39:52,440
Speaker 1: He ends up getting married to a woman, right, and

706
00:39:52,480 --> 00:39:54,960
Speaker 1: then he says, well I'm impotent, and she says okay,

707
00:39:55,160 --> 00:39:56,680
Speaker 1: and you know, life goes on.

708
00:39:57,120 --> 00:40:01,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, So he moves to so after in Tuanda, he

709
00:40:01,640 --> 00:40:05,319
Speaker 2: ends up getting a law degree from Emory, moving back

710
00:40:05,360 --> 00:40:08,760
Speaker 2: to Tauana to work with his dad, and then getting

711
00:40:08,760 --> 00:40:11,920
Speaker 2: in trouble with the police when he's in an incident

712
00:40:12,000 --> 00:40:16,040
Speaker 2: with a man a sexual incident. Then he gets the

713
00:40:16,080 --> 00:40:20,120
Speaker 2: police say, hey, Robert Lee Bennett Senior, the father, get

714
00:40:20,160 --> 00:40:23,800
Speaker 2: your son out of here because he's there are he was. Also,

715
00:40:23,960 --> 00:40:27,239
Speaker 2: they knew he was sending letters to people that said

716
00:40:27,280 --> 00:40:29,480
Speaker 2: for a gay all time, come with me to Atlanta.

717
00:40:30,280 --> 00:40:33,920
Speaker 2: There were rumors he was molesting young boys for money,

718
00:40:34,000 --> 00:40:37,040
Speaker 2: like poor boys and the whole It is a very

719
00:40:37,080 --> 00:40:39,759
Speaker 2: tight net, small community. All this stuff was hurt. But

720
00:40:39,800 --> 00:40:42,240
Speaker 2: because he was so privileged and his family was so privileged,

721
00:40:42,280 --> 00:40:44,520
Speaker 2: the police, and that's a big part of the story

722
00:40:44,680 --> 00:40:47,880
Speaker 2: that's disturbing. The police instead of saying they could have

723
00:40:47,880 --> 00:40:51,480
Speaker 2: stopped it, that they could have said, oh, your molesting children,

724
00:40:51,600 --> 00:40:54,520
Speaker 2: let's put you in jail. But instead he was this

725
00:40:55,280 --> 00:40:58,000
Speaker 2: wonderful or his parents were really wonderful members of the community,

726
00:40:58,000 --> 00:41:00,520
Speaker 2: so they said, just go to Atlanta. He goes there,

727
00:41:00,640 --> 00:41:03,760
Speaker 2: works for a law firm, meets this woman and they

728
00:41:03,840 --> 00:41:07,719
Speaker 2: get married. She's thirty four, he's twenty nine, and like

729
00:41:07,760 --> 00:41:10,560
Speaker 2: you said, she says, He says, I'm impotent. She says

730
00:41:10,600 --> 00:41:14,840
Speaker 2: that's fine. Sandra was her name, and he parades her around.

731
00:41:15,040 --> 00:41:19,440
Speaker 2: He finally gets this heterosexual life that gives him respect,

732
00:41:20,200 --> 00:41:23,719
Speaker 2: but he ends up quitting his job. Well, he then

733
00:41:23,920 --> 00:41:26,000
Speaker 2: moves from the law from to working in a jewelry store,

734
00:41:26,040 --> 00:41:28,280
Speaker 2: then quits his job and hangs around in a robe

735
00:41:28,320 --> 00:41:30,920
Speaker 2: all day. Well, Sandra's like, what the hell? Like, this

736
00:41:31,040 --> 00:41:35,120
Speaker 2: isn't good. Yeah, and so the marriage does not go well.

737
00:41:35,680 --> 00:41:39,080
Speaker 1: Wow, Okay, So when do you think he makes this turn?

738
00:41:39,160 --> 00:41:42,600
Speaker 1: I mean, there are accusations of molestation that you know,

739
00:41:42,640 --> 00:41:45,440
Speaker 1: and he has other things that seem to be ramping

740
00:41:45,520 --> 00:41:50,480
Speaker 1: up towards really major things. At what point do you

741
00:41:50,600 --> 00:41:54,799
Speaker 1: think that things really changed for him and turns him

742
00:41:54,800 --> 00:41:57,239
Speaker 1: into this monster who does these terrible things to these men.

743
00:41:58,000 --> 00:42:00,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I do think it's self lowly and

744
00:42:00,239 --> 00:42:03,080
Speaker 2: I do think it's really really sad in a way.

745
00:42:03,120 --> 00:42:05,520
Speaker 2: I mean, he did horrible things, but I don't think

746
00:42:05,560 --> 00:42:09,479
Speaker 2: he felt comfortable being gay. He never fully came out.

747
00:42:09,640 --> 00:42:13,080
Speaker 2: He barely admitted it at one point. I think the

748
00:42:13,200 --> 00:42:17,440
Speaker 2: turn happened. It was starting in the seventies in Twanda.

749
00:42:17,480 --> 00:42:20,000
Speaker 2: But I think when he moved to Atlanta and got

750
00:42:20,040 --> 00:42:22,880
Speaker 2: out of a community where everyone knew him, where it

751
00:42:22,920 --> 00:42:26,319
Speaker 2: was oppressive, where he couldn't be himself. He moved to

752
00:42:26,400 --> 00:42:29,600
Speaker 2: this other community and started a double life. But there

753
00:42:29,640 --> 00:42:32,080
Speaker 2: was a big enough gay community in Atlanta, like he

754
00:42:32,160 --> 00:42:35,960
Speaker 2: thought he could be anonymous, but it was like the

755
00:42:36,040 --> 00:42:38,399
Speaker 2: jackal hide thing, like he had this side of him

756
00:42:38,760 --> 00:42:40,840
Speaker 2: that he wanted to get rid of that he wanted

757
00:42:40,840 --> 00:42:43,719
Speaker 2: to kill the gay side of him. He did everything

758
00:42:43,840 --> 00:42:47,439
Speaker 2: he could to fight against this. He got married, he

759
00:42:48,920 --> 00:42:51,120
Speaker 2: went to law school, he did everything he was supposed

760
00:42:51,160 --> 00:42:54,399
Speaker 2: to do, but he couldn't get away. So that's where

761
00:42:54,680 --> 00:42:58,839
Speaker 2: I think, Like in the early eighties in Atlanta, that's

762
00:42:58,880 --> 00:43:02,719
Speaker 2: when he turned and he did have a boyfriend. That

763
00:43:02,800 --> 00:43:06,440
Speaker 2: boyfriend ended up dead or it was a rumored boyfriend

764
00:43:06,680 --> 00:43:09,120
Speaker 2: and he was a suspect and that and that was

765
00:43:09,160 --> 00:43:11,120
Speaker 2: in eighty two when he was married to Sandra, and

766
00:43:11,160 --> 00:43:13,600
Speaker 2: that's when she left him. She said she saw him.

767
00:43:13,640 --> 00:43:15,480
Speaker 2: She was getting off the bus stop from work and

768
00:43:15,520 --> 00:43:18,719
Speaker 2: she saw her husband getting arrested and he said, like,

769
00:43:18,800 --> 00:43:21,480
Speaker 2: I'm didn't do it, or I'll explain or whatever. And

770
00:43:21,520 --> 00:43:23,680
Speaker 2: she found out I was for murder. And there was

771
00:43:23,719 --> 00:43:28,040
Speaker 2: this whole court case, like his divorce case. And you know,

772
00:43:28,120 --> 00:43:31,880
Speaker 2: she said, my husband's a violent homosexual. So she had

773
00:43:31,960 --> 00:43:34,279
Speaker 2: which is unbelievable to say in they ate or at

774
00:43:34,320 --> 00:43:36,520
Speaker 2: any time, but especially at this time. And then there

775
00:43:36,520 --> 00:43:38,839
Speaker 2: were detectives who testify and were like, oh, we were

776
00:43:38,880 --> 00:43:42,200
Speaker 2: interviewing hustlers and they said he's scary and violent and

777
00:43:42,640 --> 00:43:45,200
Speaker 2: does all this stuff, and so like the police had

778
00:43:45,239 --> 00:43:48,359
Speaker 2: been doing an investigation that this is when I think

779
00:43:48,360 --> 00:43:52,040
Speaker 2: he turned. But this was what was frustrating. It was like, Okay,

780
00:43:52,080 --> 00:43:54,799
Speaker 2: we know he's doing this, the police knows, and they're

781
00:43:54,840 --> 00:43:58,560
Speaker 2: doing nothing. And he continued. And so for him, I

782
00:43:58,600 --> 00:44:01,920
Speaker 2: think setting people on fire and setting gay men on fire,

783
00:44:02,080 --> 00:44:04,720
Speaker 2: it was kind of like like we had murders here

784
00:44:04,760 --> 00:44:09,319
Speaker 2: at massage parlors of sex workers at massage parlors, and

785
00:44:09,680 --> 00:44:12,400
Speaker 2: the man doing them was saying he was trying to

786
00:44:12,600 --> 00:44:16,800
Speaker 2: destroy temptation. I feel like there's a similarity between Robert

787
00:44:16,840 --> 00:44:19,000
Speaker 2: Lee Bennett where he was like this is in me.

788
00:44:19,600 --> 00:44:22,120
Speaker 2: I can't destroy it, so I will destroy the people

789
00:44:22,200 --> 00:44:26,200
Speaker 2: that you know represent that, and that is like so disturbing.

790
00:44:26,239 --> 00:44:29,359
Speaker 2: But that was his mo and it never I mean,

791
00:44:29,360 --> 00:44:31,479
Speaker 2: there's no evidence he had sex with these people, there's

792
00:44:31,480 --> 00:44:35,000
Speaker 2: no evidence of anything like that. Maybe he did, and

793
00:44:35,200 --> 00:44:37,480
Speaker 2: you know, it was this compulsion. It was like every

794
00:44:37,520 --> 00:44:40,400
Speaker 2: single day he was out there trying to contact people,

795
00:44:40,440 --> 00:44:43,160
Speaker 2: trying to assault people. It was really and I think, yeah,

796
00:44:43,160 --> 00:44:44,960
Speaker 2: it was something psychological like that.

797
00:44:45,560 --> 00:44:47,520
Speaker 1: So what does he put on trial for. He's charged

798
00:44:47,600 --> 00:44:50,240
Speaker 1: ultimately and it's for the attack on whom.

799
00:44:50,680 --> 00:44:54,880
Speaker 2: So he is charged for the attack on Gary Klath.

800
00:44:55,280 --> 00:44:56,680
Speaker 1: This is Florida, right in.

801
00:44:56,760 --> 00:45:00,960
Speaker 2: The Florida case, because Gary was able identify And if

802
00:45:00,960 --> 00:45:03,399
Speaker 2: Gary had died, I always think about if Gary had died,

803
00:45:03,480 --> 00:45:06,719
Speaker 2: which he they thought he would, would this have ever

804
00:45:06,760 --> 00:45:09,800
Speaker 2: come to light, Would of Atlanta police have really done anything? Maybe?

805
00:45:09,880 --> 00:45:13,959
Speaker 2: Maybe not. But he's put on trial for that, and

806
00:45:14,520 --> 00:45:18,200
Speaker 2: it was it was a hard case because Gary was

807
00:45:18,400 --> 00:45:21,719
Speaker 2: so like his alcohol level was so high, and so

808
00:45:21,760 --> 00:45:26,320
Speaker 2: to convince a jury that that was really high, that

809
00:45:26,560 --> 00:45:29,560
Speaker 2: like he was reliable was really difficult. So they did

810
00:45:29,560 --> 00:45:34,279
Speaker 2: something called the Williams Rule where the prosecutors, which was

811
00:45:34,400 --> 00:45:36,680
Speaker 2: it was you were allowed to find similar cases that

812
00:45:36,719 --> 00:45:41,200
Speaker 2: had happened to different states and use them to make

813
00:45:41,239 --> 00:45:46,120
Speaker 2: your case. So that's when they used Michael Jordan and

814
00:45:46,440 --> 00:45:49,120
Speaker 2: Max Schrader and they said, we will fly you down

815
00:45:49,160 --> 00:45:52,239
Speaker 2: here to make this case. But the crazy thing I

816
00:45:52,280 --> 00:45:54,319
Speaker 2: talked to the prosecutors and they were like, there were

817
00:45:54,320 --> 00:45:57,000
Speaker 2: so many other people we found out who'd been his victims,

818
00:45:57,400 --> 00:46:00,279
Speaker 2: and they did not want to come here because they

819
00:46:00,280 --> 00:46:04,200
Speaker 2: didn't want to talk about their sex life in a trial.

820
00:46:04,400 --> 00:46:07,880
Speaker 2: And they were sympathetic. The prosecutors were like, I get it.

821
00:46:08,680 --> 00:46:10,600
Speaker 2: But some of them they convinced when they said, look,

822
00:46:10,640 --> 00:46:13,399
Speaker 2: this is this guy's either has killed someone, we think

823
00:46:13,440 --> 00:46:16,000
Speaker 2: he's killed someone, or he's going to kill someone like

824
00:46:16,080 --> 00:46:19,200
Speaker 2: and then they convinced. But there were so many they

825
00:46:19,239 --> 00:46:22,480
Speaker 2: talked to. There were gay clubs in Tampa that had

826
00:46:22,520 --> 00:46:24,719
Speaker 2: had these things happen. I mean, there was a huge thing.

827
00:46:24,760 --> 00:46:26,960
Speaker 2: The amount of people that got to testify were a handful,

828
00:46:27,000 --> 00:46:29,719
Speaker 2: and they were really brave. And that's how they got

829
00:46:29,760 --> 00:46:33,560
Speaker 2: him was by the Williams rule and having they had

830
00:46:33,560 --> 00:46:36,000
Speaker 2: to show. They were able to show a pattern that

831
00:46:36,120 --> 00:46:39,040
Speaker 2: this had happened and that Max and other people had

832
00:46:39,160 --> 00:46:43,600
Speaker 2: identified him as who had attacked them, and so that

833
00:46:43,800 --> 00:46:45,799
Speaker 2: was that was how they were able to do it.

834
00:46:46,600 --> 00:46:51,360
Speaker 1: But despite that, despite Max and Gary, he still is

835
00:46:51,400 --> 00:46:52,279
Speaker 1: offered a plea deal.

836
00:46:52,719 --> 00:46:55,120
Speaker 2: I know, not only has he offered a plea deal,

837
00:46:55,160 --> 00:46:57,960
Speaker 2: but while he's like on trial and while this is

838
00:46:58,000 --> 00:47:02,000
Speaker 2: all going, he's allowed to roam free and visit his

839
00:47:02,080 --> 00:47:05,160
Speaker 2: mom and he keeps trying to pick up men, and

840
00:47:05,520 --> 00:47:08,640
Speaker 2: he's allowed out on bail, but he is offered a

841
00:47:08,680 --> 00:47:12,759
Speaker 2: pleadal and members of the gay community were chanting in

842
00:47:12,800 --> 00:47:17,600
Speaker 2: the courtroom shame, shame, shame. And you know, as the

843
00:47:17,719 --> 00:47:21,759
Speaker 2: gay advocates said, and I agree with if he'd been

844
00:47:21,800 --> 00:47:25,399
Speaker 2: attacking straight people, if he'd been attacking people who weren't

845
00:47:25,440 --> 00:47:28,560
Speaker 2: sex workers, would he have been offered this, Would he

846
00:47:28,680 --> 00:47:33,480
Speaker 2: be been given such little time? No way? And I

847
00:47:33,600 --> 00:47:37,600
Speaker 2: completely agree with that. And he, you know, his attorney

848
00:47:37,680 --> 00:47:41,200
Speaker 2: who I interviewed, was like this whole time. He thought

849
00:47:41,239 --> 00:47:43,960
Speaker 2: the whole thing was an inconvenience. He was so privileged

850
00:47:44,000 --> 00:47:47,839
Speaker 2: and thought, eh, you know, I'm not you know, I'm

851
00:47:47,840 --> 00:47:49,680
Speaker 2: going to get off because I've gotten off so many

852
00:47:49,719 --> 00:47:53,160
Speaker 2: times before. And he was surprised to even get put

853
00:47:53,200 --> 00:47:56,480
Speaker 2: in prison, like he thought. You know, that's how delusional

854
00:47:56,560 --> 00:47:56,960
Speaker 2: he was.

855
00:47:57,520 --> 00:48:00,400
Speaker 1: There's a couple of things that are really just disturbing

856
00:48:00,400 --> 00:48:02,320
Speaker 1: to me. Number one is, of course he got he

857
00:48:02,440 --> 00:48:06,479
Speaker 1: ended up with seventeen years, right, Yes, So that must

858
00:48:06,480 --> 00:48:11,560
Speaker 1: have been very scary for the families and and you know,

859
00:48:11,600 --> 00:48:15,399
Speaker 1: the survivors. On the surface, it's a total insult for

860
00:48:15,480 --> 00:48:17,759
Speaker 1: what ended up happening and what he was doing and

861
00:48:17,800 --> 00:48:19,839
Speaker 1: the kind of predator he was that just seems like

862
00:48:19,840 --> 00:48:23,200
Speaker 1: an incredibly short amount of time. And then there's the

863
00:48:23,239 --> 00:48:24,919
Speaker 1: thought that, oh, my god, he's going to get out,

864
00:48:25,560 --> 00:48:30,400
Speaker 1: you know this in this certain year. But ultimately, you know,

865
00:48:30,440 --> 00:48:33,879
Speaker 1: there is some kind of a resolution. Tell me kind

866
00:48:33,920 --> 00:48:35,520
Speaker 1: of what happens before he gets out.

867
00:48:36,040 --> 00:48:39,239
Speaker 2: Yes, so he gets seventeen years. The amount of crimes

868
00:48:39,680 --> 00:48:42,720
Speaker 2: that we even have evidence for, that's a super short

869
00:48:42,719 --> 00:48:46,640
Speaker 2: period of time. And yeah, he wasn't the type where

870
00:48:46,640 --> 00:48:48,719
Speaker 2: it's like, oh, if he gets out, he'll be reformed.

871
00:48:49,280 --> 00:48:52,560
Speaker 2: Oh and one thing to back up, the prosecutors that

872
00:48:52,560 --> 00:48:55,279
Speaker 2: I interviewed said they had heard he was sick and

873
00:48:55,400 --> 00:48:58,560
Speaker 2: was only going to live ten years, and so that

874
00:48:58,680 --> 00:49:01,120
Speaker 2: was one of the reasons that they were like, okay,

875
00:49:01,200 --> 00:49:04,880
Speaker 2: seventeen years is okay. But he dies in prison in

876
00:49:04,960 --> 00:49:08,240
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety eight, and he'd only been in prison about

877
00:49:08,520 --> 00:49:11,480
Speaker 2: five years at this time and he dies of a stroke.

878
00:49:12,400 --> 00:49:16,200
Speaker 2: And his own lawyer, when I interviewed her, was like,

879
00:49:16,280 --> 00:49:20,160
Speaker 2: he got the life sentence that he deserved by dying

880
00:49:20,200 --> 00:49:22,120
Speaker 2: in prison. And I don't mean to laugh then, but

881
00:49:22,200 --> 00:49:25,880
Speaker 2: like she for your own lawyer to say that, like,

882
00:49:25,920 --> 00:49:26,880
Speaker 2: it's pretty crazy.

883
00:49:27,360 --> 00:49:29,680
Speaker 1: And I think one thing that was interesting was sort

884
00:49:29,680 --> 00:49:31,839
Speaker 1: of his ending in his time in prison. If I'm

885
00:49:31,840 --> 00:49:35,040
Speaker 1: remembering this right, he wanted to be in isolation first, right,

886
00:49:35,480 --> 00:49:36,480
Speaker 1: so you are right.

887
00:49:36,520 --> 00:49:39,760
Speaker 2: So he's placed a solitary confinement at his own request,

888
00:49:39,760 --> 00:49:42,719
Speaker 2: which is weird. But actually it's not weird because when

889
00:49:42,760 --> 00:49:47,080
Speaker 2: I talked to his lawyer, it's like, they'll go after

890
00:49:47,160 --> 00:49:50,320
Speaker 2: you if you've gone after if you've done heinous crimes

891
00:49:50,400 --> 00:49:52,360
Speaker 2: like this, like you are a target, and so I

892
00:49:52,400 --> 00:49:55,640
Speaker 2: think it was a protective thing. But then he was

893
00:49:55,960 --> 00:49:59,720
Speaker 2: going buggy, his lawyer said, in solitary as one does,

894
00:50:00,040 --> 00:50:04,120
Speaker 2: until he was put in the general prison population and

895
00:50:04,360 --> 00:50:07,080
Speaker 2: his mom died. While he was in prison, he was

896
00:50:07,160 --> 00:50:09,240
Speaker 2: very close to his mother, who was supposed to receive

897
00:50:09,320 --> 00:50:12,040
Speaker 2: a one point five million dollar inheritance from him. His

898
00:50:12,160 --> 00:50:16,200
Speaker 2: mother seemed to never admitted that her son did this stuff,

899
00:50:16,239 --> 00:50:18,960
Speaker 2: like maybe at some levels she knew, but he was

900
00:50:19,120 --> 00:50:23,880
Speaker 2: like her prize child, like only child, dressed him like

901
00:50:24,000 --> 00:50:27,960
Speaker 2: little Lord faunt LeRoi. One year before he was supposed

902
00:50:28,000 --> 00:50:30,440
Speaker 2: to get out, he had a stroke and died behind bars.

903
00:50:30,480 --> 00:50:34,080
Speaker 2: There were rumors that he died of HIV related stuff.

904
00:50:34,160 --> 00:50:37,640
Speaker 2: I don't know. I couldn't find out any other causes

905
00:50:37,680 --> 00:50:38,080
Speaker 2: of death.

906
00:50:38,520 --> 00:50:41,040
Speaker 1: You know, it sounds like the bulk of his estate

907
00:50:41,160 --> 00:50:44,200
Speaker 1: went to the Historical Society and to the Boy Scouts.

908
00:50:44,400 --> 00:50:47,080
Speaker 1: He left twenty five thousand dollars to the son of

909
00:50:47,120 --> 00:50:50,239
Speaker 1: his friend, Ellie Harden Smith in fifteen thousand to the

910
00:50:50,280 --> 00:50:53,120
Speaker 1: local country club. This is the nasty part to me,

911
00:50:53,680 --> 00:50:57,839
Speaker 1: with the condition that this bequest be acknowledged and established

912
00:50:57,840 --> 00:51:01,040
Speaker 1: as a memorial to my grandfather, the honorable William Maxwell,

913
00:51:01,120 --> 00:51:05,600
Speaker 1: my mother, and myself Robert Lee Bennett Junior. And he

914
00:51:05,640 --> 00:51:09,600
Speaker 1: also wanted a memorial maide in honor of he and

915
00:51:09,640 --> 00:51:12,520
Speaker 1: his mother as a condition of the gift to the

916
00:51:12,560 --> 00:51:14,759
Speaker 1: County Library. And I mean that just makes me want

917
00:51:14,800 --> 00:51:16,640
Speaker 1: to say, fuck off all of that. And I hope

918
00:51:16,640 --> 00:51:17,480
Speaker 1: none of that happened.

919
00:51:18,160 --> 00:51:22,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it really was infuriating, And I don't know

920
00:51:23,120 --> 00:51:25,760
Speaker 2: the Boy Scouts, I think refused his gift.

921
00:51:26,080 --> 00:51:30,000
Speaker 1: Good. Did anybody freaking learn anything from this story? I mean,

922
00:51:30,120 --> 00:51:33,879
Speaker 1: is it? What was the takeaway for these communities and

923
00:51:33,960 --> 00:51:36,279
Speaker 1: maybe even the police officers at this point?

924
00:51:36,440 --> 00:51:40,560
Speaker 2: So did anyone learn anything from this story? I would

925
00:51:40,719 --> 00:51:45,200
Speaker 2: like to believe that police officers, Well, one of the

926
00:51:45,239 --> 00:51:49,080
Speaker 2: things that came from this was partly the training of

927
00:51:49,200 --> 00:51:54,480
Speaker 2: police officers on sensitivity training. I'm not sure if the

928
00:51:54,560 --> 00:51:59,799
Speaker 2: community learned a ton, but I do think that the

929
00:51:59,840 --> 00:52:03,000
Speaker 2: publicity and this did get you know, publicity in Florida

930
00:52:03,040 --> 00:52:07,719
Speaker 2: as well, was like that the victims of him, who

931
00:52:07,719 --> 00:52:10,360
Speaker 2: were sex workers and gay men, that they were real people,

932
00:52:10,640 --> 00:52:14,960
Speaker 2: they had value, their voices mattered, they mattered, and you know,

933
00:52:15,080 --> 00:52:17,439
Speaker 2: they ended up like we should listen to them because

934
00:52:17,480 --> 00:52:20,640
Speaker 2: they ended up getting this predator behind bars. Now, when

935
00:52:20,680 --> 00:52:23,480
Speaker 2: I talk, I'm an optimistic person. When I talked to Richard,

936
00:52:23,560 --> 00:52:26,920
Speaker 2: he was like, I'd like to believe things have changed,

937
00:52:27,080 --> 00:52:30,320
Speaker 2: But if the same thing happened in Atlanta today, what

938
00:52:30,480 --> 00:52:32,880
Speaker 2: we care if a hustler died And I put this

939
00:52:32,960 --> 00:52:35,520
Speaker 2: in my article and he this quote from him, and

940
00:52:35,560 --> 00:52:39,040
Speaker 2: he's like, no, we would care much more if someone

941
00:52:39,120 --> 00:52:52,040
Speaker 2: died in the wealthy Buckhead community in Atlanta.

942
00:52:53,080 --> 00:52:55,960
Speaker 1: If you love historical true crime stories, check out the

943
00:52:56,000 --> 00:52:58,880
Speaker 1: audio versions of my books The Ghost Club, All That

944
00:52:59,000 --> 00:53:02,200
Speaker 1: Is Wicked, and America Sherlock, and Don't Forget. There are

945
00:53:02,320 --> 00:53:06,080
Speaker 1: twelve seasons of my historical true crime podcast, Tenfold More

946
00:53:06,080 --> 00:53:09,759
Speaker 1: Wicked right here in this podcast feed, scroll back and

947
00:53:09,800 --> 00:53:12,560
Speaker 1: give them a listen if you haven't already. This has

948
00:53:12,600 --> 00:53:17,040
Speaker 1: been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Alexis M. Morosi.

949
00:53:17,440 --> 00:53:21,920
Speaker 1: Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain. This episode was mixed

950
00:53:21,960 --> 00:53:25,839
Speaker 1: by John Bradley. Curtis Heath is our composer. Artwork by

951
00:53:26,000 --> 00:53:30,360
Speaker 1: Nick Toga. Executive produced by Georgia Hardstark, Karen Kilgarriff and

952
00:53:30,480 --> 00:53:34,640
Speaker 1: Danielle Kramer. Listen to Wicked Words on the iHeartRadio app,

953
00:53:34,760 --> 00:53:38,440
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Follow Wicked

954
00:53:38,480 --> 00:53:42,719
Speaker 1: Words on Instagram at tenfold more Wicked, and on Facebook

955
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