WEBVTT - The Murder Years S2: Ep. 5, Black Hole Sun 0:00:00.560 --> 0:00:05.480 The following podcast contains explicit descriptions of violence, including sexual violence, 0:00:05.519 --> 0:00:09.360 that some listeners may find upsetting. Continue at your own risk. 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:18.439 My name is Courtney Barnes and I'm the author of 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:22.240 All Fall Down, the Story of the Domino Beach Murders. 0:00:22.920 --> 0:00:26.360 With this podcast, I've decided to revisit the murders of 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:29.920 the serial killer who terrorized the small southern California beach 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:34.680 community I called home back in the nineteen nineties. As 0:00:34.720 --> 0:00:37.519 I mentioned in episode one, I followed the case from 0:00:37.560 --> 0:00:40.680 the very beginning, from the rape and strangulation of nineteen 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:43.519 year old Via Kendrick in nineteen ninety two, to the 0:00:43.600 --> 0:00:46.480 discovery of the body of young heroin attic Billy Boy 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:49.960 Reeves about ten months later, to the absolute horror show 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:52.640 that was the murders of three college students during spring 0:00:52.680 --> 0:00:57.200 break nineteen ninety four. I've talked about how Gregg Langford, 0:00:57.320 --> 0:01:00.480 a powerful city councilman back in those days, sought to 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:02.800 sweep it all under the rug so that Domino Beach 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:06.200 is tourism industry wouldn't suffer. And I've told you how 0:01:06.240 --> 0:01:09.560 Stan Major's, an ex COHN and registered sex offender, was 0:01:09.600 --> 0:01:11.760 deemed guilty for at least some of the murders in 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:14.760 the court of public opinion, and as a result, ended 0:01:14.840 --> 0:01:18.839 up taking his own life. And in our last episode, 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:22.240 you heard the story of Angela Bowers, the first victim 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:25.240 to escape from the Domino Beach Killer with her life, 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:28.440 and you heard it directly from her, in her own words. 0:01:29.840 --> 0:01:33.880 So then then he presses my body up against the car, 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:36.560 the door of the back seat, I mean, and he 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:39.840 presses it up even harder against me, and I feel 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:43.880 this hot breath in my ear, and he says, oh, 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:47.800 and he's doing this thing with his voice, like you 0:01:47.840 --> 0:01:51.040 know how everyone who plays Batman, how they make their 0:01:51.120 --> 0:01:55.840 voice all low and gravelly like that. Anyway, he says, 0:01:56.920 --> 0:02:01.680 and these are his exact words, green, and you die 0:02:01.960 --> 0:02:06.160 right here. And now, finally I told you how after 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:09.320 I wrote about Angela's harrowing ordeal in the SoCal Journal, 0:02:09.600 --> 0:02:12.040 the newspaper I had been working for since pretty much 0:02:12.120 --> 0:02:15.200 the moment I graduated college, I received a letter in 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:17.880 the mail from someone claiming to be the killer himself. 0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:22.080 Rangel may have flewn away, but I think I like 0:02:22.160 --> 0:02:23.200 you better anyhow. 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:26.520 One day I think i'd like for you to meet me. 0:02:27.919 --> 0:02:30.840 It was because of that letter that authorities, led by 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:34.480 Delsoul County Sheriff Damon Stokes, were finally able to link 0:02:34.520 --> 0:02:37.720 all five murders and the attempted abduction of Angela Bauers 0:02:37.720 --> 0:02:41.840 to one person, one person whose identity at the beginning 0:02:41.840 --> 0:03:01.079 of nineteen ninety five was still a mystery. I'm Courtney 0:03:01.080 --> 0:03:05.480 Barnes and this is the Murder Years, Episode five, Black 0:03:05.560 --> 0:03:13.280 Hole Sun. I turned twenty four in January of nineteen 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:16.440 ninety five, around the same time that Glenn Sherman, the 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:20.000 so CAW Journal's crime and politics reporter, officially left Domino 0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:23.840 Beach for the greener pastures of the La Times. The 0:03:23.919 --> 0:03:26.720 story I had written about Angela Bowers in November nineteen 0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:29.680 ninety four had gotten me some attention, and not just 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:31.840 from the Domino Beach killer who had sent me his 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:36.280 first yes, first letter, but also from some national publications 0:03:36.280 --> 0:03:39.240 who picked up the story. I was far from a 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:41.360 household name and no one was asking me to appear 0:03:41.400 --> 0:03:44.680 on talk shows yet, but in certain circles I was 0:03:44.720 --> 0:03:47.920 being hailed as a rising voice of feminism and victim advocacy, 0:03:48.360 --> 0:03:50.680 which I have to say I thought was pretty cool 0:03:50.720 --> 0:03:54.240 at the time. But that article had also got me 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:57.680 back on the radar of Domino Beach City Councilman Greg Langford, 0:03:57.720 --> 0:04:01.400 who was decidedly less of a fan, which was almost 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:04.280 certainly why I was not named Glenn Sherman's replacement as 0:04:04.280 --> 0:04:06.640 the new crime in politics reporter when he left the 0:04:06.640 --> 0:04:10.240 so Cal Journal. Greg Langford made it clear that the 0:04:10.280 --> 0:04:12.720 council had it in its power to make things difficult 0:04:12.720 --> 0:04:15.840 for the paper if I was given that role. For example, 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:18.200 he made a veiled threat that we could be denied 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:21.720 press credentials to certain events, that city employees would be 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:23.839 told never to talk to us, you know, that sort 0:04:23.880 --> 0:04:28.120 of thing. However, Lauren Redman, the so Cal Journal's editor 0:04:28.120 --> 0:04:32.080 in chief, figured out a loophole. She made the decision 0:04:32.120 --> 0:04:35.400 to not name anyone as Sherman's replacement, which gave her 0:04:35.480 --> 0:04:38.680 the freedom to assign crime and politics articles to any 0:04:38.720 --> 0:04:42.640 reporter she chose on a story by story basis. She 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:45.440 kept me as far away from Greg Langford as possible, 0:04:45.520 --> 0:04:48.119 which meant I wouldn't cover any stories dealing with local 0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:50.680 politics and I'd no longer have to attend and take 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:54.520 notes on city council meetings, which suited me just fine. 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:57.960 So even though I was still on lifestyle entertainment, I 0:04:58.080 --> 0:05:02.040 was also assigned some stories dealing with especially when those 0:05:02.040 --> 0:05:03.120 crimes involved women. 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:12.119 Got to admit I didn't like you for the longest time. 0:05:12.760 --> 0:05:16.720 That's former del Soul County Sheriff Damon Stokes never won 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:20.080 to sugarcoat his feelings. 0:05:20.839 --> 0:05:23.000 And not because of all the things you said about 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:23.640 me in the paper. 0:05:23.800 --> 0:05:27.000 I never said anything that wasn't supported by facts. 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:31.280 Well maybe that's technically true. But you had a way 0:05:31.320 --> 0:05:32.159 with words, Courtney. 0:05:32.600 --> 0:05:34.440 Well, some would say I still do. 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:37.800 I don't doubt it. You were a master of subtexts. 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:40.240 If you wanted folks to feel a certain way about 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:42.840 a certain subject, you knew all the tricks. 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:44.920 Men. I'll take that as a compliment. 0:05:45.279 --> 0:05:47.760 Take it however you like. Some may take it as 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:49.800 leading or even manipulative. 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:53.400 I don't think that's fair. I was just trying to 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:55.920 be as honest as I could. I wanted to be. 0:05:56.080 --> 0:05:59.160 A champion of truth. Yeah, something along those sides, right. 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:02.800 I read you book, Courtney. I know how you see yourself. 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:05.160 We're all heroes in our own stories. 0:06:05.200 --> 0:06:08.279 Are I never saw myself as a hero? Are you 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:09.920 telling me you saw yourself. 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:12.480 That way I saw myself as sheriff of a county 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:15.120 that was living in fear, and there were times I 0:06:15.120 --> 0:06:17.599 thought you were fanning the flames of that fear. I 0:06:17.839 --> 0:06:22.080 was only what when you brought me that letter, I 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:24.880 started to see your potential, Your potential become part of 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:28.320 the solution instead of, you know, someone who was shining 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:30.880 a bright light on the problem. And then when you 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:32.159 brought me that second letter. 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:35.880 Okay, wait a second, let's not get ahead of ourselves. 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:41.080 The second letter Stokes just mentioned was delivered to me 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:43.479 at the offices of the SoCal Journal on the last 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:47.040 day of March nineteen ninety five. I remember it clearly 0:06:47.120 --> 0:06:49.520 because when the letter was dropped on my desk, I 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:52.000 was working on a piece about the Mexican American pop 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:54.479 star Selena, who had been shot and killed by the 0:06:54.520 --> 0:06:58.120 president of her own fan club earlier that day. I 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:00.440 could tell by the block letters on the end envelope 0:07:00.640 --> 0:07:03.000 and lack of return address it was from the person 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:06.280 claiming to be the Domino Beach killer, the same person 0:07:06.320 --> 0:07:09.080 who'd sent me that first letter. After the Angeli Bauers 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:11.680 piece was published about four and a half months earlier, 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:15.240 I probably should have taken it directly to Sheriff Stokes, 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:17.080 but instead I opened it. 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:22.120 Media staked out this spot in your Kazinski's cabin all day. 0:07:22.720 --> 0:07:25.679 The suspect apparently lives up this road, but FBI agents 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:28.080 won't let anyone throw and we'll make no comments. 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:32.240 If you're old enough, you might remember the release of 0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:36.160 the Unibomber's Manifesto, which happened in September of nineteen ninety five, 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:39.160 little less than six months after I received the second 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:43.360 letter from the Domino Beach Killer. Well, let me tell 0:07:43.400 --> 0:07:46.440 you our guy could give Ted Kazinski a run for 0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:50.320 his money. In the long winded, rambling, crazy bastard department. 0:07:50.760 --> 0:07:53.160 The second letter was much longer and harder to follow 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:55.040 than the first, so I'm not going to read it 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:57.560 all here, but I will share some highlights with you. 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:01.320 He was much more explicit about his beliefs that I 0:08:01.480 --> 0:08:04.800 was born to be one of his victims. He writes, you. 0:08:04.720 --> 0:08:07.640 Know I could clean eminem. I can't decide if I 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:09.000 should eat you first or last. 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:14.840 Notice the way he tried to dehumanize me, the same 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:17.080 way he compared Verak Kendrick to a parrot with the 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:20.320 whole Polly wants a cracker thing, or the way he 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:22.679 dumped the body of Billy Boy Reeves in the garbage 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:25.240 is if he weren't even a real person. He goes 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:27.520 on to say that he liked my writing, so it 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:30.560 would probably be most poetic if I were his final victim. 0:08:31.080 --> 0:08:33.320 Then seemed to delight in telling me that I would 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:35.800 never know when he was wrapping things up and when 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:50.960 my time would come. He jumps back and forth between 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:55.600 discussing me his other victims, the incompetence of Sheriff Stokes 0:08:55.600 --> 0:08:57.880 and the rest of the police, and of course the 0:08:57.960 --> 0:09:00.760 approaching turn of the millennium, and how God was going 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:04.360 to rain destruction down on us all and blah blah blah. 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:09.960 It was somehow both incredibly tedious and extremely terrifying at 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:10.640 the same time. 0:09:11.280 --> 0:09:14.520 I always thought that was intentional on his part. What 0:09:14.559 --> 0:09:17.200 do you mean, Well, he was trying to sound crazy. 0:09:17.640 --> 0:09:20.640 I think he regretted sending you that first letter. Maybe 0:09:20.679 --> 0:09:23.480 he felt like he was giving you too much about himself. 0:09:24.000 --> 0:09:28.360 I mean, the second one was like performative, almost, or 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:30.160 maybe like he was just throwing a bunch of stuff 0:09:30.160 --> 0:09:31.720 against the wall to see if it would stick. 0:09:34.679 --> 0:09:37.079 The last third or so of the letter was almost 0:09:37.120 --> 0:09:42.079 all incoherent rambling, eventually and mercifully concluding with a lyric 0:09:42.160 --> 0:09:45.840 from black Hole Sun, a song by the grunge band Soundgarden. 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:48.559 One of Stokes's deputies recognized. 0:09:48.080 --> 0:09:51.280 It call my name through the cream and I'll hear 0:09:51.320 --> 0:09:53.560 you scream again. I mean, what kind of messed up 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:54.120 shit is that? 0:09:56.320 --> 0:09:59.600 Chris Cornell, the lead singer and songwriter for Soundgarden, would 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:03.400 later that the song's lyrics have little, if any literal meaning. 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:06.120 He claims to have just been playing around with the 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:08.280 words just for the sake of playing around with them, 0:10:08.400 --> 0:10:11.400 and that if you really listen or just read the lyrics, 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:13.760 it's hard to make much sense out of them. But 0:10:13.920 --> 0:10:16.880 the song is undeniably bleak, and it's not hard to 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:20.199 see how a twisted mind might choose to interpret it, 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:23.120 kind of like how Charles Manson formed his own interpretation 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:26.079 of the songs from the Beatles White Album, leading him 0:10:26.120 --> 0:10:28.720 to direct his followers to commit a slew of murders. 0:10:28.760 --> 0:10:32.040 In the late nineteen sixties, Dark Stuff. 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:35.480 It was almost a year since the murders of the 0:10:35.480 --> 0:10:38.600 ASU students, and we were all worried, especially after that 0:10:38.640 --> 0:10:41.840 whole Angela Bauers thing. What spring Break nineteen ninety five, 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:46.240 What happens to her? That second letter, you know, made 0:10:46.320 --> 0:10:48.520 us worry a hell of a lot more. Anyway, I 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:52.040 sent both letters up to the FBI for analysis, hoping 0:10:52.080 --> 0:10:54.800 they could give us, you know, I don't know, something 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:57.760 to help us, you know, name a new suspect. 0:10:58.280 --> 0:11:05.240 And then well, three days after I received the killer's 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:08.400 second letter in the mail, eighteen year old Juan Costas 0:11:08.480 --> 0:11:12.640 was found dead under the Domino Beach boardwalk. It was 0:11:12.760 --> 0:11:14.800 less than a week before the first crop of spring 0:11:14.800 --> 0:11:18.000 Breakers were set to arrive. Juan had been stabbed in 0:11:18.080 --> 0:11:20.960 the torso and neck over forty times. 0:11:21.840 --> 0:11:22.439 That one. 0:11:23.960 --> 0:11:25.960 That one hit hard. 0:11:26.200 --> 0:11:29.120 Maya Morales resident of Domino Beach at the time of 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:31.199 the murders. 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:34.800 Juan was a friend more than a friend. He was 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:40.800 like family to me. His mother and my mother were friends. 0:11:41.960 --> 0:11:44.120 There weren't a lot of Latino people living in the 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:46.400 city of Domino Beach back then, and we all kind 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:48.600 of stuck together, you know, looked out for each other. 0:11:49.520 --> 0:11:53.160 So Juan's mother died when he was in middle school, 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:56.880 and his dad worked all the time. So my mom 0:11:57.320 --> 0:11:59.840 kind of took Juan in and she gave him me, 0:12:00.360 --> 0:12:03.120 she helped out with his homework. She sometimes let him 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:06.360 sleep on the couch. Seemed like he was almost always 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:08.600 over at my place, and he became like a little 0:12:08.640 --> 0:12:14.160 brother to me. But by the time he was like 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:17.400 sixteen or seventeen, he stopped coming around so much, but 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:20.360 I still saw him all the time. Where would you 0:12:20.400 --> 0:12:23.800 see him, I don't know around. You'd come to the 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:27.000 record store and hang out and talk music. Some days 0:12:27.640 --> 0:12:29.960 I'd see him on the skateboard in the parking lot 0:12:30.000 --> 0:12:31.680 near the boardwalk, that kind of thing. 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:33.480 And what was he like? 0:12:34.559 --> 0:12:38.480 Funny funny in a kind of goofy way, you know, 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:42.440 always making dumb jokes, trying to do impressions of Red 0:12:42.440 --> 0:12:45.160 and Stimpy or Beavis and butt Head. He was so 0:12:45.520 --> 0:12:48.880 terrible at it, but somehow you could always. 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:50.079 Tell who he was trying to do. 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:57.959 And he was small for his age, skinny and shorter 0:12:58.040 --> 0:13:00.360 than most of the other kids. He got down a 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:01.840 little bit at school, but I don't think it was 0:13:01.880 --> 0:13:05.360 too bad. Of course. One way he got the bullying 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:07.920 to slow down was by telling everyone he was ganged up. 0:13:08.280 --> 0:13:09.360 One was in a gang. 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:12.880 Hell no, he just said that so he could get people. 0:13:12.600 --> 0:13:13.400 To leave him alone. 0:13:13.480 --> 0:13:16.800 He didn't have a violent phone in his body. He 0:13:17.000 --> 0:13:18.080 was a good kid. 0:13:18.920 --> 0:13:22.120 Well that's a pretty charitable assessment of mister Costas. 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:25.240 Again, former Sheriff Damon Stokes. 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:27.760 I'd busted him for selling heroin when he was still 0:13:27.760 --> 0:13:30.600 young enough to duck the charge. I knew it wasn't his, 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:33.120 but he never gave up who he was selling for. 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:36.880 I don't know, you know, I think he was doing 0:13:36.920 --> 0:13:39.360 more than pretending to be in a gang. I mean, 0:13:39.880 --> 0:13:42.960 it was southern California in the mid nineteen nineties. Gangs 0:13:43.000 --> 0:13:46.880 were everywhere back then, especially places that had a drug trade, 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:48.280 even places like Domino Beach. 0:13:48.960 --> 0:13:51.720 So even with the timing of the letter and everything, 0:13:52.000 --> 0:13:53.880 you didn't think one's death was the work of the 0:13:53.920 --> 0:13:56.520 Domino Beach killer. You thought it was a gang thing. 0:13:57.200 --> 0:13:59.360 Well, I mean, the Domino Beach killer wasn't off the 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:02.640 table or anything. But with the exception of Billy Boy Reeves, 0:14:02.800 --> 0:14:06.079 who we figured was practice for him, our guy seemed 0:14:06.120 --> 0:14:09.160 to be targeting young women and his crimes almost always 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:12.600 had a sexual component to him. If Juan Costas was 0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:15.720 one of his victims, then that meant the killer was 0:14:15.720 --> 0:14:18.000 branching out, you know, trying something new. 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:21.280 What evidence did you have that it was a gang issue. 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:26.360 Well, nothing concrete, but like the Domino Beach Killer, gangs 0:14:26.440 --> 0:14:29.440 like to send messages. A lot of times those messages 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:32.080 are left where the right people we'll see them, like 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:34.800 under the boardwalk where a lot of drugs happened to 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:35.200 be sold. 0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:39.400 You thought something similar about the murder of Billy Boy Reeves. 0:14:39.520 --> 0:14:41.560 You thought he was a victim of the drug trade too, 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:42.520 and you were wrong. 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:47.880 But I couldn't pin every violent crime we came across 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:49.560 on a serial killer we couldn't find. 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:54.479 I wrote the article covering the death of Juan Costas, 0:14:55.000 --> 0:14:58.000 and while I included Sheriff stokes take, I offered a 0:14:58.000 --> 0:15:00.800 little speculation that it could have just has easily been 0:15:00.840 --> 0:15:03.840 the work of the Domino Beach Killer. In my opinion, 0:15:03.920 --> 0:15:06.400 Stokes was too focused on the sexual nature of the 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:11.120 previous crimes. It seemed to me that the killer strangled 0:15:11.160 --> 0:15:13.480 the victims he raped. Those two things seemed to go 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:16.600 hand in hand. But he wasn't afraid to use a knife. 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:19.720 He'd used one on Billy Boy Reeves when he slid 0:15:19.760 --> 0:15:22.560 his throat, and he'd stabbed the ASU students. He didn't 0:15:22.600 --> 0:15:25.440 sexually assault to death with a kitchen knife, and both 0:15:25.440 --> 0:15:27.800 of them had dozens of stab wounds, just like Jan 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:28.360 cost Us. 0:15:30.000 --> 0:15:31.560 Yeah, poor Wan. 0:15:32.560 --> 0:15:33.720 I always like that kid. 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:38.160 That's Connor Langford, son of Domino Beach City councilman Greg Langford, 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:41.560 on again off again boyfriend to Maya Morales and the 0:15:41.600 --> 0:15:44.280 person who discovered the body of the killer's first victim, 0:15:44.560 --> 0:15:45.320 Vera Hendrick. 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:48.760 But Maya and I weren't really on the best of 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:51.760 terms when he was killed a couple months earlier, she 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:53.960 found out I was sleeping with this girl from San 0:15:54.000 --> 0:15:58.200 Diego and called it quits this time for good. I 0:15:58.320 --> 0:16:02.080 was fucking stupid that girl, Sure as hell wasn't worth 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:06.000 losing Maya over, but I was making all kinds of 0:16:06.040 --> 0:16:09.360 really bad decisions that wasn't exactly in the best head 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:14.200 space back then. Why not, Well, my band broke up 0:16:14.200 --> 0:16:16.480 for one thing. There was in the fall of ninety 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:18.920 four when Brody Brody was the drummer. 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:21.320 Brody Hanigan, your friend who was with you when you 0:16:21.360 --> 0:16:22.240 found Vera's body. 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:25.840 Yeah, the band was really just me and him, Me 0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:29.120 on guitar and vocals, Brody on drums. I can't even 0:16:29.160 --> 0:16:30.960 tell you how many bass players we went through but 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:34.640 it was a lot anyways. Brody was always a little 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:37.800 more serious than me about, you know, the whole rock 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:39.920 star thing. He wanted to move to Seattle, because if 0:16:39.920 --> 0:16:41.280 you were trying to be in a rock band in 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:44.840 the nineties, Seattle was the place to be, but I 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:47.840 wouldn't go. I wanted to stay in Domino Beach. I mean, 0:16:47.840 --> 0:16:51.240 there's no surfing in Seattle, right. So after a while 0:16:51.240 --> 0:16:53.160 of him asking and me saying no, he was like, 0:16:53.280 --> 0:16:55.960 fuck it, bro see you later, and he bounced out 0:16:55.960 --> 0:17:00.400 of town. So I had no band and no girl. 0:17:01.160 --> 0:17:03.560 The only thing I did have was a fucking drug 0:17:03.600 --> 0:17:05.960 problem that was getting worse and worse by the day. 0:17:06.080 --> 0:17:08.080 So at least I had something to spend all my 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:12.480 time and money on. I knew Maya was hurting over 0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:15.000 Wan's murder, and I wanted to comfort her so bad. 0:17:16.440 --> 0:17:18.399 I guess I was hoping she'd want to lean on me, 0:17:18.800 --> 0:17:22.800 a familiar shoulder to cry on, you know, But she 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:24.600 wouldn't even take my calls. 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:26.040 How did that make you feel? 0:17:26.240 --> 0:17:27.160 How the fuck you think? 0:17:27.200 --> 0:17:31.240 It made me feel bad, real fucking bad. 0:17:31.400 --> 0:17:34.160 But that doesn't mean. 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:36.879 Fuck it. 0:17:37.560 --> 0:17:38.480 What's the matter now? 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:44.679 By the spring of nineteen ninety five. All of us 0:17:44.720 --> 0:17:48.240 in Domino Beach were well aware of Connor Langford's downward spiral. 0:17:49.320 --> 0:17:51.359 Just a few short years ago, he had been the 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:55.480 perfect representation of Domino Beach, the easy going surfer dude, 0:17:55.640 --> 0:17:58.160 want to be rock star with an easy smile, who 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:01.480 is everyone's friend, and the complete opposite of his conservative, 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:05.080 politically ambitious father. Connor would turn your head when he 0:18:05.119 --> 0:18:08.119 walked into a room. He had charisma for days and 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:10.600 didn't seem to have a care in the world. But 0:18:10.680 --> 0:18:11.520 that had changed. 0:18:12.359 --> 0:18:13.800 I never thought he was a bad. 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:16.440 Guy again, Maya Morales. 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:20.439 He was just going through a really rough time without 0:18:20.480 --> 0:18:23.560 Brody in the band, and okay. 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:23.960 Without me. 0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:28.920 Connor did not know who he was anymore. I mean 0:18:29.320 --> 0:18:32.239 there he was closing it on thirty years old, and 0:18:32.280 --> 0:18:34.520 I think he started to realize that he was passing 0:18:34.640 --> 0:18:38.600 his life away. Everyone around him was growing up and 0:18:38.680 --> 0:18:43.800 either leaving town or getting a job or trying new things, 0:18:43.880 --> 0:18:47.840 and he was just same old Connor. Well that's not true. 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:50.840 He was trying to be the same old Connor, but 0:18:52.359 --> 0:18:53.880 that guy was long gone. 0:18:55.880 --> 0:18:58.320 The murder of Juan Costas didn't land the way some 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:01.560 of the others had. Maybe because Stokes didn't push that 0:19:01.640 --> 0:19:04.320 it was the work of our serial killer, or maybe 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:06.399 we were all just jaded by what had happened the 0:19:06.440 --> 0:19:08.920 year before. In a is that all you got kind 0:19:08.960 --> 0:19:11.439 of way, when you stacked it up against the murders 0:19:11.440 --> 0:19:16.239 of spring Break nineteen ninety four, it didn't compare. I 0:19:16.320 --> 0:19:19.840 know that sounds suppressingly cynical, but look, as a culture, 0:19:19.920 --> 0:19:22.800 America gets really upset when bad things happen to pretty 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:28.120 white girls like Collie Blake, Sandra Gerard, Mary Crouch, Angela Bauers, 0:19:28.480 --> 0:19:33.359 even homeless bohemian Vera Hendrick. But a teenage junkie like 0:19:33.440 --> 0:19:36.639 Billy Boy Reeves, or a Hispanic kid with suspected gang 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:41.159 ties like Jan Costas, they just didn't rate. But that 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:44.960 being said, spring Break nineteen ninety five was pretty slow 0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:48.040 by Domino Beach standards. By then, the murders of the 0:19:48.040 --> 0:19:51.000 ASU students the year before had become almost the stuff 0:19:51.040 --> 0:19:54.399 of legend. And after the failed abduction of Angela Bauers 0:19:54.440 --> 0:19:57.399 in November and the two letters I received, the first 0:19:57.440 --> 0:20:00.280 of which was published in the paper, it seemed pretty 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:03.240 clear to everyone that Domino Beach a serial killer problem 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:08.720 was far from over. And then finally a break in 0:20:08.760 --> 0:20:09.200 the case. 0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:25.040 It was mid April, I think with me got the 0:20:25.040 --> 0:20:28.679 analysis of the two letters back from the FBI. There 0:20:28.760 --> 0:20:32.159 was some profiling stuff based on handwriting, but even the 0:20:32.200 --> 0:20:35.960 FBI admitted it was pure speculation since they were written 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:39.359 in block letters, I mean, white male, mid twenties to 0:20:39.480 --> 0:20:42.640 mid thirties, et cetera. But the gold nugget and all 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:45.560 that turned out to have nothing to do with psychology. 0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:48.560 It was the paper the letters were written on. 0:20:50.720 --> 0:20:53.960 Stokes didn't release this information publicly, so I didn't find 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:57.720 out about it until much later. The FBI analyzed the 0:20:57.720 --> 0:21:01.520 paper and found that it was actually somewhat new. Apparently 0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:04.480 there was a faulty watermark on both sheets of paper 0:21:04.600 --> 0:21:07.720 used to write the letters. The paper company's name had 0:21:07.720 --> 0:21:10.200 been misspelled, and most of the reams of that paper 0:21:10.240 --> 0:21:14.440 had been recalled. Most but not all, at least two 0:21:14.480 --> 0:21:18.919 hundred reams were sold around southern California. 0:21:19.000 --> 0:21:21.720 It wasn't exactly a smoking gun, but you know, it 0:21:21.840 --> 0:21:25.040 was something. If we could find where the paper was sold, 0:21:25.440 --> 0:21:28.639 which was pretty big, if we could find the killer, 0:21:29.119 --> 0:21:32.720 or at least whoever sent the letters, it would just. 0:21:33.160 --> 0:21:37.960 Take time, and time was something Domino Beach was running 0:21:38.000 --> 0:21:41.280 short on in spring and summer of nineteen ninety five. 0:21:41.720 --> 0:21:45.120 Tourism had fallen by fifty percent over the previous year, 0:21:45.680 --> 0:21:49.760 and Councilman Langford was not happy. 0:21:49.920 --> 0:21:51.880 Yeah, my dad was tough to be around back then, 0:21:52.400 --> 0:21:54.520 not that I was any picnic either. We fought all 0:21:54.560 --> 0:21:57.160 the fucking time. He told me to get the hell 0:21:57.200 --> 0:21:59.480 out and find my own place, but I wouldn't. I 0:21:59.560 --> 0:22:02.679 just stayed in the poolhouse. One time he changed the 0:22:02.720 --> 0:22:05.080