Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome my favorite murder.
Speaker 2: That's Georgia Hardstar.
Speaker 1: That's Karen kil Gariff.
Speaker 2: And this is what we like to call a ten
Speaker 2: year plan.
Speaker 1: It's almost been eleven years now, we're gonna have to
Speaker 1: stop saying ten I know, it's pretty great, it's pretty crazy.
Speaker 2: I feel like the luckiest person in the world. Same,
Speaker 2: but it is very surreal to be sitting in my
Speaker 2: house trying to figure out what to watch on TV
Speaker 2: in this podcast comes up on Netflix. It's so strange. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and so we're you know, hopefully the people at home understand.
Speaker 2: We're just pretending like this is normal and that we
Speaker 2: do it all the time.
Speaker 1: Couldn't I tell you anything? Speaking of Netflix and this
Speaker 1: cute off that I'm worrying, did you know that when
Speaker 1: we were on break, I had Molly and Tess make
Speaker 1: a chart of all the outfits I've worn so I
Speaker 1: don't repeat an outfit.
Speaker 2: I just want to see it.
Speaker 1: I can't repeat an outfit. It's an old trauma wound
Speaker 1: of getting made fun of for wearing hand me downs.
Speaker 1: These polls, it's sound an amazing So thank you Molly
Speaker 1: and Tests for indulging my trauma and vanity I think
Speaker 1: those two things are.
Speaker 2: Looks like you repeated that Steve Martin shirt a couple times.
Speaker 2: Those are minisodes, and so it repeats because it's the
Speaker 2: same day. Yeah, daring you. Why don't you get your
Speaker 2: ass up out of this chair and change outfits on
Speaker 2: the day.
Speaker 1: I would do that. It's like you had been okay,
Speaker 1: like into it.
Speaker 2: If we get you like a curtain that spins around you,
Speaker 2: and when you spin back out you have a different outfit.
Speaker 1: It's such a relief. Like the first time and I
Speaker 1: was like, do you want to change outfits? And you're
Speaker 1: like fuck no, I'm like, really great, and now I
Speaker 1: need to like dazzle this and makes kind of amazing.
Speaker 2: Literally, when I was leaving my house today, I was like,
Speaker 2: I have to put on a shirt. I was like,
Speaker 2: I have to cover my arm. I was saying all
Speaker 2: these things to myself, and I was like, I don't
Speaker 2: have to do shit, don't people don't Really, it's not
Speaker 2: like that anymore.
Speaker 1: Well, Netflix has changed it for me a little bit.
Speaker 1: It's like up the game a little.
Speaker 2: Well, there's the exposure aspect, right, we already had what
Speaker 2: we weren't really thinking about, right, But here's my thing.
Speaker 2: And if you're here for the glamour, don't look on
Speaker 2: this side of the table.
Speaker 1: I had a side fucking jam Brady outfit.
Speaker 2: Sure, Jan, But my thing was like, I'm trying to
Speaker 2: provide the Kim deal Patricia high Smith angle of we're
Speaker 2: busy and we're not doing that thing. I like that,
Speaker 2: and we represent those girls. I have those days you
Speaker 2: can see in the binder. I've lived that binder.
Speaker 1: I know she has those hangovers and that PMS despite
Speaker 1: not having her fucking uterus, she still has.
Speaker 2: Those All those hormones are in there.
Speaker 1: And she puts on Steve Martin T shirt vintage, but
Speaker 1: she puts it on.
Speaker 2: She puts it on.
Speaker 1: You were gonna tell me a story?
Speaker 2: Last weekend we went to Dollywood? Shut up? Yep, Me
Speaker 2: and Laura and Nora and my cousin Stevie and Kim
Speaker 2: and their daughters. Because Anna is the biggest fan of
Speaker 2: Dolly and she basically has been talking about would you
Speaker 2: go with me if I went to Dollywood? And we're
Speaker 2: all like, hell, yes, we'll go, and we finally did it.
Speaker 1: Is it like a not Sperry Farm or is it
Speaker 1: more like a Disneyland?
Speaker 2: I would say it's like right in between the two. Okay,
Speaker 2: so I was it's so funny you asked that because
Speaker 2: I was anticipating nots Berry Farm and maybe down.
Speaker 1: Just so everyone knows, not Sperry Farm is like the
Speaker 1: southern California like mom and pop amusement park. So think
Speaker 1: of it as like your local amusement park, which is
Speaker 1: like charming and cute but a little jankie.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: Well, it's like because it's farm based.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's like like a state fair exactly.
Speaker 2: They're doing kind of the hometowny vibe where it's like
Speaker 2: this used to be a berry farm, right, Like he's
Speaker 2: maybe a little politically incorrect maybe, yeah, but no, Dollywood
Speaker 2: is classy, it's home amazing, the food everybody get you
Speaker 2: to oh my god. Well every morning we had the
Speaker 2: breakfast buffet with some of the loveliest weight staff, the
Speaker 2: people that work there. They're going to say loveliest waffles
Speaker 2: and it was so beautiful biscuits, I mean they were there,
Speaker 2: everything was cooked perfectly. Yeah, Nora had all kinds of
Speaker 2: gluten free choices amazing, and the staff were like of
Speaker 2: course because my cousin Stevie was a waiter and ran
Speaker 2: restaurants and stuff, so he's immediately sassing with the waitresses
Speaker 2: who are immediately sassing back. And it was just the
Speaker 2: most wholesome, like what we kept talking about walking around
Speaker 2: in the park, big roller coasters, fun roller coasters. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Dolly retrospective where we walked through and spoiler alert if
Speaker 2: you're going to go and you don't want to ruin
Speaker 2: for you, But through the retrospective, you come around a
Speaker 2: corner and I don't know if you've ever heard Dolly
Speaker 2: Parton's song Coat of Many Colors, which is about her
Speaker 2: mom making her the most beautiful coat in the world
Speaker 2: and she goes to school and they're like, yeah, poor,
Speaker 2: you come around a corner. The fucking Coat of Many
Speaker 2: Colors is behind glass. So if you grew up in
Speaker 2: like in the seventies, yeah, Dolly Parton was everywhere all
Speaker 2: the time. Is that country music trend that basically happened
Speaker 2: on AM radio And she was everywhere, her and Kenny
Speaker 2: Rogers and everybody. But the Cot of Many Colors was
Speaker 2: like so down deep that it wasn't even like a thing.
Speaker 2: I didn't even think about it. But we come around
Speaker 2: this corner, my sister and I are just like like
Speaker 2: immediately start crying wow, because my sister turns and goes,
Speaker 2: it's the coat of it's actually the little girl's coat.
Speaker 2: It's the little girl's coat.
Speaker 1: And does she still have that?
Speaker 2: That's beautiful. That's the lobby of the resort. We stayed
Speaker 2: at Heart Song the Smoky Mountains, which my sister I
Speaker 2: met them. They were there longer than me. My sister said,
Speaker 2: this Smoky Mountains are some of the most beautiful nature
Speaker 2: she's ever seen. I want to go when the leaves turn. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's like every single tree.
Speaker 1: Okay. Can we ask Dolly if we can do a
Speaker 1: live show at Dollywood? Do they have an amphitheater?
Speaker 2: Yes they do.
Speaker 3: We imagine Dolly's nieces do a live show, her relatives
Speaker 3: do a live music review of her music and other hits.
Speaker 3: And they were fucking great. It was like a one
Speaker 3: o'clock show. And I was like every song, I was
Speaker 3: clapping my ass off because I was like, they're busting
Speaker 3: their asses.
Speaker 1: My favorite murderer residency at Dollywood.
Speaker 2: Get out of town. But we need to go where
Speaker 2: the coat of Many Colors is. I'd wear that wright,
Speaker 2: it would go perfectly with what you have on right
Speaker 2: I do you think I would wear that? But also,
Speaker 2: isn't it beautiful?
Speaker 1: Scourgeous? It's the cutest thing.
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter because my sister doesn't watch this show,
Speaker 2: but I was like, I think I'm gonna try to
Speaker 2: sew her a coat of many colors for Christmas.
Speaker 1: Her do it?
Speaker 2: Uh huh. We're just like here here you can have
Speaker 2: your own either that or to have someone paint it
Speaker 2: and do a little painting of it.
Speaker 1: Hey, Murderinos, do you paint? Oh my god, like a
Speaker 1: little little still life of just the coat would be
Speaker 1: so cute.
Speaker 2: Coming around a corner and seeing your childhood.
Speaker 1: And knowing Murderinos like, it's the artist who uses cat hair.
Speaker 2: It's gonna make the most beautiful because that's how talented
Speaker 2: our fucking listeners are. They're gonna use something random like
Speaker 2: only using diet coat cans. Yeah, they're gonna make it
Speaker 2: the most beautiful because that's their thing and that's what
Speaker 2: they do, nail clippings. Whenever you can come up with.
Speaker 2: We would love to see it. We would but highly
Speaker 2: recommend Dollywood. Every employee was lovely, amazing. The experience was
Speaker 2: just like we were just like.
Speaker 1: What a great summer trip. Yeah, I love that and
Speaker 1: great merch amazing?
Speaker 2: Would you do this weekend?
Speaker 1: Oh I'm not drinking so nothing?
Speaker 2: Oh are you white knuckle in it?
Speaker 1: Over five weeks dude, the longest I've gone in decade
Speaker 1: and more.
Speaker 2: How do you feel good? Of course? Duh? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, turns out what do you do and instead reading?
Speaker 1: I'm just reading?
Speaker 2: Are you really? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I went to I madevens going to dinner with me
Speaker 1: to like, you know, like, this isn't non alcoholic dinner,
Speaker 1: let's try it. And I was just like the whole time,
Speaker 1: fucking this isn't fun with aud a martini yet, but
Speaker 1: it will be right.
Speaker 2: Well, it's just have it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2: Have you heard of or read the book Yesteryear.
Speaker 1: I told you to read that book?
Speaker 2: God damn it.
Speaker 1: Well I told you like two weeks I gotta read them,
Speaker 1: like sorry, it's.
Speaker 2: Okod Well I didn't. I haven't started, but everybody on
Speaker 2: the trip had a copy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's so fucking good.
Speaker 2: I will always do that to you because you always
Speaker 2: tell me to read things and I just don't.
Speaker 1: The audiobook is really good, okay, yeah, oh good check
Speaker 1: it out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm very excited about it.
Speaker 1: Love it. It's the book of the summer.
Speaker 2: Everybody's talking about trad wive regret, the whole.
Speaker 1: Thing of like, why are there no grown dradwives because
Speaker 1: women of a certain age can't fucking handle that shit
Speaker 1: no more.
Speaker 2: I mean the pure labor of being a wife and
Speaker 2: mother mental labor, physical labor, emotional labor, and then basically
Speaker 2: volunteering to do it alone. Yeah, wow, tough.
Speaker 1: No, oh, do you have a true crime update?
Speaker 2: There is a true crime update, but it's kind of
Speaker 2: a weird one, okay, And it's around the murders of
Speaker 2: this Fort University of Idaho students. Yeah, Madison Mogan, Kaylee Gonsalvez,
Speaker 2: Ethan Schapin, and Xanner Kernodle. Brian Coberger, who is convicted
Speaker 2: of all four murderers last year, is now wants to
Speaker 2: rescind his guilty please and get a new trial. I
Speaker 2: didn't hear that he claims he's innocent and that he
Speaker 2: was misled into confessing. They don't know if that's actually
Speaker 2: going to take place, but that's something he's petitioning for
Speaker 2: right now.
Speaker 1: I was so happy that that fucking monster was just
Speaker 1: going to go away and we didn't have to look
Speaker 1: at him anymore? Right, But here we go. Yeah that sucks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll see what actually happens because people have the
Speaker 2: right to put that out there if they want to,
Speaker 2: and then they'll see who picks it up and what
Speaker 2: it actually means totally.
Speaker 1: All right, Well should we get into it?
Speaker 2: Yes? Should we talk about our network?
Speaker 1: Yes? So we have a network. It's called exactly right media.
Speaker 1: Go listen to all our podcasts on it. There's so
Speaker 1: many good ones.
Speaker 2: They're right out there for you.
Speaker 1: Please. Here's some highlights this.
Speaker 2: Week over on Ghosted. What's very exciting is the host
Speaker 2: ros Hernandez has a new audio book out called Peeing
Speaker 2: in an Empty Bottle. It's about her life on the
Speaker 2: road as a stand up comic. So you can go
Speaker 2: listen to an excerpt of that on her feed over
Speaker 2: on the Ghosted feed. If you like it, you can
Speaker 2: get the full audiobook available wherever you by your audio books.
Speaker 1: I love it. Our newest limited series, Royal Swindle, Episode four,
Speaker 1: Good Cop, Bad Cop, is out now. Detective Jim Frost
Speaker 1: closes in on Evelyn and Layla as more of their
Speaker 1: past comes to light. But just when it looks like
Speaker 1: they're cornered, their loyal butler, Lars steps in.
Speaker 2: They're loyal butler, Lars. This is the level of insanity
Speaker 2: this podcast gets too. And we're only on episode four.
Speaker 1: It's amazing, We're.
Speaker 2: Only halfway through, Lars. It's the craziest and roll Swindle's
Speaker 2: doing amazing on the charts. Thank you guys so much
Speaker 2: for supporting and downloading and listening and all of that,
Speaker 2: because it's going like gangbusters. Yeah. Also, if you've ever
Speaker 2: dreamed of solving crimes at sea, which we know you have,
Speaker 2: you're a murdering no Buried Bones and Disgraceland are heading
Speaker 2: aboard Virgin Voyage's True Crime Voyage this coming March. Bookings
Speaker 2: are open now at virgin voyages dot com. How badly
Speaker 2: do you want to just go on a cruise and
Speaker 2: have a drink with Jake Brennan, fucking Paul Holes and
Speaker 2: Kate and just just chop it up about facts and evidence.
Speaker 2: Oh that's so that sounds like my dream? Yeah, it really?
Speaker 2: Do you want to go?
Speaker 1: I get your ticket? I want to go. And then
Speaker 1: in merch corner, we still have a handful of proclensity
Speaker 1: items left. You have to check them out. Go to
Speaker 1: exactly rightstore dot com before they disappear for good.
Speaker 2: Haven't you ever wanted to wear merch of your favorite
Speaker 2: psychiatric drug? Yeah, well now you can with proclensity, which
Speaker 2: is a word Georgia made up. It seems like something
Speaker 2: you'd run in a five k like and then at
Speaker 2: the end of the five k like they'd hand out merchlesity. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and like pro cleansity merch Yep, that's just what it
Speaker 2: makes me to go. We're also selling those silver blankets
Speaker 2: that you can wrap around your shoulders. Also, tomorrow, we've
Speaker 2: got a little treat for you because, in partnership with
Speaker 2: cars dot com, we're going to be releasing a bonus
Speaker 2: episode for you where we give listeners advice that was chaotic.
Speaker 2: This is absolutely insane.
Speaker 1: I'm so fun And speaking of that, we cannot stress
Speaker 1: enough that we're in no way equipped or certified to
Speaker 1: be giving anyone advice, So please take that advice at
Speaker 1: your own risk. Watch the full video of us leading
Speaker 1: the public astray exclusively on the fan Cult at fancult
Speaker 1: dot supercast dot com. Yeah, the end and the end,
Speaker 1: and I'm first, that's right. This one has a mystery
Speaker 1: element to it, which I know you hate cold case.
Speaker 2: I hate cold case.
Speaker 1: I mean, I wouldn't call it that, although I guess
Speaker 1: technically it's not.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay.
Speaker 1: So it's April nineteen sixty four, right when this dress
Speaker 1: was made, and we're at Michael Rhys's Hospital on the
Speaker 1: near south side of Chicago. So we're at this maternity
Speaker 1: ward nineteen sixty four April. Dora Franzac is happily feeding
Speaker 1: her two day old baby, a boy, her first child,
Speaker 1: named Paul. Her husband Chester has to return to work
Speaker 1: at the factory where he's a machinist, but he's planning
Speaker 1: to come back to the hospital that evening. They're so
Speaker 1: thrilled at their first baby, and that day at work,
Speaker 1: he's proudly handing out cigars to all his colleagues. Is
Speaker 1: feeding the baby. A nurse walks into the room. She
Speaker 1: doesn't say anything, and Dora and her roommate both think
Speaker 1: it's a little odd, but all she does is lit
Speaker 1: the blue blanket away from baby Paul's face and look
Speaker 1: at him for a long moment, and then she walks out.
Speaker 1: But a half hour later she's back, and she tells
Speaker 1: Dora that the pediatrician would like to examine the baby
Speaker 1: and Dora hands over her brand new baby Paul, and
Speaker 1: it's the last time she'll ever see her newborn. This
Speaker 1: is the story of the Paul Franzac triple disappearance. Oh
Speaker 1: do you know this one?
Speaker 2: I mean, I've heard stories of the babies that have
Speaker 2: been taken or you know, yeah whatever, but now I
Speaker 2: don't know what it is.
Speaker 1: Get ready. The main source for this book is the
Speaker 1: book The Foundling by Paul Franzac, he.
Speaker 2: Wrote about himself.
Speaker 1: But we'll get into it, okay. So a student nurse
Speaker 1: sees this woman dressed as a nurse, walking out with
Speaker 1: this brand new baby into the stairwell. She doesn't recognize
Speaker 1: the nurse, and she knows that this is not usual protocol.
Speaker 1: Probably because she's a student and doesn't feel empowered to
Speaker 1: run up to a nurse who seems more senior than her.
Speaker 1: She doesn't say anything to the nurse. Instead, she alerts
Speaker 1: her supervisor. They rushed to the nursery and realize that
Speaker 1: baby Paul is missing. At that point, no one can
Speaker 1: locate this mysterious woman and the baby. Even though they
Speaker 1: like acted immediately, there was no delay, you know. The
Speaker 1: hospital staff try and successfully for two hours to find
Speaker 1: Paul and the nurse, and then they call Chester at
Speaker 1: work and tell him what had happened. He has to
Speaker 1: break the heartbreaking news to Dora there in her hospital
Speaker 1: bed while hundreds of police and FBI officers descend upon
Speaker 1: the neighborhood.
Speaker 2: H Hey, they should have had to go in and
Speaker 2: break the news. Yeah, oh yeah, I mean maybe not,
Speaker 2: though maybe he wanted to, because it's like coming from someone,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, Yes, someone personal, and it's
Speaker 2: not yeah, someone that's going to be weird and cold
Speaker 2: and clinical about it, right, But god, I know, God.
Speaker 1: All the figure out is this. The woman had hailed
Speaker 1: a cat on the street behind the hospital. The driver
Speaker 1: said he had driven her west away from the Lakefront
Speaker 1: where the hospital is, to thirty fifth Street and Halstead Avenue,
Speaker 1: about a ten minute ride. Then she had gotten out,
Speaker 1: and despite conducting hundreds of interviews and searching hundreds of
Speaker 1: buildings and homes, investigators never uncover any leads about where
Speaker 1: the woman took Paul next. And here's a sketch of
Speaker 1: what she looked like based on the people who saw her.
Speaker 1: So it's just so vague. Woman wearing a nurse's uniform.
Speaker 2: Do you think that kind of looks like me, that's my.
Speaker 1: Haircut, it's not your baby.
Speaker 2: When I'm like a little stressed out. Wait a second,
Speaker 2: what wait Karen, Wait, what are we going to do?
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I'm sorry. I kind of long for
Speaker 2: the days first of all, when we used to have
Speaker 2: newspapers and journalism, but that idea where it's kind of like, hey,
Speaker 2: have you seen this person? Imagine the kind of things
Speaker 2: that aren't getting out there and getting communicated and circulated.
Speaker 2: Because although to say and TikTok's going crazy for it,
Speaker 2: Nancy Grace is back in a big way.
Speaker 1: Really, yes she is.
Speaker 2: She's taking up the Nolan Wells case like herself.
Speaker 1: I didn't see that. Yes, I mean I've seen the
Speaker 1: case and it's just awful, but I didn't know she
Speaker 1: was getting into it.
Speaker 2: She's getting people from like the local you know, officials,
Speaker 2: and getting them on the show and then just being
Speaker 2: way confrontational about you know, that doesn't seem right to me.
Speaker 2: And her fucking eyebrows are as arched as ever. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a real return to form and that it's crazy.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's great for that.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's she's doing something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, Nancy, we see you.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So at the time when this in nineteen sixty four,
Speaker 1: it had not yet been hospital policy to take fingerprints
Speaker 1: and footprints for new babies. So the only tangible information
Speaker 1: the police have on file is the one photo of
Speaker 1: Paul that was taken right after he was born. They
Speaker 1: took a snapshot, and that's it. That photo is released
Speaker 1: to the press as well as those sketches of the
Speaker 1: woman who took him. So here's his photo. Is a
Speaker 1: little baby, I know, just tiny, just two days.
Speaker 2: Old, I mean tiny, but all that hair.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, good thing they had that photo.
Speaker 2: Yeah for real.
Speaker 1: Oh it's so cute. The Franz Acts make a few
Speaker 1: desperate pleas to the press, begging for their baby back,
Speaker 1: but heartbreaking ly, in those statements, they ask for him
Speaker 1: to be well cared for. Dora tells a reporter, quote,
Speaker 1: take good care of him and see that he gets
Speaker 1: enough to eat. He's everything we built our hopes on
Speaker 1: for the future. Just so he is taken care of.
Speaker 1: That's the main thing. So he's just hoping that whoever
Speaker 1: kidnapped him was doing so to, you know, just to
Speaker 1: have a baby. Yeah. And so here's a photo of
Speaker 1: the two of them in the newspaper with the plea
Speaker 1: she's in a wheelchair. She just looks devastated. I mean,
Speaker 1: look at their faces.
Speaker 2: It's just such a bizarre crime and such a bizarre situation.
Speaker 1: And not something you'd expect in a hospital. You think
Speaker 1: you're totally safe there. Yeah. So similarly, Paul's doctors give
Speaker 1: detailed instructions to the press about how he should be
Speaker 1: cared for and how his formula should be prepared because
Speaker 1: they suspect he might have a cow's milk allergy. So
Speaker 1: they're just hoping that it's someone who wants to take
Speaker 1: care of him, and over the next two years, the
Speaker 1: case goes completely cold. Then in June of nineteen sixty six,
Speaker 1: two years and two months after Paul's birth and disappearance,
Speaker 1: the Franzacs get the call they've been praying for every
Speaker 1: single day.
Speaker 2: A two year old boy has been found in New Jersey,
Speaker 2: and authorities believe he might be Paul. So rewind the
Speaker 2: boy had been left a year earlier, in nineteen sixty
Speaker 2: five and a brand new stroller outside a department store
Speaker 2: in Newark. He had been dressed in a clean, bright
Speaker 2: blue suit, and the stroller, and the little boy had
Speaker 2: sat unattended in front of the store for two hours
Speaker 2: until people realize there's.
Speaker 1: No parents with him. Then at five pm, an anonymous
Speaker 1: caller phones the Newark Police and tells him about the child.
Speaker 1: The child is designated a foundling, a term for an
Speaker 1: a pan of baby whose origins are unknown, which is like,
Speaker 1: gives you chills. The word the foundling. It sounds like
Speaker 1: a horror movie. Yeah, he does that one movie with
Speaker 1: Angelina Jolie. That's so good.
Speaker 2: The baby it turns around and I just sangs, it
Speaker 2: has full set of teeth, little a mustache.
Speaker 1: I think the movie you're thinking of as a changeling.
Speaker 2: I did love that movie.
Speaker 1: I meant the changeling. Thank you, Molly, Yes, yes, I
Speaker 1: love that movie was so good and it was based
Speaker 1: on the true story that I think you covered.
Speaker 2: I covered it and it's so upsetting and it is
Speaker 2: That movie is the worst nightmare of any parent going
Speaker 2: through this, where it's like, oh, some absolute lunatic is
Speaker 2: keeping children in chicken coop out in the country.
Speaker 1: She's put it an insane asylum.
Speaker 2: Yes, because nobody wants to hear a lady be like
Speaker 2: you guys, fuck this up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, you guys go watch the change.
Speaker 2: Watch it, my son. That's my favorite line.
Speaker 1: I don't remember that line from it.
Speaker 2: She screams my son about nineteen times. We could have
Speaker 2: edited this down a little bit, I think.
Speaker 1: So he's a foundling. The police run ads in the
Speaker 1: local papers about the foundling to be like, does anyone
Speaker 1: in whose baby this is? And no one comes forward.
Speaker 1: So he's brought to live with a foster family in
Speaker 1: watching New Jersey. And he's a playful little boy. He
Speaker 1: has a good appetite. He loves to swim in the
Speaker 1: family's pool and help with grown up tasks like unloading
Speaker 1: the groceries. The only times he seems fearful or upset
Speaker 1: is when a young man suddenly enters the room, and
Speaker 1: this causes him to cower in fear and sob which
Speaker 1: makes the family who were watching him believe he's been
Speaker 1: abused by a young man. Here's a photo of the
Speaker 1: little boy with the nurse. He is so freaking cute.
Speaker 2: My god, he's so cute, I know. And he looks
Speaker 2: a lot like that baby.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that looks like my nephew Micah. So
Speaker 1: much to me too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he looks like a perfect two year progression from that.
Speaker 1: Total baby totally. The little boy's speech develops normally over
Speaker 1: the year he spends in foster care. Sometimes he playfully
Speaker 1: puts up his fists and says, want a box. But
Speaker 1: he's gentle with the littler babies in the home. When
Speaker 1: they cry, he comforts them, saying don't cry. When he
Speaker 1: himself falls or hurts himself in some minor way, he
Speaker 1: comforts himself with the same saying don't cry. So he
Speaker 1: remembers something from before. So this woman named Claire is
Speaker 1: the foster mom who cares for this little toddler, saying quote,
Speaker 1: he is one of the most perfect boys I've ever known.
Speaker 1: He has charmed all of us with his dearness and
Speaker 1: kind little ways. He has such a great love of life,
Speaker 1: and he has made us aware of so many things.
Speaker 1: He was my special baby. End quote.
Speaker 2: Also, God bless the foster parents who are actually doing it,
Speaker 2: totally doing it right, totally for real.
Speaker 1: It's such an incredible act.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: When the baby had been found, the detective in Newark
Speaker 1: had alerted the FBI, and for the year that he
Speaker 1: spends in foster care, the FBI are in and out
Speaker 1: checking on him. They take molds of his ears, they
Speaker 1: take blood samples, they take hair samples to see if
Speaker 1: the baby is little Paul Franzac. They do this same
Speaker 1: thing to thousands of other little boys around the country
Speaker 1: hoping to find Paul, but they don't find anything. And
Speaker 1: we got an email from a murder reino, which I'll
Speaker 1: read in full at some point because it's really interesting.
Speaker 1: I'll read it on a hometown in the future. But
Speaker 1: it says this quote. My dad was born and adopted
Speaker 1: on April twenty fourth, nineteen sixty four by my grandparents.
Speaker 1: On that same day, Paul Joseph Franzac was stolen from
Speaker 1: a Chicago hospital by a woman dressed as a nurse.
Speaker 1: So her dad is born the same day and adopted
Speaker 1: in Chicago.
Speaker 2: That's wild.
Speaker 1: She goes on to say the FBI tested and examined
Speaker 1: over ten thousand babies, one of which was my dad.
Speaker 1: They came back multiple times to examine my dad and
Speaker 1: took multiple hair and blood samples. The authorities were highly
Speaker 1: suspicious of my grandparents, as they weren't my dad's biological parents,
Speaker 1: and their lawyer was under suspicion of black market adoptions.
Speaker 1: Oh and then she writes, uh, okay, And that's just
Speaker 1: an excerpt that's from Ali. The whole emails really great.
Speaker 1: I'll read at some point, but like, what are the
Speaker 1: chances that I'm Murderina? Who listens one of those babies
Speaker 1: is her dad.
Speaker 2: On the exact same day, Like that adopted too, that's wild.
Speaker 2: What did they collect from babies who were just born
Speaker 2: that they would be able to test it against back then?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Nothing, okay. So by March of nineteen sixty six,
Speaker 1: when baby is just about two years old, they conclude
Speaker 1: that they can't definitively say that the baby is Paul,
Speaker 1: this little baby in foster care, but they also can't
Speaker 1: rule it out. And of all the little boys who
Speaker 1: have been tested, this is the only time that they
Speaker 1: are kind of like it might be him. So in
Speaker 1: June of nineteen sixty six, the FBI makes the call
Speaker 1: to the franz Acs. Authorities believe the baby looks like
Speaker 1: Dora and Chester franz Ac, and when the couple arrive
Speaker 1: in New Jersey to meet him, they believe it's their son.
Speaker 1: Dora cries out, oh my god, that's my baby. I
Speaker 1: know it's a joyous ending for everyone, though perhaps a
Speaker 1: little bittersweet for the Claire Eckert, the foster mother. She'd
Speaker 1: given the little boy the name Scott, and she writes
Speaker 1: a letter to Dora saying, quote, for all this sadness
Speaker 1: you have both known, you are in for so much joy,
Speaker 1: for you will now see things through Scott's eyes and
Speaker 1: he can make them lovely. I know it's not touching.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So Scott becomes Paul, the baby that had been kidnapped,
Speaker 2: that they had lost, and life goes on and Paul
Speaker 2: lives a normal life in a working class neighborhood on
Speaker 2: the South side of Chicago.
Speaker 1: He's never told about the first two years of his life.
Speaker 2: That's very VC Andrews of those parents, like what I mean.
Speaker 1: I saw the abuse and incest, r yes.
Speaker 2: And creepy addicts and stuff. But I mean it makes
Speaker 2: sense that he's too young anyway at a total time.
Speaker 2: But that was you know, that feels like back in
Speaker 2: the time where it's like, oh, it's fine if he
Speaker 2: never knows about, right, his real origins.
Speaker 1: And maybe so he's still a kid at this point,
Speaker 1: so maybe they would have told him when he's older.
Speaker 1: How is the kid going to wrap their head around that.
Speaker 2: Sit down and just deal with it. Just like, face
Speaker 2: it straight.
Speaker 1: You're a child, you're in a little adult right.
Speaker 2: This is going to fuck up third grade for you.
Speaker 2: But just try to wrap your mind.
Speaker 1: Around imagine this. Okay, So Dora had been pregnant when
Speaker 1: authorities told the frans Acts that they thought they had
Speaker 1: found Paul. So Paul comes home and just six months later,
Speaker 1: his little brother Dave is born. So like, what a
Speaker 1: mind fuck? Yeah for those parents, especially right in December
Speaker 1: of nineteen seventy four, when Paul is ten, he starts
Speaker 1: snooping around the house like we all did, looking for
Speaker 1: his Christmas presents. In the basement, he pulls a couch
Speaker 1: away from the wall. You always got to boop with
Speaker 1: the furniture.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: He exposes a little curl space behind it and he
Speaker 1: shimmeys in and against the back wall. Hidden behind some
Speaker 1: frame paintings are three shoe boxes and a hat box.
Speaker 1: Oh to find.
Speaker 2: Those, to move something and be like these have been
Speaker 2: hidden here totally.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I found my grandma's and my grandpa's love letters
Speaker 1: to each other before they were married. Snooping, So sorry, Grandma.
Speaker 2: Well, here's the thing all people should realize. Little kids
Speaker 2: snoop right, if you're not there, they're going to go
Speaker 2: through your night stand hours totally, that's just a way
Speaker 2: to pass the time. Don't keep your gross stuff in
Speaker 2: obvious places. Don't be such a.
Speaker 1: Per So Paul of course opens the boxes and realizes
Speaker 1: they're full of newspaper clippings and letters, and he pulls
Speaker 1: out a clipping and sees a picture of a newborn
Speaker 1: and a picture from his parents ten years younger. That photo,
Speaker 1: he recognizes them and they're devastated, and the letters are
Speaker 1: all from wells and people who had been praying for
Speaker 1: the Franz acts. So Paul realizes that he's this baby.
Speaker 1: He goes into the kitchen to the mom, like what
Speaker 1: the hell. She gets angry at him for snooping, and
Speaker 1: he's like, okay, but what you did is worse. What
Speaker 1: the hell's going on? And he asked if those articles
Speaker 1: are about him, and she says, quote, yes, those are
Speaker 1: about you. You were kidnapped, we found you, we love you,
Speaker 1: and that is all there is to know. End quote. Okay, mom, okay, mom,
Speaker 1: go watch TV. Of course, that's not all there is
Speaker 1: to know, and Paul pretty much lives the rest of
Speaker 1: his childhood and much of his adult life wondering if
Speaker 1: he really is his parents missing baby, or if he
Speaker 1: was for the first two years of his life someone else.
Speaker 1: And while Paul does love his family, he says he
Speaker 1: always feels a bit distant from them, and he had
Speaker 1: felt that even before discovering all these newspaper clippings and
Speaker 1: finding out the truth. He says, he's always had this
Speaker 1: underlying suspicion that he's an outsider to his family, which
Speaker 1: I wish I felt that way too. I find those
Speaker 1: motherfuckers are my blood and I know that.
Speaker 2: You say something, Janet says, Yeah, it's like I.
Speaker 1: See where I got all my problems, right.
Speaker 2: I mean it's also interesting because I wonder if he
Speaker 2: would always feel that, no matter if he was flesh
Speaker 2: and bleashure because of the right, Like, even if it
Speaker 2: turned out to be true, it just, yeah, those kind
Speaker 2: of foundational years he was in a different place, and
Speaker 2: that in and of itself, right, could just be creating
Speaker 2: that fel.
Speaker 1: No, that makes letal sense. He doesn't get a satisfactory
Speaker 1: answer until much later in the interim he grows up.
Speaker 1: He graduates high school, moves to Arizona, gets married, gets divorced,
Speaker 1: works a bunch of different jobs, and never quite seems
Speaker 1: to figure out what the right thing for him is,
Speaker 1: as a lot of us fucking do. But at age forty,
Speaker 1: in around two thousand and five, he decides to give
Speaker 1: acting a try, and he actually makes a living at it.
Speaker 1: Side note, he's fucking super handsome. Let's take a lick
Speaker 1: at you, like, I want to tell you what it
Speaker 1: looks like before you see it. He looks like I
Speaker 1: think Chris Hansen and a young Keith Morrison combined, And
Speaker 1: he looks like the perfect like twenty. He looks like
Speaker 1: a Dateline or twenty twenty host, like he could be
Speaker 1: telling you about his own crime. Oh so here he is, okay, hi,
Speaker 1: hi Fox. So he's based in Las Vegas at this
Speaker 1: point he gets a lot of commercial and print ad campaigns,
Speaker 1: and then he gets a nice gig as George Clooney's
Speaker 1: stand in on Ocean's eleven Nice. So like, clearly, don't
Speaker 1: you see Chris Hansen and Keith Morris.
Speaker 2: That's a square jaw.
Speaker 1: So he meets a woman named Michelle and they fall
Speaker 1: in love and get married, and then Michelle gets pregnant,
Speaker 1: and at this point, you know, Paul is forced to
Speaker 1: confront this question that snagged him his whole life, because
Speaker 1: his doctors start asking him about his family's medical history.
Speaker 1: I feel like a lot of people find out those
Speaker 1: stories that they send us for the hometown stories.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like the ancestry dot com Yeah, type of curiosity
Speaker 2: that then unravels.
Speaker 1: Speaking of Hello, this is before the explosion of DNA
Speaker 1: genealogy kits, but at home paternity tests are at this
Speaker 1: point available at drugstores Maribovich, So Paul buys one, and
Speaker 1: while his parents are in town visiting them, he asked
Speaker 1: them to take the test, and they do, but then
Speaker 1: they start to have regrets. They ask Paul not to
Speaker 1: send the swabs in for testing, like, just don't we
Speaker 1: don't even want to know. Paul agonizes over the decision
Speaker 1: for a week, but ultimately he sends the test in,
Speaker 1: and a few weeks later he gets to answer that
Speaker 1: no one wants to hear. But it feels like everyone
Speaker 1: kind of already knows Dora and Chester are not Paul's
Speaker 1: biological parents. I know, I mean, but.
Speaker 2: It also has to be a little bit like, hey,
Speaker 2: at least I know I can trust my gut. Right
Speaker 2: if I feel something and I have this instinct, then
Speaker 2: I know there's no reason to follow it, like Limbo
Speaker 2: is not a place to live your hoole.
Speaker 1: Paul's parents are at first furious at him for sending
Speaker 1: him the test, and they're devastated having their nightmare reopened
Speaker 1: and the realization that they have no idea where their
Speaker 1: biological son has been for more than forty years, like
Speaker 1: they could trick themselves into thinking they had him, and
Speaker 1: now yes, the devastation that it's all coming back coming
Speaker 1: true again, and this opens a rift between Paul and
Speaker 1: his family that lasts for the next several years, as
Speaker 1: Paul begins to piece things together on his own. At
Speaker 1: this point, Paul conducts exhaustive research about his own life.
Speaker 1: He speaks with a woman named Mary Hendry, whose father,
Speaker 1: John T. Carton, had been a Chicago police lieutenant and
Speaker 1: had run the kidnapping investigation. Originally, she says, this woman says, quote,
Speaker 1: I remember my father standing in the kitchen of her home,
Speaker 1: shaking his head. He talked about what good people the
Speaker 1: franz Acs were, and how badly he felt for them,
Speaker 1: and what a good job they would do. Raising the baby.
Speaker 1: But he also said that the child they took home
Speaker 1: was not their baby. He knew, he was certain it
Speaker 1: wasn't the right boy. My father told us The FBI
Speaker 1: and the police both agreed the child was not the
Speaker 1: kidnapped baby, but the frans Acts were such good people
Speaker 1: they agreed to let it unfold the way it did end. Quote,
Speaker 1: So there's a two year old baby missing. This two
Speaker 1: year old baby needs a family. That's all just what's
Speaker 1: a cognitive dissonance? What's it called?
Speaker 2: Yeah, or just like selective? Yeah, so everyone denial Yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Isn't that sad?
Speaker 2: And it reminds me of the change link. It's that
Speaker 2: same thing of like changeling version is much more sad
Speaker 2: because the mother immediately knew.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But yeah, when you're in that situation and someone's like
Speaker 2: the dates line up, the timing of this, that that
Speaker 2: then you just want to be out of your misery.
Speaker 2: I feel like you'd go, you'd be a little psychotic
Speaker 2: if your fucking baby was kidnapped, because then it makes
Speaker 2: sense how mad they are at him when he opens
Speaker 2: it back up, because they're like, we can't face the
Speaker 2: fact that then we gave up.
Speaker 1: Paul shares the story with the media and it attracts
Speaker 1: a lot of attention. So the FBI reopens the Paul
Speaker 1: Fronsac case and in twenty thirteen he's contacted by Ancestry
Speaker 1: and they tell him about their new DNA genealogy project,
Speaker 1: and so Paul submits his DNA. There are a lot
Speaker 1: of false leads, and then a group of genetic genealogists
Speaker 1: called the DNA Detectives, led by our girl C. C. Moore,
Speaker 1: who's of course the head of Parabon Nanolab's genetic genealogy unit.
Speaker 1: She winds up taking on Paul's case, and we know
Speaker 1: she can solve anything great. So in twenty fifteen, they
Speaker 1: finally figure out who Paul is. He was born the
Speaker 1: little baby who was found outside the store at the
Speaker 1: department store. He was born Jack Rosenthal and shockingly, it
Speaker 1: turns out he was a twin. Ooh, so this is
Speaker 1: probably the saddest twist in the story. Paul learns that
Speaker 1: he had been born in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Remember
Speaker 1: he was found in Newark, and that he and his
Speaker 1: twin sister Jill, so it was Jack and Joe had
Speaker 1: disappeared in nineteen sixty five. So he travels back to
Speaker 1: New Jersey.
Speaker 2: He meets relatives who said that they had seen him
Speaker 2: and Jill as babies, and then suddenly his parents started
Speaker 2: making up excuses as to why he and his sister.
Speaker 1: Were not around anymore.
Speaker 2: What I know, like they just dropped them off in
Speaker 2: front of a store. Well, there are other relatives who
Speaker 2: say that they had seen Jack and Jill abused and neglected.
Speaker 2: Paul learns that his father had been a Korean War
Speaker 2: veteran and likely had PTSD. Remember he get scared when
Speaker 2: a younger man will walk into the room. He learns
Speaker 2: that his mother had been an alcoholic and both of
Speaker 2: Paul's biological parents had died in the nineties of cancer.
Speaker 1: So Paul pursues multiple avenues to try to find his
Speaker 1: twin sister, including digging up the lot where his biological parents'
Speaker 1: house had been. Wow, he never finds anything.
Speaker 2: Oh, he was digging up the lot like his sister
Speaker 2: could be buried.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Wow, because after they were children, no one saw anything.
Speaker 1: He knows he survived and what happened to him, but
Speaker 1: no one knows what happened to Jill. The working theory
Speaker 1: is that Jill may have died in their biological parents
Speaker 1: care due to abuse or neglect, and that Paul was
Speaker 1: then abandoned at the same time because they both kind
Speaker 1: of disappeared together. So Paul also has a biological older
Speaker 1: sister who's only about two years older than him. He
Speaker 1: meets her, she has no memory of him or Jill.
Speaker 1: He also has a brother who he emails and who
Speaker 1: says he doesn't want to be in contact. Both of
Speaker 1: these siblings, of course, had extremely difficult childhoods. So for
Speaker 1: about five years, this is where the investigation is at
Speaker 1: a stanstill. Paul publishes his book The Foundling in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: never having found the real little boy who was stolen
Speaker 1: from his parents. That's like he solved this mystery of
Speaker 1: who he was, but there's still this big question mark.
Speaker 1: And so in twenty twenty it comes out that the
Speaker 1: FBI had identified the real baby of Dora and Chester
Speaker 1: a year before, in twenty nineteen. His name had been
Speaker 1: Kevin Ray Baby, but his existence is only reported on
Speaker 1: after his death of cancer, so he had found out
Speaker 1: shortly after finding the test results out. So he didn't
Speaker 1: really want anyone to know as him, I think, or
Speaker 1: we don't really know what was going on there. Kevin's
Speaker 1: children had seen reports about Paul's search for answers, and
Speaker 1: for reasons that are still unclear, had suspected that their
Speaker 1: father is the real Paul Franzac. Kevin had taken a
Speaker 1: DNA test and these suspicions were confirmed, and then he
Speaker 1: passes away from cancer, and then the FBI lets everyone know.
Speaker 1: Kevin had lived in a small town in Michigan called Manton.
Speaker 1: Friends and neighbors remember him as a very kind man.
Speaker 1: So here's a photo of the baby picture and an
Speaker 1: age progression drawing of what he would look like. Oh okay,
Speaker 1: now here's the baby and what he actually looks like.
Speaker 1: So look at that guy. It looks just like him.
Speaker 1: And then think of fake George.
Speaker 2: Clooney, Like, that doesn't look anything like that. I guess
Speaker 2: you can tell what a baby's going to look like.
Speaker 2: But isn't that crazy? That's so close? Wait, go back, Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's that's wild.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's their real baby. I know that's sad. Okay.
Speaker 1: Before Kevin's death, he had gotten to speak on the
Speaker 1: phone multiple times with Dora Franzac. At this point, the
Speaker 1: case is still considered open and very few details about
Speaker 1: Kevin and what happened to him after he was kidnaped
Speaker 1: from the hospital have been reported, but we do know this.
Speaker 1: Kevin had been raised by a woman named Lorraine Fountain.
Speaker 1: She died in two thousand and four. And Lorraine had
Speaker 1: been dating a doctor from Chicago and then moved to
Speaker 1: Arkansas for about a year, and when she returned to Michigan,
Speaker 1: where her family lived, she had a baby with her.
Speaker 1: But Paul, who now has a podcast called The Franzac Files,
Speaker 1: and he's actively investigating his whole story and trying to
Speaker 1: figure everything out. Yeah, it's not funny. He doesn't believe
Speaker 1: that Lorraine was the one who kidnapped the baby. He
Speaker 1: believes that she had some kind of connection to organized
Speaker 1: crime in Chicago. And Paul believes that Lorraine was paid
Speaker 1: to forge a birth certificate and raise Kevin.
Speaker 2: As her own. Why though, I don't know. It's almost
Speaker 2: like was there some black market for babies? Probably right,
Speaker 2: I don't know. Does the mafia trade in babies? That
Speaker 2: doesn't seem like their style, I know, but like maybe
Speaker 2: one of the mafioso's girlfriends wanted a baby and so
Speaker 2: they had kidnapped one and it didn't work out, and
Speaker 2: then they couldn't.
Speaker 1: Just give it back right.
Speaker 2: They had a like, yeah, that's going so far around
Speaker 2: the bend. It's easy, baby, not easy to get a baby.
Speaker 2: Take it from me, Georgia. It's really God, did you
Speaker 2: watch that documentary about the woman who would just go
Speaker 2: take them out of people's houses. No, it's even worse
Speaker 2: than that maternal instinct, internal instinct. Is it good?
Speaker 1: It's so it's so troubling.
Speaker 2: Okay, it's just you wouldn't because I saw something on
Speaker 2: TikTok talking about it, but the people were so freaked
Speaker 2: out that we're telling it. I was like, should I not?
Speaker 1: You've covered a case very similar to Okay, it's so psychotic.
Speaker 1: You just couldn't.
Speaker 2: You can't eat ladies that want to be pregnant and
Speaker 2: go after pregnant ladies something along those lines, lying about
Speaker 2: pregnancy and then the extremes that they go through when
Speaker 2: they get caught and just won't let it go. Here's
Speaker 2: the thing. We have a lot of shame about who
Speaker 2: we've been in our lives and the obsessions that we've had.
Speaker 2: Absolutely the mistakes we've made so many, But every once
Speaker 2: in a while and maybe That's what this is all about,
Speaker 2: is looking at these extreme human beings. I'm going at
Speaker 2: least I never stole someone else's baby because I was
Speaker 2: obsessed with having a.
Speaker 1: Baby totally and lied about being pregnant.
Speaker 2: Why why?
Speaker 1: I can't even understand why you would lie to it,
Speaker 1: which makes me think I'm a good person.
Speaker 2: I mean, all I want to do is get drunk
Speaker 2: at the Rustic in and eat grilled cheese sandwiches all
Speaker 2: day long.
Speaker 1: That sounds great.
Speaker 2: I don't want anything to do with anybody's baby. No, same,
Speaker 2: No thanks, Paul. Are we allowed to say, send us
Speaker 2: your babies, we don't want anything to do stories?
Speaker 1: Yeah, send us tell us how hard baby is. Paul
Speaker 1: Is recently put out a call for more information. He's
Speaker 1: hoping to hear from anyone who lived in Chicago from
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty two to nineteen sixty four who frequented an
Speaker 1: establishment known as Durkin's Bar. And I looked it up,
Speaker 1: and it was like the rustic dive bars.
Speaker 2: It was one of those bars were like one o'clock
Speaker 2: in the afternoon, people were already drunk.
Speaker 1: Kind of a place. It's not like that anymore. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: it's a little more like college ros. But it still exists,
Speaker 1: So ask your dads everyone, what's the theory. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Listening to the podcast.
Speaker 2: Somebody in there, Yeah, I want to listen to that.
Speaker 1: Maybe that the dad, his actual dad used to go there,
Speaker 1: you know, the one who was had PTSD and maybe
Speaker 1: talked about his children.
Speaker 2: Oh, you know, like in a drunken way.
Speaker 1: We're doing him. Or his mom was an alcoholic, so
Speaker 1: maybe she fucking hung out there and just.
Speaker 2: Totally Oh that's interesting, guys. Ask your grandfathers. Piece it together, dude.
Speaker 1: The official FBI investigation into who exactly took Kevin aka
Speaker 1: Little Paul when he was just two days old also
Speaker 1: remains open, and that is the story of the Paul
Speaker 1: Franzac triple disappearance.
Speaker 2: God, I know, wait, I have an idea. Why don't
Speaker 2: they Why don't they? How would you do it? Forward
Speaker 2: age the illustration of the lady in the newspaper, yeah,
Speaker 2: or or backwards age something. Do something with that information,
Speaker 2: because that's a that's a witness sighting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's so vague that I can't imagine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it just looks like any it looks like a nurse,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, So bananas crazy.
Speaker 2: I know you've done it again. I know.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I told you.
Speaker 2: Here's the thing. I think it's great that Paul Franzig
Speaker 2: has started a podcast. I think that's exactly where things
Speaker 2: like that belong. And then talk to people who listen
Speaker 2: to these podcasts and similar podcasts can get involved. Yeah, God,
Speaker 2: solve it.
Speaker 1: Tell us we want to do a true crime update
Speaker 1: soon about this case. Please.
Speaker 2: Luckily, my story is all about evidence and facts, collecting
Speaker 2: evidence and facts, and hey, it's a little bit of
Speaker 2: a turn, I see. I think you'll enjoy it. It
Speaker 2: begins in the mid eighties, which I know you like
Speaker 2: in southeastern Michigan, which you also like. He's just a
Speaker 2: mission in and around Flint, Okay, right, which is, if
Speaker 2: you don't know, not too far from Detroit. It's a
Speaker 2: difficult time. The mid eighties is a difficult time for
Speaker 2: many communities in this part of Michigan. General motors has
Speaker 2: begun closing local plants, costing thousands of people their livelihoods,
Speaker 2: and then the wave of crack cocaine hits the streets.
Speaker 2: Over the last two decades, drugs like heroin have taken
Speaker 2: a toll on many Michiganders. But crack spawns a uniquely
Speaker 2: devastating crisis, and the States violent crime rates soars and
Speaker 2: peaks in nineteen eighty six. So it is around that time,
Speaker 2: and so of course when that happens, the Anti Drug
Speaker 2: Abuse Act of nineteen eighty six becomes federal law, and
Speaker 2: that kicks off Ronald Reagan's war on drugs. That's when
Speaker 2: I grew up as a little kid, like drilled it
Speaker 2: in your fucking head made me want to do drugs
Speaker 2: so bad it was, you know, it's funny. It makes
Speaker 2: me think it The first time anyone ever offered me
Speaker 2: Potter was a freshman in high school, and I burst
Speaker 2: into tears. Wow, that's how intense Nancy Reagan's She fucking
Speaker 2: bent little finger pointing at us. I mean, those.
Speaker 1: People blight light on humanity.
Speaker 2: Don't upset the ghost of my mother, who will come
Speaker 2: and haunt us forever because she agrees with it. She
Speaker 2: agrees with it to the point where she will cross
Speaker 2: back over to lecture both of us about how Ronald
Speaker 2: Reagan ruined this. Pay.
Speaker 1: I will sit fucking Chris cross applesaws and listen to
Speaker 1: Nurse Pat tell me everything.
Speaker 2: Dude, that is how I was raised. If you ever like,
Speaker 2: why is she the way she is? Because dinner was
Speaker 2: either my dad being hilarious or my mom literally predicting
Speaker 2: like an ancient Greek oracle the future, where it's like,
Speaker 2: who's going to take care of these people? These laws
Speaker 2: that they're passing like the insane, so much fear and
Speaker 2: intense pattern recognition, which I'm always very proud of she
Speaker 2: passed it down. All that is to say, war on
Speaker 2: drugs kicks off in this country, and it kicks into overdrive,
Speaker 2: introducing new laws like mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes.
Speaker 2: In recent years, public health experts have criticized these policies
Speaker 2: as being racist, punitive, and not particularly effective at addressing
Speaker 2: drug use in any way. It's under lying issues or
Speaker 2: drug sales on the streets just didn't help really anything
Speaker 2: at all. But it was the eighties, so when Nancy
Speaker 2: Reagan appears in a telecast from the White House wearing
Speaker 2: her little red sweater and begging young Americans to quote
Speaker 2: just say no, the idea of the war on drugs
Speaker 2: becomes broadly popular. It's like, Oh, they're really doing something
Speaker 2: about these drug addicts and these people in this crime
Speaker 2: the messaging was inescapable. It was everywhere. Here she is, remember.
Speaker 1: Fucking shampoo set and that mister t chain around her neck,
Speaker 1: fucking hate her.
Speaker 2: Okay, that mister teaching. She was good friends with.
Speaker 1: Mister That's right.
Speaker 2: It's just so weird because like the first lady passing down, this,
Speaker 2: this is what we're all going to do about. It's
Speaker 2: just such a different time. It's like it was Victorian
Speaker 2: times or something. How we were all just in the
Speaker 2: monoculture going, yes, Nancy, you're right.
Speaker 1: Your husband's an actor, so that makes you what.
Speaker 2: That makes you also an actor?
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: Okay. So by nineteen ninety, the war on drugs is
Speaker 2: in full swing, yet lots of people are still buying
Speaker 2: and selling drugs. It turns out, enter a man named
Speaker 2: Lacey Brown. He is a big, rough and tumble, chain
Speaker 2: smoking forty seven year old North Carolinian living in southeastern Michigan.
Speaker 2: He's got long hair, he's got a big beard, pierced ears.
Speaker 2: His nickname is Moon, which is a double entendre. Not
Speaker 2: only does he stay up all night drinking, he also
Speaker 2: gets a kick out of dropping his pants and showing
Speaker 2: his bare ass to people at parties.
Speaker 1: Which wasn't problematic back then. There was no height of
Speaker 1: humor back.
Speaker 2: Then, streaking mooning people, being a peeping tom.
Speaker 1: The amount a grown man's asses we saw as humor. Yes,
Speaker 1: this is unsettling.
Speaker 2: It was NonStop.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, and let's take a look at Moons just so
Speaker 2: we get the sense of the guy who likes mooning
Speaker 2: people so much. That's his nickname, the guy in the front.
Speaker 2: It's the front guy with the long hair in the
Speaker 2: beard and overalls. Essentially based on that appearance, you would
Speaker 2: assume he's either a drug dealer or maybe a drug purchaser.
Speaker 2: Is he He's actually an undercover?
Speaker 1: Oh fuck?
Speaker 2: And he is in the area to bust drug rings.
Speaker 2: This is the story of Lacey Moon Brown and the
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety wedding sting.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I don't this is like a theme.
Speaker 1: I'm really fucking obsessed with that. We just don't hear
Speaker 1: enough of.
Speaker 2: Yes, Tom foolery of the cops in the eighties. Yeah,
Speaker 2: undercover in a really dangerous situation. Yes, and like actually
Speaker 2: embedding yourself your whole life is that role? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Like in the mafia too, and they have like I
Speaker 1: just find that so fascinating.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like the movie Donnie Brasco. Right, It's just like
Speaker 2: he's in and he can't get out. It is such
Speaker 2: a crazy life. So this whole story that I'm about
Speaker 2: to tell you is based on a twenty fifteen Atlantic
Speaker 2: article by a reporter named Jeff Mash entitled The Wedding Sting.
Speaker 2: The rest of the sources are in our show notes,
Speaker 2: but that article is the primary source. So this man,
Speaker 2: Lacey Brown's personal journey that led him to law enforcement
Speaker 2: is unorthodox, to say the least. This is according to him.
Speaker 2: This is his story. He starts drinking when he's six
Speaker 2: years old. He joins the Marines in his twenties, but
Speaker 2: gets kicked out for violent conduct in the marine as
Speaker 2: a civilian. I like that. I know, isn't that the point?
Speaker 2: As a civilian, he racks up charges for everything from
Speaker 2: a legal possession of moonshine to assault. In nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 2: when he's around thirty years old, he finds himself in
Speaker 2: a jail cell following yet another arrest for felony assault
Speaker 2: with a deadly weapon. This is rock bottom for him.
Speaker 2: He's going through severe alcohol withdrawal and he begs for
Speaker 2: God's mercy. And then his felony is suddenly reduced to
Speaker 2: a misdemeanor and he's released from custody. He takes it
Speaker 2: as a sign that God is listening to him, and
Speaker 2: he vows to change his life. So he course corrects
Speaker 2: by becoming a police officer.
Speaker 1: A little bit of laugh, bro, He's like, don't go fishing,
Speaker 1: don't just like take a sharp rite.
Speaker 2: How about you could become a.
Speaker 1: Plasterer, totally welder something. He's welder, help.
Speaker 2: People, postman. That's perfect, yes, right, bring your beard around.
Speaker 2: You can moon people if you want. At the end
Speaker 2: of your shift. In nineteen seventy seven, against all odds,
Speaker 2: Moon graduates from the police academy and he gets his
Speaker 2: tart at a department just outside of Detroit.
Speaker 1: Wait the violent guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, too violent for the Marines, right for the Marine Corps.
Speaker 2: Right now he's at your local police department. But he's
Speaker 2: not your typical police officer. Later on, one of his
Speaker 2: colleagues will say, quote, if you saw him, you'd never
Speaker 2: believe he was a cop. He had food stuck in
Speaker 2: his beard. I mean I buy it. That's way way
Speaker 2: to give a quote.
Speaker 1: Yeah, way to talk about.
Speaker 2: What's important, Like I slept with his wife or something something.
Speaker 2: He's just like, this guy's a pig. But another coworker
Speaker 2: describes him as quote more believable as a bad guy
Speaker 2: than he was as a police officer end quote. So
Speaker 2: Moon's unconventional look and wild disposition work for him, especially
Speaker 2: of course when he starts going undercover, and as he does,
Speaker 2: he is so effective that he basically becomes a free
Speaker 2: agent of sorts, doing contracted work for everyone from the
Speaker 2: DEA to the FBI to various drug units across Michigan.
Speaker 2: So I'm sure that not very many cops looked like
Speaker 2: him or had that kind of built in there's no
Speaker 2: way you could be a cop energy, right, and the
Speaker 2: like he had so many years to practice being a
Speaker 2: bad guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah you can't. If you're twenty one and you're a cop.
Speaker 1: You've never broken the law in your life. Maybe yeah,
Speaker 1: you're not. You don't know how they act, you haven't
Speaker 1: hung out with bad people. So he kind of knows that.
Speaker 2: He knows he's drawing from a rich well of experience.
Speaker 2: And also it's the thing I think of on TikTok
Speaker 2: all the time, which is people don't understand what good
Speaker 2: acting is. They think that good acting is like the thing,
Speaker 2: and it's like no, no, no, you have to go
Speaker 2: way under and make people think you're not doing anything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah it's hard. It's very hard. It's a true skill.
Speaker 2: But for somebody that's actually going under cover, it's like,
Speaker 2: I'm sure they saw this guy. We're like, holy shit,
Speaker 2: he's so believable. Get him while you can, because the
Speaker 2: other guys are like, i'll put my part on the
Speaker 2: other side and then we'll get him Nancy. So it's
Speaker 2: dangerous work. Of course. Moon regularly works nights to ingratiate
Speaker 2: himself with the local criminals while investigating a full range
Speaker 2: of crimes. He gets shot at, he is robbed, he
Speaker 2: is beaten, but his legend grows with each new job,
Speaker 2: which usually ends in a big cinematic sting operation and
Speaker 2: multiple arrests. So he goes in and he does his time,
Speaker 2: and he makes his friends and then he all blows up.
Speaker 2: And I love these though, because then he gets arrested
Speaker 2: on the scene too and taken away. I always was like,
Speaker 2: how does he move on to the next thing when
Speaker 2: they all know that he's the app the guy forget it?
Speaker 2: You get it with a.
Speaker 1: Lot of Coca cola drink to that and power through it.
Speaker 2: No, exactly, And I think that keeping people's cover is
Speaker 2: so crucial, But then again, you just I just want
Speaker 2: to keep on putting it in. The parameters of this
Speaker 2: was the War on drugs, which was logical kind of
Speaker 2: like the rebirth of like that cop culture of leave
Speaker 2: it to them they know best.
Speaker 1: It's like the police state. That's what it. I mean,
Speaker 1: not that it's not now we all know that, but like, well,
Speaker 1: that's kind of when it was.
Speaker 2: The source of it, where everyone jumped on board and said, no,
Speaker 2: this is the best way to handle our problems.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you're not doing anything wrong, then you shouldn't
Speaker 1: you know all that.
Speaker 2: Shit that Now in twenty twenty six, it's like people
Speaker 2: are just like, oh, wait a second, did they not
Speaker 2: have our best interest? Right? As the robot dog with
Speaker 2: guns attached to its head walks down and.
Speaker 1: The only the only good thing that came out of
Speaker 1: the War on drugs.
Speaker 2: I have it at my house. Murderino gave it to me.
Speaker 2: It's the fucking case that you open up and they
Speaker 2: show you every kind of drug that you could get
Speaker 2: that they brought to an elementary school and showed all
Speaker 2: the kids what a do be looked like and what
Speaker 2: fucking quailus looked like, and so murdering knows dad was
Speaker 2: a cop when in her fucking garage. Yes, sent it
Speaker 2: to me. Here's the DARE program in a case.
Speaker 1: Treasure I have to I'll bring it for a fan
Speaker 1: call video.
Speaker 2: That's a great idea. That's a that was a true
Speaker 2: highlight of our early days.
Speaker 1: Every time I see it, I'm like, this, everything's worth it.
Speaker 1: All the down's worth.
Speaker 2: It for that and those haunted dolls that we had
Speaker 2: for a while that we really piqued. We'll get back
Speaker 2: there someday. Okay. So the thing about this guy is
Speaker 2: that he was really in it, and he was really
Speaker 2: doing it so like, for example, one of his most
Speaker 2: famous arrests was he goes to a local carnival and
Speaker 2: he follows a suspect onto the Zipper, my favorite ride
Speaker 2: at the carnival that I've talked about postil times. He
Speaker 2: actually like does stuff like that and arrest.
Speaker 1: Go on, bro, No, the arrest stand over there.
Speaker 2: He's like spinning in a circle chasing him, and the
Speaker 2: eternal like you'll always be behind him. Another time he
Speaker 2: posts a fake obituary for a living suspect that he's
Speaker 2: just apprehended and stages a fake funeral for him. And
Speaker 2: when that suspects criminal associates show upright and more in him,
Speaker 2: pays respects, moon arrests a bunch of so smart so
Speaker 2: for background. Officers in most cases are allowed to use
Speaker 2: deception to lure suspects to an arrest, but it becomes
Speaker 2: entrapment if the officer's actions directly result in a suspect
Speaker 2: committee a crime they otherwise would not have committed. Right,
Speaker 2: So there's a kind of a difference there where it's
Speaker 2: like that used to be the concern that's the surpaco
Speaker 2: world of like crooked cops versus the ones that are
Speaker 2: trying to do.
Speaker 1: Good planting you can't plant evidence, but no, blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: And I think this is where all of that starts
Speaker 2: to flip in that serious way of there's this weird
Speaker 2: kind of trust of like, you know, your local authorities
Speaker 2: are going to fight a war on drugs and we're
Speaker 2: all going to support them in it, and that idea, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's for the greater good. It's getting drugs out of
Speaker 2: children's hands. When it's like, that's not what's happening. It's
Speaker 2: not what happened being fucking lied to, and how did
Speaker 2: those drugs get onto the street in the first place? Right, Okay,
Speaker 2: So back to this undercover cop Moon, who is very dedicated.
Speaker 2: He actually meets his wife while working undercover. He arrests
Speaker 2: her brother for making a bomb.
Speaker 1: Does he trick her? I hate that part. They do
Speaker 1: get married and stuff, and like the wife doesn't know.
Speaker 1: Oh no, no she does, Oh she does.
Speaker 2: Okay, yes, So basically he has to go undercover to
Speaker 2: meet the brother to arrest him for bomb making, and
Speaker 2: then he's like, well the once, once, that is over.
Speaker 2: So now we're in nineteen ninety. Moon is working undercover
Speaker 2: in the Flint, Michigan area, investigating the local drug trade,
Speaker 2: and based on reporting, it seems that this drug trade
Speaker 2: was much more pot focus than it was crack cocaine focused.
Speaker 2: He is working alongside a thirty eight year old Flint
Speaker 2: police officer named Debbie Williams and Jeff Maish. The author
Speaker 2: from that Atlantic article describes Debbie as one of only
Speaker 2: a few women who quote crawled, shot, and boxed her
Speaker 2: way through the male dominated police academy. In Flint.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and doctor Clary starling over here.
Speaker 2: Right, she had to jump over that thing gray sweatshirt.
Speaker 2: So Moon and Debbie work undercover together, posing his boyfriend
Speaker 2: and girlfriend drug addicts. Okay, Debbie will later say quote,
Speaker 2: I had to tell Moon, you have to remember to
Speaker 2: pretend you're in love with me. He was kind of
Speaker 2: embarrassed by it all. So he wasn't a great actor.
Speaker 2: I'm sure it was just like him as himself. But
Speaker 2: then Debbie comes long and they have to kind of
Speaker 2: set up these things. It was one of his characters
Speaker 2: was in a relationship, and so he had to pretend
Speaker 2: like he was in a relationship, and that's when his
Speaker 2: acting got stressed, strained, a little bit weird. Right, But
Speaker 2: to the people that they are regularly buying drugs from
Speaker 2: the couple is believable. Debbie has bright blonde hair and
Speaker 2: a stoner persona, and it seems like a natural fit
Speaker 2: with Moon's bearded, chainsmoking, kind of tough guy persona. Rounding
Speaker 2: out this team is Sergeant Vic was solition of the
Speaker 2: shiawassee County Sheriff's Department. Vix in his mid forties. He's
Speaker 2: essential to this operation because Basically, Moon and Debbie go
Speaker 2: and they hang out, they make their drug deals and
Speaker 2: they buy and they talk to people, and then they
Speaker 2: meet covertly with Vic. They get into a car, usually
Speaker 2: in a remote parking lot. They do basically an info dump.
Speaker 2: Tell him everything they've just seen and heard in the
Speaker 2: names and the dates and everything into a recorder he has,
Speaker 2: and then that will later be kind of processed and
Speaker 2: used as evidence. Vic knows the undercover world himself. In
Speaker 2: the eighties, he worked as a when undercover is a
Speaker 2: biker named Animal to infiltrate the local cocaine trade. That
Speaker 2: was very dangerous. He found himself walking a tight line
Speaker 2: between not blowing his cover and not breaking the law.
Speaker 2: Do they have to do drugs, Well, it's interesting that's
Speaker 2: illegal that they do drugs. But then of course testing
Speaker 2: people and making them do drugs to prove they're not
Speaker 2: cops is very common, so there are times where to
Speaker 2: keep covered they do have to do it. So, for example,
Speaker 2: once a man shoved a gun in Vic's face demanding
Speaker 2: he smoke a joint to prove he wasn't a cop.
Speaker 2: Obviously he smoked the joint, but he usually found ways
Speaker 2: they got very creative about how to stay clean in
Speaker 2: those situations. He actually carried around a modified coke straw
Speaker 2: that had special blockage kind of compartment inside so he
Speaker 2: could snort coke and it would catch the coke in
Speaker 2: the straw but never go into his nose.
Speaker 1: Wow, bummer, totally what a waste.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, So, because then they would have to
Speaker 2: get drug tested. I mean, they couldn't lose people to
Speaker 2: become drug addicts, right, because drugs are bad for you.
Speaker 1: Ye.
Speaker 2: So Ultimately, Moon, Debbie, and Vic spend months building relationships
Speaker 2: with these local dealers and then criminal cases against them.
Speaker 2: But Moon has spent more than a decade in law
Speaker 2: enforcement at this point, and this high risk work isn't
Speaker 2: paying that much. He and his wife, Beth now have
Speaker 2: small children, and she will later say, quote, there were
Speaker 2: times we couldn't afford to eat and I felt bitter.
Speaker 2: Wow yeah yeah. All I ever wanted was a roof
Speaker 2: over our head end quote. So together they dream of
Speaker 2: a quieter, easier life, maybe back in Moon's native North Carolina,
Speaker 2: where they could buy land and settle down. So that's
Speaker 2: kind of the plan that they come up with, But
Speaker 2: of course Moon wants to do one last big job.
Speaker 1: You can never do one last big job.
Speaker 2: They always have to. These men spend. The longer the beard,
Speaker 2: the more they have to do one last big So
Speaker 2: in September of nineteen ninety, Moon pulls Vick aside and says, quote,
Speaker 2: I'd kind of like to go out with a bang.
Speaker 2: Do you got any ideas? So Vic says, yes, I do, buddy,
Speaker 2: because Vick has come up with the ultimate drug sting,
Speaker 2: one that enables them to arrest all the suspects they've
Speaker 2: been investigating over the last several months in one big
Speaker 2: fell swoop, while saving the local cash strapped police departments
Speaker 2: big money, A wedding, A wedding, I love it, A
Speaker 2: fucking wedding. Oh they're gonna throw a fake wedding. What's
Speaker 2: crazy to me is reading the phrase the local cash
Speaker 2: strapped police departments, which here in twenty twenty six just
Speaker 2: doesn't exist anymore, because they figured out politically, you take
Speaker 2: the war on drugs energy, you keep building that of
Speaker 2: we've got a fire time, fear, fear, fear, and now
Speaker 2: we have police budget lines that are one hundred times
Speaker 2: longer than any other budget, and the teachers make minus
Speaker 2: five hundred dollars a day. Curiously, it's fucking insanity, Okay,
Speaker 2: there to say that every time. So the same afternoon
Speaker 2: that Vic and Moon are having this discussion, Moon calls
Speaker 2: his partner, Debbie and asks her to fake marry him.
Speaker 2: She says sure, And now the Shiawassee. County Sheriff's Department
Speaker 2: allots a very tight budget for this team to pull
Speaker 2: off this wedding sting, so they shift into planning mode.
Speaker 2: Writer Jeff Mash reports, quote, in the weeks leading up
Speaker 2: to the wedding, cops put aside crime reports and fingerprints
Speaker 2: to work on seating plans and floral arrangements.
Speaker 1: What if one of them was like secretly.
Speaker 2: Like this is all I've heard, I'm so good at this.
Speaker 1: And then like quit to become a wedding planner.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they're the guy that's like standing there with
Speaker 2: the short cigar and like the you know, the comb
Speaker 2: over never know, and he just like taps into something beautiful.
Speaker 2: He has a true vision. Well, that didn't happen in
Speaker 2: this wedding because it's so hilariously bad and funny to me.
Speaker 2: So in the week's leading up to the wedding, the
Speaker 2: operations room began to sound like a wedding planner's office
Speaker 2: as grizzled lawman interrogated caterers. During briefings. They discussed whether
Speaker 2: the bride should wear her hair up or down, how
Speaker 2: much they would spend on food, and how they would
Speaker 2: squeeze Moon into a tuxedo.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: He's a little the beard got trimmed from that first
Speaker 2: picture you saw.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he looks like a trucker, like a biker. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, he's very tired. I like that tile in
Speaker 1: the bathroom that's neither here nor there.
Speaker 2: That looks like every live show we've ever done where
Speaker 2: we're just like totally. I come out and I'm like, hey,
Speaker 2: can you pull these banks up? Help me pulls.
Speaker 1: I don't know how I'm going to zip this.
Speaker 2: Okay, So the wedding data set. It's September twenty first,
Speaker 2: this wedding's going to be held at a discreete modestly sized,
Speaker 2: and importantly inexpensive community hall near Owsa, Michigan.
Speaker 1: The buffet tables, oh yeah, can just see them.
Speaker 2: Those fold out? Yeah, great long numbers and they put
Speaker 2: a nice paper tablecloth over the top. Oh my god,
Speaker 2: debian Moon continue buying drugs and collecting evidence. Only now
Speaker 2: when they do it, they share the happy news with
Speaker 2: all of their drug friends and they start handing out
Speaker 2: wedding invitations to these people, aka the dozens of suspects
Speaker 2: that they're trying to and trap in this ring. Sure
Speaker 2: not in trap, sorry, that they're trying to invite to participate.
Speaker 1: It's interesting in.
Speaker 2: This kind of means thing because also I was thinking
Speaker 2: about it where it's like, so they're there buying pot.
Speaker 2: It sounds like buying coke here and there maybe who knows,
Speaker 2: and just kind of hanging out with people. And then
Speaker 2: these people they're like, hey, do you want to come
Speaker 2: and celebrate our love?
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I'm so touched that you'd invite me,
Speaker 1: Like I didn't know we were that close, but like
Speaker 1: that really means a lot to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm just selling this pot because I'm trying
Speaker 2: to get by. And yeah, in forty years, HBO or
Speaker 2: Showtime is going to make a series about how it's
Speaker 2: cool if this mom is just selling some pot. But
Speaker 2: for right now, we have lived in a society that
Speaker 2: leaves we should go to jail for fifty.
Speaker 1: Years because of it. Let me get you a wedding
Speaker 1: gift too. That's the most fucked up thing is they
Speaker 1: all arrive with a fucking blender. I mean, yes, I
Speaker 1: want my blenderback, is what I'd fucking say. They get
Speaker 1: thank you notes.
Speaker 2: I will see, because who knows the level of dirt
Speaker 2: bag that this wedding truly goes to. It would be
Speaker 2: kind of fun to be able to see. But spoiler alert,
Speaker 2: it has been optioned to be made into a movie
Speaker 2: because of course this is that kind of like, only
Speaker 2: in America in nineteen ninety could this thing happen.
Speaker 1: Amazing.
Speaker 2: So now it's the night of September twenty first, and
Speaker 2: guests begin to show up to the venue just before
Speaker 2: six pm. VIC is posted in one of the cars
Speaker 2: out in the parking lot, clocking each suspect as they enter.
Speaker 2: Outside the venue, guests are greeted by a big sign
Speaker 2: telling them to check their weapons before entering. So smart
Speaker 2: and most people comply, leaving their guns, knives, and I
Speaker 2: added brass knuckles in their cars. They go back to
Speaker 2: the car unload everything, hammer a sigh they have, like.
Speaker 1: But take your wedding gift and it's just a little
Speaker 1: baggy of coke. Yeah, it's like not entrapman or planting
Speaker 1: it if you took it and put it in your pocket.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. They take their coke and they put
Speaker 2: it in a beautiful wedding car with Jordan Almonds. Yeah,
Speaker 2: God damn, Jordan Almonds used to bum me out as
Speaker 2: a kid.
Speaker 1: It's such a bummer.
Speaker 2: First of all, I was like, are we allowed to
Speaker 2: open this netting? Why are we digging into nettings?
Speaker 1: Disgusting?
Speaker 2: And that's just for a shitty old almond okay, not
Speaker 2: even salted, okay, not salted, not chocolated. Once the guests
Speaker 2: get inside, there's an open bar, there's music, and there's dancing,
Speaker 2: and they're having a raffle. Okay for about one hundred dollars,
Speaker 2: which would be how much in today's money six hundred,
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty Sully nineteen ninety. You can enter
Speaker 2: to win a chance to win an entire brick of marijuana. Okay.
Speaker 1: A raffle at a wedding is like, fuck, yes, it's hilarious.
Speaker 1: I love it. And a brick of marijuana is not
Speaker 1: as cool.
Speaker 2: Which is stacked nearby.
Speaker 1: That's so funny.
Speaker 2: I would like to think is it cush if I Walkeddica.
Speaker 2: What are we talking that? If I walked in, I'd
Speaker 2: be like, open bar raffle for weed in a brick. Yeah,
Speaker 2: this feels wrong. Yeah, this is all too good.
Speaker 1: Totally. Yeah, but I do think we should start doing
Speaker 1: raffles at weddings. Hell yeah, are you listening, listener?
Speaker 2: Are you listening? Brides? You selfish brides and bite us
Speaker 2: and also raffle off? Like what would be good to
Speaker 2: get at a wedding.
Speaker 1: One of the gifts. Pick a gift of the gifts
Speaker 1: on the table.
Speaker 2: You're like, oh my god, we got a new air fire.
Speaker 1: You can't open it. You pick a gift off the
Speaker 1: fucking that's.
Speaker 2: A really good idea. Or like your raffle wins you.
Speaker 2: You get to do the money dance move aside, bride you.
Speaker 2: I didn't know about money dances until the Italian I
Speaker 2: think a lot of cultures do it. I think so too.
Speaker 1: It's fucking cool, not Irish Catholic.
Speaker 2: We just get raised in a chair, which is pretty
Speaker 2: fucking awesome forbid Irish Catholics. Tod be like, we don't
Speaker 2: need your money. Assuming these bricks weigh about a pound each,
Speaker 2: the weed in the raffle would be worth on the
Speaker 2: street today in twenty twenty six, how much money a brick?
Speaker 1: One hundred dollars for talking?
Speaker 2: You said, yes, so if you only paid one hundred
Speaker 2: for this brick, and how much I don't know how
Speaker 2: much a brick's supposed to be? Yes, you do. We
Speaker 2: all know you went to read them. Not for fucking weed,
Speaker 2: not for selling bricks of weed street worth one thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: Today in today's money entires money.
Speaker 2: That's a lot, right, good for one hundred, Yeah, one
Speaker 2: hundred for a thousand Take it and back to the
Speaker 2: entrapment point from earlier. Right, Because they are not placing
Speaker 2: these pot bricks into suspects hands directly, it's fine. They're
Speaker 2: simply creating an opportunity for the suspects to bid on
Speaker 2: them on their own volition. Therefore, it's not in.
Speaker 1: Trappen that is tricky, tricky, tricky. Whoever, whatever fucking police
Speaker 1: officer came up with that idea got a raise or whatever.
Speaker 2: I mean. I think so got a brick of weed.
Speaker 2: It got a brick of weed. But all of it
Speaker 2: is a little bit like people really enjoying the school
Speaker 2: play energy too much. Yeah, because I'm like I would
Speaker 2: have been there, like, sorry, they don't have raffles or
Speaker 2: tables full of gifts, right that you're raffling at a wedding.
Speaker 2: Boys gone wild.
Speaker 1: It's a movie. It's a movie.
Speaker 2: It's a movie of too many boys. And there's Debbie
Speaker 2: running around. She can't fix everything, you like, that's not
Speaker 2: really realistic.
Speaker 1: It's Marca Robbie for sure. Right, it's like Margaret Robbie
Speaker 1: for like like Nancy what was her name, not Nancy
Speaker 1: Tanya Harding, Yes, Margo just like a little bit trashy, a.
Speaker 2: Little trashy, a little bad perme because actually, well this
Speaker 2: is them from the day. So we have Debbie in
Speaker 2: her wedding dress that she that that actually Beth Moon's
Speaker 2: wife found for her at the Salvation Army.
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, oh is so eighties but I know it's nineties.
Speaker 1: But is that him in the background? Is that Moon?
Speaker 2: No, that's actually Vic in the background. Okay, yeah that's Vic.
Speaker 1: Wow, she looks so happy.
Speaker 2: Because she loves tricking people.
Speaker 1: So okay, yeah, that's Margaret Robbie with a fucking right.
Speaker 2: Yes, the wedding is convince to the saaspects that are
Speaker 2: slash guests that are there especially considering the room is
Speaker 2: crawling with law enforcement, who, unlike the unwitting guests, are
Speaker 2: carrying fire arms under their suit jackets and dresses.
Speaker 1: Yes they are.
Speaker 2: And there's at least one local reporter that Moon tipped
Speaker 2: off promising a big exciting drug bust, you know, because
Speaker 2: he wants us to go down. Right, So the wedding
Speaker 2: photographer is actually a photojournalist, amazing, right. Meanwhile, the wedding
Speaker 2: cake is just cardboard covered with frosting. Okay, all right,
Speaker 2: it's a cost saving measure that the police have taken.
Speaker 2: But the frosting has been professionally decorated with little bees
Speaker 2: because it's the inside joke of this as a sting operation.
Speaker 1: You guys.
Speaker 2: So they very much fun. They're having fun, go to work.
Speaker 2: They really are, just like, that's funny. Let's ruin some
Speaker 2: lives and have a great time doing it. Yeah. The
Speaker 2: music provided for this wedding, the live wedding band is
Speaker 2: a bunch of dudes, and the band is called SPOC
Speaker 2: and it's short for Somebody Protect Our Crops?
Speaker 1: Is it a real band?
Speaker 2: But they are no, the crops being marijuana.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: All of the members of the band are wearing matching
Speaker 2: pot leaf t shirts.
Speaker 1: Oh but heavy handed.
Speaker 2: Very very corny corn. Yeah, they didn't care about the corn. Also,
Speaker 2: it's an inside joke because Spocks well backwards as Copps
Speaker 2: and the band are cops from different departments in the
Speaker 2: area who.
Speaker 1: They finally get to play their instruments.
Speaker 2: And apparently they're fucking terrible. Everybody says, so good, Yes,
Speaker 2: here's a picture of that band, So.
Speaker 1: I need that. That's got to be our merch.
Speaker 2: I mean, but it's like, it's so sorry. But it's
Speaker 2: just like, hey, we're not cops. We love weed. And
Speaker 2: it says fucking cops on it, like no stone or
Speaker 2: would they go into the trouble to make fair? No? No,
Speaker 2: And no band has ever made band shirts that they
Speaker 2: then all wear. So Moon and Debbie invited about forty
Speaker 2: people in their drug dealing and doing life. Only a
Speaker 2: dozen or so show up. To those dozen that.
Speaker 1: Did, that's such a pothead thing you can't invite.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, it's just like, oh, it's all right, I
Speaker 2: meant to tell you today. The ones that are there, like, man,
Speaker 2: this is great. Yeah, So everyone takes their seats. The
Speaker 2: ceremony begins. Debbie is walked down the aisle by her father,
Speaker 2: who is actually an undercover cop. She's wearing a dress
Speaker 2: as I said that Beth founded the Salvation Army for
Speaker 2: seventeen dollars. Nice how much in today's money? For forty five? Oh? Yes,
Speaker 2: nice one. You knew that because it was about triping. Sure,
Speaker 2: I know how much is at the Also, Debbie's wearing
Speaker 2: a garter on her thigh that holds a small gun.
Speaker 1: If she cries, then she gets bonus points.
Speaker 2: She's such a good actress. Ye, just the one single tear.
Speaker 2: When they get to the altar, the minister who is
Speaker 2: actually Flint's police sergeant.
Speaker 1: Come on, they'd recognize him.
Speaker 2: He's also in costume, so fake vows are exchanged and
Speaker 2: Debbian Moon say I do okay, And once they do that,
Speaker 2: the band kicks off, and with one undercover guest later
Speaker 2: describing their performance as quote absolutely horrible. Okay, It's like
Speaker 2: you can just feel the lack of rhythm.
Speaker 1: Foka.
Speaker 2: They can only do PoCA. So the booze is flowing.
Speaker 2: Everyone's having a good time. Now the food is served,
Speaker 2: and while everyone eats, undercover officers pretending to be friends
Speaker 2: and family of the bride and groom start to stand
Speaker 2: up and give fake speeches and toasts to the happy couple.
Speaker 2: The wedding party even poses for photos. They did they
Speaker 2: do the whole thing now, yeah, they're already there, like,
Speaker 2: just don't just do it, just get it over with.
Speaker 2: But no, they're in the school play and slash right
Speaker 2: their first time improvising, and they're having fun with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So now it's around nine o'clock. The began begins to
Speaker 2: play the song I Fought the Law and the law
Speaker 2: one right, so heavy handed, that's the cue.
Speaker 1: It's so nucky way. Yes.
Speaker 2: A guy jumps on stage like he's about to give
Speaker 2: a toast, but instead he says, let's have some fun,
Speaker 2: and then he asks that all the undercover officers stand
Speaker 2: and make themselves known, and the other guests start getting
Speaker 2: placed under arrest.
Speaker 1: WHOA.
Speaker 2: At first, there's disbelief among the guests. One person starts
Speaker 2: laughing as he's getting handcuffed, with an officer insisting that quote,
Speaker 2: we were not kidding, we have a warrant for your arrest.
Speaker 2: End quote. In all, fifteen people are taken into custody
Speaker 2: that day, and dozens of others that Moon, DeBie and
Speaker 2: Vick have been investigating, will be arrested elsewhere in the
Speaker 2: coming days. So it's all part of the same state.
Speaker 1: Didn't have to do the fucking wedding in the first.
Speaker 2: Wedding, clearly was you guys blowing off some scheme, right.
Speaker 2: You can imagine Once news of this sting hits the papers,
Speaker 2: it's viral. Nineties version of viral stories run with flourish,
Speaker 2: Like there's an Associated Press article with the subhead that reads, quote,
Speaker 2: here came the bride, all decked in white and a snubnose.
Speaker 1: Where's the editor? Can I talk to the editor?
Speaker 2: Please? And a snubnose revolt.
Speaker 1: Now, let we're gonna shorten that up.
Speaker 2: The rhythm's off. There's no internal anything. Okay. So Moon,
Speaker 2: for his part, becomes the subject of a Detroit Free
Speaker 2: Press profile the next year, in nineteen ninety and one,
Speaker 2: when he finally retires, the reporter writes, quote, his spirit
Speaker 2: and his health exhausted by two decades of undercover work,
Speaker 2: A legendary narc heads for the hills.
Speaker 1: No, what's better.
Speaker 2: That's way better. End quote.
Speaker 1: It is a different crime. It could be here comes
Speaker 1: the bribe, but it's not. It's not that.
Speaker 2: Though it's here comes the raffle. That's right, what's upon anybody?
Speaker 2: No big deal. It's like it your cousin's wedding and
Speaker 2: they raffled off the weed. You remember, the fucking weirdest Okay, okay.
Speaker 2: Part of this to me feels a lot like when
Speaker 2: I was in college and I was a theater major.
Speaker 2: So being a theater major, it was all about like
Speaker 2: hanging out in the theater department and like, do you
Speaker 2: need me to do anything? And what's up here?
Speaker 1: And creative?
Speaker 2: Yes, you just wanted to be You wanted to be
Speaker 2: identified as amongst these people. That's what I wanted. When
Speaker 2: you're new an improv that like UCB right, yeah, and
Speaker 2: you're like, I guess I got to sit in a
Speaker 2: cafe and write out my suggestions or whatever, nurse. But
Speaker 2: it seems to me that the energy with which they
Speaker 2: went into that it was because they liked hanging out
Speaker 2: and doing it. They liked working on it. I think
Speaker 2: that is going to prove out to be true later.
Speaker 2: But please hold while I read you this part instead.
Speaker 2: And I told you this in twenty fifteen, Jeff Mash's
Speaker 2: article from the Atlantic gets optioned for film rights.
Speaker 1: Going to the Chapelong. You're going to get arrested there
Speaker 1: it is.
Speaker 2: I want to stop thinking about it. Just keep on pitching.
Speaker 2: When they come to you, you say them, it's been
Speaker 2: stuck in turnaround. But that idea, Like the second the
Speaker 2: article came out, they're like, we got to make a
Speaker 2: movie this Vince Vaughn. Whether this sting was successful by
Speaker 2: any measure, though, is tough to save because seen people. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: fifteen people who were basically pot smokers.
Speaker 1: There was not nice ones, it seems, because they came
Speaker 1: to a wedding.
Speaker 2: I know, the nice carrying ones that were like friendships matter.
Speaker 2: At the time, Flint doesn't have digitized court records. They
Speaker 2: are on the paper system.
Speaker 1: Still.
Speaker 2: It's nineteen ninety. The week that many of the cases
Speaker 2: from the arrests from this sting go to court, a
Speaker 2: tornado hits the area and the important documents are scattered
Speaker 2: to the wind. That's God, that's right.
Speaker 1: Fuck Nancy Reagan. Yeah, fuck you, fuck you, thuck you you're cool.
Speaker 2: Same god that got Moon out of his initial thing
Speaker 2: right and got his thing made to a misdemeanor, That
Speaker 2: same God was here just like enough of this. You
Speaker 2: had your Yeah, you should have made a real kick.
Speaker 2: Decades later, Jeff Mash attempts to sess out the number
Speaker 2: of convictions and details on what happened to those involved.
Speaker 2: But it's so murky because they don't have that actual paperwork.
Speaker 1: They should throw at funeral and have everyone who showed
Speaker 1: up at that.
Speaker 2: I mean, well, what's clear from the day reporting is
Speaker 2: that around thirty people are handed drug charges in connection
Speaker 2: with this investigation and this sting. It seems like very
Speaker 2: few suspects were given long or harsh sentences. Most probably
Speaker 2: resolved them through plea deals and basically got to go
Speaker 2: back to their regular lives. Vick will later say that
Speaker 2: some of the people they arrested took it all in stride, claiming, quote,
Speaker 2: there were no bad feelings. Everyone thought it was funny.
Speaker 1: You got me.
Speaker 2: And it's such a cop attitude of like they loved it.
Speaker 2: Here's a guy getting arrested, and you can tell. You
Speaker 2: can look at his face and see, Okay, it doesn't
Speaker 2: seem like he thinks it's.
Speaker 1: All that wall. He looks shell shocked.
Speaker 2: That's de Wian Moon.
Speaker 1: Why because he wore a fucking acid What are those
Speaker 1: genes called?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Acid washed a wedding acid wash jeans and a Freddy
Speaker 2: Kruger sweater.
Speaker 1: Well, and look at her, the bride with the gun
Speaker 1: in her hand.
Speaker 2: That is a She pulled that right out of her
Speaker 2: thigh garter yam and said, how dare you smoke?
Speaker 1: Pot? And he's got a joint in his mouth.
Speaker 2: He's good.
Speaker 1: Moon's got to join in this mail.
Speaker 2: Moon's already lit up. That guy totally looks like he's like, Oh,
Speaker 2: that's what I get for it trying to be nice
Speaker 2: of people. I basically wrote here, I'd love to hear
Speaker 2: a twenty twenty six interview with the arrestees to see
Speaker 2: how true that statement is. That's the podcast we need
Speaker 2: to hear.
Speaker 1: If anyone listening's dad or mom was in that sting,
Speaker 1: please email us immediately. Put it in the subject line
Speaker 1: my favorite murder at Gmail. Read it on a hometown.
Speaker 2: It's going to get like a five alarm fire, straight
Speaker 2: to the microphone if we If you want to tell
Speaker 2: us your side of the story. Atlantic writer Jeff Mash notes,
Speaker 2: though that more importantly quote, for all the drama and
Speaker 2: creativity involved, the operation ultimately didn't do much to improve
Speaker 2: the grim outlook of the city and its surrounding areas
Speaker 2: end quote. So obviously, the idea that we're going to
Speaker 2: clean up the streets, this all just kind of turned
Speaker 2: it into fun times and cookiness, and it's like, and
Speaker 2: you just arrested a bunch of people that were able
Speaker 2: to plee out. Afterwards, In the years that follow and
Speaker 2: in spite of the War on drugs policing culture looming
Speaker 2: larger and larger, the scourge of drugs continues as the
Speaker 2: broader region of this part of Michigan is left to
Speaker 2: grapple with severe economic hardship. So basically all of this
Speaker 2: is for naught. For his part in the sting, Moon
Speaker 2: gets a five thousand dollars bonus, which would be worth
Speaker 2: about how much.
Speaker 1: In today's money, eight hundred and thirty.
Speaker 2: It's a five thousand dollars bonus.
Speaker 1: Not one hundred eight three hundred.
Speaker 2: Closer, it's twelve thousand, eight hundred with an hour. Anyway,
Speaker 2: this bonus enables Moon to retire, get his get his family.
Speaker 2: You're right, yeah, retire, get his family together, and move
Speaker 2: back to North Carolina like he planned. In two thousand
Speaker 2: and six, Lacey Moon Brown passes away at just sixty
Speaker 2: three years old, with his obituary reading quote the moon
Speaker 2: shines no more in North Carolina. That's dramatic. His cause
Speaker 2: of death is unclear, but he was a heavy smoker,
Speaker 2: and who knows. There is one sweet, weird side note
Speaker 2: that I was talking about before, which is that during
Speaker 2: the fake wedding, when Sergeant Vick wasah Solition watches Officer
Speaker 2: Debbie Williams coming diant the Ale in her dress, in
Speaker 2: her Salvation Army dress. He realizes that night he has
Speaker 2: feelings for her, and he says quote, I couldn't let
Speaker 2: her go. They end up falling in love and eventually marrying,
Speaker 2: and as best as Maren can tell from her research,
Speaker 2: they're still together to this day. So my thing is,
Speaker 2: I think that this idea where it was like it
Speaker 2: was for Moon to get one last kind of like
Speaker 2: ray for you in the papers and then all the
Speaker 2: other stuff was like when you like hanging out with people,
Speaker 2: so you're like, yeah, we better get together and figure
Speaker 2: out that raffle tomorrow. Oh right, Like it has that
Speaker 2: feeling I.
Speaker 1: Wanted it to go on as long as possible kind
Speaker 1: of a thing.
Speaker 2: But they have a fucking cop band plane, Like you
Speaker 2: can't just have a DJ like normal weddings.
Speaker 1: That's so romanz.
Speaker 2: They had cops fucking I fought the law rehearsal.
Speaker 1: When did you know you were in love with mom?
Speaker 2: Well, well, when she pulled out that little pistol from
Speaker 2: her thigh garter and fucking up against the wall. And
Speaker 2: that's the story of the nineteen ninety wedding sting.
Speaker 1: That was fun.
Speaker 2: Hey, we're not opposed to having fun on this podcast.
Speaker 2: If you have any ideas of how we could have
Speaker 2: more fun, please write it in my favorite murder at
Speaker 2: gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: Or just comment on the Instagram. That's the only way
Speaker 1: I'll ever see like comments is if it's on Instagram
Speaker 1: and the fan cult.
Speaker 2: Yes, we can't go looking for it anymore. People. We've
Speaker 2: been through so much.
Speaker 1: My brain is like, you know, I have like my
Speaker 1: eyeballs like a cart and are filling up.
Speaker 2: With I just have those ones from like twenty seventeen
Speaker 2: that I looked at one time and it's burned into
Speaker 2: my memory forever. The comments yeah never never, why is
Speaker 2: it them? We don't know, we don't know. Sorry about
Speaker 2: your freezing. You like it?
Speaker 1: Go to get another free thing?
Speaker 2: You You're a free thing.
Speaker 1: Do you know how many free things.
Speaker 2: There are free to like old Pine Elsewhere there's a
Speaker 2: post to be political. If you don't fucking know that,
Speaker 2: stay sexy, I don't get murdered.
Speaker 1: Goodbye, Elvis, Do you want a cookie?
Speaker 2: This has been an exactly right production.
Speaker 1: Our managing producer is Molly Smith.
Speaker 2: Our consulting producer is Kate Shellenbach.
Speaker 1: Our creative lead is Alison Agosti.
Speaker 2: Our associate producer is Tessa Hughes, and our editor is
Speaker 2: Aristotle Acevedo.
Speaker 1: This episode was mixed by Leona Squalacci.
Speaker 2: Our researchers are Marion McGlashan and Ali Elkin.
Speaker 1: Email your hometowns to My Favorite Murder at gmail dot
Speaker 1: com and follow the show on Instagram at my Favorite Murder.
Speaker 2: Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple
Speaker 2: Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, or watch new
Speaker 2: episodes every week on Netflix. Search for My Favorite Murder,
Speaker 2: add us to your list and hit the double thumbs
Speaker 2: up button.
Speaker 1: Goodbye