Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty eight, a writer by the name of
Speaker 1: Truman Capote heard of him had the idea to write
Speaker 1: what he called the first non fiction novel, huh, in
Speaker 1: which he wanted to take on a real life event
Speaker 1: and turn it into a story. He just couldn't find
Speaker 1: the right subjects. That was until one day when he
Speaker 1: opened the newspaper in nineteen fifty nine and saw in
Speaker 1: the New York Times that a farmer and his entire
Speaker 1: family from Kansas had been murdered in their home with
Speaker 1: no suspects. So Capodi and his good friend Harpily went
Speaker 1: out to Kansas and began to investigate and deep dive
Speaker 1: into this family's lives and their tragic deaths. He would
Speaker 1: be there for the capture of their killers and many
Speaker 1: many years after, and this story would go on to
Speaker 1: become the one and only novel in killing Talking in
Speaker 1: cold blood.
Speaker 2: I love this book so much.
Speaker 1: Well, today we're talking about this story behind the book,
Speaker 1: the Clutter family murders. Oh wow, Hey, can I start
Speaker 1: this today's episode with the cheers? Of course you're too
Speaker 1: far away, but do just do this ready? Two?
Speaker 2: Three cheers?
Speaker 1: Welcome to another crime podcast. I'm Georgia Love.
Speaker 2: I'm Sammy Peterson.
Speaker 1: I'm a journalist. I am not And if you just
Speaker 1: want to hear the story about the Clutter family murders today,
Speaker 1: you can skip ahead through our banter or past our banter.
Speaker 1: The time coat is in the show notes. But thank
Speaker 1: you so much. I've been doing it for a year now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're getting real good sleep.
Speaker 1: And I have missed some episodes, but you have not.
Speaker 1: You've been on every episode, every episode. No, we did
Speaker 1: one in Adelaide.
Speaker 2: Oh that's true.
Speaker 1: Okay, you've spoken about Himo because you're obsessed with.
Speaker 2: Her, but he was on FaceTime the whole time. That's true,
Speaker 2: chatting to me. He's having a drink of water really
Speaker 2: loudly in the background, are saving Peterson?
Speaker 1: Do you notice anything different about me today?
Speaker 2: Yes? I you aren't wearing shoes. Who are you to mintion?
Speaker 2: You're wearing You're wearing a beautiful miss Piggy T shirt today.
Speaker 1: So, dear listeners, if you were listening, I should say,
Speaker 1: when you were listening to our one year anniversary episode
Speaker 1: with special guests Oliver Clark and Myth Warhurst, you would
Speaker 1: have heard me say I had ordered a special T
Speaker 1: shirt to wear on that episode because it cast your
Speaker 1: mind's back to when we had myth Warhurst on her
Speaker 1: first Thursday Trade episode. We was speaking about miss Goddamn
Speaker 1: Piggy and Mis said she was her icon growing up, yes,
Speaker 1: and still is to this day now. The T shirt
Speaker 1: did not arrive in time for me to wear on
Speaker 1: that episode, but I'm wearing it today because if you
Speaker 1: think I'm not just gonna wear it in everyday life,
Speaker 1: you don't know me at all. It is a picture
Speaker 1: of Miss Piggy in an orange sequin dress with an
Speaker 1: orange for the bower, with the words in the font
Speaker 1: of one T swift new album, The Life of a
Speaker 1: show Girl.
Speaker 2: It's so good.
Speaker 1: I'm showing the camera for YouTube.
Speaker 2: It's just great.
Speaker 1: And she actually her name is Kitty. She made her
Speaker 1: money being pretty and witty.
Speaker 2: That's right, but it is such a oh it's.
Speaker 1: Her name is Piggy. She made him money, pretty and weirty.
Speaker 1: I love this T shirt so much and I just
Speaker 1: wore it to work today and people asked me what
Speaker 1: it was for, and I was like, I don't understand
Speaker 1: the question. I'm wearing today.
Speaker 2: Well, I've got a beautiful Miss Piggy T shirt. Coming
Speaker 2: as well. Don't tell me wait, okay, it's going to
Speaker 2: be good. I'll tell you that much is going to
Speaker 2: be very good.
Speaker 1: We just each order ourselves T shirt.
Speaker 2: I saw it a few weeks ago and I just
Speaker 2: ordered it. But it's coming from the United States of
Speaker 2: a Marriage America, so it's it's it's coming, but it's
Speaker 2: going to be a little bit late. But as soon
Speaker 2: as as soon as it arrives I'll be wearing my
Speaker 2: piggy T shirt as well.
Speaker 1: Sammy, let's stop talking about this because something much more
Speaker 1: important needs to be spoken about your comedy special. Why
Speaker 1: the long face is out for everyone to what it's out.
Speaker 2: There's a link there. So I had a real disappointing
Speaker 2: day the first day that it came out. Sadly it
Speaker 2: was posted without an ending. It cut.
Speaker 1: I think it's Famously Stories, So your comedy special is
Speaker 1: a story. It's not just a series of jokes. Famously
Speaker 1: stories don't need the last twenty minutes to make sense.
Speaker 1: So I don't know what you're upseent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, so my story builds up to a point
Speaker 2: and it cuts me off mid sentence like it was
Speaker 2: an episode of The Sopranos. The final episode of Sopranos
Speaker 2: and so.
Speaker 1: And not even just like the last moment, like twenty minutes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like it cut twenty minutes out, and so the
Speaker 2: comedy club who uploaded all like, oh my god, I'm
Speaker 2: so sorry, and it was the last twenty minutes. So
Speaker 2: five over five thousand people watch it without the ending,
Speaker 2: and so they just think that I probably just had
Speaker 2: a special that just ended, Sam in the middle of
Speaker 2: a sentence.
Speaker 1: Can I say to you? And I was actually talking
Speaker 1: to my friend about this today when I told her
Speaker 1: what had happened, huh, and she said the same thing
Speaker 1: I said to you. And I feel overwhelmingly you had
Speaker 1: five thousand people watch your comedy special on the night
Speaker 1: it was released. I know that was a shitty night
Speaker 1: because it went wrong and that ending wasn't there. Can
Speaker 1: we just for the rest of forever make sure we
Speaker 1: focus on that amazing positive five thousand people watched your
Speaker 1: comedy special the very night it was released.
Speaker 2: That is a massive, it's amazing. But they did not
Speaker 2: have an envy. So I'm going to go to every
Speaker 2: this is my plane, Okay, yeah, I'm going to go
Speaker 2: to all of the people's houses that's watched that episode. Yes, well,
Speaker 2: that that's kind of an episode I watched.
Speaker 1: Yeah, first part of it.
Speaker 2: Wats the first part of the special, Yes, and I'm
Speaker 2: going to perform from the moment it cuts off to
Speaker 2: the end.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's a great idea.
Speaker 2: So five thousand. So how many is that? If I do?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: No, but if I do for the next year, yep,
Speaker 2: how many? G love, I know you're very good at math,
Speaker 2: yes I am. How many would I have to do
Speaker 2: a day?
Speaker 1: I think three three a day to make five thousand
Speaker 1: out of three hundred and sixty.
Speaker 2: Five And you're confident about that, you.
Speaker 1: Look, because it's not a leap yeer. So there are
Speaker 1: three hundred and sixty five days, okay.
Speaker 2: The three hundred and fifth sixty five days times three
Speaker 2: is five thousand. Okay, great, I'm not going to check this,
Speaker 2: but that's.
Speaker 1: Not that much because twenty minutes times three is obviously
Speaker 1: an hour.
Speaker 2: I'm not stupid. Yea one hour a day.
Speaker 1: It's for four years. Yeah, you so not the calendar
Speaker 1: year for the next three hundred and sixty five days.
Speaker 2: Yes, And it just depends where you're living as well.
Speaker 2: So I'll have to account travel and everything into that,
Speaker 2: but I will do it. And so if this is
Speaker 2: my this is my message to you. If you watch that, yes,
Speaker 2: and you didn't see the last twenty minutes, email me
Speaker 2: your address, no, just email me.
Speaker 1: Yes, oh okay, and then you'll find you address it.
Speaker 1: I'll find you because you're not a journal, must be your.
Speaker 2: Hack, and I will find you. I know your IP address.
Speaker 2: I will find you. It was the last thing I do,
Speaker 2: and I will do twenty minutes of comedy at you
Speaker 2: from the moment it stopped. Yeah, and I'll get.
Speaker 1: Really and you'll you'll know exactly exactly you'll pick up
Speaker 1: your centered.
Speaker 2: And that that's so well honed as well to it.
Speaker 1: And the thing is because that was just this week
Speaker 1: that that happened. So for the people who get their
Speaker 1: last three performances on the three hundred and sixty fifth day, yes,
Speaker 1: that'll remember where it left.
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, it's that. Yeah, you remember that stuff. So yeah,
Speaker 2: So my comedy special is out now. I have put
Speaker 2: it on my social media, so if you want to
Speaker 2: find it, it's right media, yep. But it it's at
Speaker 2: Sammy Peterson Unofficial.
Speaker 1: Have I told you that when you first changed your
Speaker 1: handle to that, I thought it was Sammy Peterson official,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh my god, good for your
Speaker 1: big dog. You've got some confidence about you.
Speaker 2: Oh no, because it's unofficial. Yeah no, no, no, you've changed, man.
Speaker 2: But I kind of like, yeah, yeah, no, I've got
Speaker 2: a I just thought Sam Peter's not official was fun.
Speaker 2: But then most people who write it right official.
Speaker 1: So because everyone knows you have got down boss lady.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm a boss lady. I'm absolute boss lady.
Speaker 1: Hey talking about boss ladies, well, hang on, first of all,
Speaker 1: have to say that huge congratulations and I'm really plad
Speaker 1: thank you so much. I'm talking about boss ladies. Do
Speaker 1: you know good Friend sticker is by Claws.
Speaker 2: Yes, I Love one of our beautiful.
Speaker 1: Listeners who had sent us stickers before. Well, there is
Speaker 1: a little envelope here that says to Sammy and g Love, maybe.
Speaker 2: Cover up the address on YouTube? Oh yeah, yes, yes,
Speaker 2: by Claude.
Speaker 1: Do you want me to do that again?
Speaker 2: That's fine?
Speaker 1: Blur And it actually says on the back for the
Speaker 1: stickers by Court, should I read out her address?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 1: Okay, So we're going to do a live unboxing, which
Speaker 1: will be funny if it's just like a I know
Speaker 1: like a love letter. Actually, that would be great. I
Speaker 1: can see cats, I can see car.
Speaker 2: You didn't get cats last time?
Speaker 1: Yours never had a jolts god, wait god, all right,
Speaker 1: there's a little handwritten note in it as well.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, clave.
Speaker 1: You skip to the band you wouldn't get all right,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna oh my god, I'm gonna read the night first.
Speaker 1: Dear Sammy and Georgia, you guys are the best. Still
Speaker 1: loving your podcast obviously, and I also agree with your
Speaker 1: many other listeners that the long episodes are great and
Speaker 1: definitely worth it. I've recently released a couple of new
Speaker 1: sticker sheet designs and I thought you both would like
Speaker 1: to share them. Thanks again for always providing the best
Speaker 1: stories of forever love your pod and happy one year.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I love you. P has never stopped
Speaker 1: the musical references. Gee, I love them and I never
Speaker 1: say no to a chance to sing along with you.
Speaker 1: Lots of love, Claudia. Okay, which one should I go
Speaker 1: with today? Give me musical?
Speaker 2: Please?
Speaker 1: Oh no, I'll give it. I saw cats.
Speaker 2: Any questions yep?
Speaker 1: Sorry, Well there's a sticker sheet of cats in front
Speaker 1: of me, and I saw the musical Cats the other night.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to sing.
Speaker 2: This when you're a jet you're j come on, I'm going.
Speaker 1: To sing this well, never as a cat, the cat
Speaker 1: as clever as magical, mister Mastore, p please. And also
Speaker 1: this one, No, I don't remember rum Tum Tuger's song.
Speaker 1: I just remember that the guy who played it was hot.
Speaker 2: Well you've done a good job, thank.
Speaker 1: You very much. And I know this one as well,
Speaker 1: jelquos in and Jelicus do and jelicusmen and Jelicus So
Speaker 1: I don't know the words to that either, but when
Speaker 1: when Powdery is being a pest I sing to her
Speaker 1: that she's being a pestickle cat.
Speaker 2: That's good.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, O can we have beautiful stickers? And
Speaker 1: there's dog ones as well. Okay, so I'm going to
Speaker 1: show the YouTube. This is the sticker sheet of cats.
Speaker 1: This one as long as the bubblebee, like there's one
Speaker 1: catist just a bubble bee.
Speaker 2: Hilarious.
Speaker 1: That one looks like poetry. And this one is hilarious
Speaker 1: because it doesn't ever know and it's just like, oh.
Speaker 2: So do you make the best stickers?
Speaker 1: And this is the dogs ones And there's not really
Speaker 1: a dibber on there, there's a Dalmatian and can you
Speaker 1: please tell everyone the story about So.
Speaker 2: There's a there's a dalmation on my street the other
Speaker 2: day that didn't have a collar on. We named him
Speaker 2: Spot and uh and it was like that of Krouella.
Speaker 2: And we're walking walking home and the dog was playing
Speaker 2: with Digs. Little puppy dalmatian walked all the way home
Speaker 2: with us and then came in the gate and I
Speaker 2: was playing with Digs in here and then the owner
Speaker 2: called out to it.
Speaker 1: Damn it, I saw you were getting.
Speaker 2: He was a baby brother that he's always wanted.
Speaker 1: Well, now you can have a picture of the baby
Speaker 1: brother Spot. I know. There's also a picture of a
Speaker 1: grab A Corgy on there and they are famously that's
Speaker 1: the dog I want to get. Get a dog and
Speaker 1: I want to name her Chappelle Corgy.
Speaker 2: That's good. I love that. I love that. I really
Speaker 2: need to do it, yea. And it just.
Speaker 1: Because I'm not wearing shoes, you think my foot.
Speaker 2: Is very rude. But we are going to be doing
Speaker 2: an episode today that we did on a book called
Speaker 2: He Read.
Speaker 1: She Read a podcast called God But We We.
Speaker 2: We We go Oh God. But went into a book
Speaker 2: dubb into a book called In Cold Blood. It was
Speaker 2: really good and we might be book talk stars. Is
Speaker 2: that a thing? There's an ex bachelor that is a
Speaker 2: book talk star.
Speaker 1: Yes, he's currently on the Australian season of He.
Speaker 2: Okay he was that. He became a book talk star
Speaker 2: and maybe that's what we need to do because now
Speaker 2: he's got a podcast.
Speaker 1: We already have a book, I know.
Speaker 2: But if we go big on book talk talk, we
Speaker 2: can get another book, can get another podcast podcast. No,
Speaker 2: you're right, we don't have time.
Speaker 1: We could get sent free books.
Speaker 2: Yes, how good would that be?
Speaker 1: Well maybe I should leave the address on the YouTube
Speaker 1: and people can send us books.
Speaker 2: Okay, now leave the address up. It's gonna be for me,
Speaker 2: but let's do it. I love book but we did
Speaker 2: go on that podcast and it was fantastic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's weird. Two Australian authors named Jp Pom
Speaker 1: and Sarah Bailey. They both written thriller books and lots
Speaker 1: of them and numerous that I have read before before
Speaker 1: we were asked to go the last few years. They're
Speaker 1: both fantastic. JP wasn't there, so she invited us on
Speaker 1: as guests because we're famous book Tooks.
Speaker 2: Oh that's right. We are famous book.
Speaker 1: Talk star and we spoke about the book in cold Blood. Now,
Speaker 1: I've said on the podcast many times before, I think
Speaker 1: even just in the very last episode with John Ronson
Speaker 1: on Thursday, that this was this was always my favorite
Speaker 1: book until I read Boy Swallows Universe by but it
Speaker 1: is a very close second.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I love obviously the true crime element of it, but
Speaker 1: the fact that it is. Like I said in the intro,
Speaker 1: it's kind of touted as the first non fiction novel,
Speaker 1: so it is a nonfiction story. It's about a true crime,
Speaker 1: but Truman Capodi has written it into a novel, so
Speaker 1: it reads like a fiction book.
Speaker 2: It's not.
Speaker 1: And we will talk a bit about that part of
Speaker 1: it and the true compoti part in this episode, but
Speaker 1: it's a true crime podcast, so we're mostly talking about
Speaker 1: the crime itself. If you want to hear Sammy and
Speaker 1: I go on a deep dive into our thoughts about
Speaker 1: the book and more about Trim and Campodi himself and
Speaker 1: what we think about how he wrote that, please listen
Speaker 1: to our episode. If he read, she read you simply
Speaker 1: mast and do you know much about the crime. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously you've read the book as well. Yeah, but a
Speaker 1: lot of people talk about the book and not actually
Speaker 1: the Clutter Family murder where it became one of the
Speaker 1: most famous murders of.
Speaker 2: All time because of the book.
Speaker 1: So do you know a lot of details about it?
Speaker 2: Not really other than what's in the book. I mean,
Speaker 2: but I kind of got I guess I got a
Speaker 2: little bit sidetracked by Trim and Capodi and his It's
Speaker 2: a lot about.
Speaker 1: The town and characters and stuff as well, not just the.
Speaker 2: Crime, yes, and the killers as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, is there anything else you'd like to talk about
Speaker 1: before we delve into the Clutter Family murd.
Speaker 2: Well, you're away this weekend, so I'm going to watch
Speaker 2: Heated Rivalry? Are you really I'm gonna watch it?
Speaker 1: It's really funny that you said because I'm away, Like,
Speaker 1: because you know, if I was here and I knew
Speaker 1: you were watching, you come.
Speaker 2: Watching shouting at the TV. I'm a part of it.
Speaker 2: I imagine you're like, it's like people watching sports with people,
Speaker 2: like you're going to be shouting at the TV. Yes,
Speaker 2: And you're going to a music first all I've always
Speaker 2: wanted to go to called festival.
Speaker 1: So it's actually food and wine festival that has musical
Speaker 1: acts there as well, Jess Melboy, Grinspoon.
Speaker 2: British Gritty Spoon.
Speaker 1: Greenspoon, I'm going to Grimspoon and three small time comedians
Speaker 1: you might have heard of will also be performing there
Speaker 1: tomorrow named Luke McGregor, Nick Cody and Claire Hooper.
Speaker 2: That's a great line up. It's going to be fantastic,
Speaker 2: really fun. Well you're there, I'm going to be watching
Speaker 2: Heated Rivalry.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean this with all sincerity. I'm
Speaker 1: jealous of that.
Speaker 2: Well, jealous of you going to festival.
Speaker 1: They come to Festivale.
Speaker 2: You should have asked me a few weeks.
Speaker 1: Ago to be able to watch Heated Rivalry for the
Speaker 1: first time again. Yeah, something I'll never be able to
Speaker 1: do enough for.
Speaker 2: It is just it is.
Speaker 1: The best show ever written. I cannot stop thinking about it.
Speaker 1: Deeply in love with Hudson Williams.
Speaker 2: Which one's that one? We'll find out. Don't worry about it.
Speaker 2: We'll find out how you won't.
Speaker 1: Because it's the name of the actor. Okay, but we
Speaker 1: could talk about it. There's gonna be so much to
Speaker 1: talk about on episode.
Speaker 2: Let's do this week's episode then, la Kay.
Speaker 1: Last the Clutter family lived in Holcombe, Kansas.
Speaker 2: I know this.
Speaker 1: That after everything, Okay. The father, Herbert Clutter, was born
Speaker 1: in nineteen eleven, and his whole life was farming. He
Speaker 1: was an agricultural agent for the county and he went
Speaker 1: around teaching farmers as well as owning his own farm himself.
Speaker 1: And sorry and his father had done that as well.
Speaker 1: So farmer from way back. He started his own herbs,
Speaker 1: started his own farm in the nineteen forties named River
Speaker 1: Valley Farm, also in Holcombe, Kansas. He was absolutely beloved
Speaker 1: in the community. Labeled and I feel like you'll be
Speaker 1: able to guess the labels. You wouldn't say like beloved
Speaker 1: farmer guy? What did people say?
Speaker 2: He was wholesome? Yeah, and lovely and beautiful.
Speaker 1: Assault of the earth asault of the Earth's successful and
Speaker 1: stood up for the little guy like he wasn't just
Speaker 1: for himself and his family.
Speaker 2: His farmer, big farmer. That's clever, all right, big farmer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I like that's very clever. But big farmer
Speaker 1: famously doesn't stick up with the little guy.
Speaker 2: I disagree. If you'd like to sponsor us big farmer,
Speaker 2: very aroviser, I don't think we should ask whatever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so herbs farm was thriving, but he also
Speaker 1: then fiercely advocated for smaller farms as well. He was
Speaker 1: the president of the National Association of Wheat Growers.
Speaker 2: He's a big farmer, He's a big, big farm.
Speaker 1: His whole family was very much the picture of the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties perfect American family the earth.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was about to say, you got it, but I
Speaker 1: did tell you, Tom, this is gonna be.
Speaker 2: A long episode. Off we get like this.
Speaker 1: There's a real vibe in here today. I like it.
Speaker 1: It's fun. I'm having fun it because I've got my
Speaker 1: shoes off and a bigger tim mentioned an we singing
Speaker 1: tim mention some quickly.
Speaker 2: At the end.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'll rushed through.
Speaker 2: Give you a treat to the end to get her through. Carrot,
Speaker 2: the danglous carrot whole tom So.
Speaker 1: President Eisenhower actually appointed herb Clutter to the Federal Farm
Speaker 1: Credit Board in nineteen fifty three.
Speaker 2: When you thought a farmer couldn't get bigger, bigger farmer, farmer.
Speaker 1: He was active in politics, both local and national. In contrast, however,
Speaker 1: his wife Bonnie was very introverted. Yes, she was salt
Speaker 1: of the earth. And lovely as well. But she wasn't
Speaker 1: this in it out about in politics? Yeah, the president
Speaker 1: knows him.
Speaker 2: Not life of a show girl.
Speaker 1: No no, no, no, more a Kermit than a miss Piggy.
Speaker 1: She had severe depression and anxiety. Oh that's sorry, Coermet Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe more an.
Speaker 2: Eel, Yeah, memorn Eel, the other famous muppet. Yes, the
Speaker 2: other famous muppet. Oh yeah, all right, we'll take a
Speaker 2: quick break.
Speaker 1: I just really wasn't expected to say that was quite fun.
Speaker 1: I just did a spit take.
Speaker 2: But it's not your nose. Yeah, it's disgusting. That's the
Speaker 2: probably the worst thing has ever happened on the book.
Speaker 1: She wears a pig t shirt or I think I
Speaker 1: can do this, So please don't make a clip of that.
Speaker 2: No, I won't make a clipper that because my face gone, Oh.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's disgusting. Oh my god. Okay, I can't.
Speaker 1: We're talking about Bondie Clott can't. All right, So Bondie
Speaker 1: Cloude had actually been hospitalized several times for months at
Speaker 1: a time with depression and anxiety. She also had nervous
Speaker 1: muscle spasms. She slept a lot, but she was really
Speaker 1: determined to get better. And to be well and present
Speaker 1: for her family when she was feeling good and more
Speaker 1: active in the community. She was an active member of
Speaker 1: the Methodist Church. She taught Sunday school, and she was
Speaker 1: part of the Women's Society of Christian Service. She was
Speaker 1: a good, wholesome sault of the American mother. She and
Speaker 1: Herb were very much in love and Herb really tried
Speaker 1: very hard to help and stand by her. So there
Speaker 1: was not I think I feel like often here, especially
Speaker 1: in you know the olden days, when someone has had
Speaker 1: postnatal depression or depressive episodes, it kind of is spoken about,
Speaker 1: as you know, and then the husband's like, oh, she's
Speaker 1: just sleeping all day.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: This was very much not the case with this family.
Speaker 1: He understood that she was unwell and was was would
Speaker 1: really stand by her and was trying to do everything
Speaker 1: to help her.
Speaker 2: So sad, that's heartbreaking.
Speaker 1: Herb and Bonnie had four children, had two older daughters,
Speaker 1: Evianna and Beverly, who were adults at the time and
Speaker 1: living out of the home.
Speaker 2: Yes, yep.
Speaker 1: And at the time of the incident we are discussing,
Speaker 1: they had a sixteen year old daughter, Nancy and fifteen
Speaker 1: year old son Kenyan who were living at home with them.
Speaker 2: It's such an interesting.
Speaker 1: Again before or since, if we have any listeners called Kenyon,
Speaker 1: please write in. Yeah, I didn't think we'd have a
Speaker 1: listener called Bought.
Speaker 2: I love Bort's voices.
Speaker 1: So they now I won't really bring I'll mention Evianna
Speaker 1: and Beverly again at the end, but they don't come
Speaker 1: up through the story. They weren't living at home at
Speaker 1: the time.
Speaker 2: And they weren't really involved in the book, were they, like.
Speaker 1: And that's okay? Well, yeah, yeah, That's what I'll talk
Speaker 1: about at the end, the fact that they weren't involved.
Speaker 1: So when I'm talking about the family and their clutter
Speaker 1: family and the whole family, I am just talking about Nancy, Kenyon,
Speaker 1: Bonnie and herb Yes, yep, I'm not discounting Evianna and Beverly.
Speaker 1: They weren't involved in the z y yep and they were.
Speaker 1: Nancy and Kenyon were the classic all American teens of
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties like a Picture Greece the musical. They
Speaker 1: were younger kids, sorry, the younger kids were also very
Speaker 1: heavily involved in the Methodist Church and youth services. Nancy
Speaker 1: was popular pretty great a student, very classic. She had
Speaker 1: a boyfriend named Bobby Rupp.
Speaker 2: Such an American name, It's like I feel.
Speaker 1: Like that's a character from Greece.
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, Bobby.
Speaker 1: She was a member of the mixed chorus. She received
Speaker 1: the Good Citizen Award at school just days before her death.
Speaker 1: Spoiler alert, I'm sorry she does. Kenyan, the fifteen year
Speaker 1: old son, was also really popular, but much more quiet
Speaker 1: and reserve. Again. He was the Kermit to Nancy's miss
Speaker 1: Piggy beautifully poor, thank you. He had good grains. He
Speaker 1: was a star athlete, especially in basketball and track teams.
Speaker 1: They were a really, really close family who did a
Speaker 1: lot for the community. Now I'm going to tell you
Speaker 1: about two other people. A man named Richard known as
Speaker 1: Dick Hickock, was in Kansas State Penitentiary for robbery. His
Speaker 1: cell mate was a man named Floyd Wells, and as
Speaker 1: they got chatting in their cell, passing the time on
Speaker 1: each of their sentences, Floyd Wells told Dick Hickock that
Speaker 1: he went when he got out, he was going to
Speaker 1: rob an old farmhouse that he used to work at.
Speaker 1: The farmhouse was called River Valley Farm in Holcombe, Kansas.
Speaker 1: Floyd had worked there in the late forties and had
Speaker 1: worked for herb Clutter, and he told his cell mate
Speaker 1: Dick Hickock that he knew that herb Clutter kept ten
Speaker 1: thousand dollars cash in a safe in the house. Now
Speaker 1: I didn't actually do I want to quickly look that up.
Speaker 1: What that would be worth in today's Yeah, it would be,
Speaker 1: I mean quite significant of its.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Yeah, it's it's just interesting that he knew that
Speaker 2: from working on the farm. It just seems like such
Speaker 2: an interesting bit of information, doesn't it.
Speaker 1: I will will very much get into that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Okay, not.
Speaker 1: Ten thousand dollars in nineteen forty This would be worse
Speaker 1: between three hundred and four hundred and fifty thousand dollars today. Okay,
Speaker 1: So that's all.
Speaker 2: So much money, just keeping you safe.
Speaker 1: Yes, So as Floyd was talking about this, Dick thought, well,
Speaker 1: I have less time on my sentence than Floyd does.
Speaker 1: I'm going to get it. I'm going to do that
Speaker 1: plan actually and break out and get not breakout, he
Speaker 1: was going to be released, but he's going to break
Speaker 1: into the house and get money. Now, let's talk about
Speaker 1: Dick Hiccock. Growing up, he was athletic smart and cool
Speaker 1: and a good looking guy. He didn't get a scholarship
Speaker 1: to college that he thought he would, and his family
Speaker 1: couldn't afford to send him to college, so he went
Speaker 1: straight into the workforce, doing odd jobs to make a dime.
Speaker 1: Now he was close with his family. His family was,
Speaker 1: you know, by all means, a kind of lower middle
Speaker 1: class family or even middle class family. They didn't have
Speaker 1: enough money to pay for his college, but they were,
Speaker 1: you know, a close family, tight knit. By age twenty eight,
Speaker 1: Dick Hickock had been married and divorced twice.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, okay by twenty eight did you say.
Speaker 1: By twenty eight? Wow? Yes, he would do anything to
Speaker 1: avoid working too hard. That probably counts for the marriages, sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: as well as in actual work. He was really spoken
Speaker 1: about as just a really lazy guy, right, Okay, He
Speaker 1: didn't want to have to do hard work, you know,
Speaker 1: even he didn't get the scholarship, so we went, okay,
Speaker 1: I just won't go to college or he didn't then
Speaker 1: you know, try to get a job to be able
Speaker 1: to put himself through college later. And he didn't like
Speaker 1: working because he wasn't doing jobs that he wanted to do,
Speaker 1: so he would get around doing a lot of robberies,
Speaker 1: stealing cars, stealing number plates, and he ended up in
Speaker 1: and out of jail quite a few times.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: He'd also been in a car accident when he was younger.
Speaker 1: I didn't find that age. He was in the car
Speaker 1: accident and it left him with scars on his face,
Speaker 1: which he hated. He really cherished his good looks growing up.
Speaker 1: And he was not even self conscious. He was angry.
Speaker 1: He was not a good guy where we don't have
Speaker 1: to feel sorry. He would say that his face had
Speaker 1: been ruined, and he was really angry about that. He
Speaker 1: carried a real grudge. Agay, a new cell mate moved
Speaker 1: in next door to like you know, in the cell
Speaker 1: next to Perry and sorry to Floyd and Dick. And
Speaker 1: this man's name was Perry Smith. Now conversely to Dick.
Speaker 1: He grew up in a very poor and a very
Speaker 1: violent family. His parents were both severe alcoholics, and his
Speaker 1: parents and siblings had mental health issues. He didn't finish school,
Speaker 1: and he didn't have many skills to maintain a job,
Speaker 1: certainly not a good job. It was a very different
Speaker 1: upbringing to Di's. He'd never had a long term girlfriend,
Speaker 1: he didn't have the love and support of his family,
Speaker 1: as Dick had. He joined the army in nineteen forty
Speaker 1: eight and was honorably discharged in nineteen fifty two, but
Speaker 1: had no job skills so really struggled. He became a
Speaker 1: drifter and again, like Dick, was arrested a lot for
Speaker 1: petty crimes. Now, the difference between Dick and Perry in
Speaker 1: committing crimes is it spoken about more as if Dick
Speaker 1: did the crimes because he was well a Dick, and
Speaker 1: Perry because he was more desperate. He didn't have money,
Speaker 1: he couldn't get a job, and that's why he'll do
Speaker 1: the crimes. I mean, that's not an excuse, but that
Speaker 1: was his excuse.
Speaker 2: Sure, yep.
Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty six, Perry and Dick were at Lancing,
Speaker 1: Sorry I said, I said Kansas State Penitentary.
Speaker 2: Though know they were at long Lancing, Okay.
Speaker 1: Floyd Wells says that Dick became obsessed with the thought
Speaker 1: of this ten thousand dollars in the farmer's house in
Speaker 1: Hosmol So.
Speaker 2: Much money, yes, wild, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Dick would say that he was going to take this
Speaker 1: new friend, Perry Smith, because he was dumb and impressionable
Speaker 1: and he was going to steal the money from the
Speaker 1: safe when they got out of prison. Now, Dick saw
Speaker 1: something in Perry that he had, something that he wanted.
Speaker 1: So Perry had something that Dick wanted, and that was
Speaker 1: the skills of a natural born killer. According to Dick.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Perry also then saw something in Dick that he didn't have.
Speaker 1: That was confidence, the ability to make a move without
Speaker 1: second guessing yourself.
Speaker 2: Sure, okay, so.
Speaker 1: They see each other as the person he's going to
Speaker 1: make this robbery actually happen. Neither of them would do
Speaker 1: it on their own. They can do it together, and
Speaker 1: Perry was always seeking Dick's validation. Again, they grew up
Speaker 1: very differently. Perry grew up quite unloved by all accounts,
Speaker 1: and Dick really took him under his wing, and Perry
Speaker 1: kind of really took to that and wanted to impress
Speaker 1: him and be friends with him. Perry got parole on
Speaker 1: July sixth, nineteen fifty nine. He had to leave Kansas.
Speaker 1: Under his parle conditions, he wasn't ever allowed back in
Speaker 1: the state or for the parole term. He wasn't allowed
Speaker 1: back in the state.
Speaker 2: Interesting not to be allowed back in the state usually
Speaker 2: think that you actually have to stay some ways people
Speaker 2: can keep an eye on you, but not allowed in
Speaker 2: the state. Since it's kind of.
Speaker 1: Like, I don't know if this is the case, but
Speaker 1: it feels like they've gone, well, if you're going to
Speaker 1: do more petty.
Speaker 2: Crimes, not on our URMs, go to another state someone else. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: but it does feel like that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But he did stay close by to Kansas, so as
Speaker 1: close as he could possibly be, because he was waiting
Speaker 1: for Dick to get out and he wanted to be
Speaker 1: as close as it could be. Dick was meant to
Speaker 1: get out many months later, but he actually got an
Speaker 1: early release and was released in August, so just about
Speaker 1: five or six weeks after Perry was released. Dick moved
Speaker 1: back in with his parents for a few months so
Speaker 1: he could save up some money, and the two men
Speaker 1: wrote letters back and forth talking about their plan to
Speaker 1: rob the clutter farm. Perry was hesitant. He didn't want
Speaker 1: to mess up his parole by returning to Kansas. Apparently
Speaker 1: it wasn't the robbery that worried him, it was just
Speaker 1: breaking parole. I think he was so they'd convince themselves
Speaker 1: they're never going to get caught, so it's like what
Speaker 1: if what if we get pulled Oh yeah, what if
Speaker 1: we get pulled over while I'm in Kansas and they
Speaker 1: find out that I'm here, like the robbery part, we
Speaker 1: won't get caught for that. Very smart people. After many
Speaker 1: letters back and forth and Dick's insistence, Perry said, Perry said, LFG,
Speaker 1: let's fucking go. Don't know if he actually said he did,
Speaker 1: and he probably didn't write LFG hand drawn a little
Speaker 1: bomb thing. So it was planned that they would meet
Speaker 1: in Olatha, which is close to the Missouri border, in
Speaker 1: early November. Right, they got there on November fourteen.
Speaker 2: This it was quite a long time, like August to November, because.
Speaker 1: Remember I said that they were planning it out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Dick moved back in with his parents so they could
Speaker 1: plan it for a while without kind of the you know,
Speaker 1: guards of the prison watching them and could save up
Speaker 1: some money. They could both do some you know, little
Speaker 1: jobs here and there to make some money, and they
Speaker 1: wanted to make sure they had this plan or you
Speaker 1: know down pat They also knew that Floyd Wells was
Speaker 1: the only other person that kind of as far as
Speaker 1: they knew, knew about this cash and was robbing and
Speaker 1: he was still behind bars, so they weren't like, oh,
Speaker 1: someone else was going to get the cash first. So
Speaker 1: on November fourteen, they stole a car in Olatha and
Speaker 1: they drove four hundred miles, which is about six hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty kilometers, such a long way, which to me
Speaker 1: my mind was like that, I don't really know what
Speaker 1: that means. So I looked it up and that's the
Speaker 1: same distance as if you were drive to drive from
Speaker 1: Melbourne to Canberra.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a lot. It's like eight hours.
Speaker 1: Ye into that like I mean yea on Google Maps
Speaker 1: and said driving to Melbourne to Cambra it will be eight hours.
Speaker 1: Don't know how long it took, like a Chevy in the.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but that's such a long drive.
Speaker 1: Yes, And they drove to a place called Garden City,
Speaker 1: which is where hulkambe is. They stopped once on the
Speaker 1: way and bought nylon rope, rubber gloves, adhesive tape, and
Speaker 1: a small pocket knife. They arrived in Garden City just
Speaker 1: after midnight on December fifteenth, where they stopped for gas
Speaker 1: and then they drove the final mile to Hulkam and
Speaker 1: the River Valley Farm. River Valley Farm has a long
Speaker 1: a dirt driveway. Before they drove up to the farm.
Speaker 1: They stopped at the base of the driveway to kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, get themselves sighted up and like you know,
Speaker 1: try to low with their nerves and get themselves ready
Speaker 1: for this. They sat there to try to get their
Speaker 1: heads straight, and they saw a light go on in
Speaker 1: another house nearby, and they totally freaked out. Dix said,
Speaker 1: we can't do this tonight. No, no, no, you know
Speaker 1: there's lights on his rear. Freaked down, but't together. They
Speaker 1: catch their breaths, pull themselves together, and up they go
Speaker 1: on the long driveway towards the Clutter family far foot
Speaker 1: in the car in the car like at least a
Speaker 1: little bit of the way.
Speaker 2: In the they.
Speaker 1: Got yet right up to the house. Sorry. The next sentence
Speaker 1: says they parked the car near a side entrance to
Speaker 1: the house where Floyd had said there was an office
Speaker 1: with the safe with the cash, and the two men
Speaker 1: just warnders straight in to the office in the family
Speaker 1: hot door. Well, it's the nineteen fifties, it's a fine
Speaker 1: town and a farm that no doors were locked. Now,
Speaker 1: as I said, they stopped and bought rope tape and
Speaker 1: a pocket knife, and rubber gloves. But what they already
Speaker 1: had and brought into the farm with them was a
Speaker 1: large flashlight, a large hunting knife, and a shot gun
Speaker 1: for a robbery. Allegedly, Dick has the knife and Perry
Speaker 1: has the gun. Now, no one is in the office
Speaker 1: space that they walk into, so they rifle around and
Speaker 1: search for the safe, but they can't find it. Floyd
Speaker 1: had said it would behind the desk. It wasn't there.
Speaker 1: They're kind of looking in cupboards and stuff, and they're
Speaker 1: a bit confused because Floyd had also described this office
Speaker 1: as that really large and fancy, so they were assuming
Speaker 1: it would be really obvious this family was loaded. Yes,
Speaker 1: the office they found themselves in was just a tiny
Speaker 1: little home office was really modest and really normal, and importantly,
Speaker 1: there was no safe. Dick in particular is pierced. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he had planned this all out for months and was
Speaker 1: not going to leave without his money. He'd been planning it,
Speaker 1: or at least daydreaming about it, for five years. So
Speaker 1: what would you do if you were Dick and Perry
Speaker 1: in this situation.
Speaker 2: I would turn myself into prison.
Speaker 1: Into prison, rock up to prison.
Speaker 2: Go excuse me, sir, I was about to crime man.
Speaker 1: That's why you're good and that's why you're here today
Speaker 1: not in prison.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: Well Perry and Dick did was go and ask the
Speaker 1: family where the money was.
Speaker 2: So they're like holding them up and saying, you know
Speaker 2: where some money? Whars money?
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm going to tell you exactly what they did.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately Chad's break. Perry and Dick walk into Herb and
Speaker 1: Bonnie's room and wake them with a flashlight. With the flashlight,
Speaker 1: flashlight straight to the eyes. Now, there are conflicting reports
Speaker 1: here about where the body was in that room or
Speaker 1: another room. Because of her her health issues, she would
Speaker 1: often sleep in a different room.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Sure, either way, it was their bedroom and at the
Speaker 1: very least Herb was in there. Yep, he was woken
Speaker 1: up by flashlight to the eyes and they demanded to
Speaker 1: know where the safe was. Herb said there is no
Speaker 1: safe in the house. They've never had a safe, and
Speaker 1: there's definitely no cash. He famously pays for everything by check.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, everyone in town will back this up. He
Speaker 1: says he never uses cash and ever gets paid in cash.
Speaker 1: He never pays with cash. Everything is by check. Because
Speaker 1: it's a business.
Speaker 2: You have to come back to that.
Speaker 1: He says that he'll write these men a check for
Speaker 1: any amount of money. He'll ride away everything he has,
Speaker 1: but please please please leave my family, Alie, this isn't
Speaker 1: good enough for Dick and Perry. They want that cash. Money. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So they go around to every room. They get the
Speaker 1: rest of the family and lock them all in the
Speaker 1: upstairs bathroom together, tying them up with the rope that
Speaker 1: they brought. While the family was then locked in the bathroom,
Speaker 1: Dick and Perry turned the whole house upside down, looking
Speaker 1: for cash, looking for any valuables they could find, but
Speaker 1: there was nothing. There was no safe and there was
Speaker 1: no cash. Herb had been telling the truth, So what
Speaker 1: did this make? These robbers do get even angrier, so
Speaker 1: they decide to take it out on the family and
Speaker 1: trigger warning here for the details.
Speaker 2: What happened?
Speaker 1: Herb sorry, Dick and Perry go up to the bathroom.
Speaker 1: They put tape over the mouths of the people that
Speaker 1: they had tied up. Dick takes the two males, Herb
Speaker 1: and fifteen year old Kenyon down to the basement of
Speaker 1: the house, where he throws Herb onto the floor and
Speaker 1: ties Kenyan up to a pipe in the corner of
Speaker 1: the room. He then goes back upstairs, grabs sixteen year
Speaker 1: old Nancy, takes her to her bed and ties her
Speaker 1: up to her bed posts. Now, when she's found she
Speaker 1: doesn't have tape on her mouth. The other family members
Speaker 1: all do. While this is happening, Perry is left in
Speaker 1: the bathroom to watch over Bonnie. She's hog tied on
Speaker 1: the floor with her mouth taped. At one point he
Speaker 1: offered her a chair because she looked uncomfortable. Then Dick
Speaker 1: comes into the bathroom and does the same thing to Bonnie,
Speaker 1: taking her to her bed and tying her to the
Speaker 1: bed posts. Dick and Perry then go down to the
Speaker 1: basement and Perry notices that herb is cold on the floor.
Speaker 1: It's a cement floor in the basement and its winter,
Speaker 1: So he gets pieces of cardboard and puts them down
Speaker 1: on the floor and places herb on top of them
Speaker 1: to make sure he's not as cold.
Speaker 2: It's such strange behavior in this sort of situation.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, while this is happening, it's almost as if
Speaker 1: Kenyan seems to notice a hint of like compassion or
Speaker 1: maybe regret or softness or something. And Kenyan the fifteen
Speaker 1: year old boy says that the tires that he's turned
Speaker 1: up to the pole of the pipe with are kind
Speaker 1: of cutting off circulations to his wrists and they're hurting.
Speaker 1: So Perry cuts him free, takes him to a couch
Speaker 1: that's in the basement and ties him up there looser,
Speaker 1: and brings him a pillow places under his head.
Speaker 2: It's so bizarre, it is sunny, bizarre behavior, bizarre. Now,
Speaker 2: what you're going to go through with this, you'd imagine
Speaker 2: you'd be callous.
Speaker 1: And this is the thing, right, So I don't want
Speaker 1: to give any spoilers, but the episode is called The
Speaker 1: Clutter Family Murders, so take from that what you will.
Speaker 1: But it makes it so much weirder that they're making
Speaker 1: them comfortable. Yes, yeah, The whole ordeal lasts around two hours.
Speaker 2: It's awful.
Speaker 1: Can you like, I mean, you can't can't imagine what
Speaker 1: that would be like for that family. They're also and
Speaker 1: the two Bonnie and Nancy are on their own in
Speaker 1: their own rooms, tied up on their own. Herb and
Speaker 1: Kenyan are together, but you know, not being able to
Speaker 1: help each other and not knowing what they can do
Speaker 1: and what's going to happen. After two hours where we
Speaker 1: don't really know what happened, Perry tells Dick to go
Speaker 1: and get the knife and kill herb. My god, Perry says,
Speaker 1: Dick was teasing him about not having the guts to
Speaker 1: do it himself, saying, this is what we've come here
Speaker 1: to do.
Speaker 2: So was it.
Speaker 1: Planned a planned murder all along? This doesn't sound like
Speaker 1: just a robbery for cash. If they're going, well, come on,
Speaker 1: this is what we came here to do, you do it.
Speaker 1: And if it was a plan murder all along, why
Speaker 1: take two hours and make it so cruel like doing,
Speaker 1: you know, tying them up and everything and leaving them
Speaker 1: there for so long. Then, after being teased by Dick,
Speaker 1: Perry does exactly what I'm sure Dick was trying to
Speaker 1: get him to do. Is reacts by grabbing the hunting
Speaker 1: knife from Dick, and he slits Herb's throat in front
Speaker 1: of his fifteen year old son. He then, because apparently
Speaker 1: this was necessary, also shoots Herb at close range in
Speaker 1: the head. Shortly after that, fifteen year old Kenyon is
Speaker 1: also shot in the head at close range. When he's found,
Speaker 1: his head is lying on the pillow that Perry had
Speaker 1: brought him. My god, Nancy and Bonnie are upstairs, and
Speaker 1: I can only assume they would have heard two shots
Speaker 1: go out.
Speaker 2: Of course, can you fucking imagine? Horrific?
Speaker 1: The terror wouldn't have lasted that long though for them
Speaker 1: after hearing the shots, because after they had killed Herb
Speaker 1: and Kenyan, the men went up to Nancy's room and
Speaker 1: shot her sixteen year old Nancy in the face, followed
Speaker 1: by Bonnie. The two men collected the shotgun shells as
Speaker 1: they went around the house so as not to leave
Speaker 1: a link to their gun. All four Clutter family members
Speaker 1: were shot at very close range in the face or
Speaker 1: the head. Herb was also cut to the throat. About
Speaker 1: the shootings, Perry would later tell a court, which is
Speaker 1: perhaps a spoiler as well, it was like picking off
Speaker 1: targets in a shooting gallery.
Speaker 2: Of course it was. It's a horrender horrendos correct use
Speaker 2: of the word correct use.
Speaker 1: When they were done raiding the house and killing an
Speaker 1: entire innocent family, the men left with nothing but a
Speaker 1: pair of binoculars, a transistor radio, and forty bucks they
Speaker 1: found in Herb's wallet. All that for four lives.
Speaker 2: It's disgusting they're also.
Speaker 1: Fucking stupid because there was an envelope full of cash
Speaker 1: on Nancy's dresser that they just didn't see, I guess,
Speaker 1: and this is awful. The reason the sixteen year old
Speaker 1: girl had an envelope full of cash on her dresser
Speaker 1: was because she was going to make a donation to
Speaker 1: the church the following morning. So Sad, Perry and Dick
Speaker 1: drive off past the county boundary line and then they
Speaker 1: cleaned themselves and the gun off with the car's radiator water,
Speaker 1: and then they dug a hole and buried the shotgun shells,
Speaker 1: the tape, and the rope just next to the highway.
Speaker 1: They didn't bury the knife or the gun. I mean,
Speaker 1: these guys are seen next tuesdays. They thought where might
Speaker 1: use these for something else? And you know they're petty
Speaker 1: criminals and they're stealing cars and all sorts of things,
Speaker 1: so they probably think we're not going to get rid
Speaker 1: of our weapon. The following day, a Sunday morning, the
Speaker 1: Clutters didn't arrive to Nancy's friend, Susan Kidwell's house to
Speaker 1: pick her up for church, as they always did. Nancy
Speaker 1: and her family, sorry, Susan and her family were concerned immediately.
Speaker 1: They tried calling the clutter house a number of times
Speaker 1: and got no answer. So Nancy and a friend, sorry,
Speaker 1: this is confusing. Susan and a friend whose name was
Speaker 1: also Nancy, Oh sure, yep, and this Nancy's dad went
Speaker 1: over to the clutter farm to check that all was okay.
Speaker 1: They could tell something was off immediately when they arrived
Speaker 1: because the family's car was there they should have been
Speaker 1: at church, and there were no lights on in the house,
Speaker 1: no noises coming from there at all. The dad had
Speaker 1: been working on his farm that morning, so I said,
Speaker 1: I don't want to trapes mud through the house. I'll
Speaker 1: take off my boots and you girls go ahead and
Speaker 1: call out to your friend. So Susan and Nancy, two
Speaker 1: young girls, go into the clutter farm.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: The kitchen door was unlocked, which was normal, but there
Speaker 1: were no signs anyone had made breakfast, which was odd
Speaker 1: for this time of the morning in a house full
Speaker 1: of people. Then they saw Nancy's purse open on the floor,
Speaker 1: so they started calling out for their friend and walked
Speaker 1: up towards her bedroom. They saw the door ajar and
Speaker 1: they went in and they saw Nancy on the bed,
Speaker 1: wearing her nightie, bound to the bed by her hands
Speaker 1: and feet, with cords torn from her curtains. There was
Speaker 1: blood all over the walls, floor, and roof, and her
Speaker 1: face was not recognizable because it had been shot at
Speaker 1: such close range. Susan later said she didn't remember screaming.
Speaker 1: She only remembered seeing Nancy's Teddy Bear staring at her
Speaker 1: and her friend running away. The dad heard the screens
Speaker 1: and the girls running out, so he went in and
Speaker 1: he saw the same thing. He called the sheriff immediately.
Speaker 1: They had only seen Nancy. Finney County Sheriff Earl Robinson
Speaker 1: called in his friend at the Kansas Bureau the KBI,
Speaker 1: not the FBI, but his friend Alvin Dewey, who both
Speaker 1: came out, and it was them who searched the whole
Speaker 1: house and discovered the horrors. Also in Bonnie's bedroom and
Speaker 1: the basement. They found Bonnie as they had found Nancy.
Speaker 1: They found a Kenyon who had been shot in the
Speaker 1: face with his head still on the pillow on the couch,
Speaker 1: and they found herb hung from a pipe in the basement.
Speaker 2: So they hung him after they I think it.
Speaker 1: Was possible that he'd been tortured before he was killed.
Speaker 1: So the Finney County Sheriff's apartment and the KBI had
Speaker 1: a quadruple aside and zero idea what happened. The family
Speaker 1: had no known enemies, there were no dodgy business dealings,
Speaker 1: and no one had seen nor heard a thing. Seventeen
Speaker 1: investigators were assigned to the case. It was initially thought
Speaker 1: to be a robbery gone wrong, which is kind of
Speaker 1: semi right maybe, but they were confused by the cash
Speaker 1: left in Nancy's room and that both Bonnie and Herb
Speaker 1: were wearing gold wedding rings and Bonnie a diamond engagement ring.
Speaker 2: It's bizarre they didn't take those because they're fucking stupid. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: just want to cash, because that's what they.
Speaker 1: Came I just think that maybe weren't even smart enough
Speaker 1: to like, look, yeah, I think about it.
Speaker 2: If they didn't find the money on the dresser, then
Speaker 2: you're like, well, yeah, but.
Speaker 1: It's because they said they ransacked the whole house looking
Speaker 1: for cash. But they were just looking for that massive
Speaker 1: sum of cash. I don't know how and why they
Speaker 1: ended up like taking nicking a transistor radio and a
Speaker 1: pair of big Yeah, but why not then why would
Speaker 1: you be thinking about jewelry and stuff. They're just idiots,
Speaker 1: like dangerous, horrible criminal audience. There was one funeral held
Speaker 1: for the four Clutter family members.
Speaker 2: One funeral for four yeah.
Speaker 1: Which is I think so sad. Well, it's more devastating
Speaker 1: because I meant there.
Speaker 2: Were four caskets there all together.
Speaker 1: More than one thousand people attended the funeral, which is
Speaker 1: an amazing for a small town.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, absolutely wild. It shows how well loved
Speaker 2: and respected they were, exactly.
Speaker 1: And the town was so small that the KBI offices
Speaker 1: and local sheriffs were there not because they were investigating
Speaker 1: their deaths, but because they knew.
Speaker 2: Herb Oh, that's so sad, and that.
Speaker 1: Makes you realize that Alvin Dewey and Earl Robinson, when
Speaker 1: they went into the house to find what they did,
Speaker 1: that was someone they knew.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, oh god, it's just so much more awful.
Speaker 1: So investigators started looking into whether it could have been
Speaker 1: a grug Oh sorry, So when I was saying about
Speaker 1: them thinking it was maybe a robbery gone wrong, when
Speaker 1: they found that their jewelry was still there, that the
Speaker 1: envelope of cushion still they were like, actually, it feels
Speaker 1: more like someone's trying to make it look like a
Speaker 1: robbery by kind of throwing things around and leaving an
Speaker 1: open wallot on the floor and stuff like that. So
Speaker 1: they started looking into whether this could have possibly been
Speaker 1: a grudge killing against Sure, they had no ideas otherwise.
Speaker 1: So like right, Herbs a prominent businessman and politician, like
Speaker 1: we know works with political alliances. There are a few
Speaker 1: people around town who did say, like, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: I suppose there'll always be people unhappy with, you know,
Speaker 1: a businessman who's doing well and someone aligned with politics.
Speaker 1: Another suspect came up who was Nancy's boyfriend, seventeen year old.
Speaker 1: Do you remember his name?
Speaker 2: No, Webby Upby Up of course.
Speaker 1: He was the last person to have seen the Clutter
Speaker 1: family alive. He visited the Clutter home on November fourteen
Speaker 1: to watch television with Nancy and her family and said
Speaker 1: he left around eleven PM. Now we know now investigators
Speaker 1: didn't at the time that Perry and Dick got there
Speaker 1: around midnight, so they very well could have been a
Speaker 1: fifth victim in this. Bobby Up was still there, but
Speaker 1: of course they didn't know that at the time. They
Speaker 1: were looking into why he could have You know why.
Speaker 1: He was the last person to see them alive. And
Speaker 1: of course, as we always say, it's always the husband
Speaker 1: and the boyfriend, yes, yeah, and or and it's always
Speaker 1: the husband and the book usually, Yeah, that's the motive
Speaker 1: and a boyfriend. Now, people in the town started to gossip,
Speaker 1: of course they did. There's four people knew, and gossip
Speaker 1: came up about Bobby Rupp as well. There was there
Speaker 1: were rumors that there had been tensions in the family
Speaker 1: about Nancy and Bobby's relationship because the Clutters were Seventh
Speaker 1: Day Vinists and Bobby was Catholic, right, okay, and the
Speaker 1: relationship was getting pretty serious. They've been together for a
Speaker 1: couple of years, so maybe there were some fights about
Speaker 1: whether Nancy was allowed to continue seeing Bobby. But no
Speaker 1: matter of these suspicions, whether it was a business or
Speaker 1: political grudge or something to do with Bobby and Nancy's relationship,
Speaker 1: police needed evidence to grow more than suspicions about anyone.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The evidence they found in the house was boot prints
Speaker 1: in the blood on the floor of the basement and
Speaker 1: the one in the blood on the floor, and another
Speaker 1: bootprint on the cardboard that had been put down get
Speaker 1: cold before brutally murdering and probably torturing him.
Speaker 2: Bootprints is so odd in the blood that is so strange.
Speaker 1: Well, they were very clear bootprints. One had a diamond
Speaker 1: pattern on the soul and another bootprint had a Cat's
Speaker 1: poor brand logo, so very distinct. Two different brands, So
Speaker 1: two different boots, and no shoes in the clutterhouse matched
Speaker 1: either of these shoes. So suddenly police are looking for
Speaker 1: two killers. Yes, yeah, police determined the type of gun
Speaker 1: shot used, and just four days after the murders they
Speaker 1: found some upturned earth next to the highway. So someone
Speaker 1: had said that they noticed blood on like the bridge
Speaker 1: crossing and then saw this like part like piece of
Speaker 1: upturned earth. So they called police and they police dug
Speaker 1: very like for thirty seconds. It was a very shallow grave.
Speaker 1: Found the tape, the rope, the shell casings, which of
Speaker 1: course matched the type of gun that they'd worked out had.
Speaker 2: Been usede they didn't try and hide it.
Speaker 1: Like just a second, maybe we'll retitle this episode. So
Speaker 1: suddenly it seems to police that they could be looking
Speaker 1: for strangers. Perhaps there were no grudges or family dynamics
Speaker 1: at play here. It looked like someone was but two
Speaker 1: people had come in and just killed them. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: murders were huge news. It was a tiny, tiny community
Speaker 1: and everyone in the community was really close. People stopped
Speaker 1: leaving their homes for the first time ever. They bought
Speaker 1: locks for their homes. The idea that strangers could have
Speaker 1: come in and murdered a beloved, quiet, young religious family
Speaker 1: was more terrifying than any other prospect anyone could imagine.
Speaker 1: It quickly went from local news to national news too.
Speaker 1: Murders of this level just didn't happen in small town,
Speaker 1: farming communities. And because this made national news, a man
Speaker 1: named Floyd Wells heard what happened. He was still in
Speaker 1: jail and heard it on the radio. He didn't want
Speaker 1: to get drawn into it, so we didn't say anything yet.
Speaker 1: But after two weeks he decided he needed to unload
Speaker 1: his burden where there was his conscious that got the
Speaker 1: better of.
Speaker 2: Him only two weeks was that, yeah, well.
Speaker 1: He had only told them a Todd, Perry and Dick
Speaker 1: about the cash, and he knew the family like he'd
Speaker 1: worked with them, so yeah, maybe his conscience couldn't handle
Speaker 1: the fact that they'd been killed. He made a plan
Speaker 1: to be called into the said the burden's office, the
Speaker 1: warden's office.
Speaker 2: Sure exactly, but he wanted to.
Speaker 1: Do so under false pretenses because you know, you don't
Speaker 1: snitch in jail, so someone to just send him walk
Speaker 1: into the warden's office, they'd be like, the fuck are
Speaker 1: you doing?
Speaker 2: Well? Snitches get stitches.
Speaker 5: That's what I've written.
Speaker 2: Oh I had another one with chocolate nappies.
Speaker 1: That's you've said that before. I hate that. Okay, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: you're gonna say sorry, Okay, say sorry, Okay. So he
Speaker 1: whacked a guy so we would get called into the
Speaker 1: warden's office.
Speaker 2: Yeah, good to And I said like, yes I didn't
Speaker 2: mom m yeah, yeah, a whack.
Speaker 1: That's when you're like a contract killing. Yeah, it's also
Speaker 1: that's whap.
Speaker 2: As soon as I said that, you're going.
Speaker 1: To say that, I think I'm thinking of.
Speaker 2: Wham and say yeah, yeah, where puts it? No in
Speaker 2: old like you know, like all Batman. That's what I
Speaker 2: was thinking of the old you know, the old woman
Speaker 2: with Adam West. Yeah, yeah, swhack pow wham. But I said,
Speaker 2: where else puts it? That's what you said? I never
Speaker 2: give them?
Speaker 1: Okay, Well I've updated this story. So Perry's riding. Let's
Speaker 1: sucking go.
Speaker 2: Yeah, to relate to your kids. We're trying to get
Speaker 2: a big.
Speaker 1: Booktop booktog exactly trying to get some young listeners.
Speaker 2: And he said, he.
Speaker 1: Said, get a bucket more. No, you didn't need to
Speaker 1: say that, you've gone too far. Say sorry. So he
Speaker 1: gets called into the warden's office and he as soon
Speaker 1: as he was in there and he was alone with
Speaker 1: the warden, he spilled on his belief that Perry and
Speaker 1: Dick could have been the killers. He said, he remembered
Speaker 1: Herb Cutter Clutter paying him for a job. So sorry,
Speaker 1: this is what he said to the warden that he
Speaker 1: had said to Dick that he remembered Herb Clutter paying
Speaker 1: him for a job with a large wad of cash
Speaker 1: that had come from a safe. He said he remembered
Speaker 1: Herb saying that he'd been paid ten thousand dollars that day,
Speaker 1: so assumed that that cash was in the safe as well,
Speaker 1: and that he described where the safe was and the
Speaker 1: farm to Dick. Now, what is interesting here is that
Speaker 1: he never was paid in cash. He never saw a
Speaker 1: safe in the Clutter farm, So whether his memories were
Speaker 1: mixed up. Remember how he said as well. The office
Speaker 1: was really like the yeah, yeah, And there was never
Speaker 1: a safe in the Clutter family farm never. So it's
Speaker 1: like he's got the memories of two different stories, two
Speaker 1: different times of being paid by someone contract.
Speaker 2: Yeah, especially when he knew that when he worked for them.
Speaker 2: It's very weird to get here.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But then like he worked there for a few months,
Speaker 1: but he worked other places in the years following as well.
Speaker 1: It's like he's got those two stories mixed up. And
Speaker 1: there were like they went back and found the check
Speaker 1: stubs that he'd been paid by Herb Clutter with a check.
Speaker 1: So he's got these two stories mixed up. I don't
Speaker 1: know fluyd Well's background. I don't know if he was,
Speaker 1: you know, a bit fifty cent short of a dollar
Speaker 1: or drug fucked or something. I don't know, But for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, he was adamant that Herb Clutter had paid
Speaker 1: him ten thousand, sorry, had put him to this, had
Speaker 1: paid him in cash that he remembered it coming from
Speaker 1: a safe that was behind a desk in the office.
Speaker 1: But when he described the office and the farm, it
Speaker 1: was exactly as the like it was. The location of
Speaker 1: the office was where I said it would be that's bizarre.
Speaker 2: Yes, our purpurpur Pur. Purpose trying to to the kids again.
Speaker 1: Is that it is that what they do.
Speaker 2: Like skid skid ok. Yeah, something like that. Yeah, that's
Speaker 2: not that what.
Speaker 1: Yes, queen, yes, queen, Yes, hunting and also yeat, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna here, young Cole loll out loud loud. Sorry. This
Speaker 1: is a quote from Floyd Wells.
Speaker 2: To the warden.
Speaker 1: I suspect I talked too much about the money, mister
Speaker 1: clutter had. Hikkock talked a lot about Perry Smith said
Speaker 1: after they got out of the joint, they could pull
Speaker 1: some jobs to get enough money for a down payment
Speaker 1: on a boat. They would run charter services for deep
Speaker 1: sea fishermen and eventually make contacts and use the boat
Speaker 1: to bring in narcotics. I didn't believe Hikkock, but he
Speaker 1: kept talking about it. I tried to talk him out
Speaker 1: of it, said he would get caught, but he said
Speaker 1: he had a plan and after the robbery he would
Speaker 1: kill everyone there and leave no witnesses.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: So he'd said that in jail. So all thoughts we
Speaker 1: might have had speculation about whether what went wrong. I
Speaker 1: mean they went in with a hunting knife and a gun.
Speaker 1: There was all this thing saying, remember how Dick had
Speaker 1: said earlier, you know, why would you do what? You know,
Speaker 1: we said we were coming here to do all that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it sounds like they had planned to do this all along. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: So the KBI finally had the names of two suspects.
Speaker 1: While this investigation was going on, Dick and Berry were
Speaker 1: on the run. They drove to Mexico, they pawned the
Speaker 1: binoculars and the radio that they'd stolen. They stole more
Speaker 1: cars along the way so they couldn't be traced. They
Speaker 1: committed thefts and then eventually came back to the US
Speaker 1: so they could also forge checks. They kind of run
Speaker 1: out of money in Mexico and to do that. Yep,
Speaker 1: So they kept stealing cars, ditching, stealing, forging checks, buying
Speaker 1: things like suits, like fancy things, anything that they could.
Speaker 1: They kept in touch with their family via payphones, but
Speaker 1: always lying about where they were. All the while police
Speaker 1: were launching a massive, large scale manhunt. They went into
Speaker 1: these men's criminal records and were able to use these
Speaker 1: to find and talk to family members and former criminal
Speaker 1: associates to try to track down their movements. On December nine,
Speaker 1: so remember November fifteen, I mean overnight between November fourteen
Speaker 1: and fifteen is when the murders occurred. On December nine,
Speaker 1: police got a warrant to search Dick. He got hiccups,
Speaker 1: as they said, that was like a thwack, like the
Speaker 1: on the matter paya where you the noise sounds like
Speaker 1: what you're saying. No, don't say that word again that
Speaker 1: you're going to say it. I can feel it. You're
Speaker 1: going to just throw it out there. I don't don't
Speaker 1: desecrat Claudia's cat stickers by saying that yucky word.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: So they got a warrant to search Dick Hiccock's or
Speaker 1: Hiccup's family farm, and there they found the hunting knife
Speaker 1: used to slit herb Clutter's throat and the shotgun used
Speaker 1: to kill all four members. But they didn't find was
Speaker 1: the man. They were not there. On December thirty, police
Speaker 1: in Las Vegas spotted a car that had been reported
Speaker 1: as stolen a few days earlier. On they pulled it
Speaker 1: over routine and he's a stolen cars pull these guys
Speaker 1: over and asked them about the car, and they could
Speaker 1: not believe their eyes when in the car they saw
Speaker 1: the two men whose mugshots had been plastered everywhere as
Speaker 1: the men wanted over the Clutter family murders in Kansas
Speaker 1: six weeks earlier.
Speaker 2: It's such a like a lucky happens happenstance, Like he's
Speaker 2: just like wow, like pulling them over and realizing and
Speaker 2: not just letting them go like they happen.
Speaker 1: How often do you hear about things like that as well?
Speaker 2: The police department's not communicating to each other.
Speaker 1: And then because this was such a big and like
Speaker 1: that would have happened if this story hadn't become such
Speaker 1: a immertional news because it was a family in this
Speaker 1: small tech following down and everything. So Perry Smith and
Speaker 1: Dick Hickock were arrested without incident. Surprisingly, they were transferred
Speaker 1: back to Finley County in Kansas, and they would charged
Speaker 1: with four counts of murder. The media called them weak faced,
Speaker 1: Hiccock and runty Smith.
Speaker 2: Wow, what names?
Speaker 1: I just think it's so it's like so nineteen fifty. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like really cute. So personally yeah exactly, and like
Speaker 1: they're kind of cute, yes, yeah, like you know, weak
Speaker 1: faced and runty. Like these days we kind of go
Speaker 1: that's like, oh, that's cute to you that, but I
Speaker 1: love you, right, it's personal meany to be going.
Speaker 2: We're not just going to.
Speaker 1: Call him yeah face tco yeah yeah yeah. Now, when arrested,
Speaker 1: Dick immediately tried to pin the whole thing on Perry.
Speaker 6: Wow.
Speaker 1: But they both did admit to being there and carrying
Speaker 1: out the murders. Like they never tried to say it
Speaker 1: wasn't ass we weren't there.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 1: Perry said that he like they broke pretty quickly, and
Speaker 1: Perry said that he had killed two of the family
Speaker 1: members and Dick had killed two. Dick said Perry had
Speaker 1: killed them all, and that he had planned the whole thing,
Speaker 1: that Perry had planned the whole thing. Now, they wanted
Speaker 1: to be tried separately so they could kind of pin
Speaker 1: it on each other, but that was denied. They were
Speaker 1: both charged with murders no matter who pulled the triggers
Speaker 1: on the day. Their joint trial was scheduled for March
Speaker 1: twenty two, nineteen sixty, which is like so quick, like
Speaker 1: you think of out the courts ago years, you know, it.
Speaker 2: Was drags and drags and drags.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is March from like that. It was December
Speaker 1: thirty that they were arrested. Their trial was scheduled for March.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 1: They were placed in different cells while they awaited their
Speaker 1: trial so that they couldn't, you know, collude.
Speaker 4: And the.
Speaker 1: Unit that Perry was housed in was called the ladies unit. Oh,
Speaker 1: I don't think. I think there weren't women in the prison,
Speaker 1: but like it was a part of the prison that
Speaker 1: was four women.
Speaker 2: Maybe one bit was overcrowded or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And this unit was directly next door, like sharing
Speaker 1: internal walls with the county courthouse, and the sheriff at
Speaker 1: the time had residents at the courthouse, right. It was
Speaker 1: actually the sheriff, L Robinson, who he met earlier, had
Speaker 1: his own house in Holcombe. So he's like, I don't
Speaker 1: need that place. So my second in charge, like the
Speaker 1: under sheriff, the deputy sheriff, and his wife lived them.
Speaker 1: His name was Wendell, his wife's name was Josephine, and
Speaker 1: they lived there, and so they were literally sharing a
Speaker 1: wall with this unit that Perry Smith was in. She
Speaker 1: would go and kind of visit the prisoners often, Josephine would,
Speaker 1: and she took a real liking to Perry Smith. She
Speaker 1: felt sorry for him and thought that he was a
Speaker 1: really kind man at heart who'd been caught up in
Speaker 1: a mess and a life of crime.
Speaker 2: Behavior, you know, in the on the night was very strange,
Speaker 2: isn't it. Very caring and compassionate. Weirdly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: She would regularly make him lunch and take it and
Speaker 1: eat turkey sandwiches with the crusts cut off with him
Speaker 1: in his cell. He wrote about this a lot in
Speaker 1: his diaries and about his the kindness she showed, and
Speaker 1: it was kind of almost has been speculated a bit
Speaker 1: whether there was a bit of a relationship or something
Speaker 1: going on, or maybe kind of Perry felt love for her. Now.
Speaker 1: Someone else who came and visited him in prison was
Speaker 1: Truman Copodies. We're going to talk about that a bit
Speaker 1: after we've gone through the shoecase. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: an old army friend of Perry's also visited him, and
Speaker 1: he said that Perry spoke about the entire crime and
Speaker 1: the murders in gruesome detail.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 1: He said things like, quote, I saw the man's head
Speaker 1: split apart when I pulled the trigger. So this old
Speaker 1: army friend said Perry did not seem like he had
Speaker 1: any remorse it didn't seem like he'd been caught up
Speaker 1: in this and taken for granted as I taken advantage
Speaker 1: of it, was like this army friend was like, no,
Speaker 1: he's a cold.
Speaker 2: Blood selling accounts of Harry.
Speaker 1: Yes, his sister also wrote him a scathing letter which
Speaker 1: features in cold blood, saying that she hated him and
Speaker 1: wouldn't forgive him. So they were kind of very mixed
Speaker 1: reviews about this guy. And the reason I brought up
Speaker 1: fro him and compoti there is he is very sympathetic
Speaker 1: to us, Harry, and we'll talk about that more later.
Speaker 1: So real conflicting reviews. Dick, on the other hand, his
Speaker 1: family were the only ones that on his side. Everyone
Speaker 1: spoke about him as a callous, cold blooded, horrible guy.
Speaker 1: His family stood by him through everything. They said. They
Speaker 1: were at court every single day for the trial. His
Speaker 1: parents really elderly at that time and really unwell, but
Speaker 1: they went to court every day. They spoke to the
Speaker 1: media they said, our son has told us that he
Speaker 1: didn't do this. We believe him.
Speaker 2: You hear that a lot like There's been some cases
Speaker 2: in Australia recently as well where terrible, terrible things have
Speaker 2: happened and the parents have stuck by them.
Speaker 1: And spoken to the media outside. He's told us his innocence.
Speaker 1: I believe him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you go, oh want parents to do course
Speaker 2: of course, And your parents aren't going to believe what
Speaker 2: sort of person you are a lot of the time,
Speaker 2: like you know, they want to believe the best in you,
Speaker 2: so a lot of the time they'll deny all of
Speaker 2: that sort of stuff until you done. Thank you for
Speaker 2: saying that, and also that yeah, this in this case,
Speaker 2: it's like, well, yeah, of course his parents are going
Speaker 2: to go with him and say if they want to know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's like what we're talking about, you know, the episode
Speaker 2: with Joe chinque as well, like ours a new singing
Speaker 2: the Killer. Her parents were there all the time, Yeah,
Speaker 2: supporting their kid because they had a reason to believe
Speaker 2: that she was mentally insane when this happened, Like you know, yeah, Now.
Speaker 1: When it came to the trial, both Perry and Dick
Speaker 1: tried to get an insanity defense, which is what it
Speaker 1: was called. Then that's not unity. They were both tested
Speaker 1: and it was found that they were both sane of mind.
Speaker 1: So the trial went ahead as normal, and it was
Speaker 1: fairly normal and fairly uneventful. There was a lot of evidence.
Speaker 1: They both admitted that they were there and that they
Speaker 1: had done it. Kind of they as a whole.
Speaker 2: Yes, not agreeing on who killed who, but exactly yes. Now.
Speaker 1: Dick in particular tried like every kind of hail Mary
Speaker 1: right up to the end. The death penalty was on
Speaker 1: the cards here, and he was really trying to do
Speaker 1: everything not to get that. Sure he was yet pitting
Speaker 1: at all on Perry. He also then tried to say
Speaker 1: that he so the confession that he'd made on his arrest,
Speaker 1: Like when he was saying, yes, I was there and
Speaker 1: we did it, he was saying that that was forceful,
Speaker 1: that that he'd been beaten by police officers. But in
Speaker 1: the days of interviews and everything afterwards, there was never
Speaker 1: any sign of like there was no bruising, there were
Speaker 1: no injuries or anything. So it kind of was seen
Speaker 1: as a bit of it, like he's just hoping for
Speaker 1: the best at the end.
Speaker 2: Sure, Sure, Floyd Wells.
Speaker 1: Gave evidence and ended up admitting to knowing a lot more.
Speaker 2: What was his evidence at the start that he he
Speaker 2: told them, Okay.
Speaker 1: A family I used to work for that lived at
Speaker 1: this farm with this name had a cash with ten
Speaker 1: thousand dollars, Yes, dollars cash. But when he gave trial
Speaker 1: evidence a trial, he admitted he had actually drawn a
Speaker 1: complete diagram of the class of farm for Dick right,
Speaker 1: and said he and Dick had actually spoken about the
Speaker 1: fact that Dick was going to go and steal the
Speaker 1: money and that he would take a cut of it
Speaker 1: when he got out. For giving him all this evidence. Now,
Speaker 1: Dick said that this was all lies. He said, no,
Speaker 1: that never happened. I never said this again. It seemed
Speaker 1: like a bit of a you know, clutching at straws
Speaker 1: at the end, I say, no, no, no, that's all
Speaker 1: a lie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it wasn't that.
Speaker 1: Dick continued to pay to say it was Perry who
Speaker 1: killed all four family members. Perry had initially said they
Speaker 1: did two they killed two people each, and during the
Speaker 1: trial actually tried to recant that. So Perry tried to
Speaker 1: recant that it was after Dick's parents spoke in the
Speaker 1: media about believing their son and saying that they were
Speaker 1: going to stand by him and believe him. That's when
Speaker 1: Perry then turned around and said, I want to change
Speaker 1: my original testimony that I killed to and Dick killed two.
Speaker 2: Yes, and he ended up.
Speaker 1: Saying I killed all four of them. Wow, here's another
Speaker 1: little insight into Perry's what I'm going to call compassion
Speaker 1: for want of a better term, This actually is one bit.
Speaker 1: I don't have any sympathy or compassion for Perry. I'm
Speaker 1: going to get that out there. This is the only
Speaker 1: bit that makes me feel a bit sad. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like he's gone. This man has a family who loves him. I'm,
Speaker 1: you know, feel so I don't have that. If he's
Speaker 1: got a family that loves him, I don't want his
Speaker 1: parents to think he's done this. I'll take the blame.
Speaker 1: That actually does make me feel a bit sad. He's
Speaker 1: had such a horrible upbringing and there's something in him
Speaker 1: that goes off. This man's got a family who believes
Speaker 1: in him. I want to give his.
Speaker 2: Family that that peace of mind. Yeah.
Speaker 1: However, the judge said, no, you can't recount that. You've
Speaker 1: given that evidence and you've given that testimony. So no,
Speaker 1: and it would have mattered in the end anyway. Both
Speaker 1: Perry Smith and Richard were found guilty and ordered to
Speaker 1: death by hanging on April fourteen, at nineteen sixty five
Speaker 1: so that's when the date of the hanging would be,
Speaker 1: so they would spend five years on death.
Speaker 2: I don't know why they do that. I don't know
Speaker 2: why they.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 1: I remember we had someone write in about it. They
Speaker 1: saying there's lots of for the avenues of appeal to
Speaker 1: take time, any other evidence comes up. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of places that fight against the death penalty. So yeah,
Speaker 1: there's lots of reasons that it.
Speaker 2: Yeh a long time.
Speaker 1: Apparently at their executions, Perry Smith used his final word
Speaker 1: to condemn capital punishment. His final words were, I think
Speaker 1: it is a hell of a thing that a life
Speaker 1: has to be taken in this manner. I say this
Speaker 1: especially because there's a great deal I could have offered society.
Speaker 1: I certainly think capital punishment is legally and morally wrong.
Speaker 2: That's a wild thing to say after you've murdered four people.
Speaker 1: Including two children. Yep, yeah, Richard Hickock said it's his
Speaker 1: final words. I don't have any hard feelings. You're sending
Speaker 1: me to a better place.
Speaker 2: Oh well, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: The last sentence of Truman Capote's in Cold Blood, I
Speaker 1: think puts the deaths of Perry and Dick by hanging
Speaker 1: really well. The final sentence of the book says, at
Speaker 1: the time, not a soul in sleeping Holcombe heard them
Speaker 1: four gunshot blasts that all told ended six human lives. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, beautifully worded for you know, just the most beautiful writer.
Speaker 1: So that's Helen. You just desperately hope Helen, Helen Ganna
Speaker 1: is going to listen to this one.
Speaker 2: I don't care.
Speaker 1: Realize you love her.
Speaker 2: I don't care if she does.
Speaker 1: You're looking right into the carry, you creep. You're going
Speaker 1: to hope she hears it, realize you love her and
Speaker 1: leaves her husband and her family. How do you know that?
Speaker 2: Because I looked at Helen Ganna stop.
Speaker 1: Dead panning the camera, marry Helen Ganner. I think she's
Speaker 1: above your age bracket.
Speaker 2: Sure, let's talk about age. Then I brought it up.
Speaker 2: I don't have anything more to say on the mat.
Speaker 2: I think I think that the the the way that
Speaker 2: Triman Capoti sums that up is it's such a beautifully
Speaker 2: put ending for the tragic loss of four lives. You
Speaker 2: could say the tragic loss of six, but the tragic
Speaker 2: loss of four lives. Yes, and he is beautifully beautifully
Speaker 2: worded in that way.
Speaker 1: This brings us into a bit of discussion around Truman
Speaker 1: Coppoti his involvement.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Story Again, we won't go into it too much because
Speaker 1: while we are up and coming.
Speaker 2: Book talk star, Yes, we are up and coming book talks.
Speaker 1: This is a true crime podcast, not a book talk podcast.
Speaker 1: That one's coming later.
Speaker 2: Yes, of course it is. And you better get a
Speaker 2: bucket and a mob.
Speaker 1: Saying that don't see that.
Speaker 2: It was good.
Speaker 1: So, as I said right back in the intro, Truman
Speaker 1: Compote decided he wanted to write a non fiction novel. Yes, yep,
Speaker 1: And he went to Kansas.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Four Perry and Dick wea court, so when it was
Speaker 1: still an active, you know, murder case.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was quite early, yes, and then he ended up.
Speaker 1: Staying there for it took him six years to write
Speaker 1: the book because there was the year leading up to it,
Speaker 1: the trial, everything, and then five years on death row.
Speaker 1: And he was adamant he wasn't going to finish the
Speaker 1: book until the story was finished, and that to him
Speaker 1: was the end of the lives of Dick and Perry. Now,
Speaker 1: he obviously spent a lot of time in the community.
Speaker 1: There is a lot in the book that speaks about
Speaker 1: the community. He interviews lots of different people who live there.
Speaker 1: And when I say he interviews, like, it doesn't read
Speaker 1: like an interview with He writes it, you know, beautiful,
Speaker 1: beautiful prose about you know, the conversations he had with people.
Speaker 1: But it's not like she said this and I said this.
Speaker 1: He says, like, the way it's written is you know,
Speaker 1: talking about that as Susan Well, I think his sur
Speaker 1: name was the friend. He'll tell her story, but we
Speaker 1: know it's through the words of him having interviewed her. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: the book is written in a way that it does
Speaker 1: just read like a novel. You're not. He never says like,
Speaker 1: I was there an idea. We know because Truman Copoti
Speaker 1: wrote it that it's from his interviews that everything's taken.
Speaker 1: But it's not. It's not in third person or anything.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 1: So he's gone through all of Perry his diaries, he's
Speaker 1: seen all the letters that they've each got in and
Speaker 1: out of prison. He himself became very close with Perry Smith.
Speaker 1: Now this is something that is more known from Truman
Speaker 1: Coupoti rather than is spoken about in the book.
Speaker 2: It was a bit of speculation, and I think you
Speaker 2: can suddenly.
Speaker 1: Read into yes, I believe, not subtly. Yeah, okay, I think.
Speaker 1: And it's even interesting in researching the story, like and
Speaker 1: you know, kind of reading different articles and listening to
Speaker 1: different podcasts and stuff about this. I've written my script
Speaker 1: today that in a way that I believe is more
Speaker 1: these are the facts of what it happened, absolutely, whereas
Speaker 1: a lot of the way that it's spoken about is
Speaker 1: you know, and Perry was really you know, pulled along
Speaker 1: by Dick, and he didn't want to be there, but
Speaker 1: he was impressionable and young. I believe personally that that
Speaker 1: comes from Truman Capote's writing of Perry. Yes, because Truman
Speaker 1: Hoti was sympathetic and empathetic towards Perry.
Speaker 2: Yes, I am not.
Speaker 1: He murdered for innocent people. Again, Truman Capodi doesn't write
Speaker 1: in the book that he is sympathetic and empathetic towards him.
Speaker 1: He doesn't, but the way he writes about Perry compared
Speaker 1: to how he writes about Dick is very obvious bias
Speaker 1: in my opinion. I yes, again for the kids, beautiful
Speaker 1: pronunciation of h By the way, I'm really proud of you.
Speaker 1: I'm really proud of you. There's quite a lot of
Speaker 1: speculation that Truman Compodi was actually in love with Perry.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, it's quite a lot spoken about in their
Speaker 2: film Capodi. There's quite a Yeah, that's quite a part
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think as a reader of just my
Speaker 1: opinion of that is that that comes through quite strongly.
Speaker 1: I think he's very sympathetic towards him and you know personally,
Speaker 1: but I mean we speak about this on the podcast
Speaker 1: a lot as well. I'm less I find less sympathy
Speaker 1: in talking about killers and stuff then often you do.
Speaker 1: And I think that's again interestingly, you're reading Helen Garner's
Speaker 1: books like you understood a little bit of the sympathy
Speaker 1: towards Robert Farquherson. Stop looking at the camera every time
Speaker 1: we talk about Helen Garner, you mean, really weird you
Speaker 1: reckon Helen Garner's No, I'm not going to finish that sentence. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you after reading Helen's book This House of Grief, You've
Speaker 1: found yourself kind of going, oh, I can understand someone
Speaker 1: having a little bit more empathy towards Robert Farkuerson. Yes
Speaker 1: than I understood before. Yes, However, me reading in Cold
Speaker 1: Blood has not made me feel more empathy towards Perry Smith,
Speaker 1: I think probably while reading, and I did. But then
Speaker 1: I've taken myself out and I've gone, no, this is
Speaker 1: a biased account of what happened.
Speaker 2: I'm going to bend it.
Speaker 1: Well, of course, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Treuman Compote ha spent a lot of time with Perry Smith,
Speaker 1: like literally in his prison cell for years, and not
Speaker 1: just up until the trial, but for the five years
Speaker 1: on death row afterwards. It became very close and he
Speaker 1: knew him very well, and I think he writes about
Speaker 1: him really quite biased.
Speaker 4: Yeap.
Speaker 1: Now, I said I was going to bring up the
Speaker 1: sisters as well. That and Beverly. They are not mentioned
Speaker 1: in the book. They're obviously trim Commodites, obviously not interviewed.
Speaker 2: That they did not want to be a part of it.
Speaker 1: They didn't want to be part of it. And there
Speaker 1: is really an ethical and kind of moral thing there
Speaker 1: about you know, this is their family story, and Triman
Speaker 1: Commodis very much made it his.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, However, you look at the other side of that
Speaker 1: and go, well, the reason we're still talking about it
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty six, which some people can say is
Speaker 1: a good thing and others not. But I think we're,
Speaker 1: you know, remembering the lives of these four innocent people.
Speaker 1: That's because Truman Commoditi wrote about it. I'm sure we
Speaker 1: probably wouldn't know about it otherwise, right, or just one
Speaker 1: of those small town murders. Maybe we would have done
Speaker 1: six years down the road in this podcast when we're
Speaker 1: looking for more stories. But yeah, I Evianna and Beverly
Speaker 1: didn't want to be part of Trim Coboddy's story, and
Speaker 1: I think that's quite unfair on them that their family's
Speaker 1: story has been told so widely. There was a lot
Speaker 1: of backlash against the book from the Garden City community
Speaker 1: because Truman Cobody had come in as like he stood
Speaker 1: out like a sour far. Of course, he is high
Speaker 1: society in New York. He's got that odd voice and
Speaker 1: openly gay man in the fifties and Kansas was not
Speaker 1: like that. No, holcome was not like that. He spoke
Speaker 1: to everyone in the community, people gave him time and everything,
Speaker 1: and he assured them that it was going to be
Speaker 1: a factual telling of what happened, and a lot of
Speaker 1: people said that it didn't really come across like that
Speaker 1: to them. So there was a lot of backlash that was.
Speaker 1: It's really a lot of people hate the book. A
Speaker 1: lot of like especially at the time, a lot of
Speaker 1: people loved it, certainly critically acclaimed. You know, to this day,
Speaker 1: I'm here saying it's one of my favorite books John
Speaker 1: Ronson's and it was one of his. Yeah, so that's
Speaker 1: my NonStop rant for you. Anything it is.
Speaker 2: I think it is an amazing book as it is.
Speaker 2: I mean, any book that you read, like whether it's
Speaker 2: a John Ronson, whether it's a John Saffrain or Helen Ghana,
Speaker 2: whatever it is, they're going to put themselves ye documentary, ementary.
Speaker 1: It's the same thing kind of like taking put himself
Speaker 1: in the story.
Speaker 2: And Louis through if you're going to go from like,
Speaker 2: you know, a documentary maker. But as writers of like
Speaker 2: true crime, they always put themselves in the story and
Speaker 2: it's their connection, it's their human story that they're telling.
Speaker 1: In cor Blood doesn't really not in the same way
Speaker 1: that John ron says and Helen Ghana's Yeah, yeah, they'll
Speaker 1: actually say like exactly, Truman Commodis doesn't do that. It
Speaker 1: is a telling of the story, yeah, from someone who
Speaker 1: was there, but we only know he's there because.
Speaker 2: We know this cood. Yeah, yeah, that he was. No,
Speaker 2: which is you know, I haven't seen the way that
Speaker 2: that book was done. Again, I can't think of it.
Speaker 1: No, we should look into that for our book talk
Speaker 1: that we start book talk.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I don't think I've read a book that's
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 1: Again, No, because it is first person without being first.
Speaker 2: Person, yes, which is really interesting because I don't know
Speaker 2: the first person that did it in first person if
Speaker 2: it makes sense, like, I don't know that. I don't
Speaker 2: know who would have.
Speaker 1: Captured that, and could be someone taking the idea from
Speaker 1: and going oh, but I'll use the word I.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, which is fascinating. But I think that there
Speaker 2: are opinions in there. Yeah, that's interesting for someone that's
Speaker 2: not written in first person, as I believe this. Yes,
Speaker 2: the way it is written sometimes you go, oh, it's
Speaker 2: written much more like a novel. Yes, yeah, which you
Speaker 2: know you could go, this is a piece of fiction.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, And I think there would be people have
Speaker 1: picked up and read the book thinking, like not knowing
Speaker 1: that just knowing Truman is in Cold Blood is a
Speaker 1: famous book that I've heard of it, you know, the
Speaker 1: Orange Penguin classic book. Yes, there would be people who
Speaker 1: don't know that's actually about a true crime. Truman Compoti
Speaker 1: himself went and like investigate.
Speaker 2: I think I'm going to do James Fray a Million
Speaker 2: Little Pieces soon because that is another book that you
Speaker 2: know was You can go is it a great piece
Speaker 2: of nonfiction or is a great piece of fiction? And
Speaker 2: I think when you look at two things, sometimes you
Speaker 2: get excited when it's when it's true true. Yeah, you
Speaker 2: get more excited.
Speaker 1: And you you're funny with movies and stuff like, you'll
Speaker 1: enjoy a movie more if you think if they say
Speaker 1: it's based on true not more than another movie, but
Speaker 1: more than you otherwise would have it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's like if you see like a drama film
Speaker 2: and it happens to be funny, you go, how amazing
Speaker 2: it was funny? As well? Do you see a comedy
Speaker 2: film genres it didn't really it wasn't really that funny.
Speaker 2: I think it's the expectation of what it is. And
Speaker 2: when you when you look at something like this Truman Compodi,
Speaker 2: you go, oh my god, what an amazing writer. I
Speaker 2: think I would have enjoyed it as a book just
Speaker 2: as much if I didn't know that it was a
Speaker 2: true Yeah.
Speaker 1: Whereas I don't know. I can't answer that because I
Speaker 1: know that I read it knowing.
Speaker 2: I even knew.
Speaker 1: I knew about the fact that people thought, well, not
Speaker 1: the fact of the speculation he was in love with
Speaker 1: Perry Smith. I knew all of that going into That's
Speaker 1: why I read it. I knew about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I don't know.
Speaker 1: How I would have found it otherwise, But I just
Speaker 1: I love his writing so beautiful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, it is. It's fascinating just to think
Speaker 2: of would it be as well known if it wasn't
Speaker 2: for no, I don't think no. But then also the
Speaker 2: horror of you know, the surviving members of that family
Speaker 2: that had to live through that and be like, oh
Speaker 2: my god, in cold blood, like they would bring that
Speaker 2: up as a point of reference for the murder that
Speaker 2: took place of their families.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what is it eighty years ago?
Speaker 2: Yeah, maths, maths, and it's still like a really well
Speaker 2: known story today.
Speaker 1: Well there you go, now you know it even better
Speaker 1: than you may have.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I didn't know several facts from that after reading,
Speaker 2: So it's like it's interesting, I think for me hearing
Speaker 2: the story as a standalone interesting because it's a lot
Speaker 2: harder think yeah.
Speaker 1: I think all the facts that I've said in.
Speaker 2: This are in the book, but the yeah, they're spread out, yes, yeah.
Speaker 1: They're mixed up and diluted with so many other stories
Speaker 1: and things as well. Yeah, just hearing it is like,
Speaker 1: this is the true crime story, and.
Speaker 2: Of course you know, you also have hearsay, and you
Speaker 2: have people commenting on it, and you have you know,
Speaker 2: three different means. So that's a really interesting part of
Speaker 2: it as well, where I think when you just look
Speaker 2: at a murder as it is a callous, awful, inhuman thing,
Speaker 2: you go, oh, no, this is a this was a
Speaker 2: murder of a family. Yep.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's not spend five years in a cell with
Speaker 1: turkey sandwiches with the crust cut off. Yes, one of
Speaker 1: the murderers and starts to feel sorry for him, Let's
Speaker 1: talk about the murder.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, which is absolutely fascinating. So do you love?
Speaker 2: Thank you for telling me that the.
Speaker 1: Air condition has been on this whole time, and I
Speaker 1: feel like my blood is a bit cold.
Speaker 2: What in cold blood?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: I thought you said your bladder is a bit cold. Yeah,
Speaker 2: bucket the mop for your bladder. You're leaking bladder. That's
Speaker 2: a funny thing. To say we're back in a moment.
Speaker 5: With the.
Speaker 2: Thank you gee for doing the story this week. Are
Speaker 2: you ready for some letters you don't know?
Speaker 1: I just jumped to when you were a little bit scared.
Speaker 2: This comes from Susie, Hi, Sammy, and Georgia. I am
Speaker 2: a road nurse and listen to your episodes driving between clients.
Speaker 2: My favorite episode was with Elizabeth from Beths Dead. It's
Speaker 2: not a crime, but I had a Thursday Treat suggestion.
Speaker 2: It's in Georgia's fave placed Tasmania and is the disappearance
Speaker 2: of Selene Kremer.
Speaker 1: Oh hang on, I know the name, but I can't
Speaker 1: think of the case.
Speaker 2: The community rallied to find answers for a family when
Speaker 2: the officials didn't. This case is as neat as a resolution.
Speaker 2: This case is at near resolution.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that nearly at its resolution nearly.
Speaker 2: At a resolution. Rob Parsons YouTube is a great place
Speaker 2: to start. Keep up the good work, Susie.
Speaker 1: Oh thanks Susan.
Speaker 2: You have to look into that love that was cool.
Speaker 2: Made it up that was really cool. This is a voicemail,
Speaker 2: as we call them, a speak pipe from.
Speaker 1: Ali, Hi, Sammy and Georgia. My name's Emma.
Speaker 3: No, just kidding as Allie long timelesseners, second time Cooler,
Speaker 3: calling to say how much I've been loving the pod
Speaker 3: and loving the longer episodes.
Speaker 5: They are really enjoyable and they're perfect for me for
Speaker 5: my drive to work. I managed to finish one on
Speaker 5: the way to and from each day. That's fantastic, Definitely.
Speaker 5: I think the girls are loving when I come in
Speaker 5: in the morning and say, oh my god, guys, guess
Speaker 5: what's just happened on my podcast that I listened to?
Speaker 2: And I tell them all.
Speaker 5: About it, and the first thing they say is, who's died?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 5: What's happened now? What terrible things are you about to
Speaker 5: tell us? So that's really fun but loving it. And
Speaker 5: next thing is, I have a case for you. I
Speaker 5: would really love to hear your take on the Rochelle
Speaker 5: Child's case. What's the one that I heard of and
Speaker 5: stumbled across, I guess and have become really invested in
Speaker 5: and it's just one that really sits close to home
Speaker 5: and would love to hear your take on it. Say
Speaker 5: hi to Paud's and Digs and I can't wait to
Speaker 5: hear more from you both soon.
Speaker 2: Oh thank you, Ali Emma, Emma and Jemma seemed to
Speaker 2: be the big one, so Jemma both g E M
Speaker 2: m A and j E M m A. It mixes
Speaker 2: it up every time. And I love that.
Speaker 1: One. I just I love that as well. I love
Speaker 1: hear you say that when you go into work and say,
Speaker 1: guess what happened on my podcast? I love that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that. This one comes from Emily.
Speaker 1: You're going to say, Emma, Hi, Sammy and Georgia.
Speaker 4: Big fan of the podcast here, and I'm a fellow
Speaker 4: Sea Change Tragic as well. In the day, coming to
Speaker 4: you this morning from the Inn the West, from glorious Williamstown,
Speaker 4: where it's a beautiful world for an absolute scorch yesterday.
Speaker 4: And I'm sending you this message because I listened to
Speaker 4: your podcast last week and I thought you might be
Speaker 4: interested to know that the Pearl Bay Courthouse in the
Speaker 4: TV series Sea Change is actually the Surf Life Saving
Speaker 4: Clubhouse here at Williamstown, and there's a little Clark memorializing
Speaker 4: it with a little bit of information, so I'll send
Speaker 4: you some pics. Who would have thought that the glorious
Speaker 4: Albay Courthouse.
Speaker 2: It's right here in city of oh my god.
Speaker 4: In Williamstown. I walk past it every day with my
Speaker 4: dog and we have very fond memories of sea change.
Speaker 4: Will I do, my dog doesn't. So keep up the
Speaker 4: great work on the podcast. It gives me a good
Speaker 4: laugh every twice a week. I don't know how you
Speaker 4: do it.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Oh my god, Emily, that's amazing. Okay, that
Speaker 1: is blowing our minds. Williams add is like, like, twenty
Speaker 1: minute drive from here is Emmy, we could go there
Speaker 1: right now if we want to do.
Speaker 2: There's votes atach photos. So as promised, here are some
Speaker 2: pics of Earl Bay Courthouse from my walk to Willie
Speaker 2: Beach this morning to accompany my voice message. And yeah,
Speaker 2: there's a plaque that says the sea change.
Speaker 1: I can't I believe the locations were like out in
Speaker 1: regional Victoria.
Speaker 2: Yeah, isn't that why there Williamstown and right there? Because
Speaker 2: I was wondering how a court has.
Speaker 1: On the beach but you're actually caught out No I know,
Speaker 1: but in the Sholds Court what is this?
Speaker 2: Do they film it separately? Like what is going on?
Speaker 2: That's so cool?
Speaker 1: We should do a little expedition. Yeah, absolutely, I was
Speaker 1: thinking excursion expedition, but then I remembered I'm an excursion.
Speaker 2: Well, Emily can show us around for the next one.
Speaker 2: This is another speak pipe that comes from Hannah, Hi.
Speaker 6: Georgia Love, and Sammy P.
Speaker 2: This is Hannah.
Speaker 6: I love listening to your podcast every week till multiple
Speaker 6: times a week. It feels like I'm just listening to
Speaker 6: all the latest cross with Friends throwing a good dose
Speaker 6: of crime. It's just really makes my week so funny.
Speaker 6: Story back in twenty thirteen, I went to LA and
Speaker 6: I was meeting one of my friends there. She got
Speaker 6: me to book the accommodation brokeun new student wanted something
Speaker 6: budget friendly and near to where my Kiki too was
Speaker 6: leading from books stay on me. I arrived to date
Speaker 6: Billy than she did, and I barely slept the first
Speaker 6: night because I was so creeped out. I couldn't understand why.
Speaker 6: I just got the egg feeling right from the God.
Speaker 6: My friend felt the same thing when she remarked, anyway,
Speaker 6: many manuyears later, I just happened to be flipping through
Speaker 6: the Prime documentaries on Netflix and actually found the Cecil
Speaker 6: Hotel documentary and dispatch myself lasting that I'd actually stayed there.
Speaker 1: For a few days. Anyway, keep up the good work. Hi.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, Yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 2: It's incredible.
Speaker 1: We're talking about the ellixa laand episode you speaking about
Speaker 1: the Cesel hotel. Also, I did a continue to out
Speaker 1: starting in La in twenty twelve, did you. Yeah, so Hannah,
Speaker 1: we nearly could have met Hannah.
Speaker 2: What the hell?
Speaker 3: What the.
Speaker 1: Day at the Staleman?
Speaker 2: Oh well, that's incredible, isn't it?
Speaker 1: Oh my god? That doesn't that amazing?
Speaker 2: I stayed there.
Speaker 1: I love that she said that she got the creeps
Speaker 1: from it and didn't know why because of the portal.
Speaker 2: The portal, which we all believe in. Definitely the portal.
Speaker 2: Let's leave on a beautiful letter, okay from Leah, Hey,
Speaker 2: Sammy and Georgia love the pod. I have to say
Speaker 2: I'm a little obsessed.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: I only discovered you guys this year SOW twenty six,
Speaker 2: and I've already listened to every single episode. I just
Speaker 2: wanted to send it in a case suggestion you might
Speaker 2: be interested in. I'd love to hear some Australians cover
Speaker 2: this one because I'm only ever found American podcast talking
Speaker 2: about it, which feels pretty strange given it happened here.
Speaker 2: It was around two thousand and six. I was living
Speaker 2: in nar A Hill at the time and one day
Speaker 2: there were helicopters everywhere over our street. Later that day
Speaker 2: we found out via the news that murders had taken
Speaker 2: place in our street. The case is more commonly known
Speaker 2: as the Bodies in the Barrel's murders in now.
Speaker 1: Ah because the bodies in the barrels snow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think it would be really compelling,
Speaker 2: a really compelling case for you guys to cover, especially
Speaker 2: since there wasn't a lot of coverage out there. And
Speaker 2: it's always stuck with me because I was actually there
Speaker 2: at the time. Anyway, love your work, Keep doing what
Speaker 2: you do, by Leah, And she's a little yellow.
Speaker 1: Love hump Oh Leah, that's great.
Speaker 5: I know.
Speaker 1: That is like I know the story but not well so.
Speaker 1: And yeah, let's be the first Australiums to do that.
Speaker 1: That also reminds me of story. I should have said
Speaker 1: this at the start. A friend of mine did some
Speaker 1: work for someone who hosts another crime podcast. Yes this
Speaker 1: is not another crime podcast, they are an actual one.
Speaker 1: At anyway, she said. My friend said to me, I
Speaker 1: don't know if this person was having a direct dig
Speaker 1: at you, or if I just thought they were because
Speaker 1: I'm your friend. But this person said, I hate when
Speaker 1: crime podcasts try to be funny. Green is not your color.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, We're not trying.
Speaker 1: To be funny about the crimes. Yeah, and actually we
Speaker 1: don't try to be funny at all. Right, we're just.
Speaker 2: Actually, I'm going to get end. Actually on two quick
Speaker 2: out Spotify comments because I absolutely love reading Spotify comments.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because they're about a specific episode.
Speaker 2: They are. It's so good. We love that, so please
Speaker 2: keep doing that. This is from Emma, Hey, Sammy and
Speaker 2: love Emma here once again, which one. Thank you so
Speaker 2: much for reading my email on the podcast. I just
Speaker 2: wanted to say. I put the time stamps in my
Speaker 2: email so the audio clips could be played on the episode.
Speaker 2: Lave face. Look, you just read out the time. I
Speaker 2: just read a time Look, Emma, I'll be honest. We
Speaker 2: sometimes record on a Sunday, which means that the amount
Speaker 2: of editing I had to do for the episodes is
Speaker 2: quite big. So I'm sorry I didn't actually go back
Speaker 2: and put the actual clips in there as well.
Speaker 1: But they'll do it now.
Speaker 2: Non late again.
Speaker 1: You look so upset.
Speaker 2: We always say we're going to get ahead on this podcast,
Speaker 2: we never really have. And this one, which is one
Speaker 2: of my absolute favorites so far, it comes from and
Speaker 2: I think your name is Clara Lanise. I think it
Speaker 2: might be two words, or if your whole, if your
Speaker 2: first name is Clara Clarinese, Clarini. Maybe congrats making it
Speaker 2: to a year, such a great podcast. Bring on the
Speaker 2: Feathers McGraw episode. And then Penguin emoji, penguin emoj penguin emoji,
Speaker 2: which is actually correct because it's not a chook, it's
Speaker 2: not a Now we have amazing, amazing voicemails, and we've
Speaker 2: got so many internet letters as well that keep coming through.
Speaker 2: We will read them all and we will get to
Speaker 2: them all. We absolutely love it. Gee, how can people
Speaker 2: leave these?
Speaker 1: If they want to leave us, they can email us
Speaker 1: Sammy at just another company dot com dot au. They
Speaker 1: can leave us a voice note. Yeah, via website called
Speaker 1: speak Pipe, and the link to that is in the
Speaker 1: show notes of the episode and in the link tree
Speaker 1: on our Instagram, which I'm so glad you asked. The
Speaker 1: handle is not another crime podcast. Guess what. It's the
Speaker 1: same on TikTok and guess what, it's the same. On
Speaker 1: YouTube full episode, you can see my life of a show,
Speaker 1: got Miss Piggy t shirt and you can at the
Speaker 1: moment I did spit take out and I hadn't had
Speaker 1: any thing to drink, so it was just.
Speaker 2: You could see my address. I think at the start
Speaker 2: you can.
Speaker 1: See said it's your address.
Speaker 2: We should you can see the office address.
Speaker 1: It's definitely see Sammy staring down the barrel while trying
Speaker 1: to flirt with Helen Ghana.
Speaker 2: Yes, through the lens.
Speaker 1: You can also leave us a poetry peep. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I gotta look up. I keep it listed. If they
Speaker 1: don't just like come to mind.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I'm going to talk about my special little
Speaker 2: bit more before you actually because I want to tell
Speaker 2: you to go and check it out. I actually it
Speaker 2: has started to write down poor dry peas.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, okay, I've got mine. Are you ready for mine?
Speaker 2: Yep?
Speaker 1: That you have to fill out. Oh I feel good
Speaker 1: saying this makes me so angry. When you arrive, if
Speaker 1: you've been lunky enough to travel overseas then your eyes
Speaker 1: back into Australia, you still have to fill out a
Speaker 1: physical arrivals.
Speaker 2: Card with a pen and paper, Oh yes.
Speaker 1: To go through customs. It is the only country that
Speaker 1: I've been to that you still need to physically handwrite
Speaker 1: these things. And it's so annoying. And it makes it
Speaker 1: even more annoying that the paper is on it's like
Speaker 1: a really light orange color, so you can't really see
Speaker 1: the white boxes that you meant to put the letters
Speaker 1: in it. And I just it's just become like a
Speaker 1: proper pet Peeve to me that like there's nothing. It's fine,
Speaker 1: I can write the things, but I just when I
Speaker 1: see them handing them around, I'm like, God, damn, I
Speaker 1: update your freaking system.
Speaker 2: It should be a QR code by now, for God's sake.
Speaker 2: Mine is when you heat food on a plate and
Speaker 2: the plate is absolute lava, G love, the food is
Speaker 2: emotionally very cold, emotionally emotionally very cold. So that's mine
Speaker 2: for this week. That is my god, damn, poor Drey Peeve.
Speaker 2: And can I say, G love. What I'm gonna do
Speaker 2: now is I'm going to do a live look at
Speaker 2: how many people have watched my specials. Oh my god,
Speaker 2: my god, because this is at the moment it came
Speaker 2: out on four hours ago. Now, twenty four hours ago.
Speaker 2: I'm going to do a live look see ifeople are
Speaker 2: watching it. It's gonna it's gonna play, It's gonna play it.
Speaker 2: I'm on sixteen thousand views. Fuck off, i am on
Speaker 2: sixteen thousand views, so you can check.
Speaker 1: That out, one long face, sixteen thousand.
Speaker 2: I'm on sixteen thousand views, sixteen thousand views. Oh my goodenough, Like,
Speaker 2: oh my goodness.
Speaker 1: The proudest friend in the who damn world? Oh you
Speaker 1: said I can sing a Timmy Jit song?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, course, but yeah, I would love it. Like honestly,
Speaker 2: what happens is, I've done this show for a very
Speaker 2: very long time. This is the last time that I
Speaker 2: did it. And it costs a lot to film a special,
Speaker 2: it costs a lot to do all of that. That's
Speaker 2: just me out of pocket. I'm not going to make
Speaker 2: any money out of this. This is just on YouTube
Speaker 2: dot com free, famously free, and the Comedy Club Comedy
Speaker 2: Republic put this up. So I would bloody love it.
Speaker 2: If you would just would just watch it, share it
Speaker 2: with a friend, put it on social media and tag
Speaker 2: me and all reshare it because I absolutely love that.
Speaker 2: If got it out there to me.
Speaker 1: More importantly, you guys will love it like it's therefore
Speaker 1: you're entertainment. Yeah, make anything from watching it, but you
Speaker 1: will make your night by watching it. It's so beautiful.
Speaker 1: My friend messaged me she watched it last night afterwards
Speaker 1: and said Sam's comedy special words dot dot dot beautiful.
Speaker 1: I was not expecting that it was really beautiful.
Speaker 2: Who's your friend, Taylor? I thank you, Taylor, Love you Taylor. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I have also been sweet several podcasts. I've been on
Speaker 2: the Moment with myth Warhurst. I have been on Plumbing
Speaker 2: the Death Star, So if you want to listen to those,
Speaker 2: I'm on all those and Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Zepps
Speaker 2: to promote my special. So yeah, I'd love it if
Speaker 2: you actually and we talk about this podcast a lot
Speaker 2: on myth Warhurst podcast right about true crime quite a
Speaker 2: lot as well.
Speaker 1: The only thing I have to promote this week is
Speaker 1: my voice in the start of Tim.
Speaker 2: Mintionin Fantastic No Shoes Girly do it?
Speaker 1: Do you want me to sing a Tim mintionon song
Speaker 1: or do you want me to do a Jeez Christ
Speaker 1: Superstar song that Tim mentioned?
Speaker 2: I would like you to do a Tim mention song
Speaker 2: you go, girlfriend, wanted to start?
Speaker 7: Okay, come home, Cardinal pell I know you're not feeling well.
Speaker 7: I don't remembered the odd words.
Speaker 2: Do you have a song that you know of his
Speaker 2: that you maybe you could see. I just want to
Speaker 2: sing a song.
Speaker 1: Just on this podcasts Grist Superstars. Well, give me another one.
Speaker 2: Okay, Ducks go, Okay, canvas bags Okay, it's as good
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 1: Now we're blanking because all.
Speaker 2: We are going to end today on a song by
Speaker 2: Richard Richard Cheese Cheese. He's a Vegas performer. In the house.
Speaker 2: There's some wores in the house. STI fried free, make
Speaker 2: that week wet ass pussy, make that pull out game.
Speaker 2: We beat it up, baby nice, extra large, extra hard.
Speaker 5: Ride in your face, swife your nose.
Speaker 2: Like a credit card. I want enough, I want to go.
Speaker 2: I do a kigg Whoa, it's inside Okay, okay, anyway, everybody,
Speaker 2: Thank you was always for listening. We'll see you on Thursday.
Speaker 2: Leave the five star rating leg of five star review.
Speaker 2: You simply must do that.
Speaker 5: You.
Speaker 2: Thank you to Tams and Hayes is always doing the artwork.
Speaker 2: Thank you to Oliver Clark for doing the music and
Speaker 2: the theme.
Speaker 1: Song Sammy Special. Go onto his instagram Sammy Peterson Unofficial
Speaker 1: and find it her pig Power.
Speaker 2: How watch us on YouTube, Support us as much as
Speaker 2: you can, Share this podcast with a friend and tag
Speaker 2: us on social media.
Speaker 1: And I love you, I.
Speaker 2: Love you, Bye everybody. TikTok Book Talk Star