CLASSIC: Serial Killers on the Loose

TV, film and fiction have given the public a set of stereotypes about serial killers -- one of the biggest being that they always get caught. Join Ben, Matt, Noel and special guest Christian Sager as they explore the disturbing stories of uncaught serial killers in the second episode of their series on true crime.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So we have another guest classic episode today. Guys, this
is this is something that really stuck with me, and
I think it sticks with all of us. You know,
you share so much about serial killers that are often
romanticized here in the US in fiction and in documentaries. Uh,
but how many serial killers are there? How many have

(00:22):
yet to be apprehended? That's the question we asked today,
and it goes to some disturbing places. You know. Yeah,
the first thing you have to do to be able
to catch a serial killer is to identify the work
of a serial killer, which is sometimes uh not as
easy as television and film may make you think it is.
That's right. I mean, we are really lucky to live

(00:43):
in an era where a lot of film and television
producers do kind of understand that's a little more than
they may have in the past. And we have series
like mind Hunter that does do a pretty damn good
job of getting inside this whole Processy. So, in this episode,
we're joined by a Christian Sager Um, excellent comic book
writer and former host of Stuff to Blow Your Mind

(01:03):
in general all around good dude, to talk about some
cold cases, um and some of the inherent challenges in
tracking serial killers and figuring out if in fact they've
been caught at all. And the spooky thing is, Folks,
we don't know who is listening to this episode right
now you'll see what we mean. And quick note here

(01:25):
you may hear a few names or individual killers in
this episode that have been apprehended since we created this
episode in October of from UFOs two Ghosts and Government
cover Ups. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can
turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want

(01:46):
you to now. Hello, ladies and gentlemen. If you've heard
the intro music, hopefully that means you're in the right place.
I'm Ben and a null and most importantly, your you
and you're here, which makes this stuff they don't want
you to know. Now. This episode has a lot of

(02:06):
stuff going on and hopefully you'll find it as interesting
as we do. But before we get to the dark
heart of today's topic, we have some very big news. Uh,
ladies and gentlemen, Matt Frederick has returned. That is right,

(02:26):
I have returned, Ladies and gentlemen. Welcome, Welcome, that's Frederick.
Thank you know sip, I'm it is you though, right,
You're not a vampire dressed up as our friend Matt.
I cannot confirm nor deny that. Are you a replicant?
That is? Perhaps I am so sleep deprived at this moment. Seriously,

(02:48):
two and a half hours last night, and I tried
very hard to get some sleep last night and it
did not happen. So perhaps this is an inkling of
Matt Frederick. Now, Matt, is that because vampires don't actually
sleep at night? Yeah, I don't know. I'm share biologists,
or is it because of something else. It's the little
thing we talked about before. You know, babies, babies, babies

(03:09):
everywhere they do you tend to make sounds at odd hours, Yes,
they do. And I have found out that my wife
sleeps right through those sounds, and I do not. Yeah,
I do not. But I also am terrified to where
earplugs or something just in case something does go wrong
or I need to hear that sound. So at this
point I'm just kind of living with it, you know,

(03:32):
It's it's all good. Though. Do you have one of
those new fangled video baby monitors or you get that
stage yet not? We I have one. It's not a
new fangled one. It's literally a security camera that I
can broadcast essentially over bluetooth a couple of other things.
So I'm gonna use that with the frequencies I can
watch your baby. You know what, Christians Saker guest on

(03:52):
our show today. I'm gonna get through that later. I'm
not even gonna address that comment right now. Christie raises
like a good point because when you say see purity camera,
does sound like you think your baby's gonna steal or something?
Oh yeah, well, I mean, you know, look, I'm not
gonna say anything against Mr. I'm just gonna say his name.
I don't know have I said his name before I'm here.
I don't know that you've spoken his name. I don't

(04:13):
think I'm going to I have a son, Mr. M
which is a mosquito service in Atlanta. I don't know
if anybody knows that. Oh I get a like a
like a miss to PESTI said, miss. There we go.
We have also, as you could tell, buried the lead
a little bit, because we do have a fourth person

(04:35):
on the show today who just got introduced to you,
but we're going to We're going to do it again
because we love introducing this guy. You'll remember him from
some earlier episodes that we have done. Our our friend
and colleague, co host of Stuff deploy your mind, writer
of numerous things. Here at how Stuff works. One more
time for Christian Seger. Thank you. I'm so happy to

(04:58):
be here on this momentous occasion. Jan and I didn't
realize that in the Stuff they don't want you to
know that they were Nazi vampires sometimes Nazi replicant okay,
Nazi replicant vampires. Well, I'm glad to be here to
learn the deep dark secret. There's this there's another lead
you're bearing slightly? Is that with you know, no explanation.

(05:19):
Last week's episode was Matt was back. That's a very
came back. It was a John Tyder moment and discuss
it um and just you know, just to shed a
little light on that. That was an episode we had
recorded right before Matt took his leave, and um, it's
the first in this this series that we're working on,
so it's since that one. One of the last things

(05:40):
I want to say before we get into the meat
of this is a huge thank you to super producer
Noel brown Stiff for taking over and just being awesome
on the show. Thank you, Ben for basically helming everything
while I was gone from the videos to you know,
the podcast everything. Thank you Christian for making sure house
how stuff works, headquarters, you know, is in order. I

(06:03):
know every single thing. Yeah, everything, Everything's fine. Did you
you realize it sounds a little like an awards speech? Right? Okay,
So I also want to thank you. I'm no academy.
You also want to thank Mr Mr Mr Mr for
having those signs that I noticed and stayed in my
head until I came on this podcast. So also rock

(06:24):
Star Energy Drink for keeping me awake when I have
to be a little native advertising. Yeah, you like that.
Give me some free energy drinks please. That's where the
money comes from. People stuff they don't want you to know.
That's right. The vampire Nazis drink Monster Energy drinks. It's
the only thing. It's replaced blood. Uh, not just in

(06:45):
Matt's system, not just mets circulatory system, but in that
of Nazi vampire, Nazi replicant vampire around the world. So, guys,
were we're several minutes into the beginning show, and it's
good that we started out with some levity and some
friends are turning and well met because today we are

(07:05):
we are going into a dark subject. We're returning to one.
You will recall listeners that if you're listening to these
podcasts in order. Previously we started the can we get
like a previously who's got a good voice? Previously stuff
they don't want you to know? Boy, that was that
was great, you guys, so previous we did the we

(07:27):
did this topic earlier. The people that asked us about
you had asked us over Twitter, Facebook, YouTube comments to
cover the so called Highway of Tears. And while we
were looking into that in this series with with another
Friends show, Scott Benjamin Christian, we started talking off air
about other disturbing things related to serial killers and we

(07:54):
found and we found, um, what's I guess worse than
disturb and we found some horrifying things about serial killers
on the loose. Yeah, I'll put it this way. So
we've also done a video about this subject, which I'm
assuming is gonna be live by the time this podcast
is really will correspond. Yes, yes, perfect, So you can
go watch that video and here's a little behind the

(08:16):
scenes for you. We went were very jocular, as you've
just heard. We went in to go shoot that episode
and just could not muster the humor that we normally
have because it's a very dark topic and it really
kind of brought brought the tone down. Uh so that
the video the video is like the dark sister to
this podcast, probably, but I think too. I mean, we're

(08:38):
gonna talk about a lot of the same subject sure today. Uh.
I also think that it's kind of fascinating though in
its own way, in that true crime and serial killers
and especially uncaught serial killers, the stories behind them, I
think are they they encapsulate something about American culture. I don't,
I can't put my finger on it, but they encapsulate

(09:01):
something about it at these like moments in time that
are kind of perfect. Have you ever read um, Norman
Mailer's The Executioners Song before? Oh wow? Yeah, a long
time ago fantasic. It's just this great, uh true crime book.
It's it's nonfiction actually, I'm sure he you know, put
some hyperbole in their huge book, but about a guy

(09:22):
responsible for murder on death row and uh, just a
great way to capture kind of this particular moment in
American history. And I feel the same way about some
of these stories that we're about to tell today, although
they're not only American, are they right? Absolutely, we have.
Also we've also seen similar things such as the Devil
in the White City, right, Yeah, that's another one during

(09:44):
Welfare the way that John Wayne Gacy fundamentally altered the
Western perception of clowns and it's probably responsible for a
lot of uh, chorophobia. I think it is the word.
So I have an aside that will maybe help us
out here. I have a friend who is currently staying

(10:05):
in a clown motel in the desert. I believe it's
in Arizona for one month. What is a clown motel?
A clown themed motel in the middle of the desert.
He raised money on Kickstarter to do this, uh, and
he's staying there and writing about his experiences and uh.
Part of the Kickstarter the rewards was that he has

(10:26):
to dress up like a clown every once in a
while in his room just sit there. I mean we've
all done that, right guys. Yeah, sure, I've one last
aside on this. Um. My wife showed me a picture
two weeks ago of one of her best friends who
was hanging out a bar because she was moving away

(10:46):
from Atlanta, and it was like their goodbye party there
was a gentleman drinking alone at the bar, and all
that he wanted to talk about was this picture he
had on his cell phone, an old picture lead to
can a picture of of him as a kid and
John Wayne Gacy at his birthday party, making Blome him.

(11:07):
I remember you telling me about this, or maybe you
shared it. I don't. I think she may be shared.
I don't, I don't. That's what it was. It was Chandler,
our coworker. He was there. He was there, and he
told me about it. Yeah. Wow, very strange. And it's
it's also strange when you consider that what we're going
to examine now will be the likelihood of a serial

(11:28):
killer uncaught running free range somewhere in your town, somewhere
in your neck of the woods. And we'll take a
look at the statistics and the facts here. But you've
probably had this thought before, ladies and gentlemen, guys, know,
Matt Christian, have you ever been in a crowd and thought,
you know, I wonder what the worst thing someone has

(11:51):
done in this crowd is. Because it's true that it's
more difficult to get away with murder nowadays than it was,
you know, when our parents or grandparents were our age.
But it's a it's a paranoid thought. The good news
is that serial killers, as we're going to find, are
relatively rare birds in the great aviary of crime. Right,

(12:14):
But what so? First off, like Matt, what is a
serial killer? Serial killer as defined by the FBI's Crime
Classification Manual, It essentially says that they have to kill
in several places, so at least three places during different events,
and there has to be a cooling off period in
between these deaths these killings. Okay, and that's that's a

(12:36):
commonly accepted definition at least, yes, that is when the
FBI says, hey, we're going to define this crime as this,
then generally I go, okay, FBI. You know, what's something
that I hadn't thought about until now and I think
could bear some further research from maybe another episode. Is
that the FBI is defining that serial killer feels like
a very American phenomenon, right. I'm sure it's not. I'm

(12:59):
sure it happens in plenty of other countries, but I
wonder how it's defined and other cultures, and especially since
we're going by that classification, right, Yeah, and the FBI,
you'll often hear it called serial murdering or something. There
were there were some closely related types of homicide that

(13:21):
we looked at in the video, right, that you have
to distinguish between. Yeah, well, right, you've got mass murders
and those are basically they're there. The reason why they're
different from serial killers is because that's when you have
four or more victims, but it's in one specific time
and location. Right. So unfortunately, this is something we're familiar

(13:41):
with recently because we've had kind of a spat of them. Uh.
And then there's also spree killers, which are a little different. Uh.
And the FBI refers to these as killers that tend
to keep killing over a period of days or weeks,
but they're in different locations, right, and they don't have
the cooling off period. So unlike a serial killer, who

(14:02):
would maybe you know, uh, take like a month between
killing or or maybe longer. These there isn't that kind
of pattern, right. These people may continue killing until they
are stopped. Literally. Uh. There's another thing here that we
could add while we're defining what makes a serial killer,
and that is there's often some sort of psychological aspect

(14:26):
to the crime, some sort of exploration of an emotional trauma,
for instance, Uh, some sort of ritualized thing that is
based on as based on a pre existing mental condition. Right,
so people are reliving certain moments, or people are responding

(14:48):
to a pathological problem with a parent and childhood or
something like that. But that's this, This is what we
have when we're when we're loosely defining these things. And
the phrase serial killer comes was first from a book
called The Complete Detective published in nineteen fifty. But going
back to this conversation about serial killers and the the

(15:11):
very American nature of it, which I agree, many many
cultures across the world associate serial killers with the US
and the other the only other big one being Jack
the River, but the the the idea, the actual idea
of a serial murderer comes was coined in nineteen thirty

(15:32):
one in Germany to a in reference to a killer
named Peter Kirkten. You know, I think the media in
the US has certainly distorted maybe our view of what
what a serial killer looks like, what they sound like.
I agree, you know, how they function, what their problems
are psychologically. And one of the big things that I

(15:53):
noticed the FBI kept reiterating, is that serial killers don't
all look the same way. They do not all follow
up out and there are so many things that you
have to look at when you're trying to profile somebody
like that. Yeah, exactly. I think that that is the
thing that's actually scary about thinking about uncaught serial killers, right,
is the idea that in our entertainment that we almost

(16:15):
fetishize this serial killer entertainment culture. Right. Uh, think about
like shows like Hannibal. Right, so the whole show is
about one profiler who's profiling all these different serial killers
that just happened to all happen around Baltimore, Maryland. Right.
I love that show, but it does, you know, stuff
like that, and a lot of police procedurals do sort

(16:36):
of not glorified but um create a somewhat fantasy version
of what this is like and there and there's always
an assumption that there's like one specific incident like that
grandma wasn't nice to them when they were in ten
or uh, you know what, what's Hannibal Lecter's incident something
with his sister? Right, Well, this this okay spoiler alert. Officially,

(17:01):
I don't know if we want to do a sound
cue for that or something. But he was forced to
participate in acts accountabilism a child and that that'll do it, right.
I think that's an excellent point because it's one of
the myths, and there is this mythology about serial killers.
But we have to be clear. A serial murderer doesn't

(17:24):
necessarily have to have some physiological injury or a neurological
injury to their brain like oddust tool, right. Um. It
can instead be a lack of empathy, could be part
of the ingredients. There there have been, of course, you know,
there's that famous triumvirate that was proposed earlier that suggested

(17:49):
a relationship between were suggested. There were three red flags
to see someone come growing up to become I think
a pyromaniac, a sexual deviants impossible least serial killer, which
we're bedwdding to late age, torturing animals almost The third one,
torturing animals is the one I always remember. The Oh

(18:11):
fire was our striving a Honda Odyssey Christian that I'm
not allowed to comment on that actually, But but here's
our point. We have a hard time as a society,
at least in the States, profiling what a serial killer
is because they can be very different. We're not looking

(18:34):
at we're not looking at the route of a perpetrator
or criminal. We're looking at the work that they have done,
and we're looking at the crimes they have committed. And
that makes it very, very difficult to to find the
source of it, which is why one of the biggest
myths about serial killers that they get caught all the time, right, Yeah,

(18:58):
and I think that too, like that part of the
myth that entertainment spreads as well as and no offense
to any criminal profilers out there, but I don't think
that it works like it does on TV, right, Like, yeah,
they want to get caught kind of, so they play
a little game and they all have like like a
little theme about how they do it, you know, like

(19:19):
as we're about to find out, that's the the m
O isn't always the same first of all, right, um,
but but but also just that like it's not so
easy to nail down exactly what kind of person this
is so that you can narrow down the field of
potential suspects. Right, So, just just as a warning for

(19:39):
everyone who is listening to the podcast, we are entering
the part of the show where we're going to talk
about some grizzly details. And we were doing this. Um,
we're doing this because this is true crime, which is
something that interests all of us associated with this. Uh.
This is also an opportun tunity to shed some light

(20:02):
on some things that are misportrayed. And also, these are
real monsters. These are the closest thing two genuine monsters,
you know. And and they're even there's a great folkloric
supposition or theory that reports of werewolves and stuff were
really these older cultures. Right, trying to understand serial killers,

(20:26):
But why would someone do this? Right, So, we have
several examples of serial killers who are currently not apprehended.
So let's go ahead and get started with number one.
And I'm going to throw this to Christian because I
know you did a lot of research on this fellow. Yeah,
I am this person. Yeah. I mean that's another thing, right,

(20:47):
is that it's often assumed that serial killers are male.
Uh So this particular one is known as the New
Bedford Highway killer. And I chose to look deeper into
this one because I'm from the Boston area and New
Bedford's pretty close to Boston, Massachusetts. Uh. And one of
my good friends grew up there actually, and I've spent
some time there. So I had a bit of an

(21:09):
idea of the locale in my head when I was
reading this. It wasn't so it wasn't just like reading
text in research, you know what I mean. Like, I
had an idea of of what the culture was like there.
Um So in nine, uh, somewhere between nine and eleven women,
they don't know if all of them were victims of
this particular killer were murdered between April and September in

(21:30):
New Bedford. And if you're not familiar, New Bedford is
the town where Herman Melville set Moby Dick um. So
it's a seaside town in Massachusetts. Uh used to have
a strong uh fishing culture industry, and it fell on
hard times. Uh. So all of these bodies were dumped
by the side of various highways leading outside of New Bedford,

(21:54):
Root one forty and Roots six uh. And all of
these women were thought of as set workers. Uh, and
they all were thought of as having drug problems. Now,
I will say like in some of the research, there
were parents of these victims who disputed that uh. And
and I was telling you guys off air that my
my buddy who grew up in this town said, you know,

(22:15):
I'm not all that surprised. There's like a particular type
of person who like hangs out downtown and they're just
assumed to be involved in drugs or the sex trade
or something like that, and they're just largely ignored by
the rest of the community. So so he wasn't all
that surprised that they were sort of labeled that way.

(22:35):
And it's easy I think for uh that that idea
to sort of fall through the cracks to right and say,
like just slap that on and say, well, of course
that's why they got killed, right, and then they would
and then it's also from the killer's perspective, less likely
to draw attention. Yeah. Absolutely. Um So, the thing that
was really interesting about the actual finding of the bodies

(22:59):
is that, I mean, this New Bettor is a fairly
populated area. Most of these bodies were badly decayed and
already exposed to animals and the elements by the time
they were found. And we're talking about on the side
of the highway, not like in the forest, you know.
Um So, the problem here was that there was a
lack of physical evidence for the police to really work with. Uh,
they just had these bodies and they didn't really have

(23:21):
you know, I mean they've they've been exposed for for
quite some time, so there there wasn't a lot to
work with there. So what went on was in nineteen nine. Sorry,
like I said, New Bedford was on hard times. Uh.
In Massachusetts is generally acknowledged as kind of, you know,
being a little bit shady. It's a place where you
can get uh, coke and heroin. Uh and it was regarded,

(23:42):
you know as having a bit of a heroin problem.
There was a local clinic there at the time that
estimated that it was treating at least four hundred heroin
attics a day. So that's second to Boston in the state. Um.
Uh So you know, again, like that helps paint a picture,
but it also gives you an idea of sort of
like why the police I think gravitated to this idea
of just like okay, so their sex workers and their

(24:04):
drug addicts, so that's how they're getting napped, right. Um.
The other problem here is that many of the original
investigators that were involved either have retired or moved away,
or they've like moved up the ranks. In the Massachusetts
Police Force, and they're in command positions now that can't
be abandoned so that they can follow up on leads
on this case. So like they're chief now, and they

(24:27):
because of that, they can't go back to decades old cases. Yeah.
And and honestly, like when I was looking into sort
of the broader range of uncaught serial killers, I think
that that's a fairly common problem with finding these guys
decades later, you know, is that, uh, like the other
one I'll talk about in this episode had a sort

(24:47):
of similar thing where you know, people have retired, moved away,
or they just you know, had moved on to bigger positions.
And and unfortunately these cases they're not forgotten. They're still there,
but they're not being worked. I guess it's like, you know,
from from how entertainment is terming it, it would be
a cold case. Right. So this is just me thinking

(25:08):
inside the podcast room, and I know this might be horrible,
but that that fact also kind of makes me a
bit suspicious of the law enforcement. And I'm not saying
and you know, as a blanket way of law enforcement
in those areas, but I don't know if in the
wildest of theories if someone was involved in the law enforcement,

(25:30):
then you know, if they've moved up and they are
no longer involved in such things, or perhaps I don't,
we're able to cover up some actions, you know. Yeah,
it does make sense in these allegations of potential cover ups, right,
It's something. It's a trope we see often in different films. Yeah. Again,
is it just media muddying my perception? Not? Not necessarily,

(25:53):
because there are cases such as the Atlanta child murders
from Sight One, which is, as listeners know, the town
where we record this show. There was an Atlanta native
named Wayne Williams who was who was convicted for murders.
The child murders were grizzly and included almost thirty kids,

(26:17):
you know, And at this point, um, there are many
people who believe that Wayne Williams was set up or
as a murderer who had something attributed. And another way
this corruption could happen would be if you consider the
story of Henry Lee Lucas, who has suspected and I
hope you hear my air quotations here guys suspected of

(26:39):
hundreds of murders. But there's also a question whether law
enforcement was you know, goading him into confessing things or
incentivizing him to get that off the books. So this
is an aside. Uh, but let me let me formulate
something here on Stuff to Blow your mind. Did an

(27:00):
episode about the psychology of necrophilia, and uh, it was
an intense episode, but it was also really interesting to
dive into the research and surprisingly there's a ton of
research out there. Uh. And uh, you know, if you
want to learn more, we you know, go listen to
that episode of Robert and I talking about people having

(27:20):
sex with dead bodies. But uh, there is in necrophilia
under it's understood that as a mental disorder. It's something
that develops when people have the opportunity to take part
in it due to their career. So there's like a
good chunk of necrophilia acts that are associated with it
and only perform those acts because you know, they work

(27:42):
in a hospital or um or perhaps they work in
a morgue or something like that, they come into contact
with dead bodies and they have the opportunity. So alright,
establishing that, moving back to where we are on Uncaught
serial Killers, you know, the police are also in a
situation in which they are often working with dead bodies.

(28:03):
That's you know, that's that's interesting because I'm not saying
police all police are necrophilias the serial killers. I'm just
saying that if there was the potential for a mental disorder,
the career puts them in a situation where they have
the opportunity to indulge in such fantasies. But that's an opportunity,
you know. It reminds me of another statistic I read
where apparently, and this was only conducted with men, I

(28:27):
think apparently male uh shoe store employees have a higher
likelihood of a foot fetish, which maybe that also to opportunities.
And but but of course, you know, we have a
we have a lot of law enforcement that listens to
this show. It has written into us before about um

(28:48):
corruption in a police force or in in a military organization.
I think at a certain point, you know, there's a
calculation that comes with power and with opportunity, and and
people who haven't seen the wire. I know everyone gets
tired of people trying to proselytize for the wire, but
it does, it does provide a very good look at

(29:11):
the internal political machinations. It's not you know, it's not
necessarily when we say corruption or cover up, we're not
necessarily saying you know, um, we're not saying that Scott Benjamin,
Lieutenant Scott Benjamin is a police officer just so he
can continue poisoning the elderly and ambulances. Uh, but we're

(29:35):
saying that that's a plot of a bad like procedural
TV show. Right, But what is much more right, what's
much more possible, is that someone wants their record to
look good to affect their chances of promotion. Well yeah,
and so get to get back to this case. Actually,
there there's a really good example of of of that
very kind of common every day uh political slash law

(29:58):
enforcement corruption, and that happened in this case that led
to it being unsolved. So, um, this the victims again.
You know, let me just remind you there were nine
to eleven women. Uh, they were all strangled. That was
the only kind of common thing in the m O.
But none of the research that I could find listed
any methods of murder beyond that, like whether they were

(30:20):
strangled with a rope or with hands or there was
just not a lot listed, which made me think maybe
the police never released the details they're holding onto that information.
And again, remember this happened a pretty short span of time,
so they might not have wanted to release the information.
Well yeah, so anyone calling in wouldn't they would have
to have uh or if anyone had details beyond some

(30:44):
of the very very general perhaps that's someone you could
look at exactly. Yeah, and so so okay, so they're strangled.
They were always found nude, abandoned on the side of
the highway. Uh. And two of the victims bodies were
never found. So that's why there's that nine to eleven thing.
They don't know what happened to these two particular women,

(31:04):
but there's some really fascinating leads in this case. Um, again,
it's unsolved, but this is what we know. There's a
guy named Tony de Grazia in the area who had
a history of sexual assault with prostitutes, specifically that you know,
kind of area culture of prostitution and drug use that
was in in New Bedford at the time. However, there

(31:29):
was no evidence to link him to this case, and
in fact, he committed suicide in if I remember correctly
from the research. One of his relatives speculated that the
suicide was probably brought on by all the attention that
was focused on him from this case. So there, you know,
there's no evidence to link him to this other than
that he just happened to be a guy who you know,

(31:51):
hung around, I guess, with that crowd, but also was
a known sort of violent offender. Um. The other possible theory,
and this is something that I ran by my friend
who lived in New Bedford at the time, is that
the killer was also a killer that was known as
the Lisbon Ripper that was operating in Portugal in the
nineteen nineties. Uh. And the reason for this is that

(32:14):
New Bedford has a very large Portuguese community. So the
idea was that this guy could potentially have been flying
back and forth between the continents and performing various murders
and then you know, uh, I guess the cooling down
period would be him going to a you know, a
different location and that that that's one speculation as to

(32:35):
why they were never able to get him. This is
the deep one, and this is the one that has
a little bit of corruption connected to it. The other
guy was a lawyer in the area named Kenneth Ponte,
and he was actually indicted for the murder of one
of the women that was involved, you know, one of
one of the victims. Uh, but his case ended up
being dropped due to a lack of evidence again uh,

(32:58):
And both the investigator is in the case and the
surviving family members of the victims say that they don't
think it was him. However, here's how things played out
with this guy over the course of a couple of years,
um Ponte. The reason why he was a suspect was
that he also knew some of the victims and he
actually served as one of their attorneys. However, he had

(33:19):
uh personal feud going on with the local district attorney,
a guy named Ron Pena. Uh. The way that I
saw in in several reports that I read for this episode. Uh,
Apparently it stemmed from the fact that their mothers were
neighbors and they didn't like each other, and therefore there's
just this kind of family feud that had gone back

(33:41):
for a while. So Ron Peena is the district attorney.
He gets a special grand jury to indict Ponti. So
that's where the indictment came down from. When Pena loses
his election as a special prosecutor, they have to drop
the charges because there's no evidence. Wow. Again Pante. You know,
there's no evidence, there's nothing. They can't actually connect him

(34:03):
to the case. Um. And there were also like a
lot of reports about jurisdictional issues between the state police,
local police, and the FEDS. So again that's another thing
that we see in entertainment crime stories all the time, right,
But as far as the research for this case, that
was an actual thing that held up them being able

(34:23):
to really nail down evidence in this case. And at
this point, the murders remain unsolved. They do. Uh. In fact, Ponte,
while having drug problems and being disbarred and was even
later caught shoplifting. Uh, you know, they were never able
to find anything. In two thousand seven, the police went
back to his old house and dug up the front

(34:45):
of the house because they thought there might be something there.
They didn't find anything, and he died in two thousand
and ten. So that's all the new Bedford Police, Massachusetts
State Police, and the FBI had for this case, you know,
at least as far as we know publicly. Obviously, you know,
as we were saying earlier, they must have had other
information that they just didn't release. But uh, this person

(35:07):
remains uncaught. Whoever committed these crimes. You know what's fascinating
about that is it shows another it shows another possibility
that I first read into with the Zodiac killings, I
was not involved. Just to go on record there, I'm
not old enough. We believe you, thanks Smith. Uh So,

(35:28):
the uh the one of the suppositions was that the
murders stopped because the one of the suspects was incarcerated
on a different charge and died in prison or died
somewhere else as a result. So it is it is
completely possible, you know that, Um, well, obviously not Ponte,

(35:53):
probably not. Yeah, I mean there was like a good
twenty years in between the end of these murders and
him passing away where no, he was killed in the area.
That doesn't mean that, you know, maybe there was potential
evidence that could have connected him to the case, but
they may never found it. And let's look at another
another one that is a little bit different because this

(36:14):
person was actually apprehended and did go to jail. But wait,
that's not the end of the story, ladies and gentlemen.
We're going to talk about Pedro Alonso Lopez, also known
as the Monster of the Andes. He is suspected of
killing more than three hundred and fifty girls, primarily in Ecuador,

(36:36):
Columbia and Peru. Originally, authorities didn't believe his story. Three
fifty dead children is a lot. Well, yeah, because he
was in jail for something else, right, And then he
was talking to an officer who was like dressed up
as an inmate and basically boasting about all of these
girls that he had killed. And he was naming off

(36:58):
like hundred in Peru, over here in Columbia, hundred in Ecuador.
And they, you know, if you hear a grandiose story
like that, that is awful. I don't think you believe
him on the first account. And they didn't either until
he led police to a mass grave of fifty three
victims in Ecuador, all girls between nine to twelve years old.

(37:22):
And here's a strange thing Alonso Lopez though, was when
he was prisoner, wasn't his first brush with a judicial system.
When indigenous villagers in Peru caught him trying to abduct children,
they buried him up to his neck. Uh, And we're
pouring honey on him and preparing to have him die

(37:44):
by having ants consume him until western white missionaries um
prevented this horrible page in practice and said that she
would take him to the cops. She drove him to
the border and let him go. That was his first
That was his first brush with the consequences of these
deranged actions. So here's his time frame. He was first

(38:08):
active sixty nine through nineteen eighty or so, and while
he was in prison UH it was deemed too costly
and complicated to have him on trial in both Columbia
and Peru. So Peruvian authorities in August of support him
to Columbia, where he was found insane and held in

(38:30):
a mental ward until nineteen when he was released to
the public. The last that we have heard of Pedro
Alnso Lopez is in two thousand to an interpool released
an advisory for his arrest in on suspicion of another
another homicide, and he has again primarily killed female children

(38:55):
also male um. As of two thousand and fifteen, the
year we were recorded, this Lopez would be sixty seven
years old if he remains alive. And again it sounds
this guy is a little bit unique because you can
read purported in a purported interview with him, which I
wasn't able to verify to the my ideal standards. But

(39:18):
it seems pretty it seems pretty legitimate, and just you know,
I'm trying to I'm trying to verify that stuff as
well right now, and I agree I can't verify it.
But the way the way some of their the things
are written, and then knowing what we already know about him,
I would agree with you, right probably in the interviewer

(39:41):
is real. Absolutely, But so here's the thing that this
leaves us with. He's sixty seven years old. He wouldn't
He most likely is not going to be in the
best of shape. Not everyone is Sean Connery, right, so
he we this would make us think that maybe he
is too frail, right, we hope, we hope. Um, I

(40:02):
would hope that he is dead. But part of the
reason I hope that is remembering that his victims are children,
and that many that were confirmed, and then all the
other ones, the hundreds that are suspected, right, often poor,
often street kids, often um in rural areas, not part
of mainstream society. That so again it's like a population

(40:24):
that's sort of at the limits and uh ignored. Right,
that's where we see this succeeding. So let's let's look
at another case, because that's that's the other thing, folks,
if you haven't seen the video yet, there are numerous
cases of unconst real killers. We just picked a few. Yeah,
we're only talking about like four or five today. And

(40:47):
I think when we were looking at the general research,
there were at least just in a cursorysearch, like serial
killers that are pretty widely known, and the number of
missing persons that perhaps aren't even attached to any known
killer are there. There are a crazy amount of evil
that go missing every year. Well, for the this next one,

(41:10):
I again, I chose one from you know, the nick
of the Woods that I grew up in, which is uh,
you know, I'm from Massachusetts. I went to school in
New Hampshire. Uh. This is the Connecticut River Valley serial killer.
Connecticut River Valley is uh this border area between western
New Hampshire and Vermont. Uh. And this killer basically stocked

(41:31):
that area in the nineteen eighties and six women were killed, uh,
stabbed mostly, and their bodies were dumped in the woods
near an area called the Sugar River. The time frame
for this is much wider than in the previous case
that I talked about. So that was one summer. This
took place over ten years from ninety night. The first

(41:53):
bodies actually turned up in eighty five, but they believed
that he started in seventy eight based on know like
decompin decomposition uh in that they've found at least five
of the women by seven. So uh. The m O
of this particular killer was that he would find isolated women. Again,

(42:14):
I'm using he as sort of just a general gender term,
not knowing who it is. Uh, but he would find
these isolated women, usually hitch hood hiking or alone at night.
Three of the victims were nurses, so they were traveling
at a late night schedules because of their shifts. Uh.
He would stab them in the throat and then repeatedly

(42:36):
stabbed them across their bodies and then took the bodies
and dumped them into this particular area in the woods. Sometimes,
Uh he'd use like a black tarp sort of like
kind of try to hide the bodies a little bit. Okay,
So there are several victims leading up to August six,
when a woman named Jane Barowski, who was pregnant at

(42:56):
the time, was at a convenience store late at night
in the area. Um. The reason again I should have
probably mentioned this earlier. One of the reasons why I'm
referring to him as a hymn is because of this
particular incident, she identified her attacker as male. Uh. He
attacked her, stabbed her twenty three to twenty seven times. Uh,

(43:17):
and she basically did everything she could just you know,
kind of protect her baby, so UM, to make sure
that that area of her body wasn't wasn't hit. Um.
By playing dead, she was able to survive and basically, um,
crawl and then like I think, walk to the nearest

(43:38):
location where I think she knew somebody local and get help.
And I think she might have even driven with that
many wounds. UM. So there's a couple of things here
that are they're interesting, right. So she survives, so we
know that it's a it's a male killer. We know
a little bit about how he attacked her, but UM,

(44:01):
he didn't take her body like the others, which is
curious to me because you know, like I said earlier,
the m O was he stabbed them and he would
take them, bring them to the woods, dumped them, but
he left her there. So if she was playing dead,
was he going to come back later or something, or
maybe it was because of the pregnancy. Nobody knows. And

(44:21):
how how could you ever prove that this is the
same guy, right, exactly right? And in fact, there are
four other cases that may be linked, but there's no
proof connecting them. Right. So again there's some fascinating leads
in this case, but but nothing nailed down. No one
has ever been apprehended for this. The first lead is

(44:43):
a guy named Michael Nikolau, and he was a Vietnam
veteran who actually in two thousand five killed his wife
and his stepdaughter and then himself in West Tampa, Florida. UM.
He had previously been linked to the case by a
private investigator who had been looking for his ex wife,

(45:04):
a woman named Michelle Ashley. She basically in night she
disappeared from the Holyoake, Massachusetts area, which is kind of
close to that relatively speaking, close to that Connecticut River
Valley arena. Uh. And so when this private investigator contacted him,
he said, oh, I don't know where she is, but
she ran off with a drug dealer and left me

(45:27):
to raise our two kids alone. So, uh, his ex
wife's missing, right, Um, she looks into him the private investigator,
I mean, and she finds out that while he was
in the Vietnam War, people who were in his platoon
reported that he would go human hunting with a knife. Uh.
And he would go and basically killed civilians during the war. Uh.

(45:52):
And she believes that this is connected to this case
because there was a Millis military style association with the
way the victims next were cut, so with these stabbings
and knives, right, so that this was like again like
so we were talking earlier about how when you're in
a career that sort of puts you in a position
in which you're coming into contact with dead bodies are

(46:15):
in this case killing people. Uh that you know, it
provides the opportunity to sort of bring about this disorder,
if that's what you want to call this, this type
of serial killing. Uh. So, so it's possible, you know,
based on this private investigator's theory that if Nikolau was
the one who did it, that he kind of got

(46:35):
into this during Vietnam and then brought it back with
him to the States afterwards. The thing that is interesting
to me is that, uh, if his m O was stabbing,
remember that when he you know, had his meltdown in
two thousand five and killed his family and himself. He
did it by shooting them, so uh, you know who knows. Uh,

(46:58):
but it's curious, you know, discrepancy there. Uh. However, Jane Boroski,
that woman I was talking about earlier, the one who
was pregnant and survived, she identified him as the man
who attacked her. This is much later, but she looked
at you know, photos of him and after he was
was gone and said, yeah, that's the guy. So she

(47:21):
identified it as Nicolaon. That's pretty strong. But wait, it
gets weirder. Uh, here's where it gets crazy. Go for it,
all right. Guy named Gary Westover is from the area
and uh he had been paralyzed from a diving accident

(47:41):
and he at the time thought he was dying. So
he called upon his uncle, who was a former sheriff's
deputy in Grafton County, New Hampshire, again part of this area. Yeah,
on his deathbed, uh, and he tells his uncle. He says, Okay,
a couple of years pre is to this, three of
my friends picked me up and they wanted to go

(48:04):
partying in a van and I kind of joked about
this with you guys, because you know, being living in
New Hampshire for a long period of time, that's kind
of a thing you do, like like you just get
into somebody's car or van and you know, get some
get some drinks, some booth, some other things. Natty's and
Fatty's was a common term when I was going to

(48:25):
high school up there. The party in a van is
the thing people do. I mean, go somewhere in it.
It's not unusual. Yeah, exactly, Like I don't want listeners
to think like, oh, that's weird, like just driving around
in a van with k Yeah, let me tell you
I've I've done it, so, but I haven't done this
next part. Uh. So, so Gary west Over says, Okay,

(48:48):
my friends picked me up, we're getting this van. Uh.
And then they abduct a woman and they killed her
and dumped her body off on a back road. And
he said, you know, he didn't participate, but that he
was forced to be there. Uh and again remember reason
a wheelchair. So uh. He basically said, look, I feel
really bad about this. I want to tell the truth

(49:08):
and want you to know about this to his uncle.
But he he had previously been scared to say anything
because they said, well, look, you know, we can get
you any time, So if you say anything, we you know,
you're an easy target. And and uh, the other thing
that's kind of interesting about this is that private investigator
who had looked into nickel Out previously also speculated that

(49:32):
it's possible that Gary Westover was used as bait for
one of these killings. And then because it was particularly
snowy there in the middle of a snowstorm when this
Vaan party was going on, they placed him in his wheelchair.
This is her speculation. Mind you, there's no evidence for this,
but they placed him in his wheelchair on the side
of the road so that when one of the women

(49:54):
drove by, she pulled over to help him to find
out what was wrong, and that's when they killed her.
Good lord, yeah, calculated. So Uh. The private investigator comes
into this again though, because she says, well, it's possible
that that Michael Nikolau guy was one of these three friends, uh,

(50:14):
and that it's possible that he and Gary west Over
knew each other because they're both veterans and they might
have met through the local veterans affair hospital. Uh. And
so if that's true and Gary west Over story is true,
and even if Nicolau was the killer, then that means
that there's two other guys out there that were accomplices

(50:34):
or involved in these murders somehow, and reportedly, you know,
police have access to the names. Of course, his uncle
took this information forward and became part of the case.
But sure you know, no arrests have been made as
of our recording today. Right. Wow, So before we get
to some statistics, we have one more case and we'll

(50:56):
we'll walk through this one kind of quickly. Here. This
is the Long Island serial killer and unidentified assailm believed
to have killed anywhere from ten to seventeen or more
people over the course of twenty plus years around the
Ocean Parkway area. Time frame here would be at least
nine six to two thousand, nine two thousand thirteen. So

(51:22):
what kind of victims are we talking about here? It's
kind of similar to a few of the other cases
that we've already looked at, where these are primarily sex workers,
or at least believed to be sex workers, who were
killed at some location then put into in this case
a burlap sack and then dumped along the parkway. And
that's particularly at Gilgo Beach in this area. So that

(51:44):
is so similar to the new Bedford Highway guy. And
it's not that far. It's not at all Long Island
is not I mean like maybe five hours at the most.
But I mean, I'm not saying that's the same guy.
But there's also sort of like the idea that it uh,
this this motive, this is this uh, the m o
could have been spread through the media, you know, I

(52:07):
mean this when they started. So this happened like just
about I don't know, ten years after and it continued
until almost today. I mean it's close, right, we don't
know when it ended too well. Yeah, that so the
ones that we know of that far. Yeah, and there
were some anomalous things there as well. There was a
man of the body of a man and a toddler discovered.

(52:29):
So they went into profiling, which, as we know, can
be a dangerous game at times. And don't get me wrong,
profilers in real life are doing fantastic and vital work.
Oh yes, um. But I think it's also we we
talked about this off air, folks. Every so often something

(52:50):
comes out about quantum mechanics and you can hear everybody
roll roll their eyes you can literally hear eyes rolling
in their sockets at our office because quantum mechanics. It's
it's one of the most misunderstood things. I think a
popular culture and profilers would be up in the top
ten what they actually do and how they do it.

(53:10):
But here's a lot of I think forensic work. Oh yeah, yeah,
that's true. Oh no spoilers, but it's true. Uh, so
we have this, we have this look from a profile
with all those caveats. Uh. The authorities surmised that this
killer is a male and is financially comfortable, obviously owns

(53:33):
an auto. It's transport victims, and could have a job
where he has access to burlap sacks, maybe a center
and nursery. I think it's also possible that he could
just be buying them. The big thing is they believe
he's familiar with police methods, possibly working in law enforcement
or having friends maybe family members who do. And they're

(53:56):
also here's another thing. They're also certain that well fairly sir,
that he buried some of these bodies, restored them somewhere
before he dumped them, meaning that it's possible. Adding onto
your earlier statement about New Bedford, it's possible that he
is visiting the area seasonally, so it gives us some questions, right,

(54:18):
could it be abducting his victims. We'll see a note
here that says that these all these victims are sorry.
The first four victims disappeared between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Yes,
that's almost exactly the same as the New Bedford situation.
Oh wow, it was very it was it was a
summer spree. Well okay, I'm using the term spree summer

(54:42):
serial killer. So you know, I just want to say
another thing that was interesting. A couple of the a
couple of the victims were prostitutes who are advertising on Craigslist,
who were advertising their services. So again that's someone who
was perhaps not immediately in the area, that could find
someone who was in that location and meet up with

(55:03):
them through the Craigslist meet up. I don't know, this
is all that's a good I mean, it's disturbing either way. Like,
you know, it's fun to play armchair detective and and
try to find some kind of connections, but it's also
just disturbing in the fact that they're so similar and
didn't happen all that far away from one another, and
both are still unsolved. Yeah, and didn't happen that far

(55:24):
away from each other really in space or time, so
the UM and I think that's a very good catch
about the timing of the murders. So we do have
some leads. There's been a lot of speculation in the
media about this identity of this killer. UM. The street
name for this killer would be unsub not what you
do when you don't like a YouTube channel, but as

(55:47):
a as a portmanteau for unknown subject. And they believe
again he's most likely a male, specifically a white male.
I don't know how they knew that part in his
twenties the forties, clearly familiar with this offshore of Long Island.
But um, there's an interesting case by or an interesting

(56:07):
article rather by a fellow named Dr Scott Bond, writing
for Psychology Today. Bond said he believes the killer may
have relocated or become dormant. Uh And we'll talk about
dormancy in a second. But he does believe the killer
resided in New York City at one point because there
was a series of phone calls that the killer made

(56:29):
he made after he abducted and murdered UM. A woman
named Melissa Barthelomy. Uh. He made seven phone calls using
her phone over a six week period in oh nine
to the sister to Melissa's sister, and these were taunting her,
saying horrible things about the victim, and the phone calls

(56:51):
could be traced roughly the Manhattan area. It's so close. Yeah. Yeah,
that's one of those things that if you're in the
law enforcement looking to find this guy, you're like, oh
my gosh, almost got him. And again, sorry, this sounds
like something like that you would see on like a
TV show like The Following or something like that, right,
but this is this is real, Like that this guy

(57:14):
killed a woman's sister and then called her repeatedly from
her own phone. It's haunting. So yeah, and these are
just four examples of the Long Island serial killer is
currently one of the I guess most recent right, But
that doesn't mean that any of these perpetrators fit the

(57:39):
same profile. That doesn't mean that any of them are
necessarily deceased. So if you if you look at look
at what the FBI says about it, they will say
that serial killers are among us. There is no set profile.
There's an interesting thing that we've talked about off air
I believe, which was the Highway serial Killing initiative. The

(58:04):
FBI started to map this out, and one thing we
talked about in Highway A Tears was that these sorts
of murders of again people in the fringes of society, right, prostitutes,
drug addicts, hitchhikers, these people are these people are prey.
And when when the FBI started mapping this, they found

(58:25):
within five cases that they could add to their database,
and they started to wonder if there were truckers that
we're using the opportunity again to the excellent point made
earlier to become serial murderers. And furthermore, if these criminals

(58:47):
were hunting impacts essentially, well, I mean that goes back
to the was it Gary west Over claim about that
for well, you know, he said that he wasn't actively
taking part. And if the three guys were basically in
a driving around a van together in New Hampshire stalking women, right,
and it's true that which is contrary. I'd like to say,

(59:12):
it's very contrary to our popularized idea of serial killers. Yeah,
exactly right. And there's a there's a conservative estimate that
comes from pelone name John Douglas, a former chief of
the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit and the author of
a book called mind Hunter Uh. He says that at
his conservative estimate, there are between thirty five and fifty

(59:33):
active serial killers in the US at any given time,
and because they have no profile, because they could be
the person you walk past on your way from the
gas pump to the cashier, because they could be one
of the six people with you in an elevator. Because
of this shut your mouth, your mouth, it's horrifying. Well,

(59:58):
it's it's it's sort of and it's a little alarmous too,
because if we consider that there are what around three
thirty million people in the US, and then maybe sixty
of those, it's a very small percent. But he also
said it was a conservative estimate, and it makes me
think this is entirely supposition. But it makes me think
if these stereotypes of us who really killers are impeding

(01:00:22):
apprehending them, because I'm sure, even now, in living in
a surveillance state, I'm sure it would be quite possible
for someone to be, you know, a normal, average person
and every two years they take a two week vacation
somewhere they've never been because they like to see the sites.
Then a homeless person goes missing that over that same stretch,

(01:00:44):
and then they never go to you know, Aruba or
Vegas again. So this is a thing that we often
run into here at how stuff works on all of
the shows really is I find that the various things
that we research here, I end up with this perspective
of well, from our current vantage point here in we

(01:01:07):
can look back on such and such discovery and go, oh,
isn't it so silly that they didn't understand this disease
or this biological factor a hundred years ago or whatever.
I really feel like the more we look into this,
that serial killer psychology is something that we don't quite

(01:01:28):
understand that well right now, and that in you know,
in the future, people are going to look back and say, Wow,
they're really in the dark about this, and then just
making lots of TV shows and movies kind of celebrating it. Yeah,
I I as if they understood it. There's this glorification
in some ways that. Don't get me wrong, that's some
of my favorite stuff. I mean, like I said earlier,

(01:01:49):
like I'm a huge fan of the Hannibal TV show.
You guys know, I love Hill TV show Millennium with
Lance Henrickson. That's another like serial killer profile. H. But
I mean, it's just bizarre when you think about it,
how we sort of approached this thing. I guess it's
sort of like our attempt as a culture to understand

(01:02:10):
it and feel safe with it by finding it to
a story. Well. Yeah, and it's also it gives you
a tremendous feeling of relief when the bad guy in
one of those gets caught right or almost gets caught,
or just you know, I was watching the following yeah,
and just all the times we're like, all right, well
that was nice resolution. Oh no, he's back right exactly.

(01:02:33):
One thing that I want to bring out to the
audience and everyone else before before we get towards the
end of the show is this, I almost said the
following that poor choice of words is is this. We
know that we live in a world of predictive data, right,
big data, and it is possible now to gain an

(01:02:58):
increasingly sophisticated did all a prognostication really of an individual's
future actions based on what they're doing? Would it be
possible too? I mean, I know I'm proposing this idea
of pre crime essentially. Right, Yeah, you're talking about Minority
Report and talking about something like minority that's kind of

(01:03:19):
already happening. Now, it's just what you're going to buy
in the next six to twelve months. As I've found
out after having a baby. Really, what happens just you're
depending on what goes on your credit cards, depending on
what I happened to purchase at let's say, Kroger. If
I end up using my Kroger Plus card, what happens.

(01:03:39):
It tracks all of the information of what I'm buying,
and then it sends that information to everybody else. Kroger
sells that information. So on my television right before I
canceled cable, every ad. Every ad was diapers or you know,
something like depression medication. I'm not kidding you, it was.

(01:04:00):
It was happening already. It was trying to understand what
my life was like. Depression medication. Yeah, because that's why
Hulu keeps telling me to go to the gym. I'm
completely serious, though. It really is trying to target me
as it does everyone else. And when I say it,
I mean big data essentially. All Right, I gotta I

(01:04:20):
gotta short story. I gotta tell you, guys, because this
is perfect for your audience. And this is anecdotal and
I'm not going to name this person. I have a
friend who has a PhD in computer science and has
done freelance work for the d D before, and one
of the projects that he was assigned to was predictive data, uh,

(01:04:41):
basically trying to map out the probabilities of government employees
breaking the rules. Are you allowed to tell us based
on He's not allowed to tell you this, I'm allowed
to tell uh. Basically the idea being that you know,
based on uh, their actions within the network and how

(01:05:03):
they're using you know, the computer system, are they going
to go snowdon Yeah, essentially I could see that. I mean,
I could see that being a necessary thing from their perspective.
Oh sure, I understand it completely. Um, but it's possible. Yeah,
it is possible. And often, you know, I'm sure we'll
get a lot of letters from people were saying that

(01:05:24):
often the idea of security is falsely, you know, is
is marketed in an alarm is fashion to get people
to sacrifice privacy. And I think that's I think that's
absolutely true. Um. But then that leads us to a
philosophical quandary, which is, directly, do we let fifty people

(01:05:45):
go around killing people on the inner state because we
don't want targeted advertising? I know, I know, I'm yeah,
I'm clearly I'm swaying in that way. This is not
this is not the way that I necessarily believe it.
I'm just I'm playing bringing it back to al Pacino

(01:06:05):
and bringing it back to al Pacino. We're talking off
air about you can probably tell Christian I were both
under the weather and we were thinking, Man, our voices
are gonna be awesome in this show. Kevin Wait, speaking
of speaking of awesome, do you guys hear that music?
You hear that just means my having a stroke. You know,

(01:06:25):
I kind of felt like I was having a struke
the other day. I got a cavity filled for the
very first time, and whole half of my face was
non and it was very strange sensation. We made it
through the fire ladies and gentlemen. It's a molder with
a super producer. Uh Noel Brown. Noel, I'm not choosing
a nickname for this episode because it feels you guys
went a little dark with it. It got a little dark,

(01:06:47):
got a little dark. Yeah, So what's on your mind?
What do you think? Yeah, I don't need those kind
of nicknames, been, I just don't need them. What's on
my mind? Yeah? Yeah, I got a little I've still
got this little chest cold thing. Everyone one. The weather's
this crazy seasonal change. I always seem to get hit
with something around this time except from that. Yeah, I
know I have a gun. A guy with the baby

(01:07:08):
is the only one who's healthy. Maybe there's an immune
system thing that happened. Just wait till he starts school.
Oh yes, and then exposed to all the other elements,
the children's elements. You're sending your kids to school, you know, monster.
I was thinking about it, but I don't know. What
do you guys think? Okay, really fast, No, you don't

(01:07:29):
have to get in this. You don't want to. But
I'm really curious. Homeschooling Is that a thing? Ben? Guys?
Should were you at all? And should we? It's definitely
a thing. Yeah I was not, and I'm the wrong
person to ask because I don't have kids and probably won't.
But though you're so well adjusted, thanks, it's just because
I went through the fire exactly. That's the way I feel, too. Okay,

(01:07:52):
So I'll give you my perspective just briefly. My daughter
is six years old. She went to Montessori school from
like pre kge to just now and she loved it. It
It was great. I really you know, if anyone doesn't know,
mine story is sort of like a um all kids
of different age groups are all in the same classroom together,
and so there's this kind of like leadership involved where
like the older kids sort of take the lead and

(01:08:14):
said an example for the younger kids, and it's a
great way to socialize kids and make them comfortable around
in different situations and around different age groups of kids.
Loved it worked great. I feel like it outlived it's usefulness.
I feel like first grade she needs to be in
public school with the rest of the in the fray,
you know, no more soft pedaling everything, and you know,
I think it's time to throw her into the fire.
And she's doing great. She loves it. She loves it.

(01:08:36):
So this year she's starting this year first Well, you
you're gonna have to keep me updated with that. So
here's the deal, guys, this is what was going on
in my world while I was at home editing the
video that's coming out this weekend and the one they
came out last week about serial killers. So you've got
but see that it puts a nice bow on it.
Though I try, I try to look at that stuff

(01:08:56):
in a positive way, you know. Yeah. My positive way was,
how do I make this kid not a serial killer?
Like we're gonna make this kid the opposite I mean
is it's like a mix of nature and nurture. Right.
That's sort of what you guys have to takeaway, is Yeah,
a lot of this talk. Yeah, I mean I usually
think that based on the research, absolutely for all of
these things. Yeah, they just don't don't lock your kid

(01:09:18):
in the basement. Okay, good, don't have one of those yet.
It's uh, it is theoretically possible, not plausible nor ethical
or humane, but it is possible to read someone who
would be genetically predisposed to some sort of serial murdering.

(01:09:39):
But the good news for you is I believe that
ship is sailed. Perhaps kids already out just stay away
from I would imagine that would require a heavy, significant
amount of happy And I've never met Matt's parents. Does
he have parents? We don't know where Matt came from.
Wait a minute, I met your didn't your pops come
in here one day? Uh? Yeah? Or that was my dad?

(01:10:01):
Are you sure that wasn't a Nazi replicant vampire? So
um so, I guess to answer your question, I am uh.
I guess I'm partially homeschooled like every only child is,
because I hung out with myself a lot like early
uh m hm, you know, okay, never mind, never mind

(01:10:24):
schooled by he Man VHS tapes. At least it wasn't
the Master Universe as far as I was concerned. Yeah,
I have the power. It taught me to believe in
myself and to be a team player because I didn't
have any brothers or sisters either. And talked to you
out was that like one of Orca's little lessons at

(01:10:45):
the end of every episode, And talked to you out
of or talked to you off the ledge of becoming
a homicidal maniac, right Exceletor, Yeah, well he was the
least appealing character in the show. He had no he's
he's fun, but hold on, want to be Skeletor you
had entified with Skeletor No, No, well, okay, certain aspects
of it I get, Like Cobra Commander, you can understand,

(01:11:08):
you know, kind of where they're coming from. Um, but
I overall I don't agree with their approach and I
never really understood the mythology of he Man. I saw
the live action film again in recently. Yeah, I just
didn't under I didn't understand it and I didn't understand

(01:11:29):
how something about it not being a cartoon And for
grown I'll say it beat me if you have to know,
But for a grown ass Dolf Lunggren to be walking
around calling himself he Man and have other people call
him he man, I mean, I have a I have
a I love nicknames, don't get me wrong, But if
I meet somebody who is our age and says like

(01:11:50):
they call me, you know, spin daddy. Sorry, sorry, Derek.
So how did this get made? The comedy podcast that
looks at movies actually just an episode on Master Past
and they talk about this and they kind of reveal
the I believe there's one of those like behind the
scenes blog posts? Was it like the secrets behind Masters

(01:12:12):
of the Universe? Talking about how Dolph Lingering got involved
in the movie. It makes me think when you think
of the name he Man, like it just what could
be a more absurd masculine name, you know, and I'll
tell you what could be there's but it works because
it's a band called Man Man, and that, to me,
that's one upset, but in a great way because they're
this kind of weirdo. Tom Waits, he kind of like, uh,

(01:12:34):
you knows, pirate kind of rock band? Is it? Is
it hyphenated? I think it's one I think it's one Man.
There probably is someone somewhere in the world because there
are billions of people here and their name probably is
man Man. It probably doesn't mean the same thing it
does to us in English. But how did we get here? Guys?

(01:12:55):
How do we get here? Well? You know what, after
you talk about on cut serial Killers for an hour,
get out a little bit of your bleach, talk about well, guys,
we are going to head out. We know this episode
went a little bit longer, but that's one of the
main complaints we get is that people want longer episodes.
So we hope that I don't know if enjoy is

(01:13:16):
the right word to use for this, but we hope
that this shed some light some of the misapprehensions people have.
And we want to thank Christian Saker for coming in again.
If you like this episode, you'll also like the Comics
Code episode we did Earlierah, that was a fun one. Uh.
And you can also find me on Stuff to Blow
your Mind, where I podcast with our colleagues Robert and

(01:13:40):
Joe about all things weird and science. E. I guess
the one I would recommend the most, the sort of
if you if you like what we talked about here
is that science of Necrophilia episode that I mentioned earlier,
but don't discount. There are a lot of episodes that
you guys have done, especially recently since the three of
you have been podcasting, that are right, I think and
our listeners out Oh yeah yeah, especially um all of October,

(01:14:03):
we've been doing uh not Halloween themed, but sort of
October themed topics. So for instance, like those guys tackled
natural burials, and Robert and I took a look at
the psychology of Final Girls in slasher movies. Um, so
we've done some interesting stuff like that. Yeah, your audience

(01:14:23):
would certainly be interested, I hope. Oh yeah, check it out.
If you like stuff they don't want you to know,
you'll love Stuff to Blow your Mind. Oh wait, before
we go, there's one more big announcement, which is, this
was our last moment with Noel. It's okay, guys, I
knew terrible. I knew it was short lived. You know
it was. It was nice while it lasted. Right, Wait

(01:14:47):
there's more, Yes, but wait, there's more. Uh. The reason
it's our last moment with Noel in this episode is
because from now on this is going to be a
three person show. So when three person plus three person
plus because when you when you tune in from every week,

(01:15:08):
and we hope you do, you're gonna be hearing Noel
and Matt and I and perhaps some special guests if
I can. I mean, I already have exhausted my my
podcast karma maybe cajoling you into this. I'm sure I'll
come back at some point. There's plenty of more uncought
serial killers for us to discuss, right, and hopefully something

(01:15:29):
more pleasant. Yeah, let's come up with a happier conspiracy theory. Okay,
So we've we've been talking about doing something about the invisibles.
That would be a fun one. Yes, that's something a
lot of people want to know about. The baron staying
bears and the Mandela effect. Uh, So we'd like to
pass this question to you, and that's the end of
this classic episode. If you have any thoughts or questions

(01:15:52):
about this episode, you can get into contact with us
in a number of different ways. One of the best
is to give us a call. Our number is one
eight three three std w y t K. If you
don't want to do that, you can send us a
good old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at i heart
radio dot com. Stuff they Don't want you to know

(01:16:12):
is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts
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