September 30, 2024 • 56 mins
A billionaire's sunken yacht holds sensitive data -- and governments want it. A child abducted in 1951 is found alive. The United States cosigns the execution of Marcellus Williams despite public outcry -- including protests from the original jury, prosecutors and defense. All this and more in this week's strange news segment.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noah.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
They call me Ben. We are joined with our producer
Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you are here
and that makes this the stuff they don't want you
to know. We are coming to you semi live as
a hurricane is hitting the US, the southeastern US, part
(00:49):
of which we are based in, and we wanted to
get this out as long as we have power. We
talked a little bit about the because we're super cool
and superant not boring.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
Yeah, we got stories. How's that about the weather? No,
it actually is appropriate this time. It's kind of a
little scary. And we talked about how interesting and non
exact a science meteorology kind of is. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Well, if you look at the radar right now, guys,
I don't know if you've noticed this when it's showing
like if you go to weather dot COM's radar that
they display right it will show you the storm systems
moving north through as you said, the southeastern part of
the US. But it doesn't show the hurricane. And when
it's showing you the past up until now, the hurricane
(01:38):
pops on screen when it shows you the future, like
what's coming, what's about to happen? Even though the storm
system is displaying in the past is like right near
or around the hurricane. It's the weirdest thing.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
What does it mean that? What does it mean?
Speaker 5 (01:54):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
It means there's a weird Venn diagram and people are
portraying it differently, which is not great for the populace.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Well, it makes me wonder in the future if the
AI systems that have been used for weather prediction, for
these types of radar systems, right look at what's happened
in the past with the radar and then use these
intense supercomputers and systems deep learning systems to predict what's
going to happen.
Speaker 5 (02:18):
What if those.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Systems start not making up storms but start displayingcinating Yeah,
I mean we've talked about.
Speaker 5 (02:25):
How those systems can have weird stuff.
Speaker 6 (02:29):
Pre crime, pre natural disaster crime.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
I'm just happy that all the weather people on TV
are having a moment to shine. You love to see it.
They don't get their due.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
I love it. I love meteorologists. They get a tough
time because sometimes they predict the possibility of disasters that
people don't fully understand, and they get a hard time
either way. So they're doing great work. Just like the
octopuses that are training fish to hunt with them. That's
a true story. They're not doing it. The fish, I mean,
(03:03):
are not necessarily consenting to this because the octopus will
beat them until it hunts with them.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
I remember my octopus teacher. I saw that.
Speaker 6 (03:15):
Yeah, right, So check out the news on that.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
We're going to talk about some very heavy things, some
very disturbing things, discoveries, updates, bands, just you know, folks.
At the end, toward the end and the third act
of this weekly Strange News segment, we are going to
talk about state sponsored murder. But there's so much strange news.
(03:42):
We have so much on the way.
Speaker 5 (03:49):
And we've returned.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
We're going to hit a couple updates, guys, and then
have a brief thought experiment about a story Ben that
you brought to us last week. The whole world was watching.
I think, So here we go. First of all, do
you guys Remember that giant cargo ship that crashed into
and collapsed Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge in March.
Speaker 6 (04:09):
Oh yeah, yeah bridge.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Well, the company that runs that, that manages that ship
as well as owns that ship, is in the news
again because the sister ship of the Bali that's the
name of the ship that actually crashed into the bridge there,
The sister ship, the Mayserk I think is how you'd
say it, or Masersk m ae Rsk sal Toro, is
(04:36):
now in the news because it has been boarded by
agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the US Environmental
Protection Agency's Criminal Investigation Division, and the Coast Guard Investigative
Services because because just like the Dolly, it is alleged
(04:57):
or believed at least by these investigators that the Maersk Saltro,
just like the Dolly, basically has all kinds of major
issues on it. We're talking electrical issues, mechanical issues. That
mean these vessels, this one, just like the Dolly, basically
(05:17):
are giant problems floating around in the ocean that could
cause a major incident, just like the DOLLI caused back
in March. I'll read you just a little bit of this.
There was a lawsuit that was filed on Wednesday, September
eighteenth by the US Justice Department. It alleges that the
owners Grace Ocean Private Limited and the manager Senterg Marine
(05:41):
or Centergy Marine Group, both of these companies out of Singapore,
they recklessly cut corners and ignore known electrical problems on
their vessels, specifically on the Dolli, and that is what
caused multiple power issues which ended up causing the crash
that made a bridge collapse. They're saying that the same
(06:02):
kind of things exist on this new ship or this
it's not a new ship, it's a sister ship, but
is now new to us, right, And the Justice Department
is trying to get over one hundred million dollars from
these companies to pay for all of the stuff that
it took to get that bridge basically cleared out and
all the debris out of the way so that the
(06:22):
port could even open again.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
Well, it seems only fair, doesn't that it was entirely
their fault?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Well, it was, right, So there's a lot of litigation
happening right now. Attorneys in offices trying to figure out, well,
who actually is at fault.
Speaker 5 (06:37):
And why and why was it not us? Right? I
mean that's basically the things.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
That happen after a disaster like this, because remember six
human beings that were working on that bridge died when
this occurred. And then if you think about the billions
of dollars, Remember we were talking about that, the billions
of dollars that the city of Baltimore and all of
the companies that ship in and out of that port lost.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
In revenue, right, like m Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Because nobody could come in or out for several months.
It was just a big deal. So from March till
June it was incapacitated.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
Yeah. It's funny. A friend of mine staying with me
who's a lawyer, and we were talking about this weather
situation and the concept of theft, just joking around saying, oh,
if my partner's art market is canceled due to weather,
then that's technically like theft of her wages or her
ability to sell. I mean you could argue that by
the negligence alone, this company like defrauded people of their income,
(07:35):
defrauded this company of its ability to earn.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Yeah, for sure, for sure. Oh and just in a
bit of hopeful news guys. The Dolly, which remember, was
like smashed into that bridge and kind of became a
part of the bridge there for a little while. It
was successfully quote extricated and refloated, and as of Thursday,
September nineteenth, it was on a new route headed to
(08:00):
China for its first international voyage post bridge collapse. So
at least that ship still working silver lining, I don't know.
In the end, this appears to be the Justice Department
trying to get money back for a bunch of stuff
that it and a bunch of other federal and state
agencies went through to fix a huge problem. All right,
(08:24):
We've got a second update, you guys. Remember that British
tech billionaire Mike Lynch who died along with several of
his family members and friends like his daughter, when his
super yacht, the Baysian, sank off the coast of Sicily
in August.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
Yeah, well, it's.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Back in the news too for a bit of a
different reason. And it is because I'm going to read
you a quote from this article out of CNN. Specialist
divers surveying the wreckage of the forty million dollars super
yacht have asked for heightened security to guard the vessel
over concerns that sensitive ata locked in its safes may
(09:02):
interest foreign governments. What what, So, we've got a super
yacht down at the bottom of the ocean where it
was found, right, that's where several people met their demise, unfortunately,
including the uh one of the owners of that super yacht,
Mike Lynch. According to quote, you guys are gonna love this,
(09:23):
sources familiar with the investigation.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
Unquote sources so helpful, aren't they?
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Yeah, the Baysian this super yacht may contain highly sensitive
data tied to a number of Western intelligence services. What
sensitive information about Western intelligence services on a ship that
was British off the coast of Italy? Interesting?
Speaker 5 (09:49):
Do you guys have any thoughts on that? Initially?
Speaker 4 (09:53):
Well, sure makes it seem like this was some kind
of hit, right, But so why didn't they get the stuff?
Usually if there's a hit because someone's sitting on important
or classified or sensitive information, they you know, a person
is killed and then the stuff is removed and no
one ever finds it. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
It feels a little weird to me that there would
be sensitive data like that on a ship that hangs
out in international waters all the time, Why would you
have that there? There are probably reasons.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
Well, wasn't that part of the conversation? This seemed fishy,
like maybe there was these were high value individuals or
people that know stuff, and maybe this was some sort
of orchestrated attempt to sink the yacht and make it
look like an accident.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Yes, but you asked the right question there in NOL.
Why would someone who targeted this ship and the people
who were on it if they weren't going to take
that stuff already? Right, if the goal wasn't to get
that kind of stuff. So the reason why that information's
on the ship is because Lynch, Mike Lynch was associated with,
(10:59):
according to see in, British, American and other intelligence services
through his various companies, including the cybersecurity company that he founded,
Dark Trace also guys his wife's company, ray Tom r
E YTM Limited. Sorry that's the second name, ray Tom Limited.
(11:20):
That company owned the ship and this person, Mike Linch's wife,
was also an advisor to British Prime Ministers David Cameron
and Theresa May. She was a science, technology and cyber
security advisor, which means she likely had information, or at
least had access to information that was highly sensitive. Who
(11:41):
knows if she took any of that or stored any
of that. I think that's what these investigators are interested in,
the potential that some of that stuff ended up on these,
at least according to the authorities, highly secured drives, like
heavily encrypted drives that exist in safes that are allegedly watertight,
that are now at the bottom of the ocean.
Speaker 4 (12:03):
Craziness. It's wild.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
But the biggest thing is that law enforcement in these
these investigative services believe that this information is so let's
say actionable, maybe that Russian and Chinese services special services
would be willing to go down there and attempt to
recover it.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
Ben, what kind of stuff do you think would fall
into it and that level of concern for all of
these other parties nol.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Do you mean as in, what would what kind of info.
Speaker 4 (12:36):
Would do, what would lead to this level of hubbub.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Like, what would incentivize rival powers? Yeah, it's tough because
it's the age of information war. So probably the idea is,
or the fear is that something there could be leading
to not perishable immediate intelligence, but leading to methods of
(13:06):
collection perhaps even you know, the stinky side of it
would be the idea of algorithmic patterns things that could
be used to break encryption would be a great one,
especially given the context outlined earlier. I will say also
(13:27):
to this point, before we get to to James Bond
about it. Past a certain threshold of wealth, a lot
of people kick it naturally with intelligence agencies like the
tech bros. Are of great interest to the intel guys.
And the other thing is if this is really a takedown,
(13:49):
because we have briefly talked about the possibility of bad
faith actors, and you know, whether this is an accident
or a manufactured event. There are fifteen survivors right from
the original from the original debacle.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Oh yeah, yeah, lots of people made it off and
got to another ship that was nearby that also happened
to be a sailboat. Remember that a little weird, just
on the idea of what could be in there. According
to CNN, they talked to someone unquote who asked not
to be named unquote, and that person said that the
ship is thought to have watertight safes containing two super
(14:29):
encrypted hard drives that hold highly classified information, including passcodes
and other sensitive data.
Speaker 4 (14:35):
There you go.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Yeah, So it's holding the keys to some doors exactlyctly.
And that's that's what I mean when I say like
methods and encryption breaking kind of things, and it's it
is totally possible. It is highly within the realm of plausibility.
We do have to also consider that you know a
lot of people who are on this boat at this
(14:58):
time did not know, you know, what was in these safes.
That's the point of safes in general, right Like, Unfortunately,
the chef on the yacht, because this was a big
enough yacht to have a guy whose job was just
to be the chef, he probably died without having any
idea of what was contained in here.
Speaker 6 (15:21):
But to your.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Earlier question about the value of the information on these
hard drives, we have to remember that international maritime law
is a little bit different. I know, I sound like
Charlie Day talking about bird law, but maritime law is
a little different. So there are consequences for powers like
(15:43):
Russia or China being apprehended tried to do a little
scoot and boot under scavenger law. Even though scavenger law is.
Speaker 6 (15:54):
Still kind of a thing.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
You can get in trouble if you're obviously I will
say spook it about.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Well, and if it's a crime scene, right, and in
this case, it's a crime scene because it's under investigation
there by Italian authorities. Who knows what's gonna happen, but
they are putting all kinds of underwater surveillance and lots
and lots of surveillance above the water because it is
one hundred and sixty four feet below the surface of
the water. So if you've got to ship up there,
(16:22):
who knows what's going on. You're not going to see
any lights if anybody's got a submersible or something down there,
or you know, a team of like essentially seals crazy town, y'all.
So let's keep an eye on that for sure. Last
thing I've got here is going to be super quick.
Moving on to a hunch I've got based on the
story you brought to us last week, Ben, I've been
(16:43):
thinking a lot about the sorts of casual conversations that
are being held in the upper echelons of every government
on the planet since last week. I imagine the most
prominent thing they're talking about is how do we check
every single device in our division, in this building, in
the state that we operate in, Maybe even in the
country to make sure that none of these devices have
(17:05):
explosives in them, because what if there's an enemy of
ours that has already orchestrated an attack like this, it
just hasn't happened yet, and in that case, it would
mean explosives are already in devices. There's just nobody sent
a signal yet. Right, Well, it just maybe kind of
go down to what if they're thinking about vehicles rather
(17:27):
than pagers, because we know from stories that we've talked
about in the past that vehicles of all shapes and
sizes are manufactured now at least this is the norm,
manufactured in all parts of the world, and then those
parts are individually shipped to a place where they're assembled
into the vehicle that you know and drive around in. Well,
(17:50):
according to Reuters, the US government is very much interested
in trying to prevent a specific country from sending both
hardware and software to be included in any vehicles that
are operated in the United States.
Speaker 6 (18:05):
Oh gosh, who could it be?
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Gee, I don't know who. What country makes a bunch
of things that the United States uses? Say it in
his access China? There you go, All right, that's exactly correct.
This is out of Reuters. The US Commerce Department is
expected on Monday. This was this past Monday that we're
(18:28):
recording this so on the twenty third of September to
propose prohibiting Chinese software and hardware in connected and autonomous
vehicles on American roads due to national security concerns. Guys,
so on connected and autonomous vehicles, it gets a little
(18:48):
weird when we talk autonomous is pretty simple, right, A
vehicle that's going to operate on its own as a
part of those ride share services or eventually the plans
are to have like shipping being automated, at least to
a large part. That's one of the things that I
was going to say, Nicola Tesla. It's one of the
things that Tesla has been attempting to do for a
long time, getting these very specialized trucks that could actually
(19:11):
ship stuff all around the country and not have any
humans on them, just doing their thing, their little robot
shipping thing.
Speaker 5 (19:20):
But it also made me think.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
About guys vehicles that let's say, the Secret Service uses
to ship around highly important individuals in the government. It
makes me think about all types of human beings that
are important to the US government. Continuity they get moved
around on vehicles that have Chinese hardware and software in them.
(19:41):
And if you go down, let me say the article.
The article is titled exclusive colon US to propose ban
on Chinese software, hardware and connected vehicles. You will see
a quote from Gina Raimondo r AI MND, who is
the United States Commerce Secretary. She was speaking in May
(20:02):
of this year, twenty twenty four, and she said, quote,
you can imagine the most catastrophic outcome theoretically if you
add a couple million cars on the road and the
software were disabled. So let's think about that. In that scenario,
there are a couple million cars across the United States that,
in one attack of sorts all become disabled at once. Right,
(20:27):
some of those vehicles would be parked, some of them
might be on roads, some of them might become obstructions,
some of them might be ridden in by important people.
That becomes kind of a scary thing. But if you
look at the history of specifically the Secret Service in
the vehicles that they use, they are primarily GMC vehicles,
(20:50):
US made vehicles, but a lot of these vehicles have
Chinese hardware and software in them. Specifically GMC vehicles guys
like Cadillacs, like the limos that presidents get driven around
in all the time, they would be affected by.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
This interesting I heard a piece on the radio a
week or so ago about this exact thing, and the
person that was talking, and the expert whose name escapes me,
was saying how there aren't that many fully Chinese manufactured
vehicles available in the US markets. But they didn't mention
all of the systems that you're talking about, Matt.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Yeah, components that are inside these systems. Anyway, it just
made me think about that. Guys, I just wondered if
you had any ideas. But I know we're running along
on time here, so maybe we'll save our thoughts for
a different time and we'll ask what you think about
these three stories. We'll tell you how to contact us
at the end of the episode, but for now, let's
hear a few words from our sponsor and we'll be
(21:47):
right back with more strange news.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
And we returned with another piece of strange news. This
one starts off pretty sad, but stick with us, folks,
it has a happy ending. Oakland, California, nineteen fifty one.
A little boy named Louis Armando albino, six years old
at the time, was playing in a park and was abducted.
(22:19):
A woman on February twenty first, nineteen fifty one lured
him away from the West Oakland Park where he'd been
playing with his brother, promising him in Spanish Puerto Rican
Boy that she was going to buy him candy. And
it's just gosh, that whole concept of like luring kids
(22:41):
with candy is such a trope, But it's a trope
for a reason. Troops are only troops because they were
true at some point one hundred percent. So fast forward
to the modern day. So the woman in question took
this minor child on a flight to the East Coast,
(23:01):
the entire opposite side of the country, and he ended
up through whatever means, it does appear to be trafficking.
I imagined he was perhaps sold or there was a
ve paid or something. But the good news is he
was raised by a couple and does not appear that
there was any allegations of abuse from this couple who
(23:24):
raised him as their own. Officials and family members have
not commented exactly where on the East Coast this took place.
But fast forward about seventy years y'all to the modern
day albino or albino. I think his has pronounced stayed missing.
His family members left behind never forgot about him. They
(23:49):
kept pictures hung of him and their homes and the
homes of their relatives. His mother passed away in two
thousand and five, but apparently, according to other relatives, including
his niece, never gave up hope, maybe not that they
would ever be reunited with the boy, but that he
was still alive.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Can you imagine the just the gravity of that burden
to bear.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
I cannot, you know, as a parent and as someone
who's other kids in my life who aren't in mind
by blood, it is just the most terrifying. The not
knowing is the most terrifying thing. I mean, of course,
obviously knowing that your child was killed is horrific in
and of itself, but there's something about the games your
mind plays with you for that long.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Imagine the mother fifty plus years, fifty four years of
just knowing your son is gone, and then you pass
away believing your son is just gone, but you never
get closure in any way.
Speaker 4 (24:50):
No Oakland Police. By the way, this reporting comes from
an article by the Associated Press, and it was picked
up and there's there have been other pieces, but I
do think this is quite a good summation of the story.
Oakland PD acknowledged that it was actions of the family
(25:12):
that led to this case going from unsolved and cold
as they come to being essentially reignited, you know, with
some hope, and most importantly, the efforts of Albino's niece,
the now sixty three year old Alita Aloquin. Essentially what
(25:34):
happened was the following. She is credited by police with
playing an integral role. This is a quote from the
Oakland Police in finding her uncle, and that the outcome
of this story is what they, as police investigators, strive for.
So let's get to the good part. Oakland Tribune articles
(25:54):
that reported on the disappearance reported the police and soldiers
from a local army base, as well as the Coast
Guard and other city employees, participated in a massive search
for the missing boy all across the San Francisco Bay area.
The San Francisco Bay and other waterways were dragged and
searched looking for the worst, of course, you know body.
(26:18):
His brother, Roger Albino, was interrogated multiple times, potentially as
a suspect. Investigators ultimately dismissed him as a suspect because
he stood by his story about seeing that woman. This
is the brother, by the way, who was with you know,
Albino when he was abducted. So can you imagine that
being your brother being taken you blaming yourself of course,
(26:42):
as you would naturally whether that's true or not, and
then being interrogated by the police blaming you for his disappearance,
or maybe even implying that you had something to do
with it. So let's go back to Aliquin, who first
got an inkling that her uncle might actually be still alive.
(27:03):
That came in twenty twenty where she just for fun,
as she put it, took an online DNA test. It's
not mentioned exactly which one it was, but we've certainly
seen these online DNA tests being the subject of a
lot of criticism, a lot of controversy in terms of
just the companies that offer these, just buying and selling
(27:24):
your DNA information, your data, and all of that. Certainly
there is the sketchy side of this, but just the same,
she took the online DNA test, which showed, thankfully, because
this other individual was in the database, a twenty two
percent match with a man living on the other side
of the country who did ultimately turn out to be
(27:44):
her uncle, Lewis Armando Albino, that six year old boy
who was abducted in nineteen fifty one. Pretty incredible. In
early twenty twenty four, she and her daughters started to
search for this man. On a visit to the Oakland
Public Library, she looked through some of the microfilms of
the reporting from when the abduction took place, and she
(28:07):
actually found one that had a picture of Louis and
Louise and Roger, the brothers, which she was able to
kind of look to as a sign that she was
on the right track because this person that she was
connected with looked like he could potentially be a match.
And she went to the Oakland Police with this information,
(28:30):
and the investigators, you know, in what one could argue
would be kind of like exception to what would normally happen.
It seems in these kind of situations where someone comes
with information on a long dead case, you often hear
about people of being you know, pushed aside and not
taken seriously. So kudos to the Oakland Police Department for
taking this information seriously and opening a new missing person investigation.
(28:56):
Oakland police very recently last week is a brand new
story said that the missing person's case is now closed,
but that they and the FBI are still considering the
kidnapping portion of it to be an ongoing investigation. Now
that Luis has been found on the East coast providing
DNA samples, it has proven that he is in fact
(29:19):
the missing boy because Alquin's mother also provided a DNA sample.
So with one hundred percent certainty.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
Talk about a family reunion. And I love that there's
there is some closure here, you know. Actually I went
on mute just so I could I could hear this,
hear the story in full, the noel. Do we have
any indication there's something? A lot of the audience will ask,
(29:47):
do we have any indication on possible identities or motivations
of the original kidnappers all those years ago?
Speaker 4 (29:56):
Now it seems like it might be too soon to know,
but it does appear that they are interested in that
very same question, Ben, in finding out what you know
can be determined. You know, from questioning Louise and describing
this woman who abducted him all those years ago, seventy
years ago, I believe She's been described as having not
(30:18):
that this matters today, but having worn a bandana, you know,
some vague descriptions of her appearance. But again, seventy years ago,
chances are pretty good. With Louise now being in his.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Seventies, he's like seventy nine, rightly.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
Yeah, exactly that this woman would be probably long deceased.
But then the question does become ben, was this part
of some sort of greater organization that perhaps God only
knows still operating? You know, it does seem that there
could be information that could be valuable even this many
years later. So yeah, that's the gist of that story.
(30:54):
I just think it's such a fantastic and powerful statement
on never giving up hope, you know, as hard as
it might be. There's a quote from Aliquhen, the niece,
saying when they reunited, we didn't start crying until after
the investigators left. I grabbed my mom's hand and said,
we found him. I was ecstatic. Aliquan went on to
describe her mother and other relatives being reunited with Luis
(31:18):
as well, saying they grabbed each other and had a
really tight, long hug. They sat down and just talked.
She said, discussing the day of the kidnapping, their military service,
and more.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
And it reminds me of one important point for all
of us listening along. Statistically, unfortunately, some of our fellow
conspiracy realist may have first hand experience with similar situations.
Think of the horrors of the residential schools, Think of
(31:53):
the cultural erasure that has occurred in the Western world
as well as many other parts of the globe. One
thing about DNA testing and the DNA technology that has
yet to be fully legislated is although it poses frightening implications,
it also, as you pointed out, and all these amazing
(32:17):
opportunities right for people to learn more about where they
come from, learn who was lost, and maybe reconnect with
those folks. And I think there's a great power and
poetry to that. I'm curious, what do you guys think.
Do you think that we have someone in the audience
(32:38):
tonight who may have encountered something similar. I'm thinking through
my head, and I know we've had fellow listeners who
have talked at some length there sent us correspondence regarding
finding family they didn't know they had or that they
supposed was gone forever. Do you guys think any body
(33:00):
in the audience tonight might have a similar.
Speaker 4 (33:02):
Story, highly likely, whether it's this extreme a case or
something more like what you were describing, Ben, I think
it's a lot more common than people might think.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Yeah, especially with some of the cases of what was
it fraud where a doctor would impregnate multiple women when
they would come in to you know, partake in IVF
or something like that. You never know, all of us
might have, you know, some kind of siblings out there.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
Agreed, Yeah, I mean, you know, like I said, there's
a whole sticky wicket with the DNA testing for profit
and you know what's being done with that information. And
it was one of those things where it was such
a shiny new thing when it was first offered and
everyone was excited to participate in it without really thinking
about the consequences. But we've also seen the flip side
(33:52):
of that, the positive side of that with cold cases
being solved. Matt, I believe you brought a case, No,
it was a Golden State killer, right. It was a
case involving a DNA site that identified as a suspect
for the Golden State killer and that was determined to
be accurate.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Right, Yes, correct, Jedmatch I believe was the name of
that company that did that.
Speaker 4 (34:19):
There you go, So it's certainly something that we've seen
positive things come out of. There's also, you know, of course,
a dark side to data brokering and all of that
good stuff that we've talked about at length on the show.
So nice to hear a story like this is such
a sad beginning ending on such a positive note. So please,
if anyone out there does have experience like this being
reunited with long lost, possibly thought dead family members, please
(34:42):
do send us your stories conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
We'd really love to hear it and share your stories
on an upcoming listener mail if you are comfortable with that.
In the meantime, let's take a quick break here, a
word from our sponsor, and then come back with one
more piece of strange.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
News, and we have returned. As mentioned at the top,
this is the part of the weekly Strange News segment
that may be disturbing and as such not appropriate for
all listeners. Want to get that disclaimer out of the way.
(35:20):
Will end with a fun thing. But before we get
to this horrific story, let's get a little bit of
paranoia in the chat guys, did you see that there
was a new study confirming some of the world's most
common smart TVs are taking multi second snapshots of what
(35:43):
you watch?
Speaker 4 (35:44):
Is this like Roku specific than them offering so much
of the software operating system for a lot of smart TVs?
I'm curious. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
For a while, NOL, I've been wondering why television prices
seem to buck the overall trend of rising cost in electronics.
Why the TVs yeah become the loss leader. It's because, Yeah,
popular smart TV models me by Sam Sung and LG
(36:15):
take snapshots of what you're watching every second, even if
and get this, even if they're being used as external
displays for your laptop or video game console.
Speaker 4 (36:26):
Oh yeah, so much else snapshot like literally like a
spot Yeah wow.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
Windshot with associated metadata. I want to give a shout
out credits very important where it's due. Shout out to
Jeremy Sue over at New Scientist with this information. That's
where we found it. Published twenty four September, Uh, just
just this month. UH and this dumble one, but a
fun update. We've been on this kick, as longtime listeners
(36:58):
know with UH with drugs hidden in weird things.
Speaker 6 (37:03):
What do we have? We had.
Speaker 4 (37:05):
Fake watermelons, like paper mache, looking at square watermelons.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Oh, and then there was like the crates of something
at the farmer's market.
Speaker 4 (37:15):
Little guitar amplifiers at guitar Center.
Speaker 6 (37:17):
Guitar amplifiers.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Yeah, celery squash. We got hugeless green beans, giant vats
of jolopano paste.
Speaker 4 (37:25):
What happened to there? Such, snuggle them in your butt
like the old days, you know.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
Right well, you can't do the volume. I guess people's
parts are getting smaller.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
Can't find a good drug mule these days.
Speaker 6 (37:39):
You can't even get a regular mule.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
The prices are crazy, so our quick drugs and stuff update.
A German supermarket, not the authorities. A German supermarket discovered
seven million euros worth of cocaine hidden in crates of bananas.
Speaker 6 (37:57):
So if you.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
Are living in Germany and you're getting a weird vibe
off your bananas, get the to the local news.
Speaker 4 (38:07):
There's a Ween song called Bananas and Blow, and I
think that's appropriate soundtrack material for this story.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
You know what, it's weird, no, because I'll hear people
say a Ween reference and half the time I think
they're making it up because the song sounds so specific.
They've got some cookie stuff, okay, But every time I
check it out, it turns out to be the case.
And speaking of cases, this is the trigger warning three
(38:38):
two one. A few days before we came to record
this Strange News segment, the state of Missouri, despite overwhelming protest,
murdered executed a man named Marcellus Williams. This will be
familiar to us because I believe in June of this
(39:03):
year we talked about this a bit on Strange News.
They had set the execution date the state of Missouri,
and they set that date for September twenty fourth. Marcellus
Williams was executed by lethal injection. Would I say there
was a massive outcry. The crime for which he was
(39:29):
executed was the stabbing of Felicia Gail on August eleventh,
nineteen ninety eight. It was a homicide. The two witnesses
who placed him at the scene have passed away, one
of whom I believe recanted their statement. We talked about
some of the stickiness of that. The family of Felicia
(39:52):
Gail also requested clemency from Marcellus Williams. They did not
believe the case held water NA evidence did not match
we talked about that was contaminated. Something that occurred between
the time we first spoke about this and this evening
is it's unprecedented. The prosecution and the defense issued a
(40:16):
joint statement saying, we believe this man is innocent. We
learned about this initially through things like our friends at
Wrongful Conviction and Lava for Good, our friends at the
Innocence Project. What is astonishing here, and I'm sure a
lot of us have seen this on social media, is
(40:37):
that it appears that everything that would have led to
reasonable doubt or an appeal right, or at least a
delay in execution, it was ignored. This guy was following
through the correct steps of the system, but still every
(40:57):
possible avenue is treated as though it didn't matter. Now,
have you guys heard about this case? Have you guys
seen this bumping around on the I.
Speaker 4 (41:08):
Mean I remember it from the LAVA panel that I
had not heard the execution took place until just now.
It's heartbreaking.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
I've just been seeing Maggie Freeling I think you said
your last name.
Speaker 4 (41:20):
Talking about it a lot.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
Yeah, Yeah, one of the hosts of Wrongful conviction along
with Jason Flum, I wanted to learn how this could happen,
like what is the rationale? Because ultimately the governor could
have given clemency right or the state Supreme Court could
(41:42):
have responded to these issues. This is going to be disturbing.
We will read in part the statement of Missouri Governor
Mike Parson in his justification of this murder of what
I believe to be an innocent man. Governor Parson says
(42:05):
in part, capital punishment cases are some of the hardest
issues we have to address in the Governor's office. But
when it comes down to it, I follow the law
and trust the integrity of our judicial system. Mister Williams
has exhausted due process and every judicial avenue, including over
fifteen hearings attempting to argue his innocence and overturn his conviction.
(42:30):
No jury, no court, including at the trial, appellate and
Supreme court levels, have ever found merit in mister Williams's
innocence claims. At the end of the day, his guilty,
verdict and sentence of capital punishment were upheld. Nothing from
the real facts of this case have led me to
believe in mister Williams's innocence as such, mister williams punishment
(42:55):
will be carried out as ordered by the Supreme Court.
And then he goes on, well, let's stop there. What
do you guys think about that rationale? Seen some headshakes.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
Sorry, I'm reading the message from the governor there. It's
just yeah, sorry, I'm still kind of processing all of it.
Speaker 4 (43:17):
I mean same, it's given what we know and what
we know about cases like this, and how so often
justice is not carried out. For something to have this
level of finality to it, I think is just like
the ultimate head shaking kind of moment.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
Yeah, yeah, And I love that point the the victim's
family said, don't kill this person, not because you know,
we're practicing forgiveness, but because we don't think he's the murderer.
Speaker 6 (43:51):
Right.
Speaker 3 (43:52):
The DNA evidence doesn't match. Further the uh there there
was a shoeprint, fingerprints, hair found at the seeing, none
of which matched Williams. I cannot overemphasize how rare and
extraordinary it is for the prosecutor's office and the defense
(44:13):
office to say, don't do this. Yeah, this is not
how justice is supposed to work.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
I wonder if it has anything to do with a
severity like the brutality of the murder of Felicia, because
she was stabbed forty three times. You know, when she
was discovered basically by the crime scene investigators or the
first responders, she had the knife still lodged in her neck,
and you can imagine that that kind of brutal crime,
(44:43):
at least in the beginning. I think it is the
thing we talked about in the beginning, there was such
pressure to find whoever the heck did that, you know,
something so terrible. Not that murdering anyone at any time
isn't awful, but that kind of thing, it's just there's
something inhuman about it. And I imagine that pressure was
tremendous to put somebody behind bars for doing this. And
(45:07):
I think it's that thing that you guys talked about
on the panel with Lava for Good. It's almost like
once law enforcement starts going down a path, and like
a district attorney signs up for a case, it's like
you can't take the wheels off the thing critical mass.
Speaker 3 (45:27):
The case was reviewed by the not just the top
legal boffins in Missouri, but by our own SCOTUS, the
United States Supreme Court just hours before the execution, and
the Supreme Court ultimately denied the request. So this did
get all the way to the top judicial authorities in
(45:49):
the land. However, I do take issue. I think we
all can with another part of Governor Parson's statement, which
we'll read part of it, let's figure out how we
feel about this. Parson, in co signing the state sponsored
murder of an innocent man, said, I also want to
add how deeply disturbed we've been about how this case
(46:12):
has been covered. Mister Williams's attorney chose to muddy the
waters about DNA evidence claims. Sorry, my tone is very
snarky here, claims of which courts have repeatedly rejected. Yet,
says Parson, some media outlets and activist groups have continued
(46:33):
such claims without so much of a mention of the
judicial proceedings or an unbiased analysis of the facts. I
would just implore the media to do their due diligence
and not rely on the sole claims of individuals who
have a personal or monetary stake in this case. Ah
(46:54):
So he's also kind of saying fake news.
Speaker 6 (46:57):
Is that what he's doing.
Speaker 4 (46:59):
It's just a it's pretty half hearted deflesh.
Speaker 3 (47:03):
It feels. Yeah, it feels incredibly unclean. You know, I
might sound like a broken record or repeating what we
said in June, but this just does not make sense.
Speaker 2 (47:15):
Yeah, I just as a as a devil's advocate position.
I'm reading this thing from the governor that was written.
I think at least what Mike Parson is saying here is,
look at all of these bullet pointed things that I've
also included at the end of my statement. These are
all things that, at least in the eyes of me
(47:37):
and the people I've represent in my state, this is
why we.
Speaker 5 (47:40):
Are executing this person.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
And it includes things like Felicia Gale's personal items were
found in the trunk of mister William's car. And I
don't know all the all the you know, details of
the case. I didn't watch any of the stuff. I
don't know anything about it. I imagine if there's a
fact something like that, I don't know. I think you
(48:02):
make up your mind sometimes with law enforcement.
Speaker 3 (48:06):
That yeah, yeah, I see that, And there's a narrative,
and I appreciate you looking at that. So you can
find this statement at Governor dot MO dot gov. Again
came out September twenty fourth, just a few days as
we record, and there is you know, this is what
the governor sees as the justification for this. I would
(48:27):
challenge the governor, however, to respond to the idea that
this is spinning a narrative, given that some of these
bullet points are based on witness testimony, one of whom
Henry Cole was paid five thousand dollars to help spin
the web, and Laura Asaro, who named Marcellus as the
(48:50):
culprit is one of the primary sources upon which the
conviction rests. Now, we're not saying anybody is perfect nor
a paragon of I'm thinking of synonyms for perfect. I
lost my posaurus. Not only is it inconvenient, it's also inconvenient. Uh,
(49:12):
what a dumb joke. The thing here is that we
see inconclusive evidence, and when we're talking about something like
the state exercising the power to end a human life
right non consensually, then this is beyond the realm of
reasonable you know, suspicion or probable cause. You have to
(49:36):
know for sure if.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
You're doing this, well, what is the reason to just
go ahead and carry out that sentence? Rather than just hold,
what's the big problem? Is it going to cost the
state too much money for a prosecutor?
Speaker 4 (49:53):
Don't you think it comes down to politics or it
came down to somebody making the call, whether it be
a governor or what have you. Like, I mean, just
let's put it behind us. Is that kind of thinking?
You know? I don't know.
Speaker 5 (50:03):
As long as.
Speaker 2 (50:04):
It's not a political move. Can you imagine, like it's
a governor that's going to be up for reelection and
wants to show that he's hard on crime.
Speaker 4 (50:11):
That's what.
Speaker 3 (50:14):
De Yeah, tough on crime is a big selling point
in Missouri policy.
Speaker 4 (50:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (50:21):
These are incredibly valid and disturbingly relevant questions. These are
the questions that we shouldn't have to be asking, yet
we must, because in a very real sense, there are
conspiracies of foot. The justice system is in intense need
of repair in the United States. I think many of
(50:44):
us listening tonight can agree the aspects of it are broken,
regardless of where you find yourself in the spectrum of
pro or anti death penalty, regardless of where you find yourself,
and the idea of you know, mandatory sentencing or other
policy things. Also, by the way, related to last meals
(51:05):
to spend the human moment. Williams had chicken wings and
tater tots and he was a poet because he had
been incarcerated, he had found religion. He was a religious
leader in the prison system. And his last you know,
(51:29):
you can find his poetry online and I'll say it objectively,
he's very well written. And his last statement, which is
terrifying that there's a form for this. They apparently gave
him a form where you say, you write out your
(51:49):
last statement, and it looks like a worksheet that you
would get in grade school. And his last statement was
all praise be to Allah in every situation. And you know,
we talk a lot about funny, weird stories. Who's putting
drugs in?
Speaker 4 (52:05):
What you know?
Speaker 3 (52:07):
And what are the octopus up to this time? But
the but but for this, I think there's something enormous
at play. H Noel Matt. This is the third person
executed in Missouri in recent history. The people involved in
(52:27):
the system are telling or we're begging the system not
to execute this man, right to at least re examine
the case, and the system said no. And I think
that's a dangerous precedent. Am I being an alarmist or
as that.
Speaker 4 (52:42):
I mean, No, I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 2 (52:46):
Yeah, I think I think we got to take away
the state's ability to kill people.
Speaker 5 (52:52):
If you're gonna if.
Speaker 2 (52:53):
You're gonna be killing people, gotta be a military there
has to be a civil war, uh oh mas, or
to be a different direction, buddy.
Speaker 6 (53:02):
Yeah, I'm so up to my neck.
Speaker 3 (53:03):
I was talking about this in group TEMs so up
to my neck and weird Middle East news. That's right,
there's more than American to the world. We can't wait
to hear your thoughts on this, folks. We had some
great correspondence about the death penalty when it may or
may not be necessary, how to know a person's guilt
or innocence, and the problems with the justice system not
(53:26):
just here in the States but abroad. And we can't
wait to hear more from you regarding this. We don't
want to end on a negative note.
Speaker 2 (53:37):
So when talking about Russia's rules of engagement with nukes.
Speaker 6 (53:41):
Sorry Thermobaric. Hey, Thermoberic is like tag and base write
a nuke.
Speaker 3 (53:47):
But here is something I thought would make everybody a
little bit happier. As as we head out to the
hurricane evening. That snowmobile guy we mentioned a while back
who crashed into a Blackhawk helicopter got three million dollars.
Speaker 4 (54:04):
Hey, I love to hear it.
Speaker 6 (54:06):
You'll love to see it.
Speaker 3 (54:07):
So adjusted for inflation, I think that's something like two
hundred and fifty thousand. I don't know, depending on when
you go to the grocery store.
Speaker 2 (54:15):
But oh, but he did ask for nine and a
half million.
Speaker 1 (54:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (54:19):
Yeah, that's how the negotiation works, you know what I mean.
Always ask big.
Speaker 3 (54:24):
So with this, folks, thank you, as always for tuning
in too strange news. We will be back with listener mail.
We've got episodes. You are our favorite part of the show.
Please stay safe out there. Give us your thoughts on everything,
including leads for new investigations. We try to be easy
to find online.
Speaker 4 (54:44):
Boy do we ever. You can find it at the
handle Conspiracy Stuff, where we exist, on Facebook, where we
have our Facebook group Here's where it gets crazy. Also
on YouTube, where you can find video content galore to
enjoy at your leisure, and finally on x FKA, Twitter,
on Instagram and TikTok. We are Conspiracy Stuff Show.
Speaker 2 (55:03):
If you want to call us, call one eight three
three STD WYTK. When you call in, it's a voicemail system.
You've got three minutes say whatever you'd like do. Please
give yourself a cool nickname. We don't care what it is.
And let us know if we can use your name
and message on the air. If you got more to
say than can fit in a message, why not instead
shoot us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 3 (55:25):
We are the entities that read every single piece of
correspondence we receive. Be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the
void rights back. Shout out to humorous Harry Jesus, did
you see that? And also give us your favorite palindromes.
I've been blowing up our group chats with apologies to you,
(55:47):
you know, because you have to sit through this already.
New favorite palindrome is satan oscillate my metallic sonatas.
Speaker 4 (55:55):
Come oh, come on.
Speaker 2 (55:57):
It's hard to believe it's a palindrome, but it is
except for the comma.
Speaker 6 (56:02):
Yeah, yeah, you know.
Speaker 3 (56:03):
I send it to you with a comma. But the
proper way to do it is without punctuation, without the period.
Got it at the end. So satan oscillate my metallic sonatas.
This is not a code phrase, hopefully, and Hopefully we're
not launching nukes just yet, but just in case, get
your emails in join us here in the dark conspiracy
at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (56:43):
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noah.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
They call me Ben. We are joined with our producer
Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you are here
and that makes this the stuff they don't want you
to know. We are coming to you semi live as
a hurricane is hitting the US, the southeastern US, part
(00:49):
of which we are based in, and we wanted to
get this out as long as we have power. We
talked a little bit about the because we're super cool
and superant not boring.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
Yeah, we got stories. How's that about the weather? No,
it actually is appropriate this time. It's kind of a
little scary. And we talked about how interesting and non
exact a science meteorology kind of is. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Well, if you look at the radar right now, guys,
I don't know if you've noticed this when it's showing
like if you go to weather dot COM's radar that
they display right it will show you the storm systems
moving north through as you said, the southeastern part of
the US. But it doesn't show the hurricane. And when
it's showing you the past up until now, the hurricane
(01:38):
pops on screen when it shows you the future, like
what's coming, what's about to happen? Even though the storm
system is displaying in the past is like right near
or around the hurricane. It's the weirdest thing.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
What does it mean that? What does it mean?
Speaker 5 (01:54):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
It means there's a weird Venn diagram and people are
portraying it differently, which is not great for the populace.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Well, it makes me wonder in the future if the
AI systems that have been used for weather prediction, for
these types of radar systems, right look at what's happened
in the past with the radar and then use these
intense supercomputers and systems deep learning systems to predict what's
going to happen.
Speaker 5 (02:18):
What if those.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Systems start not making up storms but start displayingcinating Yeah,
I mean we've talked about.
Speaker 5 (02:25):
How those systems can have weird stuff.
Speaker 6 (02:29):
Pre crime, pre natural disaster crime.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
I'm just happy that all the weather people on TV
are having a moment to shine. You love to see it.
They don't get their due.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
I love it. I love meteorologists. They get a tough
time because sometimes they predict the possibility of disasters that
people don't fully understand, and they get a hard time
either way. So they're doing great work. Just like the
octopuses that are training fish to hunt with them. That's
a true story. They're not doing it. The fish, I mean,
(03:03):
are not necessarily consenting to this because the octopus will
beat them until it hunts with them.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
I remember my octopus teacher. I saw that.
Speaker 6 (03:15):
Yeah, right, So check out the news on that.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
We're going to talk about some very heavy things, some
very disturbing things, discoveries, updates, bands, just you know, folks.
At the end, toward the end and the third act
of this weekly Strange News segment, we are going to
talk about state sponsored murder. But there's so much strange news.
(03:42):
We have so much on the way.
Speaker 5 (03:49):
And we've returned.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
We're going to hit a couple updates, guys, and then
have a brief thought experiment about a story Ben that
you brought to us last week. The whole world was watching.
I think, So here we go. First of all, do
you guys Remember that giant cargo ship that crashed into
and collapsed Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge in March.
Speaker 6 (04:09):
Oh yeah, yeah bridge.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Well, the company that runs that, that manages that ship
as well as owns that ship, is in the news
again because the sister ship of the Bali that's the
name of the ship that actually crashed into the bridge there,
The sister ship, the Mayserk I think is how you'd
say it, or Masersk m ae Rsk sal Toro, is
(04:36):
now in the news because it has been boarded by
agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the US Environmental
Protection Agency's Criminal Investigation Division, and the Coast Guard Investigative
Services because because just like the Dolly, it is alleged
(04:57):
or believed at least by these investigators that the Maersk Saltro,
just like the Dolly, basically has all kinds of major
issues on it. We're talking electrical issues, mechanical issues. That
mean these vessels, this one, just like the Dolly, basically
(05:17):
are giant problems floating around in the ocean that could
cause a major incident, just like the DOLLI caused back
in March. I'll read you just a little bit of this.
There was a lawsuit that was filed on Wednesday, September
eighteenth by the US Justice Department. It alleges that the
owners Grace Ocean Private Limited and the manager Senterg Marine
(05:41):
or Centergy Marine Group, both of these companies out of Singapore,
they recklessly cut corners and ignore known electrical problems on
their vessels, specifically on the Dolli, and that is what
caused multiple power issues which ended up causing the crash
that made a bridge collapse. They're saying that the same
(06:02):
kind of things exist on this new ship or this
it's not a new ship, it's a sister ship, but
is now new to us, right, And the Justice Department
is trying to get over one hundred million dollars from
these companies to pay for all of the stuff that
it took to get that bridge basically cleared out and
all the debris out of the way so that the
(06:22):
port could even open again.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
Well, it seems only fair, doesn't that it was entirely
their fault?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Well, it was, right, So there's a lot of litigation
happening right now. Attorneys in offices trying to figure out, well,
who actually is at fault.
Speaker 5 (06:37):
And why and why was it not us? Right? I
mean that's basically the things.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
That happen after a disaster like this, because remember six
human beings that were working on that bridge died when
this occurred. And then if you think about the billions
of dollars, Remember we were talking about that, the billions
of dollars that the city of Baltimore and all of
the companies that ship in and out of that port lost.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
In revenue, right, like m Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Because nobody could come in or out for several months.
It was just a big deal. So from March till
June it was incapacitated.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
Yeah. It's funny. A friend of mine staying with me
who's a lawyer, and we were talking about this weather
situation and the concept of theft, just joking around saying, oh,
if my partner's art market is canceled due to weather,
then that's technically like theft of her wages or her
ability to sell. I mean you could argue that by
the negligence alone, this company like defrauded people of their income,
(07:35):
defrauded this company of its ability to earn.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Yeah, for sure, for sure. Oh and just in a
bit of hopeful news guys. The Dolly, which remember, was
like smashed into that bridge and kind of became a
part of the bridge there for a little while. It
was successfully quote extricated and refloated, and as of Thursday,
September nineteenth, it was on a new route headed to
(08:00):
China for its first international voyage post bridge collapse. So
at least that ship still working silver lining, I don't know.
In the end, this appears to be the Justice Department
trying to get money back for a bunch of stuff
that it and a bunch of other federal and state
agencies went through to fix a huge problem. All right,
(08:24):
We've got a second update, you guys. Remember that British
tech billionaire Mike Lynch who died along with several of
his family members and friends like his daughter, when his
super yacht, the Baysian, sank off the coast of Sicily
in August.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
Yeah, well, it's.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Back in the news too for a bit of a
different reason. And it is because I'm going to read
you a quote from this article out of CNN. Specialist
divers surveying the wreckage of the forty million dollars super
yacht have asked for heightened security to guard the vessel
over concerns that sensitive ata locked in its safes may
(09:02):
interest foreign governments. What what, So, we've got a super
yacht down at the bottom of the ocean where it
was found, right, that's where several people met their demise, unfortunately,
including the uh one of the owners of that super yacht,
Mike Lynch. According to quote, you guys are gonna love this,
(09:23):
sources familiar with the investigation.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
Unquote sources so helpful, aren't they?
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Yeah, the Baysian this super yacht may contain highly sensitive
data tied to a number of Western intelligence services. What
sensitive information about Western intelligence services on a ship that
was British off the coast of Italy? Interesting?
Speaker 5 (09:49):
Do you guys have any thoughts on that? Initially?
Speaker 4 (09:53):
Well, sure makes it seem like this was some kind
of hit, right, But so why didn't they get the stuff?
Usually if there's a hit because someone's sitting on important
or classified or sensitive information, they you know, a person
is killed and then the stuff is removed and no
one ever finds it. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
It feels a little weird to me that there would
be sensitive data like that on a ship that hangs
out in international waters all the time, Why would you
have that there? There are probably reasons.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
Well, wasn't that part of the conversation? This seemed fishy,
like maybe there was these were high value individuals or
people that know stuff, and maybe this was some sort
of orchestrated attempt to sink the yacht and make it
look like an accident.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Yes, but you asked the right question there in NOL.
Why would someone who targeted this ship and the people
who were on it if they weren't going to take
that stuff already? Right, if the goal wasn't to get
that kind of stuff. So the reason why that information's
on the ship is because Lynch, Mike Lynch was associated with,
(10:59):
according to see in, British, American and other intelligence services
through his various companies, including the cybersecurity company that he founded,
Dark Trace also guys his wife's company, ray Tom r
E YTM Limited. Sorry that's the second name, ray Tom Limited.
(11:20):
That company owned the ship and this person, Mike Linch's wife,
was also an advisor to British Prime Ministers David Cameron
and Theresa May. She was a science, technology and cyber
security advisor, which means she likely had information, or at
least had access to information that was highly sensitive. Who
(11:41):
knows if she took any of that or stored any
of that. I think that's what these investigators are interested in,
the potential that some of that stuff ended up on these,
at least according to the authorities, highly secured drives, like
heavily encrypted drives that exist in safes that are allegedly watertight,
that are now at the bottom of the ocean.
Speaker 4 (12:03):
Craziness. It's wild.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
But the biggest thing is that law enforcement in these
these investigative services believe that this information is so let's
say actionable, maybe that Russian and Chinese services special services
would be willing to go down there and attempt to
recover it.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
Ben, what kind of stuff do you think would fall
into it and that level of concern for all of
these other parties nol.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Do you mean as in, what would what kind of info.
Speaker 4 (12:36):
Would do, what would lead to this level of hubbub.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Like, what would incentivize rival powers? Yeah, it's tough because
it's the age of information war. So probably the idea is,
or the fear is that something there could be leading
to not perishable immediate intelligence, but leading to methods of
(13:06):
collection perhaps even you know, the stinky side of it
would be the idea of algorithmic patterns things that could
be used to break encryption would be a great one,
especially given the context outlined earlier. I will say also
(13:27):
to this point, before we get to to James Bond
about it. Past a certain threshold of wealth, a lot
of people kick it naturally with intelligence agencies like the
tech bros. Are of great interest to the intel guys.
And the other thing is if this is really a takedown,
(13:49):
because we have briefly talked about the possibility of bad
faith actors, and you know, whether this is an accident
or a manufactured event. There are fifteen survivors right from
the original from the original debacle.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Oh yeah, yeah, lots of people made it off and
got to another ship that was nearby that also happened
to be a sailboat. Remember that a little weird, just
on the idea of what could be in there. According
to CNN, they talked to someone unquote who asked not
to be named unquote, and that person said that the
ship is thought to have watertight safes containing two super
(14:29):
encrypted hard drives that hold highly classified information, including passcodes
and other sensitive data.
Speaker 4 (14:35):
There you go.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Yeah, So it's holding the keys to some doors exactlyctly.
And that's that's what I mean when I say like
methods and encryption breaking kind of things, and it's it
is totally possible. It is highly within the realm of plausibility.
We do have to also consider that you know a
lot of people who are on this boat at this
(14:58):
time did not know, you know, what was in these safes.
That's the point of safes in general, right Like, Unfortunately,
the chef on the yacht, because this was a big
enough yacht to have a guy whose job was just
to be the chef, he probably died without having any
idea of what was contained in here.
Speaker 6 (15:21):
But to your.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Earlier question about the value of the information on these
hard drives, we have to remember that international maritime law
is a little bit different. I know, I sound like
Charlie Day talking about bird law, but maritime law is
a little different. So there are consequences for powers like
(15:43):
Russia or China being apprehended tried to do a little
scoot and boot under scavenger law. Even though scavenger law is.
Speaker 6 (15:54):
Still kind of a thing.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
You can get in trouble if you're obviously I will
say spook it about.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Well, and if it's a crime scene, right, and in
this case, it's a crime scene because it's under investigation
there by Italian authorities. Who knows what's gonna happen, but
they are putting all kinds of underwater surveillance and lots
and lots of surveillance above the water because it is
one hundred and sixty four feet below the surface of
the water. So if you've got to ship up there,
(16:22):
who knows what's going on. You're not going to see
any lights if anybody's got a submersible or something down there,
or you know, a team of like essentially seals crazy town, y'all.
So let's keep an eye on that for sure. Last
thing I've got here is going to be super quick.
Moving on to a hunch I've got based on the
story you brought to us last week, Ben, I've been
(16:43):
thinking a lot about the sorts of casual conversations that
are being held in the upper echelons of every government
on the planet since last week. I imagine the most
prominent thing they're talking about is how do we check
every single device in our division, in this building, in
the state that we operate in, Maybe even in the
country to make sure that none of these devices have
(17:05):
explosives in them, because what if there's an enemy of
ours that has already orchestrated an attack like this, it
just hasn't happened yet, and in that case, it would
mean explosives are already in devices. There's just nobody sent
a signal yet. Right, Well, it just maybe kind of
go down to what if they're thinking about vehicles rather
(17:27):
than pagers, because we know from stories that we've talked
about in the past that vehicles of all shapes and
sizes are manufactured now at least this is the norm,
manufactured in all parts of the world, and then those
parts are individually shipped to a place where they're assembled
into the vehicle that you know and drive around in. Well,
(17:50):
according to Reuters, the US government is very much interested
in trying to prevent a specific country from sending both
hardware and software to be included in any vehicles that
are operated in the United States.
Speaker 6 (18:05):
Oh gosh, who could it be?
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Gee, I don't know who. What country makes a bunch
of things that the United States uses? Say it in
his access China? There you go, All right, that's exactly correct.
This is out of Reuters. The US Commerce Department is
expected on Monday. This was this past Monday that we're
(18:28):
recording this so on the twenty third of September to
propose prohibiting Chinese software and hardware in connected and autonomous
vehicles on American roads due to national security concerns. Guys,
so on connected and autonomous vehicles, it gets a little
(18:48):
weird when we talk autonomous is pretty simple, right, A
vehicle that's going to operate on its own as a
part of those ride share services or eventually the plans
are to have like shipping being automated, at least to
a large part. That's one of the things that I
was going to say, Nicola Tesla. It's one of the
things that Tesla has been attempting to do for a
long time, getting these very specialized trucks that could actually
(19:11):
ship stuff all around the country and not have any
humans on them, just doing their thing, their little robot
shipping thing.
Speaker 5 (19:20):
But it also made me think.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
About guys vehicles that let's say, the Secret Service uses
to ship around highly important individuals in the government. It
makes me think about all types of human beings that
are important to the US government. Continuity they get moved
around on vehicles that have Chinese hardware and software in them.
(19:41):
And if you go down, let me say the article.
The article is titled exclusive colon US to propose ban
on Chinese software, hardware and connected vehicles. You will see
a quote from Gina Raimondo r AI MND, who is
the United States Commerce Secretary. She was speaking in May
(20:02):
of this year, twenty twenty four, and she said, quote,
you can imagine the most catastrophic outcome theoretically if you
add a couple million cars on the road and the
software were disabled. So let's think about that. In that scenario,
there are a couple million cars across the United States that,
in one attack of sorts all become disabled at once. Right,
(20:27):
some of those vehicles would be parked, some of them
might be on roads, some of them might become obstructions,
some of them might be ridden in by important people.
That becomes kind of a scary thing. But if you
look at the history of specifically the Secret Service in
the vehicles that they use, they are primarily GMC vehicles,
(20:50):
US made vehicles, but a lot of these vehicles have
Chinese hardware and software in them. Specifically GMC vehicles guys
like Cadillacs, like the limos that presidents get driven around
in all the time, they would be affected by.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
This interesting I heard a piece on the radio a
week or so ago about this exact thing, and the
person that was talking, and the expert whose name escapes me,
was saying how there aren't that many fully Chinese manufactured
vehicles available in the US markets. But they didn't mention
all of the systems that you're talking about, Matt.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Yeah, components that are inside these systems. Anyway, it just
made me think about that. Guys, I just wondered if
you had any ideas. But I know we're running along
on time here, so maybe we'll save our thoughts for
a different time and we'll ask what you think about
these three stories. We'll tell you how to contact us
at the end of the episode, but for now, let's
hear a few words from our sponsor and we'll be
(21:47):
right back with more strange news.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
And we returned with another piece of strange news. This
one starts off pretty sad, but stick with us, folks,
it has a happy ending. Oakland, California, nineteen fifty one.
A little boy named Louis Armando albino, six years old
at the time, was playing in a park and was abducted.
(22:19):
A woman on February twenty first, nineteen fifty one lured
him away from the West Oakland Park where he'd been
playing with his brother, promising him in Spanish Puerto Rican
Boy that she was going to buy him candy. And
it's just gosh, that whole concept of like luring kids
(22:41):
with candy is such a trope, But it's a trope
for a reason. Troops are only troops because they were
true at some point one hundred percent. So fast forward
to the modern day. So the woman in question took
this minor child on a flight to the East Coast,
(23:01):
the entire opposite side of the country, and he ended
up through whatever means, it does appear to be trafficking.
I imagined he was perhaps sold or there was a
ve paid or something. But the good news is he
was raised by a couple and does not appear that
there was any allegations of abuse from this couple who
(23:24):
raised him as their own. Officials and family members have
not commented exactly where on the East Coast this took place.
But fast forward about seventy years y'all to the modern
day albino or albino. I think his has pronounced stayed missing.
His family members left behind never forgot about him. They
(23:49):
kept pictures hung of him and their homes and the
homes of their relatives. His mother passed away in two
thousand and five, but apparently, according to other relatives, including
his niece, never gave up hope, maybe not that they
would ever be reunited with the boy, but that he
was still alive.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Can you imagine the just the gravity of that burden
to bear.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
I cannot, you know, as a parent and as someone
who's other kids in my life who aren't in mind
by blood, it is just the most terrifying. The not
knowing is the most terrifying thing. I mean, of course,
obviously knowing that your child was killed is horrific in
and of itself, but there's something about the games your
mind plays with you for that long.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Imagine the mother fifty plus years, fifty four years of
just knowing your son is gone, and then you pass
away believing your son is just gone, but you never
get closure in any way.
Speaker 4 (24:50):
No Oakland Police. By the way, this reporting comes from
an article by the Associated Press, and it was picked
up and there's there have been other pieces, but I
do think this is quite a good summation of the story.
Oakland PD acknowledged that it was actions of the family
(25:12):
that led to this case going from unsolved and cold
as they come to being essentially reignited, you know, with
some hope, and most importantly, the efforts of Albino's niece,
the now sixty three year old Alita Aloquin. Essentially what
(25:34):
happened was the following. She is credited by police with
playing an integral role. This is a quote from the
Oakland Police in finding her uncle, and that the outcome
of this story is what they, as police investigators, strive for.
So let's get to the good part. Oakland Tribune articles
(25:54):
that reported on the disappearance reported the police and soldiers
from a local army base, as well as the Coast
Guard and other city employees, participated in a massive search
for the missing boy all across the San Francisco Bay area.
The San Francisco Bay and other waterways were dragged and
searched looking for the worst, of course, you know body.
(26:18):
His brother, Roger Albino, was interrogated multiple times, potentially as
a suspect. Investigators ultimately dismissed him as a suspect because
he stood by his story about seeing that woman. This
is the brother, by the way, who was with you know,
Albino when he was abducted. So can you imagine that
being your brother being taken you blaming yourself of course,
(26:42):
as you would naturally whether that's true or not, and
then being interrogated by the police blaming you for his disappearance,
or maybe even implying that you had something to do
with it. So let's go back to Aliquin, who first
got an inkling that her uncle might actually be still alive.
(27:03):
That came in twenty twenty where she just for fun,
as she put it, took an online DNA test. It's
not mentioned exactly which one it was, but we've certainly
seen these online DNA tests being the subject of a
lot of criticism, a lot of controversy in terms of
just the companies that offer these, just buying and selling
(27:24):
your DNA information, your data, and all of that. Certainly
there is the sketchy side of this, but just the same,
she took the online DNA test, which showed, thankfully, because
this other individual was in the database, a twenty two
percent match with a man living on the other side
of the country who did ultimately turn out to be
(27:44):
her uncle, Lewis Armando Albino, that six year old boy
who was abducted in nineteen fifty one. Pretty incredible. In
early twenty twenty four, she and her daughters started to
search for this man. On a visit to the Oakland
Public Library, she looked through some of the microfilms of
the reporting from when the abduction took place, and she
(28:07):
actually found one that had a picture of Louis and
Louise and Roger, the brothers, which she was able to
kind of look to as a sign that she was
on the right track because this person that she was
connected with looked like he could potentially be a match.
And she went to the Oakland Police with this information,
(28:30):
and the investigators, you know, in what one could argue
would be kind of like exception to what would normally happen.
It seems in these kind of situations where someone comes
with information on a long dead case, you often hear
about people of being you know, pushed aside and not
taken seriously. So kudos to the Oakland Police Department for
taking this information seriously and opening a new missing person investigation.
(28:56):
Oakland police very recently last week is a brand new
story said that the missing person's case is now closed,
but that they and the FBI are still considering the
kidnapping portion of it to be an ongoing investigation. Now
that Luis has been found on the East coast providing
DNA samples, it has proven that he is in fact
(29:19):
the missing boy because Alquin's mother also provided a DNA sample.
So with one hundred percent certainty.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
Talk about a family reunion. And I love that there's
there is some closure here, you know. Actually I went
on mute just so I could I could hear this,
hear the story in full, the noel. Do we have
any indication there's something? A lot of the audience will ask,
(29:47):
do we have any indication on possible identities or motivations
of the original kidnappers all those years ago?
Speaker 4 (29:56):
Now it seems like it might be too soon to know,
but it does appear that they are interested in that
very same question, Ben, in finding out what you know
can be determined. You know, from questioning Louise and describing
this woman who abducted him all those years ago, seventy
years ago, I believe She's been described as having not
(30:18):
that this matters today, but having worn a bandana, you know,
some vague descriptions of her appearance. But again, seventy years ago,
chances are pretty good. With Louise now being in his.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Seventies, he's like seventy nine, rightly.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
Yeah, exactly that this woman would be probably long deceased.
But then the question does become ben, was this part
of some sort of greater organization that perhaps God only
knows still operating? You know, it does seem that there
could be information that could be valuable even this many
years later. So yeah, that's the gist of that story.
(30:54):
I just think it's such a fantastic and powerful statement
on never giving up hope, you know, as hard as
it might be. There's a quote from Aliquhen, the niece,
saying when they reunited, we didn't start crying until after
the investigators left. I grabbed my mom's hand and said,
we found him. I was ecstatic. Aliquan went on to
describe her mother and other relatives being reunited with Luis
(31:18):
as well, saying they grabbed each other and had a
really tight, long hug. They sat down and just talked.
She said, discussing the day of the kidnapping, their military service,
and more.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
And it reminds me of one important point for all
of us listening along. Statistically, unfortunately, some of our fellow
conspiracy realist may have first hand experience with similar situations.
Think of the horrors of the residential schools, Think of
(31:53):
the cultural erasure that has occurred in the Western world
as well as many other parts of the globe. One
thing about DNA testing and the DNA technology that has
yet to be fully legislated is although it poses frightening implications,
it also, as you pointed out, and all these amazing
(32:17):
opportunities right for people to learn more about where they
come from, learn who was lost, and maybe reconnect with
those folks. And I think there's a great power and
poetry to that. I'm curious, what do you guys think.
Do you think that we have someone in the audience
(32:38):
tonight who may have encountered something similar. I'm thinking through
my head, and I know we've had fellow listeners who
have talked at some length there sent us correspondence regarding
finding family they didn't know they had or that they
supposed was gone forever. Do you guys think any body
(33:00):
in the audience tonight might have a similar.
Speaker 4 (33:02):
Story, highly likely, whether it's this extreme a case or
something more like what you were describing, Ben, I think
it's a lot more common than people might think.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Yeah, especially with some of the cases of what was
it fraud where a doctor would impregnate multiple women when
they would come in to you know, partake in IVF
or something like that. You never know, all of us
might have, you know, some kind of siblings out there.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
Agreed, Yeah, I mean, you know, like I said, there's
a whole sticky wicket with the DNA testing for profit
and you know what's being done with that information. And
it was one of those things where it was such
a shiny new thing when it was first offered and
everyone was excited to participate in it without really thinking
about the consequences. But we've also seen the flip side
(33:52):
of that, the positive side of that with cold cases
being solved. Matt, I believe you brought a case, No,
it was a Golden State killer, right. It was a
case involving a DNA site that identified as a suspect
for the Golden State killer and that was determined to
be accurate.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Right, Yes, correct, Jedmatch I believe was the name of
that company that did that.
Speaker 4 (34:19):
There you go, So it's certainly something that we've seen
positive things come out of. There's also, you know, of course,
a dark side to data brokering and all of that
good stuff that we've talked about at length on the show.
So nice to hear a story like this is such
a sad beginning ending on such a positive note. So please,
if anyone out there does have experience like this being
reunited with long lost, possibly thought dead family members, please
(34:42):
do send us your stories conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
We'd really love to hear it and share your stories
on an upcoming listener mail if you are comfortable with that.
In the meantime, let's take a quick break here, a
word from our sponsor, and then come back with one
more piece of strange.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
News, and we have returned. As mentioned at the top,
this is the part of the weekly Strange News segment
that may be disturbing and as such not appropriate for
all listeners. Want to get that disclaimer out of the way.
(35:20):
Will end with a fun thing. But before we get
to this horrific story, let's get a little bit of
paranoia in the chat guys, did you see that there
was a new study confirming some of the world's most
common smart TVs are taking multi second snapshots of what
(35:43):
you watch?
Speaker 4 (35:44):
Is this like Roku specific than them offering so much
of the software operating system for a lot of smart TVs?
I'm curious. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
For a while, NOL, I've been wondering why television prices
seem to buck the overall trend of rising cost in electronics.
Why the TVs yeah become the loss leader. It's because, Yeah,
popular smart TV models me by Sam Sung and LG
(36:15):
take snapshots of what you're watching every second, even if
and get this, even if they're being used as external
displays for your laptop or video game console.
Speaker 4 (36:26):
Oh yeah, so much else snapshot like literally like a
spot Yeah wow.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
Windshot with associated metadata. I want to give a shout
out credits very important where it's due. Shout out to
Jeremy Sue over at New Scientist with this information. That's
where we found it. Published twenty four September, Uh, just
just this month. UH and this dumble one, but a
fun update. We've been on this kick, as longtime listeners
(36:58):
know with UH with drugs hidden in weird things.
Speaker 6 (37:03):
What do we have? We had.
Speaker 4 (37:05):
Fake watermelons, like paper mache, looking at square watermelons.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Oh, and then there was like the crates of something
at the farmer's market.
Speaker 4 (37:15):
Little guitar amplifiers at guitar Center.
Speaker 6 (37:17):
Guitar amplifiers.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Yeah, celery squash. We got hugeless green beans, giant vats
of jolopano paste.
Speaker 4 (37:25):
What happened to there? Such, snuggle them in your butt
like the old days, you know.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
Right well, you can't do the volume. I guess people's
parts are getting smaller.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
Can't find a good drug mule these days.
Speaker 6 (37:39):
You can't even get a regular mule.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
The prices are crazy, so our quick drugs and stuff update.
A German supermarket, not the authorities. A German supermarket discovered
seven million euros worth of cocaine hidden in crates of bananas.
Speaker 6 (37:57):
So if you.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
Are living in Germany and you're getting a weird vibe
off your bananas, get the to the local news.
Speaker 4 (38:07):
There's a Ween song called Bananas and Blow, and I
think that's appropriate soundtrack material for this story.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
You know what, it's weird, no, because I'll hear people
say a Ween reference and half the time I think
they're making it up because the song sounds so specific.
They've got some cookie stuff, okay, But every time I
check it out, it turns out to be the case.
And speaking of cases, this is the trigger warning three
(38:38):
two one. A few days before we came to record
this Strange News segment, the state of Missouri, despite overwhelming protest,
murdered executed a man named Marcellus Williams. This will be
familiar to us because I believe in June of this
(39:03):
year we talked about this a bit on Strange News.
They had set the execution date the state of Missouri,
and they set that date for September twenty fourth. Marcellus
Williams was executed by lethal injection. Would I say there
was a massive outcry. The crime for which he was
(39:29):
executed was the stabbing of Felicia Gail on August eleventh,
nineteen ninety eight. It was a homicide. The two witnesses
who placed him at the scene have passed away, one
of whom I believe recanted their statement. We talked about
some of the stickiness of that. The family of Felicia
(39:52):
Gail also requested clemency from Marcellus Williams. They did not
believe the case held water NA evidence did not match
we talked about that was contaminated. Something that occurred between
the time we first spoke about this and this evening
is it's unprecedented. The prosecution and the defense issued a
(40:16):
joint statement saying, we believe this man is innocent. We
learned about this initially through things like our friends at
Wrongful Conviction and Lava for Good, our friends at the
Innocence Project. What is astonishing here, and I'm sure a
lot of us have seen this on social media, is
(40:37):
that it appears that everything that would have led to
reasonable doubt or an appeal right, or at least a
delay in execution, it was ignored. This guy was following
through the correct steps of the system, but still every
(40:57):
possible avenue is treated as though it didn't matter. Now,
have you guys heard about this case? Have you guys
seen this bumping around on the I.
Speaker 4 (41:08):
Mean I remember it from the LAVA panel that I
had not heard the execution took place until just now.
It's heartbreaking.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
I've just been seeing Maggie Freeling I think you said
your last name.
Speaker 4 (41:20):
Talking about it a lot.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
Yeah, Yeah, one of the hosts of Wrongful conviction along
with Jason Flum, I wanted to learn how this could happen,
like what is the rationale? Because ultimately the governor could
have given clemency right or the state Supreme Court could
(41:42):
have responded to these issues. This is going to be disturbing.
We will read in part the statement of Missouri Governor
Mike Parson in his justification of this murder of what
I believe to be an innocent man. Governor Parson says
(42:05):
in part, capital punishment cases are some of the hardest
issues we have to address in the Governor's office. But
when it comes down to it, I follow the law
and trust the integrity of our judicial system. Mister Williams
has exhausted due process and every judicial avenue, including over
fifteen hearings attempting to argue his innocence and overturn his conviction.
(42:30):
No jury, no court, including at the trial, appellate and
Supreme court levels, have ever found merit in mister Williams's
innocence claims. At the end of the day, his guilty,
verdict and sentence of capital punishment were upheld. Nothing from
the real facts of this case have led me to
believe in mister Williams's innocence as such, mister williams punishment
(42:55):
will be carried out as ordered by the Supreme Court.
And then he goes on, well, let's stop there. What
do you guys think about that rationale? Seen some headshakes.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
Sorry, I'm reading the message from the governor there. It's
just yeah, sorry, I'm still kind of processing all of it.
Speaker 4 (43:17):
I mean same, it's given what we know and what
we know about cases like this, and how so often
justice is not carried out. For something to have this
level of finality to it, I think is just like
the ultimate head shaking kind of moment.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
Yeah, yeah, And I love that point the the victim's
family said, don't kill this person, not because you know,
we're practicing forgiveness, but because we don't think he's the murderer.
Speaker 6 (43:51):
Right.
Speaker 3 (43:52):
The DNA evidence doesn't match. Further the uh there there
was a shoeprint, fingerprints, hair found at the seeing, none
of which matched Williams. I cannot overemphasize how rare and
extraordinary it is for the prosecutor's office and the defense
(44:13):
office to say, don't do this. Yeah, this is not
how justice is supposed to work.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
I wonder if it has anything to do with a
severity like the brutality of the murder of Felicia, because
she was stabbed forty three times. You know, when she
was discovered basically by the crime scene investigators or the
first responders, she had the knife still lodged in her neck,
and you can imagine that that kind of brutal crime,
(44:43):
at least in the beginning. I think it is the
thing we talked about in the beginning, there was such
pressure to find whoever the heck did that, you know,
something so terrible. Not that murdering anyone at any time
isn't awful, but that kind of thing, it's just there's
something inhuman about it. And I imagine that pressure was
tremendous to put somebody behind bars for doing this. And
(45:07):
I think it's that thing that you guys talked about
on the panel with Lava for Good. It's almost like
once law enforcement starts going down a path, and like
a district attorney signs up for a case, it's like
you can't take the wheels off the thing critical mass.
Speaker 3 (45:27):
The case was reviewed by the not just the top
legal boffins in Missouri, but by our own SCOTUS, the
United States Supreme Court just hours before the execution, and
the Supreme Court ultimately denied the request. So this did
get all the way to the top judicial authorities in
(45:49):
the land. However, I do take issue. I think we
all can with another part of Governor Parson's statement, which
we'll read part of it, let's figure out how we
feel about this. Parson, in co signing the state sponsored
murder of an innocent man, said, I also want to
add how deeply disturbed we've been about how this case
(46:12):
has been covered. Mister Williams's attorney chose to muddy the
waters about DNA evidence claims. Sorry, my tone is very
snarky here, claims of which courts have repeatedly rejected. Yet,
says Parson, some media outlets and activist groups have continued
(46:33):
such claims without so much of a mention of the
judicial proceedings or an unbiased analysis of the facts. I
would just implore the media to do their due diligence
and not rely on the sole claims of individuals who
have a personal or monetary stake in this case. Ah
(46:54):
So he's also kind of saying fake news.
Speaker 6 (46:57):
Is that what he's doing.
Speaker 4 (46:59):
It's just a it's pretty half hearted deflesh.
Speaker 3 (47:03):
It feels. Yeah, it feels incredibly unclean. You know, I
might sound like a broken record or repeating what we
said in June, but this just does not make sense.
Speaker 2 (47:15):
Yeah, I just as a as a devil's advocate position.
I'm reading this thing from the governor that was written.
I think at least what Mike Parson is saying here is,
look at all of these bullet pointed things that I've
also included at the end of my statement. These are
all things that, at least in the eyes of me
(47:37):
and the people I've represent in my state, this is
why we.
Speaker 5 (47:40):
Are executing this person.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
And it includes things like Felicia Gale's personal items were
found in the trunk of mister William's car. And I
don't know all the all the you know, details of
the case. I didn't watch any of the stuff. I
don't know anything about it. I imagine if there's a
fact something like that, I don't know. I think you
(48:02):
make up your mind sometimes with law enforcement.
Speaker 3 (48:06):
That yeah, yeah, I see that, And there's a narrative,
and I appreciate you looking at that. So you can
find this statement at Governor dot MO dot gov. Again
came out September twenty fourth, just a few days as
we record, and there is you know, this is what
the governor sees as the justification for this. I would
(48:27):
challenge the governor, however, to respond to the idea that
this is spinning a narrative, given that some of these
bullet points are based on witness testimony, one of whom
Henry Cole was paid five thousand dollars to help spin
the web, and Laura Asaro, who named Marcellus as the
(48:50):
culprit is one of the primary sources upon which the
conviction rests. Now, we're not saying anybody is perfect nor
a paragon of I'm thinking of synonyms for perfect. I
lost my posaurus. Not only is it inconvenient, it's also inconvenient. Uh,
(49:12):
what a dumb joke. The thing here is that we
see inconclusive evidence, and when we're talking about something like
the state exercising the power to end a human life
right non consensually, then this is beyond the realm of
reasonable you know, suspicion or probable cause. You have to
(49:36):
know for sure if.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
You're doing this, well, what is the reason to just
go ahead and carry out that sentence? Rather than just hold,
what's the big problem? Is it going to cost the
state too much money for a prosecutor?
Speaker 4 (49:53):
Don't you think it comes down to politics or it
came down to somebody making the call, whether it be
a governor or what have you. Like, I mean, just
let's put it behind us. Is that kind of thinking?
You know? I don't know.
Speaker 5 (50:03):
As long as.
Speaker 2 (50:04):
It's not a political move. Can you imagine, like it's
a governor that's going to be up for reelection and
wants to show that he's hard on crime.
Speaker 4 (50:11):
That's what.
Speaker 3 (50:14):
De Yeah, tough on crime is a big selling point
in Missouri policy.
Speaker 4 (50:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (50:21):
These are incredibly valid and disturbingly relevant questions. These are
the questions that we shouldn't have to be asking, yet
we must, because in a very real sense, there are
conspiracies of foot. The justice system is in intense need
of repair in the United States. I think many of
(50:44):
us listening tonight can agree the aspects of it are broken,
regardless of where you find yourself in the spectrum of
pro or anti death penalty, regardless of where you find yourself,
and the idea of you know, mandatory sentencing or other
policy things. Also, by the way, related to last meals
(51:05):
to spend the human moment. Williams had chicken wings and
tater tots and he was a poet because he had
been incarcerated, he had found religion. He was a religious
leader in the prison system. And his last you know,
(51:29):
you can find his poetry online and I'll say it objectively,
he's very well written. And his last statement, which is
terrifying that there's a form for this. They apparently gave
him a form where you say, you write out your
(51:49):
last statement, and it looks like a worksheet that you
would get in grade school. And his last statement was
all praise be to Allah in every situation. And you know,
we talk a lot about funny, weird stories. Who's putting
drugs in?
Speaker 4 (52:05):
What you know?
Speaker 3 (52:07):
And what are the octopus up to this time? But
the but but for this, I think there's something enormous
at play. H Noel Matt. This is the third person
executed in Missouri in recent history. The people involved in
(52:27):
the system are telling or we're begging the system not
to execute this man, right to at least re examine
the case, and the system said no. And I think
that's a dangerous precedent. Am I being an alarmist or
as that.
Speaker 4 (52:42):
I mean, No, I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 2 (52:46):
Yeah, I think I think we got to take away
the state's ability to kill people.
Speaker 5 (52:52):
If you're gonna if.
Speaker 2 (52:53):
You're gonna be killing people, gotta be a military there
has to be a civil war, uh oh mas, or
to be a different direction, buddy.
Speaker 6 (53:02):
Yeah, I'm so up to my neck.
Speaker 3 (53:03):
I was talking about this in group TEMs so up
to my neck and weird Middle East news. That's right,
there's more than American to the world. We can't wait
to hear your thoughts on this, folks. We had some
great correspondence about the death penalty when it may or
may not be necessary, how to know a person's guilt
or innocence, and the problems with the justice system not
(53:26):
just here in the States but abroad. And we can't
wait to hear more from you regarding this. We don't
want to end on a negative note.
Speaker 2 (53:37):
So when talking about Russia's rules of engagement with nukes.
Speaker 6 (53:41):
Sorry Thermobaric. Hey, Thermoberic is like tag and base write
a nuke.
Speaker 3 (53:47):
But here is something I thought would make everybody a
little bit happier. As as we head out to the
hurricane evening. That snowmobile guy we mentioned a while back
who crashed into a Blackhawk helicopter got three million dollars.
Speaker 4 (54:04):
Hey, I love to hear it.
Speaker 6 (54:06):
You'll love to see it.
Speaker 3 (54:07):
So adjusted for inflation, I think that's something like two
hundred and fifty thousand. I don't know, depending on when
you go to the grocery store.
Speaker 2 (54:15):
But oh, but he did ask for nine and a
half million.
Speaker 1 (54:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (54:19):
Yeah, that's how the negotiation works, you know what I mean.
Always ask big.
Speaker 3 (54:24):
So with this, folks, thank you, as always for tuning
in too strange news. We will be back with listener mail.
We've got episodes. You are our favorite part of the show.
Please stay safe out there. Give us your thoughts on everything,
including leads for new investigations. We try to be easy
to find online.
Speaker 4 (54:44):
Boy do we ever. You can find it at the
handle Conspiracy Stuff, where we exist, on Facebook, where we
have our Facebook group Here's where it gets crazy. Also
on YouTube, where you can find video content galore to
enjoy at your leisure, and finally on x FKA, Twitter,
on Instagram and TikTok. We are Conspiracy Stuff Show.
Speaker 2 (55:03):
If you want to call us, call one eight three
three STD WYTK. When you call in, it's a voicemail system.
You've got three minutes say whatever you'd like do. Please
give yourself a cool nickname. We don't care what it is.
And let us know if we can use your name
and message on the air. If you got more to
say than can fit in a message, why not instead
shoot us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 3 (55:25):
We are the entities that read every single piece of
correspondence we receive. Be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the
void rights back. Shout out to humorous Harry Jesus, did
you see that? And also give us your favorite palindromes.
I've been blowing up our group chats with apologies to you,
(55:47):
you know, because you have to sit through this already.
New favorite palindrome is satan oscillate my metallic sonatas.
Speaker 4 (55:55):
Come oh, come on.
Speaker 2 (55:57):
It's hard to believe it's a palindrome, but it is
except for the comma.
Speaker 6 (56:02):
Yeah, yeah, you know.
Speaker 3 (56:03):
I send it to you with a comma. But the
proper way to do it is without punctuation, without the period.
Got it at the end. So satan oscillate my metallic sonatas.
This is not a code phrase, hopefully, and Hopefully we're
not launching nukes just yet, but just in case, get
your emails in join us here in the dark conspiracy
at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (56:43):
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of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
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