April 6, 2021 • 25 mins
When Cristin Keleher broke into George Harrison's Maui estate, she ate frozen pizza, did a load of laundry, and called her mother. Two weeks later, Michael Abram broke into Harrison's Friar Park estate, stabbing Harrison repeatedly.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shonda land Audio in
partnership with I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to another
episode of Criminalia. This season, we're exploring the lives and
motivations of some of the most notorious stokers throughout history.
(00:23):
I'm Maria tram Marquis and I'm Holly Fry And today
we're talking about stalking behavior that's happened in the more
recent past than some of our other episodes, specifically related
to the Beatles. Before we get into the specific beatle
we're going to focus on today, we're also going to
talk about the Fab Three for just a minute. Yes,
(00:43):
the Fab Three. So let's start with the legendary founding
member of the Beatles, John Lennon. So, as most of
us know, Lennon was assassinated by an obsessed fan named
Mark David Chapman on December eight. Lennon, who was forty
years old, was shot four times at close range with
a thirty eight caliber revolver in the Archway of the Dakota,
(01:06):
which was his Manhattan address at the time. And Chapman
had been a fan of the Beatles, but that fandom
soured when John Lennon commented that the Beatles were and
we quote and it's a rather famous quote, more popular
than Jesus. Chapman was very offended by this and allegedly
started planning to assassinate Lennon three months before he actually
(01:29):
carried out that act. He had intended to cite J. D.
Salinger's famous novel The Catcher in the Rye as his manifesto.
He pleaded guilty to murder after he was taken in
and he remains incarcerated in upstate New York. He was
denied parole for the eleventh time. John Lennon is the
(01:51):
most fantasty stock Beetle, but he certainly wasn't the only
member of the band who was stopped. So let's look
at Ringo Star for instance. Now, there are so many
stories of fans grabbing at him, like just literally at him,
at his clothing, at his hair, his body. He had
his hair snipped, he had it actually pulled out, he
had jewelry stolen, and including is one time when a
(02:14):
necklace was actually stolen while he was wearing it. Yeah,
just no sense of boundaries or respect at that point.
And then we have to talk about Paul McCartney. McCartney
produced a song called Fixing a Hole, which appeared on
the album Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and that song,
of course, was not literally about fixing a hole. According
(02:36):
to McCartney's own account, it was based on the surge
in the number of fans who were utterly and scarily
obsessed with the group since the whole Beatlemania thing began.
That we know is when fans became so obsessed that
they started trying to get things such as an item
of clothing or even a lock of hair from a
member of a group, or stealing their necklace right off
(02:58):
of their person, all while screaming that's the Beatlemania thing.
And every one of these members feared the stalkers that
he was getting, which were increasing in number as time
went on. Yeah, And in nineteen sixty seven, Paul McCartney
was quoted about the song in The London Times where
he said, it's really about the fans who hang around
(03:20):
outside your door day and night, and he reflects it
in the song's lyrics, which include see the people standing there,
they worry me and never win, and wonder why they
don't get in my door. So now let's talk about
George Harrison. No member of the Beatles was safe from stalkers,
and George had at least two experiences with obsessed fans,
(03:44):
and specifically, there were two who actually got into his
home and one of them almost murdered him. George in
an anthology Beatles Anthology, his quote was, they used us
an excuse to go mad. The world did it, and
then they blamed it on us, which I think is
a great quote when we're talking about stalkers. Yeah, particularly
(04:07):
when it comes to celebrity. So we're going to take
a break for a word from our sponsor. Yes, you
may have gathered this is a little bit of a
heavier episode than some of them, And when we get back,
we're going to talk about how Kristen Kellerher broke into
George Harrison's Hawaii home. Welcome back to Criminaliot. I want
(04:34):
to hear about the woman who drank George Harrison's rout
here because I know we do. First of all, we
are going to start with this woman whose name was Kristen.
In mid October of twenty seven year old woman Kristen
Kellerher began obsessing over George Harrison and on December twenty three,
of that year, Kristen broke into Harrison's sixty one acre
(04:57):
estate near Hanna on the island of Mao. And those
sixty one acres were full of trees and bushes very
very intentionally meant to discourage paparazzi and fans like Kristen
from reaching the family's mansion. But somehow Kristen did reach
the mansion. And she walked through an open sliding glass door.
(05:21):
And I think back to The Boy Jones, and it's
always how did the boy Jones get into the into
the palace? Oh, through an open window like and just
walk right in, just straight in. So, uh, the circumstance
of what Kristen did while she was there is actually
kind of more interesting than how she got inside. So
(05:42):
while she was there, she cooked a frozen pizza, she
drank root here from the family's refrigerator, did some of
her own personal laundry, and then called her mother a
long distance in Long Branch, New Jersey. And this is
all according to the police. And although she was obsessed
to the point of delusion, Kristen admitted authorities that there
was actually really no particular motive or reason for her visit.
(06:06):
I have so many questions like did she bring dirty
laundry with her so I think she could play house.
Did she just take off what she had worn, wash
it and then put it back on. I'm very fascinated
by the laundry in particular. In my mind, she actually
has like a pillow ka stack of laundry that she
took with her. But that's very like Sullivan's travels. So
(06:31):
she was discovered an hour later by in house security,
who proceeded, to, of course, called the police. Don Carroll,
who was the caretaker and manager of the estate, stated
at her hearing that she did not have any permission
to be in the house, and he also added that
Kristen had approached him a few months earlier, in October
(06:52):
of that year, to tell him that she was hoping
that she would run into the Quiet Beetle. It wasn't
just Dawn who reported Chris didn't as an obsessed fan.
There's a written statement that was sent to the court,
and it was reported that Kristen had previously visited the
home of Harrison's brother in law asking to see the singer,
and she was quoted saying, I thought I had a
(07:13):
psychic connection with George. So after this break in, Kristen
was arrested, as you might suspect since we've been mentioning
the hearing, and she was taken to the Maui Community
Correctional Facility that was at four thirty am on Christmas Eve,
and the charge was actually burglary and theft, plus she
also pleaded no contest to trespassing inside the estate, and
(07:37):
Kristen was held on five thousand dollars fail or possibly
three thousand. We came across both numbers in her records,
but that's not really a super important detail, so we
didn't really dwell on it. Ultimately, she served four months
in jail for entering the house without permission and of
course for the theft of eating frozen pizza and drinking
(07:59):
root and probably that long distance phone call as well.
But upon her release from jail, a few more years
of probation were added to her sentence, and as it
turns out, in a bit of good fortune, the Harrison
family was not actually at their Hawaiian home when Kristen
broke in, at least according to the Maui Police. It
was reported in the London Times that Kristen was dangerous
(08:22):
and that she would have tried to attack the Harrison's
had they been at home. Maui police, though, replied that
they and we quote wouldn't go so far as to
call her a danger to the Harrison's. Those investigators believed
that she was homeless and looking for a place to
do her laundry and get a pizza and some root beer,
writing a little snack while it was in the dryer.
(08:44):
But Okay, I'm joking right now, but this actually becomes
way more tragic when you look at Christian's life after this.
On December nineteenth, two thousand and six, that puts Christen
at about age thirty four, and that puts us about
seven years to her visit to the Harrison home, she
was found dead as the result of a murder suicide,
(09:06):
and she had been fatally shot in the head outside
of a Toyota Forerunner. According to the Nevada State Deputies
on the scene, a man named Stanley Merchant, who was
seated in the car had shot himself in the head
as well. Both her shot with a twelve gage shotgun,
and to this day, there is still no answer as
(09:26):
to why this happened. I am not George Harrison and
can't imagine what it would have been like. But I
would imagine this was all rather unsettling, I bet. However,
Kristen's story is not the end of his stalker experiences. Strangely,
she was one of two cases that actually happened very
close together on the timeline. She was arrested just one
(09:46):
week before Harrison encountered another intruder. That was a man
named Michael Abram at Friar Park, which is George's estate
in Henley on Tham's, oxford Shire. So we are going
to take a break for a word from our sponsor
right now, and when we're back, what motivates one man
to scale a brick wall that's topped with barbed wire
(10:08):
just to get to a member of the Beatles, we'll
talk about it. Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's talk about
the night George Harrison was stomped. Okay, So over the
(10:30):
years there have been a variety of burglary attempts at
the Friar Park estate. It's about twenty five miles outside
of London. There was a reported arson attempt in and
George also received a number of written death threats over
his decades as a member of the Beatles in response
he had installed some pretty serious security. It had powerful
(10:53):
lights and security cameras, electronically controlled gates, and the grounds
were protected by a high brick wall which was topped
with barbed wire, and there was a team of security
guards as well, and they had guard dogs and all
of this was on a premiss. George was the first
Beatle who decided to retreat from the limelight and he
moved to this protected country mansion. The grounds there were
(11:17):
where Harrison fell in love with gardening, but they were
also known for a network of caves amaze, as well
as vast underground and underwater features. Oh and charmingly, Harrison
salvaged more than one gnome as he was tending to
the overgrown landscaping. He unearthed them and he always kept them.
He kept everyone. That's a great little detail. And I
(11:39):
actually encouraged you to go look at this firepark estate
because the previous owner from the Harrison's they're the ones
who did this like underground water system and underground cave network,
and they did kind of some creepy photography there too,
so it's all very There are a lot of pictures
of it available on Yeah. Yeah, I highly encour despite
(12:01):
all the security measures that are in place. On December
thirty three, year old Michael Abram, who was a native
of Liverpool, entered their estate. And I tell you it
was not to make their pizza. No, Michael somehow scaled
that wall with the barbed wire on top and entered
(12:23):
the Harrison's mansion. This was an approximately three thirty am
and he got in because he broke a window with
a statue and climbed through. And as you might expect
when the statue comes through your window, it woke up
the family. He would think. It actually makes me wonder
if the family wasn't staying at the Hawaiian estate at
the time, why was the sliding glass door open. Let's
(12:46):
ask Don that question next time he's around the manager
of the state. I've always been curious. I'm like, why
is that open? I always wonder if open just means
it wasn't locked. Maybe, but come on down on. George's wife, Olivia,
is actually the first who heard the noise, and when
she heard it, she thought it actually wasn't an intruder.
(13:08):
She thought that maybe chandelier had fallen, which I mean,
to be honest, that's always my first thought when I
hear a big noise in my house. It must be
a chandelier. But she quickly realized that someone was actually
in their house, and she called security, and she called
the police. And while she was doing that, George put
on a jacket over his pajamas and pulled on a
(13:29):
pair of boots to go downstairs and check things out,
which to me seems like it would have been quite
a sight in his boots. And but that's where the
fun part ends, because when he went downstairs, Michael stabbed
George several times in the torso with a seven inch knife,
and in the process he punctured his right lung. George,
in a written statement to the court, said, when we
(13:51):
quote there were times during the violent struggle, I truly
believed I was dying. He said that he chanted Hari Krishna,
his attacker, in an effort to distract him, but this
just confused Michael. The struggle led the three Michael, George,
and Olivia through three rooms of the mansion, and that
didn't stop until Olivia struck Michael with a lamp. That
(14:15):
finally was the act that caused him to drop his weapon. However,
when he attacked Olivia and attempted to strangle her with
the lamp cord. She finally escaped that and she escaped
with minor injuries and bruises. Unlike George, she didn't require hospitalization.
Despite their injuries, the pair were able to overpower the
intruder until authorities arrived. I have to say, if you
(14:39):
didn't already just respect George Harrison for his musical genius,
you have to have mad respect for him with a
punctured lung, working together with his wife to subdue someone
who is clearly not in their right place and violent.
As it turns out, the police station was just shy
of a quarter of a mile down the road, So
the police were at the estate quickly, just in a
(15:00):
blink of an eye, and when they arrived they found
this bloody scene, and they arrested Michael, the couple's twenty
one year old son, and Olivia's mother, it's reported, were
at home during the attack, but neither of them were injured.
Can you imagine hearing that if you were in the
other part of the house, It's terrifying. It would be
very terrifying. Yeah. So, when questioned about Michael Abram, his
(15:23):
family and his friends, his neighbors gave that common and
ever so clichee answer, and we all know he was
mild mannered. Family later said that Michael had recently developed
an obsession with the Beatles, and he was already released
on bail for allegedly criminally damaging a Beatles advertising billboard
(15:44):
in Liverpool. Investigators believed George was likely specifically targeted by
Michael when he attacked Harrison. He stated that he believed
he had been sent by God to murder him. Michael
also believed all of the Beatles were witches and that
George specifically was trying to possess him. And this is
(16:05):
really not where it ends. According to psychiatrist Philip Joseph,
Michael's mental stability began to significantly deteriorate after the Eclipse
of August, interestingly enough, and that is when Michael believed
that the world would come to an end. And at
that time, Michael also began to believe that Madonna could
(16:27):
read his mind. He thought that the Oasis song wonder
Wall was actually about the walls of his own apartment,
and perhaps most interesting is that he also believed that
he was the fifth Beatle. Before his Oxford Crown Court trial,
Michael was admitted to a psychiatric unit for observation. Michael
(16:48):
had reportedly been in and out of psychiatric hospitals over
the years, and just six weeks before this attack, he
was released from the psychiatric unit at Whiston Hospital because
he was by the staff not to have any psychiatric illness,
but they were obviously wrong. During observation, three psychiatrists unanimously
(17:09):
diagnosed him with a complex delusional disorder. So although this
didn't really happen all that long ago, today's experts probably
would more likely have said that he was suffering from
untreated schizophrenia with paranoia and may have been having delusions
as well. Olivia, George's wife, described Michael as quote crazed
(17:30):
and frenzied on the night of the attack, that his
hair was long and unkempt, and that he wore a
black leather jacket. She also said, this is so creepy
to me that throughout the attack he was silent. He
did not say a word, which she describes as and
we're quoting her odd. An investigation into the attack determined
(17:50):
that it wasn't a burglary gone wrong, that it was
a planned attack on George, and Michael was charged with
attempted murder. When he appeared in court, Michael had short
blonde hair. He wore a black pinstripe suit, a white shirt,
a pink tie, and round spectacles. He showed no emotion
at the reading of the statement that George had given
(18:13):
to the police after the attack, and he stated that
he was grateful to his family and to his lawyers,
who all continued to support him, and he said quote,
if I could turn back the clock, I would give
anything not to have done what I did in attacking
George Harrison. But looking back on it now, I have
come to understand that I was at the time not
(18:33):
in control of my actions. I can only hope the
Harrison family might somehow find it in their hearts to
accept my apologies. In addition, at the close of the trial,
he gave another statement apologizing to the Harrison's for his actions,
and it was read aloud in court by his attorney
and we quote here, I'm writing this letter in the
(18:56):
hope that it would be passed on to Mr and
Mrs Harrison. I wish to say how sorry I am
for the alarm, distress and injury that I have caused
while I was ill. I have seen many doctors prior
to the attack, and I was never told I was
suffering from schizophrenia or any mental illness. I thought my
delusions were real and everything that I was experiencing was
(19:17):
some kind of witchcraft. I know that Mr and Mrs
Harrison fought for their lives and that they must have
been terrified by the lunatic in their house. The jury
took just over an hour to return its verdict. Michael
was found not guilty by reason of insanity and he
was sentenced to Scott Clinic that's a medium security mental
(19:37):
health unit without time restriction. He was released from that
facility in two thousand two. George, who was originally taken
to the Royal Berkshire Hospital, was moved to the Thoracic
unit at Hairfield Heart Hospital where he could be treated
by specialists. He did not attend the trial because he
was still recovering from his injuries. And George was it
(20:00):
was once quoted as saying, and this wasn't immediately after
this attack, and this was just in general. He was
saying that the whole magnitude of our fame made me nervous,
which actually really becomes clear in these two weeks of
his life. Yeah, across the world she attacks is very scary.
(20:22):
The chief executive of the Royal Berkshire, who was a
man named Mark Gritten, was quoted at the time saying
that although Harrison was shocked by the incident, he had
not lost his sense of humor. He shared that George
had told him we quote, the man wasn't a burglar,
but he certainly wasn't auditioning for the Traveling Wilburies. That
was great that he get still laugh about it, and
(20:43):
that's funny. Um. So, while we remember George as the
Beatles guitarist who wrote and sang songs including Here Comes
the Sun and while my Guitar gently weeps, he did
die of cancer in two thousand and one at the
age of fifty eight, and that was just one year
before Michael Abrams is released. Upon his death, Paul McCartney
told reporters of Harrison quote, he was a lovely guy
(21:06):
and a very brave man and had a wonderful sense
of humor. He is really just my baby brother. And
Ringo Starr said, and this is also a quote. We
will miss George for his sense of love, his sense
of music, and his sense of laughter and There's also
one more quote from the former Beatles producer Sir George Martin,
who described Harrison as a quote very peaceful person who
(21:30):
hates violence of any kind. So that is George Harrison.
So Holly, please tell me that you named this drint
(21:51):
eleanor whiskey. I didn't, but it does have whiskey because
I love you, because you love me. So I briefly
thought about something with root beer because of the first entry,
but I shied away from that um. And then, of course,
like the obvious thing is to figure out a drink
(22:12):
called a Sergeant Pepper. But if you do a quick
Internet search, you discover that a jillion people have done
a Sergeant Pepper. And I mean, Mr Mustard is probably
going to go a weird direction in a drink, right,
But I still really liked the idea of something with
pepper in it. So I decided on a drink that
I am calling the Peppery Sergeants, And it starts with
(22:34):
two ounces of whiskey, and into that whiskey you're gonna
put a table spoon of hallopeeno jam I would do
at this point the whiskey neat, I wouldn't add any
ice at this point, and you let the jam and
the whiskey sit together just a little bit and then
give it a stir so that your sugar can dissolve
into the whiskey, and then you pop your ice into
(22:57):
your glass on top of it, and then you just
top it off with club soda. Oh that's really easy.
It's really easy, and it's really interesting and fun, and
it's quite light. Like one of my problems with whiskey
is that the taste of it to my palate is
very hard and heavy. Because you're diluting the whole thing.
(23:18):
You just end up with kind of a light, crisp tasting,
really surprisingly refreshing beverage. So hallepeen your jam where it's at. Also,
for anybody that just is similarly struggles with whiskey, you
can put any jam in whiskey. You can do the
(23:40):
same exact thing with like a fake jam. You can
do like an apricot jam, which is also very yum.
The The key is that you have to just be
ready for the fact that, depending on the nature of
your jam. Mine was a homemade halle peen your jam,
so it had definitely like chunks of chopped up hallepeen
you in it. So you just have to know that
there's going to be some texture to your cocktail. And
(24:03):
if you're not into that, you could strain it after
you dissolve the jam into the whiskey. But I actually
like that extra little kick that you get from, like, oh,
a piece of hallopeen. You just hit my tongue. That's
the peppery, sergeant. It's like a little surprise surprised. Well,
that's excellent whiskey drink. I never thought it would happen
like a jammy whiskey drink. I've done others. I've done others.
(24:27):
I'm forever trying to figure out ways I can mend
my relationship with whiskey. We never had a falling out.
We just we circle each other. We have a lot
of friends in common, but we never really have quite
hit it off. That's my relationship with whiskey. But it's
getting better. We're working on it. We're trying to set
up some outing seeing each other often, just hang out,
(24:49):
find our commonalities. We do it. That's how you make
friends with the spirit that you don't normally drink. Yeah,
if you do start experimenting with jam in your whiskey
drink responsibly. We also want to thank you for hanging
out with us and listening to our stories and our
nutty drink recipes. Can't wait to see you back here
next week for more Criminalia. Criminalia is a production of
(25:15):
Shawonda land Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio. For
more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, please visit the I heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shonda land Audio in
partnership with I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to another
episode of Criminalia. This season, we're exploring the lives and
motivations of some of the most notorious stokers throughout history.
(00:23):
I'm Maria tram Marquis and I'm Holly Fry And today
we're talking about stalking behavior that's happened in the more
recent past than some of our other episodes, specifically related
to the Beatles. Before we get into the specific beatle
we're going to focus on today, we're also going to
talk about the Fab Three for just a minute. Yes,
(00:43):
the Fab Three. So let's start with the legendary founding
member of the Beatles, John Lennon. So, as most of
us know, Lennon was assassinated by an obsessed fan named
Mark David Chapman on December eight. Lennon, who was forty
years old, was shot four times at close range with
a thirty eight caliber revolver in the Archway of the Dakota,
(01:06):
which was his Manhattan address at the time. And Chapman
had been a fan of the Beatles, but that fandom
soured when John Lennon commented that the Beatles were and
we quote and it's a rather famous quote, more popular
than Jesus. Chapman was very offended by this and allegedly
started planning to assassinate Lennon three months before he actually
(01:29):
carried out that act. He had intended to cite J. D.
Salinger's famous novel The Catcher in the Rye as his manifesto.
He pleaded guilty to murder after he was taken in
and he remains incarcerated in upstate New York. He was
denied parole for the eleventh time. John Lennon is the
(01:51):
most fantasty stock Beetle, but he certainly wasn't the only
member of the band who was stopped. So let's look
at Ringo Star for instance. Now, there are so many
stories of fans grabbing at him, like just literally at him,
at his clothing, at his hair, his body. He had
his hair snipped, he had it actually pulled out, he
had jewelry stolen, and including is one time when a
(02:14):
necklace was actually stolen while he was wearing it. Yeah,
just no sense of boundaries or respect at that point.
And then we have to talk about Paul McCartney. McCartney
produced a song called Fixing a Hole, which appeared on
the album Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and that song,
of course, was not literally about fixing a hole. According
(02:36):
to McCartney's own account, it was based on the surge
in the number of fans who were utterly and scarily
obsessed with the group since the whole Beatlemania thing began.
That we know is when fans became so obsessed that
they started trying to get things such as an item
of clothing or even a lock of hair from a
member of a group, or stealing their necklace right off
(02:58):
of their person, all while screaming that's the Beatlemania thing.
And every one of these members feared the stalkers that
he was getting, which were increasing in number as time
went on. Yeah, And in nineteen sixty seven, Paul McCartney
was quoted about the song in The London Times where
he said, it's really about the fans who hang around
(03:20):
outside your door day and night, and he reflects it
in the song's lyrics, which include see the people standing there,
they worry me and never win, and wonder why they
don't get in my door. So now let's talk about
George Harrison. No member of the Beatles was safe from stalkers,
and George had at least two experiences with obsessed fans,
(03:44):
and specifically, there were two who actually got into his
home and one of them almost murdered him. George in
an anthology Beatles Anthology, his quote was, they used us
an excuse to go mad. The world did it, and
then they blamed it on us, which I think is
a great quote when we're talking about stalkers. Yeah, particularly
(04:07):
when it comes to celebrity. So we're going to take
a break for a word from our sponsor. Yes, you
may have gathered this is a little bit of a
heavier episode than some of them, And when we get back,
we're going to talk about how Kristen Kellerher broke into
George Harrison's Hawaii home. Welcome back to Criminaliot. I want
(04:34):
to hear about the woman who drank George Harrison's rout
here because I know we do. First of all, we
are going to start with this woman whose name was Kristen.
In mid October of twenty seven year old woman Kristen
Kellerher began obsessing over George Harrison and on December twenty three,
of that year, Kristen broke into Harrison's sixty one acre
(04:57):
estate near Hanna on the island of Mao. And those
sixty one acres were full of trees and bushes very
very intentionally meant to discourage paparazzi and fans like Kristen
from reaching the family's mansion. But somehow Kristen did reach
the mansion. And she walked through an open sliding glass door.
(05:21):
And I think back to The Boy Jones, and it's
always how did the boy Jones get into the into
the palace? Oh, through an open window like and just
walk right in, just straight in. So, uh, the circumstance
of what Kristen did while she was there is actually
kind of more interesting than how she got inside. So
(05:42):
while she was there, she cooked a frozen pizza, she
drank root here from the family's refrigerator, did some of
her own personal laundry, and then called her mother a
long distance in Long Branch, New Jersey. And this is
all according to the police. And although she was obsessed
to the point of delusion, Kristen admitted authorities that there
was actually really no particular motive or reason for her visit.
(06:06):
I have so many questions like did she bring dirty
laundry with her so I think she could play house.
Did she just take off what she had worn, wash
it and then put it back on. I'm very fascinated
by the laundry in particular. In my mind, she actually
has like a pillow ka stack of laundry that she
took with her. But that's very like Sullivan's travels. So
(06:31):
she was discovered an hour later by in house security,
who proceeded, to, of course, called the police. Don Carroll,
who was the caretaker and manager of the estate, stated
at her hearing that she did not have any permission
to be in the house, and he also added that
Kristen had approached him a few months earlier, in October
(06:52):
of that year, to tell him that she was hoping
that she would run into the Quiet Beetle. It wasn't
just Dawn who reported Chris didn't as an obsessed fan.
There's a written statement that was sent to the court,
and it was reported that Kristen had previously visited the
home of Harrison's brother in law asking to see the singer,
and she was quoted saying, I thought I had a
(07:13):
psychic connection with George. So after this break in, Kristen
was arrested, as you might suspect since we've been mentioning
the hearing, and she was taken to the Maui Community
Correctional Facility that was at four thirty am on Christmas Eve,
and the charge was actually burglary and theft, plus she
also pleaded no contest to trespassing inside the estate, and
(07:37):
Kristen was held on five thousand dollars fail or possibly
three thousand. We came across both numbers in her records,
but that's not really a super important detail, so we
didn't really dwell on it. Ultimately, she served four months
in jail for entering the house without permission and of
course for the theft of eating frozen pizza and drinking
(07:59):
root and probably that long distance phone call as well.
But upon her release from jail, a few more years
of probation were added to her sentence, and as it
turns out, in a bit of good fortune, the Harrison
family was not actually at their Hawaiian home when Kristen
broke in, at least according to the Maui Police. It
was reported in the London Times that Kristen was dangerous
(08:22):
and that she would have tried to attack the Harrison's
had they been at home. Maui police, though, replied that
they and we quote wouldn't go so far as to
call her a danger to the Harrison's. Those investigators believed
that she was homeless and looking for a place to
do her laundry and get a pizza and some root beer,
writing a little snack while it was in the dryer.
(08:44):
But Okay, I'm joking right now, but this actually becomes
way more tragic when you look at Christian's life after this.
On December nineteenth, two thousand and six, that puts Christen
at about age thirty four, and that puts us about
seven years to her visit to the Harrison home, she
was found dead as the result of a murder suicide,
(09:06):
and she had been fatally shot in the head outside
of a Toyota Forerunner. According to the Nevada State Deputies
on the scene, a man named Stanley Merchant, who was
seated in the car had shot himself in the head
as well. Both her shot with a twelve gage shotgun,
and to this day, there is still no answer as
(09:26):
to why this happened. I am not George Harrison and
can't imagine what it would have been like. But I
would imagine this was all rather unsettling, I bet. However,
Kristen's story is not the end of his stalker experiences. Strangely,
she was one of two cases that actually happened very
close together on the timeline. She was arrested just one
(09:46):
week before Harrison encountered another intruder. That was a man
named Michael Abram at Friar Park, which is George's estate
in Henley on Tham's, oxford Shire. So we are going
to take a break for a word from our sponsor
right now, and when we're back, what motivates one man
to scale a brick wall that's topped with barbed wire
(10:08):
just to get to a member of the Beatles, we'll
talk about it. Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's talk about
the night George Harrison was stomped. Okay, So over the
(10:30):
years there have been a variety of burglary attempts at
the Friar Park estate. It's about twenty five miles outside
of London. There was a reported arson attempt in and
George also received a number of written death threats over
his decades as a member of the Beatles in response
he had installed some pretty serious security. It had powerful
(10:53):
lights and security cameras, electronically controlled gates, and the grounds
were protected by a high brick wall which was topped
with barbed wire, and there was a team of security
guards as well, and they had guard dogs and all
of this was on a premiss. George was the first
Beatle who decided to retreat from the limelight and he
moved to this protected country mansion. The grounds there were
(11:17):
where Harrison fell in love with gardening, but they were
also known for a network of caves amaze, as well
as vast underground and underwater features. Oh and charmingly, Harrison
salvaged more than one gnome as he was tending to
the overgrown landscaping. He unearthed them and he always kept them.
He kept everyone. That's a great little detail. And I
(11:39):
actually encouraged you to go look at this firepark estate
because the previous owner from the Harrison's they're the ones
who did this like underground water system and underground cave network,
and they did kind of some creepy photography there too,
so it's all very There are a lot of pictures
of it available on Yeah. Yeah, I highly encour despite
(12:01):
all the security measures that are in place. On December
thirty three, year old Michael Abram, who was a native
of Liverpool, entered their estate. And I tell you it
was not to make their pizza. No, Michael somehow scaled
that wall with the barbed wire on top and entered
(12:23):
the Harrison's mansion. This was an approximately three thirty am
and he got in because he broke a window with
a statue and climbed through. And as you might expect
when the statue comes through your window, it woke up
the family. He would think. It actually makes me wonder
if the family wasn't staying at the Hawaiian estate at
the time, why was the sliding glass door open. Let's
(12:46):
ask Don that question next time he's around the manager
of the state. I've always been curious. I'm like, why
is that open? I always wonder if open just means
it wasn't locked. Maybe, but come on down on. George's wife, Olivia,
is actually the first who heard the noise, and when
she heard it, she thought it actually wasn't an intruder.
(13:08):
She thought that maybe chandelier had fallen, which I mean,
to be honest, that's always my first thought when I
hear a big noise in my house. It must be
a chandelier. But she quickly realized that someone was actually
in their house, and she called security, and she called
the police. And while she was doing that, George put
on a jacket over his pajamas and pulled on a
(13:29):
pair of boots to go downstairs and check things out,
which to me seems like it would have been quite
a sight in his boots. And but that's where the
fun part ends, because when he went downstairs, Michael stabbed
George several times in the torso with a seven inch knife,
and in the process he punctured his right lung. George,
in a written statement to the court, said, when we
(13:51):
quote there were times during the violent struggle, I truly
believed I was dying. He said that he chanted Hari Krishna,
his attacker, in an effort to distract him, but this
just confused Michael. The struggle led the three Michael, George,
and Olivia through three rooms of the mansion, and that
didn't stop until Olivia struck Michael with a lamp. That
(14:15):
finally was the act that caused him to drop his weapon. However,
when he attacked Olivia and attempted to strangle her with
the lamp cord. She finally escaped that and she escaped
with minor injuries and bruises. Unlike George, she didn't require hospitalization.
Despite their injuries, the pair were able to overpower the
intruder until authorities arrived. I have to say, if you
(14:39):
didn't already just respect George Harrison for his musical genius,
you have to have mad respect for him with a
punctured lung, working together with his wife to subdue someone
who is clearly not in their right place and violent.
As it turns out, the police station was just shy
of a quarter of a mile down the road, So
the police were at the estate quickly, just in a
(15:00):
blink of an eye, and when they arrived they found
this bloody scene, and they arrested Michael, the couple's twenty
one year old son, and Olivia's mother, it's reported, were
at home during the attack, but neither of them were injured.
Can you imagine hearing that if you were in the
other part of the house, It's terrifying. It would be
very terrifying. Yeah. So, when questioned about Michael Abram, his
(15:23):
family and his friends, his neighbors gave that common and
ever so clichee answer, and we all know he was
mild mannered. Family later said that Michael had recently developed
an obsession with the Beatles, and he was already released
on bail for allegedly criminally damaging a Beatles advertising billboard
(15:44):
in Liverpool. Investigators believed George was likely specifically targeted by
Michael when he attacked Harrison. He stated that he believed
he had been sent by God to murder him. Michael
also believed all of the Beatles were witches and that
George specifically was trying to possess him. And this is
(16:05):
really not where it ends. According to psychiatrist Philip Joseph,
Michael's mental stability began to significantly deteriorate after the Eclipse
of August, interestingly enough, and that is when Michael believed
that the world would come to an end. And at
that time, Michael also began to believe that Madonna could
(16:27):
read his mind. He thought that the Oasis song wonder
Wall was actually about the walls of his own apartment,
and perhaps most interesting is that he also believed that
he was the fifth Beatle. Before his Oxford Crown Court trial,
Michael was admitted to a psychiatric unit for observation. Michael
(16:48):
had reportedly been in and out of psychiatric hospitals over
the years, and just six weeks before this attack, he
was released from the psychiatric unit at Whiston Hospital because
he was by the staff not to have any psychiatric illness,
but they were obviously wrong. During observation, three psychiatrists unanimously
(17:09):
diagnosed him with a complex delusional disorder. So although this
didn't really happen all that long ago, today's experts probably
would more likely have said that he was suffering from
untreated schizophrenia with paranoia and may have been having delusions
as well. Olivia, George's wife, described Michael as quote crazed
(17:30):
and frenzied on the night of the attack, that his
hair was long and unkempt, and that he wore a
black leather jacket. She also said, this is so creepy
to me that throughout the attack he was silent. He
did not say a word, which she describes as and
we're quoting her odd. An investigation into the attack determined
(17:50):
that it wasn't a burglary gone wrong, that it was
a planned attack on George, and Michael was charged with
attempted murder. When he appeared in court, Michael had short
blonde hair. He wore a black pinstripe suit, a white shirt,
a pink tie, and round spectacles. He showed no emotion
at the reading of the statement that George had given
(18:13):
to the police after the attack, and he stated that
he was grateful to his family and to his lawyers,
who all continued to support him, and he said quote,
if I could turn back the clock, I would give
anything not to have done what I did in attacking
George Harrison. But looking back on it now, I have
come to understand that I was at the time not
(18:33):
in control of my actions. I can only hope the
Harrison family might somehow find it in their hearts to
accept my apologies. In addition, at the close of the trial,
he gave another statement apologizing to the Harrison's for his actions,
and it was read aloud in court by his attorney
and we quote here, I'm writing this letter in the
(18:56):
hope that it would be passed on to Mr and
Mrs Harrison. I wish to say how sorry I am
for the alarm, distress and injury that I have caused
while I was ill. I have seen many doctors prior
to the attack, and I was never told I was
suffering from schizophrenia or any mental illness. I thought my
delusions were real and everything that I was experiencing was
(19:17):
some kind of witchcraft. I know that Mr and Mrs
Harrison fought for their lives and that they must have
been terrified by the lunatic in their house. The jury
took just over an hour to return its verdict. Michael
was found not guilty by reason of insanity and he
was sentenced to Scott Clinic that's a medium security mental
(19:37):
health unit without time restriction. He was released from that
facility in two thousand two. George, who was originally taken
to the Royal Berkshire Hospital, was moved to the Thoracic
unit at Hairfield Heart Hospital where he could be treated
by specialists. He did not attend the trial because he
was still recovering from his injuries. And George was it
(20:00):
was once quoted as saying, and this wasn't immediately after
this attack, and this was just in general. He was
saying that the whole magnitude of our fame made me nervous,
which actually really becomes clear in these two weeks of
his life. Yeah, across the world she attacks is very scary.
(20:22):
The chief executive of the Royal Berkshire, who was a
man named Mark Gritten, was quoted at the time saying
that although Harrison was shocked by the incident, he had
not lost his sense of humor. He shared that George
had told him we quote, the man wasn't a burglar,
but he certainly wasn't auditioning for the Traveling Wilburies. That
was great that he get still laugh about it, and
(20:43):
that's funny. Um. So, while we remember George as the
Beatles guitarist who wrote and sang songs including Here Comes
the Sun and while my Guitar gently weeps, he did
die of cancer in two thousand and one at the
age of fifty eight, and that was just one year
before Michael Abrams is released. Upon his death, Paul McCartney
told reporters of Harrison quote, he was a lovely guy
(21:06):
and a very brave man and had a wonderful sense
of humor. He is really just my baby brother. And
Ringo Starr said, and this is also a quote. We
will miss George for his sense of love, his sense
of music, and his sense of laughter and There's also
one more quote from the former Beatles producer Sir George Martin,
who described Harrison as a quote very peaceful person who
(21:30):
hates violence of any kind. So that is George Harrison.
So Holly, please tell me that you named this drint
(21:51):
eleanor whiskey. I didn't, but it does have whiskey because
I love you, because you love me. So I briefly
thought about something with root beer because of the first entry,
but I shied away from that um. And then, of course,
like the obvious thing is to figure out a drink
(22:12):
called a Sergeant Pepper. But if you do a quick
Internet search, you discover that a jillion people have done
a Sergeant Pepper. And I mean, Mr Mustard is probably
going to go a weird direction in a drink, right,
But I still really liked the idea of something with
pepper in it. So I decided on a drink that
I am calling the Peppery Sergeants, And it starts with
(22:34):
two ounces of whiskey, and into that whiskey you're gonna
put a table spoon of hallopeeno jam I would do
at this point the whiskey neat, I wouldn't add any
ice at this point, and you let the jam and
the whiskey sit together just a little bit and then
give it a stir so that your sugar can dissolve
into the whiskey, and then you pop your ice into
(22:57):
your glass on top of it, and then you just
top it off with club soda. Oh that's really easy.
It's really easy, and it's really interesting and fun, and
it's quite light. Like one of my problems with whiskey
is that the taste of it to my palate is
very hard and heavy. Because you're diluting the whole thing.
(23:18):
You just end up with kind of a light, crisp tasting,
really surprisingly refreshing beverage. So hallepeen your jam where it's at. Also,
for anybody that just is similarly struggles with whiskey, you
can put any jam in whiskey. You can do the
(23:40):
same exact thing with like a fake jam. You can
do like an apricot jam, which is also very yum.
The The key is that you have to just be
ready for the fact that, depending on the nature of
your jam. Mine was a homemade halle peen your jam,
so it had definitely like chunks of chopped up hallepeen
you in it. So you just have to know that
there's going to be some texture to your cocktail. And
(24:03):
if you're not into that, you could strain it after
you dissolve the jam into the whiskey. But I actually
like that extra little kick that you get from, like, oh,
a piece of hallopeen. You just hit my tongue. That's
the peppery, sergeant. It's like a little surprise surprised. Well,
that's excellent whiskey drink. I never thought it would happen
like a jammy whiskey drink. I've done others. I've done others.
(24:27):
I'm forever trying to figure out ways I can mend
my relationship with whiskey. We never had a falling out.
We just we circle each other. We have a lot
of friends in common, but we never really have quite
hit it off. That's my relationship with whiskey. But it's
getting better. We're working on it. We're trying to set
up some outing seeing each other often, just hang out,
(24:49):
find our commonalities. We do it. That's how you make
friends with the spirit that you don't normally drink. Yeah,
if you do start experimenting with jam in your whiskey
drink responsibly. We also want to thank you for hanging
out with us and listening to our stories and our
nutty drink recipes. Can't wait to see you back here
next week for more Criminalia. Criminalia is a production of
(25:15):
Shawonda land Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio. For
more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, please visit the I heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Maria Trimarchi
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.