503 - Live at the Eccles Theater (Salt Lake City Night 2) - My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
What's up Salt Lake's city? Kay? I literally yelled at
that lady to stand up, you know, and give us
a standing vision.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
Okay, you may be seated.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
Oh you didn't say city.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
Last night when we yeld Salt Lake City, right, I
don't know because I did, and so this time I didn't,
so we'd match, and then you yelled city. And this
is how we do it, you know, the song.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
Hi, Hi, good to see you guys again.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yep, thanks for staying overnight and staying the rest of
the day and being here again.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
Yeah, you guys slept in the building and we appreciate that.
It's very nice of you.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
You do who was here last night and heard our
funny jokes. Okay, I was that's enough that we can
tell the jokes again.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
Yeah, you know, not enough, Yes, exactly, We're going to
do the same set.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
We look like Jolly Ranchers.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
We look like USS enterprise wise, that was a good one.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
The Macarena was saying, like the whole thing happened, right.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Yes it did. I remember. I'm kind of distracted because
at first I thought you were just chilling by the stage.
But your seat break just no seat at all. I
got it.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yeah, they're having a We're gonna let them have a
thing's stalling a seat for you.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
Wow, we'll get you a folding chair.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
Don't worry.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
You paid top dollar to be in the front row,
so we'll absolutely move you to the back row.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Across economy, I went to the farmers market today.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
I know what, what fresh protos did you buy for
your hotel room?

Speaker 2 (02:37):
Thing of kombucha? That's it? And there's so many. It
was a great farmers market. I wish it was close
to our house where we live in Los Angeles. Yes,
there were tons of dogs and then but I met
one dog and took a photo of it. My favorite dog.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
Okay, you want to see it, Yes I do.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
His name was Gentlemen. You know, I guess how much
I lost my fucking mind when I saw this guy.
He was so chilled or like fucking rottweiler was walking
by him, and he was just like double middle fingers.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
I don't want the rottweiler walks by. He's like, go
fuck yourself. He's the deepest voice of all time.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Gentleman is his name, and he was, and he truly was.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
He truly was well. Any any dog picks or no
that's fine.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
I mean there were so many, you know, it was
a new one cat.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
But yeah, Farmer's market cat. That's they're busting out of
the bookstores. Yeah, getting into those farmers markets. It's a
new dawn, It's a new day. Do you want to
hear what I did? Now this is a little bit braggy,
so judge if you want, but there's nothing I could
do about it. I got my my fingernails painted in
my hotel room. What Yeah, that's right, because I had

(04:01):
to work on my story and do a bunch of
other shits. So Hunter and Christy came from Pink Bubble
Salon the best. But here's why they're the best, because
you know, we're just chatting. It's very uncomfortable to sit
with a stranger in a hotel room and just be
like mmm, Like it's very weird. So I turned on

(04:22):
the TV. Didn't help. Hunter was doing an incredible job.
Christy was just kind of sitting there like assisting. And
then I was simultaneously wrapping up my story on the
laptop and what happened. The Spinning Wheel of Death came
up and I was like two pages away from being done.
So I'm like trying to be cool and also you

(04:44):
know what I mean, like this like trying not to
make any fast moves. But I'm like, holy fu, and
I'm like, I don't know what.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
To do because your computer's gonna die and you're gonna yes, okay.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
So I start I scroll back and I just start
taking pictures of my story right because it's I gotta
get it somewhere. I'm not fucking starting from page one
at three forty five in the afternoon, so I'm just
like trying to I'm like, I'm sorry, I'm moving. I
just I'm having a problem with this document that I

(05:16):
really need buy five PM. I have to have it whatever,
and so he's like, no problem, don't worry about it.
And Christy's just kind of staring at me, and then
I'm like doing things and she watches me take the
pictures and the whole thing. Finally I'm like I could
I'm like texting a texting Maren. Molly's off our producer

(05:37):
is her birthday weekend, so I'm like, there's no way
I can text Molly on her birthday weekend. Finally Christie
pipes up and she goes, I actually work in it,
and I was like, God damn it, Christy, get over
here right now and fix this problem. And she did.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
Oh yes, Hunter just brings an IT person with him wherever.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
Because because Hunter knew what he was doing. Pink Bubble
Salon ladies, you know one, please support please support them
and everything they do because it's not just nails.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
It's not so much you were going to fuck your
nails up immediately, which is what I always do when
someone's doing my nails, like really carefully. It's just kind
of like hit you know, do that immediately.

Speaker 1 (06:19):
That actually hurt, but it was a great example of
what you do ye to know it. What else do?
Oh do you want to show everybody around?

Speaker 2 (06:29):
Sure? Look at this.

Speaker 1 (06:30):
Gorgeous lime green number.

Speaker 2 (06:34):
It's leakage. It smells like it.

Speaker 1 (06:38):
That's what you're in it for.

Speaker 2 (06:39):
It feels like it.

Speaker 1 (06:41):
It looks great.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
Thank you. I really lime green guys. Let's let's bring
it back forward.

Speaker 1 (06:46):
Let's spring lime green back immediately.

Speaker 2 (06:48):
And your incredible dress.

Speaker 1 (06:49):
Thank you so much because it has pocket. Yeses, thank
you so much.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
Oh speaking of pocket, this is my favorite murder rest.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
Thank you so much. That's Georgia hard Start. That's Karen
Kilgara We're so happy to be here with you, so grateful,
so grateful, and in times like these that you guys
came bought tickets came out, we were so scared. It's
been six years since we've been on the road.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
So and we've forgotten how to do this a little bit.
So Luias ever actually know how to do it.

Speaker 1 (07:31):
Really, here we are. Should we sit down?

Speaker 2 (07:35):
Yeah, let's sit down? Yeah, okay, secret tissues are here.

Speaker 1 (07:43):
Yes, look at that.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
Yes, I don't have to put them in my under
garments anymore.

Speaker 1 (07:49):
On the first night and the first show back in Denver,
uh really, at one point Georgia reached down and pulled
a kleenex of I do not know where, and it
was so distracting. I'm just like, all I wanted to
do was talk to you about where you where you
put it, where you got it from, how it came out.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
Us allergy, premenopause. Girls, No, you just got to have
tissues at the ready, got to all the time. What
are you gonna do?

Speaker 1 (08:17):
You have to have tissues at the ready. And you
have to remember that the seat heater is not on
it's you, that's your it's your ass actually heating the
seat up. Not the seat heating your ass good. That's
the life I've been living recently on the phone with
my friend furious being like, God, damn, this fucking seat

(08:37):
heaters on. I get so furious, and then I'm just like,
see the seat heater button, it's not on. Just like, great, this.

Speaker 2 (08:45):
Has my lipstick from last night on it. How do
we feel? I hope it's my lipstick.

Speaker 1 (08:51):
I mean, waiter, look, you want to clean glass? You
wash that glass? You're we put up a sign. Your
mom doesn't work here at.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
This theater, Janet, she does. Actually, do you want to
tell really quick?

Speaker 1 (09:07):
It's so good.

Speaker 2 (09:08):
So my mom came to the Boston show. My mom
and stepdad came to the Boston show because it's a
big deal. We filmed it for thing.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
We filmed it, so I was very excited.

Speaker 2 (09:19):
So it was early to day. I wanted her to
be there, and so they came and the night before
the show, being filmed for an important thing, I meet
her in the lobby and she has a full on
tooth missing in the front of her face. It's like
a her crown fell off, and it was like a nub,
but like a gray nub. And I didn't even know
she fucking had a crown, by the way she kept.

Speaker 1 (09:40):
It from you. That's how vain she is. And now
she's exposed.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
And I was like, Mom, and she was like, is
it noticeable? Like are you fucking kidding me?

Speaker 1 (09:49):
And she can I just say this about Janet? Yeah,
this is from the first moment I ever saw Janet.
This is the most blown out woman. She is absolutely
Oh my god, do you see that fogg? Or is
at me? Am I dying? Are we all dying?

Speaker 2 (10:04):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, okay, either way.

Speaker 1 (10:06):
It's we're together, it doesn't matter. Yeah she is.

Speaker 2 (10:10):
She is.

Speaker 1 (10:10):
Janet is on point in every way.

Speaker 2 (10:12):
Yeah, she's vain. It's fine, Like I got it from her.
We all sit up straight and everything. So she's missing
a fucking tooth and she's like, do you think anyone
will notice? And I was like, Mom, this is being filmed.

Speaker 1 (10:26):
Do the real reenactment of how you said it?

Speaker 2 (10:28):
What the fuck are you fucking kidding whatever?

Speaker 1 (10:30):
Just fix right now.

Speaker 2 (10:31):
I was like, Hey, I'll pay for it. Go get
it fixed tomorrow in Boston. Find an emergency dentist on Saturday,
because I know you do not want to be on
film with it. I know you don't. I'm doing you
a favor. And she got it fixed and looked gorgeous.
So and then and I was like, can I tell
this story on stage? And she was like yes, and
you can embellish it all you want. Hell yeah, Like yeah,

(10:52):
Janet comes through. And when I need her, good parent,
she does.

Speaker 1 (10:56):
She gives you what you need in the times that
you need. That's right, but not in your childhood.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
I've just she just taught me not to need anything
from anyone, which is, hey, so I know.

Speaker 1 (11:08):
You are right now, friends, it works. She wasn't wrong,
She was not wrong, all right? Should we talk about
what this is?

Speaker 2 (11:20):
Oh teleon for so off.

Speaker 1 (11:22):
Every time we do a live show, we know there
are people in this audience who have no fucking clue
what's going on right now, we call you drag alongs.
We are sorry and also give us a chance, but
we do feel like we need to say this, which
is that this is a true crime comedy podcast, and

(11:42):
when we first started it, you know, there are people
who really did not like that combination. So we like
to say you know that, George and I we don't
think murder is funny. We think we're funny, and we
also grew up with lots of trauma like everybody else
probably in this room, and we learn to cope with

(12:02):
it through humor. And so that's why this podcast is
the way it is, and if you don't like it,
you can get the fuck out.

Speaker 2 (12:15):
See I, as my mother's daughter, would have said please
at the end of that, which doesn't hit as hard.

Speaker 1 (12:22):
You know, I'm my mother's daughter, So I'm just offering
options that you can have and with a weird smile
on my face. That's very threatening. That's how pat did it.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
Ellia and we also don't know each other's stories. We're
very careful about that. I kind of lose my mind
over it, and everyone who works with us hates us
for that.

Speaker 1 (12:44):
But it's more fun because it's like I'm the audience.
We all know the same when Georgia tells her story,
and you all know the same with Georgia when I
tell my story.

Speaker 2 (12:52):
That's what's fun, that's right, And I'm first tonight.

Speaker 1 (12:55):
You are first.

Speaker 2 (12:55):
Okay, we're doing it. Thank you. A few years ago, Karen,
we're starting. We're just starting.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
I didn't realize you were talking to me.

Speaker 2 (13:12):
We're just a few months into lockdown. When COVID lockdown,
horrible time for everyone. Everyone's starting to go a little
stir crazy, like the bang on the pots thing has stopped.
You know that Hope thing is going away? I remember
hope And right then in that moment, in the beginning,

(13:35):
a mystery appeared that had the Internet a buzz TikTok,
probably too out in the desolate expanse of Utah's Red
Rock Wilderness, a gleaming metallic structure appeared, oh as if
conjured from thin air. No warning, no explanations, only questions, Karen,

(13:56):
was it a prankster or an artist? Or was it
a fucking alien? Tonight we're going to try to unravel
the mystery that refuses to be explained. This is the
story of the Utah Monolith. Yes, yes, yes, I love
this great great The main sources for the story are

(14:19):
in our articles from the New York Times and the
Saint George News. And I'm going to try and to
say everything correctly. But Moab, the desert is as it
is spelled, like it said, And this is great, right?
That helps me? So? November eighteenth, twenty twenty, Remember Pilot

(14:39):
Brett Hutchings of the Utah Department of Public Safety takes
a small group of biologists from the Utah Division of
Wildlife Resources on a flight over a remote part of
the desert in San Juan County to survey the area's
big horn sheep population. Nerds No one, I'm kidding. That
sounds like so.

Speaker 1 (15:01):
Sorry, because you're as you turned away, I couldn't hear,
and I was like, what did you just say?

Speaker 2 (15:06):
Big? Big what? What big horn sheet?

Speaker 1 (15:09):
I got it now, thank you.

Speaker 2 (15:13):
Everything is a big horn sheep as usual, until one
of the biologists catches sight of something glistening in the
red rocks below, and he says, quote whoa, whoa, whoa,
turn around, we got to go check this thing out.

Speaker 1 (15:27):
Quote.

Speaker 2 (15:29):
Brett follows the biologists suggestion and lands the helicopter near
the site of the object, and they're situated in the
center of a slot canyon, which is a deep, narrow
canyon with steep walls, usually made of sandstone or other
soft rock that's been eroded over time.

Speaker 1 (15:46):
Oxford English Dictionary didn't define slot canyon.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
Ask you guys, know you're there's a rock doctor here
probably or scientist as you like to be called. Sure,
there actually probably is right.

Speaker 1 (16:00):
I think that woman's screaming bloody murder is probably or
just a big spider in the spider in the balcony.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
Sorry, it's at ghost spider. Okay. So they see it,
and they see a prism shaped chrome colored metal obelisk
jetting upright out of the ground. It looks like something
out of a two thousand and one A Space Odyssey.
It is the monolith. Yeah, it looks like an ATM

(16:35):
machine that never got finished something. Right.

Speaker 1 (16:39):
They left that there. It's from the beginning of Barbie
number two thousand and one.

Speaker 2 (16:44):
I am there. It is, everyone, pretty amazing. Okay, that's yours,
your monolith.

Speaker 1 (16:51):
You did that?

Speaker 2 (16:54):
Okay. It stands about nine point eight feet tall and
is about twenty three inches wide. Picture it.

Speaker 1 (17:03):
Two feet I don't know.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
Yeah, which in today's feet. The material used to make
it are familiar, meaning it's probably not from aliens. They'd
use better materials. I guess those are like better materials
than they are.

Speaker 1 (17:24):
Aliens love aluminum foil.

Speaker 2 (17:26):
Turns out, it turns out it's sheet metal riveted together
around some kind of frame sturdy enough to plant into
the ground and keep it standing, so that like takes
some effort. They didn't just throw it out there leave it.
But it's situated in an incredibly random and remote location
that's not easy to get to at all, especially with

(17:47):
a massive, heavy object like that. It's on public land,
but there are no parking lots, bathrooms, trailheads to no glamping,
so we'll never go there.

Speaker 1 (17:58):
Essentially, I'd love it if some planted one of those
things right in the middle of a glamping circle.

Speaker 2 (18:03):
Less mysterious. Yeah, right, so there or any other public
markers designating this as a place of interest for visitors
or whoever wanted to put down a thing. So a
representative from the Utah Department of Public Safety says, quote says,
somebody took the time to use some type of concrete
cutting tool or something to really dig down almost in

(18:25):
the exact shape of the object and embed it really well,
it's odd there are roads close by, but to haul
the materials to cut into the rock and haul the metal,
which is taller than twelve feet in sections, do all
of that in the remote spot is definitely interesting.

Speaker 1 (18:43):
Yes, that's what art students want you to say about them.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
And you know, this guy said this on a zoom
and his pajama pants and a button up shirt. It
was like remember that, Remember when I still do that.

Speaker 1 (18:55):
Now our zoom there's been some Zoom calls where the
ugliest ugliness factor has been just through the roof on
my part, where I'm just like, well, I know all
these people, there's nothing, there's this is not a show.

Speaker 2 (19:09):
No, I give up. I've given up.

Speaker 1 (19:11):
We've all given up.

Speaker 2 (19:11):
And they know. So there are no clues at all
pointing to who could have made it. It's almost if
it's as it appeared out of nowhere, and it's so
it's eerie and supernatural. And Bret, the pilot from before
said quote. We were kind of joking around that if
one of us suddenly disappears, then the rest of us
make a run for it. It won't work.

Speaker 1 (19:33):
Yeah, running won't work.

Speaker 2 (19:34):
Or have the person who knows how to fly the
helicopter and make a run for it. Don't just make
a run for it.

Speaker 1 (19:39):
Keep those helicopter keys in your pocket.

Speaker 2 (19:41):
Yeah, the helicopters have keys. Yeah, I mean it must right. Hey,
what are monoliths, you ask? Monoliths are typically made from
one solid piece of stone, and they can either occur
naturally as geological features, or as men may objects in
architecture or art. In nature, they can form through erosion.

(20:09):
Water wears away softer stone over time, leaving behind a
column of hard rock like lava cooled rock. You know,
I mean, yeah, picture all we get it right, like
we gets it. You guys aren't stupid, Okay, I love
that Alley just is like George Scotten can have no
idea what these are. I'm gonna have to exploit like

(20:30):
this is for me, not.

Speaker 1 (20:31):
For you guys, for sure, just now you know. But
then you can read it as in a lightly sarcastic
voice and it sounds like you've always known.

Speaker 2 (20:39):
That's like blaming voice.

Speaker 1 (20:41):
Yeah, sure is that it?

Speaker 2 (20:42):
Okay? So so it's odd to find this, that's my point. Yes.
On November twenty, it's twenty twenty, two days after the discovery,
the Utah Department of Public Safety post photos of this
on their Instagram. It's too mysterious for them not to share,
but they're careful not to reveal its exact location, since

(21:02):
the monolith it's not an easy to access area. They
don't want people so many fucking stupid people, guys. They
don't want them getting lost or hurt well fucking treking
out to find it. Here's another picture of it with people.
Don't see how tall it is, Yeah, and like it is,
it's not like in you know, it's with rocks. Like

(21:22):
if the person wanted it to be found, whoever put
it there, Yes, I think it's aliens. They would have
put it out in the middle of the desert, not
like behind rocks and stuff.

Speaker 1 (21:31):
Except but if it was for ceremonial purposes, like they're
trying to make it seem like it's for something, then
it being in this little pocket, you know, would get
all the smart people thinking, hey, this might be real.

Speaker 2 (21:43):
So you're thinking Satanists always always think Satanists.

Speaker 1 (21:48):
Every day and night. That's me. Don't tell my dad
or he'll get really upset.

Speaker 2 (21:57):
But the Utah Department of Public Safety or DPS understands
everyone's curiosity and understands, sorry, underestimates everyone being really smart
on the internet, Like your best friend when you're like,
I'm going on a date with this guy and they
find so like they find so much about him that
you cancel the date. You've done that you have that

(22:18):
one friend.

Speaker 1 (22:19):
Yeah, so good. They're like, hey, listen, this guy's father
paid his taxes late about twelve years ago, don't get involved.

Speaker 2 (22:26):
Or he used this this throwaway account once and it
was for this and it's just some fucking dark yess
that's happened.

Speaker 1 (22:34):
Yes, I mean this seems like a real storial thing.

Speaker 2 (22:36):
He had a rash and he asked read it about
it and my friend found it. Wow, wow, Yeah, it
was fine. It wasn't contagious. Oh my god, Allie Alli Ward,
did you tell her you're going on a date with
And she's like, give me five minutes and just like
it's crazy, it's great. There was nothing on Vince by

(23:01):
the way she looked, that's right, that's right, green flag.

Speaker 1 (23:07):
He's he's very smart man. He would never put that
in the internet exactly.

Speaker 2 (23:13):
So basically, of course people are able to figure out
where it is just based on you know, that kind
of photo. One Utah resident, a woman named Monica holy
Yoke from Moab, is a big outdoor enthusiast and experienced hiker.
She is determined to track down the location of the
monolith and see it for herself. She's probably so bored

(23:34):
in lockdown because she can't you know, you couldn't even
go hiking back then. Well that's why I didn't go hiking, yah,
because that's what it was, remember, yeah, hiking. Yeah. So
she's familiar enough with Utah's landscape that she bets she
can narrow down the site by studying the photos from
the DPS's Instagram post and comparing them to Google maps

(23:54):
topographic images. So this is the greatest friend to have
for sure. After a few days of research, she finally
narrows her search down to the Lockhart Basin, your favorite basin.
No one, nobody, no one lives there. Ok, it's a
smaller section of the bears Ears National Monument.

Speaker 1 (24:17):
Sure they show up for Bear's Ears.

Speaker 2 (24:21):
Bear's Ears is about a two and a half hour
drive southwest from Monica's home and Moab, and encompasses over
one point three acres of land, Ellie wrote, or more
than twenty one one hundred square miles. It like I'm
going to know how big either of those wacking things.

Speaker 1 (24:36):
Don't worry about the and or Ellie, I need neither.

Speaker 2 (24:42):
And so Lockhart Basin is much smaller, though, somewhere between
thirty to sixty miles long. And so she and a
friend they venture out to the basin. They hike until
they find the Slot Canyon and then justice she suspected.
She finds the monolith standing. I mean, what the It's
the most exciting that she's had in months.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
Probably, right, She drops to her knees and begins to
worship the obelisk.

Speaker 2 (25:08):
She describes finding a monolith as being like finding a needle,
like finding a needle in a haystack. Yet somehow, to
her surprise, she's not the only one there. Oh, such
a bummer, you know. And you're like, I listened to
that band first, I found that monolith verse. Yeah, no,
you didn't. A whole network of people wanting to find
the monolith for themselves were working at tracking it down,

(25:30):
just like Monica, because we none of us had jobs
at the time. Tim Slaine, a Reddit user, had tracked
the GPS's helicopter's flight path. That's where That's where he went, Like,
that's so crazy, right, it's amazing. He definitely had to
like hack someone's you'd hope he had to hack a
computer system to figure that out. And it wasn't just

(25:51):
public knowledge, but I.

Speaker 1 (25:52):
Think they do public knowledge stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (25:54):
Okay, well fine, if you don't like it, take it to.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
The State House. What I want. I have to stop interjecting.
I'm so sorry.

Speaker 2 (26:08):
No, you must, you must. The obelisk demands that you interject.

Speaker 1 (26:13):
Just like in twenty twenty five, with everything going on, George,
just like, we need to take these flight path websites down.
It's the first thing we need to take care of
in America.

Speaker 2 (26:22):
That is my plate. Now, this is what I'm fighting for. Okay.
So Tim Slane, he who's of course a Reddit user,
tracks down no hate, tracks down the flight path and
then runs it through Google Earth as well. I think
Google Earth put it up there to get more traffic.
I just fucking figured it out. It is funny. She

(26:44):
solved it.

Speaker 1 (26:45):
Ladies and gentlemen, how many?

Speaker 2 (26:46):
Yeah, it's okay, thank you. A Dutch journalist used publicly
available satellite images to find the monoliths location, and then
narrowed down the timeline from when it must have been installed.
You know, like, looked at the old Google Maps picture
in the current.

Speaker 1 (27:04):
The mailman was going by in that slot cannon, nothing
was there.

Speaker 2 (27:07):
Then the next time, my god, you could see my
grandpa playing fetch with me one last time. I know,
I love those. This is so so.

Speaker 1 (27:13):
Sad, so sad.

Speaker 2 (27:16):
My dog, my dog from two thousand and six.

Speaker 1 (27:19):
My dog standing at the end of the driveway waiting
for me.

Speaker 2 (27:23):
Oh no, okay, we just bummed ourselves out at our
own show. Why would we do that. I'm want a
lot of things right now, nothing illegal yet.

Speaker 1 (27:42):
After party.

Speaker 2 (27:43):
That's right, everyone knows Utah's got the purest yes.

Speaker 1 (27:49):
Ketymye, ketymy, it's all falling a k hole together. God
damn it.

Speaker 2 (27:57):
What this could be a k hole ten years? Okay,
so stop it, stop it. He narrows down when this
Dutch journalist narrows down that it had to be there
sometimes have gotten there between July seventh, twenty sixteen and
October twenty first, twenty sixteen, four years before it was discovered.
So it was just sitting there biting. It's fucking time.

Speaker 1 (28:16):
Come on, I'm so interesting to do. Here's everybody.

Speaker 2 (28:19):
Yeah, but still no one can track down who might
have built the monolith or why. At first, the San
Juan County Sheriff's Department doesn't take the appearance of the
monoliths seriously. They kind of poke fun at it by
making a Facebook post with mugshots of nine supposed suspects
let's take a look at it. Come on, someone in

(28:41):
social media at the San Juan County Sheriff's Department, guy
caught my joe, thank you what still don't Still that's
still a no. So that's how seriously they took it.

Speaker 1 (28:58):
When I first turned, I saw et and then a
bunch of other et like shapes, and I was like,
this is kind of like the faces of meth of et.
Why would he get addicted?

Speaker 2 (29:12):
I lost made a meth. So they did that, and
they're like, you know, making fun of it. So maybe
it was quarantine.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
Yeah, nothing else to do?

Speaker 2 (29:21):
What did you? Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (29:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:22):
But with the secret of the Utah Monolist's location out,
more and more people are attracted to land at that
up to this point, had been virtually untouched by humans.
So that's not cool. The risk of visitors getting into
danger in the wilderness with virtually no resources skyrockets. We're
talking about me.

Speaker 1 (29:40):
Oh.

Speaker 2 (29:41):
Environmentalists also become increasingly concerned. Just remember that during the pandemic,
like Vince and I tried to go hiking and we
got lost, and we were next to a frisbee golf
course and we got lost and we had to follow
the frisbee golf sailing through the air.

Speaker 1 (29:59):
You had to follow the the sound of the bros
in the distance.

Speaker 2 (30:02):
Like I was just kidding about that, but it's fucking true.
Like I had. We had a walk through a stream
and I stepped into the stream. It was a whole thing.
Just stay yeah, and so we have so obviously people
are gonna get hurt, and environmentalists also become increasingly concerned
for the well being of the land. There's also concern

(30:23):
about damaging or disturbing nearby Native American sites. So it's
not cool, guys. The Utah Department of Heritage and Arts
releases a statement saying, quote, while curiosity is understandable, we
discourage visiting the monolith along with safety concerns, increased crowds,
threatened the archaeological archaeological archaeological.

Speaker 1 (30:44):
Yeah, you nailed it. There are times a child.

Speaker 2 (30:48):
The drag alongs or like what the fuck is this show? Okay. Finally,
while the monolith has craftsmanship, better craftsmanship than graffiti, still vandalism.
It irreversibly altered the natural environment on public lands. So
they're not stoked on it. End quote. No, that's end quote.

(31:09):
Before I said they're not stoked on it. That's not them,
that's me. I was a bad living.

Speaker 1 (31:16):
What geologists said, they're not stoked on it?

Speaker 2 (31:21):
I wouldn't tell you. I'm a geologist. That was my quote.

Speaker 1 (31:24):
Oh cool.

Speaker 2 (31:25):
So, with so much at risk, the San Juan County
Sheriff's Department switches gears and teams up with the Bureau
of Land Management to try and find out who built
this monolith and why. I assuming they can find them,
I don't know. But before their search can yield any
useful results, the monolith disappears. Yes, boop, that's what it said.

(31:46):
I no, no boop, I'm out. Yeah. On November twenty eighth,
I mean, ten days after it's found, Utah officials report
on their social media channels that the monolith has disappeared
and that no official agency has taken it down, Like
not us, you know, why are you laughing?

Speaker 1 (32:02):
Some drunk high schoolers are like, we're gonna fucking get
that monolith and we're gonna put it in the quad.

Speaker 2 (32:10):
Seeing your prank. Oh wait, we don't go to school anymore,
that's right, we go to school on zoom. Yeah. The
Department of Public Safety rites on their Instagram quote.

Speaker 1 (32:20):
It's gone all caps.

Speaker 2 (32:23):
Almost as quickly as it appeared, it has now disappeared.
I can only speculate that the aliens took it back.
End quote. That's I swear end quote.

Speaker 1 (32:31):
That quote ends there.

Speaker 2 (32:32):
Yeah, So, little by little, a story begins to trickle
out about how the monolith was taken down spoiler not aliens.
On Friday November twenty seven, twenty twenty one, day before
the disappearance is reported, a photographer named Ross Bernard ventures
out to the site with three friends so they can
take art seaf artsy photos. I'm assuming, I don't know.

(32:53):
I'm not judging obviously, that sound like you are. They
bring a light up drone for added effected to take
six hours for them to drive to the spot. That's like, yeah,
San Francis, go to La I mean, yikes, and let
you know, no lunchables on.

Speaker 1 (33:08):
The way anything, No in and out.

Speaker 2 (33:11):
No, they bring I already said that six hours and
then they arrived at the makeshift trailhead. It's not a
sanction hiking area about seven pm that night. There are
tons of cars present, but by the time they hike
out to the monolith there are the last group there
and they have the site to themselves and for about
an hour and a half they take all the photos

(33:32):
they can. But then at about eight forty pm, another
group of four dudes shows up trouble. Two of them
walk up to the monolith and give it a couple
of pushes. Then they look at Ross and his bros.
And say, you better have gotten your pictures, and then
with that they give the monolith one more big shove,

(33:53):
knocking it down.

Speaker 1 (33:55):
Fucking monolith bullies.

Speaker 2 (34:00):
Another guy in the group says, this is why you
don't leave trash in the desert. For a second, Ross
photographer is like, I'm gonna take I have a camera,
I'm gonna take photos of them. But he's a little intimidating.
He doesn't want to piss these like bullies monolith bullies off. Yeah,
So instead, one of his friends who's with him, Michael
James Newland's, snaps some sly photos with his phone. In

(34:23):
just eight minutes, the whole structure is dismantled and removed.
As the four guys cart the wreckage away, they leave
Ross and his friends with one last line, leave no trace.

Speaker 1 (34:34):
Oh, defenders of the land. Yes, it's important.

Speaker 2 (34:38):
Like these guys start out bullies. In an Instagram post
recounting the experience that night, Ross says, quote, if you're
asking why we didn't stop them, well they were right
to take it out. We stayed the night and the
next day hiked to a hilltop overlooking the area, where
we saw at least seventy seventy different cars and a

(34:58):
plane in and out, cars parking everywhere in the delicate
desert landscape. I mean they probably drove a car there too, right.

Speaker 1 (35:06):
Yeah, glass houses too.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
Nobody followed a path or each other. We could literally
see people trying to approach it from every direction, to
try and reach it permanently, altering the untouched landscape. Mother
nature is an artist. Best to leave the art in
the wild to her. Oh he's a poet.

Speaker 1 (35:26):
To yes, very true.

Speaker 2 (35:30):
So it's Joshua Trees. I mean, what's what called burning
Man's fine though? Man I had gotten that first though.
Don't worry about the play out, Yeah, don't hear the plants.

Speaker 1 (35:38):
You go, do your drugs there, ride your weird steampunk
bicycle all over the place. There you go, nerds.

Speaker 2 (35:47):
After a few news reports comes out about the removal
of the monolith, two men come forward claiming to be
part of the group that removed them. Their names are
Andy Lewis and Sylvan Christensen. Andy is a high altitude
this is her future husband. Andy's a high altitude slack
line performer for MOAB.

Speaker 1 (36:04):
No.

Speaker 2 (36:05):
It was even done stunts alongside Madonna at the twenty
twelve Super Bowl halftime. Remember when fucking slack lining? Everyone's like,
what was that Madonna?

Speaker 1 (36:15):
Remember this sounds very pink coated. This is a if
it's anyone's husband, it's Pink's husband. She loves a buggin
to be up on a high wire. No one got
my reference.

Speaker 2 (36:30):
The only reason I remember this is because there was
a really funny Saturday at Lives sketch about slack lining
that just was I.

Speaker 1 (36:36):
Feel like, I'm sorry to say I don't know what
slack lining is.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
Well, it's like I'm gonna be wrong. You have a
line and it's kind of slack, and you like tie
it between two trees. Hear me out, and then you
like jump on it and do like twirls and whirls
and it's like a it's like a tight rope, but
with slack. Nope, right, thank you, I'll show you now.

(37:04):
Oh my god, what if I had learned slack lining.

Speaker 1 (37:06):
Just ros drops from the ceiling the music starts.

Speaker 2 (37:10):
I think you'd laugh at it if you saw it. Okay,
I'm pretty sure, but you know.

Speaker 1 (37:15):
I'm definitely confused by it right now.

Speaker 2 (37:18):
It's a sport. Okay. So Sylvan said they wanted to
protect the land from the influx of newcomers coming to
see the monolith, because you know they're from Moab. They're like,
this is bullshit. Yes exactly, he tells The New York Times.
Quote this land wasn't physically prepared for the population shift
end quote. Being nature enthusiasts, both Sylvan and Andy don't

(37:38):
like seeing people come into natural spaces with no knowledge
of how to respect it, which is fair enough.

Speaker 1 (37:45):
That's like me and Sophora. I swear to god, I'm
just like, get your fucking fingers out of that.

Speaker 2 (37:52):
Yeah. Or being on a on a subway like public transportation,
you hold the poll and step away. You don't put
your arm around the pole, not hug it.

Speaker 1 (38:03):
I actually the last time we were at I think
it was Denver Airport where we had to take like
the tram. I was standing on one side of that pole,
and like the pole is pretty close to the wall,
and so I was kind of holding the pole and
near the wall, and of course there was the rest
of the train car on the other side, and this
woman fucking slides behind me where it's just like there

(38:25):
is no room to like. It was the one of
the wildest things. I think she just wanted to get
off really bad, but it was totally crazy. There was
like maybe that much room.

Speaker 2 (38:34):
To get a lot of drinking at the airport.

Speaker 1 (38:36):
Oh that's true. Fucking TGI Friday's baby up top. Okay,
I'll do it, fine, I'll do it.

Speaker 2 (38:47):
So if Andy and Sullivan's clams are true, then we
know who took the monolith down, but the question still
remains who built it in the first place. Obviously, the
least serious theory is that the monolith which was genuinely
placed here by there by aliens. But the materials, as
I said, are unremarkable, and you've got to assume that
they've got something. If they're here, they've got better tools

(39:08):
and shit.

Speaker 1 (39:09):
They were like the shy aliens of the group that
are here where they're like, we want to show them something,
but I don't know, and just like put it over there.
We'll see we'll see it four years later somebody stumbles up.
I don't know, I don't know. It's kind of plain.

Speaker 2 (39:24):
The monolith is also hollow, save for an inner frame
made of plywood to help keep its shape, and then
the outside is just made of aluminum sheet metal held
together by rivets. I don't know, Like I feel like
a bike messenger for some reason would do this.

Speaker 1 (39:38):
Yeah, we're yeah, just got a weldy guy.

Speaker 2 (39:41):
Yeah, you know, a weldy handy prankster, a bike messenger.

Speaker 1 (39:46):
There's a million of them out there, that's right.

Speaker 2 (39:48):
At the same time, and it was the pandemic, so
like they had.

Speaker 1 (39:51):
No no way to express themselves.

Speaker 2 (39:55):
At the same time. Some people believe that Andy and
Silvin didn't take down the monolith at all. They believe
an artist built it and then took it down themselves
in like a Banksy style artist who wanted to do
their art anonymously without getting credit on the internet for it.
In today's economy, who among us you didn't want attention
and praise? What then?

Speaker 1 (40:17):
Why would you do it? And we're followers, these are
this is the reason right this moment. They want us
to ask these questions of ourselves.

Speaker 2 (40:24):
Yeah, it's fair. So this leads to the question of
who the artist could be. An art dealer from New
York named David Zwerner thought it might be the work
of an artist named John McCracken. McCracken, don't laugh.

Speaker 1 (40:38):
Sorry, go ahead, it's just usually artists have names like
David Zwerner and shit like that. So McCracken comes along,
it's like, what are you all about.

Speaker 2 (40:51):
McCracken is known for building polished metal pieces similar to
the Utah Monolith. He passed away in twenty eleven. Though,
so even though the monolith was placed in the desert
in twenty sixteen, McCracken could have theoretically made the sculpture
before twenty and eleven his death.

Speaker 1 (41:06):
No, that's too hard. No, nobody's doing stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (41:11):
And someone else could have placed it in the desert afterwards,
Like after he died, he was just like, I still
want to keep fucking rolling, you know, No, you want
to get it while you're alive?

Speaker 1 (41:23):
Is that you're I just don't know that. That sounds insane.

Speaker 2 (41:29):
Since his passings, Werner has managed McCracken's estate, so he
knows his work very well, and after taking a closer
look at pictures of the monolith. He actually backtracks and
says he is one hundred percent sure who he isn't
one hundred percent sure who made it.

Speaker 1 (41:43):
So told youa sorry, we're fighting in front of you.

Speaker 2 (41:51):
If it wasn't John McCracken. But what I meant to
say was if it was John McCracken, he never said
anything about it to his art d or to his family.
It reminds me of the toy and Bee tiles. Yes,
you guys know what I'm talking about, where there's like
just like random tiles in the middle of the street
that stay out but spell out weird stuff messages.

Speaker 1 (42:11):
All around the world. And the only thing is that
John McCracken was a famous, known artist. So it's a
little bit like, yeah, what's the if he if that
was the plan, Like okay, so listen, I'm gonna make
this monolith. Yeah, and I'm just it'll it'll just be
in my in my studio for I don't know, five years. Yeah,
I will pass as we all must, and then you know,

(42:35):
four years later, go stick it in a very remote location.

Speaker 2 (42:39):
And the person went through with it, even though like
McCracken's not gonna know it didn't happen like that would
be me, the assistant being like, I'm not doing that.

Speaker 1 (42:50):
I want to tell a story right now, so bad way,
it's gonna take forever. I'm not gonna do it. No, no, no,
it won't be worth it. It's it's one of my boring ones.

Speaker 2 (43:00):
And TikTok didn't exist yet, So how could have McCracken
known how famous he would have gotten. That sounded like
it hurt so bad, so bad. Oh my god, oxygen.
You guys don't have oxygen for real. Okay, stop it
just focus. Uh. But McCracken's son, Patrick, who is as

(43:22):
baffled as everyone else, says something interesting. He recalls a
knight when he was with his father in New Mexico
and his pops said, quote we were no sorry, and
he said the son said, quote quote we were standing
outside looking at the stars. And he said something to
the fact of that he would like to leave his
artwork in remote places to be discovered later, like hello, confession.

Speaker 1 (43:46):
They were in a desert.

Speaker 2 (43:47):
No, they were in New Mexico, but close close enough.
We don't know. Nobody knows.

Speaker 1 (43:55):
I just like that guy's name is Pat McCracken.

Speaker 2 (44:00):
Okay, So, even though the Utah monoliths creator has yet
to be named, the spectacle inspires copycats around the world.
In December of twenty twenty, another metallic prism shaped monolith
appears on a hillside in Romania, three feet taller than
the one found in Utah. Of course, you guys challenge,
but otherwise it looks exactly the same, and it's not

(44:23):
the only one. Between December twenty twenty and February twenty
twenty one, more monoliths appear all over India, Iran, the Congo, Austria,
all your favorite places, Bolivia, just all over the place, Bolivia,
your favorite all European places, Bolivia. Most people believe it
can't just be one person doing all of this, but

(44:45):
there are billionaires who are bored. Yes, as we have
learned from this podcast. In some cases, the originators of
these copycats are known, but most of the time, each
artist who installs their respective monolith tries to stay anonymous
to keep the mystery alive, which is cool, and that
is the story of the Utah.

Speaker 1 (45:04):
Monolith amazing, good one. Yeah, that's good. I love that
you did that, because when that happened, I was like,
this is fascinating. I want to know what this is.
And then of course I just kind of never thought
about it again, right, but I really did want to know.

Speaker 2 (45:25):
That's what this podcast is for.

Speaker 1 (45:27):
Hey, hey, what's up? All right now, I'm gonna go
this is This is not a monolith's story, but it
is monolithic. Hey what that's improv Tonight, I'm going to
tell you this story of one of Utah's most legendary

(45:47):
native sons. To do that, we're going to go back
to late eighteen hundreds, when the desperadoes of the Old
West made a living robbing trains and banks. This man
was a desperado and a criminal through and through. But
unlike the other legendary outlaws of his day, Jesse James
or Billy the Kid, this man's remembered a bit differently.
He was called the Gentleman Bandit because of his reputation

(46:10):
for keeping his robberies restrained and avoiding needless bloodshed. He's
been described as witty, polite, and oddly charming, and now
one hundred years later, his legendary status lives on because
of the way he lived his life and because of
the enduring mystery surrounding his death. This is the story
of Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunches.

Speaker 2 (46:33):
That's your guy, that's their guy. Yes, oh my god.

Speaker 1 (46:40):
So the main sources used in the story today are
Charles Learson's twenty twenty book From the Monolith Era of
Butch Cassidy, The True Story of an American Outlaw, and
a twenty fourteen PBS documentary called American Experience One of
the Great Shows, Butch Cassidy and the Sun Dance.

Speaker 2 (46:58):
Kid, PBS.

Speaker 1 (47:00):
Please please well, do this save PBS. We've got to
save our national parks.

Speaker 2 (47:09):
Yeah, all the things, and.

Speaker 1 (47:12):
We've got to save each other. That's the most important one.
We got him, We got him. But the good news
is there's more of us than there are of them.
Ladies in gentlemen, don't forget it. Don't forget it as
you doom scroll. Don't forget it.

Speaker 2 (47:31):
Okay, please focus. Sorry, trying to do a peace political
like I'm good, but I'm definitely gonna turn this on
care in mind. Okay.

Speaker 1 (47:41):
This begins in April of eighteen sixty six, when a
baby named Robert Leroy Parker is born two hundred miles
south of here in Beaver, Utah your favorite city.

Speaker 2 (47:54):
I don't know why, but the phrase a baby name
like a baby named this was born, looks like we
knew he was a baby, like this guy was born.

Speaker 1 (48:01):
Came out with the names into his A grown man
grows now, came out holding a little ida. It's me
Robert Lee Roy Parker. So it was actually long ago
enough that Utah was not yet a state, so technically
it we're in the Utah territory when this takes place.

(48:21):
Robert's family has lived in the Utah Territory since the
eighteen fifties, when both sets of his grandparents emigrated from
Great Britain after converting to Mormonism. So he was Robert
was born into a very cheer You can cheer for Mormonism,
absolutely you get too, or yeah, express yourself however you

(48:44):
want about Mormonism. Why not have a let's have a
moment of just making noises about Mormonism.

Speaker 2 (48:50):
And you know the person sitting next to you believe
something completely different than you. That's important.

Speaker 1 (48:54):
Right now, rub elbows with that person.

Speaker 2 (48:57):
It'll be fun, and tell them why they're wrong.

Speaker 1 (49:03):
It ends tonight, ladies and gentlemen, It ends tonight. Okay,
so obviously, baby Robert is born into a very religious
LDS family and he is the oldest of thirteen year
old children. Sorry, of thirteen children, that's.

Speaker 2 (49:22):
A lot of thirteen year olds.

Speaker 1 (49:24):
So irritated. When you look up from the page and
you're like, I'm really going and telling the story now,
it's like, no, you're not, you're not. So around eighteen eighty,
when Robert's thirteen years old, his family moves onto a
small homestead in Circleville, Utah. Right, so circular. His dad

(49:46):
is away from months at a time looking for, you know,
good paying work. So by the time he is in
his early teens, Robert is essentially the man of the house,
and like his father, he works incredibly hard to provide
for his family, mostly by hand handling horses and cattle.
Is a ranch hand nearby, and it all comes very
naturally to him. He's often described as an animal lover,

(50:08):
and he's particularly fond of horses. And when he does
that work, he's taken under the wing of a cowboy
named Mike Cassidy, and Cassidy teaches Robert how to handle cattle,
ride horses, shoot guns, and skim livestock from big herds
without anyone noticing.

Speaker 2 (50:27):
That's right, join that.

Speaker 1 (50:30):
Yeah, a little cattle shoplifting. Just take these three home,
No big deal. This is called cattle rustling, and it
is illegal. But Robert idolizes Mike, who couldn't be more
different than the straight laced, very religious family that Robert's
grown up in. By the time Robert is eighteen years old,

(50:53):
his mentor, Mike Cassidy, has skipped town, probably because he's
gotten into some kind of trouble with the cows that
he keeps stealing. But and it doesn't seem like the
two ever cross paths again. But it's clear that Mike
Cassidy has made a huge impression on his young protege.
So when he turns eighteen, which is in the mid

(51:13):
eighteen eighties, Robert leaves his family in Utah and he
sets his sights what he sets his size.

Speaker 2 (51:22):
On.

Speaker 1 (51:23):
Tell your ride, Colorado. They're lukewarm about it, yeah, and
they don't really care. They're trying to be supportive. At
the time, it's a booming mining town with tons of
money making opportunities, and Robert soon gets a job hauling
or down mountain sides. It is brutal work, but he's

(51:44):
able to find that work life balance balance intell. He
rides many saloons, brothels and dance and with dancing girls.
You know what I mean. You work hard all day
long and then you just get fucked up.

Speaker 2 (51:58):
Cata mean.

Speaker 1 (52:02):
So for a young man raised in a very religious
household living in this town, must have been so excited.
Just like he's hauling a one hundred pounds on his
back and he's like, I can't wait to get to
the brothel tonight. No one can stop me. So one
thing seems undisputed about Robert. He is roundly remembered as

(52:24):
charming and funny, with a warm personality. The people of
Telly Ride remember him playing the harmonica, horsing around with
little kids, and going to the Friday night dances to
chat up all the young women who are drawn in
by his good looks and his sense of humor. Oh
can we see that first picture of him?

Speaker 3 (52:43):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (52:44):
Oh hello, uh huh.

Speaker 1 (52:49):
It's a pretty solid kerchief there. He's going to take
care of it, don't worry about it.

Speaker 2 (52:56):
Yeah, he's got it. He's got it. He's going to
take going anywhere, Not on his watch. Do they have watches?
Not on his time Piece.

Speaker 1 (53:10):
Author Charles Leerson reports Robert was quote square jawed and
sandy haired, good looking, yet not so beautiful as to insight,
ridicule or jealousy.

Speaker 2 (53:21):
God like, we think these standards today are rough.

Speaker 1 (53:25):
Yep, you had to be just under beautiful. The other
cowboys would be jealous of you. He always seemed to
possess from birth a set of standards below which he
believed a gentleman should never sink. Served a meal of
jack rabbit at a backcountry in one evening, he quietly

(53:46):
rose from the table, rode a short way off, and
shot a cow so that everyone in the place could
have steak. I he's just like, mm hmm, I'll take
care of that.

Speaker 2 (53:58):
I got it, and the cook like you just brought
me an entire cow. Oh do you fucking understand?

Speaker 1 (54:04):
I made you jack rabbit? You son of a bitch? Okay, Oh,
we're still in the quote. Generosity was his strong suit.
End quote cool. All that's to say, Robert is the
kind of guy who makes friends very easily. On a
trip to Colorado, he meets two cattle rustlers named Matt

(54:27):
Warner and Tom McCarthy. They all become friends right away.
And Robert is still a pretty innocent guy at this point,
so it must have been a surprise when it's two
new besties casually decide that they're gonna rob a bank.
Oh so, it's June of eighteen eighty nine and twenty
three year old Robert walks through the front doors of
Telly Ride's San Miguel Valley Bank, with Matt at his

(54:50):
side and Tom keeping watch outside. Matt holds a gun
on the teller while Robert collects the lute in what
will later become a hallmark of his hold ups. No
one injured in this event. Now, Robert is more than
okay using guns during these jobs, mostly just to intimidate
people into giving him what he wants, but he does
not like flashy gunplay or needless bloodshed. Still, even as

(55:13):
he does his best to keep everyone at the bank
calm by assuring them that they are not in danger. Shotgun, shotgun, shotgun,
don't what's stop it, You're fine, people start screaming and
rushing out of the bank.

Speaker 2 (55:26):
Yeah, they'll do that, right, So local.

Speaker 1 (55:29):
Deputies and even a few miners rush to respond. None
of them are trained to handle a fast moving armed robbery, though,
so before anyone can stop them, the trio of men
make off with about twenty thousand dollars, which in today's
money this is eighteen eighty nine.

Speaker 2 (55:45):
I just I hate this. Yeah, I'm gonna be wrong.
It's gonna be disappointing. Are you ready, We're.

Speaker 1 (55:49):
Just working it out. It's fine to be wrong. Twenty
two thousand, twenty thousand in eighteen eighty nine.

Speaker 2 (55:55):
In today's money would be three hundred and twenty six
seven hundred thousand dollars, not even close.

Speaker 1 (56:05):
I won't stop making her do it. It's so mean.
So when Robert and Matt rush out of the bank
with the loot, they reunite with Tom, they mount their horses,
and they ride away as fast as they can, out
of town into the unforgiving, rugged Western landscape. Robert is
emerging as the clear leader of this trio now, with
Matt later saying quote, he had the brains of a

(56:28):
man twice his age. You could get lost in the
mountains and he would always know the weight, or he
would always know the way, or find a clever way
out of a tight spot. Hot right.

Speaker 2 (56:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (56:39):
And it also says here and his kerchief was tight,
so tight around his neck just up real high and tight.
One example of the brains at work is Robert's idea
that will become one of his signature moves when they
do these robberies, stashing a new team of horses at
a designated spot along the getaway trail. That way they

(57:01):
swap out their original horses who were exhausted in the
initial getaway, and these fresh horses make it okay, make
it Robert and his accomplices able to get away, make
finding them nearly impossible.

Speaker 2 (57:16):
Like a relay for horses, got it?

Speaker 1 (57:19):
And also the people, Oh, that's right. The rest of
the paragraph is down here to catch because if any
Tellyride lawmen are on their tail, their horses would be
exhausted at that point, but they don't have any replacements.

Speaker 2 (57:30):
That's fucking smart, right, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:34):
It is hot. So Robert, Matt, and Tom fly down
the trail toward a rugged, remote valley called Brown's Park,
and that's at the intersection of Utah, Wyoming and Colorado.
I knew that, right, You've been to that intersection many
a time. It's a very remote stretch of land that

(57:56):
the PBS series describes as quote nothing but sagebrush wild horses,
and Rattlesnakes cool right, yeah, your three favorites. Fortunately, Robert
is such a good writer that he's able to easily
and confidently lead the others through this treacherous terrain. And
at this point they've completely evaded the law. So in

(58:16):
Browns Park they split up and go their separate ways,
each with a fat stack of cash in their pockets,
and this ingenious plan becomes the habit for Robert after
these hold ups, making it even harder for the authorities
to track them down. So they always get to a spot,
split the cash, and it's like buy everybody. So now
Robert has one big robbery under his belt, and compared

(58:39):
to the backbreaking, low paying labor that he's been having
to do and teleride, the high risk, high reward lifestyle
of a bank robber really is appealing to him. But
he isn't totally sold on the outlaw lifestyle. Maybe it's
his ingrained Mormonism, but for the rest of his life
that wasn't sarcastic. I was trying to he has, I'm saying,

(59:00):
as an ethical structure.

Speaker 2 (59:02):
An ethical bank robber.

Speaker 1 (59:04):
Yes, that's why he's so cute. He's bad and good,
but for the rest of his life, he will bounce
back and forth between the criminal world and legitimacy. So,
while he is a wanted man in Colorado, he decides
to seek out honest work in Wyoming. I think we do.

(59:25):
We have, Oh, Wyoming's in the house, insane. I thought,
I truly thought no one lived there for real. Thank
you for coming. That's nice. It's nothing else going on, right,

(59:46):
just like, let's go over there. But to do this
honest work in Wyoming. But to do this, he'll have
to assume a new identity. And this is when Robert
Leroy Parker borrows Cassidy from his old old mentor, Mike Cassidy, and,
according to the lore, after a short stint working in
a Wyoming butcher shop, he picks up the nickname Butch. Therefore,

(01:00:11):
Butch Cassidy is born.

Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
So I mean, did he nickname himself?

Speaker 1 (01:00:16):
He's like, call me Butch, and everyone else in the
butcher shops like no, no, you just started working here.

Speaker 2 (01:00:25):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:00:25):
So from this point on, Butch is doing what Butch
does best, which is working with horses while charming and
befriending everyone he meets. And this includes a twenty year
old ranch hand named Elsie Lay. He's only a few
years younger than Butch, and the two will remain close friends.
At this point, Butch is still trying to live this
straight and narrow life, but before long he goes back

(01:00:48):
to stealing livestock. So why don't you get a taste
of stealing a cow? It is fucking impossible not to
do it again. They're so dumb. Then in eighteen ninety four,
when he's in his late twenties, he's caught and handed
two years hard labor in a Wyoming prison. Here's the

(01:01:10):
mug shot.

Speaker 2 (01:01:11):
Oh all right, let's see, just a little couple of
units on the forehead would raise those brows up, the
little you know what I'm saying, You hear it up?
This is where I'd raise it up. And then if
you put it a little in those you could just
soften those that jawline a.

Speaker 1 (01:01:26):
Series TMJ issue.

Speaker 2 (01:01:27):
We get a little botox, right, little talks, little talks
right there, a couple of units. Not.

Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
Yeah, I think he kind of looks like and it's
not supposed to be an insult a lost Kelsey brother, doesn't.

Speaker 2 (01:01:37):
He a little bit? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:01:38):
Yeah, he's the younger one that can't hold a job
down ever.

Speaker 2 (01:01:42):
Yeah, he's the one. Yeah, he's like not going to
be in the wedding. Yeah, you know, he's like, like,
you'll be in the audience.

Speaker 1 (01:01:49):
But we're invited, Rusty, you're invited. It's just we're going
to put you at table thirty eight.

Speaker 2 (01:01:53):
Yeah, nobody give him a microphone.

Speaker 1 (01:01:57):
I remember when these two noted eighty no no, no,
no no. That'd be a funny podcast of people re
enacting the worst speeches they've heard at weddings.

Speaker 2 (01:02:13):
Trademarked trademark.

Speaker 1 (01:02:14):
That's all right, idea exact coming and coming, don't you dare.

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
Coming to exactly right.

Speaker 1 (01:02:21):
Poor man's podcast trademark right there. Okay, So, because he
is Butch Cassidy, he's paroled six months early for being
a model prisoner. The world loves this man. And then
he heads back to Brown's Park. He reconnects with his
old buddy, Elsie, and when he gets there, he sees
that this remote area has now become a refuge for drifters, outlaws,

(01:02:44):
and desperadoes, and of course Butch befriends all of them,
guys like Ben Tall, Texan Kilpatrick, no relation, George Flatnose, Curry,
No Harvey Kid Curry logan not to be mistake for
George flat nose Curry. And of course the outlaws sisters

(01:03:05):
Anne and Josie Bassett cool right, I call those guys
for a future story. Don't don't you dare? Wow? Josie
would later describe Butch as quote the most dashing and
handsome man I have ever seen. Butch becomes the epicenter

(01:03:26):
of this loose network of a dozen or so thieves
who drift in and out of Brown's Park and other
notorious hideaways like Wyom Wing's Hole in the Wall. That's right,
the manager of Hole in the Wall is here tonight,
Thank you so much, Dan Storing.

Speaker 2 (01:03:42):
He called in sick today. Don't give them away.

Speaker 1 (01:03:44):
Shit, we'll edit that part out. Don't worry you, you
got you covered.

Speaker 2 (01:03:49):
Remember the chick went to the Taylor's Wi concert with
a blanket over her head because she called in sick
to go and they interviewed her, and she did. She
didn't want her coworkers and boss finding out.

Speaker 1 (01:04:01):
Remember that couple that was cheating on their husbands and
wives and called Plank concert.

Speaker 2 (01:04:06):
They should have got a fucking blanking on their God, don.

Speaker 1 (01:04:08):
They just needed a blanket for their makeout. So this
group of people isn't a formal gang. There's no rules.
Most of them don't share Butch's code of non violence.
In particular, Kid Curry is notoriously brutal. He is known
to go out of his way to shoot people during holdups,
particularly law men. So this is a very we'll call

(01:04:32):
fluid group. That was Maren's word. Very fluid group, with
people constantly coming and going. But every so often, when
they find themselves in Butcher's orbit, they team up with
him for a job or two. They see Butch as
a smart, fair and intentional leader who organizes clean jobs.
So Butch and this rotating cast of accomplices soon become

(01:04:53):
known as Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch. And oh wait, sorry,
it's too early for the picture. Don't give it away.
I fucking truly do love with Steve Harvey like and
here it is.

Speaker 2 (01:05:05):
I love a throw to.

Speaker 1 (01:05:06):
Let's take a look, take a look, let's let's see
what if you're powerful feeling?

Speaker 2 (01:05:10):
Yeah it is.

Speaker 1 (01:05:12):
So the Wild Bunch is first big We can't talk now.
I'm trying to tell this fucky story. Been out here
for two hours. The Wild Bunch's first big headline making
robbery comes in April of eighteen ninety seven in castle Gate, Utah,
which is now a ghost town.

Speaker 2 (01:05:31):
Sorry that, Oh you're lying unless you're a ghost.

Speaker 1 (01:05:36):
Yes, we have to have you do a hometown. So
back then castle Gate was a thriving mining town, or
it had a thriving mine. And Butch knows that payroll
gets delivered every two weeks by wagon in big bags
by deliverymen on set schedules. And the story goes that
Butch an Elsie confront the mind's paymaster. It's the guy

(01:05:58):
in charge of paying everyone. They stick the barrel of
a gun into his belly and they make off with
the mine's entire payroll in broad daylight. And historians disagree
on how much is taken, but it's reported to be
as much as eight thousand dollars, which in today's money
would be worth more than.

Speaker 2 (01:06:18):
One hundred and twenty seven thousand dollars.

Speaker 1 (01:06:22):
Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

Speaker 2 (01:06:24):
We were both wrong. I heard you. If we were wrong,
this isn't prices.

Speaker 1 (01:06:28):
Right, no help from the it's really but it's hard
not to guess because you're just like I can do
this crazy backwards math.

Speaker 2 (01:06:36):
Yeah, when you remember ten fucking years and I've gotten
it right once. Yeah. No, okay.

Speaker 1 (01:06:40):
So, as the duo rushes out with the loot, Elsie's
getaway horse breaks loose and dashes off into a crowd
of miners who have already gathered to collect their pay.
So they've just stolen it. Now they're trying to get away,
and the guys whose money it is are like, hold
on a second one, what's going on here? Yeah? So,
according to writer Charles Learson, Butch then so basically, Elsie's

(01:07:05):
getaway horse is gone, so he so Butch jumps off
his own horse so that Elsie can get on his horse,
and he then runs and basically, Learson says, quote what
happened next resembled an equestrian stunt that you might see
in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show. Butch an all out sprint,

(01:07:27):
swung deftly abroad the running horse. Then as four or
five riflemen fired at them from a roof of the
from the roof of the mine, the roof of the mine,
that's the ground, right.

Speaker 2 (01:07:38):
I'm no expert.

Speaker 1 (01:07:44):
I will not try to contradict Charles Learson, who is
literally an expert on this topic. Still in the quote,
the two amigos disappeared into a cloud of dust, so
kind of like what you were just what was the
kind of rope stuff you were talking about earlier?

Speaker 2 (01:08:01):
Slack lining? I think he.

Speaker 1 (01:08:03):
Slack lined up onto this horse and got away.

Speaker 2 (01:08:07):
Definitely right, and from then on it was the truth.

Speaker 1 (01:08:12):
Next, they swap horse. They swap their horses out for
a fresh team that has been placed along the getaway trail.
They take off for their chosen hideaway, which is Robbers.

Speaker 2 (01:08:20):
Roost, which call it something else, like I know, it's
like kind of a giveaway.

Speaker 1 (01:08:26):
We're gonna go hide in. All the dishonest guys are
over here? Where'd Roberts Rusts go? Because I had that
here it is Robbers Roost here in Utah. Sorry, I
just wanted to.

Speaker 2 (01:08:38):
Be you guys wanted to see a live podcast. Yeah,
so you're seeing a live podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:08:42):
This is everything that gets edited for the regular show. Yeah, okay,
m m m mmmmmm. There it is. I got it.
When they arrived, they split up. They go their separate
ways until the heat from this robbery dies down. And
this is another thing that different differentiates bush Cat Why

(01:09:05):
bush Canson is a kid my favorite robber, number one
robber bush Kess thank you, I thank you, I thank you,
and drunk Karen thanks.

Speaker 2 (01:09:23):
You too, wherever she may be.

Speaker 1 (01:09:31):
So Butch doesn't. Basically, he doesn't pull off robberies very often. Instead,
he puts together a job and he's and then he'll
do it and then go back to like a year
of normal work and just living legitimately before getting the
gang back together and then doing another robbery. And his

(01:09:51):
robberies should make him a rich man, especially in the
Old West where living is probably relatively cheap. But again,
Charles Larson writes, the Butch pro probably had a pretty
bad gambling habit, because it's hard to imagine any other
way he could lose thousands of dollars over the course
of several months.

Speaker 2 (01:10:07):
Shit, yeah, all right, and he's not very good at
card games too.

Speaker 1 (01:10:14):
He's like, maybe I'll get good this time one thousand dollars.
So in eighteen ninety nine, which is two years after
the mine heist, Butch's dear friend Elsie, is involved in
a bloody botched train robbery that ends in his arrest
in fulsome New Mexico. So with Butch's right hand. Really, so,
with Butcher's right hand man now in prison, a spot

(01:10:37):
opens up for a new outlaw to take his place.
And that's exactly what happens when Butch meets Harry Alonso Langaba,
aka the Sundance Kid. No, he was also nicknamed just Sundance,
and it was because he served a prison stint in Sundance, Wyoming.
That's when he's seamed after.

Speaker 2 (01:10:57):
So how many people are named that? Then?

Speaker 1 (01:10:59):
Just him, just him. He was the best one there.
He just kicked ass at being in prison in Wyoming.
He was literally the only one there. So Harry's in
his early thirties, about the same age as Butch, and
he's known to be calm under pressure, a very patient sharpshooter,
and someone whose steady nerves balance out Butch's quick mind.

(01:11:22):
So with Butch still acting as the ringleader and sun
Dance now at his side, the Wild Bunch carry out
a string of robberies across Utah, Wyoming and Idaho. And
we have a picture of the Wild Bunch, so hi,
here they are.

Speaker 2 (01:11:36):
Oh that's cute.

Speaker 1 (01:11:38):
So left to right sitting we've got that's the Sundance
Kid on the left with the mustache that looks like
Vince abral and then the tall Texan is in the middle,
and then that's Butch Cassidy on the right, sited seated sorry,
and then standing back there, we've got Will Carver and

(01:11:58):
that's the vicious. It's not Harry Shearer from spinal tap,
that's the vicious kid Curry back there.

Speaker 2 (01:12:06):
What a fine bunch.

Speaker 1 (01:12:07):
Look at them. They're like, you know what, let's stop
robbing people and take a gorgeous.

Speaker 2 (01:12:12):
Photo of ourselves. Let's get chairs from all eras and
put them in the photo and sit on them.

Speaker 1 (01:12:20):
Do you have anything clawfoot? No, we have rittan Oh wait,
we do have a claw foot hold on. Thank you
the Utah State Historical Society, whose all rights are reserved
on this incredible history. Where am I now? Okay? So,

(01:12:43):
their most famous robbery comes in June of eighteen ninety nine,
when they target a Union Pacific train as it passes
through Wilcox, Wyoming, which is not far from their hole
in the wall hideout. Butch carefully plots out this stick up,
studying train schedules and cargo loads to figure out just
when the next payroll shipment will be he targets the

(01:13:04):
Union Pacific's Overland Flyer, a passenger train also carrying mail
and express shipments, including Wills Fargo strong boxes full of
cash and valuables. So in the middle of the night,
it's around two fifteen am on June second, eighteen ninety nine,
the Wild Bunch flags down this train by waving a
red lantern, which is the sign to an engineer that

(01:13:27):
there's trouble ahead. When the train brands to a halt,
the train crew are ambushed and ordered off the train
at gunpoint, and Butch and his gang climb aboard. Frightened
passengers offer up any valuables that they have on them,
but according to legend, Butch Cassidy refuses to take anything
from these people. He just wants the bank's money. Sure,

(01:13:48):
it's so good. From here, they detach the express car
where the safe is kept, and they move it up
the tracks away from the passenger.

Speaker 2 (01:13:58):
Car, sell the train car.

Speaker 1 (01:14:00):
They're like, this is where all the money is, but
no one can carry this safe, so let's just get
it over here. So basically they do that so that
no brave passengers will try to interfere and maybe to
keep them safe, because then the gang ignites dynamite to
blow the safe open, but the explosion turns out to
be so powerful that it not only destroys most of

(01:14:23):
the train car, it blows the safe open and money
flies everywhere. Oh man, and we do have a still
of the train car. Oh shit, boom.

Speaker 2 (01:14:33):
Yeah, someone got a little happy with whatever dynamite is
made out of.

Speaker 1 (01:14:37):
That's right. They're like, we just put one, put two
in just in case, put you in. But what I
love is that was one of the early versions of
the money grab machine.

Speaker 2 (01:14:50):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:14:52):
If you're on that train and you're like, look at
all these crazy bills. M okay. Anyway, the gang gets
away with somewhere between sorry, thirty and fifty thousand dollars,
which three hundred one to two million dollars today. Is
it a huge amount of money? So, as you know,

(01:15:16):
we always search the Gmail in case somebody murdy Reno
has any kind of a connection to a story like this.
Are you here tonight or that's the that's that mouse
that keeps running through this. Say your name.

Speaker 3 (01:15:37):
Vicki, Nicki, Niki, Niki, Vicky or Mickey great?

Speaker 1 (01:15:51):
You know what Vicky, Mickey, Mickey. This one's on me,
I should have never started it. Here's the email we
found it says it's a little long, but it's worth that.
It says, Hi, everyone, I never thought that I would
have a good story to share with you. That was
until just recently when my mom decided to spill the
tea on some family secrets. To preface, I was born
and raised in Utah as a member of the Church

(01:16:13):
of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, and then in
parentheses it says the Mormon Church, thanks so much. And
my family history is the very stereotypical Utah Mormon saga
where our ancestors, after having left Europe also had to
flee from New York to the West because they were
persecuted for their beliefs and definitely not because they were

(01:16:33):
polygamists who were trying to marry everyone's daughters. Thank you,
thank you for clarifying. Okay, anyways, if that wasn't already
some crazy family history, that was only true for three
quarters of my great grandparents, because my paternal great grandfather

(01:16:57):
is half Native American from the Shoshone tri Vibe. As
it turns out, his father was one of the og
Mormon colonizers who apparently was real tight with Joseph Smith
and was also a polagamist at some point during the
colonization of Utah. Great grand my great great grandfather, and
then it says, in quotes found two Native children, a

(01:17:18):
boy and a girl, abandoned on the side of the road,
rescued them again it quotes too many quotes. Yeah, and
naturally decided to take the girl as one of his wives. Oh,
this was the story I was told. However, now that
I'm older, it seems like there are some parts that
were sugarcoated to cover up what really happened between colonizers

(01:17:40):
and Native American tribes. Anyways, this is when my mom
decided to tell me that there's a little more to
this story, because I guess if you were already living
your life on the outside of the law, you might
as well go one hundred percent and be a safe
house for Butch Cassidy and is gang.

Speaker 2 (01:18:00):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (01:18:01):
Apparently my great great grandfather was one of Butch Cassidy's
alliances in Utah and would provide him a safe hideaway
whenever he was in town. I mean, if you already
know that the law is not on your side from
all the polygamy stuff. Why not take a hefty payout
of stolen gold bars from one of the most notorious
bank robbers of the wild Wild West and hide them
in your household whenever they decide to rob the next

(01:18:23):
town over. So this her great great grandfather stashed the
loot for that. Yeah, yeah, we really don't talk about
Grandpa's history in our family. I always thought that it
was because a lot of people in Utah would not
be receptive to a biracial illegal marriage. But no, it's
because I have a family history that someone could make
a movie about. In fact, they did. It's called Butch

(01:18:46):
Cassidy and the Sundians. Kid, Stay sexy, And if you
ever decide to rob a bank via old fashioned steam engine,
know that the Mormons got your back. Sincerely, Mikhayei La Right,
so good, so good. Okay. So after this train robbery,

(01:19:10):
of course, both Union Pacific and Wells Fargo r I rate.
They dispatch countless lawmen and private detectives like the Pinkertons
throughout the West to hunt down Butch Cassidy and the
wild Bunch. And we've got a wanted poster here, that's
Sundance up on top. And it says Camilla Hanks underneath

(01:19:30):
this picture, that's Tom Hanks's aunt, his great aunt twice removed.

Speaker 2 (01:19:39):
Okay, not an effective wanted poster, I would think, Nope,
too tiny, the writing's too right.

Speaker 1 (01:19:44):
Up there with your weird little glasses, your old West glasses,
your monocle, just the one for your one eye. Gang
members like the sadistic kid Curry are soon caught. But
Butch and Sundance use their charm and manners to evade authorities.
They're clean, shape, well dressed, and exceedingly polite, and they
wear this likability as their armor. Butch and Sundance roll

(01:20:06):
into towns where wanted posters with their faces on them
are plastered on walls and windows, yet they are not captured.
Sometimes locals even feed and house the duo, or even
help them evade the law by misleading officers. Everyone's in
on this with them.

Speaker 2 (01:20:20):
He went that away, he went that away.

Speaker 1 (01:20:25):
After a while, it's clear that if they stay in
the States, they'll be on the run forever. So Butch
and Sundance decide it's time to head south. In nineteen
oh one, when they're both in their mid thirties, they
set sail to South America, eventually landing in southern Argentina.
Sundance has a girlfriend named Eda Place, who comes with them.

(01:20:45):
The three of them move on to a ranch under
fake names, and they raise cattle and horses, and by
all accounts, they live a very quiet life and they're
well liked by their neighbors everywhere they go. They live
together for a few years as Butch once again tries
to earn his living by honest means. Then around nineteen
oh five, it all changes. We don't know exactly what

(01:21:07):
happens with Eda or where she winds up, but we
do know that Butch and Sundance sell the ranch and
return once again to their outlaw ways. One last job,
they rob banks and trains in Argentina and Chile, and
when they draw too much heat, they head to Bolivia.

Speaker 2 (01:21:24):
Oh what what, Tuck?

Speaker 1 (01:21:27):
That's weird ding ding ding ding.

Speaker 2 (01:21:29):
Because there were there were a bunch of places I
didn't name in that list, and I just hit Bolivia
just for the hell of it.

Speaker 1 (01:21:36):
Remember Bolivia for later. We don't know why either. In
November of nineteen oh eight, Butch and Sundance hold up
a courier transporting payroll to a mine in San Vincente, Bolivia.
Sorry A few days later, Bolivian soldiers and police surround
the two men in a small house and a gunfight
breaks out that lasts four hours. Then, around two am,

(01:21:59):
witnesses say that the shooting stops and a final burst
of gunfire comes as two rogue shots are heard. Inside
the house, two men said to be Butch and Sundance
are found shot to death inside. They are both around
forty years old. The official Bolivian report suggests that Sundance
was so badly wounded in this shootout that Butch shot

(01:22:19):
him in a mercy killing and then turned the gun
on himself. But the thing is, the two men killed
in Bolivia that day have never been conclusively identified, not
in photos, fingerprints, or by family members identifying them, and
that's kept historians debating for a century whether or not
these men truly were Butch and Sundance. Their bodies are

(01:22:42):
said to be buried together. Those bodies are said to
be buried together in an unmarked grave, But several descendants
of Butch Cassidy have claimed that years after this shootout,
Butch came back to Utah and or Wyoming and lived
discreetly under aliases. Stories say the Butch even visited relatives
in the nineteen twenties and thirties telling tales of South America,

(01:23:06):
never fooling it fully admitting his past crimes. Some claim
that he died in Washington State in the late thirties
or early forties, but none of these rumors also have
ever been confirmed. As for Sundance, some say he died
in South America much later than nineteen oh eight, but
his records are even sketchier. Some suspect that his girlfriend
Eda left for the US that year and then later

(01:23:29):
reunited with him after his presumed death, and I swear
of got his own done. In the nineteen nineties, researchers
exhume the graves where the men are buried in San
Vicente to try to conclusively link DNA samples with Butch
and Sundance's known descendants, but the DNA does not mash

(01:23:50):
really yeah, leading some historians to believe that the Bolivian
authorities misidentified the men shot and killed that day, and
that once again, Which and Sundance escaped and lived out
the rest of their lives under new names. Shit right,
fun right, so fun. To this day, Butch Cassidy's reputation
as the Gentleman Bandit has turned him into an American

(01:24:13):
folk hero, as has the lingering mystery around his and
Sundance's death, and that reputation has only been strengthened by
the nineteen sixty nine film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
You know, it's so nice, Huh, It's really nice. The
idea that Paul Newman and Robert Redford are together again.

(01:24:35):
Isn't it as sad as it is? They're so drunk
in heaven right now or wherever their chosen place might
be on.

Speaker 2 (01:24:45):
Pappy van Winkle just fucking.

Speaker 1 (01:24:47):
Just fucking it up. When they shot they shot Towering
and Inferno. I'm talking when they shot Towering Inferno in
San Francisco. My uncle Mike was the fireman. Had to
go down to the set and he said that Paul
Newman was sitting in a director's chair and he had
a case of Budweiser next to him, and my uncle

(01:25:10):
Mike was like, he's my favorite actor. Now we're a
Budweiser family.

Speaker 2 (01:25:15):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:25:16):
Butch and Sundance are portrayed in that movie as incredibly
handsome and cunning rebels. But while the film has a
conclusive ending with Butch and Sundance dying in not shootout
in Bolivia, this is one of those stories where the
truth is stranger than fiction, where we'll almost certainly never
know what really happened to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance
Kid in real life, which is perfectly fitting for men

(01:25:37):
so steeped in Old West legend and lore. And that
is the story of Utah native Butch Cassidy. Wow yo,
great job. Thank you. That's a good one.

Speaker 2 (01:25:52):
Yeah, you nailed that one. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:25:54):
That was that was fun, those fun times.

Speaker 2 (01:25:57):
Yeah, do we have time? Yeah? Okay, Oh, here's Vince
with the microphone, my husband, Vince.

Speaker 4 (01:26:10):
Everyone hid, don't forget the hot talk.

Speaker 1 (01:26:15):
Okay, thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:26:17):
Yeah, I don't know. Going to that fan convention today,
real cool, positive vibes over there, a lot of costumes.
They even had their own little cosplay repair station with
some sewing machines and.

Speaker 1 (01:26:31):
People oh so supportive.

Speaker 2 (01:26:35):
I would be right over there, okay, thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:26:37):
And our drive over here, I saw two, if not
three poison ives walking down the street together.

Speaker 2 (01:26:42):
I've spotted a couple of beetlejuices this trip.

Speaker 1 (01:26:46):
I saw one person in a le It's like a
full body leosard with just a big cardboard TV on
their head, and I was like, yeah, that's You've kind
of summed it all up right there. She's like, I'm entertainment.

Speaker 2 (01:26:58):
That's me. That's true. Okay, tell them about what this is.

Speaker 1 (01:27:02):
You guys know the rules. But this is the hometown
part where we want somebody to come up and tell
us their hometown. And since we're here in Salt Lake City,
it'd be great if it was local somewhere nearby. Definitely
in the state of Utah. If you come up here
talking about Florida, bad things are gonna happen to you
like they happened to Katie on Night one in Denver.
It was very ugly. The shouting and the screaming insane.

(01:27:27):
So just do your best. If you're gonna put your
hand up, make sure that's what's happening. You can't be
so drunk that you can't tell your own story. Please
make sure it has a beginning, middle, and end. You
do not have to be funny. We just want to
hear your hometown. And with that, Georgia's randomly going to
pick a person.

Speaker 2 (01:27:42):
From the audience right now, Okay, let me see. Don't
point at someone you don't know, because I'm gonna blame
you if the story sucks. Yeah yeah, right there stand
with the white Yes, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:27:55):
They're like, I don't have one.

Speaker 2 (01:27:57):
I don't know how to yeah yeah, yeah, yes, I
want to look at that way. I'm gonna my spanks
are writing, right, Okay, Hi, were you serious? You have one?
I'm not going to be she said, I'm not going

(01:28:19):
to be weird.

Speaker 5 (01:28:20):
What's your name?

Speaker 1 (01:28:21):
What's your name?

Speaker 2 (01:28:23):
Megan?

Speaker 1 (01:28:24):
You get your own MinC say hi to Megan.

Speaker 2 (01:28:28):
Hi. Huh Yeah. Where are you from?

Speaker 5 (01:28:33):
I don't want to say, because you said the Florida thing.

Speaker 1 (01:28:35):
God damn you, Megan.

Speaker 2 (01:28:37):
You can be from anywhere.

Speaker 5 (01:28:39):
Okay, good. Then I'm from Portland, Oregon. Oh okay, yes,
and I've.

Speaker 6 (01:28:44):
Lived here in Leighton, Utah for about fourteen years.

Speaker 5 (01:28:49):
Oh great, Okay, so it's hometown. Yes, now, so the hometown.

Speaker 6 (01:28:58):
So the hometown is so I was called on a
mission for my church, and I s church.

Speaker 5 (01:29:09):
You're never gonna go.

Speaker 6 (01:29:11):
Yeah, nobody knows about it. It's the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter Day Say you never heard of the
Mormon Church.

Speaker 5 (01:29:20):
Yeah, we are family.

Speaker 6 (01:29:22):
So I served on Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah,
and I got called when I was in at the
University of Oregon. Anyway, as a missionary. Oh my gosh,
my brain is bulaing.

Speaker 1 (01:29:38):
That's how it is up here.

Speaker 5 (01:29:39):
It's terrifying. You're all looking and you can't see it.

Speaker 7 (01:29:43):
So so, as a missionary on Temple Square, you teach
people about the buildings and the history of Salt Lake
and the pioneers.

Speaker 5 (01:29:55):
As such, we meet lots of people.

Speaker 6 (01:29:58):
And one of the people that I'm that was a
man named Felix. And Felix he had some probably mental
health issues, but he chose favorites of the Temple Square
missionaries and then he whittled favorites down and I became
a favorite, and he would he found out where we lived,

(01:30:18):
and he followed us home one night and waited. So
that's part one, Part two. I swear this all comes together. Okay,
this is the middle. We tracked you the beginning. I
don't trust me, so thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:30:32):
Okay.

Speaker 6 (01:30:34):
So in the middle, where were we, Felix? Yes, in
the middle, there was an actual crime that happened. A
woman named Laurie Hacking went missing. And I think you
guys talked about this one time in your podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:30:52):
Thank You Love.

Speaker 6 (01:30:53):
I listened to you guys going to sleep at night.
I'm not lying my story.

Speaker 5 (01:30:57):
Io, anyway, you go breathe, Okay.

Speaker 6 (01:31:03):
So Lourie Hacking disappears, and she disappeared from a park.

Speaker 5 (01:31:07):
Well, her husband said that she.

Speaker 6 (01:31:09):
Was running in a park where we used to run
every morning. So we lots of precautions were taken, extra security.
We weren't allowed to run in that park anymore for
a while. So well, this was all going on and
we didn't know what had happened till Louri. One night
we got to knock up the door and my companion,

(01:31:31):
my missionary companion, was from Finland. She went to answer
the door, sorry, and there was a security guard.

Speaker 5 (01:31:37):
Do you not like Finland?

Speaker 1 (01:31:38):
I love it. I just it seemed like she seemed
like you're lying for a second.

Speaker 5 (01:31:44):
Sorry, I wish I was, I'm not.

Speaker 2 (01:31:48):
So.

Speaker 6 (01:31:48):
Sister Mustinen from Finland answered the door at three am,
and it was a security guard and he was letting
us know that there was a broken window in our
apartment basement and so he needed to come in and
check out to make sure everything was fine. Yes, yes,
my murdering O brain was saying, don't let him in,
but I was upstairs and still asleep. But she led

(01:32:08):
him in and she didn't know. There's not crime there
I think anyway. Anyway, so she led him in and
he spoiler was not security.

Speaker 5 (01:32:24):
But he did have a.

Speaker 6 (01:32:25):
Phone cord like an old school curly phone word taped
to his ear and he kept talking to his microphone
that was really just a bracelet made out of tinfoil.
But he had a trench coat on.

Speaker 2 (01:32:41):
And so we called.

Speaker 6 (01:32:44):
We called security, I mean the real ones with the sirens, yes, please.

Speaker 1 (01:32:49):
Not the inspector gadgets and people from Finland don't know.

Speaker 6 (01:32:54):
I really wish she would have had the fedora too.
He did not, anyway, So they Temples Square Security. I
had actually seen him on cameras before and they knew him.
There were posters of him all over, so they were
able to come and apprehend him. But because of this,
I was moved to a different apartment pretty quickly. And

(01:33:15):
as part of this new assignment, I swear this is
the end. It's wrapping together. As part of this new assignment,
we were invited to sting as a as a group
for a special memorial service that is held every December
sixth in the Salt Lake City Cemetery.

Speaker 5 (01:33:32):
There's a someone loves that cemetery.

Speaker 2 (01:33:36):
There is a.

Speaker 6 (01:33:38):
Christmas Box Angel statue there and people, oh my gosh.
The vigil is for parents who've lost children. So we
sang at that vigil, and at the vigil, the guest
speaker that at that time was Lori Hacking's parents, because
at that time they had found her.

Speaker 5 (01:33:55):
We learned what had happened.

Speaker 6 (01:33:57):
To her, and it was devast but very They spoke
so eloquently about the process of grief and it was beautiful.
And then fast forward many many years later, we now
have a Christmas Box Angel in the same cemetery where
my three babies are buried, and.

Speaker 5 (01:34:15):
It's very special for us. So true crime full circle
the end.

Speaker 1 (01:34:20):
Wow, amazing, amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:34:27):
Megan, Wait, Megan, Megan, Oh, Megan, have you won the
stress hot dog? We should have given it to her beforehand?
Should thank you?

Speaker 1 (01:34:39):
Oh my god. That was a perfect home too, a
perfect hometown.

Speaker 2 (01:34:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:34:44):
Well, Utah, we've done it.

Speaker 2 (01:34:47):
Hig City, we did it. This is it. Thank you
guys for babies. So supportive for so long. We are
in awe of the way you guys like us. I
don't know, it's weird.

Speaker 1 (01:35:03):
Oh, we appreciate it, and we just appreciate you've given
us very beautiful lives. And maybe you don't know that,
but it is true. And we're so eternally grateful for
the insanity of this podcast and the specificity of this
podcast and the way that you guys have built a
community for yourselves, and we will need that community going

(01:35:24):
forward in these fucked up times. Please love each other,
please help each other, and stay sexy, and thank you
so much, City Elvis.

Speaker 2 (01:35:41):
Do you want a cookie?

Speaker 8 (01:35:49):
This has been an Exactly Right production.

Speaker 2 (01:35:51):
Our senior producers are Alejandra Keck and Molly Smith.

Speaker 8 (01:35:54):
Our editor is Aristotle Ocevedo.

Speaker 2 (01:35:56):
This episode was mixed by Leona Squalacci.

Speaker 8 (01:35:58):
Our researchers, our Mayoron mcglash, and Ali Elkin.

Speaker 2 (01:36:01):
Email your homecounts to My Favorite Murder at gmail dot com.

Speaker 8 (01:36:04):
Follow the show on Instagram at my Favorite Murder.

Speaker 2 (01:36:06):
Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple
Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 8 (01:36:11):
And now you can watch us on Exactly Right's YouTube page.
While you're there, please like and subscribe.

Speaker 3 (01:36:16):
Good byebye,

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503 - Live at the Eccles Theater (Salt Lake City Night 2)

Episode Transcript

Hosts And Creators

Georgia Hardstark

Karen Kilgariff

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}503 - Live at the Eccles Theater (Salt Lake City Night 2)