The Backstory: A movie inspires the thrill of the kill

There have been plenty of killers who admitted they were inspired by violent movies, TV shows, and video games. This is the story of a couple of teenagers from the Midwest who robbed and murdered folks just to recreate their favorite movie: Natural Born Killers. And there's a powerful celebrity connection in this saga.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It seems kind of crazy, but we've all heard of
serial killers who claimed they were inspired by movies, TV shows,
video games, whatever to commit cold blooded murder. But these
killers aren't always the type you'd expect. Imagine a bright
teenage girl, the daughter of a judge and a terrific student, who,
along with her boyfriend, shoots a couple of total strangers.

(00:22):
I'm Patty Steele, just for the thrill of the kill.
Next on the back story, The backstory is back. There
are a bunch of movies that have been especially inspirational
to some psychotic types, including Scream, a Nightmare on Elm Street,
and Saw. But Sarah Edmondson and Ben Darris, both eighteen

(00:45):
years old and from Oklahoma, were obsessed with the flick
natural Born Killers. Sarah had a terrific academic record, though
she was definitely a bit of a rebel. She came
from a family that folks called the Kennedys of Oklahoma.
Her wealthy father was a powerful attorney and local judge, and,
by the way, is now a justice on the Oklahoma

(01:06):
Supreme Court. Other family members included congressmen, a state's attorney general,
a senator, a governor. But Sarah was fascinated by Troubled Guys,
and she fell in love with Ben, a high school
dropout who struggled with addiction. It's March fifth, nineteen ninety five.
Sarah and Ben meet up and decide to spend the

(01:27):
night at her family's cabin. They take LSD and then
they watched the flick Natural Born Killers over and over
and over again. Of course. The movie, starring Woody Harrelson
and Juliet Lewis, is about a young couple who go
on a multi state killing spree in their altered state.

(01:48):
Inspiration strikes Ben and Sarah. They decide to drive to
Memphis the next day to go to a Grateful Dead concert.
Problem is, it turns out the concert had happened the
week before. They keep thinking about Natural Born Killers and
they are more and more intrigued by the idea of
going on a copycat run. The pair end up in

(02:09):
Mississippi looking for a human target to kill. Now it's
March seventh, and they arrive at producer's gin of Hernando, Inc.
Which was managed by fifty eight year old Bill Savage.
Ben shoots Savage point blank two times with a thirty
eight caliber pistol and takes his wallet. He also takes
a piece of blood soaked fabric for a souvenir of

(02:31):
the killing. The next day, they head to Luisiana, sort
of high from the first murder and looking for cash.
It's now Sarah's turn. They stop at a convenience store.
She walks inside. She's seen on security footage walking up
to thirty five year old store clerk Patsy Buyers. Sarah
pulls out the thirty eight caliber pistol and shoots Patsy

(02:53):
in the neck. Sarah leaves the store, but then a
little while later comes back in to steal cash. As
she tries to get into the cash register, she yells
at Patsy, who's bleeding on the floor. Are you dead yet?
How do you open this? She finally figures out how
to get to the money, and she and Ben's speed off,
believing Patsy is dead, but they're wrong. Patsy and Buyer

(03:16):
survives with a severed spinal cord, leaving her a quadriplegic
permanently paralyzed from the neck down, but she can still talk.
When paramedics carry her away from the store on a stretcher,
she tells her husband, I quit Sarah and Ben didn't
head back to Oklahoma for a few weeks after the shootings,
and when they get there, they start bragging about their adventure. Meantime,

(03:41):
a still photo of Sarah's face from the convenience store
video is released to the media and one of her
ex boyfriends tells cops what he's heard about the store
robbery and shooting. Now it's June second, nineteen ninety five,
and the FBI shows up at Sarah's house and talks
to her parents and Suzanne Edmondson. Agents pull out an

(04:02):
arrest warrant for Sarah on charges of attempted first degree murder,
and they ask Jim about any guns he might own.
He says he has a thirty eight caliber pistol at
his cabinet in the country. FBI finds the gun, and
that night, around eleven thirty PM, Sarah comes home and
her father turns her over to the FBI. He actually

(04:23):
reads his own daughter, her Miranda rites before she's arrested.
Of course, Ben is also arrested and the natural Born
Killer wannabes are taken in for questioning. So far, the
FBI only knows about their involvement in the convenience store shooting.
Ben claims he didn't know what Sarah was going to
do when they got to the store, and that after

(04:44):
she told him she shot the clerk, he did tell
her to go back in to get money. By July,
they were charged in Louisiana with robbery and attempted murder.
Sarah is held on one million dollars bond, while Ben
is held on a half million dollar bond. Then, Sarah
and her lawyers decide it's time to turn on Ben.
They get in touch with cops in Mississippi and they

(05:06):
tell them Sarah has info about the unsolved murder of
Bill Savage. When she's questioned, Sarah tells cops that Ben
became infatuated with the idea of recreating his version of
natural Born Killers. She says she became afraid of Ben
and that she took the loaded thirty eight caliber pistol
with her when they took off for protection. She then

(05:27):
told them about their murder of Bill Savage. Ben was
charged with murder in Mississippi and also pleaded guilty to
armed robbery for his role in the convenience store shooting
in Louisiana. Finally, he was sentenced to life in prison
without parole for Savage's murder. Sarah was charged with attempted
second degree murder and armed robbery and illegal use of

(05:50):
a firearm during a violent crime. She got thirty years
in prison. She served just eleven years before she got
out on parole in twenty ten. Meantime, Patsy Buyers filed
a lawsuit against the two and also against Natural Born
Killers director Oliver Stone and Time Warner, and she was
supported by Superstar author and lawyer John Grisham, who, as

(06:13):
it turns out, was a friend of Bill Savage, the
murder victim. Grisham said, the last hope of imposing some
sense on Hollywood will come through another great American tradition,
the lawsuit. A case can be made that there's a
direct causal link between Natural Born Killers and the death
of Bill Savage. It will only take one large verdict
against the likes of Oliver Stone and the party will

(06:36):
be over. But eventually the case was dismissed on the
grounds that filmmakers and production companies are protected by the
First Amendment, and the judge decided there was no evidence
that Stone or Time Warner had incited the violence. At
the end, of the day. Natural Born Killer stoked a
ton of controversy and was directly linked to at least

(06:57):
eight murders, including Sarah and Ben's kid in Texas, who
decapitated a classmate because, as he told, cops who wanted
to be famous like the Natural Born Killers, to some
students in Paris who killed three cops and a taxi
driver because they were obsessed with the movie as well.
John Grisham believed Oliver Stone had blood on his hands.
But if we believe in the First Amendment and our

(07:19):
right to free speech, we also have to accept that
what said and at times glorified by writers, filmmakers, and
other artists can occasionally have a devastating effect on vulnerable minds.
But maybe that's the price we pay for freedom of speech.

(07:41):
I hope you're enjoying The Backstory with Patty Steele. Follow
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(08:05):
Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our writer
Jake Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday and Friday.
Feel free to reach out to me with comments and
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on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening to the
backstory with Patty Steele, the pieces of history you didn't

(08:27):
know you needed to know.