July 12, 2023 • 43 mins
The neighborhood predator, Solomon Talbert, was on the local police radar ever since Mark lied to the cops. It was a “big little lie” that taught Mark how easy it was to fool police, one that may or may not have inspired Solomon Talbert to track down Mark after all these years. From a child’s perspective, it’s a horror story.
This part of the story is informed by interviews with FBI profiling legend, John Douglas, and a police academy instructor who believes strongly in investigative intuition, Greg Lawson.
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Superstition and jealousy. Superstition and jealousy. Okay, okay them with
your car, with your car.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
I'm on international frequently.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Come here, tell me what you'll tell you what you are.
It was a time when eating a class medicine stream
tune sturdy, first time in any first eleven kids do
you what they think?
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Either?
Speaker 4 (00:43):
There is life on other planets. Stop This will be
more effective at midnight and pounding winds and crushing thunder.
And even then it wouldn't frighten anyone. Days of flames.
Clean my soul of evil, of its lust for blood, blood,
(01:03):
my mister argle.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Welcome to Ian Punnett's Vaudeville for the Frightened, a fresh
mix of audio, art, music, interviews and fiction that will
have you wondering what is there to be afraid of?
Here's the Deacon of the Dark, Ian Punnett.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Okay, so where are we after three episodes episodes, A
graduate student was killed in the middle of the night,
sitting at the desk of the temporary department head on
his way to being made a dean. His wife doesn't
seem so happy about it, but seems convinced that he
is innocent of being unfaithful, faithful he was in bed,
(01:55):
woke her up at the exact moment he needed to
to establish an alibi that he could not be the shooter.
He's a lousy shot, she says, and besides, he doesn't
even own a rifle. Things are a little touchy on
some college campuses. That fuzzy phone call, that anonymous, fuzzy
phone call that started it all came in weeks ago.
(02:19):
As it turns out, a local detective has a feeling
she can't shake that the so called most popular professor
on campus is being deceptive, and that the guy keeps
having a violent, recurring dream that somebody is trying to
kill him or is it a cautionary vision of some
(02:40):
sort that he has yet to heed? If one believes
in such things, One question resolved, another opened. It's hard
to tell, but life and dreams can be like that.
Sometime when we reach one level of understanding, only then
do we have a new perspective on how far we
(03:01):
have to go on the cold cases in our lives,
the events that shape us in ways that we try
to store in those boxes and keep on our little
private shelves unresolved. Time passes, and those memory boxes start
to molder than one day. If we stay with it,
(03:24):
something may happen that breaks through, Like doctor Judith Orloff suggested,
if we are open to it. Some call that intuition.
Detective Greg Lawson, with a thirty one year career in
law enforcement, is one who has worked as a hostage negotiator,
(03:45):
a swat officer, a sex crimes and homicide detective, and
now an academy instructor and designer of investigative curricula. He's
not so sure that intuition isn't an essential part of
being a police officer.
Speaker 5 (04:04):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
As an investigator of cold cases, Greg also has a
side hustle as somebody who uses classic police investigative techniques
to re examine famous paranormal cases such as the unexplained
aerial phenomena that the Pentagon recently admitted to. After years
(04:27):
of lying to the public, Greg is finally tuned to
how people communicate and the vibes they send when they're
being deceptive.
Speaker 5 (04:36):
I was interviewing a guy for about four hours on
a homicide one time, and everything he was telling me
was qua deception, just deception, deception, deception. I'm just sitting there.
We're just having this conversation, you know, and I'm not
hitting him hard, I'm just gathering information. And why now
he communicates And I was like, this guy did this,
(04:59):
this guy did this, and come to find out, Nope,
he did not. But what he did do is have
a whole bunch of weed in his car that he
did not want me to look at.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
That's exactly right. It's like the government doesn't want you
to find its weed, and so.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
That that's why it's deceiving us in this other stuff.
Speaker 6 (05:22):
It is.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
As a former cold case investigator, Greg also knows how
law enforcement gets in its own way by being sloppy
about word choice and how questions are asked during investigations.
Speaker 5 (05:39):
It absolutely matters how you ask your question. I tell
that to people all that or I tell that to
officers all the time. You know, do you ask in
a situation? You ask how fast the two vehicles were
going when they touched each other?
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Right?
Speaker 5 (05:56):
How fast were they going when they collided into each other?
How fast where they go when they smashed right? How
or karmed into each other? It matters matter ye do that.
And the studies show that just those words right there
will increase the speed five fifteen miles an hour. Oh,
(06:17):
that's so interesting some things in Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Yeah, that's a pretty good head start for Bottom of
the Box Episode four. Let's call this the Big Little
Lie on Vaudeville for the Frightened.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Ian Punnet's Vaudeville for the Frightened Use Your Ears to
Fight Your Fears Series one, The Bottom of the Box.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
I'm writing these notes for Detective Brodie in the conference
room in the back of the Metro Police station. Before
I tell you about Solomon Talbert, I need to tell
you about where we lived. I grew up in a
time and a place in America where neighborhoods were built
(07:23):
nearer schools so that kids never had to walk or
bike too far to get to them, or they're adjoining playgrounds,
which was you know, they were the center of our lives.
My elementary, middle and high school all were within blocks
of each other and blocks of my house. In my hometown,
(07:44):
most of the moms didn't work full time, or if
they did, they maintained cottage industries such as dressmaking, you know,
doing other people's laundries, or in some cases writing, So
there was no cafeteria in my elementary school kids were
(08:05):
expected to walk or ride their bikes home at lunch,
go back to school on their own after lunch, and
then come home after school on their own. Moms, the
rare work from home dad or a surrogate such as
a grandparent or a housekeeper, were expected to be there
(08:28):
at lunch and get us back walking or writing on
time to be back at school by one o'clock. In
a family emergency, a kid could stay at school and
eat in the teacher's lounge with the faculty while they
drank coffee and smoked. Each way, I'd have to pass
(08:51):
the same houses on my way home. Solomon Talbert's home
was one of them. But I'll hold on to that
for just a minute. If the other kids in my
block and I were lucky, and I'm not making this up,
the local milkman, or if there were a lot of
packages to deliver, the local mailman, would let us jump
(09:12):
in their vans for the few blocks home. It was
against the rules, but they did it anyway, just to
be nice, or if we begged enough. If it were
like colder raining, our milkman and our mailman were both
named art Art. The milkman's van was better because he
didn't have to stop at every house like the mailman did,
(09:35):
and the dairy products inside were cooled with giant blocks
of ice, which was great in the late spring or
early fall. Neither really saved us any time. Getting art
to the milkman or art the mailman to give us
a ride was just a kid victory. Right, and curfews
(09:55):
were different. Kids had a lot more freedom On summer
days and Saturday. We would leave the house and go
on marathon bike rides along the trails in the streets,
the easy streets, with fifty cents in our pocket, a
transistor radio taped to our handlebars, and a saddle bag
full of sandwiches and cookies. If we came home before
(10:18):
three o'clock. Our parents were actually disappointed. There were two
or three nervous moms who had never let their kids
go on these long adventures and instead insisted that their
kids play in the front yard where they could keep
an eye on them. We felt sorry for those kids.
Our safety was in the pack and the pocket knives
(10:40):
we all carried. A few kids had slingshots. My friend
Peter even had a metal wrist rocket. We felt invincible.
When I was younger, we learned autonomy at age six.
School let out around three point thirty, but I was
inspected home until four earlier when it started to get
(11:02):
dark and cold in the winter. But this gave us
about twenty minutes to play or hang out on our own.
If the weather was nice, we'd play a quick game
of baseball on the playground. Each batter got three pitches
with a tennis ball, and then we'd have to rotate.
I like baseball, but nobody was more enthusiastic about playing
(11:24):
than Stevie Talbert, Solomon's little brother. Solomon was already in
the first year of middle school, and Stevie was a
year ahead of me. But he was small for his age,
but it didn't matter. He just wanted somebody to throw
the ball to him for hours at a time, like
a golden retriever. He hated going home. It seemed if
(11:50):
it was a slightly rainy Sunday afternoon and I had
nothing to do, I could ride my bike over to
the school and there would be Stevie in the playground
with his mit, a bat and a tennis ball, just
waiting for somebody to play with. I was never surprised.
He was always there. Everything about Stevie's family and his house,
(12:11):
though seemed a little off. His gruff father had a
military hairdo and a permanent scowl on his face every
time I saw him. The only time I saw Stevie's
mom was with an armload of cigarette cartons, walking into
(12:31):
the house wearing what looked like a raincoat over a nightgown.
Stevie had me come into his house once because he
wanted to show me his baseball card collection, and it
was really cool. He had organized him all by teams
and leagues and everything in his room, every curtain, every
(12:52):
waste basket, everything had a baseball team on it or
some of his favorite players. The curtains were drawn though,
on the way up to his room, and there was
barely any sunlight, and the whole house smelled like cigarette
smoke and cooking oil, which finally brings me to Stevie's
older brother, Solomon, who seemed to be the opposite of
(13:15):
Stevie in every way. Whereas Stevie was kind of scrawny
with straight blonde hair, Solomon was, as my mother would
describe them, an early bloomer with curly brown hair. Tall
for his age, probably around twelve maybe thirteen, about the
(13:36):
same age as my brother at the time of this incident.
Solomon was not friendly like Stevie, and he sort of
squinted when he looked at people. He didn't need glasses,
He just had this way kind of measuring you up.
He never said a word to me until one day,
(13:57):
about a block from his house and closer to mine,
Solomon pulled up on his bike and told me that
Stevie wanted to play and had sent me to come
and get him. I told him that I needed to
get home, but Solomon said he would ride me over
to the playground where I could tell Stevie myself, and
then he would ride me back so that I wouldn't
be late. Where I grew up, to give somebody else
(14:21):
a ride on a bike was called bucking. That was
the word we used. I've never heard anybody else call
it that. But you could get bucked on the handlebars
or sitting on the seat while the other person pedaled
standing up. So I climbed on the seat and Solomon
started peddling, except he wasn't going toward the school. He
(14:43):
was instead steering toward the nearest city park, a few
blocks farther away from my house. I told him again
that I needed to be home by four, and he
told me that Stevie was waiting for me this Pioneer's
Trail park and then it would just take a minute.
(15:05):
And I remember that I felt kind of flattered, so
I let my guard down. Here were two older kids
making me seem important, like they couldn't wait for me
to show up. So I didn't say anything more on
the subject because I didn't want them to think I.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Was a baby.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
I was scared. When we got to the park, Stevie
wasn't there. In fact, nobody was there. Solomon rode over
to the little playground area, which was marked off by
a rectangle of railroad ties. There was just a swing set,
a slide, and three small, cartoonish looking motorcycles set atop
(15:48):
industrial springs right that rocked back and forth, each in
a primary color. Solomon leaned his bike against the swing
set and said, I guess he's late. Stevie's coming, though
he said to wait for him. Why didn't I swing
you until he gets here? So even though it's getting dark,
I let Solomon give me a push. It was so
(16:11):
much fun I forgot about getting home. These were like
perfect swings you know the ones where just before you
think you can't get any higher, the next push took
you up just another inch, and after a few minutes
of steady climbing, push after push, I felt like an astronaut,
(16:31):
like a zero g's My butt was just lifting off
the swing by about an inch. I held onto the
swing set chains really hard, and I closed my eyes
and pretended I was in space. When I had enough
and was starting to feel a little lightheaded, I asked
(16:53):
Solomon to slow me down, and respectfully Solomon stepped aside
as I eventually jumped off just before the swing came
to a full stop. I don't know what time it was,
but it must have been getting around four point thirty
because shadows were overtaking the park. I wanted to go home,
(17:15):
but now I was getting afraid of the long walk
by myself and the increasing darkness, and I was a
little dizzy. Plus it was getting cold. Where's Stevie, I asked.
Solomon said he wasn't sure, but since the breeze was
picking up, we should wait at the top of the
slide where there was a metal canopy if Stevie wasn't
(17:40):
there in five minutes, and he held up his hand.
If he's not here in five minutes, then he would
buck me home and explain everything to my mother about
why I was late. We climbed the stairs and the
slide and both of us fit under the canopy barely,
(18:00):
and then everything changed. Even in the dimming light, I
could see a blank look come over Solomon's face. I
could hear the echo of his breathing under the metal
canopy at the top of the slide, and it almost
sounded like he was having an asthma attack, but his
(18:24):
expression revealed nothing. Speaking in a monotone, Solomon said, let's
play one more game before Stevie gets here. I said nothing. Now.
I was scared. I'll never know for sure what that
(18:49):
game was going to be, but I think I can
figure it out now. Solomon had just started rubbing my leg,
moving his way up to my c It ended for
us because I saw the unstable bounce of my brother's
bike light coming toward the slide and his voice calling
(19:09):
out for me. And over here, I yelled as my
brother rode over the railroad tie box and right up
to the bottom of the slide. Mom is really mad,
Get down here now. Just as I swung my legs
around to go down the slide. Solomon whispered in my ear.
(19:31):
If I go to jail, jail, I will kill you.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Kill.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
My brother saw Solomon, but never addressed him, never said
his name, never said hi, and Solomon turned away as
I slid down. Come on, Marky, you're in big trouble,
my brother said. I tried to defend myself for just
a moment at the bottom of the slide, but he
(20:01):
told me, do you know how late you are? Mom
is really angry. She sent me to find you. I've
been riding around for half an hour. Let's go, and
so he bucked me home. When we came in the door,
he yelled, I've got Markie. He's fine. He was at
Pioneer Trail Park with that Talbert kid. My mother asked
(20:27):
if he meant Stevie, but he said, no, the older one.
That's when my mom came flying into the room, as
if to see for herself that I was okay. She
grabbed me by the arm yanked me and shook me.
If she sounded relieved when I came in the door,
(20:49):
she let her anger out. Now when she heard where
I was and with whom you had me so worried
your brother has been riding around looking for you. She
stopped shaking me for a minute, looked at me as
if I were an object and she was taking inventory,
(21:10):
and said, in a calmer voice, you're grounded for a week.
I want you home every day by three forty five.
No playing after school with anybody. Tell all your friends
tomorrow that they shouldn't even come over and ask go upstairs,
take a bath, get in your pajamas, come down for supper.
(21:33):
No TV all week, and no radio you can read.
If you get bored, you're done for the night. I'll
tell your father all about this, and do not try
to appeal to him, because it won't work. Now go.
(21:53):
I knew better than to argue I've been grounded for
a week before, and my mother usually changed her mind
sometime between day three and day five if I behaved myself.
I wanted to explain to her how brave I had been,
(22:16):
and how the bigger kids wanted me to play with them,
and that Solomon threatened to kill me, but I thought
that might only increase my punishment. Mom had a temper,
and sometimes her reactions seemed disproportionate. Years later, I would
(22:37):
understand that she was probably bipolar. Her sometimes violent mood
swings were well, they were enough to drive my father away.
Not long after Avi was born. In my late twenties,
I heard that she was better after having been instant
(23:00):
tuitionalized a few times, but by then the family was
kind of totally and irreversibly broken. Anyway, that night, after
my dad came home from work, he opened my bedroom
door and said, don't ever do that again. I asked
him what appeal meant, and he explained, there's nothing I
(23:24):
can do for you, just do your time and closed
the door. Four days, I thought to myself, Okay, four days.
She said a week, but I knew this had to
be over four days. A day or so later, friends
who went to the local Catholic school, who hadn't heard
(23:47):
that I had been grounded, came around to invite me
to come out and play spud on the sidewalk, but
my mother sent them away. That Saturday was beautiful. I
heard the door and I was hopeful it was day four.
My mother walked toward the doorway defiantly while I tried
(24:09):
to look inconspicuous, hoping that she would shorten my sentence.
But at the door was Solomon Talbert, and suddenly the
last thing I wanted to be was let out of
my grounding early for good behavior. And when he asked
whether I could come out and play, my mother said,
(24:31):
Mark is grounded, why don't you play with kids your
own age. She shut the door, and Solomon retreated without
a response, got on his bike and rode away. I
never told her what happened on the slide, or that
I was afraid of Solomon Talbert, primarily because somehow I
would be punished more secondarily because I was convinced that
(24:57):
he would kill me. There was just something wrong with
that kid, and that's how the whole thing would have ended.
There would have been nothing more to this story had
it not been for Stranger Danger, the elementary school program
that raised awareness about child sexual abuse and how to
(25:20):
stay safe around adults that a kid didn't know. This
included never being isolated with a strange adult and how
to avoid being lured into a car by an adult.
My class got the Stranger Danger lecture about a year
(25:41):
after that whole period when Solomon took me to the park,
but I didn't really understand just how tragically it could
have ended until even many years after that. Anyway, the
young police officer who gave the demonstration showed some sort
of short film of dos and don'ts asked questions about
(26:03):
strangers in our lives and something about bad touching. I
don't remember much of it, actually, because I could not
stop staring at the cops thirty eight police special with
the polished wood grip that had fastened in his shiny
black leather holster. It was just it was hypnotic for
(26:24):
us boys. Yet something must have sunk in, because as
I was walking home along my usual route after school
that day, I decided quite consciously to make up a
lie about being kidnapped. I remember standing there a few
(26:48):
blocks from my house, just a few houses from the school,
getting my story straight, deciding what the elements were going
to be in my story, and then actually running home
so that I would arrive out of breath. It was
just that simple. Although I was raised in a household
(27:08):
where honesty was the best policy, I made up a
story where I was the hero and a stranger danger scenario.
Once home, I told my mother how this shadowy figure
who was smoking a cigarette while leaning up against this
black boxy looking nineteen fifties ish sedan. In my mind,
(27:33):
I can still picture it. It was like someone had
taken a yellow cab from some larger city and painted
it entirely black and had tried to lure me into
his car. And as he lunged at me in this
story I was making up, I kicked him and then
(27:56):
I ran home, shocked, I guess. My mother asked me
to tell her the story again, and I did word
for word. She made me swear I was telling the truth,
which I did, which even shocked me. All I wanted
(28:17):
was for her to be proud of me that somebody
had tried to abduct me, but I had fought them
off all on my own. Instead, she called my bluff
and she reported my story to the police. It took
about five minutes for the police officer to show up.
(28:43):
The same cop who had put on the stranger Danger
presentation just hours earlier was at my door with his gun.
He had me tell the story again to him, and
this time he took notes. Then he had me tell
(29:03):
it again while he was looking at his notes, while
I stared at his service revolver some more. He leaned
over and said something quietly to my mother and She nodded,
and then he said to me, Markie, do you want
to take a ride in my police car. Let's retrace
(29:25):
your steps. Part of me feared that I was going
to be driven to the police station and put in
prison for lying to an adult, but mostly I was
excited about getting to ride in a police car. So,
with my mother's blessing, I sat in the front seat.
(29:45):
Between the police officer and me was his standard issue
dashboard linked shotgun. I asked him, pointing at the shotgun,
how often do you use that? I've only taken it
out to clean it. The cop said, what about that?
I asked, pointing at his side arm. He said, I've
(30:09):
never fired it in anger. I hope I never have to.
That felt reassuring because I still wasn't sure I was
in trouble. But we drove the few blocks to my
school and he asked me about my favorite subjects. Turning
around and heading back down toward the street that I
(30:30):
walked home every day. The police officer drove at the
slow speed of a child walking and asked me to
say stop. When I came to the exact point where
I remembered the attempted luring happened. Well, since I'd made
the whole thing up in my head, I just chose
(30:52):
the spot where I had imagined it, and I said stop,
and the policeman said here and I said, yes, right here,
And it was as if something clicked. He looked at
me again and said, you swear this was the exact
(31:16):
spot where the stranger danger happened. And I lied and
I said, yes, okay, that's very interesting. I'm going to
take you home, and I'm going to begin the investigation.
I'll start with the neighbors and ask if they saw anything.
And as he pulled away, I looked up, and even
(31:38):
in the darkness, I could see that the place where
we had parked was the home I walked past every day,
the house of horrors of the Talbert family. Completely unconsciously,
I had brought the police officer to Solomon Talbert's door step.
(32:02):
More significantly, that seemed to register with him in a
few blocks home. I answered his questions. No, I only
knew Solomon as Stevie's brother. Yes, I had been in
the Talbot house once for a second to look at
(32:24):
Stevie's baseball cards. No, that was not Solomon leaning up
against the old car smoking. No, I did not talk
to him that day. I did not tell the police
officer though about the park, or the top of the slide,
or how my brother had come in the nick of time.
(32:47):
He only reported to my mother, who was waiting, that
he had found no evidence of my story. But and
I remember this very clearly, he did not think I
was lying. Even more than I had. This cop had
picked up on some sort of subtext in my deception.
(33:10):
He still saw truth, and I took some satisfaction in
knowing that, judging by his determined demeanor, this police officer
was about to go knock on the Talbert's door and
ask them if they had seen anything. This would give
him entre into their home and might just scare Solomon
(33:34):
to stop trying to touch little kids without it appearing
as though I had ratted him out. Brilliant if I
had planned it. Years later, I asked a neighbor about
Solomon Talbert, however, and he told me that he was
(33:56):
in jail, but that it happened on his state and
he didn't really know why. At a school reunion sometime later,
somebody in the neighborhood said that Solomon had been accused
of sexual assaults that had occurred after a series of
(34:17):
home break ins, and that it was likely that he
was never going to be free again until I married Mallory.
I never told anybody about Solomon Talbert or his death threat.
If I go to jail, jail, I will kill you,
kill you, because our relationship had become so toxic. I
(34:43):
didn't even tell my mother on her deathbed about the threat,
even though it would have been totally within my rights
to hurt her at the end, just like she had
been hurting me all along. I didn't say anything to
spare her fe for having been a failed mother, only
(35:05):
because I wanted to keep an eye out for Solomon
Talbert and I didn't want anybody else to know about him.
I was always looking over my shoulder, down dark alleys,
check social media. He didn't have a Facebook page, wasn't
on Twitter, he wasn't listed in any alumni directory I
(35:28):
could find. But I had no doubt that if he
were free and he were to re examine his life,
he would somehow blame me and come after me or
my family. My lie had turned into his truth, aided
(35:50):
to buy the police department, who I suspect had continued
to follow Solomon Talbert. I can only imagine how that
would fester, and the only way to clean out that
infection would be to come after the irritant me that
(36:20):
had started the wound at the first place.
Speaker 6 (36:24):
A high detective brony. This is George Porter.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
He called asked me about the calm and lean Albert
and whether he's been home lasting a location. According to
our record, mister Talbert died of emphysema, while of.
Speaker 4 (36:54):
Course rated just over four years ago.
Speaker 6 (36:58):
Nobody's claimed the act. You have any other questions to
give me a.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Callback Ian Punnett's vaudeville for the Frightened Use Your Ears
(37:27):
to Fight Your Fears Series one the bottom of the box.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
As it happened, I would see that nice police officer
as I grew up in that town. Over the years.
He was an average cop, but a good cop. I'm
not sure how good he was at being a detective,
but I was reminded of him when I talked to
a guy named Dave from Oregon and he said, intuition
(38:00):
is what kept him alive.
Speaker 7 (38:02):
I used to be a police officer, and my whole
career was as far as my safety, you know, I
mean was just the proverbial gut feeling, and also intuition
and how to read people body language. In fact, I
even took a class called the read Method of Interviewing,
(38:25):
and that takes into consideration body language, how people stand,
how they walk, how they talk, how they hold their hands.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
And I'm fascinated about this because we've had a couple
of different guests who have spoken about this, some of
whom say intuition very helpful for a police officer. Other people,
other people who are saying lawyers or defense attorneys say
this is what gets police in trouble that they develop
(38:55):
a kind of tunnel vision based on what they think
of as being intuition, which turns out to be wrong.
But it's very powerful with a police officer who can
then myopically focus on a potential suspect to the exclusion
of others based on a faulty elevation of their of
(39:18):
their intuitive ability.
Speaker 7 (39:20):
That is very possible. You have to be very broad
minded when when you interview people, or when you talk
to people and you get certain feelings or certain vibrations,
certain I'm going to call it a vibe, so to speak, right,
you have to really be open minded about you can't
be black and white, you know, I mean, even though
you know maybe there's police officers that are probably listening,
(39:43):
but you know, you know, I you know it. It
saved my life many many times, you know. And but
you have to be very understanding about certain certain things
and certain demographics, certain you know, the way people are.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
So just how accurate was Dave's cops intuition I was?
Speaker 6 (40:05):
I was?
Speaker 7 (40:06):
I was. I would honestly say I was correct about
sixty percent of the time.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
In the next episode of Bottom of the Box, we'll
check in on Detective Brodie and Sergeant Fred Lutterger and
we'll find out whether, according to Detective Greg Lawson, they
are following the proper investigative protocols.
Speaker 5 (40:30):
Doesn't matter whether you're investigating insurance fraud or whether you
investigate a murder. There's still standard investigative practices that you
do for every one of those things. So you can
kind of check the box, you know, make sure that
you got as you have obtained as much information from
(40:50):
the investigation as you possibly can.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
Did they get a breakthrough or did they just get
a break.
Speaker 8 (40:56):
You don't talk you I don't care if it's you're
pulled over for a traffic stop. I would tell my
own children as you go and say, no, I want
to have an attorney. I want to have an attorney.
Speaker 9 (41:12):
You know, represent right away that That's the advice of
our special guest for our next episode, former FBI profiler
John Douglas should know, and based on his own experience,
he says, be very afraid of when somebody says.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Intuitively, I know who is guilty. We'll talk about that,
and we're getting close to the end of our story.
A big little reveal in the next episode of Bottom
of the Box part of Vaudeville for the Frightened.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
This is ea In Punnett.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
If you want to reach out to me, the Deacon
of the Dark, you can find me on Twitter at
deacon Punnet p u n n Ett. This episode of
Vaudeville for the Frightened featured Jacob Cummings from the Wildcat
Community Theater of the Air. The theme for Vaudeville for
the Frightened was written by Andrew Clark and performed by
(42:20):
Ryan Winters and Pistol Beauty. Original music by Colby Van Camp,
Engineered by Jacob Cummings and Colby Van Camp. Special thanks
to Marjorie Punnett, Corny Cole, Lisa Lyon, Chris Boros, Bill May,
Tom dan Heiser and Julie Talbot and as always, thank
(42:43):
you Joe Brandwa. This has been a fourth Down and
ten Productions.
Superstition and jealousy. Superstition and jealousy. Okay, okay them with
your car, with your car.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
I'm on international frequently.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Come here, tell me what you'll tell you what you are.
It was a time when eating a class medicine stream
tune sturdy, first time in any first eleven kids do
you what they think?
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Either?
Speaker 4 (00:43):
There is life on other planets. Stop This will be
more effective at midnight and pounding winds and crushing thunder.
And even then it wouldn't frighten anyone. Days of flames.
Clean my soul of evil, of its lust for blood, blood,
(01:03):
my mister argle.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Welcome to Ian Punnett's Vaudeville for the Frightened, a fresh
mix of audio, art, music, interviews and fiction that will
have you wondering what is there to be afraid of?
Here's the Deacon of the Dark, Ian Punnett.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Okay, so where are we after three episodes episodes, A
graduate student was killed in the middle of the night,
sitting at the desk of the temporary department head on
his way to being made a dean. His wife doesn't
seem so happy about it, but seems convinced that he
is innocent of being unfaithful, faithful he was in bed,
(01:55):
woke her up at the exact moment he needed to
to establish an alibi that he could not be the shooter.
He's a lousy shot, she says, and besides, he doesn't
even own a rifle. Things are a little touchy on
some college campuses. That fuzzy phone call, that anonymous, fuzzy
phone call that started it all came in weeks ago.
(02:19):
As it turns out, a local detective has a feeling
she can't shake that the so called most popular professor
on campus is being deceptive, and that the guy keeps
having a violent, recurring dream that somebody is trying to
kill him or is it a cautionary vision of some
(02:40):
sort that he has yet to heed? If one believes
in such things, One question resolved, another opened. It's hard
to tell, but life and dreams can be like that.
Sometime when we reach one level of understanding, only then
do we have a new perspective on how far we
(03:01):
have to go on the cold cases in our lives,
the events that shape us in ways that we try
to store in those boxes and keep on our little
private shelves unresolved. Time passes, and those memory boxes start
to molder than one day. If we stay with it,
(03:24):
something may happen that breaks through, Like doctor Judith Orloff suggested,
if we are open to it. Some call that intuition.
Detective Greg Lawson, with a thirty one year career in
law enforcement, is one who has worked as a hostage negotiator,
(03:45):
a swat officer, a sex crimes and homicide detective, and
now an academy instructor and designer of investigative curricula. He's
not so sure that intuition isn't an essential part of
being a police officer.
Speaker 5 (04:04):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
As an investigator of cold cases, Greg also has a
side hustle as somebody who uses classic police investigative techniques
to re examine famous paranormal cases such as the unexplained
aerial phenomena that the Pentagon recently admitted to. After years
(04:27):
of lying to the public, Greg is finally tuned to
how people communicate and the vibes they send when they're
being deceptive.
Speaker 5 (04:36):
I was interviewing a guy for about four hours on
a homicide one time, and everything he was telling me
was qua deception, just deception, deception, deception. I'm just sitting there.
We're just having this conversation, you know, and I'm not
hitting him hard, I'm just gathering information. And why now
he communicates And I was like, this guy did this,
(04:59):
this guy did this, and come to find out, Nope,
he did not. But what he did do is have
a whole bunch of weed in his car that he
did not want me to look at.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
That's exactly right. It's like the government doesn't want you
to find its weed, and so.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
That that's why it's deceiving us in this other stuff.
Speaker 6 (05:22):
It is.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
As a former cold case investigator, Greg also knows how
law enforcement gets in its own way by being sloppy
about word choice and how questions are asked during investigations.
Speaker 5 (05:39):
It absolutely matters how you ask your question. I tell
that to people all that or I tell that to
officers all the time. You know, do you ask in
a situation? You ask how fast the two vehicles were
going when they touched each other?
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Right?
Speaker 5 (05:56):
How fast were they going when they collided into each other?
How fast where they go when they smashed right? How
or karmed into each other? It matters matter ye do that.
And the studies show that just those words right there
will increase the speed five fifteen miles an hour. Oh,
(06:17):
that's so interesting some things in Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Yeah, that's a pretty good head start for Bottom of
the Box Episode four. Let's call this the Big Little
Lie on Vaudeville for the Frightened.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Ian Punnet's Vaudeville for the Frightened Use Your Ears to
Fight Your Fears Series one, The Bottom of the Box.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
I'm writing these notes for Detective Brodie in the conference
room in the back of the Metro Police station. Before
I tell you about Solomon Talbert, I need to tell
you about where we lived. I grew up in a
time and a place in America where neighborhoods were built
(07:23):
nearer schools so that kids never had to walk or
bike too far to get to them, or they're adjoining playgrounds,
which was you know, they were the center of our lives.
My elementary, middle and high school all were within blocks
of each other and blocks of my house. In my hometown,
(07:44):
most of the moms didn't work full time, or if
they did, they maintained cottage industries such as dressmaking, you know,
doing other people's laundries, or in some cases writing, So
there was no cafeteria in my elementary school kids were
(08:05):
expected to walk or ride their bikes home at lunch,
go back to school on their own after lunch, and
then come home after school on their own. Moms, the
rare work from home dad or a surrogate such as
a grandparent or a housekeeper, were expected to be there
(08:28):
at lunch and get us back walking or writing on
time to be back at school by one o'clock. In
a family emergency, a kid could stay at school and
eat in the teacher's lounge with the faculty while they
drank coffee and smoked. Each way, I'd have to pass
(08:51):
the same houses on my way home. Solomon Talbert's home
was one of them. But I'll hold on to that
for just a minute. If the other kids in my
block and I were lucky, and I'm not making this up,
the local milkman, or if there were a lot of
packages to deliver, the local mailman, would let us jump
(09:12):
in their vans for the few blocks home. It was
against the rules, but they did it anyway, just to
be nice, or if we begged enough. If it were
like colder raining, our milkman and our mailman were both
named art Art. The milkman's van was better because he
didn't have to stop at every house like the mailman did,
(09:35):
and the dairy products inside were cooled with giant blocks
of ice, which was great in the late spring or
early fall. Neither really saved us any time. Getting art
to the milkman or art the mailman to give us
a ride was just a kid victory. Right, and curfews
(09:55):
were different. Kids had a lot more freedom On summer
days and Saturday. We would leave the house and go
on marathon bike rides along the trails in the streets,
the easy streets, with fifty cents in our pocket, a
transistor radio taped to our handlebars, and a saddle bag
full of sandwiches and cookies. If we came home before
(10:18):
three o'clock. Our parents were actually disappointed. There were two
or three nervous moms who had never let their kids
go on these long adventures and instead insisted that their
kids play in the front yard where they could keep
an eye on them. We felt sorry for those kids.
Our safety was in the pack and the pocket knives
(10:40):
we all carried. A few kids had slingshots. My friend
Peter even had a metal wrist rocket. We felt invincible.
When I was younger, we learned autonomy at age six.
School let out around three point thirty, but I was
inspected home until four earlier when it started to get
(11:02):
dark and cold in the winter. But this gave us
about twenty minutes to play or hang out on our own.
If the weather was nice, we'd play a quick game
of baseball on the playground. Each batter got three pitches
with a tennis ball, and then we'd have to rotate.
I like baseball, but nobody was more enthusiastic about playing
(11:24):
than Stevie Talbert, Solomon's little brother. Solomon was already in
the first year of middle school, and Stevie was a
year ahead of me. But he was small for his age,
but it didn't matter. He just wanted somebody to throw
the ball to him for hours at a time, like
a golden retriever. He hated going home. It seemed if
(11:50):
it was a slightly rainy Sunday afternoon and I had
nothing to do, I could ride my bike over to
the school and there would be Stevie in the playground
with his mit, a bat and a tennis ball, just
waiting for somebody to play with. I was never surprised.
He was always there. Everything about Stevie's family and his house,
(12:11):
though seemed a little off. His gruff father had a
military hairdo and a permanent scowl on his face every
time I saw him. The only time I saw Stevie's
mom was with an armload of cigarette cartons, walking into
(12:31):
the house wearing what looked like a raincoat over a nightgown.
Stevie had me come into his house once because he
wanted to show me his baseball card collection, and it
was really cool. He had organized him all by teams
and leagues and everything in his room, every curtain, every
(12:52):
waste basket, everything had a baseball team on it or
some of his favorite players. The curtains were drawn though,
on the way up to his room, and there was
barely any sunlight, and the whole house smelled like cigarette
smoke and cooking oil, which finally brings me to Stevie's
older brother, Solomon, who seemed to be the opposite of
(13:15):
Stevie in every way. Whereas Stevie was kind of scrawny
with straight blonde hair, Solomon was, as my mother would
describe them, an early bloomer with curly brown hair. Tall
for his age, probably around twelve maybe thirteen, about the
(13:36):
same age as my brother at the time of this incident.
Solomon was not friendly like Stevie, and he sort of
squinted when he looked at people. He didn't need glasses,
He just had this way kind of measuring you up.
He never said a word to me until one day,
(13:57):
about a block from his house and closer to mine,
Solomon pulled up on his bike and told me that
Stevie wanted to play and had sent me to come
and get him. I told him that I needed to
get home, but Solomon said he would ride me over
to the playground where I could tell Stevie myself, and
then he would ride me back so that I wouldn't
be late. Where I grew up, to give somebody else
(14:21):
a ride on a bike was called bucking. That was
the word we used. I've never heard anybody else call
it that. But you could get bucked on the handlebars
or sitting on the seat while the other person pedaled
standing up. So I climbed on the seat and Solomon
started peddling, except he wasn't going toward the school. He
(14:43):
was instead steering toward the nearest city park, a few
blocks farther away from my house. I told him again
that I needed to be home by four, and he
told me that Stevie was waiting for me this Pioneer's
Trail park and then it would just take a minute.
(15:05):
And I remember that I felt kind of flattered, so
I let my guard down. Here were two older kids
making me seem important, like they couldn't wait for me
to show up. So I didn't say anything more on
the subject because I didn't want them to think I.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Was a baby.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
I was scared. When we got to the park, Stevie
wasn't there. In fact, nobody was there. Solomon rode over
to the little playground area, which was marked off by
a rectangle of railroad ties. There was just a swing set,
a slide, and three small, cartoonish looking motorcycles set atop
(15:48):
industrial springs right that rocked back and forth, each in
a primary color. Solomon leaned his bike against the swing
set and said, I guess he's late. Stevie's coming, though
he said to wait for him. Why didn't I swing
you until he gets here? So even though it's getting dark,
I let Solomon give me a push. It was so
(16:11):
much fun I forgot about getting home. These were like
perfect swings you know the ones where just before you
think you can't get any higher, the next push took
you up just another inch, and after a few minutes
of steady climbing, push after push, I felt like an astronaut,
(16:31):
like a zero g's My butt was just lifting off
the swing by about an inch. I held onto the
swing set chains really hard, and I closed my eyes
and pretended I was in space. When I had enough
and was starting to feel a little lightheaded, I asked
(16:53):
Solomon to slow me down, and respectfully Solomon stepped aside
as I eventually jumped off just before the swing came
to a full stop. I don't know what time it was,
but it must have been getting around four point thirty
because shadows were overtaking the park. I wanted to go home,
(17:15):
but now I was getting afraid of the long walk
by myself and the increasing darkness, and I was a
little dizzy. Plus it was getting cold. Where's Stevie, I asked.
Solomon said he wasn't sure, but since the breeze was
picking up, we should wait at the top of the
slide where there was a metal canopy if Stevie wasn't
(17:40):
there in five minutes, and he held up his hand.
If he's not here in five minutes, then he would
buck me home and explain everything to my mother about
why I was late. We climbed the stairs and the
slide and both of us fit under the canopy barely,
(18:00):
and then everything changed. Even in the dimming light, I
could see a blank look come over Solomon's face. I
could hear the echo of his breathing under the metal
canopy at the top of the slide, and it almost
sounded like he was having an asthma attack, but his
(18:24):
expression revealed nothing. Speaking in a monotone, Solomon said, let's
play one more game before Stevie gets here. I said nothing. Now.
I was scared. I'll never know for sure what that
(18:49):
game was going to be, but I think I can
figure it out now. Solomon had just started rubbing my leg,
moving his way up to my c It ended for
us because I saw the unstable bounce of my brother's
bike light coming toward the slide and his voice calling
(19:09):
out for me. And over here, I yelled as my
brother rode over the railroad tie box and right up
to the bottom of the slide. Mom is really mad,
Get down here now. Just as I swung my legs
around to go down the slide. Solomon whispered in my ear.
(19:31):
If I go to jail, jail, I will kill you.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Kill.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
My brother saw Solomon, but never addressed him, never said
his name, never said hi, and Solomon turned away as
I slid down. Come on, Marky, you're in big trouble,
my brother said. I tried to defend myself for just
a moment at the bottom of the slide, but he
(20:01):
told me, do you know how late you are? Mom
is really angry. She sent me to find you. I've
been riding around for half an hour. Let's go, and
so he bucked me home. When we came in the door,
he yelled, I've got Markie. He's fine. He was at
Pioneer Trail Park with that Talbert kid. My mother asked
(20:27):
if he meant Stevie, but he said, no, the older one.
That's when my mom came flying into the room, as
if to see for herself that I was okay. She
grabbed me by the arm yanked me and shook me.
If she sounded relieved when I came in the door,
(20:49):
she let her anger out. Now when she heard where
I was and with whom you had me so worried
your brother has been riding around looking for you. She
stopped shaking me for a minute, looked at me as
if I were an object and she was taking inventory,
(21:10):
and said, in a calmer voice, you're grounded for a week.
I want you home every day by three forty five.
No playing after school with anybody. Tell all your friends
tomorrow that they shouldn't even come over and ask go upstairs,
take a bath, get in your pajamas, come down for supper.
(21:33):
No TV all week, and no radio you can read.
If you get bored, you're done for the night. I'll
tell your father all about this, and do not try
to appeal to him, because it won't work. Now go.
(21:53):
I knew better than to argue I've been grounded for
a week before, and my mother usually changed her mind
sometime between day three and day five if I behaved myself.
I wanted to explain to her how brave I had been,
(22:16):
and how the bigger kids wanted me to play with them,
and that Solomon threatened to kill me, but I thought
that might only increase my punishment. Mom had a temper,
and sometimes her reactions seemed disproportionate. Years later, I would
(22:37):
understand that she was probably bipolar. Her sometimes violent mood
swings were well, they were enough to drive my father away.
Not long after Avi was born. In my late twenties,
I heard that she was better after having been instant
(23:00):
tuitionalized a few times, but by then the family was
kind of totally and irreversibly broken. Anyway, that night, after
my dad came home from work, he opened my bedroom
door and said, don't ever do that again. I asked
him what appeal meant, and he explained, there's nothing I
(23:24):
can do for you, just do your time and closed
the door. Four days, I thought to myself, Okay, four days.
She said a week, but I knew this had to
be over four days. A day or so later, friends
who went to the local Catholic school, who hadn't heard
(23:47):
that I had been grounded, came around to invite me
to come out and play spud on the sidewalk, but
my mother sent them away. That Saturday was beautiful. I
heard the door and I was hopeful it was day four.
My mother walked toward the doorway defiantly while I tried
(24:09):
to look inconspicuous, hoping that she would shorten my sentence.
But at the door was Solomon Talbert, and suddenly the
last thing I wanted to be was let out of
my grounding early for good behavior. And when he asked
whether I could come out and play, my mother said,
(24:31):
Mark is grounded, why don't you play with kids your
own age. She shut the door, and Solomon retreated without
a response, got on his bike and rode away. I
never told her what happened on the slide, or that
I was afraid of Solomon Talbert, primarily because somehow I
would be punished more secondarily because I was convinced that
(24:57):
he would kill me. There was just something wrong with
that kid, and that's how the whole thing would have ended.
There would have been nothing more to this story had
it not been for Stranger Danger, the elementary school program
that raised awareness about child sexual abuse and how to
(25:20):
stay safe around adults that a kid didn't know. This
included never being isolated with a strange adult and how
to avoid being lured into a car by an adult.
My class got the Stranger Danger lecture about a year
(25:41):
after that whole period when Solomon took me to the park,
but I didn't really understand just how tragically it could
have ended until even many years after that. Anyway, the
young police officer who gave the demonstration showed some sort
of short film of dos and don'ts asked questions about
(26:03):
strangers in our lives and something about bad touching. I
don't remember much of it, actually, because I could not
stop staring at the cops thirty eight police special with
the polished wood grip that had fastened in his shiny
black leather holster. It was just it was hypnotic for
(26:24):
us boys. Yet something must have sunk in, because as
I was walking home along my usual route after school
that day, I decided quite consciously to make up a
lie about being kidnapped. I remember standing there a few
(26:48):
blocks from my house, just a few houses from the school,
getting my story straight, deciding what the elements were going
to be in my story, and then actually running home
so that I would arrive out of breath. It was
just that simple. Although I was raised in a household
(27:08):
where honesty was the best policy, I made up a
story where I was the hero and a stranger danger scenario.
Once home, I told my mother how this shadowy figure
who was smoking a cigarette while leaning up against this
black boxy looking nineteen fifties ish sedan. In my mind,
(27:33):
I can still picture it. It was like someone had
taken a yellow cab from some larger city and painted
it entirely black and had tried to lure me into
his car. And as he lunged at me in this
story I was making up, I kicked him and then
(27:56):
I ran home, shocked, I guess. My mother asked me
to tell her the story again, and I did word
for word. She made me swear I was telling the truth,
which I did, which even shocked me. All I wanted
(28:17):
was for her to be proud of me that somebody
had tried to abduct me, but I had fought them
off all on my own. Instead, she called my bluff
and she reported my story to the police. It took
about five minutes for the police officer to show up.
(28:43):
The same cop who had put on the stranger Danger
presentation just hours earlier was at my door with his gun.
He had me tell the story again to him, and
this time he took notes. Then he had me tell
(29:03):
it again while he was looking at his notes, while
I stared at his service revolver some more. He leaned
over and said something quietly to my mother and She nodded,
and then he said to me, Markie, do you want
to take a ride in my police car. Let's retrace
(29:25):
your steps. Part of me feared that I was going
to be driven to the police station and put in
prison for lying to an adult, but mostly I was
excited about getting to ride in a police car. So,
with my mother's blessing, I sat in the front seat.
(29:45):
Between the police officer and me was his standard issue
dashboard linked shotgun. I asked him, pointing at the shotgun,
how often do you use that? I've only taken it
out to clean it. The cop said, what about that?
I asked, pointing at his side arm. He said, I've
(30:09):
never fired it in anger. I hope I never have to.
That felt reassuring because I still wasn't sure I was
in trouble. But we drove the few blocks to my
school and he asked me about my favorite subjects. Turning
around and heading back down toward the street that I
(30:30):
walked home every day. The police officer drove at the
slow speed of a child walking and asked me to
say stop. When I came to the exact point where
I remembered the attempted luring happened. Well, since I'd made
the whole thing up in my head, I just chose
(30:52):
the spot where I had imagined it, and I said stop,
and the policeman said here and I said, yes, right here,
And it was as if something clicked. He looked at
me again and said, you swear this was the exact
(31:16):
spot where the stranger danger happened. And I lied and
I said, yes, okay, that's very interesting. I'm going to
take you home, and I'm going to begin the investigation.
I'll start with the neighbors and ask if they saw anything.
And as he pulled away, I looked up, and even
(31:38):
in the darkness, I could see that the place where
we had parked was the home I walked past every day,
the house of horrors of the Talbert family. Completely unconsciously,
I had brought the police officer to Solomon Talbert's door step.
(32:02):
More significantly, that seemed to register with him in a
few blocks home. I answered his questions. No, I only
knew Solomon as Stevie's brother. Yes, I had been in
the Talbot house once for a second to look at
(32:24):
Stevie's baseball cards. No, that was not Solomon leaning up
against the old car smoking. No, I did not talk
to him that day. I did not tell the police
officer though about the park, or the top of the slide,
or how my brother had come in the nick of time.
(32:47):
He only reported to my mother, who was waiting, that
he had found no evidence of my story. But and
I remember this very clearly, he did not think I
was lying. Even more than I had. This cop had
picked up on some sort of subtext in my deception.
(33:10):
He still saw truth, and I took some satisfaction in
knowing that, judging by his determined demeanor, this police officer
was about to go knock on the Talbert's door and
ask them if they had seen anything. This would give
him entre into their home and might just scare Solomon
(33:34):
to stop trying to touch little kids without it appearing
as though I had ratted him out. Brilliant if I
had planned it. Years later, I asked a neighbor about
Solomon Talbert, however, and he told me that he was
(33:56):
in jail, but that it happened on his state and
he didn't really know why. At a school reunion sometime later,
somebody in the neighborhood said that Solomon had been accused
of sexual assaults that had occurred after a series of
(34:17):
home break ins, and that it was likely that he
was never going to be free again until I married Mallory.
I never told anybody about Solomon Talbert or his death threat.
If I go to jail, jail, I will kill you,
kill you, because our relationship had become so toxic. I
(34:43):
didn't even tell my mother on her deathbed about the threat,
even though it would have been totally within my rights
to hurt her at the end, just like she had
been hurting me all along. I didn't say anything to
spare her fe for having been a failed mother, only
(35:05):
because I wanted to keep an eye out for Solomon
Talbert and I didn't want anybody else to know about him.
I was always looking over my shoulder, down dark alleys,
check social media. He didn't have a Facebook page, wasn't
on Twitter, he wasn't listed in any alumni directory I
(35:28):
could find. But I had no doubt that if he
were free and he were to re examine his life,
he would somehow blame me and come after me or
my family. My lie had turned into his truth, aided
(35:50):
to buy the police department, who I suspect had continued
to follow Solomon Talbert. I can only imagine how that
would fester, and the only way to clean out that
infection would be to come after the irritant me that
(36:20):
had started the wound at the first place.
Speaker 6 (36:24):
A high detective brony. This is George Porter.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
He called asked me about the calm and lean Albert
and whether he's been home lasting a location. According to
our record, mister Talbert died of emphysema, while of.
Speaker 4 (36:54):
Course rated just over four years ago.
Speaker 6 (36:58):
Nobody's claimed the act. You have any other questions to
give me a.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Callback Ian Punnett's vaudeville for the Frightened Use Your Ears
(37:27):
to Fight Your Fears Series one the bottom of the box.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
As it happened, I would see that nice police officer
as I grew up in that town. Over the years.
He was an average cop, but a good cop. I'm
not sure how good he was at being a detective,
but I was reminded of him when I talked to
a guy named Dave from Oregon and he said, intuition
(38:00):
is what kept him alive.
Speaker 7 (38:02):
I used to be a police officer, and my whole
career was as far as my safety, you know, I
mean was just the proverbial gut feeling, and also intuition
and how to read people body language. In fact, I
even took a class called the read Method of Interviewing,
(38:25):
and that takes into consideration body language, how people stand,
how they walk, how they talk, how they hold their hands.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
And I'm fascinated about this because we've had a couple
of different guests who have spoken about this, some of
whom say intuition very helpful for a police officer. Other people,
other people who are saying lawyers or defense attorneys say
this is what gets police in trouble that they develop
(38:55):
a kind of tunnel vision based on what they think
of as being intuition, which turns out to be wrong.
But it's very powerful with a police officer who can
then myopically focus on a potential suspect to the exclusion
of others based on a faulty elevation of their of
(39:18):
their intuitive ability.
Speaker 7 (39:20):
That is very possible. You have to be very broad
minded when when you interview people, or when you talk
to people and you get certain feelings or certain vibrations,
certain I'm going to call it a vibe, so to speak, right,
you have to really be open minded about you can't
be black and white, you know, I mean, even though
you know maybe there's police officers that are probably listening,
(39:43):
but you know, you know, I you know it. It
saved my life many many times, you know. And but
you have to be very understanding about certain certain things
and certain demographics, certain you know, the way people are.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
So just how accurate was Dave's cops intuition I was?
Speaker 6 (40:05):
I was?
Speaker 7 (40:06):
I was. I would honestly say I was correct about
sixty percent of the time.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
In the next episode of Bottom of the Box, we'll
check in on Detective Brodie and Sergeant Fred Lutterger and
we'll find out whether, according to Detective Greg Lawson, they
are following the proper investigative protocols.
Speaker 5 (40:30):
Doesn't matter whether you're investigating insurance fraud or whether you
investigate a murder. There's still standard investigative practices that you
do for every one of those things. So you can
kind of check the box, you know, make sure that
you got as you have obtained as much information from
(40:50):
the investigation as you possibly can.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
Did they get a breakthrough or did they just get
a break.
Speaker 8 (40:56):
You don't talk you I don't care if it's you're
pulled over for a traffic stop. I would tell my
own children as you go and say, no, I want
to have an attorney. I want to have an attorney.
Speaker 9 (41:12):
You know, represent right away that That's the advice of
our special guest for our next episode, former FBI profiler
John Douglas should know, and based on his own experience,
he says, be very afraid of when somebody says.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Intuitively, I know who is guilty. We'll talk about that,
and we're getting close to the end of our story.
A big little reveal in the next episode of Bottom
of the Box part of Vaudeville for the Frightened.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
This is ea In Punnett.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
If you want to reach out to me, the Deacon
of the Dark, you can find me on Twitter at
deacon Punnet p u n n Ett. This episode of
Vaudeville for the Frightened featured Jacob Cummings from the Wildcat
Community Theater of the Air. The theme for Vaudeville for
the Frightened was written by Andrew Clark and performed by
(42:20):
Ryan Winters and Pistol Beauty. Original music by Colby Van Camp,
Engineered by Jacob Cummings and Colby Van Camp. Special thanks
to Marjorie Punnett, Corny Cole, Lisa Lyon, Chris Boros, Bill May,
Tom dan Heiser and Julie Talbot and as always, thank
(42:43):
you Joe Brandwa. This has been a fourth Down and
ten Productions.
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