January 31, 2016 • 40 mins
In this episode, Georgia and Karen discuss the Cameron Todd Willingham arson case, the Oakland County child killings and comedian/We Watch Wrestling podcast co-host Tom Sibley shares his hometown upholstery murder story.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:18):
How do we how do we start talking about murder?
I don't know, Karen, it was your day, it was
pretty good. Did you get murdered? I did not live
through today. How about yourself? Didn't get murdered?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
See that's all we want. Yeah, that's all anyone wants,
helping people not get murdered. I bet people did get
murdered today though, a lot of people. Yeah, yeah, rip
to those people. Yeah, we're sorry. Your time ended. It'll
start again soon enough. Well, the day's not over yet either,
So it's right. I have to walk to my car.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Yeah, I'm like, the door is locked because of course
it is home invasion robbery, big fear of.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Mine, is it really? Yeah? Around here, that's a that's
a reasonable fear. Yeah, except for when you have people
close by. Yeah that's a great thing. Do you know
you're across the hall neighbors. Yeah, they're nice, they like
me great.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
But the other a couple nights ago, I was thinking
about how someone could break in here, and I was
thinking about how they could parkour up.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
The wall and into my balcony. You're some parkouring criminal,
You're free to get murdered by spider man. Yeah, that
would be well, yeah, you're the one person he murders
instead of seeing and be a boomer. This is my
favorite murder. I'm Georgia, I'm Karen.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Let's start with a new a piece of news based
on murdering stuff.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Okay, good, Okay.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
So you know how one of the many ways that
you can collect and present evidence is by matching hair
follicles from the scene to.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
The person or the murder or whatever.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Yeah, turns out it's a completely bunk science. No, yes,
And the Justice Department is acknowledging that nearly every examiner
of an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony, and
almost all trials in which they offered evidence against criminal
defendants over more than two decade period, none of the
(02:12):
two hundred and sixty eight trials viewed so far says
that they overstated forensic matchup.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Holy no, this is humongous.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Because I've seen shows where they do this and I'm like, great, legit,
that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Every I feel like every forensic files that I've seen
the air mac right, and they're like pulling up those
like the microscopic things, the slides.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
And you see the ridges and you see the color
it turns out in one of the cases it turned
out to be dog hair that they found. Oh it
wasn't even human hair. And the guy got convicted on it.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Do you know that in the the guy it's the
Atlanta child killings. That guy, they only had him on
carpet fibers. Holy shit, which one's that he that's the
one where there was tons of little kids in Atlanta,
little black kids only were getting murdered. And they had
this guy and he is super suspicious because he was like,
do you want to be a star? Posters all around
(03:07):
the neighborhood, and he had a recording studio, which is
like textbook like pedophilic entrapment stuff or also a way
to get a star, a young star on the rise.
But these kids were like getting dumped, they were getting
murdered and then thrown into the river so like. And
(03:28):
then one night it was like connected to him because
one night someone was near the bridge where a kid
was rolled up in carpet and dumped over and then
his car was spotted like somewhere nearby, and they they
got him on it. But it was all about matching.
The carpet kid was wrapped up in to carpet somewhere
(03:50):
else in the home or in the car. Yeah, he
like there was a big piece of carpet cut out
of his a house. Yeah, I think so. I mean,
now it's stupid, right, yes, But the idea idea of
that where because it's such a believable piece of evidence, well,
you know what another one is that might be flawed.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
That is one of my favorite ways to collect evidence,
besides handwriting analysis. Is blood spatter evidence that they might
totally debunk that too. Really, I feel like it's I mean, yeah,
I guess it doesn't How do you scientifically prove those
things true for every single time, which of course puts
(04:30):
me in the mind of the staircase where all that
blood spatter and I mean that was a big part
of that documentary, was all that.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
But are they saying that the science of how it
lands and all that kind of stuff isn't real?
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Yeah, I mean yeah, you can't call it scientific evidence
because it's not science.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
It's kind of like conjecture. It's like yeah, and magic talk.
So or when do they get to the park where
they throw out owls?
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Because you can use these things to get someone to
confess the great but using it like the only thing
to convict someone that's insane.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Yeah. Well, but also I think it's fascinating like the
Memphis West Memphis three where you can get stupid people
to confess very easily, right, and and those tactics. The
other thing they need to reform is like keeping people
in a room for twelve hours with no food and
(05:32):
water and asking them the same question over and over
and eventually having them just kind of go insane and
want to be out of there. Lead the conversation.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Yeah, you convince them that they did it. They're not
confessing because they want to get out of there. Sometimes
it's like maybe I fucking didn't forgot.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
They tell Yeah, they tell you all these possibilities. Crazy.
It is super crazy.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
And however, if there's some fucking creepy ass dude and
there's a missing blonde kid and they find a long
blonde hair in his trunk, why would you know, why
would that long blonde hair be in there?
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Because he's a wig maker, because his mother has long
blonde hair. Because this it's the kind of thing where
it's like saying being creepy is illegal. Yeah, that's the
problem is that that it's that thing of like you
can't wear a black shirt. Depending on which part of
the country you live in, certain things aren't allowed that culturally.
(06:24):
That ties into my favorite murder today? Does it really?
I want to hear your face. Let's do. Let's tell
each other our favorite murder. Okay, wait, you don't want
to use that natural segue to go into yours because
I feel like you and I would be talking too much.
You have too much of them. But you know this
is a podcast, right, Okay, I'll go to get into tine.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Okay as a segue into mind is this person had
like led Zeppelin and like death metal band posters on
the wall, so they were like he's but I feel
like early nineties. Yeah, so this is my favorite murder?
Is the man was tried and convicted and put to
death for this murder? Oh shit, but it might probably
(07:06):
isn't a murder in the first place.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Why I heard of Oh my god, have I not
heard of this one? That I would That's what I
would love. Okay.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
His name is Cameron Todd Willingham. In the early nineties,
he busted out of his house that was engulfed in flames,
and his three little daughters died in it.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Oh no, you heard of this one.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
No, it's like a big it's a big case about
like the Innocent Innocence Project and debunking the Arsenal Arson
investigator's testimony that ended up being just completely bullshitt and wrong.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Oh no, yeah, so dead children the high stakes. We
start out high stakes on this line. Yeah, he was
fucking but death for this, okay, fuck Texas, yes, oh yeah, yeah, don't.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Mess so yeah, he and they think that how it
really started. So the Arson investigator said that they found
puddles where accelerant would have been, and like and the
outline of where the accelerant had been, you know, distributed
around in the apartment because or the house because the
burns don't happen this way, and this is what fires do.
(08:13):
And here's you know, we've been studying this for years
and years, right.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
But we all saw backdraft, right exactly. So it turns
out that that's just bullshit.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
And the neighbors and the firefighters and all the people
who initially got there said that he seemed so insanely
distraught and was trying to get back into the house
but he couldn't because it was on fire. And then
they later changed their testimony. He'd be like, yeah, he
was too upset. I think it was fake. And no,
he didn't seem upset at all. He moved his car,
and then they said he moved. He said he moved
his car so it wouldn't explode and add to the
(08:44):
fire in the cotton fire, right.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
I don't know, but maybe he's guilty though, I mean maybe,
but so sorry. Would he be guilty of wanting his
family dead just like it was his wife gone?
Speaker 3 (08:56):
His wife was gone at the time, and he said
he was sleeping and hurt his daughter, daddy and he
and it was already smoked, heavy smoke.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
So he left the house with the children inside.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
He tried, yeah, he said, he tried to get to them,
but the fire had originated in their bedroom the children, yes,
so he couldn't get to them, and.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
He tried to go back in. He tried breaking windows.
I see, I was like of one mind when you
started this story. That just turned me hard.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Well here's what they say probably happened. And I kind
of can see this and believe it that there they
used space heaters.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Yes, like those things are deadly.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Yeah, old junkie space heaters that literally are on fire,
the daughter liked to lay near it and fuck with it,
and her fucking blanky probably caught on fire.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
And her cheap kmart polyester pajama. Yes, yeah, yes, wait
this was the nineties, yes, ninety one. When I was
growing up, those pajamas were covered in stuff that caught
on fire. It would be not dead from the eighties
and nineties. It's a miracle. It's like anyone that's my
age is a total kind of just a walking marriage. Yeah,
that we got to this point. No seatbelts, No, you
(10:09):
got left home alone all the time.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Can you imagine having a kid and watching them fucking
run full throttled into death. Fuck.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Well, here's the thing. It's that thing, like it's the
moralistic thing of oh, no man, which kind of goes
back to that the thing that happened the last episode
when we talked about like no man would let his
wife get raped in front of him or whatever. It
makes me want to say that of like no man
would leave a house where his three children are burning.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Right, but the instinct to get out to live and
the heat, the amount of heat.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
I mean, think of like the last time you cooked
something and like the pan was hot, and you touched
a pan. That's what the walls would have been like
if the house is on fire. I mean reading his account,
it sounds like it was.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
And it was already up and smoked, and he came out,
got a breath and tried to go back in, but
it was walls and black smoke, and you can get in.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
What's the poster, like the metal posters and stuff? What
is that about?
Speaker 3 (11:07):
There was like an Iron Maiden poster that had like
a skull and cross phones on it, and they're like,
he's satanic and he's a sociopath, and here's the proof
because he has a like like a sword and a
heart tattoo on his arm.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
So he's in the cultism and satanism. And it's just
that kind of smell, that small town shit, you know, Yeah,
the nineties and now that would be anyone if you
went to Intelligencia right now, it's like, oh, so this
whole place is filled with Satanus. Although I have a feeling.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Like there's places in this country where you could still
get you know, that's evidence towards you being a murderer.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Still, yeah, for sure, Thank god we don't live there.
And also think of how creepy. It would be if
you were the fire investigator and you were walking through
a burnt house and you see but because that's those people,
they're just people, and they're just civil servants. So like
they go in and see dead children in a room, responders,
(12:01):
that's a huge emotional reaction. They look up and see
a pentagram post or whatever the thing is, and they're
not thinking, let's not be reactionary or whatever. They are
just human beings going this whole thing looks like living hell. Yeah,
or look at this pentagram.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Let's look for accelerant traces and you can find them
if you look, or you know, I can't remember how
they explained away the accelerant. Maybe that, oh, they didn't
say something weird that I was like, nah, that there
was accelerant in the door frame. Yeah, like lighter fluid.
And when the firefighters came, there was a barbecue grill
(12:36):
on the porch. Maybe that's it got blasted off and
that's how the lighter fluid got there, which sounds like
a little fishy, but will.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Happen it totally. And also it doesn't sound like they didn't.
It wasn't like they're running a tight ship. Over there
right right, It doesn't sound like if you have shitty
old space heaters. Yeah, probably the rest of your house
is like a lot of random paper towel in bad
places and stuff, right, I mean.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Oh, there was a refrigerator blocking the second door in
the kitchen.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
All this, you know, it's like, but my dad used
to talk all the time because my dad's was a
San Francisco fireman, and he would talk constantly about how
stupid people were about stuff, like at Christmas when they're there,
they would not water their tree, cover it in lights,
leave the lights on all night and peep and then
and everything's next to old curtains or like that people
don't even realize or like, I'll just take the time
(13:28):
right now to tell everybody clean out the limp trap
in your dryer every time you do a load of
dry every time you dry a load, because that's the
number one way people's houses catch on fire. Wow, you
know when you pull off like that big crazy sweater
of m chap because it's so much fun and it's
the right and it's like a big thing thing. But
that's how people's houses catch on fire. Also, battery, I
(13:51):
heard the thing about batteries.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
If you leave like a deep battery out and near
another one, they can spark somehow together and light on fire.
Is true, Jesus pose of the most like crazy way.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
I worry all the time. I know well, and some
people don't at all. And that's why should like that happens.
They're just like, you know, we'll see what happens. But
that's fucked up. Three little kids died because of that either.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Way, And in the beginning his wife was like, he's
absolutely innocent on his side. Later she divorced him and
kind of went back and forth between he was in
a center guilty.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
In the end when he was put to death, she
thought he was guilty, but she went back for me
a couple of times. Yeah, how could you not? And
also it's not you didn't lose one child, you lost
all of your children.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
And now there's there's kind of a backlash because there
was a there was a prison informant that he shared
a cell with who's now who who testified that this
this Cameron Willingham guy confessed to the murders. But now
it's coming that he actually had been like paid with
money and less jail time to testify yep, and yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Jailhouse tests like it's also in how do You Ever Go? No,
this guy's really telling the truth this time. This fun
is trustworthy. This is it because it perfectly fits our
investigation and what we need to hear right now, and
now we have the information.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
I have ourd time when like in this article that
I was reading, it's not in the New Yorker, it's
called trial by fire. They were saying that, like his
parole officer had said how nice and sweet he was,
which I can never Sociopaths are the nicest, most charming
people you'll ever meet.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Say, I don't believe any that. I don't give a
shit about nice. Nice does not qualify for anything with
me because it's the easiest way to be right. Nice
is not a big deal. I don't like charming. I'm
charming people. Yeah, well they want something, I mean everybody does.
But like, if you're going to be if you're gonna
put the energy behind being charming, then there's something going on.
(15:54):
There's an agenda at play.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
Also, if you feel like you need to please every
single person that you meet, you've got a fucking mental issue.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Yeah, there's something going on, right, I mean truly at
the end of the day, give me an asshole, And
I don't mean that the way you think and want
me to mean it. Think about it. Yeah, but you
know what you stand by.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
I stand by every interpretation, no of Just like people
who are self possessed enough to not care what other
people think or need them need to manipulate what other
people think.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
That's what it is. It's like, I'm going to make
you think this certain thing about me. Yeah, that's where
that's the problematic thing.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
And it cares me so much that I just don't
ever believe anyone until I know them well enough.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
But I think that's the healthiest way because I remember
being in my twenties and getting tricked by plenty of
people who I'm sure were sociopaths or just deep narcissists,
and you kind of I think eventually you learn, you know,
you just start picking up on those signs, and that's
a good thing. That's what we're supposed to do. This
(17:00):
is my therapy session is let's like, let's do half murder,
half half a kind of a psychological analysis of how
to be. It's all intertwined, isn't it. We should tell everyone.
I mean who else are they going to hear it from? Right? Yeah,
listen to us. This is kind of a DIY how
(17:20):
to live. It's a lifestyle podcast. Okay, let's get that
lifestyle with the murder theme, right, Lifestyle death Style.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Yeah, how to decorate your murder? Four DIY ways to
decorate your murder.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Flatters, platter, slatter. It might not be a viable way
to prove upcase, but it still looks great on the wall.
Put your hair everywhere, because they can't convict you now.
With that, they can't do shit about it. Put your
carpet fibers where you want. Yeah, what's your favorite murder? Karen?
My favorite murder this week is one that I was
(17:57):
so I've been so excited to talk about. This was
one of those ones where I went deep Wikipedia one
night alone and had no It was too late at night,
and often there are not very many friends I have
that I can be like, Yes, what, guess what about
these children that were murdered in the late seventies? Yeah, no,
until I met.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
Yeah, we're the only people that won't text back, are you?
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Okay? What's really going on? So there were these four
kids were murdered in Oakland, County, Michigan in the late seventies,
and this whole case was called the Oakland County Child Killings,
and sounds fucking awesome already, right, So they found a
(18:43):
twelve year old boy kidnapped and raped and smothered, and
that was the first one, and then like a week
later at these I didn't write down, I didn't do
my super accurate homework. But if people are coming here
for facts, they're wrong, I'm yeah. And also it's all
off Wikipedia, so you can get it and really really
(19:04):
enjoy it for yourself firsthand. But essentially all eleven and
twelve year old children. And so it goes boy and
then a girl, a twelve year old girl was found kidnapped,
not raped, bathed, fed, and then shot point blank and
left in the snow. How was the first kid killed smothered? Smothered?
Speaker 3 (19:26):
So those aren't the same murderer? Probably, well, right, they don't,
they don't. They probably didn't connect them then. But then
the third kid, who was an eleven year old boy
who was kidnapped, and so he was gone for like
he disappeared, and so on say the seventh day or whatever,
(19:49):
they went on. The parents went on the news and said, please,
you know, bring him home so we can give him
his favorite dinner, Kentucky fried chicken, you know that thing
they do to personalize h And the next day they
found his body.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Don't tell me he had Kentucky fried chicken in his belly,
rape smothered with Kentucky fried chickens left in his belly. No,
exactly what you didn't want to hear, Oh my god.
And he was also washed like the girl was. His
nails were trimmed, his clothes were spotless, they were washed
(20:23):
and pressed, and his body was still warm when they
found So that's when they knew something super terrible was happening.
Oh my god. And then the last girl was eleven,
and she was she disappeared, she was kidnapped, and then
she was found murdered. So the girls were not sexually
(20:43):
interfered with and the boys were raped. Yeah, so that
was just that was like a big thing that happened.
And they called they so after they got all that information,
they called him the babysitter Killer, which is fucked up
and almost sweet to him because the way he treated it,
because the way he well, because of the way he
left them, which kind of implies the way he treated
(21:07):
them was nice, except for we all know that's not
true and imagine because he kept them for a while,
which is a lot. But the nightmare part alive alive,
So yeah, so that's horrifying.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
So I feel like, but when you're alive, there's some
chance of escape, like there's some hope left.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Yes, well while it's still happening, for sure. Yeah, but
then it's just that thing of like, uh, it's it.
It goes to the total insanity. And I don't know,
I wish I knew the difference. Yes to pravity for sure,
but like when you're really psychotic or whatever, where you're
(21:49):
keeping the thing you're going to murder, like you know,
this is all the plan, and so you're keeping a
child like a pet or whatever, it's just beyond. But
when they started looking at the suspects that were around
Oakland County, one of the people and this is this
is where I went down the hole. One of the
(22:11):
people that was a suspect was like a twenty four
year old rich kid and his name, oh shit, I'm
not going to find it, dang it. Uh okay, Christopher Bush.
So his father was like either the GM or the
vice president of one of the huge motor companies. Wait,
(22:34):
it might have been GM, and his father was the
vice president of GM or one of those ones. Yeah,
hugely rich. He was always in this big mansion by himself.
His parents were always like working around vacation or whatever,
and there was a constant stream of young boys coming
in and out of the house because he was a
child blaster, so he was paying kids to come over
(22:55):
and whatever. And so he got arrested for sexual assault
and child molestation several times, like he was a known pedophile.
How those people stay out because he was rich, so
they always bought him out of jail and cleared him
and whatever and tried to do stuff. And so they
(23:16):
went and found him and started looking through his room
and looking through all his stuff, and they thought that
they found a picture of one of the boys, I
think it was supposed to be Tim, the third one, screaming,
like a drawing of him with his hoodie on, because
I think they said he was found in a hoodie
or something. So it was a picture of him with
(23:36):
the hoodie looking like he was in total terror. But
they don't know for sure that that's who the face was,
but that's what he looked like, and so it was
like it was the circumstantial evidence. They were such a
small thing to go on though. Yeah, and they were
trying to put all that together. But apparently his room
was really messy and filled with all kinds of creepy stuff.
And then one of the things that they connected because
(23:57):
apparently so that kid Christopher Bush of uh, they confiscated
eight rolls of film in his room and it was
all kitty porn. And then they find out and this
is the thing that stuff like this is what makes
me so fascinated. It piques my interest in it. It's
(24:17):
probably the writer in me, where it's like, this is
such a good story, separate from tragedy or whatever. They
figure out that there is an island, so I guess
there's like an island chain up way north in the
Peninsula area of Michigan, and one of them is called
North Fox Island, and it's it was empty, they thought.
(24:39):
And they find out that there is a Christian boys camp.
A there's a camp like Saint Somebody's for wayward boys
on North Fox Island. The only way to get on
or off the island is by plane. There's one air
strip down the center of it, and that when they
go to investigate the island, they find out that they
(25:03):
had set up this fake boys camp to get boys
like poor children who would sign up for a place
like that. So it was like this free thing of
like come and they were all being used in kitty porn.
It was just a kitty porn ring. It was a
kitty porn ring. So when they showed up, that's what
was happening, and it was nightmare. I mean like that's
(25:25):
like a Friday the thirteenth Freddy Krueger nightmare movie right there.
Which part of it to you obsess about the idea
that these boys would be there thinking they get to
go to camp and what that turns into, and then
nightmare that it would be on that island, and also
then when they go back because someone I was talking
to somebody about that and they're like, why wouldn't they
(25:46):
say anything? And I was like, I bet you. These
were the kids. They were probably getting kids out of
juvie or in situations where they don't have their foster kids,
or like the most underrepresented and they're already waywards and
no one believes these little shit exactly right, or they're
paid I bet because it turns out the guy that
owns the island is this multi millionaire that when when
(26:11):
they bust it they find out whatever, they realized that
this camp is. There's no church affiliation, there's no affiliation,
it's just these It's a pedophile ring that had also
been operating in like the really bad part of Detroit
that was well known where like kids on the street,
they would get kids and pay them and get them
into that ring and pay them to have sex with them.
(26:34):
And it was just this whole, huge, ugly thing, full
on exploitation of poor children. So that gets exposed in
the Babysito killer investigation, which is amazing. And then they
just I just read an article that they found a man.
So they had all these people that they suspected, and
(26:56):
they found a man named Ted Lamberghine who they they
got on kitty on those kitty porn charges where he
was definitely involved in that. That there was the ring
that they busted in the bad part of Detroit. He
was somehow definitely linked to it or whatever it was.
(27:18):
And then oh and this was a thing where a prisoner,
a detective from Detroit was out in California, interviewing someone
about something else, and then the prisoner was like, I
know who your babysitter killer is and says it's Ted Lamberghine.
I knew him from this pedophile ring we'd all go
and pay to fuck kids in Detroit essentially, And this
(27:38):
guy told me he basically pointed to a picture and said,
doesn't that look like Tim whoever? The third little boy?
And so that detective went back and went and they
started casing this guy who is now seventy and only
leaves his house to go to church and da da
dah and like living like this silent old man that
no one knows anything about. And then they go into
(28:00):
his house and they find all this evidence and he
will not admit that he was the babysitter killer, but
he first all the evidence points to it. All the
evidence points to that he and they have him on
all the pedophile charges and all the ring charges and
all that. Does he when did this happen? When did
he get best to two thousand and five? Oh? My god?
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (28:21):
So and they uh, oh, oh, Christopher Bush, the rich
kid killed himself in nineteen seventy eight, so they kind
of like assumed it was him because there was all
that weird evidence and stuff. So then the ted Lamborghine
thing they like kind of came out of the blue.
Are we okay with Christopher Bush killing himself because he
(28:42):
was a child moluster or do we not think that
we're allowed to make that judgment call. I mean, we
can kind of do anything we want if that guy,
if these people can pay children to rape them, we
can make judgment calls on these motherfuckers.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
Like I never want to say I'm glad someone's dead,
but it's probably for the best that this person was
harassed so much by the cops that he killed himself.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Well, yes, because and also I bet you he killed
himself for lots of other reasons, like in so far
as that he lived a life where this terrible thing
that he a compulsion he couldn't control, was basically being
okayed by his rich parents who didn't give enough of
a shit about him to take any real action. So
he was trapped in this weird world of money. Yeah,
(29:26):
I mean, I think that's also really fascinating too. Of
like you, that's a person that gets to do whatever
they want because of money, same as those people at
the North Fox Islands. So like what did that guy get?
Those people all disappeared? The guy that owned the island
that escaped to Europe like flew left the island flew
away and they just didn't find him or extra item money.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
I love that there was this island that no one
thought that you just take it over. Who's going to
fucking know right and build an entire camp there a
fake camp.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Yeah, yeah, it's I mean to me, like pedophiles and
kitty porn, that kind of shit is the darkest. I
like serial killers that just kill random people. Obviously not
good yea, but that kind of stuff where you what
is wrong with that person? Where that's they're not just
doing the wrong thing, but they're they're loving doing the
(30:22):
right thing, and specifically to helpless people who can't make
any decisions about what you know, you know control.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
Yeah, you don't think the way you do is an adult.
When you're a kid, you don't understand what's happening to you.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Yeah, it's it's super ugly and it's like that it's exploitation.
It's just the dark. It's the darkest to me, it's
like the closest thing to real monsters. Those people are
real monsters. Definitely. Yeah, kind of a bummer though too.
So they're arresting the seven year old and that's how
it's ending. Well, they they got him on the other charges,
(30:58):
but they can't get him. They don't have enough hard
evidence on those murders, but they're positive they they lined
up because he also the murder stopped when he moved
to Cleveland. And when he moved to Cleveland, he started
going to church every day. And they think that the
priest there knows, like they think he confess to the
priest and the priest isn't saying it. Yeah, there's all
(31:19):
kinds of things like that that are very clear. And
it was like the days he wasn't at work, or
the days the children disappeared, all kinds of stuffose are
always so interesting to me.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
Or like finding out that someone you know had someone
clock in for them even though or they have an
alibi and it turns out it's total bullshit.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
And here's how they know. Yes, that's so fascinating. The
detective work that he takes to, yeah, find that and
also those poor detectives, like the way your life gets
affected by having to go and investigate these people. I mean,
nothing justifies the crazy murdering that's happening on the street
of most black people today in America. I will never
(31:58):
I never ever meet and anything is justified in that way.
What I mean is that that when you, like as
a detective, when you have to visit time and again
people who are depraved. So it's not just crime or
like I'm desperate and on drugs and so I'm doing
this fight with my wife and killed herround. Yeah, it's
the depravity of like a child rapist, murderer.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Coming face to face with the actual evil thing, which
you and I probably never will unless we searched it out.
But these detectives, but these people have to then delve
as deep as they can into it.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
And all the facts right and not kill them so
that they can be brought to justice and have some
jail house justice and just get killed terribly in jail.
But that's the ideal. But them getting.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Even arrested is a small you know, can't be a
huge percentage of them. So even getting someone arrested has
to be hard. So imagine we're hiring after never having
solved this case.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
No, that's terrible, No, and it ruins people's lives to
go investigate this stuff and to discover this like it's
just the seemy underside. Yeah, and I only I surfed
it on Wikipedia and was just like, I'm mesmerized by
how horrifying it is. Are you watching the new season
of Fargo? Oh?
Speaker 3 (33:16):
Yes, this is related. That's not like a like anyways
children are dead. That's not how I meant. But how
this the copin that is went to war and is
now seeing all this insane stuff at home. Yes, And
the the toll it must take on you to have
gone to war and seen ship that you would never
tell anyone about and then come home and do that
too as a cop.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Yes, which how is how it happens a lot of
the time.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
I just started thinking about the fact that this with
the whole France bombing, people talking about going to war again,
where I was like, how many we don't have that
many more men left that that this country hasn't ravaged.
Who do they think they're going to send to war? Right?
Who's gonna who's gonna? Yeah? The people who are going
to Yeah, it's still list have already enlisted, right yeah?
(34:08):
And and yeah, and then how do you I mean
there are plenty of people who come home and make lives.
But they're probably the people that didn't have super terrible
things happened to them. But there's it's still bad. I know,
there's plenty of people or it's just it's still a
horrific experience.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
I love that TV show so much. It's so amazing.
This season is fucking out of contus. It's so cinematic,
it's gorgeous, it's crazy, and I love that Native American.
He's a doll, Carson Dunn. Still, I would just watch
a whole thing of her day. Yeah, she's so funny
in it. Well, and also that it finally came together
(34:47):
of her and all those magazines, which I never paid
attention to before, the stacks of magazines everywhere. I don't
think that she wants to escape, Is that what it's for? Yes? Okay,
Like when she finally sat down with Ted Danson and
they start to at least are spoiler alert sorry, She's.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
Like, here's why I have this obsession is because I'm
not supposed to be here. Yeah yeah, yeah, and then
then that's his childhood home. Yes, but they live in
on How fucking depressing that just lived your whole life
in the same house.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
Yes, and there's some people that are happy with that
and want it, yes. And then if there's some people
who just dream of going to California, I know it's going.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
So much easier then than it is now to like
break away and do that, because in his seventies you
can't get traced. You could go and change her fucking identity.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Yeah, probably, yeah, yeah. I thought there was one part
where she was on the bus and I was like, oh,
she's out of there this she were not going to
see Kristen Dunst anymore. And she said, here's the thing,
Kristin Dunst is one of the most brilliant actresses of
our time, and no one knows.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
I was very surprised to like her this much. And
when I saw her, I was like, Okay, here we go.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
But she's so good. Well, because I saw her and
I thought, oh, this is going to be like a
quote unquote come back thing. But she is. Every person
in that cast is brilliant, and she's equally brilliant. I'm
proud of her. We're definitely ending it on and up now.
(36:12):
I think we all should be. I have Tom Sibley's
death story. Oh yes, that's a great. So yeah, okay,
all right, we're gonna explain. You explain. So I think
we said this in our last episode, but we want
to hear other people's stories of like murders that they
grew up with, or things that happened in their hometown,
or the one like murder story you tell of right
(36:35):
from your hometown, or the thing that you know. And
so this was. We were all at our friend Matt
McCarthy's birthday party, and Georgia was smart enough to ask
our friend Tom Sibley, who's a comic and a lover
of wrestlings, as is Vincent Math from the Faral Audio podcast,
we watch wrestling. Yes, so this is his home town
(36:58):
murder story.
Speaker 5 (37:01):
Oh hey, this is Tom Sibley. My murder story is
where my parents live. I'm not gonna say where they live.
It's an island in New Jersey. And there was a
guy that everyone used for their upholster.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
He made really good.
Speaker 5 (37:16):
Couch cushions, especially for outdoor furniture. Like outdoor cushions. Everyone
has his stuff. And he killed his mother because he
lived with his mother, and he killed her and he
kept her like in the house for months and like
no one knew where his mother was and et cetera,
et cetera. Later on it came out that he had
(37:39):
killed her and was just kind of keeping her body
in the house.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
How did he kill her? I'm not sure.
Speaker 5 (37:48):
I think it may have been strangulation.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
And I love it all.
Speaker 5 (37:55):
It's weird because everyone has the cushions of this guy.
He was the go to guy forks and like, I
was just sitting on those cushions like a week ago,
but it was the cushions of a mother murderer.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
So I kept the cushions. After they found out, they
were like.
Speaker 5 (38:11):
Well, they're good cushions.
Speaker 4 (38:16):
Did you When I listened back to that night earlier, I.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
Realized that when he said like he was there was
this thing, and there was this guy and he murdered
his mother and you could hear me in the background
crack up. I think it's just blee like giddy glee
at the story.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Yes, that's fucking like most people who are not you.
Speaker 3 (38:40):
Would be like, what the fuck did you just laugh
at him killing his mom?
Speaker 2 (38:43):
Because you know what it is. It's like this is
the ship. People walk around all day going like what
did you watch on TV? Last night? And can you
believe this weather. It's still so warm, but at the
end of the day people are murdering people and doing
extreme insane things. Also, when the second he said made
couch cushions, I started laughing because for some reason, and
(39:06):
maybe it's because the Hillside Stranglers, the one of them
was upholstery. I think so. I think that's why where
it came from. I'm not sure, but there upholstery has
something to do with it. But something about that is
so sinister to me. It's like like there's tools that
are very like violent in upholstery. And I thought it
(39:28):
was Yeah, that's that's a really good one.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
I love that everyone has one of these stories and
like no one ever asks them these stories. Yes, we'll
never tell them.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
Right, everyone has one of these stories, and it's just
because it's like the thing that freaked you out. There's
always something freaky and insane. Yeah, yeah, I ended on that.
I think is there anything else? No, I don't know,
you do you want to add anything? I don't know,
(39:58):
just like trying to be nice to people. Yeah, people
don't get murdered like people. You don't really know until
you see in the grocery storeline that suck for them,
and also just for yourself, like be excited that you're
not murdered yet and enjoy yourself. Do what you want,
don't do what like someone's telling you you have to do,
because there's no have to because you never know what
(40:19):
could happen. You never know.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
This is really all I mean when it comes down
to this is a positive podcast. But we're trying to
lift people out and make them their best selves.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
And sometimes lift we lift each other up by pushing
down the murdered. It's as if to say it's a
celebration of life.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
Yeah, well cy them to life's life and death.
How do we how do we start talking about murder?
I don't know, Karen, it was your day, it was
pretty good. Did you get murdered? I did not live
through today. How about yourself? Didn't get murdered?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
See that's all we want. Yeah, that's all anyone wants,
helping people not get murdered. I bet people did get
murdered today though, a lot of people. Yeah, yeah, rip
to those people. Yeah, we're sorry. Your time ended. It'll
start again soon enough. Well, the day's not over yet either,
So it's right. I have to walk to my car.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Yeah, I'm like, the door is locked because of course
it is home invasion robbery, big fear of.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Mine, is it really? Yeah? Around here, that's a that's
a reasonable fear. Yeah, except for when you have people
close by. Yeah that's a great thing. Do you know
you're across the hall neighbors. Yeah, they're nice, they like
me great.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
But the other a couple nights ago, I was thinking
about how someone could break in here, and I was
thinking about how they could parkour up.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
The wall and into my balcony. You're some parkouring criminal,
You're free to get murdered by spider man. Yeah, that
would be well, yeah, you're the one person he murders
instead of seeing and be a boomer. This is my
favorite murder. I'm Georgia, I'm Karen.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Let's start with a new a piece of news based
on murdering stuff.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Okay, good, Okay.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
So you know how one of the many ways that
you can collect and present evidence is by matching hair
follicles from the scene to.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
The person or the murder or whatever.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Yeah, turns out it's a completely bunk science. No, yes,
And the Justice Department is acknowledging that nearly every examiner
of an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony, and
almost all trials in which they offered evidence against criminal
defendants over more than two decade period, none of the
(02:12):
two hundred and sixty eight trials viewed so far says
that they overstated forensic matchup.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Holy no, this is humongous.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Because I've seen shows where they do this and I'm like, great, legit,
that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Every I feel like every forensic files that I've seen
the air mac right, and they're like pulling up those
like the microscopic things, the slides.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
And you see the ridges and you see the color
it turns out in one of the cases it turned
out to be dog hair that they found. Oh it
wasn't even human hair. And the guy got convicted on it.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Do you know that in the the guy it's the
Atlanta child killings. That guy, they only had him on
carpet fibers. Holy shit, which one's that he that's the
one where there was tons of little kids in Atlanta,
little black kids only were getting murdered. And they had
this guy and he is super suspicious because he was like,
do you want to be a star? Posters all around
(03:07):
the neighborhood, and he had a recording studio, which is
like textbook like pedophilic entrapment stuff or also a way
to get a star, a young star on the rise.
But these kids were like getting dumped, they were getting
murdered and then thrown into the river so like. And
(03:28):
then one night it was like connected to him because
one night someone was near the bridge where a kid
was rolled up in carpet and dumped over and then
his car was spotted like somewhere nearby, and they they
got him on it. But it was all about matching.
The carpet kid was wrapped up in to carpet somewhere
(03:50):
else in the home or in the car. Yeah, he
like there was a big piece of carpet cut out
of his a house. Yeah, I think so. I mean,
now it's stupid, right, yes, But the idea idea of
that where because it's such a believable piece of evidence, well,
you know what another one is that might be flawed.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
That is one of my favorite ways to collect evidence,
besides handwriting analysis. Is blood spatter evidence that they might
totally debunk that too. Really, I feel like it's I mean, yeah,
I guess it doesn't How do you scientifically prove those
things true for every single time, which of course puts
(04:30):
me in the mind of the staircase where all that
blood spatter and I mean that was a big part
of that documentary, was all that.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
But are they saying that the science of how it
lands and all that kind of stuff isn't real?
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Yeah, I mean yeah, you can't call it scientific evidence
because it's not science.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
It's kind of like conjecture. It's like yeah, and magic talk.
So or when do they get to the park where
they throw out owls?
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Because you can use these things to get someone to
confess the great but using it like the only thing
to convict someone that's insane.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Yeah. Well, but also I think it's fascinating like the
Memphis West Memphis three where you can get stupid people
to confess very easily, right, and and those tactics. The
other thing they need to reform is like keeping people
in a room for twelve hours with no food and
(05:32):
water and asking them the same question over and over
and eventually having them just kind of go insane and
want to be out of there. Lead the conversation.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Yeah, you convince them that they did it. They're not
confessing because they want to get out of there. Sometimes
it's like maybe I fucking didn't forgot.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
They tell Yeah, they tell you all these possibilities. Crazy.
It is super crazy.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
And however, if there's some fucking creepy ass dude and
there's a missing blonde kid and they find a long
blonde hair in his trunk, why would you know, why
would that long blonde hair be in there?
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Because he's a wig maker, because his mother has long
blonde hair. Because this it's the kind of thing where
it's like saying being creepy is illegal. Yeah, that's the
problem is that that it's that thing of like you
can't wear a black shirt. Depending on which part of
the country you live in, certain things aren't allowed that culturally.
(06:24):
That ties into my favorite murder today? Does it really?
I want to hear your face. Let's do. Let's tell
each other our favorite murder. Okay, wait, you don't want
to use that natural segue to go into yours because
I feel like you and I would be talking too much.
You have too much of them. But you know this
is a podcast, right, Okay, I'll go to get into tine.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Okay as a segue into mind is this person had
like led Zeppelin and like death metal band posters on
the wall, so they were like he's but I feel
like early nineties. Yeah, so this is my favorite murder?
Is the man was tried and convicted and put to
death for this murder? Oh shit, but it might probably
(07:06):
isn't a murder in the first place.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Why I heard of Oh my god, have I not
heard of this one? That I would That's what I
would love. Okay.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
His name is Cameron Todd Willingham. In the early nineties,
he busted out of his house that was engulfed in flames,
and his three little daughters died in it.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Oh no, you heard of this one.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
No, it's like a big it's a big case about
like the Innocent Innocence Project and debunking the Arsenal Arson
investigator's testimony that ended up being just completely bullshitt and wrong.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Oh no, yeah, so dead children the high stakes. We
start out high stakes on this line. Yeah, he was
fucking but death for this, okay, fuck Texas, yes, oh yeah, yeah, don't.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Mess so yeah, he and they think that how it
really started. So the Arson investigator said that they found
puddles where accelerant would have been, and like and the
outline of where the accelerant had been, you know, distributed
around in the apartment because or the house because the
burns don't happen this way, and this is what fires do.
(08:13):
And here's you know, we've been studying this for years
and years, right.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
But we all saw backdraft, right exactly. So it turns
out that that's just bullshit.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
And the neighbors and the firefighters and all the people
who initially got there said that he seemed so insanely
distraught and was trying to get back into the house
but he couldn't because it was on fire. And then
they later changed their testimony. He'd be like, yeah, he
was too upset. I think it was fake. And no,
he didn't seem upset at all. He moved his car,
and then they said he moved. He said he moved
his car so it wouldn't explode and add to the
(08:44):
fire in the cotton fire, right.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
I don't know, but maybe he's guilty though, I mean maybe,
but so sorry. Would he be guilty of wanting his
family dead just like it was his wife gone?
Speaker 3 (08:56):
His wife was gone at the time, and he said
he was sleeping and hurt his daughter, daddy and he
and it was already smoked, heavy smoke.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
So he left the house with the children inside.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
He tried, yeah, he said, he tried to get to them,
but the fire had originated in their bedroom the children, yes,
so he couldn't get to them, and.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
He tried to go back in. He tried breaking windows.
I see, I was like of one mind when you
started this story. That just turned me hard.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Well here's what they say probably happened. And I kind
of can see this and believe it that there they
used space heaters.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Yes, like those things are deadly.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Yeah, old junkie space heaters that literally are on fire,
the daughter liked to lay near it and fuck with it,
and her fucking blanky probably caught on fire.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
And her cheap kmart polyester pajama. Yes, yeah, yes, wait
this was the nineties, yes, ninety one. When I was
growing up, those pajamas were covered in stuff that caught
on fire. It would be not dead from the eighties
and nineties. It's a miracle. It's like anyone that's my
age is a total kind of just a walking marriage. Yeah,
that we got to this point. No seatbelts, No, you
(10:09):
got left home alone all the time.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Can you imagine having a kid and watching them fucking
run full throttled into death. Fuck.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Well, here's the thing. It's that thing, like it's the
moralistic thing of oh, no man, which kind of goes
back to that the thing that happened the last episode
when we talked about like no man would let his
wife get raped in front of him or whatever. It
makes me want to say that of like no man
would leave a house where his three children are burning.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Right, but the instinct to get out to live and
the heat, the amount of heat.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
I mean, think of like the last time you cooked
something and like the pan was hot, and you touched
a pan. That's what the walls would have been like
if the house is on fire. I mean reading his account,
it sounds like it was.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
And it was already up and smoked, and he came out,
got a breath and tried to go back in, but
it was walls and black smoke, and you can get in.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
What's the poster, like the metal posters and stuff? What
is that about?
Speaker 3 (11:07):
There was like an Iron Maiden poster that had like
a skull and cross phones on it, and they're like,
he's satanic and he's a sociopath, and here's the proof
because he has a like like a sword and a
heart tattoo on his arm.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
So he's in the cultism and satanism. And it's just
that kind of smell, that small town shit, you know, Yeah,
the nineties and now that would be anyone if you
went to Intelligencia right now, it's like, oh, so this
whole place is filled with Satanus. Although I have a feeling.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Like there's places in this country where you could still
get you know, that's evidence towards you being a murderer.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Still, yeah, for sure, Thank god we don't live there.
And also think of how creepy. It would be if
you were the fire investigator and you were walking through
a burnt house and you see but because that's those people,
they're just people, and they're just civil servants. So like
they go in and see dead children in a room, responders,
(12:01):
that's a huge emotional reaction. They look up and see
a pentagram post or whatever the thing is, and they're
not thinking, let's not be reactionary or whatever. They are
just human beings going this whole thing looks like living hell. Yeah,
or look at this pentagram.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Let's look for accelerant traces and you can find them
if you look, or you know, I can't remember how
they explained away the accelerant. Maybe that, oh, they didn't
say something weird that I was like, nah, that there
was accelerant in the door frame. Yeah, like lighter fluid.
And when the firefighters came, there was a barbecue grill
(12:36):
on the porch. Maybe that's it got blasted off and
that's how the lighter fluid got there, which sounds like
a little fishy, but will.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Happen it totally. And also it doesn't sound like they didn't.
It wasn't like they're running a tight ship. Over there
right right, It doesn't sound like if you have shitty
old space heaters. Yeah, probably the rest of your house
is like a lot of random paper towel in bad
places and stuff, right, I mean.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Oh, there was a refrigerator blocking the second door in
the kitchen.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
All this, you know, it's like, but my dad used
to talk all the time because my dad's was a
San Francisco fireman, and he would talk constantly about how
stupid people were about stuff, like at Christmas when they're there,
they would not water their tree, cover it in lights,
leave the lights on all night and peep and then
and everything's next to old curtains or like that people
don't even realize or like, I'll just take the time
(13:28):
right now to tell everybody clean out the limp trap
in your dryer every time you do a load of
dry every time you dry a load, because that's the
number one way people's houses catch on fire. Wow, you
know when you pull off like that big crazy sweater
of m chap because it's so much fun and it's
the right and it's like a big thing thing. But
that's how people's houses catch on fire. Also, battery, I
(13:51):
heard the thing about batteries.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
If you leave like a deep battery out and near
another one, they can spark somehow together and light on fire.
Is true, Jesus pose of the most like crazy way.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
I worry all the time. I know well, and some
people don't at all. And that's why should like that happens.
They're just like, you know, we'll see what happens. But
that's fucked up. Three little kids died because of that either.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Way, And in the beginning his wife was like, he's
absolutely innocent on his side. Later she divorced him and
kind of went back and forth between he was in
a center guilty.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
In the end when he was put to death, she
thought he was guilty, but she went back for me
a couple of times. Yeah, how could you not? And
also it's not you didn't lose one child, you lost
all of your children.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
And now there's there's kind of a backlash because there
was a there was a prison informant that he shared
a cell with who's now who who testified that this
this Cameron Willingham guy confessed to the murders. But now
it's coming that he actually had been like paid with
money and less jail time to testify yep, and yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Jailhouse tests like it's also in how do You Ever Go? No,
this guy's really telling the truth this time. This fun
is trustworthy. This is it because it perfectly fits our
investigation and what we need to hear right now, and
now we have the information.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
I have ourd time when like in this article that
I was reading, it's not in the New Yorker, it's
called trial by fire. They were saying that, like his
parole officer had said how nice and sweet he was,
which I can never Sociopaths are the nicest, most charming
people you'll ever meet.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Say, I don't believe any that. I don't give a
shit about nice. Nice does not qualify for anything with
me because it's the easiest way to be right. Nice
is not a big deal. I don't like charming. I'm
charming people. Yeah, well they want something, I mean everybody does.
But like, if you're going to be if you're gonna
put the energy behind being charming, then there's something going on.
(15:54):
There's an agenda at play.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
Also, if you feel like you need to please every
single person that you meet, you've got a fucking mental issue.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Yeah, there's something going on, right, I mean truly at
the end of the day, give me an asshole, And
I don't mean that the way you think and want
me to mean it. Think about it. Yeah, but you
know what you stand by.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
I stand by every interpretation, no of Just like people
who are self possessed enough to not care what other
people think or need them need to manipulate what other
people think.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
That's what it is. It's like, I'm going to make
you think this certain thing about me. Yeah, that's where
that's the problematic thing.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
And it cares me so much that I just don't
ever believe anyone until I know them well enough.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
But I think that's the healthiest way because I remember
being in my twenties and getting tricked by plenty of
people who I'm sure were sociopaths or just deep narcissists,
and you kind of I think eventually you learn, you know,
you just start picking up on those signs, and that's
a good thing. That's what we're supposed to do. This
(17:00):
is my therapy session is let's like, let's do half murder,
half half a kind of a psychological analysis of how
to be. It's all intertwined, isn't it. We should tell everyone.
I mean who else are they going to hear it from? Right? Yeah,
listen to us. This is kind of a DIY how
(17:20):
to live. It's a lifestyle podcast. Okay, let's get that
lifestyle with the murder theme, right, Lifestyle death Style.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Yeah, how to decorate your murder? Four DIY ways to
decorate your murder.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Flatters, platter, slatter. It might not be a viable way
to prove upcase, but it still looks great on the wall.
Put your hair everywhere, because they can't convict you now.
With that, they can't do shit about it. Put your
carpet fibers where you want. Yeah, what's your favorite murder? Karen?
My favorite murder this week is one that I was
(17:57):
so I've been so excited to talk about. This was
one of those ones where I went deep Wikipedia one
night alone and had no It was too late at night,
and often there are not very many friends I have
that I can be like, Yes, what, guess what about
these children that were murdered in the late seventies? Yeah, no,
until I met.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
Yeah, we're the only people that won't text back, are you?
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Okay? What's really going on? So there were these four
kids were murdered in Oakland, County, Michigan in the late seventies,
and this whole case was called the Oakland County Child Killings,
and sounds fucking awesome already, right, So they found a
(18:43):
twelve year old boy kidnapped and raped and smothered, and
that was the first one, and then like a week
later at these I didn't write down, I didn't do
my super accurate homework. But if people are coming here
for facts, they're wrong, I'm yeah. And also it's all
off Wikipedia, so you can get it and really really
(19:04):
enjoy it for yourself firsthand. But essentially all eleven and
twelve year old children. And so it goes boy and
then a girl, a twelve year old girl was found kidnapped,
not raped, bathed, fed, and then shot point blank and
left in the snow. How was the first kid killed smothered? Smothered?
Speaker 3 (19:26):
So those aren't the same murderer? Probably, well, right, they don't,
they don't. They probably didn't connect them then. But then
the third kid, who was an eleven year old boy
who was kidnapped, and so he was gone for like
he disappeared, and so on say the seventh day or whatever,
(19:49):
they went on. The parents went on the news and said, please,
you know, bring him home so we can give him
his favorite dinner, Kentucky fried chicken, you know that thing
they do to personalize h And the next day they
found his body.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Don't tell me he had Kentucky fried chicken in his belly,
rape smothered with Kentucky fried chickens left in his belly. No,
exactly what you didn't want to hear, Oh my god.
And he was also washed like the girl was. His
nails were trimmed, his clothes were spotless, they were washed
(20:23):
and pressed, and his body was still warm when they
found So that's when they knew something super terrible was happening.
Oh my god. And then the last girl was eleven,
and she was she disappeared, she was kidnapped, and then
she was found murdered. So the girls were not sexually
(20:43):
interfered with and the boys were raped. Yeah, so that
was just that was like a big thing that happened.
And they called they so after they got all that information,
they called him the babysitter Killer, which is fucked up
and almost sweet to him because the way he treated it,
because the way he well, because of the way he
left them, which kind of implies the way he treated
(21:07):
them was nice, except for we all know that's not
true and imagine because he kept them for a while,
which is a lot. But the nightmare part alive alive,
So yeah, so that's horrifying.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
So I feel like, but when you're alive, there's some
chance of escape, like there's some hope left.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Yes, well while it's still happening, for sure. Yeah, but
then it's just that thing of like, uh, it's it.
It goes to the total insanity. And I don't know,
I wish I knew the difference. Yes to pravity for sure,
but like when you're really psychotic or whatever, where you're
(21:49):
keeping the thing you're going to murder, like you know,
this is all the plan, and so you're keeping a
child like a pet or whatever, it's just beyond. But
when they started looking at the suspects that were around
Oakland County, one of the people and this is this
is where I went down the hole. One of the
(22:11):
people that was a suspect was like a twenty four
year old rich kid and his name, oh shit, I'm
not going to find it, dang it. Uh okay, Christopher Bush.
So his father was like either the GM or the
vice president of one of the huge motor companies. Wait,
(22:34):
it might have been GM, and his father was the
vice president of GM or one of those ones. Yeah,
hugely rich. He was always in this big mansion by himself.
His parents were always like working around vacation or whatever,
and there was a constant stream of young boys coming
in and out of the house because he was a
child blaster, so he was paying kids to come over
(22:55):
and whatever. And so he got arrested for sexual assault
and child molestation several times, like he was a known pedophile.
How those people stay out because he was rich, so
they always bought him out of jail and cleared him
and whatever and tried to do stuff. And so they
(23:16):
went and found him and started looking through his room
and looking through all his stuff, and they thought that
they found a picture of one of the boys, I
think it was supposed to be Tim, the third one, screaming,
like a drawing of him with his hoodie on, because
I think they said he was found in a hoodie
or something. So it was a picture of him with
(23:36):
the hoodie looking like he was in total terror. But
they don't know for sure that that's who the face was,
but that's what he looked like, and so it was
like it was the circumstantial evidence. They were such a
small thing to go on though. Yeah, and they were
trying to put all that together. But apparently his room
was really messy and filled with all kinds of creepy stuff.
And then one of the things that they connected because
(23:57):
apparently so that kid Christopher Bush of uh, they confiscated
eight rolls of film in his room and it was
all kitty porn. And then they find out and this
is the thing that stuff like this is what makes
me so fascinated. It piques my interest in it. It's
(24:17):
probably the writer in me, where it's like, this is
such a good story, separate from tragedy or whatever. They
figure out that there is an island, so I guess
there's like an island chain up way north in the
Peninsula area of Michigan, and one of them is called
North Fox Island, and it's it was empty, they thought.
(24:39):
And they find out that there is a Christian boys camp.
A there's a camp like Saint Somebody's for wayward boys
on North Fox Island. The only way to get on
or off the island is by plane. There's one air
strip down the center of it, and that when they
go to investigate the island, they find out that they
(25:03):
had set up this fake boys camp to get boys
like poor children who would sign up for a place
like that. So it was like this free thing of
like come and they were all being used in kitty porn.
It was just a kitty porn ring. It was a
kitty porn ring. So when they showed up, that's what
was happening, and it was nightmare. I mean like that's
(25:25):
like a Friday the thirteenth Freddy Krueger nightmare movie right there.
Which part of it to you obsess about the idea
that these boys would be there thinking they get to
go to camp and what that turns into, and then
nightmare that it would be on that island, and also
then when they go back because someone I was talking
to somebody about that and they're like, why wouldn't they
(25:46):
say anything? And I was like, I bet you. These
were the kids. They were probably getting kids out of
juvie or in situations where they don't have their foster kids,
or like the most underrepresented and they're already waywards and
no one believes these little shit exactly right, or they're
paid I bet because it turns out the guy that
owns the island is this multi millionaire that when when
(26:11):
they bust it they find out whatever, they realized that
this camp is. There's no church affiliation, there's no affiliation,
it's just these It's a pedophile ring that had also
been operating in like the really bad part of Detroit
that was well known where like kids on the street,
they would get kids and pay them and get them
into that ring and pay them to have sex with them.
(26:34):
And it was just this whole, huge, ugly thing, full
on exploitation of poor children. So that gets exposed in
the Babysito killer investigation, which is amazing. And then they
just I just read an article that they found a man.
So they had all these people that they suspected, and
(26:56):
they found a man named Ted Lamberghine who they they
got on kitty on those kitty porn charges where he
was definitely involved in that. That there was the ring
that they busted in the bad part of Detroit. He
was somehow definitely linked to it or whatever it was.
(27:18):
And then oh and this was a thing where a prisoner,
a detective from Detroit was out in California, interviewing someone
about something else, and then the prisoner was like, I
know who your babysitter killer is and says it's Ted Lamberghine.
I knew him from this pedophile ring we'd all go
and pay to fuck kids in Detroit essentially, And this
(27:38):
guy told me he basically pointed to a picture and said,
doesn't that look like Tim whoever? The third little boy?
And so that detective went back and went and they
started casing this guy who is now seventy and only
leaves his house to go to church and da da
dah and like living like this silent old man that
no one knows anything about. And then they go into
(28:00):
his house and they find all this evidence and he
will not admit that he was the babysitter killer, but
he first all the evidence points to it. All the
evidence points to that he and they have him on
all the pedophile charges and all the ring charges and
all that. Does he when did this happen? When did
he get best to two thousand and five? Oh? My god?
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (28:21):
So and they uh, oh, oh, Christopher Bush, the rich
kid killed himself in nineteen seventy eight, so they kind
of like assumed it was him because there was all
that weird evidence and stuff. So then the ted Lamborghine
thing they like kind of came out of the blue.
Are we okay with Christopher Bush killing himself because he
(28:42):
was a child moluster or do we not think that
we're allowed to make that judgment call. I mean, we
can kind of do anything we want if that guy,
if these people can pay children to rape them, we
can make judgment calls on these motherfuckers.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
Like I never want to say I'm glad someone's dead,
but it's probably for the best that this person was
harassed so much by the cops that he killed himself.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Well, yes, because and also I bet you he killed
himself for lots of other reasons, like in so far
as that he lived a life where this terrible thing
that he a compulsion he couldn't control, was basically being
okayed by his rich parents who didn't give enough of
a shit about him to take any real action. So
he was trapped in this weird world of money. Yeah,
(29:26):
I mean, I think that's also really fascinating too. Of
like you, that's a person that gets to do whatever
they want because of money, same as those people at
the North Fox Islands. So like what did that guy get?
Those people all disappeared? The guy that owned the island
that escaped to Europe like flew left the island flew
away and they just didn't find him or extra item money.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
I love that there was this island that no one
thought that you just take it over. Who's going to
fucking know right and build an entire camp there a
fake camp.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Yeah, yeah, it's I mean to me, like pedophiles and
kitty porn, that kind of shit is the darkest. I
like serial killers that just kill random people. Obviously not
good yea, but that kind of stuff where you what
is wrong with that person? Where that's they're not just
doing the wrong thing, but they're they're loving doing the
(30:22):
right thing, and specifically to helpless people who can't make
any decisions about what you know, you know control.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
Yeah, you don't think the way you do is an adult.
When you're a kid, you don't understand what's happening to you.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Yeah, it's it's super ugly and it's like that it's exploitation.
It's just the dark. It's the darkest to me, it's
like the closest thing to real monsters. Those people are
real monsters. Definitely. Yeah, kind of a bummer though too.
So they're arresting the seven year old and that's how
it's ending. Well, they they got him on the other charges,
(30:58):
but they can't get him. They don't have enough hard
evidence on those murders, but they're positive they they lined
up because he also the murder stopped when he moved
to Cleveland. And when he moved to Cleveland, he started
going to church every day. And they think that the
priest there knows, like they think he confess to the
priest and the priest isn't saying it. Yeah, there's all
(31:19):
kinds of things like that that are very clear. And
it was like the days he wasn't at work, or
the days the children disappeared, all kinds of stuffose are
always so interesting to me.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
Or like finding out that someone you know had someone
clock in for them even though or they have an
alibi and it turns out it's total bullshit.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
And here's how they know. Yes, that's so fascinating. The
detective work that he takes to, yeah, find that and
also those poor detectives, like the way your life gets
affected by having to go and investigate these people. I mean,
nothing justifies the crazy murdering that's happening on the street
of most black people today in America. I will never
(31:58):
I never ever meet and anything is justified in that way.
What I mean is that that when you, like as
a detective, when you have to visit time and again
people who are depraved. So it's not just crime or
like I'm desperate and on drugs and so I'm doing
this fight with my wife and killed herround. Yeah, it's
the depravity of like a child rapist, murderer.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Coming face to face with the actual evil thing, which
you and I probably never will unless we searched it out.
But these detectives, but these people have to then delve
as deep as they can into it.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
And all the facts right and not kill them so
that they can be brought to justice and have some
jail house justice and just get killed terribly in jail.
But that's the ideal. But them getting.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Even arrested is a small you know, can't be a
huge percentage of them. So even getting someone arrested has
to be hard. So imagine we're hiring after never having
solved this case.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
No, that's terrible, No, and it ruins people's lives to
go investigate this stuff and to discover this like it's
just the seemy underside. Yeah, and I only I surfed
it on Wikipedia and was just like, I'm mesmerized by
how horrifying it is. Are you watching the new season
of Fargo? Oh?
Speaker 3 (33:16):
Yes, this is related. That's not like a like anyways
children are dead. That's not how I meant. But how
this the copin that is went to war and is
now seeing all this insane stuff at home. Yes, And
the the toll it must take on you to have
gone to war and seen ship that you would never
tell anyone about and then come home and do that
too as a cop.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Yes, which how is how it happens a lot of
the time.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
I just started thinking about the fact that this with
the whole France bombing, people talking about going to war again,
where I was like, how many we don't have that
many more men left that that this country hasn't ravaged.
Who do they think they're going to send to war? Right?
Who's gonna who's gonna? Yeah? The people who are going
to Yeah, it's still list have already enlisted, right yeah?
(34:08):
And and yeah, and then how do you I mean
there are plenty of people who come home and make lives.
But they're probably the people that didn't have super terrible
things happened to them. But there's it's still bad. I know,
there's plenty of people or it's just it's still a
horrific experience.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
I love that TV show so much. It's so amazing.
This season is fucking out of contus. It's so cinematic,
it's gorgeous, it's crazy, and I love that Native American.
He's a doll, Carson Dunn. Still, I would just watch
a whole thing of her day. Yeah, she's so funny
in it. Well, and also that it finally came together
(34:47):
of her and all those magazines, which I never paid
attention to before, the stacks of magazines everywhere. I don't
think that she wants to escape, Is that what it's for? Yes? Okay,
Like when she finally sat down with Ted Danson and
they start to at least are spoiler alert sorry, She's.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
Like, here's why I have this obsession is because I'm
not supposed to be here. Yeah yeah, yeah, and then
then that's his childhood home. Yes, but they live in
on How fucking depressing that just lived your whole life
in the same house.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
Yes, and there's some people that are happy with that
and want it, yes. And then if there's some people
who just dream of going to California, I know it's going.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
So much easier then than it is now to like
break away and do that, because in his seventies you
can't get traced. You could go and change her fucking identity.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Yeah, probably, yeah, yeah. I thought there was one part
where she was on the bus and I was like, oh,
she's out of there this she were not going to
see Kristen Dunst anymore. And she said, here's the thing,
Kristin Dunst is one of the most brilliant actresses of
our time, and no one knows.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
I was very surprised to like her this much. And
when I saw her, I was like, Okay, here we go.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
But she's so good. Well, because I saw her and
I thought, oh, this is going to be like a
quote unquote come back thing. But she is. Every person
in that cast is brilliant, and she's equally brilliant. I'm
proud of her. We're definitely ending it on and up now.
(36:12):
I think we all should be. I have Tom Sibley's
death story. Oh yes, that's a great. So yeah, okay,
all right, we're gonna explain. You explain. So I think
we said this in our last episode, but we want
to hear other people's stories of like murders that they
grew up with, or things that happened in their hometown,
or the one like murder story you tell of right
(36:35):
from your hometown, or the thing that you know. And
so this was. We were all at our friend Matt
McCarthy's birthday party, and Georgia was smart enough to ask
our friend Tom Sibley, who's a comic and a lover
of wrestlings, as is Vincent Math from the Faral Audio podcast,
we watch wrestling. Yes, so this is his home town
(36:58):
murder story.
Speaker 5 (37:01):
Oh hey, this is Tom Sibley. My murder story is
where my parents live. I'm not gonna say where they live.
It's an island in New Jersey. And there was a
guy that everyone used for their upholster.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
He made really good.
Speaker 5 (37:16):
Couch cushions, especially for outdoor furniture. Like outdoor cushions. Everyone
has his stuff. And he killed his mother because he
lived with his mother, and he killed her and he
kept her like in the house for months and like
no one knew where his mother was and et cetera,
et cetera. Later on it came out that he had
(37:39):
killed her and was just kind of keeping her body
in the house.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
How did he kill her? I'm not sure.
Speaker 5 (37:48):
I think it may have been strangulation.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
And I love it all.
Speaker 5 (37:55):
It's weird because everyone has the cushions of this guy.
He was the go to guy forks and like, I
was just sitting on those cushions like a week ago,
but it was the cushions of a mother murderer.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
So I kept the cushions. After they found out, they
were like.
Speaker 5 (38:11):
Well, they're good cushions.
Speaker 4 (38:16):
Did you When I listened back to that night earlier, I.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
Realized that when he said like he was there was
this thing, and there was this guy and he murdered
his mother and you could hear me in the background
crack up. I think it's just blee like giddy glee
at the story.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Yes, that's fucking like most people who are not you.
Speaker 3 (38:40):
Would be like, what the fuck did you just laugh
at him killing his mom?
Speaker 2 (38:43):
Because you know what it is. It's like this is
the ship. People walk around all day going like what
did you watch on TV? Last night? And can you
believe this weather. It's still so warm, but at the
end of the day people are murdering people and doing
extreme insane things. Also, when the second he said made
couch cushions, I started laughing because for some reason, and
(39:06):
maybe it's because the Hillside Stranglers, the one of them
was upholstery. I think so. I think that's why where
it came from. I'm not sure, but there upholstery has
something to do with it. But something about that is
so sinister to me. It's like like there's tools that
are very like violent in upholstery. And I thought it
(39:28):
was Yeah, that's that's a really good one.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
I love that everyone has one of these stories and
like no one ever asks them these stories. Yes, we'll
never tell them.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
Right, everyone has one of these stories, and it's just
because it's like the thing that freaked you out. There's
always something freaky and insane. Yeah, yeah, I ended on that.
I think is there anything else? No, I don't know,
you do you want to add anything? I don't know,
(39:58):
just like trying to be nice to people. Yeah, people
don't get murdered like people. You don't really know until
you see in the grocery storeline that suck for them,
and also just for yourself, like be excited that you're
not murdered yet and enjoy yourself. Do what you want,
don't do what like someone's telling you you have to do,
because there's no have to because you never know what
(40:19):
could happen. You never know.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
This is really all I mean when it comes down
to this is a positive podcast. But we're trying to
lift people out and make them their best selves.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
And sometimes lift we lift each other up by pushing
down the murdered. It's as if to say it's a
celebration of life.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
Yeah, well cy them to life's life and death.
Hosts And Creators
Georgia Hardstark
Karen Kilgariff
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!