423 - Crack It!

On today's episode, Karen covers the Carolands Estate Predator and Georgia tells the story of Brian Regan, "The Spy Who Couldn't Spell."

For our sources and show notes, visit www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Are you ready to podcast?

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Baby?

Speaker 3 (00:04):
I was born ready, I was born podcastings.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Loo And welcome to.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
My favorite murder.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
That's Georgia hard Stark.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
That's Karen Kilcara.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
These are the stories.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Have you watched the homicide like Life on the Street
in New York?

Speaker 3 (00:44):
Yeah, the Netflix series that Dick Wolf produced. Yes, I
watched it. I've bench it this weekend.

Speaker 4 (00:50):
It is so good.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
It is so good.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
And my boyfriend is Mike Mooney, that big silver fox
guy with the deep voice that's like, oh, I'm actually
a philosopher and a genius.

Speaker 4 (01:03):
And I'm in a grateful dead.

Speaker 3 (01:07):
The first one I watched was the case of the
woman who worked in the high rise. She's a cleaning
lady in the high rise building and she just disappears
inside the building.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
Yeah, like maddening.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
So maddening. Yeah, yeah, I had never heard of any
of those cases and they were I was riveted. I
wonder if they're just going to start doing that all
over or just in New York.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
I mean, because that was a show that they tried
to release on regular TV.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
Right, Oh, this.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
Is my guest, because I think this is what I saw.
But I could absolutely as we all know, be wrong.
Twenty seventeen, they release it on regular TV and it
just has like a regular run and that doesn't get renewed,
and people are like, how could a dick Wolf show
not get renewed? And then watching it now, it's like, oh,
this was visionary true crime content. This was advanced storytelling, sensitivity,

(02:02):
all the different things, like, yeah, very cool.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
It was definitely like the best regular true crime show
that like the ones we fucking grew up watching, you know,
like we're so good. At a certain time, it was
that we yeah, we bene shit. I hope they do more.

Speaker 3 (02:18):
I do too, because there was I don't know how
to talk about it correctly, but.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
It just was that thing where it's like until.

Speaker 3 (02:25):
The time where we figure out how to fix policing
and how to fix the justice system, and how to
first of all address like just say, in LA alone,
the budgetary issues where schools have zero, mental health services
have zero, and the cops have like fifty billion or something.

(02:46):
That's like, to a degree, that is just wild.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
All of that exists.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
I have very progressive voting beliefs on all of it.
I want it changed, I want it done quickly. Of course,
the same time, Meanwhile, every single day, horrible things happen
in this city. Let's just say by itself, in this city,
horrible things happen and horrible people do horrible things, and
there are people out there trying to figure out who

(03:13):
those horrible people are and put them in jail. Yeah,
it's not as simple as it was when we first
started and joined True Crime. It's never been that simple.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
I won't.

Speaker 3 (03:24):
I'll say it this way. It's never been that simple.
We've always been copaganda in our whole lives.

Speaker 4 (03:29):
Ooh, I've never heard copaganda.

Speaker 3 (03:31):
Oh yeah, for me, copaganda, which is just what law
and order is, what any of those things are to say, Hey,
the justice system works, great, it happens, they they track
this stuff down and it happens in three weeks, so
you get an.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
Answer, blah blah blah whatever.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
But as I watched this series, it was just like
all of that aside. These people hear about this lady
missing in this building and they bust their ass until
they get an answer. And that's just how it happened.
Separate from everything else.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
It's like spotlight in the people who care, and that
does give you hope for sure. That fucking poor da
dude who was like, yeah, I quit after that fucking
case because I realized it wasn't for me.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
You know, most people cannot do it.

Speaker 3 (04:18):
The average person cannot work in any kind of like
you could consider it maybe like social services, in a
way where you are there.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
To service the public. It is terrible.

Speaker 3 (04:32):
You see terrible things, Terrible things happen in front of
your eyes, and you just have to keep helping somehow.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
Yeah, I'm speaking of I'm listening to a book about
a like serial killer case I had never heard about.
What are those called. It's not a documentary true crime? Yeah,
but nonfiction nonfiction.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
What if you suddenly forgot what true crime was?

Speaker 2 (04:55):
I met nonfiction, but yes, true crime as well. About
a serial killer in New Bedford in like the late eighties,
New Bedford, Massachusetts, which I fucking knew nothing about, and
now I want to go to. But there's a serial
killer who's killing sex workers there. All these bodies, like
nine bodies were found and eleven were counted as possible victims.

(05:16):
I'm still listening, so I don't fucking know what happens,
but it's good. It's called Shallow Graves by Maureen Boyle.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
That sounds good. Sweet, that's an audiobook you're listening to.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
Yeah, yeah, New Bedford, who knew?

Speaker 3 (05:29):
I am still watching, totally dedicated to Blown Away By,
and yet feel so stupid watching Showgun. I cannot read
those close captionings as fast as they go.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
Oh yeah, I can't keep up.

Speaker 3 (05:46):
And I also can't stare straight ahead long enough to
read them.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
I think, like you want to be on your phone
kind of a thing.

Speaker 3 (05:55):
Slowly sneaking my phone into my line of sight as
I'm trying to read.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
Just snuck into the zoom as we were sitting here, as.

Speaker 3 (06:02):
An example of very very casually sneaking a look at
my phone while I'm trying to read about this ancient
Japanese warlords. It's so good though, I mean, it's just
so well done. Okay, it's becoming the War of the Women,
which is like very unexpected spoiler alert?

Speaker 4 (06:22):
Did you see this.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
Movie from last year that I watched over the weekend
that I can't stop thinking about it? Stars of course
everyone's favorite hot priest Andrew Scott. Yeah, and Paul Mescal
called all of us strangers and it is.

Speaker 4 (06:40):
Did you watch it?

Speaker 1 (06:41):
No?

Speaker 3 (06:42):
I've heard about it, and I watched the two of
them do a lot of press junkets, but I didn't
watch it.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
Okay, it is heartbreaking. Watch it to the end. Basically,
this man gets to go back and visit his parents
who died when he was twelve, and they just like
everything's the same. They interact like everything is normal. They
did die when he was twelve when they were meeting
their adult son, and he gets to like tell them

(07:08):
all these things about I mean, it's just like he
gets to have like a reckoning and meanwhile he's falling
in love. There's this beautiful love story. It's like heart wrenching.

Speaker 3 (07:17):
Sorry, is it slightly like fantastical? Like his dead parents
can't come back somehow?

Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (07:23):
Oh yes, those ones get me. I can't that one
that gets me.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
This will get you so fricking hard. The last ten
minutes broke my heart. Oh you have to watch it.
It's beautiful. It's so beautifully time.

Speaker 3 (07:37):
It's weird because I thought you were going to say
Andrew Scott because of Ripley, which is another new Netflix series,
and it is basically a retelling of the Fabulous the
Talented Mister Ripley.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
Oh he's gonna say the fabulous, some would call him,
some probably have called.

Speaker 3 (07:56):
Him, some may have referred to him as But this
one's just and it's black and white. And when I
started it, I didn't know anything about it. I started
it and I was like, I don't know what's going on.
And then I, you know, left the house or whatever.
And then Rider's like, have you been watching Ripley? And
I'm like no, and he's like, oh, you have to.
I was like, okay, is it not boring?

Speaker 1 (08:15):
And he was like, don't do that.

Speaker 4 (08:18):
That's what I thought to.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
You know, it's so funny because Vince was gone for
WrestleMania over the weekend, so I put on whatever. I
put that on, and I knew in five minutes that
if I was watching with Vince, we would have turned
it off because we give things five minutes. Yes, but
it's a slow build, but it's an incredible story, like
kind of supernatural. So that hooked me.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
And then towards the end, I was like, Okay, I
get it. And then the end last ten minutes our wild,
so like I would not have finished it. So I'm
like everyone not because I didn't like it, because I'm
fucking impatient.

Speaker 3 (08:51):
Yes, because we all we've all had our dopamine, you.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
Know, rewired, reset, just.

Speaker 3 (08:58):
Ruined to a degree where we can't really do anything,
but nothing brings joy. I'm going to do a parallel
This is a fun way to do a recommendation. If
you like a story where somebody who's dead comes back
to talk to the people that miss them, then there
is a movie.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
Of course, I'm blanking on the name right now.

Speaker 3 (09:18):
I was about to go my favorite movie of all times,
and I'm sure I've actually said this.

Speaker 4 (09:22):
To the future. Listen, let me tell you how it goes.

Speaker 1 (09:28):
Michael J.

Speaker 3 (09:28):
Fox is dead the entire time, he's a ghost, shows
Bruce Willis.

Speaker 1 (09:34):
No, it's a movie called Truly Deeply.

Speaker 3 (09:37):
Yes, God damn it, it's a movie called Truly Madly Deeply,
And I believe it is Alejandro.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
Are you still on that page?

Speaker 3 (09:45):
I think there's a famous director and it's one of
his first movies.

Speaker 1 (09:48):
Directed by Anthony Menguella.

Speaker 3 (09:51):
Anthony Minguela, who did The English Patient.

Speaker 2 (09:53):
Oh ripley. Oh, it's all coming together full circle.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
So yeah, that movie.

Speaker 3 (10:04):
If you have an alone Saturday where no one's going
to be around for a while, and you like that feeling.

Speaker 1 (10:09):
Of like trick Sob.

Speaker 3 (10:11):
We're like, oh, this is kind of a nice little movie,
and all of a sudden you're crying your heart out.
That's true, truly, madly, deeply. It is so cathartic and amazing.

Speaker 4 (10:18):
Trick sob is the new genre.

Speaker 2 (10:20):
I love that trick.

Speaker 3 (10:22):
Sob right, because you're like, I'm not here for that,
what's going on? And then suddenly you're like, oh no,
I'm processing eight years of Greek perfect trick saw.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
I love it.

Speaker 4 (10:32):
Could I tell you really quickly? It was something I did.

Speaker 2 (10:34):
It just reminded me because my dad just text me.
I was texting with my I just need to say
this because it's so embarrassing. I was texting with my
sister about cats, because that's all we text about. That's
our relationship. And so I sent her this photo of
mo like sprawled out on this like fake sheepskin rug.
And I sent her that picture and it reminded me
of the picture that like vintage Playgirl picture of Burn

(11:00):
Reynolds naked, all hairy, spread out on a bear skin rug.
So I found the picture, hit send, then realize I
had sent that picture with no caption or anything to
my dad. Oh, and then I like deleted it from

(11:21):
because I guess if you catch it soon enough, you.

Speaker 4 (11:22):
Can delete a text.

Speaker 2 (11:23):
You know.

Speaker 1 (11:24):
That's good to know.

Speaker 4 (11:25):
Yeah, it's like to be really quick. And so I
was like, oh, thank god.

Speaker 2 (11:28):
Then the next day and my dad never takes time
texting back to me, like he you know, he's my dad.

Speaker 4 (11:32):
He responds immediately.

Speaker 3 (11:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (11:34):
The next day he.

Speaker 2 (11:35):
Wrote something like oh I remember, like he didn't know
how to respond to it for twenty four hours, had
to figure out a way to respond to his daughter
sending him a fucking naked sexy photo of Burt Reynolds.

Speaker 4 (11:47):
And then because I didn't delete it fast enough.

Speaker 1 (11:49):
Oh shit, I'm so sorry. That's hard. That's a tough
one of all, hardist for Marty because he's.

Speaker 3 (11:57):
Just like, uh oh no, I did a similar thing.
I don't know why. Well, my dad and I over
Christmas were just like churning through shows and so we're
trying to think of something to watch and I was like,
wait a second, and I remember seeing the trailer for
the most recent Jackass movie where they have a girl

(12:17):
pitching softballs into their nuts. Essentially that so making people
stand and basically just get softballs pitch at them. But
this girl, she pitches like one hundred miles an hour,
like it's crazy, So she alone is really good. And
then they it's like a prank on them, which is
very fun. Right, But we start at the beginning of
the movie, so within ten minutes, all of a sudden

(12:41):
we're seeing full on buttholes like because they're trying to
do some trick where if this happens, that happen, And
my dad goes, hey, Jesus, can we turn this off
one I'm like, I cannot believe I made my dad
sit through this.

Speaker 2 (12:56):
It's jackass. What do you think it was gonna be
like handhole?

Speaker 3 (13:01):
No, but I thought it would be like funny, like
they started with was a little lighter, and it was
like funny and whatever.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
Yeah, they'll do like paper cuts on your mouth or
something stupid like.

Speaker 3 (13:11):
Yeah, or just like just people getting like t shirt
gun to the back of the head as they walk
out of the bathroom, and you're like, ye, right, right,
right right, Dutch, gotcha. It's just getting us through the
next three hours. Then we can talk about it later. Yeah,
he thinks things like that are funny, But I did
not realize they were like that gross.

Speaker 2 (13:30):
I didn't know I was gonna say immediate balls, Like
that's what I thought you were going to say, just
immedia balls.

Speaker 3 (13:37):
Basically, but worst kind of it was like normally when
my dad, when sexual stuff comes up in TV shows
or movies, my dad he acts like he's mad and
he like storms out, or like, okay, I guess you're uncomfortable.
But this one he was more like, why are you
doing this to me?

Speaker 4 (13:55):
Like like I saw this great movie. Let me show
this to your dad.

Speaker 3 (13:57):
Dad, this is one of my favorite films of all time,
and I want you to share it. The art.

Speaker 2 (14:04):
Jesus, poor Jim, Poor home Jim.

Speaker 3 (14:07):
But I swear to god, I remember seeing that Burt
Reynolds layout. Oh wait, was it in Playgirl or was
it it was in like Cosmopolitan or something. Okay, I
think he was partially covered up, but like mostly nude.

Speaker 2 (14:21):
You can't see is long, but it's definitely like suggestive.

Speaker 1 (14:24):
He's on like a bear skin rug I think, yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:26):
Yeah, and he's just so hairy and it's just so seventies.
It's very funny.

Speaker 3 (14:32):
He might as well like I remember it, But this
probably isn't factually true that he has a toothpick in
his mouth.

Speaker 4 (14:38):
Oh, I could see that. I could see that.

Speaker 3 (14:40):
But maybe that's just smoking the bandit and I'm combining
the too.

Speaker 2 (14:44):
Well, don't send that to your parents. Everyone, don't be
like me. Hey, we have a podcast network. You want
to hear some highlights about it?

Speaker 1 (14:52):
We'd love to tell you about it.

Speaker 3 (14:54):
Our newest true crime limited series, A Butterfly King, is
a bona fide hit. Thank you so much for listening,
and just know the fifth episode is out now. It's
an amazing journey. Please go take it. We really think
you're gonna love it.

Speaker 2 (15:09):
And this week's guest on Adulting with Michelle Buteau and
Jordan Carlos is black Thought, the co founder and lead
MC of the legendary Roots Crew.

Speaker 3 (15:17):
Over on Buried Bones, Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes
embark on the first episode in a two parter based
in eighteen seventies Connecticut where a bride to be goes
missing before her big day.

Speaker 2 (15:29):
And hey, guess what if you haven't heard, we're on
TikTok Did you guys know about TikTok Talk? Last week
we launched our first new series. It's called Sinkhole Saturdays,
where Karen reviews popular sinkholes. I love it, so please
be sure to follow my Favorite Murder on TikTok so
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Speaker 3 (15:47):
And if you have a sinkhole in your area you'd
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to I guess my favorite Murder at gmail dot com or.

Speaker 4 (15:56):
Tag us on TikTok.

Speaker 2 (15:58):
I don't know how that works.

Speaker 3 (15:59):
Yes, social media would probably be the fastest way, or
snail mail. And lastly, the here's the thing, Fuck Everything
mug with Vanishing Inc. Is back in the MFM store.
Do you work at a church, here's your chance to
be dirty. Head to My Favorite Murder dot com and
shop today.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
Ea ooh.

Speaker 4 (16:20):
Uh you're first.

Speaker 1 (16:21):
Okay, great, Okay.

Speaker 3 (16:23):
So about a year ago I got a tweet from Tessa,
whose handle is Tesca on Twitter. I'm just calling it Twitter,
recommending this story and it was one that is from
the Bay Area that I had never heard of before,
and it truly is It's like a horror movie. And

(16:44):
it happened in this very wealthy area in the eighties
to two girls who were exactly my age at the time,
so it's very close to home. And also it's the
kind of thing where you go, how did I never
hear of this when it was literally an hour away

(17:06):
from where I grew up?

Speaker 2 (17:07):
Wow, it's chilling.

Speaker 1 (17:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (17:09):
So the main sources I'm going to use in this
story today are an article from sf Gate. So sf
Gate is like still like a weekly independent newspaper in
the Bay Area that we use all the time because
they write really good true crime articles and they do
kind of like true crime from the past in the
Bay Area. They cover a lot of really good stories,

(17:31):
and there's a writer named Katie Dowd who writes a
lot of the articles. So I've quoted Katie Dowd on
this podcast multiple times. So shout out to our partner
in true crime, Katie Dowd, for writing for SFGate. She
wrote an article called Murder and Intrigue at California's last
great Gilded Age Mansion. And I think that right there

(17:52):
tells you everything that you need to know. The rest
of the sources are in our show notes. Today, I'm
telling you the story of the Carolands State Predator. First,
we'll talk about the location. So the Carolines Estate was
built in nineteen fourteen in Hillsborough, California, which is about

(18:13):
twenty miles south of the city San Francisco. And it
was the brainchild of this woman, Harriet Pullman, was the
heir to the Pullman train car fortune. So you can
imagine how much money she had because her dad invented
train cars. Essentially, she's Pullman train cars. And she had

(18:34):
married an equally wealthy man named Frank Caroline, and they
owned several properties around San Mateo County, and they lived
in a city called Berlin Game. But then Berlin Game
gets too crowded. There's too many quote regular people encroaching
on their property and they're starting to like literally Frank

(18:55):
Caroline is complaining to the city that he can hear
other people at his house and that makes him mad.
And the last straws when the Berlin Game city government
asks Frank to build a sidewalk around his polo field.
Then he's like, we're getting out of here. This is
too much, this is insanity. They want me to pour

(19:16):
cement around my polo field. So they start buying property
up in the mountains in Hillsborough. This truly is and
I think it still is today. It's like basically between
Stanford University and San Francisco. This is like that area
kind of along the coast, very elite, incredibly wealthy down there.

(19:39):
So Harriet and Frank by five hundred and fifty four
acres of land up on the highest perch of the
hills in Hillsborough. And the amount of land that they
owned and that this estate was on was one sixth
of the size of the entire city of Hillsboro.

Speaker 2 (19:57):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (19:57):
So big time. They were big time in it.

Speaker 3 (20:00):
And basically Harriet had a vision that she was going
to put a Louis the fourteenth inspired French chateau up
there on this property and it was going to be
the quote, the wonder and admiration of America.

Speaker 1 (20:16):
So she was a rich lady with a dream.

Speaker 3 (20:20):
They build it. The estate has ninety eight rooms, holy shit. Yeah,
nine full on suite bedrooms, three eighteenth century French salons.
Literally the walls, floors and ceilings of three rooms imported
from France.

Speaker 2 (20:37):
Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (20:38):
Uh huh.

Speaker 3 (20:39):
And also during World War One, she wanted this stuff
shipped in and she somehow went over and got it there.

Speaker 2 (20:46):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (20:47):
They have a thirty thousand volume library. Christine manicured gardens
and grounds, an unobscured hilltop view that stretches from Hillsboro
all the way to San Francisco on a clear day.

Speaker 1 (21:01):
How many clear days are there a year in this area,
about eleven.

Speaker 3 (21:06):
But when they're there, you can really see, you can
see up to the city. The construction of this mansion
around the time costs a million dollars, which is roughly
how much money in today's money.

Speaker 2 (21:18):
A million in nineteen fourteen.

Speaker 3 (21:21):
Ish, Yes, exactly, almost somewhere around nineteen twenty. Jesus, that's
got to be thirty six million today it's twenty eight.
But you're kind of close, okay, a little bit close.
So Harriet clearly has a taste for the finer, finer
things in life. She's probably never never seen like a

(21:42):
Hamburger in her life. Yeah, so she needs all the
best around her. And of course the Carolanda States really
demonstrates this. I was looking at pictures and you could
film any Jane Austen Priden Prejudice type of remake in
this house. It is like they have the checkerboard floors,
you know, the black and white tiled floors, crazy huge

(22:05):
ceilings with big glass like skylighty things, and the grounds
that are like perfectly manicured.

Speaker 2 (22:11):
It's really unbelievable, and it sounds grand.

Speaker 1 (22:15):
It's quite grand.

Speaker 3 (22:17):
So Frank and Harriet move in to Carolanda States in
nineteen sixteen. But by the time they actually move in,
so they start this plan, work on it for it's
I think two years or four years. By the time
they move in, their relationship is in shambles. They don't
ever really spend time together at Caroline. They end up

(22:38):
just living at their own separate houses because they each
have their own other houses. Then, in nineteen twenty three,
Frank dies of a heart attack. Harriet remarries in nineteen
twenty five, she spends the summer at Caroline's with her
new husband, but then decides it doesn't feel like home,
so she decides to sell it. Now, the problem with

(22:59):
this which mc hammer ran into this exact same problem
when he built a similar mansion, is when you build
big and crazy like that, it is very hard to sell.
There's not a big pool of people that are like
I also want to spend my money on this exact
type of stuff. Right, So several members of the elite

(23:19):
consider buying Carolind's estate. The Duke of Windsor and Duchess
Wallace Simpson were in the market for a while. American
socialite and heiress Barbara Hutton and the Danish count that
she was married to at the time Congress even actually
thought of buying it in nineteen thirty nine to use
it as the summer house for the White House Wow,

(23:40):
which is kind of crazy. Yeah, but none of those
plans go through. The land is eventually subdivided and it
leads to more homes in the area. They're kind of
mansiony houses, but they're of course nothing like the estate.
While the Carolands falls into disrepair in nineteen fifty, a
real estate company has plans to buy the estates so

(24:01):
they can level it and build basically a little suburban
community up in those hills. But before they can do that,
another wealthy heiress named Countess Lillian Remiard Dandini who she
was the heir. Her family was in construction and they
were the construction company that rebuilt San Francisco after the

(24:23):
nineteen o six Kowa, so she had a couple Nichols
to rub together herself.

Speaker 1 (24:29):
She sweeps in.

Speaker 3 (24:30):
She buys Carolanda States, and for the next twenty three
years she uses it as an events base for the community.
She hosts parties, charity galas, even events for local students.
And then when Countess Lilian Remiard Dandini dies in nineteen
seventy three, she leaves Carolands to the City of Hillsborough
so that they will convert it either into a museum

(24:53):
or public library something like that. But the problem is
the upkeep is far too expensive for the city to
hamm it's a gigantic crazy person's estate, so the city
transfers the ownership to the State of California, but the
state of California also neglects it. They also consider leveling
it because it is too expensive, like the upkeep is

(25:15):
too expensive. But when they announced that they might knock
it down, architectural enthusiasts apply for the Carolands to receive
historical landmark status and they actually win that status in
nineteen seventy five, so they can't knock it down, but
the government is not willing to spend the money to
restore it to its original grandeur, so for the next

(25:38):
ten years it just sits there and it is not
being tended to or kept but watched over by security
guards and that's it. So basically they have people there
to make sure no one squats, no one, God forbid
people live in this gigantic fucking house.

Speaker 1 (25:58):
So it's of course legal.

Speaker 3 (26:00):
Off limits, and there's people being paid to be posted
up there to keep people out of it. But as
you would imagine, it becomes an open secret among the
teenagers of San Mateo can that some of the security
guards will actually give you a tour of this place secretly,
Oh my god, and that rumor goes around. There's rumors

(26:21):
going around that it's happened that you can go up
there whatever. And this rumor hits the ears of sixteen
year old Jeanine Grinsell and seventeen year old Laurie McKenna.
They're junior and seniors at San Mateo High School. Janine
recently got her driver's license, and for her birthday the
month before, which was January ninth, nineteen eighty five, her

(26:43):
parents gave her a car and that's what she's driving
on the morning of Saturday, February fifth, nineteen eighty five,
when she goes and picks up her friend Laurie because
they have decided they want to try and go get
a tour of Carol Lands. So together they drive up
the hill to the gates of the estate and they
approached the security guard on duty that day. A twenty

(27:04):
three year old named David Allen Railey really had just
been interviewed by a local journalism student about giving unofficial
tours at Carolands, and in that article he claimed, quote,
you wouldn't believe the things girls offer me in exchange
for a tour, food, money, sex, anything to get inside. Woh,

(27:25):
So these are the kind of things that we talk
about in twenty twenty four. And it seems so egregious
and insane that he would be saying that and basically
like bragging about it.

Speaker 1 (27:35):
And then we know that we're.

Speaker 3 (27:36):
At the beginning of a true crime story right now.
So this is all bad omens, But it is so
wild that we have just come out of an era
where like that kind of thing. This is a grown
man with a job of saying teenage girls have to
give him something to get onto this property. It's like
and he's just like proudly telling, of course other dudes

(27:59):
about it. It's also rumored that David Rayley has cornered
teen girls during his tours in the past, pressuring them
for sexual favors. He allegedly once asked a girl to
go into the safe vault that was in the basement
and scream as loud as she could so she could
see that sound would not penetrate the walls of the house.

(28:22):
So it's not just like funny haha or cute or flirting.
It's all threatening, it's all creepy. It's all like tit
for tat and weird. And I think that was also
part of like when you were a teenager back in
the time, it's like, well, let's just go see it
was like dangerous, and yet other people did it. I
guess we'll try to do it too. So Janine and

(28:44):
Laurie drive up. They ask Rayley if he will take
them on a tour. He agrees, but he tells them
that they need to park their car further down the
road so no one will know that they're there. They
follow his instructions and then he takes them onto the grounds.
He gives them a tour, and then the tour ends
around noon and then really pauses cautiously, and then he

(29:07):
tells the girls he can hear dogs barking and he
thinks the police are coming, so he rushes them down
into the basement into that vault, and so they go
into the vault. He tells them they have to hide
in there, and he's gonna basically shut the door and
then when the police go away, then they can come
back out. But the girls are so scared and creeped

(29:29):
out by the vault they're begging him not to shut
the door. He says he won't, but the second they
step inside, he shuts it.

Speaker 2 (29:36):
Oh my God.

Speaker 3 (29:38):
So they're in the vault alone in the dark for
like five minutes, and then they can hear him, like
in a sing song voice, calling out Lorie's name, and
so the girls demand he let them out, but he
says they're only going to get out of there if
they take off their clothes. They refuse. Then he opens

(29:59):
the vault or and shows them that he is wheelding
a knife, and so the girls strip down to their underwear.
He lets them out of the vault. He handcuffs both
of them. He ties Laurie to a bench, and at
knife point, he forces Janine into the next room and
sexually assaults her, and Laurie is forced to sit there
and listen to her friend's scream.

Speaker 1 (30:20):
God helplessly.

Speaker 3 (30:22):
Then really tells the girls if they stay quiet, he'll
let them go, and then he takes Laurie at knife
point into the other room and assaults her. He is
much bigger than both of these girls. Obviously he has
a knife. They still try to fight him off. As
they try to fight him off, he starts stabbing them.

Speaker 1 (30:41):
They're both stabbed dozens of times.

Speaker 2 (30:44):
God.

Speaker 3 (30:45):
Then Raley beats Laurie over the head with a clawhammer,
and she will later say that she just thought she
was going to die. She says, quote I kind of
waited for the lights to go out end quote, but
they don't go out. Ley then ties Janina up with
a rope. He wraps Laurie up in a carpet, and
then he puts both girls in the trunk of his

(31:07):
nineteen seventy three Plymouth and then he goes back to work.

Speaker 2 (31:11):
What the fuck?

Speaker 3 (31:13):
Yeah, So they are in there in his trunk, stifling
for you know, it seems like about three hours. At
one point, a police officer stops by to talk to Railey,
because Raley was known kind of around town as like
a cop worshiper, you know, like, so he wanted that,

(31:36):
you know, he was like one of those security guard
guys that actually wanted to be a cop and was
always trying to impress them. When Rayley's unsuspecting boss comes
by to relieve him at five point fifteen, Reley gets
into his car and makes an hour long drive home
where he lives with his sister and his dad in
South San Jose, and Jeanine and Laurie are still in

(31:56):
his trunk and they're still alive.

Speaker 2 (31:58):
Oly shit.

Speaker 3 (32:00):
When really gets home, he parks his car into the garage.
He goes into the house and he watches TV. He
eats dinner, He even plays monopoly with his sister, Like
he just chills out with his family.

Speaker 2 (32:12):
What a psychopath.

Speaker 3 (32:13):
And in between doing that, he come out to the
garage and check on the girls in the trunk. At
one point he actually lets them get out and like
stretch their legs and he brings them a blanket. But
then he hears a noise and like freaks out and
makes them get back in. So it sounds like he's
obviously like he's either really mentally not okay, which is

(32:37):
I think is very safe to assume. But also he
doesn't have a plan, which seems kind of dangerous for
this person, and he tells them stay quiet or my
friend Bob will kill you, like there's somebody in the
garage like watching over them.

Speaker 1 (32:54):
Of course there's nobody.

Speaker 3 (32:55):
So around midnight, while his family is sleeping, really sneak
out to his car and drives about ten miles south
to a remote stretch of South San Jose's Silver Creek Road,
and there he takes the girls out of the trunk
and then he beats them again. So he gives them
like a final beating, and then he throws both of

(33:16):
them down a steep ravine.

Speaker 1 (33:18):
Holy shit, Yeah, it's poor girls.

Speaker 3 (33:21):
Jeanine and Lorie land in a shallow creek at the
bottom of this ravine, and locals would sometimes dump garbage
down there, like that's how he knew that that spot
was there. It's dark, it's near freezing, it's starting to rain.
Jeanine and Laurie are so afraid that Raley is waiting
for them at the top of the ravine that they

(33:42):
don't move.

Speaker 1 (33:42):
They just stay exactly where they.

Speaker 3 (33:44):
Are until the sun comes up the next morning, and
then the girls start to muster the courage to try
to go find help because they know he's not there anymore,
but Janine's injuries are much too severe for her to
climb the ravine. Laurie isn't in good shape, her hands
have horrible lacerations all over them, but she realizes her

(34:05):
climbing up that ravine is their only chance. So what
she does is she commando crawls up the ravine using
her elbows.

Speaker 2 (34:14):
This is Mary Vincent stuff.

Speaker 3 (34:15):
Oh my god, this is Mary Vincent's story. Which is
the Mary Vincent story is so upsetting and disturbing and
should have never happened. There's no world we should be
fucking living in where you and I are going. This
is Mary Vincent's story about yet another teenage girl, yeah,

(34:35):
or two teenage girls. Like, it's so disgusting, it's so insane.
You want to know why women talk about true crime
and are interested in true crime, because what the fuck
is this? That's why? How is this happening? How are
we Mary vincenting again?

Speaker 2 (34:51):
How can that fucking security guard joke about teenage girls
giving him sexual favors to get a tour as if
it's not a big deal and it's fine, Like that's
you know, that's the problem.

Speaker 3 (35:05):
It took all of us a really long time to
put it together where it's like those jokes up Peeping Tom,
like all of the red flags that actually amount to
women being murdered really matter and need to be paid
attention to and need to be discussed so everyone knows
what they are.

Speaker 2 (35:22):
Totally.

Speaker 3 (35:22):
If you go to a place where a guy thinks
it's really hilarious to threaten your life, don't go anywhere
with that guy ever.

Speaker 1 (35:29):
Again.

Speaker 3 (35:29):
Tell other people about it, like it was that kind
of thing where in the eighties, like that idea of like,
oh well, if you said anything about that guy, god,
don't be such a bit about it. Yeah, oh okay,
but he could be practicing. You never know, he could
be the funniest security guard you ever met, or he
could be practicing.

Speaker 2 (35:49):
Totally.

Speaker 1 (35:50):
I'm sorry, I'm lecturing you so much this episode.

Speaker 2 (35:53):
Georgia, Oh is interested to me?

Speaker 1 (35:55):
Yeah, this is all on you. This is all your responsibility. Okay.

Speaker 3 (36:00):
So Laurie McKenna crawls up a ravine with her hands
lacerated so badly that later she will have to be
in surgery for hours with the amount of cuts defense
of wounds that she has on her hands. But she
gets to the top she waves down a car and
they drive away. It's literally exactly Mary Vincent's story. And

(36:23):
then a second car comes up and drives away, and
finally two guys in a pickup truck pull over. They
call the police. They basically get it taken care of.
They try to comfort her and she freaks out where
it's like, hey, don't, no, no, don't try to comfort anybody, Like,
let's just let get her to the hospital. So Laurie

(36:44):
spends the next three days at Santa Teresa Hospital undergoing
surgeries on her hands and wrists. Jeanine Grinzel makes it
into surgery, but she ends up dying on the operating table.
Jeanine Grinzel suffered a total of forty one stab wounds,
a skull fracture, blood loss, shock, and hypothermia. She was

(37:05):
sixteen years old when she died.

Speaker 2 (37:07):
My god, the poor baby Angel.

Speaker 3 (37:09):
And Laurie got stabbed alike. I think Laurie's stab wounds
were in the thirties. She's but still an insane amount
like this man ravaged these two girls. The only real
positive in this story is that Jane and Laurie were
both able to identify their attacker as they were arriving
at the hospital, so the police were given David Rayley's

(37:32):
name and he was arrested within hours of the girls
being brought in. On February sixth, David Rayley is arraigned
on first degree murder, attempted murder, two counts of sexual
assault with intent to rape, and two counts of kidnapping,
and because of the gruesome torture involved with the attack,
the death penalty is on the table, so his trial

(37:54):
begins in March of nineteen eighty seven. Of course, he
tries to defend himself by saying he wasn't the only
security guard who gave tours, that Janine wouldn't have died
if she had gotten medical attention sooner. Like weird, horrible,
disrespectful things to be saying just to try to throw
up the smoke screen.

Speaker 2 (38:14):
I hate that. I hate that.

Speaker 3 (38:15):
It's horrible. And then the families who absolutely have to
be there, they're like standing on witness for their dead
daughter or their attacked daughter, and they have to sit
through that.

Speaker 2 (38:27):
Yeah, it's that's disgusting. Like just fucking plead guilty, dude,
and like let them go on with their lives.

Speaker 3 (38:34):
But I mean, the idea of like she wouldn't have
died if she'd gotten to the hospital sooner. Right, it's
all you, dude, it's all it's all on you. Yeah,
there's no you can't parse it that way after the fact,
so the argument doesn't work. On April twenty second, nineteen
eighty seven, the jury convicts David Allen Rayley of first

(38:55):
degree murder, attempted murder, and kidnapping with special circumstances. Upper
trial is held on May fifth to determine whether or
not really will receive the death penalty. The jury's deadlocked,
a judge declare is a mistrial on May fifteenth. He's
retried the following year. He is given the death penalty
on May seventeenth, nineteen eighty eight. Years later, he will

(39:16):
attempt to appeal this decision, but it is denied and
David Rayley remains on death row in San Quentin to
this day.

Speaker 1 (39:24):
What Yeah.

Speaker 3 (39:26):
In the wake of the attack, Laurie McKenna is overcome
with grief. She feels like she'll never be happy again.
I mean, she's a teenager. She was the senior in
high school when this happened.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
Oh my god.

Speaker 3 (39:39):
So, of course she spends some time just basically staying
in her house. Then she wants to get away because
she wants to get away from the you know, the
area where she's in that reminds her of it so much.
So she has some friends that go to, you see,
Santa Barbara, So she moves down to Santa Barbara to
go to Santa barb or City College to basically kind

(40:02):
of start over and start over fresh. And it actually
works for a little while.

Speaker 1 (40:07):
I mean, Santa.

Speaker 3 (40:08):
Barbara would a gorgeous place to be able to go
to and like the perfect vibe. But it turns out
that Laurie had to have gall bladder surgery related to
problems from some of her injuries, so she ended up
having to move home because she basically had continuing medical
issues from the attack. Eventually, grief does loosen its grip

(40:31):
on Laurie. She starts living a more normal life, but
she does start to get crippling anxiety attacks. Of course,
she knows she can't just will the trauma away, so
she starts seeing a therapist and over time she gains
the tools she needs to move beyond the horrible thing
that she lived through and basically start trying to live

(40:52):
the life that she deserves. She ends up marrying a
retired baseball pitcher from the San Francisco Giants, up moving
to Bogart, Georgia. They remodel a big, beautiful home and
they raise two daughters together. And the principal owners of
the Giants, Anne and Charles B. Johnson, a couple billionaires.

(41:13):
They go and they buy the Caroland's estates and they
spend millions of dollars restoring it. They actually live there
for ten years and then they turn it over to
the Carolance Foundation. Today, free tours are offered. There's a
lottery system, so you have to sign up for the lottery,
and then if you get in, you can.

Speaker 1 (41:32):
Get a tour of this estate.

Speaker 3 (41:34):
And it has been renovated back to its original pristine condition.
It's really incredible looking. It would be a very cool
tour to take. So there was I found this quote
from this La Times article from May of nineteen eighty eight,
which was two years after the attacks, and they were
interviewing Lourie McKenna, and it says, out of the whole ordeal,

(41:59):
the death of her friend will probably have the most
lasting effect. Janine Grinzell's birthday, January ninth will always be
the toughest day of the year for her. McKenna believes
I will always be sad on that day, she said,
I remember her last birthday. She had just gotten her
car and she was so happy. McKenna still finds it
hard to believe that she survived and Jeanine Grinzell didn't.

(42:21):
Jeanine Grinzell was a fighter, she said. And then a
little later on, Laurie goes on to say, it's not
that I'm a basket case, but they just don't know
how to deal with it. Oh, she was talking about
whether or not she was going to have a boyfriend,
which is such a creepy kind of question that maybe
a reporter asked her two years after this attack that

(42:41):
I edited it out, but then you kind of have
to know that so creepy. But she basically is saying,
I'm not a basket case. They just don't know how
to deal with it. People don't want to deal with
yucky things. But what happened to me is a part
of me. It's not something I can change. There's nothing
I want to hide.

Speaker 1 (42:58):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (42:59):
And that is the story the Carolan's Estate attacks and
the murder of Janine Grinzel.

Speaker 2 (43:04):
Holy shit, that is heartbreaking and infuriating.

Speaker 4 (43:09):
And they had a warning about him the public.

Speaker 3 (43:13):
But it's a journalism students, so we don't know if
that article like went out and everyone read it and
said that was fine, and that was a time where
that wouldn't happened anyway, because there were so many of
those things that just weren't in anybody's awareness of like, oh,
this is this is very very red flag behavior.

Speaker 2 (43:34):
Yeah, wow, that is awful and great job telling it.

Speaker 1 (43:41):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (43:44):
All right, Well, let's take a fucking sharp left then
get out of this.

Speaker 3 (43:49):
Let's take a fucking twenty minute break and just have
some silence.

Speaker 2 (43:54):
Let's have some snacks and some silence, some deep breaths.
I gonna tell you about a spy. Okay, a guy
who tried to become a spy. His attempt was at
the turn of the twenty first century, so early two thousands.
That showed America just how dangerous computers and the Internet
can be without proper protections. This is the story of

(44:17):
Brian Reagan, the spy who couldn't spell.

Speaker 3 (44:20):
Do you know the comic Brian Reagan? Oh yeah, yeah,
truly one of the funniest human beings on the planet,
Like so one of the best stand up comics of
all time.

Speaker 1 (44:29):
He's the one that.

Speaker 3 (44:30):
Goes, yeah, you too, you too when you say you
two back to a person that's like, enjoy your donut,
you know you too?

Speaker 2 (44:39):
Well this is he turns out he was a spy
at once.

Speaker 4 (44:42):
Did you know that?

Speaker 1 (44:44):
Love it?

Speaker 2 (44:44):
I know? The main sources used in today's story include
an article from CNN, and this guy also wrote a
book about this case. His name is you Digit Botachari,
and he was also in an episode of With Words
with Kate Winkler Dawson in November of twenty twenty two
discussing the case. So all the stuff is from him.

(45:07):
There's also an article a talk given for the International
Spy Museum that he did.

Speaker 4 (45:13):
His book is called The Spy who Couldn't Spell.

Speaker 2 (45:15):
That's like his catch RaSE.

Speaker 1 (45:17):
Cool.

Speaker 2 (45:17):
So all the other sources are listed in the show notes.
So here we go. On December fourth in the year
two thousand, that was what five years ago or so
kind of December fourth in the year two thousand, special
Agent Stephen Carr of the FBI received some coded letters
that have been sent to the Libyan consulate and written

(45:41):
by an anonymous source. He decodes the letter, and the
opening of the letter reads quote, I am a Middle
East North African analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency. I
am willing to commit espionage against the US by providing
your country with highly classified information. I have top security clearance,

(46:01):
I have access to documents. Blah blah blah blah blah.
Like basically like, hey, Libyan Consulate, do you guys want
some spy material sir?

Speaker 1 (46:09):
You said this was written in an email.

Speaker 2 (46:11):
No, it's a letter, coded letter, snail mail, snail mail,
it's coded Special Agent Stephen Carr figures it out and
sees that, okay, okay, And they're also twenty three pages
a copied secret information, like a tease to prove that
the sender actually has all that information. It's just like
here's a taste boom, and there are mostly aerial images

(46:33):
of the Middle Eastern military sites taken by US satellites,
so that is like not for enemy hands, essentially. And
remember this is like early two thousands, so it's like
not a great it's.

Speaker 1 (46:43):
Not a good time. No, not a good time, Stephen.

Speaker 2 (46:46):
And so Stephen Carr realizes that he has a real
spy threat on his hands, so he gets to work
trying to figure out who this mysterious cender could be.
There's a marking on the image that shows they're printed
from something called intel Link, which is basically a private
internet server that only select government and military officials with
the proper security clearance can access. So Car from this

(47:09):
believes the spy is a government insider, and the fact
that some of the sample information is top secret also
helps narrow it down to a pool of suspects. To
these individuals with top secret clearance, this anonymous person is legit. Yeah,
but even that number is in the tens of thousands.
So then Car looks at the type of code being used,
like this person had made up a code, and the

(47:30):
sender uses something called brevity codes, which are two character
shorthands for bigger words, so like AP would be the
word anonymous. I don't know how coding works.

Speaker 1 (47:41):
Don't try to explain coding to me.

Speaker 2 (47:45):
I'm gonna I love it.

Speaker 3 (47:47):
It's like AP is for anonymous, because you know that
P and anonymous. Really yeah, really, I mean that code.
I would never be able to break it up. I'd
be like what AP stands for anonymous?

Speaker 2 (47:59):
We wouldn't code breakers you and I I don't think.

Speaker 1 (48:01):
I'll just be arguing it the whole time.

Speaker 2 (48:04):
Whatever it is, this kind of code is common practice
for US military, So Cars like, okay, this person also
has a military background, just like gathering information. Then there's
a third clue that Car makes note of the letter
of instructions and the brevity code. So like the letter
that this an honest person wrote is riddled with spelling errors,

(48:25):
and so it's like, this person's really smart. Obviously they
have top secret clearance, But how could someone that's smart
also fail to use spell check or like not spell
very well. And the errors are so egregious that when
Car reaches out to the CIA and NSA, thinking perhaps
the sender can come from one of the two departments,
they shut him down. They're like, we would never hire
someone who spells so poorly. Yeah, With no leads, the

(48:48):
search goes on for a couple months, but Car finds
no suspects, so he turns back to the documents them
selves for clues. The digital forensics teams are able to
determine that the documents came from the NRO in Chantilly, Virginia,
which is the National reconnaissance office, so like high level security,
and when Car investigates the personnel there, it isn't long

(49:10):
before the pattern of spelling errors point him to his
prime suspect, a man in his late thirties named Brian Reagan,
so essentially like his spelling errors are what got him caught.

Speaker 1 (49:23):
So embarrassing.

Speaker 2 (49:24):
I know, I've been there, I've been there.

Speaker 3 (49:26):
There's so many people on the internet that would get caught.
Oh yeah, loose and lose, breathe and breath that's all right,
that's right, it's amazing.

Speaker 2 (49:35):
So let me tell you about Brian Reagan, not the comedian.
He's born on October twenty third, nineteen sixty two to
Irish immigrants. He grows up on Long Island, New York.
The thing is he is severely dyslexic, and that's why
his spelling is so egregiously poor. And he also has
some odd personality traits. He has memory lapses and little

(49:58):
things that to the out make him seem less intelligent
than he actually is. He is very smart, and he's
generally pretty socially awkward as well, so he doesn't really
fit in. He's bullied for those reasons. He might not
be very popular socially, but he does do really well
in school. He is smart. He excels in math and sciences.
In nineteen eighty, he takes his talents to the US

(50:20):
Air Force, where he works as a signals intelligence analyst,
which is someone who intercepts signal transmissions and an effort
to gather intel, so like, hey, you gotta be smart
to do that, yeah, widow. He serves during the First
Gulf War, and as a standout success, he earns several
accommodations for his work. In nineteen ninety five, Brian is
assigned to the NRO, the National Reconnaissance Office, and he

(50:44):
works on a team that manages the US's spy satellites.
He does really well here too, but all his talents
and hard work still don't earn him the respect of
his coworkers, and this is pretty sad. He's still socially awkward.
His dyslexia bleeds into his day communications in his emails
because they're riddled with spelling errors. So even as an adult,

(51:05):
he still gets picked on and is the butt of
people's jokes. Yeah, and worse than that, his supervisors will
they value his work, they don't value his personality. So
he's routinely given average evaluation scores. He isn't promoted as
he would be otherwise, and it's really upsetting for Brian.

(51:25):
And by nineteen ninety nine, he's also found himself in
a lot of debt because of his bad spending habits,
and he you know, he's not getting those raises and
those promotions as well. And he and his wife Annette
have three kids together and a fourth on the way,
and he's the sole breadwinner of the family. So things
aren't great.

Speaker 3 (51:46):
I mean, I used to know someone that you would
they would say a thing of like you do it
if you wanted to kind of that was that kind
of thing where it's like, and I'm not saying when
you feel alienated, oftentimes, the more you try to fit it,
the worse you make it. That becomes a spiral because
you have an agenda. People don't like agendas. You're trying

(52:08):
to say, don't think of me this way, think of
me this way. People go, eh, what are you talking about,
and recoil more. That piece of it is very sad
and difficult. But he has a marriage and children, so
he's like a grown man.

Speaker 1 (52:22):
He has a life.

Speaker 2 (52:23):
It sounds like it's just it sucks. It sucks, and
it's you know, it just seems like he's he's not neurotypical,
and so you know, in the nineties and still today
it's you're just he's treated differently. Yeah, and it sucks.
And he's clearly very smart and just doesn't learn the
same way other people do, and so therefore people think
he's stupid. It's just like, it sucks.

Speaker 3 (52:44):
It's insulting, and it's kind of like any other problem.
If it was on paper, he could fix it, right.
This is the kind of thing that has that social
nuance where he can't fix it and he's making it worse,
right exactly, or it just is getting worse.

Speaker 2 (52:57):
Yeah. So Brian set to retire from the Air Force
in August of two thousand. I guess I don't know
how that works. He's only in his late thirties, so
I don't know how retirement works in the Air Force.

Speaker 1 (53:09):
You just get to leave when you want to.

Speaker 2 (53:11):
Yeah, he has a pension, but the pressure of paying
off his debts maybe too much for his retirement plan
to hand all, so it's not going to cover it.
With no promotion prospects and little hopes of finding another
job that pays him the same or more because his
field is very niche. And also again, his social awkwardness
makes him a tough interview and higher Brian's back is

(53:32):
against the wall. That, coupled with coworkers who undermine him
at every turn, stirs up a lot of resentment in Brian.
He knows he's smart, much smarter than he's giving credit for,
but perhaps has a little too much confidence in his abilities,
and this combination of anger and arrogance grows to dangerous heights.
He comes up with the plan that can both help

(53:53):
him pay off his debts and show the world just
how smart he really is. So there's like, you know,
reasoning behind here, more than just getting money.

Speaker 3 (54:01):
It's ironic though, why because it's like going, I'm going
to show everybody how smart I am by doing the
fucking stupidest thing.

Speaker 1 (54:08):
Like anytime I hear.

Speaker 3 (54:09):
A story where it's like they got caught selling secrets
to whatever enemy, and just like, yeah, of course you would.
That's the one thing they're paying attention to.

Speaker 2 (54:19):
Yeah, and I'm going to go on to tell you
how you did it, and it's not very well, okay,
it's the point, So yes, you are correct. Also, I
want to have an image, because when I have an
image in my head of a spy, I think of
someone I don't know, like nerdy and like bookish, right.

Speaker 1 (54:35):
I think of Inspector Gadget immediately exactly.

Speaker 2 (54:38):
Yeah, this guy looks like a totally normal, average joe,
like someone you'd see at like, uh, what's that hot
Wings restaurant?

Speaker 1 (54:46):
Well, there's a bunch around town.

Speaker 2 (54:49):
Just like in a sports bar, like a normal dude,
like your brother in law's friend from college. Like, he
just looks like a normal guy. He's got a goateee.
You know, he's not bookish.

Speaker 1 (54:57):
Buffalo wild Wings.

Speaker 4 (54:59):
Yes, thank you God.

Speaker 3 (55:00):
That was driving me insane. Everyone was yelling it okay.
So Brian agrees to retire from the NRO and the
Air Force in August of two thousand. But before he does,
in nineteen ninety nine, he's like, let me gather some intelligence.
So he uses his top secret security clearance permissions and
downloads a bunch of confidential information from that intel link site.

(55:22):
But while the network is secure, the people with access
to it aren't monitored at all. That I'm like, once
you get your security clearance, we trust you. Goodbye, good luck, Yeah,
good luck.

Speaker 2 (55:33):
Brian's plan is to steal as much sensitive information as
he can before his retirement, then reach out to foreign
dignitaries to try and solve that information.

Speaker 1 (55:41):
Just kind of get out there, do some ice breakers.
Pass your card around. It's me the guy with the info.

Speaker 2 (55:47):
The guy you meant at the bar at Buffalo Wild Wings.
He has got connections.

Speaker 3 (55:51):
The guy that keeps whispering at Buffalo Wild Wings where
you can't hear anything because there's twenty five TVs on
with all the sports at once.

Speaker 2 (55:59):
He keeps of a white Russian and going, hey, eh, eh,
why Russian spy. Okay, so it's obviously a huge risk,
but the money he could charge for such espionage services
is massive. He gathers all this information and in total,
when he does go forward with it, he asks for
a total of thirteen million dollars. Oh yeah, So it's

(56:21):
the first time anyone on American soil has realized the
potential of stealing digital information. Because remember this shit's all new,
guys at home, young ones.

Speaker 1 (56:30):
This is the beginning of data mining.

Speaker 4 (56:31):
That's right, This is.

Speaker 2 (56:32):
Before Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning. So pulling this off
would really make Brian a pioneer, and like give him
a name without naming him, because he's trying to be
a spy and the process of stealing the documents is
really easy. All he has to do is print out
whatever he wants during the workday. He steps it in
the bottom of his gym bag and just walks out
the door, no security checks or anything. It's so easy

(56:52):
that he's able to do it for months and months.
And once he's got a solid collection of documents, videotape,
CD ROMs, et cetera, he wraps the mate yels up
in garbage bags, seals them in tupperware, and drives out
in the middle of the night to two different DC
area state parks and then fucking buries that shit. Dude,
this is his plan.

Speaker 3 (57:13):
And then here's you and your friend drinking in the
park that night you stumble upon him. Here goes the
international International thriller, spy thriller. I mean, Jesus Christ, be
more suspicious with your tupperware and your burying.

Speaker 4 (57:27):
He uses night vision goggles even No, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (57:32):
He's having a little adventure on his own, is what's happening.

Speaker 2 (57:35):
Yes, he buries the packages he writes down the coordinates
of each package, just location, and then once. So the
plan is that once a buyer bites, he'll hand over
the coordinates and then they can go dig up the tupperware.

Speaker 3 (57:49):
Like geocashing exactly, but with horrible weapons, right okay.

Speaker 2 (57:55):
And he's the buyers he's targeting NVD are just Libya,
Iraq and Iran you know, you know, some of the
big boys and also like people you don't want to
be fucking around with.

Speaker 1 (58:07):
Well, not solo, not as an indie salesman.

Speaker 4 (58:12):
In Chrispy is not a thing.

Speaker 1 (58:14):
No, that seems dangerous as hell. You need support, you do?

Speaker 3 (58:19):
You do?

Speaker 4 (58:20):
Of course? Yeah.

Speaker 2 (58:20):
And the problem is he doesn't have any pre existing
relationships with foreign entities, Like, no, he's an average dude.
He doesn't like to meet people at galas, Like he
doesn't go to galas. You know, he's again goes to
Buffalo Wild Wings. I don't if it existed back then.

Speaker 3 (58:34):
But let's say he's literally cold calling Libya and being like,
I think I have something interesting for you, right, call
me back.

Speaker 4 (58:41):
So basically that's what he does.

Speaker 2 (58:43):
He cold calls with letters, cold letters, he writes up code,
he sends out three different letters from three different places
in case when's intercepted or whatever the fuck. And fortunately
for Brian, all three envelopes do make it safely to
his first target, the Libyan Consulate.

Speaker 4 (58:59):
They do fucking make it there right.

Speaker 2 (59:02):
Unfortunately, the recipient, an anonymous person, receives that letter and
sends it to the FBI. So he's trying to be
a spy and a fucking spy in the Libyan Consulate
receives the letter and is like, boom, spy versus spy.

Speaker 4 (59:20):
Oh, so it is.

Speaker 3 (59:21):
It's like an American spy that's already set in there.

Speaker 2 (59:24):
Maybe yeah, or someone who's like, maybe we shouldn't like
stir this pot. But the person who sends it to
the FBI is never identified, so I think it's another spy.

Speaker 3 (59:33):
Or if it's just like a guy that's like, hey, look,
we're just trying to get.

Speaker 1 (59:37):
By in this world. You should know I don't want
this bullshita.

Speaker 2 (59:40):
What are you doing?

Speaker 1 (59:42):
You guys are gigantic. We don't always like a shit
from you.

Speaker 4 (59:45):
This looks like a trap.

Speaker 2 (59:46):
I'm not fucking stupid here, FBI try again, Like who knows?

Speaker 1 (59:51):
Hey, FBI, come get your boy as they like.

Speaker 4 (59:54):
To say exactly.

Speaker 2 (59:56):
So that's where a special agent, Stephen Carr comes in.
He figured it's Brian a couple of months later, and
so he's like, this is our dude, let's get them.
So in April two thousand and one, Brian had left
his job and he still needs to work, so so
he starts working with the defense contractor TRW, which often
works with the NRO where he used to work. So

(01:00:18):
essentially it's a way for him to get back into
those old offices where he got all that information because
he still wants to work there, because he still wants
to get more information. Sure, by May two thousand and one,
he's just waiting for his security clearance to be reinstated
so he can get back to the offices. And so
Stephen Carr is like, Yo, NRO, here's what I want

(01:00:39):
you to do. Grant Brian his clearance, tell him all
as well, and he'll go back to work and we
can monitor him from there, and like that's how we're
going to get all our evidence. The NRA is like,
fuck no, we're not in the we're not in the
game of hiring like potential spies. And finally they go
back and forth and they're like, okay, you can do
it for one hundred and twenty days, get what you need.

(01:01:00):
That's it. So they rig up his computer so that
every keystroke is recorded and monitored. There is a hidden
camera in his office and on top of that car,
and the FBI agent's tail Brian outside of work, so
he's being watched around the clock, so they're on his tail.

Speaker 4 (01:01:15):
Sure enough.

Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
Like the day he gets back to work at the
NRO headquarters, he starts downloading top secret files again immediately.

Speaker 1 (01:01:24):
Just doesn't even have a cup of coffee, just goes
straight straight to his desk.

Speaker 2 (01:01:28):
That's right. This time he's downloading aerial shots of missile
sites in the no fly zone over northern Iraq, along
with other aerial surveillance shots of weapons depots and other
missile sites. So like, shit, we should not be giving
to the fucking our enemy, you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:01:46):
He's definitely not starting small, that's for sure. He's not
like slowly feeding them anything. He's just like, just go
for the big guns and get out.

Speaker 2 (01:01:53):
I don't know about you. What I'm anti wore were pacifists,
But still you can't do this, you know what I mean?

Speaker 4 (01:02:01):
Yeah, like this is bad for everyone.

Speaker 2 (01:02:04):
Yeah, and now it also appears that he wants to
expand his pool of potential buyers to include our friends China.

Speaker 1 (01:02:11):
Oh yeah, that'll expand it quite a bit, right.

Speaker 4 (01:02:14):
So like really bad.

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
They find that he goes to the library and when
he's there, he does all this stuff on the computer,
and the FBI is like, what is he doing. He
leaves open his browser at the public library and they're
able to just go back back back and see everything
he had looked at, sir. What they find is that
he's been searching for the addresses of Libyan and Iraqi

(01:02:39):
embassies in Europe. And they figure out that he's like,
fuck it, I'm just going to go straight fucking there.
Like he didn't get a bite, nothing happened when he
sent out the letters to the Libyan embassy, so he's like,
I'm going to go straight to the source in Europe.
So they just can't believe he's brazen or confident or
arrogant enough to do this, but they're like, oh no,

(01:03:02):
we got to keep an eye on him.

Speaker 3 (01:03:04):
And then to do it at the library, yeah, where
it's like hey, yeah, people are trying to do their
history report. Can't clear the computer police and take your
to your international intrigue somewhere else. Yes, insane, that's like
spy school day one. Like clear your browser history, bro,
keep it on your personal laptop. They don't have those

(01:03:25):
yet though, Oh you can only get like an old
Mac at the library. That's why he's going there.

Speaker 2 (01:03:29):
Right, or like, yeah, he doesn't want to do it
on his Dell at home or for the fuck. So
they're like, oh, no, he's going to go to Europe.
So basically, when someone with a security clearance as high
as Brian's wants to leave the country, they can't just
go on a VAKA. They have to have a sit
down interview with the head of their government department. The

(01:03:49):
NRO then has to know specifics at the trip, the location,
the timing, the reason for the trip. It's all on record.
You're not just allowed to go to Paris for the
fucking Christmas or whatever, right. So Brian doesn't want to
go for this shit, obviously, so he lies and tells
his supervisors that he's taking his kids on a family
vacation to Orlando, Florida through like from August at late August.

(01:04:10):
He's like, I need some time off. We're just gonna
go to Orlando.

Speaker 1 (01:04:14):
High summer in Orlando. Oh, can't beat it?

Speaker 3 (01:04:16):
Oh do you like stepping into a hot, hot, steamy
shower but actually wearing clothes and being outside in public?

Speaker 1 (01:04:23):
Welcome to Orlando.

Speaker 2 (01:04:24):
Do you want to make out with a mosquito?

Speaker 1 (01:04:26):
Hi?

Speaker 2 (01:04:28):
So, on the day he set to leave August twenty third,
two thousand and one, obviously, the fbar like, we need
to get him before he leaves the country, right, So
they are able to gather just enough evidence from their
surveillance of Brian to justify an arrest and get their
arrest warrant. They get him just in time for his flight.
They show up at Washington Dulles Airport that afternoon and

(01:04:49):
apprehend him. They place him under arrest. They go through
his belongings. They find a Manila folder containing four sheets
filled with various codes, a piece of folded up paper
hidden between the inner and outer soles of his shoes,
with the addresses for several Chinese embassies and consulates in
various European countries, and just take a bunch of other

(01:05:12):
code and stuff. So like, clearly that's what he's going
to do.

Speaker 3 (01:05:14):
Sorry, he wrote down the embassy addresses, folded up the
piece of paper and stuck it into the inside of issue.
Uh huh, it doesn't seem to me he has like
this by training that like I've seen on cable television.

Speaker 2 (01:05:27):
Yes, Howmever, the date is August twenty third, two thousand
and one. This is before, right, This is right before
security at airports is about to go haywire. Yes, so
it's actually a little easier.

Speaker 1 (01:05:44):
Little lax. Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:05:45):
Yeah, So, faced with all this evidence against him, the
smart thing for Brian to do at this point would
be to try and cut a plea deal with the
federal government, because espionage's charges are severe, so he really
should try to do anything he can to lessen a
potential sentence. But Brian's cockiness gets the better of him.
He's convinced he's smart enough to outwit the FBI, so

(01:06:06):
instead of fessing up to his crimes, he tries blackmailing
the US government.

Speaker 3 (01:06:11):
Yes, there we go, there it is, doubles down solutions.

Speaker 2 (01:06:16):
He issues a statement through his lawyer that he's got quote,
secrets buried out there that could start a war end
quote and then the only way and he says the
only way He'll reveal his hiding place is if he's
guaranteed a lesser sentence. So he's essentially like, I'll give
it up with a lextra sentence. Not I'll give it
up and then I get a lesser sentence. It's I

(01:06:37):
get a lesser sentence and then I'll give it up.
And they don't fucking like that.

Speaker 1 (01:06:41):
Yeah, because he's not in charge.

Speaker 3 (01:06:43):
It's like, Brian, sir, Yeah, no, your stance is inaccurate
to the scenario.

Speaker 4 (01:06:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:06:51):
Of course, the FBI and the Department of Justice don't
fuck around with blackmailing traders. That's not in their rule book.

Speaker 3 (01:06:57):
No.

Speaker 2 (01:06:58):
Instead, they tap FBI cryptan, who's a person who deciphers
codes without a key. So like the smartest guy at
any party.

Speaker 1 (01:07:05):
I'm sure who I bet can spell real good?

Speaker 2 (01:07:08):
Oh yeah, his name's Daniel Olsen. And they're like, try
and crack this. This is Brian's code, find the very documents.
We'll do it our fucking selves.

Speaker 3 (01:07:16):
Do you know Daniel Olsen is the guy to find
at that cocktail party? Like, probably not easy to access,
probably a bit of an introvert. Yeah, but if you
happened by him near like the cheese tray, yeah, and.

Speaker 1 (01:07:30):
Figure out the right topic you're in for it. Can
you imagine Daniel Olsen is a gift?

Speaker 4 (01:07:34):
I just picture him.

Speaker 2 (01:07:35):
He's the guy who wears the like suit jackets with
the elbow patches.

Speaker 1 (01:07:40):
Yeah, right, that's right. But also he has kind of
floppy hair.

Speaker 3 (01:07:44):
He's kind of like, oh, I don't I can't remember
where I parked my car.

Speaker 1 (01:07:48):
But here's the answer to the mystery the universe.

Speaker 2 (01:07:51):
He's always losing his keys, however, Yeah, he knows that
time is relative and how it exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:07:58):
He knows exactly what I'm I was talking about right
away that most people don't. He also is like looking
around and can like put things together. This is now
we're writing a TV show where it's like a code
breaker and what that means throughout your day to day life.
Where that's a man that can put two and two
together and actually see what the fuck is going on.

Speaker 1 (01:08:18):
That's exciting.

Speaker 4 (01:08:18):
Plus time travel just for fun, oh hard time.

Speaker 2 (01:08:23):
Yeah, Like he goes back in time and solves codes
because I want the zodiac letters to be involved in
this summer.

Speaker 3 (01:08:29):
Oh okay, that could be the big season one finale. Yes,
what if he has a magical coat closet in the
front of his apartment. He got drunk and fell into
one day and then fell into nineteen sixty nine, the
Summer of Love, and he's like, well, what the.

Speaker 4 (01:08:43):
Fuck, I gotta crack this. The show's called crack this
or something that's happening.

Speaker 1 (01:08:51):
We're not supposed to be doing this on the show.

Speaker 4 (01:08:53):
Stop it, stop it.

Speaker 1 (01:08:55):
Okay, I'm not talking anymore.

Speaker 4 (01:08:57):
No, please do, please do it. Okay, crack it.

Speaker 2 (01:09:01):
So he works out of the FBI labby Quantico, of course,
because that's the coolest place to work. And he and
Daniel Olson is the best in the biz at deciphering codes.

Speaker 4 (01:09:10):
But even he can't crack it.

Speaker 2 (01:09:12):
So Brian Reagan is smart enough that the fucking best
code cracker at the FBI in Quantico, Virginia, who's also beautiful,
who's also gorgeous and a time traveler, has been sensitive and.

Speaker 4 (01:09:26):
Has stumped him.

Speaker 2 (01:09:27):
He has cats.

Speaker 4 (01:09:27):
He's got like this cat name Einstein.

Speaker 1 (01:09:31):
That he talks to. Okay, So Brian Reagan is right
when he.

Speaker 3 (01:09:35):
Is embittered toward the world because he is really smart
and he is misunderstood, yes, and he does have he
has it to be and what if we fold Daniel
Olsen into this plot a lot sooner, so that we
set up a direct thing to be upset by, because.

Speaker 1 (01:09:50):
He's like I knew that before, he said, Yeah, it's that.

Speaker 4 (01:09:54):
It's like Lex Luthor where you're like, Lee has a point.

Speaker 1 (01:09:57):
Yeah, you know, he's right to be so bitter.

Speaker 2 (01:10:00):
Yeah, Like, I'm kind of on his side. He deciphers
just a small piece of code, So they're like stumped
on this. Now, about two weeks after Brian's arrest, what
happens motherfucking nine to eleven. Oh yeah, so obviously the
world changes completely. Life is in turmoil, Our country is devastated.

(01:10:22):
Obviously the story overshadows Brian's in the news, so that's
probably why we've never heard of it. But now, given
the existing threat on Americans safety, the government officials investigating
Brian are now like, we have to double down and
recover these stolen documents because now national security is such
a big fucking deal because we were attacked on a

(01:10:43):
run soil, right, so we're not ignoring this, especially since
one of the countries Brian was targeting to sell to
was Iraq. Now, the Pentagon, the DOJ, the FBI, and
the NRO are all involved in getting Brian to try
to cooperate and tell them where he hid those documents,
and they all want to prosecute him to the full

(01:11:03):
extend of the law. The fullest extend of the law
for this charge would be to seek the death penalty
against him.

Speaker 1 (01:11:10):
That's right. It traders at that level.

Speaker 3 (01:11:13):
Yeah, it usually are like shot by firing squad, right,
that's the old way.

Speaker 2 (01:11:18):
Yeah, I mean it sounds extreme. It's like, yeah, hard
to wrap your brain around, but like, that's how serious
it is to the government when you do.

Speaker 3 (01:11:27):
Shit like this, when you go against your own country
and you're like, eh, I guess I'll just do what's
good for me and everyone else can suck.

Speaker 2 (01:11:34):
It, because it would have put so many lives in
danger if it had gone through what he did. Yeah,
So if it goes through and he gets that, Brian
will be the first spy in over fifty years to
receive the death penalty. Of course, the last time a
spy received the death penalty was in nineteen fifty one
at the Rosenberg trial, where Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were
executed for providing details about the design of the atomic

(01:11:57):
bomb to the Soviet Union. How have you not covered
that one?

Speaker 3 (01:12:02):
That one's just such a bummer. It's all about the
like red scare and having different things where it's like
these days, it's like, what really happened with the Rosenbergs
is what you'd probably want to hear.

Speaker 2 (01:12:13):
Yeah, and they give such grandma and grandpa vibes that
you're like, oh, this sucks so crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:12:18):
Did you ever see Angels in America?

Speaker 2 (01:12:20):
No? But I know it's good.

Speaker 1 (01:12:22):
It's so good.

Speaker 3 (01:12:23):
Meryl Street plays at the Rosenberg Oh wow, it's unbelievable.

Speaker 1 (01:12:28):
It's so good.

Speaker 2 (01:12:29):
Okay, I watch it. Okay, all of this, the death
penalty on the line, all this shit. Brian is not dissuaded. No,
Instead of caving to the pressure and cooperating with the investigators,
Brian writes a somewhat coded letter to his wife asking
this is so weird, asking her to bury little trinkets
like little toys, little worthless toys as part of a

(01:12:50):
scavenger hunt for their kids. So I think he's trying
to like throw off the FBI by being like, here's
other things that are buried. Maybe it has nothing to
do I don't know, don't understand it completely.

Speaker 3 (01:13:01):
He's definitely trying to like do a double blind set
screened spy stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:13:06):
Right, and she thinks he's innocent, his wife, so she
does what he's asked. She buries those little trinkets. But
the FBI finds out about Brian's plan, and now they
have the grounds to prosecute his wife for obstruction of justice,
even though she innocently believed her husband wasn't trying to
be a spy. So now the FBI are able to

(01:13:29):
use this to their advantage and tell Brian that if
he helps them locate the buried documents, they won't pursue
any charges against his wife. So if it's against him,
he doesn't care. But now it's his family. They have
four young children. Now he's like, okay, that's isn't going
to happen, And they say that if he helps them,
she'll still be able to receive his military benefits, his
pension and health insurance. So, like, knowing he's kind of fucked,

(01:13:52):
he's like, I'm not gonna fuck over my wife.

Speaker 1 (01:13:54):
Yeah, don't burn it all down, you fool.

Speaker 2 (01:13:56):
Yeah. So finally, after two years of holding out information,
Brian finally agrees to cooperate, but not before He's tried
and convicted of espionage in March of two thousand and three.
He doesn't receive the death penalty, but he does get
life in prison. He admits to bearing these packages, these
temperwares in two state parks. There's twelve packages in Pocahonta

(01:14:19):
State Park in Virginia and seven packages in the Patapsco
Valley State Park in Ellacott City, Maryland. He also admits
about the code. He says cracking the code would reveal
a coordinates. The code's super elaborate and nearly unsolvable, as
the FBI had found out. But he's like, but hey,
you don't even need to do that, because I also

(01:14:41):
buried a key to the code in a plastic travel
tooth brusholder, and he tells them, I swear to fucking God.

Speaker 4 (01:14:51):
He tells them where to.

Speaker 2 (01:14:52):
Find that, and within hours, Stephen Carr and the FBI
agents are there. They dig up the tooth brusholder, they
find the coordinates. They go to Pocahontas State Park in Virginia.
They find eleven of the twelve packages that same day
because of the code, and then they find the twelfth
when our friend Dan Olsen is able to finally crack
one of the codes and they find the twelfth one.

Speaker 4 (01:15:14):
So he did help.

Speaker 1 (01:15:15):
Ha ha ha. He came back, He came back.

Speaker 3 (01:15:17):
That's actually all a little bit soft and gentle version
of israel Keys carrying cases and going around because you're
making everything so and maybe this is his thing coordinates whatnot.
But it's just like, why wouldn't you just put him
in a safety deposit box, put him in a storage container.

Speaker 2 (01:15:39):
Because that's not like fun for him. No, it's not
an adventure, you know, right. I wonder how many things
are buried out there, like on that level that are
never going to.

Speaker 3 (01:15:50):
Be found, like in state parks or like in city
parks where people are just like, we'll just put this
here for now.

Speaker 1 (01:15:56):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (01:15:59):
Okay. So then that leads the seven packages that are
buried in Potapsco Valley State Park in Maryland. Brian had
buried the seven packages about a year and a half
before he buried the packages in Pocahontas, and he did
it using a completely different code. So this guy can
come up with codes. I don't know if that's hard
or easy. So they find the other toothbrusholder for these packages.

Speaker 3 (01:16:22):
I mean, he just needed to clean his bathroom out.
That's what it sounds like to me. Yeah, just recycle, sir.

Speaker 2 (01:16:29):
So, because he wrote this code so long ago, though
he doesn't remember exactly how it works, he forgot how
to decode his own shit. All he can remember is
that he built the code off some of the content
in his junior high yearbook, like letters coordinating to this person,
to that person and number. I don't know how codes.

Speaker 3 (01:16:48):
Work, so he doesn't know like where his own key is,
or he doesn't remember.

Speaker 2 (01:16:52):
I think that they don't know where the key is. Yeah,
so they all work together. They go through his yearbook,
they sit down, and they try to crack the code
fast forward for times sake. They figure it out. So
now they have the coordinates for the seven packages. But
the problem is Brian didn't use the same key that
he did, and because the GPS coordinates aren't exact, the

(01:17:16):
FBI have to dig massive holes. They finally, after weeks
of digging, Car has to jump through these hoops to
get Brian a supervised release so he can come to
the state park in Maryland. And even though he doesn't
remember his code, he remembers exactly where each like he's
got that brain, you know, that works his way, and

(01:17:36):
he's able to find every single package just by looking
at the fields a park at park. Yeah, wow, that's crazy.
So they recover all the packages. Here's a fucking funny
enough story. Inside one of the packages, Brian had mistakenly
left an old sticky note from his days of working
at the NRO with his name on it. So had

(01:17:58):
the packages just been rec without Brian's help, he still
would have been caught.

Speaker 1 (01:18:02):
He wanted to be caught, I know, he wanted.

Speaker 2 (01:18:04):
He wanted the name of like this guy. For all
his smarts and cunning, Brian's obviously still has lapses in
judgment that left him exposed. This earns him the nickname
given by one of the FBI agents of mister eighty percent.

Speaker 3 (01:18:18):
I know, I know that's the meanest nickname, because that's
exactly what made him so upset his whole life.

Speaker 2 (01:18:26):
Yeah, yeah, like that's it.

Speaker 3 (01:18:28):
You basically got the exposed nerve and then you were like,
hah here.

Speaker 2 (01:18:32):
It is thalon cutstee for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:18:33):
Yeah that's rough.

Speaker 2 (01:18:35):
When all the documents are recovered, the FBI discovered Brian
had stolen and hidden more than twenty thousand pages videotapes
and CD ROMs of top secret and classified government and
military information. Brian is now sixty one. He continues to
serve his life sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution of
Hazelton in Preston County, West Virginia. He is, as he

(01:18:57):
put it, quote going to serve more time than any
other spy ever end quote.

Speaker 1 (01:19:03):
Well, then hey you're number one, buddy.

Speaker 2 (01:19:05):
Yeah, and that is the story of Brian Reagan, the
spy who couldn't spell dang.

Speaker 3 (01:19:11):
I know that is truly fascinating, kind of upsetting. Also,
like I always thought eighty percent was pretty good. Oh,
I'll take like that's a that's a solid bee, average
solid bee.

Speaker 2 (01:19:24):
I'll take a solid bee.

Speaker 1 (01:19:26):
Wow. Yeah, nice one, Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:19:29):
This podcast is mister eighty percent.

Speaker 3 (01:19:32):
This this podcast is a solid seventy six at all times.

Speaker 2 (01:19:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:19:39):
I was just thinking that, I think we've talked about
this before, but all the things we lost because nine
to eleven just took over when they were equally important
and equally pressing, and then all of a sudden, everything
just got pushed to the side. Yeah, there's so, so
so many of those things.

Speaker 2 (01:19:55):
Yeah, I mean it was unprecedented literally obviously, and that's
why it was.

Speaker 1 (01:20:00):
Yeah, wow, so crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:20:03):
Yeah, we lived through it, we did, and.

Speaker 1 (01:20:05):
We lived through this episode.

Speaker 4 (01:20:07):
And you guys lived through this episode.

Speaker 2 (01:20:08):
And hey, we appreciate that about you.

Speaker 3 (01:20:11):
Good job, you did it. We did it, nailed it,
we all nailed it together. Well, thanks for listening. We've
done it again. Two solid stories to really get you
through your what workday, commute.

Speaker 2 (01:20:26):
All of it, yeah, all of it. Life. You're just
laying there, Yeah, we get it, we get it. Painting
your nails. Maybe you're painting your nails, I.

Speaker 1 (01:20:34):
Mean, who knows.

Speaker 3 (01:20:35):
Maybe you're spying somewhere and bearing tupperware in the forest.

Speaker 2 (01:20:38):
Oh my god, listen, send us an anonymous hometown of
what you're doing. Just tell us. We need to know.

Speaker 3 (01:20:44):
We won't give you away. My favorite writer, agmail. Please,
we're not snitches.

Speaker 2 (01:20:48):
No, we are not.

Speaker 3 (01:20:50):
One other request, stay sexy and don't get murdered.

Speaker 2 (01:20:53):
Good Elvis, do you want a cookie?

Speaker 1 (01:21:04):
This has been an exactly right production.

Speaker 2 (01:21:06):
Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck.

Speaker 1 (01:21:09):
Our managing producers Hannah Kyle Crichton.

Speaker 4 (01:21:11):
Our editor is Aristotle Oscevedo.

Speaker 1 (01:21:14):
This episode was mixed by Leona Squalace.

Speaker 2 (01:21:16):
Our researchers are Mareon, mcclashan, and Ali Elkin.

Speaker 3 (01:21:19):
Email your hometowns to My Favorite Murder at gmail dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:21:22):
Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at my Favorite
Murder and Twitter at My favor Murder boyebye,