May 10, 2022 • 38 mins
From 1979 to 1986, an unknown serial killer assaulted and murdered at least 10 people. As of 2016, he was still uncaught. So who was he? Is it possible to find the Original Night Stalker? Find out with Ben, Matt, and Noel in this classic episode.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
We have looked at serial murderers in the past, and
quick disclaimer, this episode may not be for everyone. It
does now have a bit of I wouldn't say a
happy ending, but it does have a resolution. When do
(00:22):
we do this one, guys? This is May. Yeah, this
is before the Golden State Killer D'Angelo. Yeah, so uh.
As as you know, we recently did an episode on
serial killers who Remain on the Loose in two thousand
twenty two. We believe this stuff is important. We know
(00:44):
it can be disturbing and again, maybe not appropriate for
all our fellow audience members, but we are happy to
report that justice was served and it's fascinating, at least
for for us to look back at our attempt to
assemble the facts before this monster was apprehended. From UFOs
(01:10):
to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is riddled with
unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the
stuff they don't want you to know. Hello, welcome back
(01:31):
to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Noel,
and my name has been You are you, regardless of
which name you happen to be wearing today, and that
makes this stuff they don't want you to know this week,
we're looking into some more true crime ladies and gentlemen
across the US, across the globe. You had asked us
(01:52):
to cover some more true crime stuff and for our
long time listeners, you're familiar with the earlier episodes we've
done on serial killer. Yeah, we've done some on serial
killers who have never been caught on things kind of
specific ranges of things like the Highway of Tears or
the hand of Death, serial killer cults. We've also looked
(02:16):
at possibilities of serial murders associated with cults, but this
will be our first episode about a specific serial killer.
If you would like to hear the early episodes we did,
check them out on our website, uh stuff they don't
want you to know dot com. But remember you don't
have to listen to those before you check out this one.
(02:37):
So you may have heard of a man named Richard Ramirez.
He was known as the night Stalker and over the
course of the eighties he essentially reigned terror upon Los
Angeles and San Francisco. There was a series of break
ins that he that he perpetrated. He raped people, he
murdered people, and thankfully he was every ended in August
(03:01):
of nineteen eighty five and ended up dying on death
row in two thousand thirteen due to be cell lymphoma.
But a decade before that, there was another killer in California,
a serial rapist and killer known as the East Area
Rapist or also known as the Original night Stalker or
because I'm the Golden State Killer, a man of many
(03:23):
titles um. This killer was suspected and at least fifty
different rapes homicides from nineteen seventy six to six. His
methods that were professional, very very calculated, methodical killer, and
in the beginning, investigators believed that either these rapes were
unrelated or that there were two different killers operating. However,
(03:48):
DNA evidence later used proves that the East Stereo rapists
in the Original nights Stalker were not two different people.
They were the same individual in an increasingly escalating, uh
increasingly escalating pattern of violence, while likely accompanied by an
increasing increasingly dysfunctional cognitive state. Yeah, there there's even a
(04:14):
period that occurred that that existed before the East Area
Rapist was found that we'll we'll get to in the future.
That may have been the same person where they were
just burglarizing houses, right the Vicelia Ransacker. So yeah, what
what we're looking at here is a an escalating series
(04:35):
of events like like you said, Ben, and let's look
at the timeline here. So a lot of the resources
were pulling from from a website called e A R
dash O n s dot com, which is set up
to which is set up to comb history and public
records for any clues or leads to this killer. We
(04:57):
know that on Junique teenth, nine seventies six, at four am, UH,
an assailant attacked and sexually assaulted a woman in Rancho, Cordova, California.
This was the first recorded instance of what we're originally
known as the East Area rapist crimes, but emphasis are recorded. Uh.
There are earlier possible burglaries attributed to this same character
(05:21):
as you had mentioned, Matt, since the guy is believed
to have started out as a burglar graduating to rape
or u too if we want to follow the rabbit
hole a little bit further than and may have started
as a peeping tom thing too exactly now. The first
attempted murder that has attributed to the original night stalker
(05:41):
occurred on October one, nineteen seventy nine, in Galita, California.
The assailant breaks in ties up a couple. He's walking
around the house chanting I'm gonna kill him, I'm gonna
kill him. However, momentarily when he was I guess distracted
or away from them. Uh, the couple was able to
escape the may and went I think and was able
(06:02):
to escape and hide in the backyard. The woman screamed
her neighbors were alerted. UM. Thankfully, her neighbor was an
FBI agent. That always helps. Uh. The intruder then fled
and a neighbor pursued on a bike. He ended up
ditching the bike and a knife, and he went through
backyards to to just get away from the situation, and
(06:22):
he wasn't apprehended. So the first confirmed murder occurred on
December of the same exactly are also in Galena, and
then May fourth, nineteen eighty six was the last known murder,
almost thirty years ago to the day that we were
recording this. Right, we're recording this on May third, twenty sixteen,
so in just a few hours it will have been
(06:44):
three decades. So in nineteen six, DNA testing confirmed that
the Eastereo rapist in the original night Stalker were the
same individual, but at this point, numerous other incidents are
suspected to be the work of this uh, this individual,
but there haven't been any real leads for a long time.
(07:05):
Despite that, there has been a recent resurgence of interest
in the case, both professional investigators and internet sloops or
combing through the available information looking for any lead that
could become a breakthrough and possibly get some answers for
the public and some closure for the survivors. And it,
(07:26):
like you said, it arranges widely the people who are
getting back into this case. A retired cold case investigator,
Gary Kitzman, he went back to work in two thousand
and ten after retiring the previous year because he just
wanted to focus on this case and this case alone.
He's been going over all of the collected evidence from
the seventies and eighties, the times that we're talking about here,
(07:46):
and he's trying to close this thing. Then on the
other end, you've got the subreddit Unresolved Mysteries, which is
keeping this case alive as well. You if you searched
through that subreddit, you can find endless threads of people
asking questions and posting links and and trying to make
connections between both the East Area rapist and I mean, well,
(08:09):
I guess it's the same guy, but trying to make
connections between who this possibly could be right and connecting
other isolated incidents or seemingly unrelated incidents like the Vicelia ransacker.
Another huge contributor to the story of the original night
Stalker was Michelle McNamara. UH. She's the creator of the
(08:32):
True Crime Diary, which was a blog she made. She's
also a contributor to the l A magazine. Unfortunately, she
died last month. She's also the wife of Patton Oswalt,
the comedian um. Her article in the Footsteps of a
Killer from is a must read for anybody who's kind
of gotten lost down in internet rabbit hole looking into
(08:53):
this kind of stuff, especially if you're interested in this
case in particular. And the list of victims, just the
proven confirmed victims that we know of is too long
to run through here. We're talking about, uh, fifty plus
rape victims, ten plus homicides minimum. Uh. You can see, however,
a full list of both suspected and confirmed victim names
(09:16):
along with details of each crime at the website that
we mentioned earlier. And what you'll notice if you sort
through this, the woy many people have is that there
are some commonalities in the UH, in the demographics of
the victims. UH. This individual's primary targets were middle class
of upper class neighborhoods, usually homes that were in some
(09:38):
sort of public area, near schools, parks, creeks, you know,
open areas were very prime. The suspect sometimes impersonated a realtor,
a building inspector, or some other professional, maybe even a
prospective home buyer. Right. And we know some of this
not just because of discoveries of the victims in their
location or the evidence at the house or seen in
(09:59):
the crime. We know this because of the people who
survived and described some of these traits. That's how we
also know a profile of this killer, which we'll get
into later. But first, before we continue tracing the history
of this lesser known murderer, will pause for a word
(10:20):
from our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy. This person,
the East Area rapist, the original night stalker, the Golden
(10:43):
State killer. This guy is still out there somewhere. Maybe
at least he's never been caught. He's certainly not been
caught for these crimes. He's you know, he's been linked
to these other serial burglaries. Yet I'm proven we have
difficulty knowing what what other uh sexual assaults or murders
(11:07):
he may have been involved in, but there is no
shortage of clues and speculation. So one of the first
ideas is the idea of the single suspect. Yeah, and
then and this just states that, you know, all of
the rapes, all the attacks and murders can be attributed
to a single human being and that person is the
original night stalker. Uh. This one, this one seems to
(11:29):
be backed up by the DNA evidence that links the
two of the two together, linked it to one person. Uh.
You know, who's to say about some of the other
things that happened prior to the East Harry rapists attacks,
But this one seems to have the most evidence behind it.
We should probably add that a lot of cold cases
like this remain cold because of the fact that DNA
(11:53):
evidence was not a thing, Right, That's absolutely true. In
this case, however, DNA evidence is somewhat of a thing,
and it still existed. I think, uh, in some of
the latest stuff, they're going back and and looking at
some of the evidence that they've got the DNA evidence
in this case may be relevant because they do have
(12:13):
a full profile. Oh I guess what I mean is
the technology has just gotten so much better, so it's
easier to go back and look at things they may
have collected in these cases that at the time they
didn't know what the hell to do with exactly. Yeah,
and then also just collection methods and methodology have vastly improved.
So this there's there's another theory here to the idea
that there are multiple East Area rapists, that there were
(12:37):
two individuals committing these crimes, two men working together, competing
in some sort of twisted way. What what's strange about
that is if there were a competition, if there are
multiple killers, they would almost certainly never meet because generally
these folks, unless there is an ideological thing at yea,
(13:00):
and unless there's an ideological thing, they're gonna be working
on their own. Not only that, you'd think they would
one up each other and there wouldn't necessarily be as
much of us of a continuous pattern. There would be
one person trying to outdo the other if it was
some sort of competition, right, right, It's important to hear
this is specifically about the East Area rapist attacks and
(13:21):
not not the original night stalker murders. Yeah, good point.
And the thing about that is that if there are
multiple similar murders results or robberies, and there's evidence that
they couldn't have all been committed by one person, historically
it's much more likely that there's a copycat criminal who's
(13:44):
taken advantage of the current focus on this one person,
or in some cases idolizes them. You know. Yeah, we're just, yeah,
like you said, using the opportunity to do something that
they usually wouldn't because there'll they'll be thrown off, the
investigators will be thrown off the trail. And so let's
(14:05):
let's look at the escalation. It's fairly certain now that
this was a single individual, But let's look at the
escalation or evolution of this person from I guess, uh,
just a crappy, disturbed schmuck to a violent and deranged killer.
(14:27):
And I know it might sound, you know, it might
sound rude to just like say, this is a pathetic person.
But if they're alive and they're listening, I want them
to hear me say that. So how did this escalate?
That's cold? Then let's talk a little bit about the
Vizalea ransacker um and the escalation that took place there.
I was a little confused by this myself. This in
(14:49):
theory is the idea that, um, this was this killer
sort of learning and starting to move towards more of
a violent um. Actory's so, an unidentified serial burglar broke
into numerous houses in the Visalia, California area from April
(15:09):
of seventy four to December seventy. Um. This person would
destroy the interior of the home and just you know,
steal little knickknacks here and there with the objects of
sentimental value exactly exactly. Um. But it didn't really feel
like it was about getting big ticket items that might
be resold. It was much more of an impulsive kind
of act. Yeah. So it's postulated that this ransacker, who
(15:34):
was never officially caught, became the East Area rapist after
the attempted kidnapping of a young lady named Beth Snelling
on September eleven. Yeah, that was the the final escalation,
at least that's reported from this ransacker when he tried
to he tried to abduct a woman whose father was
(15:54):
also in the house, and then about let's see that's
about a year later then that the first UH Easter
area rapist. Recorded attempt at rape or recorded rape excusingly occurs,
that's assault occurs. So it really is staggering to look
at the list of victims on the website that we referenced,
(16:15):
the e R dash O and s dot com. I mean,
it's very very detailed, and it you you can see
the escalation just by going down the spreadsheet. It's pretty Yeah,
I know, it's it's very disturbing, and if you think
about it's also so much more disturbing if you are
a victim of a home invasion to find that, you know,
(16:37):
the TV wasn't taken, or the VCR wasn't taken, or
the PlayStation wasn't taken, but what was taken was like
a picture of your grandmother, Yeah, your great grandmother's like
humble dolls or something like that. That we're on the mantel.
So maybe some things were smashed, you know, like I said,
a very impulsive kind of one case, it was the
father's cuff links, right, and we have we we have
(17:01):
some information about the m O because one thing the
killer did to prevent it from being a I guess
a fair fight, and we'll talk about the profile there
later was to sneaking houses beforehand, and one of the
things you would do when he was stalking UH these
people is that he would try to locate any weapons
(17:23):
and disarmed them, like take the bullets out of the gun,
ride all that, hide knives where he could know where
they are in case, because you know, obviously this guy
UH was not a good fighter and had the plan.
And he would even stash ropes and stuff underneath cushions
on sofas so you have easy access and know where
(17:44):
they are. So what does what? What does our profile
of this UH? What does our profile this night stalker
sound like? What comprises it? We know that there was
some work done by psychological profiling team led by uh
Leslie Dembrosia, and we also know that there were extensive
(18:08):
notes taken via survivors of these incidentss and from there
we've learned a couple of key points. We are certain
that it's a white male and back in nineteen seventy six,
in the seventies when he was being seen by people,
he was twenty to thirty years old, somewhere in that range.
Pretty young. Right now, he would be in his fifties
(18:31):
or sixties. There are a couple outlier descriptions that put
him a little bit older in the seventies now, but
I think the average is going to put him closer
to his mid fifties currently. It was about five eight
to five eleven. He was definitely physically fit, had broad shoulders. Yeah,
he was able to do all kinds of athletic things
when evading police and tend defences and stuff. Uh. He
(18:53):
frequently wore ski mask or something else to include his face.
He either had blue or hazel eyes according to witnesses,
shoe size nine. And here's an interesting thing. He had
Type A blood. How do we know this? Because he
had non secrete or bodily fluids, It means they didn't
contain enough protein to test for a blood match. Yeah,
(19:16):
so that means when semen was found at a scene,
you couldn't link it up if you had um, let's say,
a DNA sample from someone from the sky's blood or
someone else's blood. There are several recordings, or at least
alleged recordings of his voice that the authorities have, and
on them, he has a what's described as a higher
than average vocal pitch. And uh he speaking of averages.
(19:39):
He was report as this is a crass thing to say,
but as reported by the survivors, he was below average
in terms of his genitalious size, noticeably below this, and
also unable to achieve orgasm at certain parts. And I know,
(20:00):
a gentleman that we're talking very frankly about some disturbing things.
But this is also this is a surprisingly common trend
in uh, in serial killers or in these sexually motivated criminals.
It's probably a better way to say it. And so
when he too, and then you know, of course, on
this profile he would take small items with personal value
(20:21):
to the victims. He also knew a lot about knots. Yeah,
there's this one complicated knot called the diamond knot. There
are a couple of other words for it. It's it's
crazy complicated. I watched a couple of videos trying to
show you how to make it, and I don't think
I could do it, even after being instructed how to
do it much less on the fly. Oh yeah, dude,
(20:44):
under dress like that. Um, this may point to some
kind of background in the military, perhaps scouting, maritime matching. Yeah,
anywhere where you're constantly tying knots um. It also may
hint at an interest in bondage in his personal sexual life. Right.
So he made changes to his procedures. Law enforcement began
(21:07):
noticing common parts of his commonalities in his m O,
like is not usage uh, And he began removing the
ligatures or the materials used to tie up his victims,
like sometimes would be their shoelaces. Sometimes he brings his
own stuff, uh, sometimes just from their bodies to the
floor nearby, and sometimes removing them from the crime scene altogether.
This shows us that this killer was watching and attempting
(21:30):
to switch things up. The investigators use this to say,
this man is not um insane. I guess he's very
calculated in these things. He's learning each time he commits
one of these crimes, which is terrifying on one hand,
but it would be good for let's say a prosecutor
(21:52):
who could say this person is of their own mind.
There you know he wouldn't go to a mental institution.
Let's say he this person would an open prison. I
see what you're saying, and Uh. Then we know about
the background they thought possible law enforcement and military training,
maybe worked in construction or as a contract painter or
a handyman. Or you might also hear that you worked
(22:13):
in a scrap yard, which would give him access to vehicles.
Because of this character used different vehicles at times. We
know probably lived in Sacramento, Galita, or Irvine, California, at
least for a time. And we have a quotation from
the article that Matt mentioned earlier by Michelle McNamara in
(22:34):
the Footsteps of a Killer that describes the m O
and a little bit more detail. Quote to zero in
on a victim, he often entered into the home beforehand,
when no one was there, learning the layout, studying family pictures,
and memorizing names. Victims received hang up or disturbing phone
calls before and after they were attacked. He disabled porch
(22:54):
lights and unlocked windows. He emptied bullets from guns. He
hit shoelaces or rope your cushions to use his ligatures.
These maneuvers gave him a crucial advantage because when you
woke from a deep sleep to the blinding flashlight and
ski masked presence, he was always a stranger to you,
but you were not to him. Uh. That paints a
(23:15):
creepy picture of this man. And of course, along the
way law enforcement investigators professional and amateur like have been
attempting to find specific suspects in these crimes. You will
find mentions of people who have already been largely disproven
as possible suspects. Joe al Siret class by Paul cornfed Schneider,
(23:40):
which is an interesting middle name at the very least,
or an interesting nickname. A lot of these guys ended
up having an alibi or something that basically discounted them
from the person right. And then there's some other suspects
like you'll here mention them forms sometimes John Familaro, the
cold Stored killer. He's currently on California's death row for
(24:02):
the murder of Denise Huber. He would have been twenty
five or twenty six at the time of these crimes
during the mid seventies, who worked as a contractor and
a house painter. Yeah, this guy is a little disturbing.
He kept the body in a freezer on his property,
like a standalone freezer, just kept the body there for
I think three years before it was discovered. And I
(24:26):
don't know that that kind of thing. Almost keeping a
trophy on your property of a person that you murdered.
That's yes. Another potential suspect was a gentleman by the
name of Kevin Lee Gardner. According to an l A
(24:48):
Times article, Gardner Um was arrested for the rape of
a woman with multiple sclerosis who employed his girlfriend as
a nurse. And this took place and Gardner was thirty
five at the time, which meant that he would have
been in his mid to late twenties around the time
of the Easter Area rapist original knight Stocker crimes. Another
gentleman brought up frequently in these forums is Glenn Edward Rogers.
(25:12):
He's known as the Cross County Killer. Uh he was.
I think he's currently on death row in California. He
murdered Tina Marie Cribs. Like reports of the original nights
Soccer this man was blonde. He was reported to live
in the southern California area at the time of the
attacks of the original night Stalker Um. This guy he
was he was known as like I forget the actual name,
(25:34):
but he was like the good looking killer or whatever.
He would go to bars and just pick up women
and take them back to a hotel or something, and
then you'd find a dead woman in a bathtub. Right,
So this leads us to our conclusions. We should say
at this point the Vicelia Ransacker has in no way been, uh,
have concretely connected to the night Stalker, Easteria rapist, and
(26:00):
none of the specific suspects we meet or we've met
in the course of the show have been again concretely connected.
This guy got really lucky. And also, did you read
the poetry that he sent in to the Sacramento b
I did, already downloaded it for the video I'm going through.
(26:21):
Its garbage is so terrible, it's like not it's it's
not well written, not even Charlie Manson's song. Right. Yeah. No, Like,
we could take someone who didn't speak English, hand them
a picture with the letters of the alphabet on it,
and then give him a give that person a pen,
(26:41):
and whatever letters they randomly drew would still be just
far superior aesthetically. You're talking about the excitements cave. Yeah,
you can look it up if you wish, ladies and gentlemen,
I mean, if you want to waste your time. So
this leads the start of thing what happened to this
killer guys as a ghost? Yeah, he's a ghost. We
(27:04):
we don't know where he is if he's alive. We
don't know any of these things. So let's walk through
what could have happened. Well, he could have been caught,
could have been arrested for something unrelated. I mean, this
was clearly an individual that had no qualms about breaking law.
So there are numerous ways. Um, although you know, did
seem cautious relatively speaking, to have gone away with it
(27:26):
for that long, So I'm maybe not leaning towards this one.
Could have been sitting in a jail cell somewhere California,
this is true, might not have had a sample of
his DNA taken upon being incarcerated to the DJ in California,
UM have different rules about DNA sample collection. Yeah, all
of this. There are rules revolving around the year that
(27:47):
the felony was booked, you know, when the crime was
actually committed. Oh yeah, yeah, so okay, So in the
state of California, these these rules have changed over the years.
So depending on when, if he was arrested and is
in the correction system in California, he may not have
had a you know, a sample of his DNA taken.
So if he's in there for a long time, he's
(28:09):
got a life sentence. For something else that's unrelated. Then
maybe he's just sitting there. It's it's a possibility, it's
quite possible. Then there's the idea that he could have
been murdered during an attempted crime. Right the profiling team
that was working with Uncle Sam said that recommendation to
check out any prowling cases that or you know, attempted
(28:33):
peepe and tom breaking stuff that resulted in the death
of a lone male prowler, especially around that at that time,
we should say the last, the last contact that the
original night Stalker has provably had with a member of
the public was a phone call to a phone call
(28:54):
to a victim, so also could have died of an
unrelated condition. And despite the horrific things Richard Ramirez did
when he was caught which is a hell of a
story in itself and put on death row um, the
lymphoma got to her before justice did. So, you know,
we live in a world full of accident and danger
(29:16):
around every corner. Don't be frightened. But if you're driving
right now, just remember the only thing protecting you from
those cars hurtling towards you are some lines painted on
the road that we all pretend are real and you
and to not get in a crash. Right, So, even
to the most stable, most capable people, car accidents can happen,
(29:40):
heart attacks could happen, people are struck by lightning. A
meteorite might hit you. I mean, you're more likely to
win the lottery, but a meteorite might hit you. And
just and here is the most terrifying. He could be free.
He could be living with a family somewhere, just as
a dad, as a husband to somebody, maybe alone. Maybe
(30:04):
he frequents a bookstore nearby somewhere. Maybe he likes podcasts.
In that case, we should note that the investigation continues.
In November, the FBI noted that there are still on it,
and that means that, as we said, the killer, if alive,
could be listening now to this show. Well, one thing
(30:25):
a lot of serial killers have in common is that
they're crazy narcissists. They make the mistake that a lot
of um relatively unintelligent people make, which is where they
assume that they're interesting and this like, if I know
that I know that this individual is probably not listening
(30:47):
to our show now. However, given the rampant narcissism that
a lot of serial killers have. I'm sure that many
go back, especially if they feel like they've gotten away,
to listen to this kind of stuff and then listen
to people trying to figure out who they are. Like
b t K did that the buyind torture kill killer
(31:09):
Dennis Radar. I'm sure he read everything written about himself.
I'm pretty sure Ted Cruz listens to the stuff about
the Zodiac Killer all the time. Did you get yeah, wait,
what is okay? Can you explain that one time? I'm
completely kidding. Ted Cruiz is not the Zodiac Killer, but
it's a is he. It's an entertaining meme that has
(31:30):
gone around that is pretty awful if you think about it.
Um to accuse someone of that. Larry Wilmore did a
great bit when he did the opening for the White
House Correspondence Center where he the whole thing where it's like,
who would do a thing like that except the Zodiac Killer?
Oh wow? And so with that we will end our
(31:53):
story for now on the original Nights Stalker met Uh
what should people do if they want to learn more?
If you want to continue down this rabbit hole, there
are a ton of places you can go. One of
them is the l A magazine. There are a ton
of articles there too. Uh gosh to the sub credits
that we talked about unresolved mysteries. If you want to
(32:14):
pick up a physical book and read it, which I
would recommend, check out Sudden Terror by Larry Crompton, someone
who actually had some skin in the game in investigating
this person. You can also check out Hunting a Psychopath
by Richard Shelby, again to great sources of just more
information than you might actually want. And if you have
(32:36):
more information you'd like to share with your fellow listeners,
uh drop a line with any recommended reading that comes up.
It's the end of the show, guys, and that means
we have time for just one more thanks shout out
corners for a first shout out today, we would like
to shout out Sergeant Blue, which is an assumed name
(32:58):
when as you who listens to the show before going
to work at a state Department of Children and Families,
He suggested we look into the Toynbee tiles as well
as the pervasive belief in an old conspiracy that child
protective services sometimes removes children from homes for profit rather
than the safety of the child. Yeah, that's a dark one. Uh.
(33:20):
In the email that the sergeant sent, he was saying
that he's never seen any evidence of it in his workings.
But ever he said, like he said, pervasive, people just
believe it. And maybe it's just because of people who
have to deal with child protective services. Sometimes they're in
a situation that maybe leads them to see authorities in
(33:43):
a bad light. Perhaps. Our next shout out goes out
to Claire from Calgary, Canada. She said some really encouraging words,
So thank you so much for that. I'm gonna read
this quote you guys because I think it's worth it.
She said, I never want to stop hearing three cool
dudes having a discussion about witchcraft, ghosts or demonic possession.
(34:04):
That's really nice. I'll take it. Who are these guys
she's talking about. I have no idea who they are,
Like a couple of stooges, a couple of brownies. She
also suggested that we make a show focused on the
Builderberg group, which we've we've done some shows around them
and we've mentioned him a lot. Have we done an
audio episode? Maybe we should do that. That's a great idea.
(34:25):
Thank you for the suggestion. Claire from Calgary. Our third
shout out today goes to Alan at bad Motor Finger.
Uh and the ohs and motor are zeros if you're
looking them up on Twitter. Uh and yeah give us
a random shout out so we you know, we were thinking, like,
(34:45):
what's just something equally unpredictable and random that we could say?
So we'll take a different shot. We can each go
around the room. I guess I would point out that
doctor Awkward is a palindrome that's really great. Octopus is
my favorite Spider Man villain. Dr Octopus is a great villain.
(35:06):
Dr Bronner's Magic Soap is my favorite of the peppermint
scented soaps. It's a good one. How do you pronounced it?
Cast cast style soap. There's a it's a wind with
a name the Fremantle Doctor, which I think is such
a cool name for a wind. You know, Yeah, I
didn't know you could do that. How does that wind
have a cooler name than us? At A Knowle's pretty good?
(35:27):
I agreed. Did you see we got a listener mail?
I think it's on Facebook though, so they mentioned you
as k N O L L. Yeah, I get that.
Sometimes the grassy the grassy one. Well that's a that's
a random enough response. I think, too bad, motor Finger.
We have one last thing that we want to tell
people about, and we want you to check this out
(35:48):
on our social media or Twitter and our Facebook where
we're conspiracy stuff. We got a fascinating package last week earlier. Yeah,
we did so. Do you guys remember that conversation where
we were talking about I'm speaking to you by the way,
not you know, not you've been, but to you, Uh,
the conversation we had about ben bucks and we're going
(36:10):
to start our own currency. We we talked about it.
We've been floating this idea for a minute, floating our currency.
I've it's been a personal dream of mine for for
a while. Although it was slow and upkeep and uh
the you know when we when I first proposed the idea,
I thought you guys were gonna just tell me to
shut up, but you got behind it and someone else
(36:30):
did too, So Leanne took it upon herself to like
design and print out and send us via actual male
some bend bucks in different denominations. Right, Yeah, we got
a one of five seven point seven point five aten
and five ones attendants and also the plates to make
(36:52):
more of these. Uh. Noel and Matt got promoted to
uh various high government governmental positions. Uh, finally, finally, right.
I I don't think I actually have a have a
position there, but you know what, I'll take it. And
in all seriousness, this was this was such a cool
thing to send, So we'll put we'll post some pictures
(37:13):
if you want to check it out, and if you
have an idea for starting your own currency, we'd also
like to hear it. Uh. I I spent some time, like,
uh like thinking of Matt and Nol money too. I
mean Matt money obviously obviously obviously writes itself. Noel Nichols,
Noel Nichols, Just Nichols. That's all I mean. I pay
(37:36):
for everything in Nichols. It's true. I've seen it. It's weird.
That's what's in the backpack, Just Nichols. I bet you
thought it was a laptop. No, Just Nichols. Always wondered
why it was so loud. And that's the end of
this classic episode. If you have any thoughts or questions
about this episode, you can get into contact with us
in a number of different ways. One of the best
(37:57):
is to give us A call or number is one
eight three e std w y t K. If you
don't want to do that, you can send us a
good old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at i heart
radio dot com. Stuff they don't want you to know.
Is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts
from my heart Radio, visit the i heart radio app,
(38:17):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
We have looked at serial murderers in the past, and
quick disclaimer, this episode may not be for everyone. It
does now have a bit of I wouldn't say a
happy ending, but it does have a resolution. When do
(00:22):
we do this one, guys? This is May. Yeah, this
is before the Golden State Killer D'Angelo. Yeah, so uh.
As as you know, we recently did an episode on
serial killers who Remain on the Loose in two thousand
twenty two. We believe this stuff is important. We know
(00:44):
it can be disturbing and again, maybe not appropriate for
all our fellow audience members, but we are happy to
report that justice was served and it's fascinating, at least
for for us to look back at our attempt to
assemble the facts before this monster was apprehended. From UFOs
(01:10):
to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is riddled with
unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the
stuff they don't want you to know. Hello, welcome back
(01:31):
to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Noel,
and my name has been You are you, regardless of
which name you happen to be wearing today, and that
makes this stuff they don't want you to know this week,
we're looking into some more true crime ladies and gentlemen
across the US, across the globe. You had asked us
(01:52):
to cover some more true crime stuff and for our
long time listeners, you're familiar with the earlier episodes we've
done on serial killer. Yeah, we've done some on serial
killers who have never been caught on things kind of
specific ranges of things like the Highway of Tears or
the hand of Death, serial killer cults. We've also looked
(02:16):
at possibilities of serial murders associated with cults, but this
will be our first episode about a specific serial killer.
If you would like to hear the early episodes we did,
check them out on our website, uh stuff they don't
want you to know dot com. But remember you don't
have to listen to those before you check out this one.
(02:37):
So you may have heard of a man named Richard Ramirez.
He was known as the night Stalker and over the
course of the eighties he essentially reigned terror upon Los
Angeles and San Francisco. There was a series of break
ins that he that he perpetrated. He raped people, he
murdered people, and thankfully he was every ended in August
(03:01):
of nineteen eighty five and ended up dying on death
row in two thousand thirteen due to be cell lymphoma.
But a decade before that, there was another killer in California,
a serial rapist and killer known as the East Area
Rapist or also known as the Original night Stalker or
because I'm the Golden State Killer, a man of many
(03:23):
titles um. This killer was suspected and at least fifty
different rapes homicides from nineteen seventy six to six. His
methods that were professional, very very calculated, methodical killer, and
in the beginning, investigators believed that either these rapes were
unrelated or that there were two different killers operating. However,
(03:48):
DNA evidence later used proves that the East Stereo rapists
in the Original nights Stalker were not two different people.
They were the same individual in an increasingly escalating, uh
increasingly escalating pattern of violence, while likely accompanied by an
increasing increasingly dysfunctional cognitive state. Yeah, there there's even a
(04:14):
period that occurred that that existed before the East Area
Rapist was found that we'll we'll get to in the future.
That may have been the same person where they were
just burglarizing houses, right the Vicelia Ransacker. So yeah, what
what we're looking at here is a an escalating series
(04:35):
of events like like you said, Ben, and let's look
at the timeline here. So a lot of the resources
were pulling from from a website called e A R
dash O n s dot com, which is set up
to which is set up to comb history and public
records for any clues or leads to this killer. We
(04:57):
know that on Junique teenth, nine seventies six, at four am, UH,
an assailant attacked and sexually assaulted a woman in Rancho, Cordova, California.
This was the first recorded instance of what we're originally
known as the East Area rapist crimes, but emphasis are recorded. Uh.
There are earlier possible burglaries attributed to this same character
(05:21):
as you had mentioned, Matt, since the guy is believed
to have started out as a burglar graduating to rape
or u too if we want to follow the rabbit
hole a little bit further than and may have started
as a peeping tom thing too exactly now. The first
attempted murder that has attributed to the original night stalker
(05:41):
occurred on October one, nineteen seventy nine, in Galita, California.
The assailant breaks in ties up a couple. He's walking
around the house chanting I'm gonna kill him, I'm gonna
kill him. However, momentarily when he was I guess distracted
or away from them. Uh, the couple was able to
escape the may and went I think and was able
(06:02):
to escape and hide in the backyard. The woman screamed
her neighbors were alerted. UM. Thankfully, her neighbor was an
FBI agent. That always helps. Uh. The intruder then fled
and a neighbor pursued on a bike. He ended up
ditching the bike and a knife, and he went through
backyards to to just get away from the situation, and
(06:22):
he wasn't apprehended. So the first confirmed murder occurred on
December of the same exactly are also in Galena, and
then May fourth, nineteen eighty six was the last known murder,
almost thirty years ago to the day that we were
recording this. Right, we're recording this on May third, twenty sixteen,
so in just a few hours it will have been
(06:44):
three decades. So in nineteen six, DNA testing confirmed that
the Eastereo rapist in the original night Stalker were the
same individual, but at this point, numerous other incidents are
suspected to be the work of this uh, this individual,
but there haven't been any real leads for a long time.
(07:05):
Despite that, there has been a recent resurgence of interest
in the case, both professional investigators and internet sloops or
combing through the available information looking for any lead that
could become a breakthrough and possibly get some answers for
the public and some closure for the survivors. And it,
(07:26):
like you said, it arranges widely the people who are
getting back into this case. A retired cold case investigator,
Gary Kitzman, he went back to work in two thousand
and ten after retiring the previous year because he just
wanted to focus on this case and this case alone.
He's been going over all of the collected evidence from
the seventies and eighties, the times that we're talking about here,
(07:46):
and he's trying to close this thing. Then on the
other end, you've got the subreddit Unresolved Mysteries, which is
keeping this case alive as well. You if you searched
through that subreddit, you can find endless threads of people
asking questions and posting links and and trying to make
connections between both the East Area rapist and I mean, well,
(08:09):
I guess it's the same guy, but trying to make
connections between who this possibly could be right and connecting
other isolated incidents or seemingly unrelated incidents like the Vicelia ransacker.
Another huge contributor to the story of the original night
Stalker was Michelle McNamara. UH. She's the creator of the
(08:32):
True Crime Diary, which was a blog she made. She's
also a contributor to the l A magazine. Unfortunately, she
died last month. She's also the wife of Patton Oswalt,
the comedian um. Her article in the Footsteps of a
Killer from is a must read for anybody who's kind
of gotten lost down in internet rabbit hole looking into
(08:53):
this kind of stuff, especially if you're interested in this
case in particular. And the list of victims, just the
proven confirmed victims that we know of is too long
to run through here. We're talking about, uh, fifty plus
rape victims, ten plus homicides minimum. Uh. You can see, however,
a full list of both suspected and confirmed victim names
(09:16):
along with details of each crime at the website that
we mentioned earlier. And what you'll notice if you sort
through this, the woy many people have is that there
are some commonalities in the UH, in the demographics of
the victims. UH. This individual's primary targets were middle class
of upper class neighborhoods, usually homes that were in some
(09:38):
sort of public area, near schools, parks, creeks, you know,
open areas were very prime. The suspect sometimes impersonated a realtor,
a building inspector, or some other professional, maybe even a
prospective home buyer. Right. And we know some of this
not just because of discoveries of the victims in their
location or the evidence at the house or seen in
(09:59):
the crime. We know this because of the people who
survived and described some of these traits. That's how we
also know a profile of this killer, which we'll get
into later. But first, before we continue tracing the history
of this lesser known murderer, will pause for a word
(10:20):
from our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy. This person,
the East Area rapist, the original night stalker, the Golden
(10:43):
State killer. This guy is still out there somewhere. Maybe
at least he's never been caught. He's certainly not been
caught for these crimes. He's you know, he's been linked
to these other serial burglaries. Yet I'm proven we have
difficulty knowing what what other uh sexual assaults or murders
(11:07):
he may have been involved in, but there is no
shortage of clues and speculation. So one of the first
ideas is the idea of the single suspect. Yeah, and
then and this just states that, you know, all of
the rapes, all the attacks and murders can be attributed
to a single human being and that person is the
original night stalker. Uh. This one, this one seems to
(11:29):
be backed up by the DNA evidence that links the
two of the two together, linked it to one person. Uh.
You know, who's to say about some of the other
things that happened prior to the East Harry rapists attacks,
But this one seems to have the most evidence behind it.
We should probably add that a lot of cold cases
like this remain cold because of the fact that DNA
(11:53):
evidence was not a thing, Right, That's absolutely true. In
this case, however, DNA evidence is somewhat of a thing,
and it still existed. I think, uh, in some of
the latest stuff, they're going back and and looking at
some of the evidence that they've got the DNA evidence
in this case may be relevant because they do have
(12:13):
a full profile. Oh I guess what I mean is
the technology has just gotten so much better, so it's
easier to go back and look at things they may
have collected in these cases that at the time they
didn't know what the hell to do with exactly. Yeah,
and then also just collection methods and methodology have vastly improved.
So this there's there's another theory here to the idea
that there are multiple East Area rapists, that there were
(12:37):
two individuals committing these crimes, two men working together, competing
in some sort of twisted way. What what's strange about
that is if there were a competition, if there are
multiple killers, they would almost certainly never meet because generally
these folks, unless there is an ideological thing at yea,
(13:00):
and unless there's an ideological thing, they're gonna be working
on their own. Not only that, you'd think they would
one up each other and there wouldn't necessarily be as
much of us of a continuous pattern. There would be
one person trying to outdo the other if it was
some sort of competition, right, right, It's important to hear
this is specifically about the East Area rapist attacks and
(13:21):
not not the original night stalker murders. Yeah, good point.
And the thing about that is that if there are
multiple similar murders results or robberies, and there's evidence that
they couldn't have all been committed by one person, historically
it's much more likely that there's a copycat criminal who's
(13:44):
taken advantage of the current focus on this one person,
or in some cases idolizes them. You know. Yeah, we're just, yeah,
like you said, using the opportunity to do something that
they usually wouldn't because there'll they'll be thrown off, the
investigators will be thrown off the trail. And so let's
(14:05):
let's look at the escalation. It's fairly certain now that
this was a single individual, But let's look at the
escalation or evolution of this person from I guess, uh,
just a crappy, disturbed schmuck to a violent and deranged killer.
(14:27):
And I know it might sound, you know, it might
sound rude to just like say, this is a pathetic person.
But if they're alive and they're listening, I want them
to hear me say that. So how did this escalate?
That's cold? Then let's talk a little bit about the
Vizalea ransacker um and the escalation that took place there.
I was a little confused by this myself. This in
(14:49):
theory is the idea that, um, this was this killer
sort of learning and starting to move towards more of
a violent um. Actory's so, an unidentified serial burglar broke
into numerous houses in the Visalia, California area from April
(15:09):
of seventy four to December seventy. Um. This person would
destroy the interior of the home and just you know,
steal little knickknacks here and there with the objects of
sentimental value exactly exactly. Um. But it didn't really feel
like it was about getting big ticket items that might
be resold. It was much more of an impulsive kind
of act. Yeah. So it's postulated that this ransacker, who
(15:34):
was never officially caught, became the East Area rapist after
the attempted kidnapping of a young lady named Beth Snelling
on September eleven. Yeah, that was the the final escalation,
at least that's reported from this ransacker when he tried
to he tried to abduct a woman whose father was
(15:54):
also in the house, and then about let's see that's
about a year later then that the first UH Easter
area rapist. Recorded attempt at rape or recorded rape excusingly occurs,
that's assault occurs. So it really is staggering to look
at the list of victims on the website that we referenced,
(16:15):
the e R dash O and s dot com. I mean,
it's very very detailed, and it you you can see
the escalation just by going down the spreadsheet. It's pretty Yeah,
I know, it's it's very disturbing, and if you think
about it's also so much more disturbing if you are
a victim of a home invasion to find that, you know,
(16:37):
the TV wasn't taken, or the VCR wasn't taken, or
the PlayStation wasn't taken, but what was taken was like
a picture of your grandmother, Yeah, your great grandmother's like
humble dolls or something like that. That we're on the mantel.
So maybe some things were smashed, you know, like I said,
a very impulsive kind of one case, it was the
father's cuff links, right, and we have we we have
(17:01):
some information about the m O because one thing the
killer did to prevent it from being a I guess
a fair fight, and we'll talk about the profile there
later was to sneaking houses beforehand, and one of the
things you would do when he was stalking UH these
people is that he would try to locate any weapons
(17:23):
and disarmed them, like take the bullets out of the gun,
ride all that, hide knives where he could know where
they are in case, because you know, obviously this guy
UH was not a good fighter and had the plan.
And he would even stash ropes and stuff underneath cushions
on sofas so you have easy access and know where
(17:44):
they are. So what does what? What does our profile
of this UH? What does our profile this night stalker
sound like? What comprises it? We know that there was
some work done by psychological profiling team led by uh
Leslie Dembrosia, and we also know that there were extensive
(18:08):
notes taken via survivors of these incidentss and from there
we've learned a couple of key points. We are certain
that it's a white male and back in nineteen seventy six,
in the seventies when he was being seen by people,
he was twenty to thirty years old, somewhere in that range.
Pretty young. Right now, he would be in his fifties
(18:31):
or sixties. There are a couple outlier descriptions that put
him a little bit older in the seventies now, but
I think the average is going to put him closer
to his mid fifties currently. It was about five eight
to five eleven. He was definitely physically fit, had broad shoulders. Yeah,
he was able to do all kinds of athletic things
when evading police and tend defences and stuff. Uh. He
(18:53):
frequently wore ski mask or something else to include his face.
He either had blue or hazel eyes according to witnesses,
shoe size nine. And here's an interesting thing. He had
Type A blood. How do we know this? Because he
had non secrete or bodily fluids, It means they didn't
contain enough protein to test for a blood match. Yeah,
(19:16):
so that means when semen was found at a scene,
you couldn't link it up if you had um, let's say,
a DNA sample from someone from the sky's blood or
someone else's blood. There are several recordings, or at least
alleged recordings of his voice that the authorities have, and
on them, he has a what's described as a higher
than average vocal pitch. And uh he speaking of averages.
(19:39):
He was report as this is a crass thing to say,
but as reported by the survivors, he was below average
in terms of his genitalious size, noticeably below this, and
also unable to achieve orgasm at certain parts. And I know,
(20:00):
a gentleman that we're talking very frankly about some disturbing things.
But this is also this is a surprisingly common trend
in uh, in serial killers or in these sexually motivated criminals.
It's probably a better way to say it. And so
when he too, and then you know, of course, on
this profile he would take small items with personal value
(20:21):
to the victims. He also knew a lot about knots. Yeah,
there's this one complicated knot called the diamond knot. There
are a couple of other words for it. It's it's
crazy complicated. I watched a couple of videos trying to
show you how to make it, and I don't think
I could do it, even after being instructed how to
do it much less on the fly. Oh yeah, dude,
(20:44):
under dress like that. Um, this may point to some
kind of background in the military, perhaps scouting, maritime matching. Yeah,
anywhere where you're constantly tying knots um. It also may
hint at an interest in bondage in his personal sexual life. Right.
So he made changes to his procedures. Law enforcement began
(21:07):
noticing common parts of his commonalities in his m O,
like is not usage uh, And he began removing the
ligatures or the materials used to tie up his victims,
like sometimes would be their shoelaces. Sometimes he brings his
own stuff, uh, sometimes just from their bodies to the
floor nearby, and sometimes removing them from the crime scene altogether.
This shows us that this killer was watching and attempting
(21:30):
to switch things up. The investigators use this to say,
this man is not um insane. I guess he's very
calculated in these things. He's learning each time he commits
one of these crimes, which is terrifying on one hand,
but it would be good for let's say a prosecutor
(21:52):
who could say this person is of their own mind.
There you know he wouldn't go to a mental institution.
Let's say he this person would an open prison. I
see what you're saying, and Uh. Then we know about
the background they thought possible law enforcement and military training,
maybe worked in construction or as a contract painter or
a handyman. Or you might also hear that you worked
(22:13):
in a scrap yard, which would give him access to vehicles.
Because of this character used different vehicles at times. We
know probably lived in Sacramento, Galita, or Irvine, California, at
least for a time. And we have a quotation from
the article that Matt mentioned earlier by Michelle McNamara in
(22:34):
the Footsteps of a Killer that describes the m O
and a little bit more detail. Quote to zero in
on a victim, he often entered into the home beforehand,
when no one was there, learning the layout, studying family pictures,
and memorizing names. Victims received hang up or disturbing phone
calls before and after they were attacked. He disabled porch
(22:54):
lights and unlocked windows. He emptied bullets from guns. He
hit shoelaces or rope your cushions to use his ligatures.
These maneuvers gave him a crucial advantage because when you
woke from a deep sleep to the blinding flashlight and
ski masked presence, he was always a stranger to you,
but you were not to him. Uh. That paints a
(23:15):
creepy picture of this man. And of course, along the
way law enforcement investigators professional and amateur like have been
attempting to find specific suspects in these crimes. You will
find mentions of people who have already been largely disproven
as possible suspects. Joe al Siret class by Paul cornfed Schneider,
(23:40):
which is an interesting middle name at the very least,
or an interesting nickname. A lot of these guys ended
up having an alibi or something that basically discounted them
from the person right. And then there's some other suspects
like you'll here mention them forms sometimes John Familaro, the
cold Stored killer. He's currently on California's death row for
(24:02):
the murder of Denise Huber. He would have been twenty
five or twenty six at the time of these crimes
during the mid seventies, who worked as a contractor and
a house painter. Yeah, this guy is a little disturbing.
He kept the body in a freezer on his property,
like a standalone freezer, just kept the body there for
I think three years before it was discovered. And I
(24:26):
don't know that that kind of thing. Almost keeping a
trophy on your property of a person that you murdered.
That's yes. Another potential suspect was a gentleman by the
name of Kevin Lee Gardner. According to an l A
(24:48):
Times article, Gardner Um was arrested for the rape of
a woman with multiple sclerosis who employed his girlfriend as
a nurse. And this took place and Gardner was thirty
five at the time, which meant that he would have
been in his mid to late twenties around the time
of the Easter Area rapist original knight Stocker crimes. Another
gentleman brought up frequently in these forums is Glenn Edward Rogers.
(25:12):
He's known as the Cross County Killer. Uh he was.
I think he's currently on death row in California. He
murdered Tina Marie Cribs. Like reports of the original nights
Soccer this man was blonde. He was reported to live
in the southern California area at the time of the
attacks of the original night Stalker Um. This guy he
was he was known as like I forget the actual name,
(25:34):
but he was like the good looking killer or whatever.
He would go to bars and just pick up women
and take them back to a hotel or something, and
then you'd find a dead woman in a bathtub. Right,
So this leads us to our conclusions. We should say
at this point the Vicelia Ransacker has in no way been, uh,
have concretely connected to the night Stalker, Easteria rapist, and
(26:00):
none of the specific suspects we meet or we've met
in the course of the show have been again concretely connected.
This guy got really lucky. And also, did you read
the poetry that he sent in to the Sacramento b
I did, already downloaded it for the video I'm going through.
(26:21):
Its garbage is so terrible, it's like not it's it's
not well written, not even Charlie Manson's song. Right. Yeah. No, Like,
we could take someone who didn't speak English, hand them
a picture with the letters of the alphabet on it,
and then give him a give that person a pen,
(26:41):
and whatever letters they randomly drew would still be just
far superior aesthetically. You're talking about the excitements cave. Yeah,
you can look it up if you wish, ladies and gentlemen,
I mean, if you want to waste your time. So
this leads the start of thing what happened to this
killer guys as a ghost? Yeah, he's a ghost. We
(27:04):
we don't know where he is if he's alive. We
don't know any of these things. So let's walk through
what could have happened. Well, he could have been caught,
could have been arrested for something unrelated. I mean, this
was clearly an individual that had no qualms about breaking law.
So there are numerous ways. Um, although you know, did
seem cautious relatively speaking, to have gone away with it
(27:26):
for that long, So I'm maybe not leaning towards this one.
Could have been sitting in a jail cell somewhere California,
this is true, might not have had a sample of
his DNA taken upon being incarcerated to the DJ in California,
UM have different rules about DNA sample collection. Yeah, all
of this. There are rules revolving around the year that
(27:47):
the felony was booked, you know, when the crime was
actually committed. Oh yeah, yeah, so okay, So in the
state of California, these these rules have changed over the years.
So depending on when, if he was arrested and is
in the correction system in California, he may not have
had a you know, a sample of his DNA taken.
So if he's in there for a long time, he's
(28:09):
got a life sentence. For something else that's unrelated. Then
maybe he's just sitting there. It's it's a possibility, it's
quite possible. Then there's the idea that he could have
been murdered during an attempted crime. Right the profiling team
that was working with Uncle Sam said that recommendation to
check out any prowling cases that or you know, attempted
(28:33):
peepe and tom breaking stuff that resulted in the death
of a lone male prowler, especially around that at that time,
we should say the last, the last contact that the
original night Stalker has provably had with a member of
the public was a phone call to a phone call
(28:54):
to a victim, so also could have died of an
unrelated condition. And despite the horrific things Richard Ramirez did
when he was caught which is a hell of a
story in itself and put on death row um, the
lymphoma got to her before justice did. So, you know,
we live in a world full of accident and danger
(29:16):
around every corner. Don't be frightened. But if you're driving
right now, just remember the only thing protecting you from
those cars hurtling towards you are some lines painted on
the road that we all pretend are real and you
and to not get in a crash. Right, So, even
to the most stable, most capable people, car accidents can happen,
(29:40):
heart attacks could happen, people are struck by lightning. A
meteorite might hit you. I mean, you're more likely to
win the lottery, but a meteorite might hit you. And
just and here is the most terrifying. He could be free.
He could be living with a family somewhere, just as
a dad, as a husband to somebody, maybe alone. Maybe
(30:04):
he frequents a bookstore nearby somewhere. Maybe he likes podcasts.
In that case, we should note that the investigation continues.
In November, the FBI noted that there are still on it,
and that means that, as we said, the killer, if alive,
could be listening now to this show. Well, one thing
(30:25):
a lot of serial killers have in common is that
they're crazy narcissists. They make the mistake that a lot
of um relatively unintelligent people make, which is where they
assume that they're interesting and this like, if I know
that I know that this individual is probably not listening
(30:47):
to our show now. However, given the rampant narcissism that
a lot of serial killers have. I'm sure that many
go back, especially if they feel like they've gotten away,
to listen to this kind of stuff and then listen
to people trying to figure out who they are. Like
b t K did that the buyind torture kill killer
(31:09):
Dennis Radar. I'm sure he read everything written about himself.
I'm pretty sure Ted Cruz listens to the stuff about
the Zodiac Killer all the time. Did you get yeah, wait,
what is okay? Can you explain that one time? I'm
completely kidding. Ted Cruiz is not the Zodiac Killer, but
it's a is he. It's an entertaining meme that has
(31:30):
gone around that is pretty awful if you think about it.
Um to accuse someone of that. Larry Wilmore did a
great bit when he did the opening for the White
House Correspondence Center where he the whole thing where it's like,
who would do a thing like that except the Zodiac Killer?
Oh wow? And so with that we will end our
(31:53):
story for now on the original Nights Stalker met Uh
what should people do if they want to learn more?
If you want to continue down this rabbit hole, there
are a ton of places you can go. One of
them is the l A magazine. There are a ton
of articles there too. Uh gosh to the sub credits
that we talked about unresolved mysteries. If you want to
(32:14):
pick up a physical book and read it, which I
would recommend, check out Sudden Terror by Larry Crompton, someone
who actually had some skin in the game in investigating
this person. You can also check out Hunting a Psychopath
by Richard Shelby, again to great sources of just more
information than you might actually want. And if you have
(32:36):
more information you'd like to share with your fellow listeners,
uh drop a line with any recommended reading that comes up.
It's the end of the show, guys, and that means
we have time for just one more thanks shout out
corners for a first shout out today, we would like
to shout out Sergeant Blue, which is an assumed name
(32:58):
when as you who listens to the show before going
to work at a state Department of Children and Families,
He suggested we look into the Toynbee tiles as well
as the pervasive belief in an old conspiracy that child
protective services sometimes removes children from homes for profit rather
than the safety of the child. Yeah, that's a dark one. Uh.
(33:20):
In the email that the sergeant sent, he was saying
that he's never seen any evidence of it in his workings.
But ever he said, like he said, pervasive, people just
believe it. And maybe it's just because of people who
have to deal with child protective services. Sometimes they're in
a situation that maybe leads them to see authorities in
(33:43):
a bad light. Perhaps. Our next shout out goes out
to Claire from Calgary, Canada. She said some really encouraging words,
So thank you so much for that. I'm gonna read
this quote you guys because I think it's worth it.
She said, I never want to stop hearing three cool
dudes having a discussion about witchcraft, ghosts or demonic possession.
(34:04):
That's really nice. I'll take it. Who are these guys
she's talking about. I have no idea who they are,
Like a couple of stooges, a couple of brownies. She
also suggested that we make a show focused on the
Builderberg group, which we've we've done some shows around them
and we've mentioned him a lot. Have we done an
audio episode? Maybe we should do that. That's a great idea.
(34:25):
Thank you for the suggestion. Claire from Calgary. Our third
shout out today goes to Alan at bad Motor Finger.
Uh and the ohs and motor are zeros if you're
looking them up on Twitter. Uh and yeah give us
a random shout out so we you know, we were thinking, like,
(34:45):
what's just something equally unpredictable and random that we could say?
So we'll take a different shot. We can each go
around the room. I guess I would point out that
doctor Awkward is a palindrome that's really great. Octopus is
my favorite Spider Man villain. Dr Octopus is a great villain.
(35:06):
Dr Bronner's Magic Soap is my favorite of the peppermint
scented soaps. It's a good one. How do you pronounced it?
Cast cast style soap. There's a it's a wind with
a name the Fremantle Doctor, which I think is such
a cool name for a wind. You know, Yeah, I
didn't know you could do that. How does that wind
have a cooler name than us? At A Knowle's pretty good?
(35:27):
I agreed. Did you see we got a listener mail?
I think it's on Facebook though, so they mentioned you
as k N O L L. Yeah, I get that.
Sometimes the grassy the grassy one. Well that's a that's
a random enough response. I think, too bad, motor Finger.
We have one last thing that we want to tell
people about, and we want you to check this out
(35:48):
on our social media or Twitter and our Facebook where
we're conspiracy stuff. We got a fascinating package last week earlier. Yeah,
we did so. Do you guys remember that conversation where
we were talking about I'm speaking to you by the way,
not you know, not you've been, but to you, Uh,
the conversation we had about ben bucks and we're going
(36:10):
to start our own currency. We we talked about it.
We've been floating this idea for a minute, floating our currency.
I've it's been a personal dream of mine for for
a while. Although it was slow and upkeep and uh
the you know when we when I first proposed the idea,
I thought you guys were gonna just tell me to
shut up, but you got behind it and someone else
(36:30):
did too, So Leanne took it upon herself to like
design and print out and send us via actual male
some bend bucks in different denominations. Right, Yeah, we got
a one of five seven point seven point five aten
and five ones attendants and also the plates to make
(36:52):
more of these. Uh. Noel and Matt got promoted to
uh various high government governmental positions. Uh, finally, finally, right.
I I don't think I actually have a have a
position there, but you know what, I'll take it. And
in all seriousness, this was this was such a cool
thing to send, So we'll put we'll post some pictures
(37:13):
if you want to check it out, and if you
have an idea for starting your own currency, we'd also
like to hear it. Uh. I I spent some time, like,
uh like thinking of Matt and Nol money too. I
mean Matt money obviously obviously obviously writes itself. Noel Nichols,
Noel Nichols, Just Nichols. That's all I mean. I pay
(37:36):
for everything in Nichols. It's true. I've seen it. It's weird.
That's what's in the backpack, Just Nichols. I bet you
thought it was a laptop. No, Just Nichols. Always wondered
why it was so loud. And that's the end of
this classic episode. If you have any thoughts or questions
about this episode, you can get into contact with us
in a number of different ways. One of the best
(37:57):
is to give us A call or number is one
eight three e std w y t K. If you
don't want to do that, you can send us a
good old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at i heart
radio dot com. Stuff they don't want you to know.
Is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts
from my heart Radio, visit the i heart radio app,
(38:17):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
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