Twisted Affection: Hope Masters & G. Daniel Walker

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
True Crime Brewery contains disturbing content related to real life crimes.
Medical information is opinion based on facts of a crime
and should not be interpreted as medical advice or treatment.
Listener discretion is advised.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Welcome to True Crime Brewery.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
I'm Jill and I'm Dick.

Speaker 4 (00:34):
So in the quiet hills of Springville, California, there was
a cold blooded murder that shattered the illusion of a
perfect world. The lives of a wealthy rancher, a beautiful woman,
and a charming stranger with a dark past collided, resulting
in a twisted series of disquieting incidents. So this is

(00:54):
more than a true crime story. It's a story of manipulation, survival,
and real the power of persuasion. Join us today for
Twisted Affection. We're delving into the chilling case of Hope
Masters and g. Daniel Walker, a man who posed as
a charismatic friend but was a psychopathic, sexual predator, a fugitive,

(01:17):
and a remorseless killer. So we're peeling back the layers
of deception, exploring the psychology of criminal and victim, and
asking ourselves how much can one person really control the
actions and the feelings of another person? And while we
do this. We're drinking something called Scorpion.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
Bowl, a nice IPA from Stone Brewing. It's an American
IPA of the seven point five percent alcohol by volume.
Nice beer, not one that you'd necessarily think of as
a West Coast IPA, but still have a very good beer.
Pretty brass color, medium sized white head that stays around
the whole time you're drinking, a ton of lacing on
the sides of the glass. Nice aroma, tropical fruit, a

(02:00):
little bit of pine resin. Taste of mango and pineapple,
with some pine at the end of the swallow. Pretty
nice beer. Didn't really know what I was expecting, but
it turned out better than I thought it would be.

Speaker 4 (02:12):
All right, cool, So I think Scorpion Bowl I have
had as a drink at a Chinese restaurant.

Speaker 3 (02:18):
Yeah, there's scorpion something. Yeah, got like twenty seven alcohols
in it.

Speaker 4 (02:22):
It's very alcoholic and fruity, so yeah, okay, but this
is not terribly alcoholic. Seven point five percent is about average,
maybe a little above average.

Speaker 3 (02:31):
It's a little bit on the higher side.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
Put it in another way, It's not a beer you're
going to sit down and have two or three boom
boom boom.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Well maybe not me, but some people.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
Might, okay, most people.

Speaker 4 (02:43):
Yeah, Well maybe back in the day when your liver
was fresher, you probably could have drank three or four
of those.

Speaker 3 (02:50):
Oh I don't know. Oh, come on, i'd feel it.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Well, you would feel it. Yes, I'm not saying you
wouldn't feel it. Okay, it would be a day off.
You wouldn't be uncalled, that's for sure.

Speaker 4 (03:01):
No way, no, So let's open it up, all right,

(03:23):
come on down here.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
This is an older story, but I hadn't heard of it,
and it's really kind of fascinating, it really is.

Speaker 4 (03:32):
Yeah, so let's start talking about Hope. So Hope was
born Hope Elise, and when she was a young child,
her parents got divorced. When Hope was just too her
mother went to city hall and deleted Elise from her
original birth certificate so she would remember her father, James Stagliano,
a musician whom she came to call my wild Italian father,

(03:55):
as a joyful man. When he moved back east and
played French horn for the Boston Symphony, they saw a
lot less of each other, though. For her sixteenth birthday,
when she flew to New York for a visit with him.
He took her to the Stork Club, where they were
thrown out for fancy dancing whatever that means inappropriate dancing,
I don't know, probably more like a modern Yeah. So

(04:21):
for the next dozen years of her life or so,
Hope was in and out of various schools. She lived
in rental houses and hotel rooms, although she spent long
stretches of time with her mother's parents in Holmby Hills.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
So did they move around a lot?

Speaker 2 (04:35):
Mom did?

Speaker 3 (04:36):
Mom did?

Speaker 4 (04:37):
In Hope, Oh did sometimes, or she would stay with
her grandparents, her mom's parents. So there they had a giant,
white Spanish style mansion with this huge lawn, and inside
the house they had a living room so big it
looked like a ballroom with velvet draperies and crystal chandeliers.
So you kind of get the picture.

Speaker 3 (04:57):
So we got some money here, a lot.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
Of money on mom's side. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (05:00):
So Hope's mother, who was also named Hope, was called
Honey by her family.

Speaker 3 (05:05):
Oh yeah, one way of keeping them separate, yep.

Speaker 4 (05:09):
And she was often away from her daughter. She was
very busy dating, playing tennis, and traveling, and because of this,
Hope became very attached to her grandmother. She said that
she and her grandmother would lie on the floor side
by side, stretching and doing exercises, while her grandmother would
tell her stories and explain to Hope that her mom

(05:31):
Honey needed to be taken care of and just how
Hope should do that.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
So interesting, right.

Speaker 3 (05:38):
Sounds like we're getting a little bit of grooming here.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (05:41):
So Hope had a big bedroom upstairs at her grandparents' house,
where she and her friends spent a lot of time
playing with Hope's expansive collection of dolls, and the girls
were often alone in the house. So at Westlake, a
very proper girls' school, Hope were a blue uniform with
short sleeves and a sash tied in the back. She
had to wear these white ankle socks and black shoes.

(06:04):
She really hated this school, but she was living with
her grandmother and other than that, she was generally.

Speaker 2 (06:11):
Happy in life.

Speaker 4 (06:12):
So when she was eleven, her grandmother died and that
was tough, and Hope ended up being transferred to a
public school. But you know, Hope really loved the new school.
She really just preferred the public school. I think she
liked having the boys and the girls. She liked the
freedom of wearing what you want. She just preferred it.
But then after two years, her mother placed her in Marlborough,

(06:35):
an even more proper girls school, which Hope disliked even
more than she had disliked Westlake. So she used to
come home crying nearly every day because she wasn't one
of the popular girls, and by the time she reached
tenth grade she was really miserable. She started skipping school
a lot, pretending to be sick. She even threatened to

(06:57):
flunk out deliberately, and by eleventh grade she had gotten
back into a public school that was Los Angeles High.
Again she loved it, but this conflicted with her mother's
long rage vision for her daughter. She remembered her mother
saying that nobody who went to LA High would ever
do anything with their lives, that all the nice people
went to private school. Honey won, and Hope transferred back

(07:20):
to Westlake to repeat the eleventh grade, and her mother's
plan was to have Hope finish at Westlake, then make
her debut at the Las Madrina's Ball, and go on
to Stanford. But Hope had different plans, very different than that,
so when Hope was just sixteen, she drove down to
Mexico with the boy next door and they got married.

(07:41):
They didn't tell their parents because they were afraid the
marriage would be annulled by them, which is probably a
valid concern. Happened, Yes, So Hope's nineteen year old husband
went back to his classes at USC, and then Hope
enrolled there too. She hadn't yet finished high school, but
when her test came back showing an IQ of one
eighty three, USC took her on conditionally.

Speaker 3 (08:05):
That's some IQ.

Speaker 2 (08:06):
Isn't that amazing?

Speaker 3 (08:08):
If that's true, well, I have no reason.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
To doubt it. She was very intelligent.

Speaker 4 (08:13):
Maybe not the most common sense, but that's not unusual.
So the newlyweds continued to live at their family homes,
but they were together a lot during the day on campus,
and they spent a lot of time at a friend's nearby apartment.
And for whatever reason, Hope wanted to get pregnant. And
you know, people have said, well, maybe she just wanted

(08:34):
to have a home of her own. She thought, if
I start a family, I can get away from my
mother and live my own life, which seemed like something
she really wanted.

Speaker 3 (08:42):
Yeah. Good, luck with it.

Speaker 4 (08:43):
So Honey got married again, and this time she married
a rich and prominent attorney who Hope really didn't get
along well with at all. So when Hope did become pregnant,
she and her husband decided it was safe to tell
their families they were married because they're not going to
be able to annul it. Now, Hope's mother actually approved
of the groom.

Speaker 3 (09:02):
Well, he conditionally approved because he had money.

Speaker 4 (09:06):
Well, yes, that was important to Hope's mother. He was
actually an heir to a biscuit fortune and his family
had a legitimate ancestral crest. But his mother was not
happy about the pregnancy and the marriage. She actually cried
about it. This is not what she had planned for
her son. So finally both mothers got together and arranged

(09:27):
for a large formal wedding at the All Saints Episcopal
Church in Beverly Hills. But you know it was really funny, funny,
maybe strange, not so humorous is the groom's mother were
black to the wedding.

Speaker 2 (09:39):
Can you believe it?

Speaker 3 (09:40):
Oh, I guess she's in mourning. She wear black.

Speaker 4 (09:43):
Yeah, Well she's not being subtle about it, though, she
sure isn't. No, so she was probably right, because the
marriage did not last. Hope's first place of her own
was a studio apartment downtown, where she and her husband
slept on a mattress on the floor. When she was
eight months pregnant, the l lord said he didn't allow children,
so Hope and her husband moved to a slightly larger place.

(10:06):
So they were living on three hundred dollars a month,
half given to them by each family. And that sounds terrible,
but we're talking what late sixties here, so it wasn't
that bad. So when their son, Keith, was eighteen months old,
Hope decided to have another baby right away so Keith
wouldn't grow up alone. And she wanted a girl, and
she wanted to name her Lisa Marie. And this wasn't

(10:29):
after Elvis's daughter, this was after her Italian grandmother, Maria
Theresa Stagliano. But then during the labor, Hope's mother stayed
with her and insisted a girl should be named Hope too,
so pretty much like Hope the Third, but with a
different middle name. Yes, her mother in law wanted her
named Elizabeth because it was a proper English name, So

(10:51):
the new baby girl was named Hope Elizabeth. By then,
Hope and her husband and the children were living in
a nice little house in Benedict Canyon, mostly paid for
by Hope's mother, although Hope had chipped in with the
ten thousand dollars that her Holby Hill's grandmother had set
aside for her wedding.

Speaker 3 (11:10):
Pretty nice wedding gift.

Speaker 4 (11:11):
Yeah, so you'd think Hope had it pretty much made,
but that just wasn't who she was. She was soon
very bored and dissatisfied. Their social life consisted mostly of
bridge games with Honey and her husband, and Hope really
started to hate those evenings. When Hope was twenty three
years old, she filed for divorce. Her husband actually cried.

(11:34):
He was really heartbroken, and Hope felt bad about this,
but she really loved her new freedom. She hadn't sewn
her wild oats and this was her chance. So she
did a lot of double dating with her friend Phyllis.
By the age of nineteen, Phyllis had already been married
and divorced and had a son, so Hope and Phyllis
had a lot in common, and they often shared babysitters

(11:57):
to cut down on costs when they went out together.
So in a restaurant. One night, Hope met a handsome
young public relations man named Tom Masters. They dated for
four months, and she had one last date with another
man the night before She and Tom were married in
Las Vegas. So when I read about this, I thought,

(12:17):
wait a minute, we're kind of passing over this quickly.
What was this last date? One night before she married?

Speaker 3 (12:24):
Will tell me?

Speaker 4 (12:25):
Does that really count as a date or is that cheating?
What is that beachelorette party thing?

Speaker 3 (12:31):
Well, I'd consider it cheating.

Speaker 4 (12:33):
I would think if Tom knew about it, he wouldn't
have been happy.

Speaker 3 (12:36):
I don't think so, but who knows?

Speaker 2 (12:38):
Who knows?

Speaker 4 (12:38):
I mean, he was really taken with her. Hope wore
a white mini skirt and pink roses in her hair,
and just before the ceremony, Tom paid an extra five
dollars and someone lit candles for them. Then they spent
a five day honeymoon in Las Vegas. But the temperature
there was one hundred and twenty degrees so it wasn't great.

Speaker 3 (12:58):
Oh it doesn't get hirt, and it sure does.

Speaker 2 (13:02):
So.

Speaker 4 (13:02):
Hope had a son with Tom Masters, who they named
Kirk Craig and nicknamed k C. He was born in
January nineteen seventy Hope and Tom though separated just six
weeks later, just for a week that time, but pretty
soon they did separate for good. So by nineteen seventy three,
when she was thirty one, Hope Masters had really lived

(13:26):
a string of different lives, and she had contradictions that
seemed to manisfest them all. Although she was often referred
to as the heiress and the socialite, she had spent
unusual amounts of time without spending money. She didn't really
have a lot of money to spend. Large sums of
money that was legally hers was sitting in trust funds,

(13:49):
but without being able to access it. She and her
children lived a very simple life. They ate a lot
of hot dogs and mac and cheese. One week they
lived on potatoes and milk.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
That was it.

Speaker 4 (14:01):
She also had no health insurance and no credit cards.
Now it's funny because she was listed in the Blue
Book Social Register while her children qualified for free lunches
at their public school. So it was really interesting these
two dynamic.

Speaker 3 (14:16):
Yeah, I know, if she has money and trust, how
come she can't access it.

Speaker 2 (14:20):
She wasn't able to access it yet.

Speaker 4 (14:22):
I don't know what the rules were with it.

Speaker 3 (14:24):
Oh, it was something like at age thirty or whatever, she.

Speaker 4 (14:27):
Could get it something like that, I believe, yes. But
her income at this time was four hundred and thirty
five dollars a month, some from each husband and some
from her mother, but she was still eligible for food stamps.
So she was living in Beverly Hills, one of the
most expensive areas in the whole country, and she was
working at a series of odd jobs, some of them

(14:50):
worse than others. For a while, she was a cocktail waitress.
She worked briefly for a doctor who specialized in giving injections.
But you know, Hope's really strong point was talking. She
could talk about anything anytime. She loved to talk, and
when she wasn't talking, she liked to listen to people
and hear their stories.

Speaker 3 (15:08):
Now, I've found that people who love to talk many
times don't like to listen, right, But she.

Speaker 4 (15:14):
Liked both, probably talking more, but she was a decent
listener when she wanted to be.

Speaker 2 (15:20):
So.

Speaker 4 (15:20):
She had discarded one husband because she considered him a
boring homebody, and another because she'd considered him uninterested in
children and domesticity. So she wanted to spend time with
her children and to be involved with them. But she
also really wanted to have the kind of fun that
her beauty and her personality made pretty easy for her.

(15:43):
So when her two kids, Keith and Hope Elizabeth, were
old enough to understand, she promised them she'd never go
out on a date two nights in a row, and
she pretty much kept that promise. She almost never did,
but it's funny that on the nights she did go out,
she usually arranged for her two three dates in that
one evening, so she was really getting the dates in.

(16:05):
She liked men, she liked going out and having fun.
She'd gotten married really young, so maybe she was kind
of making up for what she'd missed out in in college,
but that's just the way it was, and her kids
pretty much accepted that what else were they going to do?

Speaker 3 (16:21):
Well, they didn't know anything different.

Speaker 2 (16:22):
Really, no exactly.

Speaker 4 (16:24):
So Hope was soft hearted, and over the years she'd
taken in dozens of stray cats and even a few
runaway children. A friend called Hope's house early crash pad.
When one of her former maids turned up pregnant, Hope
took her in, and when the baby was due, she
took her.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
To the hospital. When the hospital.

Speaker 4 (16:44):
Said only a family member could go into the labor
room with her, Hope signed the form and attended. So
she may have been generous with her emotions and her
love because she felt such an intense need herself to
be loved simply for being herself.

Speaker 3 (17:00):
I think that's very app Yeah, So.

Speaker 4 (17:02):
When she met Bill Ashlock in December nineteen seventy two
at a Christmas party, she felt right away that he
was the man for her. He was quiet but not boring,
successful but not flashy, and he seemed able to express
his feelings for her just as readily as she did
hers for him. So at ten thirty that Friday morning,

(17:24):
February twenty third, nineteen seventy three, Hope's new maid, Martha Pedilla,
knocked on the bedroom door and told Hope that mister
Ashlock was calling and had asked her to wake Hope
up to talk to him.

Speaker 2 (17:38):
So Hope woke up quickly.

Speaker 4 (17:40):
Bill called her every day from his office and they
talked for at least an hour, so she had expected
his call that day, but it was unusual for him
to call so early, so she sat up in bed
and reached for the bedside phone. Bill said, listen to this.
You want to have the biggest laugh of your life.
She said, he said, well, for some crazy reason, I'm

(18:03):
going to be interviewed. A guy called me and said
he's doing a story for the La Times on the
ten most eligible bachelors in town and he wants to
interview me.

Speaker 2 (18:14):
So Hope laughed.

Speaker 4 (18:15):
She said, well, tell him you're not a bachelor, and
Bill laughed too, but then he sounded serious. He said, Hopey.
The thing is, I don't want to do this if
it's going to affect our relationship where you're going to
think I'm interested in meeting other girls because I'm not.
And she said I know you're not and was fine
with it. So Bill hung up and Hope quickly called

(18:37):
Tom Masters, her ex husband. Although she and Tom had
been separated for two years, she saw him often and
they did keep in touch by phone. She'd filed initial
divorce papers to Tom only a few weeks before, and
their marriage had been over for quite a while, but
she'd deliberately delayed the filing, so even early in her

(18:59):
marriage to Tom, several men had continued to call her,
telling her they were waiting for her. Now that she
felt like her relationship with Bill Ashlock was destined for marriage.
She had finally filed the papers to divorce Tom, so
Hope told Tom she was going away for the weekend
with Bill, and that Tom was expected to pick up

(19:20):
their son KC. On Saturday morning and keep him all day.
Tom said he remembered and hung up the phone. So
it was right around noon when a neatly dressed man
in a three piece suit, wearing wire rimmed glasses and
carrying a pipe stepped off of the elevator on the
ninth floor of the tall modern building on Wilshire Boulevard where.

Speaker 2 (19:43):
Daily and Associates had its offices.

Speaker 4 (19:45):
So he told the receptionist that he had a lunch
appointment with Bill Ashlock, and he gave her his name.
She jotted the name down on a piece of paper
and went into Bill's office. She said, he'll be just
a few minutes. He told her he was from the
the Los Angeles Times, and after a few minutes she
went in again to remind Bill that he was waiting

(20:06):
for him. So Bill was putting on his jacket. Bill
was right behind her as she returned to the reception room.
The man with the pipe stood up and smiled, and
he and Bill shook hands, and.

Speaker 2 (20:18):
Then they left together.

Speaker 4 (20:19):
Hope got out of bed and made her way to
the kitchen for a cup of coffee. And she took
the coffee and her cigarettes into the living room and
curled up for a few minutes on the sofa. Casey
was lying on the rug playing with his miniature cars.
The living room there was big and comfortable and cluttered
with pillows and books. Hope put on some blue jeans

(20:41):
and a shirt, combed her hair, and told Martha she
was going out for a while. So she got into
her car, a nineteen seventy one Green Vega, and back
down the driveway. At the top of the hill, she
turned right and drove to the shopping section in Beverly Hills.
Hope crossed Sunset Boulevard and continued south past the royal

(21:01):
palm trees shading the houses on either side, which included
her mother's house. Then she pulled into the parking lot
behind a bank and went into cash a check. Her
checking account was down to about two hundred dollars, which
wasn't unusual. From the bank, Hope crossed the street to
the market. She walked up and down the aisles, tossing
things into her cart. She wanted to get back soon

(21:24):
so that when Bill came home early, as he promised
he would, they could leave right away for the ranch.
If they didn't get away by mid afternoon, traffic would
be really bad. And Hope really loved spending weekends at
the ranch, even though it wasn't really hers. Honey and
her husband had a quarter interest, along with three other couples,

(21:44):
and those four families rotated the weekends there, so this weekend,
Hope just could not wait to get there. When she
got back to the house, Bill wasn't home.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
Yet and he hadn't called.

Speaker 4 (21:56):
Hope asked her to put away the groceries and went
to the telephone. Bill's secretary said that Bill wasn't back
from lunch yet. Bill's boss, Cliff Einstein, had been looking
for Bill around the office too, starting around one point thirty,
but Cliff wasn't annoyed that Bill was having a long lunch.
He was just surprised, partly because Bill was so careful

(22:17):
about telling people where he was and exactly when he'd
be back, and partly because Cliff knew that Bill really
shunned having long lunches.

Speaker 2 (22:25):
It wasn't his thing.

Speaker 4 (22:27):
Most of the time, Bill's habit was to have yogurt
or cottage cheese, either at his desk or at his apartment,
or maybe just skip lunch altogether. So when Bill came
back from lunch a little before three o'clock, Cliff noticed
that he seemed excited. So Bill said to Cliff, I
have to tell you about something that's happened to me,

(22:47):
and being interviewed by a reporter from the La Times
for an article on the town's most eligible bachelors. So
Cliff was pretty surprised because Bill was real quiet and
you know, not flashy at all. And he also wondered
if Bill could really be called eligible since he wasn't
even divorced from his wife yet and he already had
this serious girlfriend, Hope.

Speaker 3 (23:10):
And it doesn't sound like a bachelor, doesn't.

Speaker 4 (23:12):
No, he doesn't sound very eligible at all.

Speaker 3 (23:14):
So Bill returned from lunch about three pm. He called
Hope and told her the La Times reporter wanted to
come to the ranch and take some pictures of him.
Jim Webb, the caretaker at the ranch, lived in a
small house near the main house with his wife, Teresa,
and their children, Honey, liked to let Jim Web know
when someone was coming up so he could turn on
the lights and heat. But in Hope tried him again,

(23:37):
there was no answer. The house would be cold and
dark when she and Bill got there, and Bill was
running late. Plans for this weekend had been rearranged so
much that for a moment, Hope thought about calling the
whole thing off. And now there's a total stranger coming up.

Speaker 2 (23:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (23:51):
After Bill got home, the phone rang at exactly five
point thirty. Bill answered the phone on the dining table
and said, it's all right if you come, but don't
want the name of the ranch used. So Bill said fine,
around one o'clock tomorrow. Then he gave directions to the ranch.
He told Hope the reporter's name was Taylor Wright, but
the man's real name that we'll find out, was g.

(24:14):
Daniel Walker. So if you are a fan of True
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(24:34):
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(24:55):
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(25:17):
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Tigrabber community today. The ranch was about a three hour

(25:44):
drive from Los Angeles. There were no other cars on
the road and no lights anywhere, so once there, Bill
turned and parked in the open space between the house
and the orange grove. The foreman's house behind the trees
was dark. It was cold when opened the side door
into the entrance room that opened into the kitchen, so
she switched on the lights and walked through the kitchen

(26:06):
into the living room, where she turned on the thermostat.
Hope slept in the next day and answered the phone
later to give the reporter directions again. When his car
pulled up and he stepped out, she saw him. This
guy was tall and very handsome, with dark wavy hair
and a deep tan. He was wearing dark slacks, a
dark turtleneck sweater with a white shirt over it, and

(26:28):
a leather jacket. He was facing Bill and gesturing toward
the mountain with a large carved pipe. His other hand
was in his pocket. He just looked like the image
of confidence. Hope looked at him for at least a
minute before she spoke. She thought he looked like Robert Wagner.
So a handsome man from the seventies, right, Natalie Woods. Yeah,

(26:52):
So Bill introduced Hope to Taylor. Wright and Hope sat
on the sofa and Bill poured wine for each of
them and sat in a chair the picture window. Taylor
took the rocking chair near the fireplace, and Hope and
Taylor did most of the talking. Remember I said that
Hope was a real talker, and you could even probably
call her a compulsive talker.

Speaker 3 (27:13):
Yeah. I mean, here, she's just met this guy and
she's going all over her upbringing and likes and dislikes
and everything just fill in the air with speech, yes, but.

Speaker 2 (27:22):
He was very charming.

Speaker 4 (27:24):
She talked about her life and her upbringing, her likes
and dislikes. Taylor said that he was from the Midwest,
but said he'd been living in Paris for the past
three years, so his assignment, which included the interview with Bill,
he said, was just something to do until he went
abroad again.

Speaker 3 (27:42):
When they went down to the river to take some pictures,
Hope slipped on the grass and it was Taylor who
caught her around her waist and helped her climb back
up the bank. But by the time they were going
to eat dinner, Hope was filling, lightheaded and tired from
drinking wine and taking pills for her back paint. Bill
walked with her into the bedroom. He told him she
was just going to nap and he should wake her

(28:02):
after the reporter left.

Speaker 4 (28:04):
Right, So let's talk a little bit about g.

Speaker 2 (28:07):
Daniel Walker.

Speaker 4 (28:08):
Gerald Daniel Walker who has come here to see Hope
and Bill under the name Taylor Wright.

Speaker 3 (28:16):
Yes, he's doing an article on the ten most eligible
bachelors in Los Angeles, which just seems funny to me
because Bill is still getting a divorce and he's with Hope,
so I don't think he's very eligible.

Speaker 2 (28:30):
No, but anyway, No, and you.

Speaker 4 (28:32):
Have to wonder where did he get Bill's name? Did
he know about Hope? And then yeah, no, he wasn't
even a reporter. How could it be real? This is
totally made up. But he was really good at doing that.
He could fool people. He was smart.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
He fooled Bill, he did he did so.

Speaker 4 (28:51):
Gerald Daniel Walker, also known as Daniel Wayne Walker and
Daniel Wynn Walker, was actually born in Toledo, Ohio, in
nineteen thirty one. He was an only child to Virgil
Walker and Irene Massey Walker. Virgil was an antiques dealer.
Irene was a housewife, and he seemed to have had

(29:11):
a very stable upbringing. He went to school and church regularly.
He served with the army in Korea. He was arrested
eight times, starting when he was twenty two years old,
with the charge of armed robbery in Toledo, leaning things off,
I guess. So later he was convicted of armed robbery
in Miami and sentenced to ten years at the Florida

(29:34):
State Penitentiary. So he escaped was caught and later paroled again.
Then within two years he was convicted again of armed robbery,
this time in Columbus, Ohio, and he was sentenced to
ten to twenty five years at the Ohio State Penitentiary.
So everyone would describe him as a real charmer, very
personable and clever and a very good talker. When he

(29:57):
was an inmate at Ohio State, Walker had married the
warden's private secretary. So that's kind of crazy if you
think about it, it is. I would wonder what the
warden thought, or maybe he had the warden won over
as well, because it's really amazing the people he was
able to win over.

Speaker 3 (30:14):
Yeah, and just by talk, yep, just by talk. Gift
of gab yep.

Speaker 2 (30:19):
Now.

Speaker 4 (30:19):
He was paroled in nineteen sixty three and released on
May first, nineteen sixty six, the year his son Drew
was born, and that year he started Adbiz Inc. Advertising
firm and began to make a lot of money, much
of it legally. But Walker robbed people and sometimes he
would even shoot people just for the fawn or the

(30:41):
thrill of it.

Speaker 3 (30:42):
Well it's a fun hobby.

Speaker 2 (30:44):
Yeah. So just a bad man really.

Speaker 3 (30:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (30:47):
So a camera shop owner in Arlington Heights, whom Walker
had robbed, said Walker had actually recited poetry to him.
A young woman living in a high rise apartment at
the Lake Point Towers in Chicago would retell in terror
how Walker had come in unexpectedly one night, found her
with another man, pulled out a gun and shot that

(31:07):
man in the head. He then wrapped a towel around
the man's head to catch some of the blood, got
him into his car, and drove him to the O'Hare airport,
where he pushed him out of the car. Get out
of Chicago, Walker warned the man, and don't ever come back.
Then he returned to the woman's apartment, pulled the gun
again and held it to her head. He said, if

(31:29):
I ever find you with another man, this is what
will happen. And of course this was a woman he'd
never met before, right, so really strange.

Speaker 3 (31:38):
And the head wound must not have been too severe.

Speaker 4 (31:42):
I'm not sure, but he did survive. I don't know
if many head wounds are small, especially if he had
to wrap a towel around his head.

Speaker 3 (31:49):
Well, if it's a scalp wound, it'll heck.

Speaker 2 (31:51):
That's true.

Speaker 4 (31:52):
But another interesting thing is that Walker was married at
the time, but his charm had begun to fade for
his wife, Edna. She had seen a lot a police
car followed Edna everywhere, and on at least one occasion,
Walker was seen following the police car that was following Edna.
So when Walker phoned the police to tell them where

(32:13):
he'd been and where he might be later, investigators realized
that he was really enjoying playing the game of cat
and mouse. So the court had appointed an attorney to
defend him, but Walker defended himself, which he did well
enough that for a while the verdict was actually in
serious doubt. In his summation to the jury, he stressed
his heartbreak as a father. If you believe me, he said,

(32:37):
you will let me go home tonight and be with
my son. And this plea was so impressive that the
jury was out for seven hours deliberating, But in the
end the verdict was guilty, and on December fifth, nineteen
sixty nine, Walker was sentenced to sixteen to twenty years
on the first charge in eight to ten years on
the second. But even at Joliette, Walker's visibility was high.

(33:01):
He walked around the place in his elite style demanding
that his cell be repainted, doing legal work for other inmates,
filing lawsuits of his own against prison officials, and getting
himself taken back to court time after time. One of
Walker's suits charged harassment, and he claimed he'd been beaten,
and several lawyers and reform minded citizens really began believing him.

Speaker 2 (33:25):
And visited him.

Speaker 4 (33:27):
So Walker used these people as he'd used people all
of his life, to great effect. His charm and wit
never wavered. Then in January nineteen seventy three, Walker escaped,
and this was just about one month before he met
Bill in Hope. But Walker had not escaped directly from Joliet,
but from a hospital in Chicago where he had been

(33:48):
admitted as a patient. So he had complained about internal bleeding,
and he had bleden as urine as proof. When the
prison doctors couldn't explain the blood. After a series of tests,
Walker got himself a court order for outside medical care.
He was then sent to the Illinois Research Hospital, and

(34:10):
Illinois Research was just a regular hospital.

Speaker 2 (34:12):
It had no connections to the.

Speaker 4 (34:14):
Prison, so while there he didn't wear prison clothes or
even hospital clothes, but he wore his own nice flannel
pajamas and an expensive looking robe. So I just want
you to picture this because it's really outrageous.

Speaker 3 (34:29):
It sure is.

Speaker 2 (34:30):
It is.

Speaker 4 (34:31):
So although prison guards were assigned to him around the clock,
many of them spent some time watching TV in the
lounge next door to Walker's room. When Walker refused to
let hospital people draw his blood for tests, he was
given a needle, a vacutainer, and tubes, and he was
allowed to draw it himself privately in the bathroom.

Speaker 2 (34:53):
So by the time someone.

Speaker 4 (34:54):
Figured out that Walker was putting his blood from his
arm into his urine, it was too late. And I
don't know, I no one thought of that earlier.

Speaker 3 (35:03):
I don't either. Yeah, it's certainly something that would be
not unlikely.

Speaker 4 (35:08):
I don't think he would get away with that today
probably not no, but it's still amazing. So at seven
o'clock on Wednesday morning, January thirty first, as the guards
were changing shifts, Walker left his room saying he was
going to take a shower. Then he stepped into an
elevator and never came back. So his whole time at
this hospital, it was just really amazing to me to

(35:31):
read about it.

Speaker 3 (35:32):
Sounds like he ran the place.

Speaker 4 (35:34):
Kind of it really does, doesn't it.

Speaker 3 (35:36):
It also sounds like he was running the prison.

Speaker 2 (35:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (35:39):
I think anywhere he was he kind of controlled things
pretty well, considering he certainly did so. Marcy Permel was
a legal aid lawyer who visited Walker often and whose
relationship with him seemed very different from the normal relationship
between attorney and client. Nurses had seen Marcy kissing Walker

(35:59):
and rubbi his knee. Then sometimes they saw nothing like
when Marcy and Walker drew the curtains that encircled his bed,
and there were these long periods of silent. One time, though,
when the curtains were closed around Walker's bed, they heard
loud laughter because Marcy and Walker were reading aloud from
a court document.

Speaker 3 (36:19):
So nurses told the police that Walker had definitely not
been properly guarded. Two of them reported seeing at least
one of his guards to sleep on a couch in
the TV room on two different evenings, and all of
them confirmed that Walker had been a difficult patient, not
allowing them to be near the cabinet by his bed
and constantly getting phone calls. When Walker told them he

(36:41):
would make his own bed and that they were not
to come anywhere near his bed, they stayed away.

Speaker 4 (36:46):
Yeah, he actually had liquor in his little cabinet by
the bed, which he forbid the nurses from checking, and
for whatever reason, they listened. So Catherine Pia Terciak, who
was a social worker at a county hospital where prisoners
were sometimes treated, was just amazed by the freedom that
Walker had. At the county hospital, she said, prisoners were

(37:09):
handcuffed to their beds and never allowed out of bed
without a guard nearby. She thought it was unusual too
that Walker drew his own blood, and one night she
mentioned it to a nurse. I've never seen any patient
be allowed to draw their own blood. Nope, even ones
that were free and not prisoners.

Speaker 3 (37:29):
Well, you just don't do that, no, So.

Speaker 4 (37:31):
When she mentioned it to this nurse, the nurse said, well,
you know, it's not the usual hospital procedure, but in
this case it's okay. And based on what we don't
know that he's.

Speaker 3 (37:42):
A nice guy and had a way of talk.

Speaker 2 (37:45):
Yeah, they liked him.

Speaker 4 (37:47):
So Catherine noticed that he washed his hair every morning
and styled it carefully and had hairspray that he used.
He'd always been meticulously well groomed, and he was always
ready for company. Even during his hospital.

Speaker 3 (38:00):
Stay at a Marriott hotel in ann Arbor, Michigan. On
February ninth, nineteen seventy three, the real tailor Right checked
in during a business trip. The real tailor Rights sold
costume jewelry, who is forty two years old, but he
was one of the sons in the firm and his
father always had to be called with a report. The

(38:22):
conversation with his father lasted half an hour, and when
he hung up, he decided to skip the news and
concentrate on getting drinks and dinner.

Speaker 4 (38:30):
Yeah, So there was a party in the lobby of
the hotel and Taylor went in after learning there was
a long wait for a table in the restaurant, Taylor
felt at home as he moved through the groups of
laughing people to the bar, where he asked for a scotch.
He felt more relaxed than he had all day. Now
still hungry, he picked up a plate and moved along

(38:50):
the buffet table, which was well stocked, and after another scotch,
she started to mingle. Most of the girls he talked
with seemed to work for the Marriot, and he met
their boss, the hotel manager, John West. So it was
about ten, when John West announced the party was over
and everyone had one last drink. When the party was
finally over, Taylor walked into the bar, where the leftovers

(39:13):
from the party had kind of spilled over, and there
everyone seemed to know everyone else, including the bartenders. So
Taylor made his way to his room slightly drunk. Around
eleven PM, a woman started talking to him in the hallway.
Then out of nowhere, someone struck him on the head.
He would remember being dragged across the hall into a
room where the woman had been standing in the doorway,

(39:37):
and he heard someone close the door. The room was dark,
but he could see a man sitting on the edge
of one bed, leaning over him as he lay on
the floor. And this was not the man he'd met
in the bar. He recognized the man who had hit
him as the man he'd talked with in the bar,
the man who'd said.

Speaker 2 (39:53):
He was a reporter.

Speaker 4 (39:55):
Taylor had never seen this other man, this second man, though,
it was a man he would never never after this night, forget.
So he was hit again when he came to, and
he saw that he was only wearing his T shirt
and socks. Now the room was quiet, but somebody started
hitting him again and shaking him and talking in a
very harsh, angry tone. The man who was standing over

(40:18):
him stuck a gun in his mouth, and the woman
there begged the man not to shoot him, and then
he was hit on the head with the gun. So
nearby in room one o seven, Andrew J. Volink and
his wife were awakened just before three in the morning
by voices and a loud thumping in the room next tour.

(40:38):
They thought of calling the desk to complain, but then
the sound stopped and the Volynkx went back to sleep.
Night desk clerk Cliff Gregory answered the desk phone around
five am and he heard someone complaining about a car
alarm ringing on the west side of the Marriott. Cliff
called the police, and when a police car arrived, Cliff

(40:58):
and one of the policemen went out into the parking
lot and found the car with the alarm ringing. Cliff
checked the license against the registration slips and found that
this car belonged to t Wright from Room one ten.
So he and the policeman went to room one ten
and knocked, and when there was no answer, Cliff used

(41:18):
his master key to open the door, so the room
was empty. Remember they had dragged Taylor into another room,
and in this room one ten nothing seemed wrong, So
the policeman left and Cliff went back to his desk,
and the alarm kept ringing. It was nearly six thirty
in the morning when Taylor Wright got to his feet

(41:39):
and untied them, got his feet untied and stumbled out
of Room one o nine, bloody and battered, his hands
still tied behind him, wearing only a t shirt and socks,
and he limped along the hallway until he found a
maid who helped him into a linen supply room and
sat him down while she called the front desk. Cliff

(42:00):
called the police again, and by seven point thirty a
policeman as well as a detective were on the scene.
So room one o nine, where the assault had really happened,
was a mess. There was blood all over the carpet
and on the walls two feet up from the floor,
and Taylor Wright's trousers were lying near the bed, turned
inside out with the pockets pulled out, with his jockey

(42:21):
short still hanging on the trouser leg. His briefcase was
lying on the bed, but his things were gone, including
most of his clothing, his shaving kit, and his wallet,
which had his driver's license, VFW and yacht club cards,
a Sears card, American Express card, and an engraved bracelet

(42:42):
that he'd had since his high school graduation. So he'd
been beaten and robbed.

Speaker 3 (42:47):
In stripped of clothes.

Speaker 2 (42:49):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (43:11):
Twelve days later, on Wednesday, February twenty first, nineteen seventy three,
while the real tailor Ride was still at home recuperating,
G Daniel Walker checked into the Beverly Hilton Hotel on
Wilship Boulevard in Beverly Hills and used his room phone
to rent a car. He told the car rental clerk
that he was with an advertising agency in Detroit and

(43:32):
had come to Los Angeles to work on the General
Motors account and to negotiate a deal with Metro Goldwyn Mayer.
He said he needed a car for one week. A
little later that afternoon, around four point thirty, he picked
up a brand new Lincoln Continental. He used an American
Express card and signed to the car with the name
on the card Taylor oh Wright the Third.

Speaker 2 (43:54):
Yes.

Speaker 4 (43:54):
So at eleven fifty am on February twenty third, this
handsome and well dressed man carrying a carved pipe, entered
the lobby of Daien Associates advertising agency in Los Angeles.
Andy said he was a reporter from the La Times
and he had a lunch date with Bill Ashlock. He
wanted to interview him for an article on the city's

(44:15):
ten most eligible bachelors, and he gave the name Taylor Wright.
So after interviewing Bill over lunch, and remember it was
pretty long lunch they took, and then going out to
the ranch where he met Hope and took some photos
of the couple. Walker really won over the couple with
his intelligence and his charm. But then by dinner time,

(44:35):
remember Hope was kind of dizzy and tired, and she'd
gone to take a nap. But the next thing she knew,
she was awakened by a large shape looming over her
in bed. The room was dark, and he jabbed her
in the mouth with a cold, hard object, and she
realized that was a gun. So horrible, she jerked herself
over the bed and ran out the door, and she

(44:57):
was screaming for Bill in the lit in the dim
light of the fireplace, she saw Bill sitting on the
sofa with his feet up on the coffee table. He
still had his drink in his hand, but his eyes
were close, so as she ran toward him, she noticed
that the chair where the reporter Taylor Wright had been
sitting nearby was empty, so she thought had Taylor laughed?

(45:20):
And then some maniac with a gun had come into
the house. So she was still screaming as she grabbed
Bill by the shoulders and shook him. His head wabbled
and fell back. Then a voice came from out of
the darkness, telling her that Bill could not help her.

Speaker 2 (45:35):
He was dead.

Speaker 4 (45:37):
Then someone approached her from behind, spun her around and
held her hands in the firelight. He told her, look
at all the blood on you, and then repeated that
Bill was dead. So at that point Hope vomited. She
ran for the bathroom, and the man came running after her,
tearing at her clothes. He pulled her into the bedroom,

(45:57):
where he violently raped her and her with a deep,
angry voice that she didn't recognize. So at this point
we're hearing it from Hope the story, of course, because
she's the only one besides Walker there. Yes, so this
man told her he didn't need a gun to kill her.
He could break her neck with his bare hands. Then

(46:18):
he taped her feet to her hands behind her back,
and he told her he would have to kill her
because she could identify him. He told her not to scream,
covered her with blankets, and then whispered near her cheek,
I love you. And he was known for doing weird
things like that, right, remember he'd recited poetry to one
of his victims. Then he left and he closed the door.

(46:40):
So in the meantime, Detective Robert Stallwell of the Illinois
State Police was tracking G. Daniel Walker. It had been
three weeks since he'd escaped from custody. The real tailor
right had identified Walker from a mugshot as the man
who had beaten him. In a hotel room in ann Arbor, Michigan.
Was tied up in complete darkness, and she wondered if

(47:03):
she'd been hallucinating this whole strange night. But then the
man came back into the bedroom, and he sounded very agitated,
but kind of less violent and wild than he'd seemed before.
Hope asked him if Bill was really dead, and why
would someone kill Bill. The man told Hope that Bill
had been killed because someone wanted her dead. He said

(47:24):
he'd been given the contract by her ex husband, remember
Tom Masters, and he said he had taken out a
large insurance policy on her life. So the man said
that she was supposed to be killed in a Sharon
Tate type massacre along with her two older children, but
not the youngest, of course, because that was Tom Master's son.

(47:44):
So Hope begged him to let her go back to
her children, and she promised she would never identify her rapist.
He warned her that if she ever identified him, the
organization would have her picture and she and her children
would be killed. Then he left the room, so when
he returned to the bedroom, Hope could tell by his
voice in his silhouette that this was actually the reporter

(48:08):
Taylor right. She decided to keep talking and try and
be entertaining and befriend him. And as she talked NonStop
about her life and her children and anything that came
to her mind, he talked to her too. He seemed
to be wavering about whether to kill Hope or not.
He told her that he had a coat of ethens
and he did not believe in killing a mother with

(48:28):
young children, especially when they didn't have a lot of money.
He said he would have to think about what to do.
Then he sat down his gun, put his head on
her shoulder, and fell asleep. Hope said she blacked out then,
feeling momentary relief, but.

Speaker 2 (48:44):
Still in a lot of shop.

Speaker 4 (48:46):
And you know, we don't fully know if Hope told
the whole truth either.

Speaker 2 (48:49):
That's interesting part.

Speaker 4 (48:51):
But it was light outside when Hope woke up, and
Walker woke up too and tried to kiss her. Hope
said she had to brush her teeth, and he laughed
about that. He warned her again that if she identified him,
she and her children would be killed. Then he talked
about killing Tom Master so Hope could collect his Social Security.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
He also talked.

Speaker 4 (49:11):
About burning down the ranch house. He wanted to cook
breakfast for her, but when Hope refused to walk through
the living room because of Bill's body being there, he
dragged the body into a back bedroom out of sight.
So he was really flirting with Hope. He got her
dressed and took her up the mountain side to take pictures.
Then he put her in the front seat of his

(49:32):
Lincoln and drove her to her house in Beverly Hills.
And this is where it gets really weird.

Speaker 3 (49:38):
Weird.

Speaker 4 (49:39):
He told her that her children were still in danger
from the people involved in this contract killing, and that
the police could not be contacted until he had time
to fix everything. Until then, though, he said that he
would protect them, and she seemed to believe that.

Speaker 2 (49:54):
Which is just outrageous.

Speaker 3 (49:56):
Yes it is. So.

Speaker 4 (49:57):
She remembered being afraid, but he only seemed angry and
dangerous when she showed her fear or told him she
was in pain, so she tried to appear cheerful. It
started to seem to hope that he wanted to take
Bill's place, and he really wanted her to act like
she was his wife. So for two full days she

(50:17):
did that.

Speaker 2 (50:18):
Okay, yeah.

Speaker 4 (50:20):
Now, meanwhile, the police in Illinois trying to trace the
steps of escaped prisoner Daniel Walker, were being taunted in
letters that came through his lawyer. Walker wrote that he
was playing a cat and mouse.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
Game and winning.

Speaker 4 (50:35):
So he wrote, skied Loveland Base in this am and
then on over to Vail and the big monster Lions
had this afternoon, but I ruined a new pair of
sixty dollars ski pants. Tell the boys at Illinois State
Police to look for a fugitive with a limp. Then,
in another letter, he not only named the dining room
at a hotel where he was staying, the Oak Room,

(50:56):
but he itemized his dinner for them a series of
March teenies oysters on the half shell, turtle soup and
sherry steak beaten with pepper on both sides and cooked
to medium rare with mushrooms, plus four Irish coffees. Now,
Detective Stallwell was familiar with Walker, but he didn't know
what to make of the ending of one letter in

(51:17):
which Walker, after describing the comforts of one of his hideouts,
the TV, the food, the liquor, the women, the pipe, tobacco,
having a tailor and a barber, struck a kind of
contemplative note. He wrote, One might suspect I'm happy.

Speaker 2 (51:32):
I am not.

Speaker 4 (51:33):
This carries a price tag when you never get to
see until it's too late. So the detective didn't know
that Walker had found a woman either, Hope Masters whose
lifelong insecurities really conformed to his situation. So there was
something about these two people that made this happen, right,
It wouldn't happen with just anyone.

Speaker 3 (51:55):
I would think not. Although I don't know how he
fixated on her.

Speaker 4 (52:00):
She was very beautiful. Pictures I've seen very beautiful woman,
for sure. Plus she was well off, she'd been to
good schools, and he was definitely into that kind of thing,
the finer things.

Speaker 3 (52:12):
Yes, But how did he know about her? Had he
seen her someplace or read an article?

Speaker 2 (52:17):
Yeah, that we don't really know.

Speaker 3 (52:19):
And I can see why he'd consider her a good mark, right,
But I don't know how he figured out it was her.

Speaker 2 (52:26):
Well, he must have known that she was with Bill somehow.

Speaker 3 (52:29):
Yeah. Well, he did research, that's obvious he did. He
figured Bill would be a way to get him in,
and he.

Speaker 4 (52:37):
Was good at doing research because there were a lot
of things we'll find out that he knew that you
wouldn't necessarily think he would. Okay, So he said to Hope,
I would like to sit here by the fire with
you forever. I would be your protector and take care
of you and the children forever. Put the kids to
bad and sit by the fire with you. He set

(52:58):
his wineglass on the coffee table and walked around to
the back of the sofa, leaning against it and facing her.
Can you ever forgive me? He asked, Yes, I forgive you.
Hope told him, I do forgive you. So he smiled
and he seemed very happy, as he had since they
got back from the ranch that Sunday. He'd actually been

(53:19):
playing with the children, cooking their meals, and, over Hope's protests,
he even drove them to school. Now she knows he's
a murderer, so it's really strange that she didn't call
the police. He said that things have to appear normal.
He washed the dishes and tucked the children into bed
and sipped wine in the living room, listening to music

(53:39):
with her, and he talked dreamingly about getting out of
the killing business. I can stop doing this, you know,
he told her. I can go out tomorrow and get
a job as an attorney and never harm another person.
If I do that, if I stay out of trouble
for five years, will you marry me? And Hope answered, well,
I think it would be fine if you became a lawyer,

(54:00):
But I honestly don't know how i'd feel in five years.
So I think that was a pretty smart way to answer,
because I think if she'd been too readily going along
with it, he would have seen through that. Yeah, he
wasn't stupid. So by Tuesday afternoon, Hope convinced Walker that
they had to do something. Somebody's going to find Bill's body.

(54:21):
She told him it's been three days. So reluctantly he
agreed that they would go down the hill to her
mother's house nearby, but he warned her again that if
she veered from their planned story, everyone would be killed.
So when they arrived, Hope's mother, Honey, was appalled at
her daughter's disheveled appearance. Hope kept thinking of the gun

(54:42):
in Walker's waistband under his leather jacket as he sat
on the sofa in her mother's elegant living room helping
her tell their story. And this was that Bill had
been killed by an intruder, and that Taylor had arrived
on Sunday and he had moved Bill's body, and he
had rescued her. So Honey was impressed by him, who
seemed obviously intelligent and well educated, but she just couldn't

(55:07):
comprehend what they were telling her. So after you released
Hopie and left the ranch, why didn't you drive straight
to the police station, she asked, And I think that's
a reasonable question, so he said, because your daughter told
me what had happened, and she was terrified for the
safety of her children. She said the killer had told
her that if she notified the police before he said

(55:29):
she could, he would kill her and her children. And
then he gave a very serious look at Honey, right
in her eyes and said, you and your husband too.
He said, you are all still in terrible danger. And
I am sure there is someone on the roof of
the house across the street now with a telescopic rifle.

(55:51):
There also may be a bomb under your house, he said.
So Honey tried to steady herself, and she asked, now,
when you got back to la and got the children
and safely together, why didn't you go to the police then?

Speaker 2 (56:03):
And now?

Speaker 4 (56:04):
He said, because I'm not an American national, Walker said,
I have removed a material witness from the scene of
a crime, and I have disturbed the evidence of a crime.
This could cause me trouble with my passport. This killer,
he said, has been very clever. He is arranged to
always have one child away from Hope so she couldn't contact.

Speaker 2 (56:23):
The police for everything he does.

Speaker 4 (56:26):
And Hope and her mother seemed to be kind of
buying it, but things changed when Hope's stepfather got home
from the office and heard this story. He immediately reached
for the phone. He said, I'm sixty three years old
and I've never broken the law in my life. I'm
calling the police.

Speaker 3 (56:43):
At last, a voice of reason.

Speaker 4 (56:46):
Right, But Hope threw herself in front of the phone.
You're not just risking your own life, she screamed, you're
condemning my children, and they haven't even had a chance
to live. So as Hope and her stepfather argued, Honey cried,
and then Walker stood up. He said, I'll call the police,
but not from here. This phone has tapped. He said,

(57:07):
I'll use the phone at the Beverly Hills Hotel. So
he gave Hope a smile, and just like that he
was gone.

Speaker 3 (57:15):
So that was it, the phantom. He's there and he's
not there.

Speaker 2 (57:18):
That's right.

Speaker 3 (57:40):
So. Over the years, various psychiatrists and various prisons have
attempted to analyze Daniel Walker. At least one probation officer
had been impressed by Walker's friendliness and his ability to
relate easily to strangers. He described him as intelligent, very articulate,
and under the circumstances, cooperative. The officer had quoted Walker's

(58:03):
stated goal in life, apparently verbade him in deadpain to
convince people that material things are not the most important
in life, but acceptance.

Speaker 2 (58:13):
So that's just real bullshit, isn't it.

Speaker 3 (58:16):
Yeah, Yeah, he's got this probation officer believing right.

Speaker 5 (58:20):
Well.

Speaker 4 (58:20):
Six months later, a prison psychiatrist had a much less
positive opinion. He called Walker manipulative and pointed out that
a significant aspect of this man's personality is the ease
with which his emotions are stimulated and the extent to
which he acts out his feelings in an impulsive manner.

(58:41):
Because of his drive, in addition to a manipulative ability,
he has experienced occasional brilliant success in the business world. However,
this performance has not been consistent over the years, and
it's doubtful whether this performance can be consistent unless there
was a basic change personality structure within the individual. There's

(59:04):
an underlying element of rage and anger within the inmate,
which occasionally surfaces and results an impulsive and aggressive overt behavior.
This individual is potentially very aggressive and perhaps homicidal.

Speaker 2 (59:19):
So Detective Swollwell's.

Speaker 4 (59:21):
Words were much plainer than this, but along the same lines.
He said, an evil man, a man who would shoot you,
then sit down and have lunch beside your body and
if you think of what he did with Bill and
other people, that's absolutely true.

Speaker 3 (59:37):
Cardless, spot on.

Speaker 4 (59:38):
Yeah, So as soon as Taylor left or Walker left,
however you want to refer to him.

Speaker 2 (59:44):
At this point, Hope.

Speaker 4 (59:45):
Quickly wrote out her will, and her stepfather brought guns
he kept in the house out into the living room,
so they were scared.

Speaker 3 (59:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (59:55):
Within an hour, two Beverly Hills policemen arrived and Hope
told them her story about an unknown intruder, a murder contract,
and that she was rescued by a man named Taylor. Meanwhile,
back at the ranch, the police from nearby Porterville had
found Bill Ashlock's body. So poor Bill, he didn't do
anything wrong. The Porterville police called the Beverly Hills police

(01:00:19):
and Hope Masters was arrested on suspicion of homicide. So
they were believing her story, they weren't, Nope, so Bill
was pronounced dead on the scene at ten thirty pm Tuesday,
the precise time that a white Chevrolet in Paula was
being rented at the Avis desk at the LA Airport

(01:00:39):
by a man who presented a credit card and signed
the slip William T.

Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
Ashlock.

Speaker 4 (01:00:45):
So he had stolen Bill's credit cards. Now, after two
days and two nights in county jail, Hope was released
on fifty thousand dollars bail, pending a preliminary hearing. So
even the Valuemen prescribed sleeping pills could not help her sleep.
She lay awake at night in the guest room at
her mother's house, with her children clutching on to her

(01:01:05):
in bed. Hope and her stepfather argued a lot, with
Honey often stepping in and sobbing. Honey had considered Hope
difficult and rebellious since late childhood, and Hope resented her
mother's attempts to control her life. Hope often cited her
mother's personal allowance from her husband, which was three thousand
dollars a month, not including car maintenance and lunches at

(01:01:29):
the La Country Club, in contrast to her own precarious
financial situation. When the murder and Hope's arrest made headlines,
flowers and gifts poured in for her parents. Hope was
really annoyed by one note that read, when our children
are little, they tread upon our feet, and when they're grown,
they tread upon our hearts. So Hope said that she

(01:01:52):
was afraid of so many things, she couldn't sort it
all out in her head. An uncanceled murder contract, a
bomb under the house, someone waiting watching somewhere with a
telescopic rifle. She kept hearing footsteps outside of her bedroom window.
The family hired a private detective who sometimes stayed to
watch over them. So when the first tape from Walker

(01:02:13):
arrived by Messenger, Hope's stepfather called the attorneys he had
arranged for Hope, Tom Breslin and Ned Nelson, as well
as Detective Tinch. So a large audience heard with the
man still known to the family as Taylor Wright, had
to say, I do not want any member of your
family listening in. I do not want any of your

(01:02:35):
lawyers to listen in. I will stick by you to
the bitter end, and I will get you out of
this mess. I will not leave the country. I will
not leave the area until I know all the charges
against you have been dropped. I have kept track of
the kids. I know they are staying home from school.
I'm not far away, dear. I am going to stay close.

(01:02:55):
I'll see you out of this one mister, fix it
will get you through. And I found a stunning white
dress size three. Then he read an affidavit outlining the
events at the ranch, which detailed his arrival on Sunday
to find Bill dead and Hope bound in a way
that she could not have accomplished herself. So he declared

(01:03:16):
himself willing to answer any in all questions. However, he
said this must be done outside of the United States.
Besides the affidavit, the business like portion of the tape
contained the information that a man recently found dead in
a motel room on the Sunset Strip was the killer
originally hired for the Hope Master's job, but because this

(01:03:40):
man had not carried it out after being paid, he
himself had been eliminated. So he wrote telling Hope he
would not leave her in this trouble. She had committed
no crime and was not involved in anyone's death. He
wrote that he was willing to tell anyone that she
had been under his control and in his custody the
entire time they were together after they left the ranch,

(01:04:03):
and he ended the note with I would love to
come home to you give the kids a kiss.

Speaker 2 (01:04:09):
So creepy, yes, I know. So.

Speaker 3 (01:04:11):
As Attorney Tom Breslin listened to the long tape, he
felt a shiver. He had never heard anything so obviously evil.
The caressing voice, the romantic nostalgia, and the way he
brilliantly exploited Hope's deepest insecurities and needs, especially her need
for a strong carry man to fix her life for her,
a lover, father, protector, and friend.

Speaker 4 (01:04:33):
Yeah Breslin and his partner Ned Nelson and Detective Gene
Tinch suspected immediately that this man who called himself Taylor
Wright was not a prince and a white Lincoln who
had rescued Hope. They did not believe that Hope had
shot Bill, but they didn't fully believe her story of
a mysterious intruder and then another mysterious hero. Hope had

(01:04:55):
held to that version of the story for days after
she was released on bail, and Detective Tinch had expressed confusion.
She's away from him, she's free from him. Why does
she continue to take the wrap for him?

Speaker 2 (01:05:08):
He yesked so.

Speaker 4 (01:05:09):
The morning after the tape was played, the FBI called
Tom Breslin, and within an hour everyone gathered in Honey's
living room. Hope stared at the picture, a mugshot of
a long haired man with a twinkle in his eye.
Her mother and stepfather identified him, but another picture flashed
through Hope's mind, hand in his pocket, gesturing with his pipe,

(01:05:32):
thick wavy hair, golden tan, polished boots, warm smile, and
she was conflicted. The FBI agent was talking, but Hope
hesitated to respond. Then she closed her eyes, and finally
Hope opened her eyes and said yes, and did identify
him as Daniel Walker. Now that morning, March sixth, Detective

(01:05:55):
Swallwell was reading the letter that Walker's lawyer had just received.
I'm enclosing a brief story from the front pages of
the SF paper, which tells a bit of what is
up in the fast moving life of Run Dan Run. Next,
I'm enclosing a picture of Hope. Her name is Hope
but is called Hope, and I took the picture in

(01:06:17):
Hope's garden in La Walker recounted his version of the
events that day and how the police arrived and Hope
and her children refused to answer any question, and Hope
elected to go to jail to give him enough time
to get away. Hours later, when Detective Swallwell heard from
the FBI that Hope masters and her parents had identified

(01:06:38):
Walker's mugshot he grabbed a change of clothing his weapon,
and he was on the next flight out west. You
are the only means we have of catching this man.
The FBI had told Hope, it's important that you keep
him on the phone when he calls. You must keep
him around. So when the phone rang soon afterward, Hope's

(01:06:59):
hands shook it. She answered, how are you, Walker asked,
and without waiting for her reply, he said, I know
you're very bad. I will stick around and see you
out of this mess. Oh please do, Hope said, shakily.
I'm so scared. I'm going right down the drain. It's
looking real bad for me. They took me to Porterville,

(01:07:19):
but they've removed everything up there, like the fact that
I threw up. They're just not buying it. And they
think I'm some sort of sex freak. Well that's a bummer,
Walker said, And she doesn't even kiss until she brushes
her teeth, and he laughed.

Speaker 2 (01:07:34):
Well, I've got to get off now.

Speaker 4 (01:07:36):
Will you call me later, Hope asked, trying to sound casual. Sure,
he said, take care of yourself, give me a kiss,
Love you, And in his last of several calls, he asked, Hope,
have they shown you any pictures. Hope said no in
a very quiet voice. Walker sounded relieved and said, then
they don't realize you don't know who I am. Listen,

(01:07:59):
take care of yourself. Hope blurted out. I don't want
you to get killed on account of me. I don't
want anybody to get killed on account of me anymore. Well,
that's neither here nor there, Walker said, I must enjoy
what I'm doing. You know, you take for so many years,
and all of a sudden it's your turn to give.

Speaker 2 (01:08:19):
So it's just craziness.

Speaker 3 (01:08:21):
Hope's idea that Walker's capture would clear her was quickly
disproven when he was surrounded and disarmed and arrested at
ten twenty five in the morning Sunday, March eleventh, after
an all night's takeout by Detective Swallow and sixteen more
armed men at the Howard Johnson's motel in North Hollywood,
where he'd registered as Taylor Right. The headlines were salacious

(01:08:42):
and attention getting. One example is the socialite and the convict.

Speaker 2 (01:08:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:08:47):
Hope and Daniel Walker ended up standing together at the
preliminary hearing to determine whether there was probable cause for
a trial. Even when a second tape in which Walker
declared her innocence not to mention his own, was leaked
to the press, County investigators told a local paper they
had no comment on who they believed fired a gun

(01:09:07):
into Bill Ashlock's head. At the hearing, the prosecutor relied
mostly on what he said was the complete implausibility of
Hope's story, and on the sworn testimony of Hope's Beverly
Hills maid, who said she'd seen Hope on the living
room floor with Walker giving him a massage. The hearing
judge decided that there was more than sufficient evidence that

(01:09:31):
a crime of homicide had been committed, that each of
the defendants were present, and that the court felt that
the probative value to be given to the evidence should
be done by the trier of fact in Supreme Court.
So on April eighteenth, Hope Masters and G. Daniel Walker
were charged with first degree murder. So, even though she

(01:09:52):
was free on bail, Hope spent her summer in distress
as legal motions went on prior to trial, but Walker
having a great old time when he was granted the
right to function and as his own co counsel, along
with a public defender. He was given two cells in
the jail, one with a picnic table for his workspace.

(01:10:14):
The women trustees in their section of the County jail
even got together and made him a quilt because he
said he'd been chilly in the cell.

Speaker 3 (01:10:23):
Yeah, he's not still married to the former wardens secretary,
is he? No?

Speaker 2 (01:10:28):
But he does remarry.

Speaker 3 (01:10:30):
Yes.

Speaker 4 (01:10:31):
So Hope's attorneys move that charges against her be dismissed
because of insufficient evidence, and in Walker's case, the evidence
did seem very sufficient. The list of items taken from
his car the day he was arrested covered eleven pages
and included lots of car keys and hotel room keys,
lots of other men's clothing, credit cards, and papers. And

(01:10:54):
this included Bill Ashlock's W two form and a pair
of surgical gloves. The car itself had been rented with
Bill's Bank America card. But still Walker was smiling and
dressed beautifully. As he spoke and gestured with his pipe.
He moved that all the evidence be suppressed, basing his

(01:11:15):
argument on a concept called the fruit of the poison tree. Now,
Walker argued that his letter to his lawyer in Chicago,
which the detectives had used to link him with Bill
Ashlock's murder had been illegally intercepted, and everything that came
from that, his identification, his arrests, the seizure of incriminating evidence,

(01:11:36):
and his indictment were therefore also illegal. So Walker's fifty
two page motion was discussed with amazement by some observers,
but even skeptics were impressed by his performance, along with
the court, which did grant this motion in its entirety.
So that's pretty amazing.

Speaker 3 (01:11:56):
Well, legally he's correct.

Speaker 4 (01:11:58):
Yeah, all of that evidence was a order to suppress.
So without that evidence, the case against Walker really seemed
to come down to one person, and that was Hope.

Speaker 2 (01:12:08):
But she was his co defendant.

Speaker 4 (01:12:10):
So the solution to the legal question on how the
state could get Hope to testify was not arrived at
without some debate in the courtroom, and it resulted in
the state's willingness to trade dismissal of the charges against
Hope if she would testify against Walker, and the prosecutor
wasn't thrilled. He said, we can't just dismiss How about

(01:12:31):
guilty to a lesser charge like not calling the police.
But Hope's attorneys, who were good Ones said no, thanks, dismissal,
and the court interjected and said, as I see it,
the thing that will convict Hope Masters is your proof
that she knew mister Walker before he arrived at the ranch.
Do you have any evidence of that? And of course

(01:12:53):
they didn't. They had to admit that, so Hope Master's
case was dismissed. Then ninety eight witnesses were called in
the case of the people of the State of California versus. G.
Daniel Walker. The trial lasted nearly two months. Among them
was Tom Masters, who denied ever knowing or meeting Walker,

(01:13:14):
or ever having anything to do with any kind of
plot against Hope. The real tailor Right testified, as did
Hope's thirteen year old son. Walker testified in his own defense,
and he took two.

Speaker 2 (01:13:25):
Days to tell his very detailed story.

Speaker 4 (01:13:28):
Then Hope was confronted by the prosecution about her lies.
She said she'd only lied about one thing, the identity
of the person up at the ranch, But she said
she was not absolutely certain that mister Walker was the
first person who attacked her. So on January eleventh, nineteen
seventy four, G. Daniel Walker was convicted of murder in

(01:13:50):
the first degree, and he was sentenced to life in prison.
It really came down to the question of believability, as
it usually does. It was a take single question involving
Hope Master's credibility and the ramifications of her own belief
despite the terror he had inflicted on her in Daniel Walker.

(01:14:11):
So the question was whether the jurors believed Walker, and
they clearly did not. Neither did the trial judge, who
even told the jury that, in his opinion, Walker was guilty.

Speaker 3 (01:14:21):
They must have come after the jury guilty, I.

Speaker 4 (01:14:24):
Hope, So Hope remembered Walker saying, on the night they
sat in her living room, listening to music and sipping wine,
how do you think you will feel about me? In
five years, Hope had not gone back to the ranch,
but after Honey threatened to sell it unless Hope showed
some interest, she and her children drove up for a
weekend in July of nineteen seventy eight. She swam in

(01:14:46):
the river and she slept in the same corner bedroom,
and she felt peaceful. Then back home, she locked herself
in her bedroom and cried for several days. She cried
for herself, for Bill, and even for Walker. Her She
knew Walker had hurt her, but by hanging around and
helping her, he had risked going to jail forever. And

(01:15:08):
he did basically go to jail forever. But still that's
a very naive belief. He wasn't hanging around to help her.

Speaker 3 (01:15:15):
No, he wasn't.

Speaker 4 (01:15:17):
So afterwards Hope and Walker corresponded. A friend of Hope
saw Walker on TV talking about prison conditions and said
he looks terrible. Can't you do something? So Hope sent
a mail Graham to him. In prison life is hell?
How are you? She started out, and then she ended
with there's always Hope. Walker wrote back your mail, Graham

(01:15:39):
opened on said envoice on admitted things.

Speaker 3 (01:15:43):
So they began to write back and forth, certainly over
the objections of her mother and Tom Bresla and Jane Tinged,
and even her son Keith. Keith was angry at what
he called his mother's love letters to that guy. Hope
deny that they are love letters. She says she sent jokes,
Star Wars comic book and a packet of romantic greeting
cars for him to send to his women friends. Walker

(01:16:05):
sent jokes and clippings, and he sometimes referred to the
song she played that night that Monday night.

Speaker 4 (01:16:33):
Yeah, but Hope became unnerved over time because Walker seemed to.

Speaker 2 (01:16:36):
Know everything that was going on.

Speaker 4 (01:16:38):
Not long after, Hope had lunch with friends at a
little restaurant near the Farmer's Market, Walker wrote to describe
that lunch, and he was able to give the exact
place and time, so he had someone watching her.

Speaker 3 (01:16:50):
Must have.

Speaker 4 (01:16:51):
When Hope's daughter got her own phone in her room
as a birthday present, Walker called on that phone, even
though it had been installed less than twenty four hours
before and the number was unlisted. Then for months after
that call, Hope's son, Keith, kept a twelve inch knife
by his bedside. Hope was even more frightened by some

(01:17:11):
little things in Walker's letters, like he told her to
expect him to stop by for a martini, and when
he referred to a book on her living room shelf
the other side of midnight, Hope felt like he was
telling her he'd killed Bill. After midnight that Saturday, he
talked about crowded visiting days at the prison, saying weekends

(01:17:32):
are murder. And when he wrote ominously that prisoners were
now allowed to marry, his old question came back to
her will you marry me. So Hope decided she had
to see him to settle things, and she visited him
at San Quentin. She stayed over night in Fresno and
went back to see him for a second time the
next day. Then she went home. Hope said, everyone thinks

(01:17:56):
Walker let me live for one of two reasons, sex
or money. Either we were sexually mad for each other,
or my parents paid him off. It never seems to
occur to anybody that maybe Walker let me live because
he thought I was a good person, a useful person,
a valuable human being. But of course that whole idea
just falls flat when you think about the people who

(01:18:17):
were killed. What would make them not valuable?

Speaker 3 (01:18:21):
Right?

Speaker 4 (01:18:22):
Bill Ashlock was a good person, a valuable human being,
So it's kind of ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (01:18:28):
A bit self serving, a bit Three months after Hope's visit,
Walker married a prison dietitian. On February fourteenth, twenty twenty three,
at a virtual hearing, prosecutors secured a three year denial
of parole to Walker, who is ninety one years old
at the time.

Speaker 2 (01:18:44):
Yeah, can you believe it?

Speaker 3 (01:18:46):
So this was his fourteenth or fifteenth parole hearing, depending
on the source. You use. Walker is still alive and
continues serving his life sentence at the California health Care
Facility in Stockton.

Speaker 4 (01:18:59):
Yes, I couldn't find anything online that he had died,
so I'm pretty sure he's still alive at the healthcare
facility ninety four or ninety five at this point.

Speaker 2 (01:19:11):
Yep. So just a remarkable story.

Speaker 3 (01:19:14):
It is a remarkable story, it really is. It strains
my degree of belief.

Speaker 4 (01:19:20):
Well, yeah, sure, but just an unusual criminal. And I
don't say that as a compliment because I think he's
an evil, horrible person. But isn't he was an unusual criminal.

Speaker 3 (01:19:33):
Oh? Yes, quite unusual.

Speaker 4 (01:19:35):
But a lot of what he pulled off would just
not fly today. Of course, you can't go around using
people's credit cards. It's all tracked now, But back then
you could take a credit card and use it for
a few days before anyone would even be able to
get the report through.

Speaker 3 (01:19:48):
Yeah. Yeah, maybe even not until they get a person
gets a bill, Yeah, from the card card.

Speaker 2 (01:19:54):
Pretty much. I think it works that way.

Speaker 3 (01:19:55):
Yeah, I didn't charge these.

Speaker 4 (01:19:58):
Well, although the people whose cards hook we're either dead
or beaten, so they probably the police probably looked into
that sooner than they would if you just found a
credit card. But of course still there's no cameras, no
cell phones to track. So in some ways it was
easier to get away with things back then.

Speaker 3 (01:20:17):
Yeah, and you can move around easier absolutely being tracked.

Speaker 2 (01:20:21):
That's true.

Speaker 6 (01:20:22):
Okay, it's time for listener feedback.

Speaker 2 (01:20:45):
So what have we got for feedback today?

Speaker 3 (01:20:48):
We have a few voicemails and a few emails, I
think three of each. So the voicemails first, Tammy.

Speaker 2 (01:20:55):
Okay, let's listen to Tammy's voicemail.

Speaker 7 (01:20:58):
Good evening from Pocatello, Idaho, Jill and Dick. I have
a really good suggestion for one of your podcasts that
I think would almost have to be a two part.
It is James Wood. In Poketel, Idaho, June nineteen ninety three,
he killed a young girl named jerl Lee Underwood while

(01:21:19):
she was delivering papers. But it led to several investigations
for several murders that started all the way back to
nineteen sixty seven, and his crime spree spread from Idaho
to Louisiana. And it was he had a terrible early
upbringing and when he would got out of prison in Louisiana,
it was supposed to check in with this probation officer,

(01:21:43):
and that was in ninety two, late ninety two, and
he made a beeline to Poketel, Idaho, And on his
way to Poketel, Idaho, he stopped in Saint Louis, Missouri.
He had kidnapped, raped, and shot an eighteen year old
lady Jamie in the head and left her in the
forest to die, and she ended up surviving and testifying

(01:22:08):
against him in the Underworld case. And there was a
book also written called The Eye of the Beast, and
it was co authored by one of the detectives, which
is quite interesting. And then there's a little twist of
the Mormon religion from his attorney and I'll just leave
that as just kind of a secret so when you
see it, and I think this would be a fascinating case.

(01:22:28):
And this is way before Idaho got all popular with
Dave Bell and the u of I murders. This guy here,
I think is one of the worst too.

Speaker 2 (01:22:37):
And it's interesting.

Speaker 7 (01:22:38):
There's not a lot about James Wood. So that's my
suggestion and my beer suggestion. We have a great little
brewery here in Poctello that is called Jim Dandies and
they have a beer that's awesome that's called the Ambitious
Blonde and it's really really good. And I enjoy your podcast.
Been listening to you guys for eight years and when

(01:23:00):
I'm driving for work and on long road trips. So
thank you Jill and Dick for keeping me awake on
the roads.

Speaker 2 (01:23:08):
Take care well, thank.

Speaker 4 (01:23:09):
You so much, Tammy. We really appreciate your input in
that case. Does sound really fascinating. I'm kind of shocked
that I haven't heard of it before. But a paper girl,
that's really sad.

Speaker 2 (01:23:20):
Huh.

Speaker 3 (01:23:21):
Yeah, you used to be a paper girl, didn't you.

Speaker 4 (01:23:23):
I did when I was like thirteen and fourteen, I
think maybe even younger. Of course, this was in the
old days, and I would either pull a wagon or
ride my bike.

Speaker 3 (01:23:33):
Well, this was in nineteen ninety three that jeral Y Underwood,
as she was delivering papers, was abducted, raped, killed, and dismembered.

Speaker 4 (01:23:42):
Oh by this and this is a little eleven year
old yep.

Speaker 3 (01:23:45):
No, it wasn't too long into the investigation that Wood
was arrested. When they took him to jail, he readily
confessed to killing little GERI Lee, but at the same time,
he also confessed to having had done two rapes and
several robberies, and then while awaiting trial, he confessed to
three other murders. Now, the police had a little bit

(01:24:07):
of difficulty believing that he had really killed that many people,
and investigation was ongoing. He probably did do the killings,
but he died of natural causes in two thousand and
four without divulging much more than he already said. So
there's a lingering question of whether he is a serial
killer or is he just trying to get more notoriety

(01:24:29):
for him.

Speaker 4 (01:24:30):
Okay, Well, it's kind of a sad state of affairs
for Idaho that it's popular for these murderers right here.

Speaker 3 (01:24:37):
They have some high profile crimes there, they really have.

Speaker 2 (01:24:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:24:41):
Yeah, And I can't wait to find out what the
Mormon Church or LDS has to do with this. So
I'm on it, Tammy. I'm going to get that book
I have the Beast and give it a read. Maybe
I'll sip some Jim Dandy ambitious blonde as I do.

Speaker 3 (01:24:55):
So. Yeah, I don't know if we get that down.

Speaker 2 (01:24:57):
Here, Nope, but we can find it sounds good and.

Speaker 3 (01:25:01):
The relation to the Mormon religion I'll save.

Speaker 2 (01:25:05):
Oh you know that. I thought you didn't know. I
thought it was a mystery that she was letting us
figure out on our own.

Speaker 3 (01:25:11):
No, it was just something she wanted us to mention.

Speaker 2 (01:25:14):
Oh so you found it online?

Speaker 3 (01:25:15):
I did.

Speaker 4 (01:25:16):
Okay, Okay, let's see what else do we have. Who's
next to beckschs good old Becks. All right, let's hear
what Beck says to say. Fliers probably one of the
top three.

Speaker 2 (01:25:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (01:25:29):
Absolutely, Hey, Dick and Jill, it's your old friend Becks.
And I'm calling with another podcast suggestion. I just heard
about this one, even though it goes back about four years.
So four years ago, this couple was shot in their home.
The husband died, the wife was shot but survived, and

(01:25:50):
there had been an intruder hiding in their home to
ambush them when they returned to the house. So it
took two years, but the police finally figured out it
was their son in law who did it, who was
also an ex Major League baseball player, Daniel Sarafini. And like,

(01:26:11):
there's a lot of details out on this, and I'm
surprised I never heard of it. There's a long, long
article on people, but I haven't heard about it on
any of the true crime podcasts I listened to, so
I thought you guys might be interested in covering it.
There's so much information out there, but not too much.
And you guys had to do a good job with

(01:26:31):
cases that involve family relationships. And there's things going on
between the son in law and the parents, his wife's parents,
between him and his wife, between his wife's best friend
and him, if you know what I'm saying, And when
you know, other relationships start happening in a marriage and

(01:26:56):
money is also involved, things like this do happen. I'd
be very interested to hear your take on it. Hope
you're having a good summer and looking forward to your
next episode.

Speaker 2 (01:27:07):
Thank you. Beck's much appreciated. We never get tired of
hearing from you.

Speaker 4 (01:27:11):
So what do we know about this one, Dickie, Anything
more than what Becks shared?

Speaker 3 (01:27:15):
Oh, just a little bit. This is a pretty up
to date case, which I'll talk about. Sarafini is basically
a journeyman baseball player. He'd been playing for several major
league teams and also has been in Japan for baseball there.
He totally knows how to do now. The motive for
killing his in laws or killing the father in law

(01:27:37):
attempting the murder of his mother in law. The motive
appeared to be money because he was deeply in debt
up to his eyeballs, past his eyeballs. Now he was
convicted and was to be sentenced this month on August eighteenth.
Oh really, so this is fresh news, fresh news that
there was a continuance because there's been an appeal and
it looks like there might be a retrial.

Speaker 4 (01:27:59):
Okay, great, well, thanks about backs, and we have another voicemail.

Speaker 2 (01:28:03):
This one's from Penny.

Speaker 9 (01:28:05):
Hello to you both. I should know your names, but
I don't. I know that Dicky is Dicky, and I
can't remember your lovely wife's name. I really enjoyed listening
to you both, however, and I love the way you
discuss things. Anyway, I would like to say that I

(01:28:28):
really want to hear the one about his name Craig
Greg what we called it. Okay, in Australia you say Craig.
In America you see Craig. Also, you guys say Meghan
and we say in Meghan, so there's a bit of
a difference there. But I would love to hear the
one about Craig James and his poor wife Angela, who

(01:28:52):
he from what I understand from the basic synopsis you
guys gave us, was just a horrible individual who deceived,
gas lighted, and eventually murdered his wife. But yeah, do
that one. That'd be good with high drop medication. How horrible.

Speaker 2 (01:29:12):
I love your show.

Speaker 9 (01:29:13):
I've been listening to it for about three years and
I'm about to become a tie grabber. I just listened
to the one you John did on the shouting case
with the mushrooms. That was well done. It was a
big to do here. Yeah, love your show. Thank you
very much, and I'm glad to subscribe very soon. In fact, Rallie,

(01:29:37):
this voicemail is.

Speaker 4 (01:29:39):
Okay, Well, thank you, Penny. Yeah, that James Craig case
is a fascinating one, and I think we'll definitely cover it,
don't you.

Speaker 3 (01:29:46):
Think, Oh you already told me we're going to cover it.

Speaker 4 (01:29:48):
Well, he has been convicted, and I think it'd be
quite easy to get all the information.

Speaker 2 (01:29:54):
The problem with the trial was it.

Speaker 4 (01:29:56):
Wasn't televised, which was a huge disappointment, but we were
able to get quite a bit of information from people
who were allowed to look in or actually be there
for the trial.

Speaker 2 (01:30:07):
So let's do it.

Speaker 3 (01:30:08):
I thought we were required to do it. Hi, whom
are you?

Speaker 2 (01:30:11):
Oh? Okay, yeah sure we act is.

Speaker 3 (01:30:14):
Sentenc things this month or next month is pretty soon.

Speaker 2 (01:30:17):
Yeah. Well it's going to be life for sure. Okay.

Speaker 4 (01:30:20):
So the first email is from Tom. He says, Dear
True Crime Brewery team, I'm a huge fan of True
Crime Brewery and your neck for unraveling complex true crime
stories with heart and depth. Thank you so much, Tom.
I'd like to recommend the nineteen ninety two murder of
Corey Winnicky in West Liberty, Iowa, a case especially meaningful

(01:30:40):
to me as Corey was a friend of my cousin,
my flag football coach when I was young, and the
woman who provided the key tip was my childhood neighbor.
So on October thirteenth, nineteen ninety two, twenty two year
old Corey Winnicke, a well loved bartender and former high
school football star, found bludgeon to death with an aluminum

(01:31:02):
bat in his rural West Liberty home. The case sat
cold for over twenty five years until twenty seventeen, when
a woman who grew up near me recalled overhearing a
confession as a child, leading to a net Cahill's conviction
in twenty nineteen. Amazing. So this case is perfect for
true crime brewery, with its small town mystery, a decade's

(01:31:25):
long investigation, and the jaw dropping breakthrough of a childhood
memory unlocking the truth. That's amazing because I was actually
looking at another case where a girl had a memory
of her father killing her friend.

Speaker 3 (01:31:38):
Huh.

Speaker 4 (01:31:38):
I can't think of the name right now, but that's
when we're going to be covering as well.

Speaker 3 (01:31:42):
That's pretty eerie.

Speaker 2 (01:31:43):
It's really really something.

Speaker 4 (01:31:45):
So Tom goes on to say, Corey's vibrant presence in
our community. It's an emotional layer that I believe your
listeners will connect with absolutely. So you can dive into
details through sources like the Oxygen article. A net Cayhill
can be in Corey Wineke's murder twenty seven years later,
the Des Moines Register, or an NBC Dateline episode the

(01:32:08):
Black Candle Confession. That title actually sounds familiar.

Speaker 3 (01:32:12):
I'm sure we've seen it, haven't we seen every I.

Speaker 2 (01:32:14):
Think we've seen every single Dateline there is.

Speaker 3 (01:32:17):
I think so too.

Speaker 4 (01:32:18):
I don't know if everybody has this, Probably in the
United states they do. If you have cable they have
a Dateline channel or Peacock has it all too, but
they just replay episodes of Dateline over and over again.
So every time we see it we say, oh, yes,
we've seen that one.

Speaker 3 (01:32:35):
Yeah, we haven't heard any yet that we haven't seen't
recognize this.

Speaker 4 (01:32:39):
Yeah, I don't know what that says about us, but
it's true. So Thom says, thank you for considering Corey's story.
I'd be thrilled to hear your take on this unforgettable case.

Speaker 2 (01:32:48):
Thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:32:49):
Also, he's recommending a beer. I would recommend a beer
from field Day Brewing Company in the close by North Liberty, Iowa.
They specialize in traditional Czech and German beer styles, but
also have some nice barrel aged beers. I have worked
as a brewer there this past year. Wow, yay, that's

(01:33:10):
really great, Tom.

Speaker 3 (01:33:11):
And I've been doing a lot more European beers, German
nice pilsners, Czech pilsners, Octoberfest, good laggers, so good times
with the beer.

Speaker 2 (01:33:21):
Yeah, absolutely okay.

Speaker 4 (01:33:23):
And then we have an email from Nate, and of
course we all know Nate. Nate writes a lot has
some great ideas.

Speaker 3 (01:33:29):
For us yes he does.

Speaker 4 (01:33:30):
Yeah, So Nate says, I have an update on the
case of Kelly Lane. She was denied parole in twenty
twenty four because she refused to reveal what happened to Teagan.
Remember that's her baby. Yep, So she was remanded back
into prison until twenty twenty eight. Then Nate says, I
hope all as well.

Speaker 2 (01:33:50):
I guess New.

Speaker 4 (01:33:51):
South Wales has a nobody no parole law. Fair enough, right, Yeah,
I think yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:33:56):
I didn't know what was going on that well, I
didn't know what that meant. I didn't know that was
the reason she was remanded back into prison.

Speaker 4 (01:34:06):
Well, yeah, she's refused to say anything.

Speaker 3 (01:34:08):
Yeah, so if you don't tell us where the body is,
we're not going to let you out.

Speaker 2 (01:34:12):
Yep. Like I said, I think that's fair enough. And
we have one more email.

Speaker 4 (01:34:17):
This is from Melissa with a case suggestion. And Melissa, right, hello,
I found your podcast about six months ago and now
I listen every day. I might commute to and from work. Well,
thank you, Melissa. That's just excellent. I'm really flattered that
you do that. I enjoy the beer reviews. Melissa goes
on because having a beer flight at our local brewery

(01:34:38):
is my favorite thing to order so I can try
new things. I live in a small town that is
known as the cowboy capital of the world, Oakdale, California.
We have two breweries, Last Call Brewing Company and Dying
Breed Brewing Company, and both have great selections and I'm
sure they would have something you'd like. I also have

(01:34:58):
a case suggestion. I was employed with Lane Bryant at
the time that the Lane Bryant murders occurred, and it
was chilling to find out that a man had gone
into one of the locations and ended up taking the
employees and guests into the back room where he shot.

Speaker 2 (01:35:15):
Them execution style. My god, why would anyone do that?

Speaker 4 (01:35:19):
Miraculously one of them lived, and it was said that
the man had ties to one of the workers.

Speaker 2 (01:35:24):
Well, that would make sense, wouldn't Who would?

Speaker 4 (01:35:27):
I would love to know more and know that through
your research we might be able to find out more
information and share an update. I'm so glad that I
stumbled upon your podcast and look forward to listening to
it each day. Well, Melissa, we are thrilled that you
came upon our podcast, and we'd like to welcome you
to The Quiet end.

Speaker 2 (01:35:46):
We really enjoy your input. Yes, yeah, and.

Speaker 4 (01:35:49):
She says, thank you for keeping me company on my commute. Well,
you're welcome. It is our honor. I mean when I
think about people listening, whether they're working or driving or
I just I'm really kind of humbled by it.

Speaker 2 (01:36:02):
I think it's really nice. It's not a big deal.

Speaker 4 (01:36:05):
It's just a podcast, but it's just nice to know
that we're making someone's day maybe one percent better with
a little entertainment.

Speaker 3 (01:36:12):
Right, that's right.

Speaker 4 (01:36:14):
So thanks everybody for your feedback and keep it coming.
I mean, like I've said a million times, feedback's my
favorite part of doing the podcast. Okay, well, thanks guys,
and we'll see you next time with some more true crime.
Brewery at the Quiet End.

Speaker 2 (01:36:29):
Bye bye.

Speaker 5 (01:36:30):
Hi guys, Dely met you to

Speaker 3 (01:37:07):
To a

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