266 - Rave After Rave

On this week's episode, Karen and Georgia cover the murder of Ruthie Mae McCoy and the life of Detective Jacklean Davis.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Hello, Hello, and welcome to my favorite murder. That's Georgia Hartstar.
That's Karen Kilgarriff. We're here with you, we are. It's
mid March.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
It is things are kind of daylight savings the my
favorite chilling.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
I know me too.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
It's just like lifts this fog of darkness. I guess literally.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Literally literally letter, although I do you know I'm an
early bird, that's right.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
So do you like dark in the morning or darken?

Speaker 3 (00:48):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (00:48):
I do.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
It's mozy, right.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Yes, it's like going to camp or something. There's like
because also then, like you're saying, there is a fog
literal that out and it makes me feel like I'm
just up and at him.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
Yeah, you're like alone in the world.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
A little time for journaling, time for respectfee and are
a good journal.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
And a good get it on the pace solid.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
You know what I do like about waking up early,
which I now have a puppy and so I do
more often, which I love the idea of it. But
I'm definitely like a late sleeper. I had that thing
of like when I worked and went to school my
whole life. I was like, if you ever get a
chance to sleep in you're fucking taking it, and so
I still do it, didn't I just.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
Question you on going to school your whole life. That's
a lie. That's a fucking lie. How dare you shame
me this podcast? Can I point out it's a real
rave after rape or I was learning and I wake
up at eight am for it?

Speaker 1 (01:57):
But yeah, I like I still stand like naps and
sleeping into me are like, if you can do that
in your life, then you are a rich woman.

Speaker 3 (02:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
True, But waking up early is like I love the
idea getting stuff done. But also when you take your
puppy for a walk before eleven, you can pretty much
wear whatever the fuck you want and no one questions it.
Like if you go for your walk with your puppy
at one o'clock in the afternoon and you wear your bathrobe,
you look, there's like a change in this questionable mental

(02:28):
image of yourself, your.

Speaker 3 (02:31):
Neighborhood's mental image of you. Exactly. I thought you was classy.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
Yeah, slippers on a Rowe two in the afternoon, that's
just like that shows my level of depression, right, Yeah, No.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
To keep that, keep that under nine am. If you're
going to do that kind of curlers in the hair
action out in the streets.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
Don't take that to the streets. That's private.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
But you know, I'll say in this in the exact
same way. Sometimes, if it's early enough, I'll go. I'll
put on clothes to uh to go onto the elliptical
machine that are tighter than clothes I would normally.

Speaker 3 (03:08):
Yah, it's my new thing and.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
That feels good to me personally privately, Yeah, to do
that where I'm like, I know what I'm aiming toward,
I know what it's for you. I'm looking at myself.

Speaker 3 (03:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
But then I'll be like, I should go get the
mail because I'm essentially wearing a wearing a like a
spandex outfit. It's like get the mail in a unitard.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
Poops, just gotta slip out real quick and grab them.

Speaker 3 (03:37):
Yeah, that's so that kind of gets the heart racing.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
Tell me, and this is offensive, but I've coined my look,
my pandemic look, which I really hope last even when
I leave the house.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
Is a new mom chice not offensive.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
I'm not a new mom, nor will I probably ever
will be. But damn that like fuck it mentality of
like I have other things to think about then what
if I warn these sweatpants for three days and there's
cat hair on them?

Speaker 2 (04:07):
You know. And part of that, too is coming into
your forties and fifties where you start to realize, who
gives a fuck, it's crusies my outfit, Like you truly
begin to just release that grip of concern about like
the show of the show, and instead it's like, drink

(04:30):
it in. Yeah, this is the best I'm doing. That
also happens happened to me very much when I started
working very like high stress jobs that I was at
all the time, where I was like, well, then the
best you're going to get some boot cut jeans, yeah,
a nice pair of clogs, basically the same sweater every day.
That's true, What am I supposed to do?

Speaker 1 (04:50):
One could argue that there's like a and I had
to put makeup on today for a thing, so there
was like this like, oh, oh yeah, there she is
kind of feeling so yes, but that doesn't need to
be every fucking day. No.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
And also I find you can slop on pretty much anything,
but if you have a nice eye line, mascare, commedash eye, yeah,
kind of a solid natural lip, but still a pronounced list.

Speaker 3 (05:18):
You're talking my language.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
Because hey, look, and anyone's ever only ever looking at
your kind of like bust head, you know, shoulders up
anyway unless they stand back and really like take you in,
which should.

Speaker 3 (05:31):
Which they will.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
But you know that was always my thinking where it's
just like, you know, this is I'm gonna worry. I'm
gonna worry about the part that I know for a
fact people are going to address, and everything else can't
be my problem right now.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
Now. I feel like the pandemic has fast forwarded us
to that point all like two years. You know how
everything's like smoking takes five years off your lives, Well,
the pandemic adds six years of not giving a shit
to your life. So it's all fast forwarded.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
That feel that comfort of like the a reasonable shoe,
you know what I mean, where it's just like will
anyone ever go back to heels? Why?

Speaker 3 (06:08):
On stage?

Speaker 1 (06:09):
That's like I have so many things that I'm not
getting rid of, even though I'm like, I'll never wear
that again because of the idea. Then maybe we'll tour
again someday. Yeah, and it'd be like, well, I'm gonna
want to go a newsflash, we're doing again.

Speaker 2 (06:24):
There's people who have been planning it, but no, I
get it's like special occasion where versus I just feel
like young women put in such an effort these days,
from fucking the crown of their head to their perfectly
pedicured toenails, and it's like, God, bless, I mean, do it?

Speaker 3 (06:44):
Yeah, what makes you feel good?

Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yes, but you also don't have to, which is an
amazing option to realize, right, and you're still a hot piece.
You just know that it's awesome.

Speaker 3 (06:56):
It's also hot to.

Speaker 2 (06:57):
Put on liked Wiser pajama bottoms and a huge sweatshirt
and pile your hair into a knot on the top
of your head and go to the red Box machine.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
And ugly hats make your fucking shade your face, So
who cares they're ugly. You're taking care of your skin.

Speaker 3 (07:15):
I don't know that it's interesting.

Speaker 2 (07:17):
It's interesting to take care of your skin and fight
melanoma on a daily basis. It's interesting to do what
Marcus Zuckerberg did and put a full face of zinc
oxide so that you truly look like a mime surfing.

Speaker 3 (07:31):
That makes you go, hey, what's up with that.

Speaker 2 (07:33):
Person that's surfing? Mime, hey, there's an artists on parade.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
You don't want you need saying. I bet he's evilly wealthy.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
I think we're all going to be interested in much
different things than we ever were before pre pandam.

Speaker 1 (07:48):
Hey speaking of things are interested in?

Speaker 2 (07:51):
Right? What are you sure?

Speaker 3 (07:53):
What are you interested in?

Speaker 2 (07:54):
Oh? You mean these days some wreck some hot resh?

Speaker 3 (07:58):
Sure?

Speaker 1 (07:59):
Oh I want tokay. One true crime update real quick. Sorry,
I just asked you a question and then cut you
off completely.

Speaker 3 (08:04):
Don't worry about it, so we do it.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
The case of Kristen Smart is heating up. Have you
seen this? It's like a twenty year old cold case.
Everyone is kind of like, we fucking know who did this,
and maybe there's some there's some shoddy because she's the
Cole Polytechnic in San Luis Obispo student who disappeared while
she was being walked home by the prime suspect, and

(08:31):
there was some shoddy work with the police, the campus
security who just said she must have just taken off
like that night and so didn't report it. That changed
the laws of report of campus recording reporting to the authorities,
and so the prime suspects families property is now being
investigated and they're bringing cadaver dogs and ground penetrating radars,

(08:55):
so I really hope in the next few days we'll
have some information about that. And there's also a podcast
about the whole case that I really want to listen
to that I guess has helped get some attention to
this case and kind of in the same way I'll
be gone in the dark, like revamped, you know, not
taking away any of the investigator's hard work, but revamped
interest in the case. And that's called your Own Backyard,

(09:18):
So I really want to check.

Speaker 2 (09:19):
That's great.

Speaker 3 (09:20):
Yeah, You're own backyard the podcast, so let's all listen.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
Yeah for sure, that's very Yeah, lots and lots of
people let me know that was happening on Twitter. Thank
you always for those updates, and yeah, it's very exciting.

Speaker 3 (09:34):
People in that area are I think, really.

Speaker 2 (09:36):
Really stoked totally, And congratulations to a podcast for moving
the wheels of justice long hopefully.

Speaker 3 (09:44):
If that's if that is the case, sounds like it.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
But a natural podcast that I've been listening to, and
I was trying to find the host's name. I went on, like, truly,
you were sitting there waiting as I went on four
different pages and could not find it, so I'll I'll
write it down when I listen to my next episode.
But it's called The Opportunist and it is a podcast.

Speaker 3 (10:07):
It's so good.

Speaker 2 (10:08):
It's a podcast series where they're going to be highlighting
normal people who basically stumble upon an opportunity to basically
become evil and then choose to do it.

Speaker 1 (10:23):
Type, Oh, that is a great idea.

Speaker 3 (10:27):
It's a great idea.

Speaker 2 (10:27):
And this first one is pretty mind blowing, and it's
essentially about an online cult. So it's pointing to this
new habit that people have of kind of like, you know,
it's the Facebook structure of living vicariously, living on the
internet and living vicariously through the people you meet and

(10:50):
the things you read and what you choose to believe
in what you're being fed that's on social media and
the Internet. I think it's mostly Facebook and it is
really mind blowing.

Speaker 3 (11:01):
And anyway, so I highly.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
Recommend are these people accidentally stumbling into like scams or
are they choosing to just completely.

Speaker 2 (11:09):
Explat there's a woman you have to listen to it,
but there's a woman who starts this website and she
basically has a daily or a weekly.

Speaker 3 (11:20):
Internet radio show.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
Where she just she is a It starts out that
she's a Christian, then she starts saying that she is
the daughter of God and that she is getting messages
from him, and the messages have to do with chemtrails,
they have to do with aliens, they have to do
with the coming apocalypse and this, and it's really it's

(11:43):
pretty textbook cultish. But the people there are plenty of
people that follow her that are insist it's not. You
just have to listen to it, because it's that kind
of thing where I think, this is this age we're
getting into where people are like, how how is this happening?
How are people getting sucked into these entire belief systems

(12:03):
with a person that they've never seen or met before.

Speaker 1 (12:05):
People want answers. There's people out there who just like,
for whatever reason, the day to day, you know, unanswered
questions of life are too overwhelming and terrifying, and.

Speaker 3 (12:17):
So people are lonely. They they work a ton.

Speaker 1 (12:21):
There's no meaning sometimes in people's lives, which I totally understand.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
It's like and they when they find something that resonates,
because because oftentimes the people that start these things oftentimes
they start with the good intentions of if you are lonely,
if you need, if you want to worship with other people,
like this unifying thing of we're all the same religion
or we have the same belief and then it kind
of spins out from there.

Speaker 1 (12:45):
And like, well, how about this one belief too, Why
don't you take that on as well.

Speaker 2 (12:49):
I'm reading so that's called the Sorry really quick, that's
called that's called The Opportunist, just as a reminder.

Speaker 1 (12:54):
Awesome, it's great. I'm reading a true crime book called
The Forest City Killer by Vanessa Brown about a serial
killer from London, Ontario, from fifty years ago. So like though,
I think it's like the sixties, and she's a really
great It has Michelle McNamara vibe. She's a she owns

(13:16):
a bookstore. Her and her husband own a bookstore. And
she also is some I guess there's like people who
are experts at rare writings, so they're able to like
they take old weird like letters and stuff and are
able to figure out their historical worth and their monetary
worth just by understanding the vernacular and the language and

(13:39):
stuff like that. So she's totally like that alone is
so fucking fascinating, but she's also obsessed with true crime
and so and she gets a lot of characters coming
in the bookstore and they all she suddenly finds the
serial killer that she'd never heard about before. She's from London, Ontario,
she'd never heard about it, and suddenly everyone has a
story about it from back then, and so she just
is like, I got to write a I gotta write

(14:00):
the book.

Speaker 3 (14:01):
I think I read this book too.

Speaker 1 (14:02):
I think we got it in the mail. Yes, it's
great publishing company. So it's called The Forest City Killer
and I highly recommend it.

Speaker 3 (14:10):
Awesome. What about TV? Are you still in your Sopranos mode?

Speaker 2 (14:14):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (14:14):
Yeah, an episode of Night probably two because it's so good.
The Mother and that should have won all the awards. Yeahrancy.

Speaker 3 (14:23):
What's her name? Nancy?

Speaker 2 (14:25):
God damn it now I can only think of Nancy
Sponge in her ned actress's name.

Speaker 3 (14:30):
Stephen, Nancy.

Speaker 1 (14:32):
I just started texting. I just started looking at Google Stephen,
because you said, Lord.

Speaker 2 (14:36):
Stephen, Stephen Nancy Sopranos.

Speaker 3 (14:41):
Wikipedia is so massive, there's a separate page for casting.

Speaker 1 (14:44):
I got it. Nancy lou marchand marchin m A. C
Arch and E marchand marchand brilliant.

Speaker 3 (14:53):
She's the greatest.

Speaker 1 (14:55):
Watch it for her alone.

Speaker 3 (14:56):
She's just so.

Speaker 1 (14:58):
Good.

Speaker 2 (14:59):
And he's been in tons of stuff.

Speaker 3 (15:01):
She's in so many eighties movies, old school.

Speaker 1 (15:03):
She's been an actress since like the fifties. I think, sure,
I So I just finished a series. There were four seasons.
I think I started talking about this in the first
season four years ago called Casual on Hulu, and.

Speaker 3 (15:17):
Yes, I love that show. It's so good.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
There were times where I like, I fucking hate these characters.
They're all like kind of insufferable during certain seasons, but
then you realize that you're, like, you care about them
and their lives. And of course the actors are so great.

Speaker 2 (15:32):
Mikela Watkins, Mikeayela Watkins. Yeah, but it's saying amazing Mikeayla Watkins.

Speaker 3 (15:38):
Mikaela Watkins.

Speaker 1 (15:39):
She's just I love watching her act and you end
up like she's caring about these people and they make
so many mistakes and you still want them to win.
And so I watched it all through the season. What's
it called the.

Speaker 3 (15:54):
End uh finale?

Speaker 1 (15:57):
Season series finale? Thank you sorry? So the SIA I
just watched the Serious finale and like I almost cried
it was it was really yeah, that's.

Speaker 3 (16:06):
A truly great show. I watched that a couple.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
Of years ago. I feel like it was when I
was first got Pulu and then I was like, what's
this and the At first I was like, Oh, that
guy's cute, and then I was like, oh, it's Migaiala
walk Ins. You gotta watch this because she is I
feel like she is one of those people who, uh
I watched her come up as like she is the
hilarious sister in law and thing. She always gets this

(16:32):
kind of like supporting role, and in this she is
She's so such a great actress and so hilarious and great.

Speaker 3 (16:41):
To carry it.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
It's like it's her and that her and the actor,
the player brother, her brother.

Speaker 1 (16:46):
They're also combination a lot, I guess, but they all
still deserved these happy lives and you're like rooting for them.

Speaker 2 (16:56):
So we're all flawed.

Speaker 3 (16:57):
We're all flaw we're all flawed. Of Mo was casual
on Hulu. Check it out.

Speaker 1 (17:02):
It's like one of those ones that like if I'd
be eating lunch by myself, I would like just turn
on an episode, you know what I mean? But like
I kept, yes, kept wanting to watch.

Speaker 3 (17:09):
It's real good, snappy, uh realistic dialogue.

Speaker 2 (17:12):
Totally totally, Yeah, I like I like when stuff like
that is it's funny in the realist way.

Speaker 3 (17:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (17:17):
I have just finished uh binging the flight attendant on HBO.

Speaker 1 (17:22):
Math I need to write.

Speaker 3 (17:25):
I loved it.

Speaker 2 (17:27):
Yes, there are people like I feel like people were
recommending it in a hedgy way or like it's fun
or it's kookie or whatever. I was like, this is
fucking great. It's directed beautifully. It's Kaylee Quoco is the lead,
and she's unbelievably great and compelling and a great actress.
My good friend, the great Scottish actress Michelle Gomez plays

(17:51):
the villain and she is the greatest. I love watching
her act. Yeah, it's such a good show. Everyone in
it casting is like perfection.

Speaker 3 (18:01):
It's great.

Speaker 1 (18:03):
I need it. This is what I need.

Speaker 2 (18:04):
And also it's just like it's a bunch of stuff happens.
It's a really good pace. It's kind of crazy and
like it's that kind of thing when you lay there
and it's just like it entertains you in every way.

Speaker 1 (18:16):
Yeah, this will be my new lunchtime. I need an
episode show lunchtime. I don't know what it is about
lunchtime where it's like I don't want to sit.

Speaker 3 (18:23):
I've been on my computer all fucking day.

Speaker 1 (18:25):
I want like a break, but I'm a I'm a
latchkey kid, so I have to watch something on the
TV while I.

Speaker 3 (18:32):
Eat from three to eight. Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 1 (18:34):
So I'll sit and put something on and it's like
a little a little break, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (18:39):
So absolutely, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (18:41):
Yeah, I guess in my mind it was like everyone
has a lunchtime show, right, it's.

Speaker 3 (18:46):
Just me my neword thing lately.

Speaker 2 (18:49):
In the beginning of pandemic, it was like anything goes,
do whatever you want all day long, figure like just
slap whatever together.

Speaker 1 (18:56):
Fortunately, now you have a lot of time to figure
it out.

Speaker 2 (18:59):
Yes, you can test out any you can do any
kind of pattern of a schedule. But since like the holidays,
I've been trying to do get up early, drink the coffee,
get the exercise out of the way, you know, answer
emails like kind of have I actually realize I love structure.

(19:21):
I always rebel against it because I no one can
tell me what to do. But then I sit there
going yeah, but I can like and relax, relax and.

Speaker 3 (19:32):
Just do the things.

Speaker 2 (19:33):
It's super easy stop making drama out of something that's
just just an email, Like, read the email and answer it.
The end. But I think that was but you and
I were overwhelmed in the beginning. We had so many
emails and so many things were supposed to be doing,
and we were all alone in trying to figure it out.

Speaker 1 (19:52):
All I felt like transferring to Zoom somehow made it
that we had more meetings than before. You know what
I mean, Yeah, more meetings now than we ever did. Well,
you as to have a way bigger staff for exactly right,
and a lot more going on.

Speaker 3 (20:07):
So that's why is this bragging? Corner?

Speaker 1 (20:10):
Does this brag about how fucking hard running a network is? Corner?

Speaker 2 (20:16):
I love it, we love it.

Speaker 1 (20:18):
We're the luckiest.

Speaker 3 (20:19):
What was I going to say?

Speaker 1 (20:20):
Hold on, what are you saying?

Speaker 2 (20:22):
Is it about emails? Email and getting things done?

Speaker 3 (20:25):
Structure?

Speaker 2 (20:26):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (20:26):
Thank you on this tip? And you and I both
do this is I my therapist has been telling us.
And I'll get this wrong, but I'll make it sound right.
Is that procrastination is actually it gives you a little
bit of an adrenaline rush once you finally get the
stuff done that you've become addicted to it in a

(20:47):
way where it's it's like you get you get a
little high off procrastination, which is it's so hard to
change that pattern of procrastination is because you're actually something
out of it. I think it's like when you think
of your brain as like a reward system, it makes
so much sense that you become this animal who.

Speaker 3 (21:10):
Who who who gets.

Speaker 1 (21:13):
Something out of putting I don't know, get something out
of putting things off. And that's totally like you and
I thrive at last minute deadlines. We're both really good
at that, and I think like end up putting out
some great content.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
Well. Also, there the thing that I've always known, and
this this has to do with, uh, you know, being
a comic, Like the high that I would get doing
stand up comedy. It's so scary and it's so high
pressure that then when I go into other things, I
need I need that pressure still because I'm because I've

(21:47):
already had kind of like this other kind of high.
And so yeah, anytime I'm have a writing job, that's
a pretty chill thing until you have a deadline and
then it becomes this bizarre dance of like, how how
much are you're going to push this deadline? How the
whole thing of it is it's a distraction, kind of
soap opera.

Speaker 1 (22:07):
Like you're creating the adrenaline that you that you thrive
in just by putting it off.

Speaker 2 (22:12):
Also creating a distraction from things that, like, you know,
for me, when I actually write, you're putting real things
into what you write, and so sometimes it's difficult and painful.
So instead you're just kind of like, oh, I can't
do it right this second, right when actually you're just like,
just do it, just barf it up.

Speaker 1 (22:31):
Who cares totally totally, but I care. I guess do
you want me to read you a quote?

Speaker 3 (22:36):
Please?

Speaker 2 (22:36):
A real good quote that Sometimes I leave this same
notebook in front of me on this desk, so I'm here.
It's the same notebook for all the zoom calls, for
all my therapy appointments, for random podcasts that I'm listening to.
And this is h This was when I was listening
to that Insecure and Love book that I've been listening
to that's so good and it's so it's so much

(23:01):
more than just attachment theory and all that kind of stuff.
It's just kind of like how to be better at
having relationships and be confident and self compassionate. Yeah, here's
a quote from that that the author quoted, and it's
from August Wilson. Look, play right, confront the dark parts
of yourself and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness.

(23:26):
Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your
angels to sing. Use the pain as fuel as a
reminder of your strength. Wow. Someone write that and fancy
calligraphy and put it in a frame for me.

Speaker 3 (23:46):
I love it. How about across stitch? About a beautiful
cross stitch of that?

Speaker 2 (23:51):
And that was actually about turning in an assignment that
August Wilson had.

Speaker 3 (23:57):
No, that's not true.

Speaker 1 (23:58):
Well we just gave her one an assignment, an art assignment.

Speaker 3 (24:01):
So yeah, let's see who does it last.

Speaker 1 (24:03):
Whoever does it last understood the project.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
The skippers will do it last. Should we talk about business?
I don't even looked at this piece of paper. Oh,
there's a merch explosion taking place my favorite murder merch store.

Speaker 1 (24:19):
If stay today, Vinn's like, Hey, I'm going to order
some merch off your store. Do you want anything? It's
like what he's getting. There's a new Elvis design, Saint Elvis. Yeah,
and so he's gonna get a Saint Elvis shirt.

Speaker 3 (24:35):
Very sweet.

Speaker 2 (24:36):
He likes you.

Speaker 3 (24:37):
I think that guy likes you. I think he likes
I think that guy likes you. I should text him
right out of us?

Speaker 2 (24:44):
Should I text him?

Speaker 3 (24:45):
Oh my god, text him right now?

Speaker 2 (24:46):
Just see what he does.

Speaker 1 (24:47):
Okay, So we have a fucking Spring twenty twenty one
merch explosion.

Speaker 2 (24:54):
Do you see what that first? Things that Stay out
of the woods Jay Kivy jay out in the woods.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
It's so funny. Sometimes everyone like they'll get one word wrong.
What was the other one? Oh? Uh? What was the
fuck you one? Oh, here's the thing fuck.

Speaker 3 (25:13):
You, fuck you everyone, which is so much more aggressive.

Speaker 1 (25:18):
And here's the thing fuck you.

Speaker 3 (25:21):
Here's something fuck you. That's uh, that's not merch.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
That's just something you can yell hanging out your car windows.

Speaker 3 (25:29):
So we have a new Stay out of the Woods.

Speaker 1 (25:31):
Nope, we have a new Stay out of the Forest design.

Speaker 3 (25:34):
That I love so much.

Speaker 1 (25:36):
It's so like charming, it's very cottage core. Actually, it's
so cottage core.

Speaker 3 (25:42):
Bees Bees made it. Bees designed it. Bees made it.

Speaker 1 (25:46):
There's a new fuck politeness design that's so cool and
like seventies looking.

Speaker 3 (25:52):
Then we brought back the toxic masculinity design.

Speaker 2 (25:56):
So there's new shirts that you can get in like
new colors and options, and you know, of course there's
Koozies always a sure go over there if you feel
like it, if you have any leftover money from your
stimulus check.

Speaker 1 (26:09):
That's my favorite murder dot com and then just go
to the store. You know how websites work, You're not
you know.

Speaker 2 (26:14):
How our website works. You're not been talking about it
for five years.

Speaker 3 (26:18):
Five years.

Speaker 1 (26:19):
Oh, and speaking of us, while you're on the website,
if you go to the if you are in the
fan call and join the fan Call, which you get
you it's forty bucks a year, and you get merch
that like exclusive merch and exclusive offers on it, and
you also get a lot of videos and stuff like
that and extras. And one of those are videos that
we're doing now of low stakes advice that we get

(26:41):
from the fan cults.

Speaker 3 (26:42):
We answer on video.

Speaker 1 (26:45):
And we have a lot of fun with them. So
you can head over to the forum, the fan cult
forum submit your low stakes advice questions and answer other
people's questions if you want, and then perhaps we'll answer
your questions on a future fan cult exclude video.

Speaker 3 (27:01):
Do you have just a problem, not a huge problem.

Speaker 1 (27:06):
Your taxes or anything you do.

Speaker 2 (27:08):
I mean, there's we all have some big problems, but
just take those little the little things are bugging yet.
That's what we can help you with. Yes, and not
much else. And please no questions about fire safety.

Speaker 3 (27:20):
We can't.

Speaker 2 (27:22):
Did you see the the drawing? Someone sent us a
picture of the drawing and she basically was she did
it the day that that that our minisode came out
when we were talking, there was even more stories about
do not yes, but it says fire instead of flower
on the front of the back.

Speaker 1 (27:39):
Posted it on our Instagram. So's so good out.

Speaker 2 (27:42):
It's so funny, it's hilarious and it's very true. Now
we have to like now, it's basically we have to
continually help reverse the information that we gave and tell
people that flower, yes, it does not belong on a
grease fire because it will catch on fire.

Speaker 3 (27:59):
Apparently that's what flower does. People listen to us.

Speaker 1 (28:02):
I put it up on Instagram and I wrote this
is gonna stick with us, isn't it?

Speaker 3 (28:06):
Because it's kinda well, if we keep talking about it is.

Speaker 2 (28:09):
Well, if you just tell her how to shut up,
it won't. But man, that art was good. I was
really impressed. A person just dropped everything she was doing
and made some hilarious art for us. Proud Also, someone
did that. I wanted to tell you and show you.
I don't know if you saw this. It was when
we were talking about here.

Speaker 3 (28:30):
It is an artist named Breenie.

Speaker 2 (28:33):
She did the art of the praying Mantis and it
says Burbank anything can happens, or it's a Burbank baby.

Speaker 3 (28:42):
And then then it's like, did you see that?

Speaker 1 (28:44):
Yeah, Stephen, will you have Jay post mantis?

Speaker 3 (28:50):
It's a Burbank baby. Anything can happen?

Speaker 1 (28:52):
So good should we do exactly right? In New Corner?

Speaker 3 (28:56):
Sure?

Speaker 1 (28:56):
I think we got it.

Speaker 3 (28:57):
We got it.

Speaker 1 (28:58):
We found this out in a meeting and breaked out
that on that's messed up the SVU podcast. The guest
this week is y Cleft Jean, the incredible musician.

Speaker 2 (29:10):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (29:11):
I just think that's the coolest guest.

Speaker 2 (29:13):
Isn't it gets Well, it's right up there with I
said no gifts has search parties John Early.

Speaker 3 (29:20):
That was the second one I was gonna.

Speaker 2 (29:21):
I mean, he's America's sweetheart, so yeah, I mean there's
there's some great guests happening, uh this week on the
Exactly Right Podcasts.

Speaker 3 (29:32):
And it's Paul. Paul holds his birthday this week.

Speaker 2 (29:35):
They Happy birthday, Paul Holes.

Speaker 1 (29:37):
Check out Murder Squad. I want to I want to
tell you what Bridger did for his one what was
it one year? I said, no gifts anniversary. So he
has he he has and I said no gifts account
on Instagram that I highly recommend you follow. It's just funny.
It's because he's funny. But he always posts photos of

(29:57):
like what he got as a gift that week. So
he he has this video that he posted of showing
all the beautiful gifts and he's placing them one by
one into a big metal trash bin and then he
sets everything on fire.

Speaker 3 (30:16):
Stephen, can you say, if we could put me, if
we couldn't.

Speaker 1 (30:18):
That's for his birthday, that's for his one year birthday.

Speaker 3 (30:21):
And I said, look at him, just he puts on gloves,
throws a match. I'm sure he failed it. So he
did not. I was a little offended because I was like,
what happened?

Speaker 1 (30:28):
I got you some really nice shit and it's just
him laughing over a burning trash can in slow motion.

Speaker 3 (30:36):
And I just blew my mind.

Speaker 1 (30:39):
It was like, Oh, you're a genius, a comedy genius.
Let's posture it on. We'll post it on the episode's Instagram, right,
Is that what I'm thinking?

Speaker 2 (30:49):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (30:49):
Yeah, how funny. It's like the most thoughtful gifts everyone gotten,
one by one. He's letting on fire.

Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (30:56):
That's because he cares to show he cares. All right,
Should we get started? Should we tell each other some stories? Okay?

Speaker 2 (31:05):
I think you're first, right, Okay, Okay, it's true, it's
me okay, Evin, Yeah, yep.

Speaker 3 (31:10):
I actually had Jay text you today because I.

Speaker 2 (31:13):
Became absolutely convinced that you are also doing the same
story this week. Because last week, when we talked about
Samantha and her hammer, the viral video where Samantha hart
So went through she found that she could take her
medicine cabinet off of her apartment bathroom wall and go
through it, and she did it, which is horrified.

Speaker 1 (31:35):
I feel like you're so disappointed in her predictation'.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
Just not smart anyone could have fucking been in there
in any corner.

Speaker 3 (31:41):
There was no lighting, there was she was.

Speaker 2 (31:44):
Being cute, but imagine having to get back out.

Speaker 3 (31:47):
I just don't like it.

Speaker 1 (31:48):
Squatters do it?

Speaker 3 (31:49):
Squatter rights are real. Stop doing things for the gram.

Speaker 2 (31:52):
Everybody so so. But underneath that thread which I got sent,
I would say one hundred and twenty six times on Twitter,
thanks everybody for caring. Underneath the thread of that, which
I always loved to see. I love people's reactions. I
love to read people being hilarious and what I just
I knew there would.

Speaker 3 (32:12):
Be a varied group of reactions.

Speaker 2 (32:17):
But then a very interesting thing happened which I really liked,
and also I saw it in the thread there. But
then also listener named Melissa. Her Twitter handle is at
c mouse run see mouse run on Twitter. She sent
this article as well. But under the thread of that,

(32:39):
an article was posted from nineteen eighty seven from the
Chicago Reader called they Came In through the Bathroom Mirror,
a murder in the project by reporter Steve It's either
Bogheera or Bogira, And everybody was saying, this is like

(32:59):
everybody's freaking out about how creepy this, you know, funny TikTok?
Is it really it really happened?

Speaker 1 (33:04):
It could be. And so the alternative of what you
went through the option.

Speaker 2 (33:08):
Well this is it's basically the other direction. And this
is like, basically, this is the thing you're fearing about.
What's happening to her has happened to someone in real
life already, is what I'm telling you. And so I'm
now going to tell you about the murder of Ruthie
may McCoy. Almost all of this is based on this
Steve Baugiera's or Boguheera's, a Chicago Reader article from nineteen

(33:33):
eighty seven, the majority of it, but there's also information
that was from a different article that the same reporter
wrote that was kind of a follow up, and also
information from a Reddit thread of unsolved mysteries and a
Wikipedia page. So I'm going to read you. We'll start

(33:54):
with the second paragraph of the of this Chicago Reader
article by Steve Bougeera Bogeera. Ruthie may McCoy fifty two,
went through much of her life afraid. She was hounded
by paranoia. Her fears weren't soothed by her dwelling place.
The last four years a high rise building in the
Near South Side Chicago Housing Authority project known as ABLA,

(34:18):
where the van dropped her off this Wednesday afternoon, April
twenty second. She lived in one of the seven fifteen
story brown y shaped towers hers NA named the Grace.
Abbot homes the most dangerous buildings in ABLA.

Speaker 3 (34:34):
A claustrophobe in a closet.

Speaker 2 (34:36):
Might be more at ease than a paranoid like McCoy
in an Abbot high rise. The buildings feature dark, malfunctioning elevators,
pitch black stairwells, and cocaine and PCP addicts on nearly
every floor. Fiends are really lurking in the shadows here
in these towers. You're crazy if you're not always looking
over your shoulder. McCoy lived at the end of a

(34:58):
corridor on the eleventh floor of the building at fourteen
forty West thirteenth Street.

Speaker 1 (35:04):
Geez.

Speaker 2 (35:04):
So that's how that article starts, and I will basically
try to sum the rest of it up for you
because it is an unbelievable and very dense story.

Speaker 1 (35:15):
But basically killing just that first paragraph is chilling.

Speaker 3 (35:21):
So here's how it starts at eight forty five.

Speaker 2 (35:23):
On the night of April twenty second, nineteen eighty seven,
Chicago's nine to one to one dispatch gets a call
from a fifty two year old woman named Ruthie May McCoy.
She lives in the Near West neighborhood of Chicago in
a public housing complex called a BLA in the Grace
Abbot Holmes High Rise building in apartment eleven oh nine,
and she's calling to report something unbelievable that's happening in

(35:45):
her bathroom. In a panic voice, she tells the dispatcher, quote,
some people next door are totally tearing this down, you know.

Speaker 3 (35:53):
End quote.

Speaker 2 (35:54):
Ruthie's disjointed sentences make it hard for the dispatcher to
understand what's actually going on. Asks her if people are
trying to break in, and she replies, yeah, they throwed
the cabinet down. I'm in the projects. I'm on the
other side. You can reach can reach my bathroom. They
want to come through the bathroom. Unsure of how to
categorize this report, the dispatcher sends police to respond to

(36:17):
a quote disturbance with a neighbor. The police are so
slow in responding that dispatch gets two more calls, one
at nine oh two and another at nine oh four,
almost twenty minutes after the first nine one one call,
both from neighbors of Ruthie's reporting that they've just heard
gunshots in apartment eleven oh nine. Got it So when

(36:39):
the cops arrive at about ten after nine, four, police
officers bang on Ruthie's door and announce themselves, but no
one answers. One of the officers tells dispatch, we think
there may be someone in there holding somebody. The officers
have dispatch called back on the number Ruth called in from,
and they listened from the hallway as her phone rings
and rings, but no one ever it up. One of

(37:01):
the officers radios to others that are standing outside of
the building and tells them to go down to the
housing office that's a block away to get the spare
key to Ruth's apartment. When they come back with it,
the key doesn't fit, so then they discuss breaking into
Ruth's apartment, but instead they decide to knock on her
neighbor's doors to try to gather more info about what's

(37:22):
going on. The apartment next door eleven oh eight is vacant.
The neighbors across the hall don't answer, and the neighbors
down the hall don't have much information to share except
for that Ruth quote always answers her door. One officer
reportedly tells dispatch there's no answer, So I don't know
if maybe she answered to the wrong person or what.

(37:44):
But even with that grave suspicion and two separate reports
of gunshots being heard at eight forty eight thirty eight
minutes after trying to contact Ruth, the police give up
and leave the scene.

Speaker 1 (37:56):
She was calling in distress from her house and there
are gunshots being reported, Like, you just have to break
the door down at that point, and you still have
no way to confirm with her that the emergency is over.

Speaker 3 (38:11):
That doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 2 (38:13):
Yeah, it does if you live in the project, right.
Essentially is what we're going to find out, right. A
neighbor named Deborah Lasley, who lives down the hall, sees
Ruth every morning when she drops by Deborah's apartment to
say hi on her way out for the day, and
she also drops by when she comes back home on
her way back to her apartment. But on Wednesday, April

(38:33):
twenty third, Deborah doesn't get any visits from Ruthie so
with the cops banging on the door the night before,
Deborah is very worried, so she calls the police for
a wellness check, and six officers, along with a few
Chicago Housing Authority security guards, show up to check on
Ruthie again. They knock and knock, but again no one answers,

(38:55):
and the police start talking about breaking down the door,
but Chicago House Authority security guards stop them. They warn
the police might face a lawsuit from the tenant for
an lawful break in, and the police would would be
responsible for immediately replacing a broken down door.

Speaker 1 (39:13):
Which can be what it's got to be fifty bucks, right.

Speaker 2 (39:15):
It's like deciding that's not worth the trouble. The police
leave Ruthie's apartment without any real investigation again, So now
Deborah Lasley is sure something's terribly wrong. She waits till
the next day before she can get any help. She
calls the project office, and at one o'clock on Friday,
April twenty fourth, someone from the office arrives with a

(39:38):
carpenter who drills through the lock in Ruthie's door, and
once the door's opened inside, they find Ruthie's body lying
on her side on her bedroom on the bedroom floor
in a pool of blood. There are papers and coins
scattered around the room, and four bullet holes are in
her body. There's one on her left shoulder, one in
her left thigh, a third in her abdomen on the

(40:00):
right side, and a fourth that's going through her upper
right arm. And that bullet cuts through her chest and
into her pulmonary vein. And at four thirty five pm
on Friday, April twenty fourth, she's pronounced dead from internal bleeding.
So I'll tell you a little bit about Ruthie May McCoy.

(40:20):
She is born in Hughes, Arkansas, in nineteen thirty five,
one of eight children. Hoping to find more job opportunities,
the McCoy family moves to Chicago's South Side neighborhood, but
of course it works hard to come by there too.
Ruthie's dad eventually finds work loading coal for distribution around

(40:40):
the city, but the pay isn't very good and the
family struggles even harder. In Chicago. Ruthi goes to Phillips
High School for about a year before dropping out in
tenth grade, presumably to help with such a big family
and by working and by taking care of her siblings.
But in her twenties, Ruthie's behavior starts to Changeves noticed

(41:00):
that she talks to herself and experiences sudden fits of rage.
And of course, this wasn't a time when mental illness
was talked about or widely known, so there's a chance
her family did not know even what was going on
with her, and even if they did, they didn't have
the resources to get her any proper treatment, so Ruthie's

(41:22):
mental illness goes undiagnosed and untreated. As she gets older,
she works as a laundry out attendant and a housekeeper,
as well as holding down other odd jobs, but her
declining mental health makes it tough for her to keep
any job for a sustained period of time, and in
between jobs she relies on government assistants to get by.

(41:43):
Ruthie's mother is a devout Baptist. She raises her children
in the church, and Ruthie's brother, Heywood, grows up to
become a preacher, and he attributes all of Ruthie's problems
to her stepping quote out of God. He prays for
Ruthie's health, but says that for God to intervene quote,
people have got to want help, so when she's twenty seven,

(42:04):
Ruthie gets pregnant, although she never marries. In nineteen sixty two,
at age twenty seven, she gives birth to her only child,
a daughter named Vernita. So Ruthie cares for Venita's best
she can, but her untreated mental health issues make it
the already difficult job of being a single mother even tougher.
Ruthie's hospitalized several times, and Vernita is placed in rotating care,

(42:29):
the rotating care of relatives and friends, and although doctors
will sometimes prescribe her medication, Ruthie doesn't always take it,
or if she does, she gets taking it and then
she runs out and she can't afford to get any refills,
and her problems just start over again. As a child,
Vernita remembers seeing her mother talk to herself and curse

(42:51):
its strangers, but she never understood why. So Ruthie and
Vernita spend the next twenty years living in a series
of low income apartments on the South and the West
side of Chicago. When Vernita is in her early twenties,
she becomes a mother herself, but a year later, in
nineteen eighty three, she gets arrested on an aggravated battery
charge and is sentenced to a short stint in Cook

(43:13):
County Jail. So while Vernita is in jail, Ruthie is
left to take care of her one year old grandchild
in their Humboldt Park apartment basement apartment until the day
that it floods and they're forced out. Unable to afford
another move because you know how expensive it is when
you're trying to get a new apartment, first, last, whatever

(43:34):
else is involved, you have to have a big chunk
of cash usually, so Ruthie applies for emergency CHA Housing
Chicago Housing Authority Housing, So we'll talk about the Chicago
Housing Authority a little tiny bit. The ABLA Homes is
one of Chicago's public housing projects that's located in the

(43:56):
Near West Side neighborhood. These letters stand for each of
the four developments of the complex, so they are the
Jane Adams Homes, Robert Brooks Homes, Loomis Courts, and Grace
Abbot Homes. The first of these four, the Jane Adams Homes,
is built in nineteen thirty eight under Roosevelt's Public Works
Administration program, and the last, the Grace Abbot Homes, where

(44:19):
Ruthie would eventually live. Is built in nineteen fifty five.
Only the Brooks Homes remain standing today. They provide three
hundred and thirty low income housing units, but at its height,
the ab LA had three five hundred and ninety six
units and housed as many as seventeen thousand residents.

Speaker 3 (44:41):
During the eighties.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
Grace Abbot Homes which was made up of two thirty
three two story row homes and then seven high rise buildings.
It's the home to roughly thirty six hundred people, all
of whom are black. Most of them are below the
age of eighteen of young people. According to a nineteen

(45:03):
eighty census, the average yearly income for families in Grace
Abbot is forty five hundred dollars a year.

Speaker 1 (45:10):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (45:10):
The only moderately wealthy residents here are the drug dealers.
So there's a drug dealing gang called the Paymasters that
are a prominent force in Grace Abbot. They take They
often will take over empty units so they can operate anonymously,
and if anyone reports them to the police, they're known
to respond by pouring gas on the snitches front door

(45:33):
and setting it on fire.

Speaker 1 (45:34):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (45:35):
So violent. Crime is rampant in ABLA, and in nineteen
eighty six, the city of Chicago has a violent crime
rate the whole city of about twenty two point nine
crimes per one thousand residents. The abla's rate sits at
forty seven point eight violent crimes per one thousand residents.

Speaker 3 (45:53):
So the Grace Abbot is the Grace Abbot.

Speaker 2 (45:57):
High rises have a reputation for being the most dangerous
buildings in all of those projects. So in his nineteen
eighty seven Reader Chicago Reader article, reporter Steve Bugira sites
in nineteen seventy two study of New York City high
rises conducted by housing expert Oscar Newman, and Newman's big

(46:17):
takeaway is that high rises are the worst kind of
buildings that you can use for public housing because they
promote anonymity, which makes it easy, basically for shady characters
to hide, and it's difficult to build a strong community
in a setup like that. A Chicago historian an architecture

(46:37):
expert named Devereux Bowley Junior, describes grace Abbot homes directly
in his nineteen seventy eight book on Chicago public housing,
The Poorhouse, saying quote more than a new project built
in Chicago to that date, which was nineteen fifty five,
the overall feeling of Abbot homes is forbidding and the
human scale completely lost. So of course Ruthy is well

(47:01):
aware of the abla's reputation. So in May of nineteen
eighty three, in need of a new place to live
within Chicago's public housing program, really tries her hardest to
avoid winding up in one of those high rises. She
writes the Cocha two letters, first asking to be placed
near her family in the South Side's Wentworth Gardens, and

(47:24):
the second letter just asking to be placed anywhere but
in a high rise. Despite her efforts, Ruthie is placed
in apartment eleven oh nine in Grace Abbott Home's Why
shaped high rise building.

Speaker 1 (47:36):
It also just feels like calling the police from there,
even if they were on it. What takes It seems
like it's like a maze, you know, to even get
to that front door, her front door, which seems like as.

Speaker 2 (47:49):
Not just amaze in the building itself, but actually this
this series of buildings and the way things are set up.

Speaker 3 (47:57):
Originally it was designed.

Speaker 2 (47:59):
They took out all this streets and it was designed
they replaced it with these garden areas, thinking that that
would encourage encourage the people that lived there to sit
outside and socialize and build a community. But of course,
instead what it made it incredibly difficult for first responders
to get inside or people you had you did have

(48:20):
to know your way around it to get in it.
It made it even more isolated.

Speaker 3 (48:24):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (48:25):
So from nineteen eighty three to nineteen eighty five, which
was their first two years at Abla, Ruthie shared her
apartment with her daughter, Vernita, Vernita's two children, and her
boy Vernita's boyfriend, Louis Butler. They all got along great
at first because Ruthie loves spending time with her grandkids.
But Ruthie and Lewis start to butt heads because Louis

(48:48):
reminds Ruthie of Vernita's father and she accuses him of
running around on her daughter. By nineteen eighty five, Vernita, Lewis,
and the kids move out of the apartment. So now
Ruthie's alone there, and she's alone with her mental illness
as well. So and now she's this, you know, she's upset,

(49:10):
she misses her family, she misses her grandkids, and this
she starts it starts affecting the way she treats her
neighbors because there's kids everywhere, and she's always in arguments
with kids. She thinks their music's too loud, she thinks
they're being a nuisance. It's always it's very upsetting to
her to basically have these kids around but not her

(49:31):
own grandkids. She starts carrying a stick around that she
threatens the kids with when things get out of hand,
and of course they make fun of her. She has
a reputation for being strange, of course, with the mental
illness issues, and police respond to these incidents on more
than one occasion, but nothing serious ever comes of it.

(49:51):
They know her not as a violent person, but just
someone who's argumentative. On top of all that, as you know,
the article, the chunk of the art article that I
read to you, living alone in such a dangerous place
is just ramping up Ruthie's paranoia about being mugged or even.

Speaker 3 (50:09):
Worse, Koya.

Speaker 1 (50:11):
It's likely.

Speaker 2 (50:14):
She becomes obsessed with locks. She has her locks changed
on her door twice. She also develops a habit of
turning her neighbor's doorknobs and reprimanding anyone who leaves their.

Speaker 1 (50:26):
Door on lot smart.

Speaker 2 (50:28):
Yeah, she is the original lock your fucking door. She
does the same with cars in the neighborhood, setting off
car alarms when she tests whether or not the car
doors are locked. But I mean, it is the thing
of like you're you already have like even if you're
just lived in anywhere, you would already have this, if
this was your mental illness, you already have this paranoia.

(50:50):
But then you have great reason to be paranoid. So
her behavior grows stranger and stranger over time. Of course,
neighbors notice that she make snow angels in the dead
of winter. She also in the middle of the hottest summer,
she'll be wearing thick layers. Her weight fluctuates fluctuates to
extreme degrees. But the first truly serious situation arises on

(51:14):
August tenth, nineteen eighty six, when Ruthie brings Vernita's oldest child, Bobby,
who was four years old at the time, to the
er at Rush Presbyterian Saint Luke's Medical Center, and Bobby
has deep cuts on his face, his arms, and his legs.
She reports Bobby fell down the stairs while she was
babysitting him, but the healthcare workers there find Ruthie's behavior odd,

(51:37):
of course, so they start to start to suspect that
maybe she pushed Bobby down the stairs, so they call
the Department of Children and Family Services. Ruthie is outraged,
of course, the r staff has to restrain her until
Vernita arrives or Vernita takes Bobby home, and there is

(51:59):
no they you know, she basically explains what's going on.

Speaker 3 (52:03):
There's no interference with.

Speaker 2 (52:05):
The DCFS, but she before she leaves, she signs papers
committing her mother to the Illinois State Psychiatric Institute for
evaluation and for treatment. But it is, and it's worth
noting here that it's very common. It's a very common
thing that we're all definitely hearing about more and more

(52:26):
in these days in the white community, of how racist
healthcare workers can be for black people, where the worst
is assumed. You come in with your grandchild and you're
so worried and you know whatever, and suddenly it's you're
the one that did it. And you can imagine how
infuriating that would be too to someone who's worried about

(52:49):
the grandchild.

Speaker 3 (52:50):
Yeah, So even though.

Speaker 2 (52:53):
This seems like it's you know, like kind of like
a bottom for her, ATPI, Ruthie is diagnosed with residual
type schizophrenia, and this variation is a bit more subtle,
but sees consistent behavioral problems like social isolation, talking to yourself,
acute superstitiousness and digressive speech patterns, and of course paranoia.

(53:18):
So Ruthie's discharged on September nineteenth, nineteen eighty six, but
she receives periodic treatment at Mount Sinai's state funded psychiatric center.
And this center serves a lot of other ABLA residents,
some of whom have specific mental health issues and some
who just seek refuge from the stress of life in
the projects. It provides community support services for Ruthie, such

(53:42):
as group therapy, arts and crafts, community meals, and GED classes.
Yeah and so Ruthie's skeptical at first because she's consumed
by years of feeling unable to trust her neighbors, but
she eventually warms up and by early nineteen eighty seven
she finds real care community at Mount Sinai. She goes

(54:02):
to the center three times a week, she participates in
group therapy and arts and craft sessions, and soon she
enrolls in the GED program. On her first day, she
tests about at a seventh grade level, but in a
few short months she climbs up to a ninth grade level,
and her ged teacher, Linda Norman, describes Ruthie as an alert,

(54:26):
bright student. So Ruthie then becomes kind of a mother
figure at Mount Sinai. There's a lot of young women
there in like in these group sessions who are talking
about these boyfriends. They live with them, They complain about,
you know, wanting them to stay around, so they give
them money.

Speaker 3 (54:44):
They you know, they want these relationships.

Speaker 2 (54:46):
And Ruthie tells all of them, I know men like this,
stay away from them, you don't need them. Like she
really enjoys that part of being able to, you know,
in all her toughness, give the advice, give kind of
very loving motherly advice. According to a staffer named Sandy Siegal,
Ruthie is warm and considerate and very well liked in

(55:09):
this group. So for the first time in her life,
ruth McCoy's mental illness is being treated, and she's getting
support services that she badly has needed for years and years,
and she's finding a place in her community and things
are starting to look up. And now we come to Wednesday,
April twenty second, which starts out like a normal day

(55:29):
for Ruthie. She heads out to Mount Sinai in the morning,
popping into her neigh neighbor, Deborah's apartment on the way
out to say hi. She gets on the van that
takes her to the treatment center. She spends the day
involved in her regular slate of activities, and then toward
the end of the day, she discusses her housing situation
with Sandy Siegel, and she tells her I need help

(55:52):
getting an apartment somewhere else.

Speaker 3 (55:54):
I got to get out of there.

Speaker 2 (55:55):
And basically she now can get out because in September
of eighty six she applied for Supplemental Security income, and
in February of eighty seven she found out that she
got it, so her monthly income now doubles. Instead of
one hundred and fifty four dollars a month, she's now
getting three hundred and forty dollars a month, and she

(56:16):
then also gets back pay from when she applied in September,
so she gets a check for almost two thousand dollars. Shit,
so she plans to use most of the check for
the deposit for a new apartment, but in the meantime,
she uses it to buy a nice winter like a
good winter coat, and then of course some small household

(56:38):
necessities that up until then she'd been forced to do without.
So it's all things are looking up for her, but
her neighbors take notice of that. On the van ride
home that day, Ruthie tells the woman that was seated
next to her, someone has threatened my life, but they're
not sure if it's a real if it's real, if it's.

Speaker 3 (57:00):
Paranoia or what.

Speaker 2 (57:01):
So the woman suggests that Ruthie tell a Mount Sinai
employee the next time that she's there, but Ruthie shuts
that down, saying that she doesn't want to get anyone
else involved. But around nine o'clock the same night, Ruthie's
fears will prove to be very valid. So after police
discover Ruthie's body in apartment eleven o nine, they search

(57:22):
the place for clues, and aside from a small change
scattered on the floor, there's no money to be found anywhere.
When Vernina arrives to speak with police, she tells them
about the big check that her mother had just got
had just gotten and cashed, saying that she kept the
cash in her apartment and now that cash is gone,
along with Ruthie's nineteen inch TV and her cane backed

(57:45):
rocking chair. So Vernita looks around the apartment and notices
Ruthie's phone is missing. Also, this is eighty seven, so
her landline is gone. But when police got to the
apartment the night at the attack, you remember, oh, they
could hear the phone ringing, which means whoever broken and
murdered Ruthie was either still in the apartment when the

(58:07):
police were standing outside, or they came back after the police.

Speaker 1 (58:11):
Oh my god, I have fucking ghost bumps.

Speaker 3 (58:14):
So which is just.

Speaker 2 (58:19):
Yeah, it's just insanely tragic and frustrating that they were
just right there and something really could have been done.

Speaker 1 (58:27):
Especially if she died of internal bleeding, which can be.

Speaker 3 (58:32):
You know, might have been able to be helped. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (58:36):
One of the officers, Detective Loser, checks the bathroom and
notices the medicine cabinet is missing, revealing a cavity in
the wall with easy access to the pipes, which is
an intentional design so that plumbers can easily service any
issues that arise in the building, and the other side

(58:58):
he can see the back of the medicine cabinet in
apartment eleven oh eight. What they don't find in Ritty's
apartment or fingerprints or any of the They find one
bullet casing, they don't find three of the four, so
without much physical evidence, police question neighbors and they also

(59:18):
discovered that apartment eleven oh eight's rent has been paid
through May, but the people who stay there aren't on
the lease. And one of these people is a young
man named Tim Brown, and he says that the woman
leasing eleven oh eight is an old friend who isn't
staying there anymore, so she gave him the keys, and
Brown claims to have spent the day of April twenty

(59:40):
second in apartment eleven oh eight with his friend named
Corey Flornoy. They spent that night partying on the far
west side of town. Police then question Florinoy, who gives
the same story about partying on the far west side,
but the guys trip themselves up when they give different
accounts of where they slept that night. Written statement, Tim

(01:00:00):
Brown gives a new account of the events of April
twenty second. He explains that he and Corey were hanging
out in eleven to eight when three more friends came
over Ronald Coleman, Edward Turner, and John Hondras, and Coleman
heard of a new trick that some people in the
building were using to rob adjasent apartments. They found out

(01:00:23):
that they could take off the medicine cabinets and get
into what's called the pipe chase, which is the space
between the walls and those passageways, even though they're only
one and a half to two feet wide, are big
enough for someone to slip through, either to get into
the next door apartment or to use an escape as
an escape route if someone is coming into.

Speaker 3 (01:00:45):
The arment to get away in the walls. People in
the walls, I don't want that. It's horrifying. And yeah,
it's horrifying.

Speaker 2 (01:00:57):
It just makes all of it so much scared, oh
and so much crazier. And that kind of thing where
when she called nine one one couldn't she was saying, yeah,
she couldn't, she didn't get it, she couldn't explain it,
and the people talking to her it sounded like just
crazy ranting totally and it was a complete reality in
this building. Oh yeah, ye, so so essentially Brown, Coleman

(01:01:21):
and Flora I say they left the apartment, and that's
when Turner and Hondras decided to break into eleven oh nine.
So Brown, who claims he remained in eleven oh eight,
he can hear a woman call out who's there. Then
he hears gunshots and sees Turner and Hondras leave eleven
oh nine, Turner holding a TV in, Hondras holding the

(01:01:42):
rocking chair, and he says they came back later to
collect the shell casings. So armed with all this information,
the police searched for Edward Turner and John Hondras. They
find Turner first, a day later in his nearby Row
Home apartment, and a month and a half later they
find Hondras in his ninth floor Grace Abbott apartment.

Speaker 3 (01:02:03):
Both suspects. Suspects remain in custody until the trial. So
the trial begins in March twenty seventh of nineteen ninety,
so almost three years later. What. Yeah, there's no media coverage.

Speaker 2 (01:02:18):
Yeah, this murder does not make the Tribune, it doesn't
make the Sun Times.

Speaker 3 (01:02:23):
No one hears about it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:25):
So the only person in the courtroom who comes in
Ruthie's support is her brother Willie, who testifies for the prosecution,
talking about Ruthie's life and her character, and because the
crime scene had been tampered with in the days between
the murder and the discovery of her body, the prosecution
has to rely on witness testimony to prove the case.

(01:02:46):
But there's so many different accounts of the events and
all the different people involved, and they're all conflicting and
changing information. It's hard to tell what's true and what's not.
It takes three years from the date of Ruthie's murder
the trial to begin, and then the trial itself last
two years. But in the end there isn't sufficient evidence

(01:03:06):
to convict anybody of the crime, and both Hondras and
Turner are found not guilty.

Speaker 3 (01:03:12):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (01:03:14):
In nineteen eighty eight, Vernita sues Cha for the wrongful
death of her mother. She argues that the design flaw
of the building allowed for.

Speaker 3 (01:03:22):
Her mother's death.

Speaker 2 (01:03:23):
Yeah, that it was extremely preventable had CHA made the
medicine cabinets more permanent fixtures. It's unclear if she ever
won that case. Fuck so, that information might be out there,
it's just that couldn't find it. But the problem is
the Chicago Housing Authority, especially in the beginning, they everything

(01:03:45):
slowly became about saving money. So originally the plan was
every building was supposed to have three janitors. It all
came down to one. They would scamp on every single thing.
They wouldn't fix anything. Of course, lights would go out
in hallways, they would you know, they would never be replaced.
Or there was a janitor who went He wanted to

(01:04:07):
remain anonymous, so his name wasn't in the article, but
he was talking about how you had to like go
and get you know, from the housing authority.

Speaker 3 (01:04:15):
You had to go get the light bulbs.

Speaker 2 (01:04:17):
And then you'd put them in and people would take
them because people needed things like light bulbs and like that,
or people were smoking out of the light bulbs like
you know. So basically it was just easier and like
everyone just had to adapt to this thing of like
that's why all the hallways are dark, even though there's
no exterior lighting. It's not like there's windows. So in

(01:04:39):
these hallways they even had like daylight, it.

Speaker 3 (01:04:42):
Was just dark hallways black.

Speaker 2 (01:04:46):
And just completely abandoned. Like the budgeting everything is just
they they get a wised this as with that kind
of neglect, the level of neglect is unbelievable, totally Okay, so,
but sorry because I know this is so long, but
it's just there's so much to the story. So according
to the autopsy report, it's unlikely that Ruthie would have

(01:05:08):
survived the attack even if she had been rushed to
the hospital that night, because one of the bullets hit
her pulmonary vein. But had the police but had the
first police officers on the scene taken the initiative to
enter her apartment, or if the cha had the proper
spare key for the apartment, the culprits could have been

(01:05:28):
caught at the time, there wud be no mystery surrounding
the death, and that it would have been a murder
that was actually prosecuted.

Speaker 3 (01:05:35):
It brought to justice. Fuck yeah. When reporter Steve Bugira
questions the officer's decision to walk away from Ruthie's apartment
the night of April twenty second, this is going to
shock you, they get defensive.

Speaker 2 (01:05:48):
Captain Raymond Risley tells Bugia he believes that most of
the nine to one one calls that they get from
the projects are hoaxes.

Speaker 1 (01:05:56):
Dude, guess what you still have to fucking look into them?

Speaker 3 (01:06:00):
Yeah, I mean, what else are you doing?

Speaker 2 (01:06:02):
Yeah, is it not why you get paid?

Speaker 1 (01:06:05):
Guess why some of them aren't and you need to
you can handle those.

Speaker 2 (01:06:09):
What about that? When asked if there are any statistics
to support that claim that their hoaxes, Riseley says that
they don't need a formal study. They know their hoaxes
based on quote the experience of the officers who regularly
work those beats.

Speaker 3 (01:06:22):
We could drag this stuff out in a study, but
it would be kind of expensive.

Speaker 1 (01:06:27):
Oh everything you just said, well vially.

Speaker 2 (01:06:32):
Ruthie's brother, William McCoy does his best not to let
his anger at the whole situation get to him. After
Turner's and Hondres's acquittals, Willy expresses his frustration freely. Quote
justice does not proceed the way that it should. If
that had been a white woman had been killed like that,
with two black guys charged, they would have been convicted.

(01:06:53):
If that would have been a white woman that called
the police, like my sister, did you know, they would
have gone into our apartment?

Speaker 3 (01:06:59):
You know it? The whole system we're living in is corrupt. Wow.
Here's a quote from that reader article.

Speaker 2 (01:07:07):
Quote. As for the police officer's failure to enter McCoy's apartment. Well,
some nine to one one stories are just more significant
than others. The death of Nancy Clay, a white suburban,
white collar worker, in a Loop high rise blaze in May,
and indications that the nine to one to one system
had failed her prompted weeks of media coverage, a city

(01:07:30):
council investigation, a council hearing featuring testimony by the fire
commissioner broadcast live on public radio, and several proposed ordinances.
The performance of the police in the McCoy case didn't
even merit a departmental investigation.

Speaker 3 (01:07:46):
End quote.

Speaker 2 (01:07:47):
So this article was written in nineteen eighty seven and
the horror movie Candy Man was released in nineteen ninety two,
so that a horror movie is based on a short
story by Clive Barker about a grad student researching urban legends,
including one about the candy man who if you say
his name into the bathroom mirror five times, he comes

(01:08:11):
through it and kills you. The grad student is white,
the candy man is black, and there's kind of proof
that basically they got the idea from Steve Bougier's nineteen
eighty seven article that basically went over the details of
living in these projects and how incredibly violent and incredibly

(01:08:34):
frightening they were. And so here's one of the last
quotes from Steve Bogier's article. Quote Robert Ebert gave the
movie Oh this is sorry, this is another article. Actually
that's about the connection of this movie to this story.
Quote Roger Ebert gave the movie three stars. Urban Legends

(01:08:55):
tap our deepest feares. He observed one of the most
subterranean involved the call for help that is laughed at
or ignored. End quote for Robert Roger Ebert. Ebert may
not have realized that in the projects it was hardly
a deep fear that calls for help would be neglected.

Speaker 3 (01:09:14):
It was simply expected.

Speaker 2 (01:09:16):
If you want to.

Speaker 3 (01:09:18):
Know more about life.

Speaker 2 (01:09:21):
In these projects, there are two books that Steve Bougier recommends,
once called High Rise Stories, a collection of interviews from
former project residents, and another one by an author named
Alex Kottleowitz that's from nineteen ninety two, and it's called

(01:09:42):
There Are No Children Here, An account of life in
the Horner Homes. And that is the real life horror
story of the murder of Ruthy May McCoy.

Speaker 1 (01:09:51):
Oh, Mike, I feel like I got hit by a
bus that's like.

Speaker 2 (01:09:57):
Heavy. Yeah, it's just the the detail, the details of
something like that where you think, oh, it's like yeah,
from the outside, it's like I remember seeing the picture
underneath the thread and the drawing from the reader article
in nineteen eighty seven is like, you know, it's almost
like skeleton hands coming out of the of the mirror. Yeah,

(01:10:18):
which is of course horrifying and scary and like a
horror movie.

Speaker 3 (01:10:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:10:23):
And then you read the article and you realize that
the people in these places, a lot of them, were
living in a horror movie, right.

Speaker 1 (01:10:30):
And the fact that I mean just zero follow up
on the protocol of anyone, anyone of authority involved from
the from the housing projects not having the right key,
and then the officers not following up that night to
get their correct key, whether or not they wanted to
break the door down or not. To the nine one

(01:10:51):
one operator. Yeah, it's just there's no nobody cared, nobody cared,
nobody cared.

Speaker 2 (01:10:58):
It really is like you know, the big banner you
put on it. I think in discussions with people who
really know what they're talking about, is like, this is
an example of systemic oppression. Right. This is that example
of if you have to live in these buildings.

Speaker 3 (01:11:13):
And then this is what you have to live with.

Speaker 2 (01:11:16):
And then when you live in a place like that,
why wouldn't you want to get high? Why wouldn't you
want to escape that? You know why? Like this is
the idea that these things kind of feed into each other,
and then from the outside there are people who feel
justified in saying, oh, they're like that kind of they're
doing it to themselves.

Speaker 1 (01:11:34):
Idea that it don't matter as much because that's that's
your place in life and you need to stay.

Speaker 2 (01:11:40):
There as zif it's your choice, as if it's your choice,
and not that that's this very rigged system totally.

Speaker 1 (01:11:47):
Yeah, there's actually a documentary. It's a it's a documentary
called the pruit I go I g Oe The pruit
I go Myth from twenty eleven that is so excellent
and it's examines the development and failure of a nineteen
fifties housing housing estate in Saint Louis. So Saint Louis,

(01:12:08):
but it's so similar in the reason they were built,
the people they put into it and just threw them away.
And you know what happens when you house people in
that situation and take away street names and you know,
don't you know, don't take care of the building. So
it's called the Prue It I go myth and I

(01:12:31):
highly recommended it so incredible. Looks like it's on Pluto
for free. I feel like if you don't know what
it's like, and it's like, you know, documentary footage of
that time, it's really excellent, fucking great job. I'm so
glad you covered that. I know me too. All right, Well,

(01:12:52):
I have a story for you, good good. It takes
place in New Orleans in similar time period. This is
the story.

Speaker 2 (01:13:04):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:13:04):
Someone suggested this for me on Twitter and I had
never heard of it. It's the story of Jacqueline Davis,
who was the first black woman to serve as a
homicide detective in New Orleans.

Speaker 2 (01:13:17):
Whoa, I know, Okay, awesome, that's nice. So this will
take a little swing upward. I think, well, okay, some
shit went down, really, I can't imagine.

Speaker 1 (01:13:29):
I can't imagine there was corruption involved, if you can
believe it. But this is a strong female lead for
Women's History Month, and this woman is incredible, so I'm
really excited to tell her story. I got information from
the website called The Appeal, an article by Ethan Brown
which was really helpful, Fiona Levee dot org article by

(01:13:53):
Shana Prince with is Ze, an article by Michael Pierrelstein,
the clarionharerld dot org article, an Ebony article about her
from nineteen ninety one that was done by Roxanne Brown,
and some other places on the Internet. There's not a
ton of information or there's like repeating stories, but I

(01:14:15):
feel like this woman's story is incredible. So Jacqueline Davis
was born on February sixth, nineteen fifty seven, in Cleveland, Ohio.
When she was just three years old, her father, who
was a delivery driver, died in a car accident while
on his runs, and her mother was also injured. So unfortunately,

(01:14:36):
her mom kind of had a nervous breakdown after this,
and so she ended up mismanaging the lawsuit against her
father's employer as well as the inheritance he left behind.
Because of this, Jacqueline and her younger brother were sent
to New Orleans so they could move in with their
great aunt, Mabel Walker and her husband, Willie, who was

(01:14:58):
a merchant marine. So they lived in a shotgun home
in the historically black Central City neighborhood. So here's a
little fun fact. Mabel Walker, the great aunt, was known
as Medea, and across the street their neighbor, no, I
swear to God, was Tyler Perry.

Speaker 3 (01:15:19):
Yeah, I'd like, that's all I know.

Speaker 1 (01:15:21):
And I never saw any article that said that like
that was the connection. I didn't really look up if
that's what he's ever said that. But her fucking nickname
was Media and it sounds like she was just like
big character.

Speaker 2 (01:15:34):
Wow, that's that's I didn't realize we were going to
kick this story off with some a Medea origin story like.

Speaker 1 (01:15:43):
It has good luck, so fucking amazing and they and
it takes place in New Orleans too, right, Yeah, because
Tyler Perry is from there. In the in this home,
Medea tried to provide the children with a normal, loving household.
Sound like she was a very caring caregiver. But here's
the thing. On the side, she was a kind of

(01:16:05):
a madam of sorts for the merchant Marines that came
through town with her husband when he was in and
out of port, and they would board at his house
at their house. So Midia also worked at a nearby
bar called Shadowland, and this bar kind of had a
violent reputation, as did the neighborhood. And it was during
one of those violent altercations that Jacqueline witnessed that kind

(01:16:29):
of made up her mind of that fact that she
wanted to be a cop when she grew up. What
happened was she witnessed a man brutally assaulting a woman
near the bar, and she says she remembers watching as
the man punched and bit the woman, but then to
her surprise, the woman starts fighting back and ended up
beating a crap out of her attacker. And then the

(01:16:52):
cops showed up, and she was like, oh, this is trouble.
And it turned out that the woman in question was detective,
and not just detective, a detective, but a black detective.
So her mind was blown. It was the seventies, you know,
and women accounted for roughly two percent of the police officers,

(01:17:14):
and people of color made up around six percent of
police officers, so this was like an anomaly, and from
that moment on, Jackie vowed to work in the police force.
She said, quote, I just became not obsessed that every
time I saw this woman her name was Gail Miller
aka Christie Love. I was just in awe. She says,

(01:17:34):
this policewoman inspired me because I wasn't a weakling. I
was a loner. And I was a loner because I
stuttered and people used to make fun of me, so
I would never talk. And this woman, I mean, she
just did something to me. I just had never had
a black woman to look up to. I had always,
unfortunately been told I wasn't going to be nothing. I
love that this becomes her like inspiration. So despite Medea

(01:17:58):
trying to create a happy support of it, sounds like
Jacqueline's life was pretty chaotic. One time, a man who
was staying over in their front room raped her when
she was very young, and when she told her Aunt
Medea about it, she says, her Aunt Medea grabbed her
shotgun and fucking took off looking for the guy. And

(01:18:20):
Jacqueline says she never found out what happened to him,
but said, quote if you knew Mabel Walker, David says
she was also unfortunately sexually abused by her great uncle,
who began molesting her at age nine and it went
on for five years until he became sick and died
when she was fourteen years old. I know, so she
definitely went through a lot as a child, But meanwhile

(01:18:43):
she excelled in school, and then she got pregnant when
she was just fifteen. She gave birth in nineteen seventy
four and named her daughter Christina. And then when she
was seventeen, Medea passed away and Jackie was still able
to finish school at high school and she had it
to college at the University of New Orleans, where she
studied chemistry, but being unable to afford childcare, she was

(01:19:06):
forced to drop out. So she then worked menial jobs
for a while to make ends meet, but by the
time she was twenty, she was homeless and had to
live in her car with her daughter. They used a
Burger King bathroom to freshen up, and she said, quote,
that's when I decided to turn things around. I couldn't
put my daughter through that. So she was finally ready
to pursue her childhood dream of joining the police force.

Speaker 3 (01:19:28):
It took her.

Speaker 1 (01:19:29):
Five attempts to pass the test to become an officer,
but she finally did in nineteen seventy nine, and she
chose the New Orleans Police Department's Urban Squad as her
first assignment, so this meant she had to patrol the
major housing projects in both the city and the West Bank,
the area across the Mississippi River on its western banks.

(01:19:51):
She says she was assigned to public housing since the
drug dealers they had this scheme going where they use
women as like they're like middleman because they were less
suspicious for drugs and weapons because they were stealthier. But
it made it so that having a female officer on
patrol there, it was easy and more comfortable to search

(01:20:13):
those women, and they kind of cooperated a little more
with a woman detective. So she went on to be
assigned to different districts around the Vice Squad, including the
French Quarter. In the night in the early eighties, which
was just a treacherous, dangerous time in New Orleans, the
street level sex work was rampant, and Jacqueline's soft spokenness

(01:20:34):
and small demeanor she was just five foot three, it
made it so she didn't have this intimidating, you know,
typical cop presence. She was more affable, and having grown
up in a home where sex work was the norm,
she wasn't judgmental, and she had this special ability to
deal with the issues that arise in that profession. She said, quote,

(01:20:56):
I knew about prostitutes and pimps, having lived with them
most of my life life, and that ability to get
people to open up and talk, especially in these gritti
our neighborhoods, got her attention from her superiors. She moved
over to narcotics and was eventually assigned to the rape
investigation unit, where she solved one hundred percent of her

(01:21:18):
cases and was able to provide treatment to each and
every victim whoa I know. She says that working on
rape cases felt like therapy to her, after having been
a victim herself. In the Ebony article I spoke about,
she said, quote, it made me stronger and able to
deal with what happened to me.

Speaker 3 (01:21:40):
She said.

Speaker 1 (01:21:40):
She was instrumental interesting serial rapist David Flurry, who terrorized
New Orleans in the mid nineteen eighties and was eventually
given a mandatory life sentence on each of two counts
of aggravated rape. So she just like has these cases
that she's clearing where other officers can. She's finally transferred

(01:22:02):
to what is known as the most elite of all
the units, homicide, where there was just one other woman
on the team at the time who was white, and
there was only at the time four and there was
only at the time out of twenty four officers, only
four were black. And so she was the first black

(01:22:23):
woman to serve as a homicide detective in New Orleans,
which is extraordinary. Davis says about the other female officer, quote,
they accepted her, but they didn't accept me because for
one thing, I was black. I'm a dark skinned black woman.
And then I was arrogant. I knew I was good
at what I did.

Speaker 2 (01:22:41):
She was, Yeah, she should have known that, And this
gets so fucked.

Speaker 1 (01:22:47):
I mean, this gets the dark. Her colleagues tormented her,
you know. They would smash family photos on her desk,
they'd post photos of Aunt Jemima in her work area.
They even plays a dog shit in her desk drawer.
They would fuck with her ability to perform her job
by telling so tipsters would call in and there were

(01:23:09):
much needed tipsters on her big cases, and they'd say
to them, she doesn't work here anymore and like hang
up on them, and then they would rip her case
files to shreds.

Speaker 2 (01:23:21):
Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1 (01:23:22):
I know, so like if you ever yeah, I mean,
it's the thing of like, yes, you've gotten here, but
you've had to work ten times harder than anyone else
at it, which means you're ten times better at your job.

Speaker 2 (01:23:34):
Yes, and she already had like a perfect record. It's
I bet you that made the dumb racist ones really
pissed off. Absolutely, It's already such a nasty environment. And
then it's like, how you know, how dare you? How
dare you.

Speaker 1 (01:23:51):
Excel these fragile, fragile male egos that are so easy
to smash? Horrified to do it. It got so bad
that her supervisor and mentor from the time, David Morales,
started having to keep her files in the trunk of
his car for her.

Speaker 3 (01:24:08):
It's nonsensical, it is, it's like, get rid of that.

Speaker 1 (01:24:12):
Yeah, And it's like you have this hope that you
join the police force because you want to do good
and like so it boggles the mind, he said.

Speaker 3 (01:24:22):
Quote.

Speaker 1 (01:24:23):
As bad as it got, she never complained. She just
wanted to be accepted and she would take whatever they
did to her. She persevered, and despite the aggression, she endured.
Her track record was stellar. She solved eighty eight out
of ninety murder cases assigned to her in the nineteen nineties,
Jesus all, and she's in her mid thirties at this point.

(01:24:46):
David Morales said she quote was the best I ever
saw at solving a murder case, and that her instincts
were spot on and she had a knack to get
normally reluctant witnesses to talk, and therefore she was able
to regularly crack cases. Other deta dectives had given up
on Wow. On one murder case where the perpetrator found
out that she was the detective assigned to the case,

(01:25:07):
turned himself in, saying, quote, I figured you'd catch up
to me anyway. WHOA, No, it's just like there running
running and they turn and look around behind them.

Speaker 3 (01:25:16):
Oh for this, forget it, forget it.

Speaker 1 (01:25:19):
New Orleans was a notoriously dangerous place at the time,
as I'm sure you can imagine. In fact, between August
nineteen eighty six and December nineteen eighty six, there was
a gunman on a killing spree. He committed eight murders,
and oftentimes the assailants he targeted were couples, which is
just you know, you think you're safe when you're in
a couple walking down the street and you're not. And

(01:25:41):
he also committed several rapes and armed robberies. So Jacqueline
pursued leads that other officers had blown off and ignored,
including looking into a witness who always happened to be
on the scene of these crimes and had a habit
of approaching the homicide detective to like get his statement.

Speaker 3 (01:26:01):
And she notices that, huh, she.

Speaker 1 (01:26:04):
Said, quote, this guy would commit the murders and stay
on the scene and go up to the homicide officer
and pretend to be a witness of the murder he committed,
she says, quote, And the detectives took him to the
homicide office and took a statement from him as well.
First of all, they were all saying, well, serial killers
aren't black, so it's not him totally blowing him off.
They had him in their sights and they just blew

(01:26:25):
him off when she, you know, she pointed him out.
She said, the detectives took him up to the homicide
office and took a state from statement from him as
a witness. Well, I wind up getting the case, wind
up clearing the case and making a name for myself.

Speaker 3 (01:26:41):
That a lot of the.

Speaker 1 (01:26:42):
Detectives started getting pretty much upset about so, yeah, she's
clearing these cases and they're mad because they didn't.

Speaker 2 (01:26:49):
Yeah, but also doing it in that smart way where
clearly it's like it's that thing where it all of
her her past becomes this huge advantage, right because she's
seen a bunch of shit and she's lived through a
bunch of shit and she's been there. So it's that
that kind of thing of like it she's she has

(01:27:10):
a sense about things because she's she's like of the
of the world of that and can see through that
kind of stuff. Yeah, I love it so much. And
it is like, yeah, you're right. It's like these other
people are seeing the world through their shades and you know,
through what their experiences instead of what life is really

(01:27:30):
like and like not judging people because they've been in
those situations before.

Speaker 3 (01:27:35):
So it's just it's also.

Speaker 1 (01:27:38):
And you should everyone should try it.

Speaker 2 (01:27:39):
But it's also called just fucking paying attention, which a
lot of people say they do and pretend to do
but actually don't do. But when you have, you know,
like or in situations where you kind of like are
on your own, like a kid that essentially was orphaned,
you have to you have to pay very close attention

(01:28:01):
and like you have to anticipate things, like she just
was so wise. It sounds like, yeah, totally, you know,
she loved that.

Speaker 3 (01:28:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:28:10):
She was getting a ton of attention for how good
she was at her job. She won awards, she was
invited to speak across the country. She was featured in
a ton of articles like in Parade, Ebony, Essence Readers, Digest,
and Jet in the early nineties, just to name a few.
And at one point it was seemed inevitable that her

(01:28:30):
life would be turned into a movie, and in fact,
Quincy Jones and Whoopie Goldberg at one time were competing
to make a movie of her life. So cool, Yeah,
so again. Dangerous violent time in New Orleans during the
year during nineteen ninety four alone, there were four hundred
and twenty four recorded homicides. Mayor Mark Morial said, quote,

(01:28:52):
the city's soul is in jeopardy. One murder victim was
nine year old James Darby, who had just written then
President Bill Clinton a letter begging him to help stop
the violence in his city. He wrote, He's nine years old.
He wrote, quote, people is dead, and I think that
somebody might kill me. So would you please stop the

(01:29:14):
people from debting. I ask you nicely to stop it.
I know you can do it. Ten days later, on
Mother's Day, he was in a park in New Orleans
when he was shot and killed by a stray bullet
that had been fired by a fifteen year old who
was trying to settle a score with arrival. And I

(01:29:35):
think that got headlines. Jacqueline was promoted from homicide detective
to a position in internal affairs, which was a very
sensitive position because it put her in charge of investigating
complaints against fellow officers, so they already have a grudge
against her. I mean, this is like doubling down on that.

Speaker 2 (01:29:55):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (01:29:55):
She slipped up on one case when she gave conflicting,
contradictory ounce at a civil service hearing against an officer
regarding her surveillance of that officer. Basically, when she was
asked if she saw her colleague, who was accused of
protecting and using cocaine with a known drug dealer at

(01:30:16):
a residence, she said she didn't, but later she contradicted
herself and said that she had seen him. It seems
like it was just a slip up, and in fact
she had immediately corrected herself and her boss insisted, quote,
this is not perjury, it's just a discrepancy and a statement.
But she was still suspended from the New Orleans Police

(01:30:37):
Department for perjury for thirty days. So it definitely seems
like they tried. You know, if it had been someone else,
someone that hadn't been so you know, hadn't had so
many enemies, she would have been fine. But because it
was her, they wanted retaliation. Yes, of course. So over
the next eight years, Jacqueline was shuffled around at different districts,

(01:30:59):
worked a lot of night shifts, and though she continued
to earn departmental commendations because of her excellent work, this
like hype around her started to die down. And I'm
sure the hype rubbed a lot of people the wrong
way too, because they thought they deserved it somehow, or
they had these.

Speaker 3 (01:31:16):
Big egos, or they were just jealousy. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:31:19):
The hype around surrounding her started to die down, which
she says she was a little relieved about. It seems
like she was kind of an introvert, although she does
this big, bright smile and was like seemed so welcoming.
So Christina, her daughter, her only child. She had grown
up and become a successful woman. She was a high
school teacher with a master's degree in physics, and she'd

(01:31:43):
now had a child of her own. It was Jacqueline's
beloved grandson, Colin.

Speaker 3 (01:31:48):
So this was.

Speaker 1 (01:31:49):
Normal for officers. I don't know if it now happens
as well, but in their time off. In July of
two thousand and one, Jacqueline was hired to work as
an off duty security guard for a private party at
the Sheraton Hotel in New Orleans on Canal Street downtown,
So it was like a high end affair. It was
held in connection with the Essence Festival, and after working

(01:32:13):
the four day event, so it's it's blurry. But Jackie
got into a verbal altercation with the promoters because they
refused to pay for the security detailed the agreed amount
and that included her and her other officers payment, including
her partner, Lieutenant Sam Lee, so this promoters wouldn't pay. Finally,

(01:32:35):
finally they reached an agreement about the payment and Jackie
was like, okay, but I'm getting a sign receipt just
to make sure that everyone knows there was no funny business.
There was nothing weird going on. She gets a signed
receipt before leaving the hotel with their payment, and you
know it's signed by one of the promoters, this dude

(01:32:55):
named Tim Crockett. So, despite it being settled that the
promoters took the issue to the New Orleans PD and
filed a complaint against Jackie and her partner. They said
that Jackie and Samuel demanded double the agreement price and
intimidated them with their guns. And despite Jackie not being

(01:33:17):
named in the original complaint, both Jackie and Samuel went
to trial in August two thousand and two. Oh whoa, Yeah,
so they took the word over this promoter of the
promoters over their own police, which, of course everyone should
be looked into.

Speaker 2 (01:33:33):
It's not like, you know, right, but this is a
person who has like a stellar record and has busted
her ass and done it all and still is like
the second anyone comes in and goes she may have
fucked up, It's like, well then get like that is
that thing where it's like, how how much more can
you give?

Speaker 1 (01:33:53):
Yeah? Well, would this be like if it were a
white man?

Speaker 2 (01:33:56):
You know?

Speaker 1 (01:33:56):
Yeah, And she had a receipt which they lost her
fucking attorneys lost that receipt that she gave them. They
were prosecuted by US Attorney sal Paracone. Jurors were never
able to hear her side of the events, including of course,
her unwavering argument that she was innocent, because her attorney

(01:34:19):
didn't want her to testify since it would give prosecutors
opportunity to question her about that way back perjury charge.
So it's almost like, yeah, you got to slap on
the wrist way back then, but it's going to haunt
you forever, and it's going to come back and bite
you in the ass, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:34:35):
So like it just sucks.

Speaker 1 (01:34:39):
That was from nineteen ninety four and it's two thousand
and two at this point, you know, and they would
still be able to question her integrity. So and they
lost the fucking signed receipt. So the acting US Attorney,
Jim Letten, admitted that Davis's role in the case was
not equal to her partner Lee's, a fact which then

(01:35:00):
and led them to offer her a generous plea bargain
for her testimony against Lee, who was of course her friend,
which she refused, despite the fact that she said they
threatened to add a tax evasion charge if she didn't cooperate. Wow, yeah,
which sounds completely illegal. Ultimately, Jacqueline Davis was indicted in

(01:35:21):
federal court on extortion and conspiracy and ordered to pay
two thousand dollars in restitution and was sentenced to thirty
months in federal prison.

Speaker 3 (01:35:31):
No way, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:35:33):
So one of the most celebrated cops in the history
of the New Orleans PD, who broke down barriers as
the first black woman to become a New Orleans homicide detective,
had a near perfect record of solving cases after twenty
one years of experience, Davis, now forty five years old,
was sent to federal prison and suspended from the police force.

(01:35:55):
Her daughter broke down in sobs at hearing her mother's verdict.
She left behind her daughter and seven year old grandson, Colin,
who told her that he wanted to grow up to
be a police officer just like her. After she was
locked up, it emerged that Tim Crockett, the promoter who
had filed charges against them, had a history of extorting money,

(01:36:17):
having given a bad check to a nightclub in New
Orleans just a month before the incident with Jackie, and
that charge was dropped when Crockett made those payments a
couple of weeks after Jackie's trial, so the prosecuting attorney
must have known during the trial about those bad checks
and never it's called the Brady violation. Essentially, he had

(01:36:39):
a bunch of other lawsuits against him going due to
financial disputes, some of which resulted in judgments against him
and his company, and none of that was disclosed at
the trial, even though it sounds like it's inevitable that
they knew about it. Yeah, both Lee and Davis filed
for acquittals. They were unsuccessful. Jackie served her thirty month sentence,
and it sounds like she was put in general lock

(01:37:01):
up and so she was like, I'm a police officer.
That's really dangerous for me. But a lot of the
women in prison with her had heard about her and
read about her and were like, we got your back
the whole time.

Speaker 3 (01:37:11):
Really, yeah, I genuinely was so fucking worse. I know, Yeah,
this is bad.

Speaker 1 (01:37:17):
They're like, they got you yours.

Speaker 3 (01:37:20):
Yeah, I love that.

Speaker 1 (01:37:21):
But it says so much of your police officer in
prison and they're like you're cool. Yes, Yeah, she was
a legend. So she served her thirty month sentence. It
drained her bank account, all the legal fees, her telephone
and electricity were turned off, her car was repossessed, and
she was forced to move into a halfway house in
New Orleans. So she's the celebrated figure, and this fall

(01:37:43):
from Grace is so dramatic and awful.

Speaker 3 (01:37:47):
Push push from Grace.

Speaker 1 (01:37:49):
Push from Grace.

Speaker 3 (01:37:50):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (01:37:50):
Her twenty year career as a police officer was over,
she said, quote. It was like all the pain I
had endured in my life finally caught up to me.
I realized that I had been using my job as
an officer as therapy, and suddenly that was all taken
away from me. She took a job at the law
office of her post conviction attorney, Lori White. So, meanwhile

(01:38:13):
sal Paracone, the man that Jackie says fucking destroyed her life,
the prosecuting attorney, would remain a successful prosecutor for many years.
Jackie would maintain that a guilty verdict was due to
his misconduct, due to the fact that he knew of
Crockett's history of extortion and didn't disclose it at the trial,
And in fact, in twenty eleven, she was fucking right

(01:38:34):
and proved to be right there were multiple claims and
lawsuits that turned out filed against him regarding his misconduct,
including racist comments he made about people of color using
multiple pseudonyms. Online investigations of par Cone's gross misconduct led
to him being disbarred, and his commentary led to a

(01:38:56):
defamation suit. He had posted more than twenty six highs
dread comments on nola dot com, the website of the
New Orleans Times picka yun between November two thousand and
seven and March twenty twelve, twenty six hundred comments use
oh my god, different fake user accounts between one hundred

(01:39:17):
and two hundred comments related to matters being prosecuted by
his office at the time that he posted.

Speaker 3 (01:39:24):
So, you fucking piece of shit. Corruption not good.

Speaker 1 (01:39:29):
No. He even allegedly admitted to intentionally not disclosing Tim
Crockett's previous offenses to win the case. Holy shit, I
saw that in one article. I don't know, I said, allegedly,
because I'm not totally sure on that.

Speaker 2 (01:39:42):
I just like the idea that there some some hacker
whoever they hired, got in there and was just like
it's like, oh, it's this guy.

Speaker 1 (01:39:50):
In addition to being disbarred, his online comments forced a
federal judge to overturn the conviction of the cops who
shot unarmed civilians on the Danziger Bridge in the aftermath
of Katrina, and they later received much reduced sentences, and
it derailed an investigation, and then it also derailed an

(01:40:11):
investigation into crooked landfill businesses in the Jefferson Parish.

Speaker 2 (01:40:16):
So he.

Speaker 1 (01:40:19):
Just caused a lot of harm to the criminals, justice
to the criminal justice system.

Speaker 2 (01:40:23):
Completely corrupted his office and the people of his city.

Speaker 1 (01:40:29):
That's right. So in the end, he argued that the
court should consider mitigation. Considering mitigation, this is his excuse.
It's almost like the ambient excuse that he suffered from
post traumatic stress disorder as the result of his experiences
during his former careers as a police officer and FBI agent.

(01:40:50):
So he was like, give me leniency. I have post tremendous.

Speaker 2 (01:40:53):
I was racist online because I have PTSD.

Speaker 1 (01:40:57):
Yeah, I was racist and did so many, obviously, you know,
legally wrong activities for ten years because I had PTSD.

Speaker 2 (01:41:11):
And sandbagged very highly decorated cops totally to jail because wow, totally.

Speaker 1 (01:41:19):
So that's his story and I think it's ongoing, right, now,
but to end on a more positive note. In twenty thirteen,
Jacqueline's grandson, Colin, graduated from the prestigious high School Saint Augustine,
where he was a drum major and participated in the
Future Business Leaders of America, and out of one hundred

(01:41:40):
and eight students in his class, he graduated twenty fifth.

Speaker 3 (01:41:44):
WHOA yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:41:45):
He was selected as a twenty thirteen Louisiana Scholar of
the Horatio Alger Association, which helped him go on to
study psychology at Xavier University of Louisiana. His grandmother, Jacqueline Davis,
paid for his high school tuition and provided a loving
home for him while his mother lived in Texas after

(01:42:05):
Hurricane Katrina. About his mother and grandmother, he said quote,
I was raised by them. Everything I've learned I've gotten
mostly from them. I cherish the women in my life,
and I plan on repaying them for all the hard
work they've done for me. So fucking sweet boy. Jacqueline
later seemed relieve when she said in an interview that
her grandson, of course, was a child, wanted to someday

(01:42:29):
join the New Orleans Police Department, and later the FEDS
said that he instead went into education.

Speaker 2 (01:42:38):
Oh wow, Yeah, that's really giving back.

Speaker 1 (01:42:41):
Uh huh. And I couldn't find any more information about him,
but I thought that was really sweet. When she was
interviewed last summer by Ethan Brown for The Appeal, she
was speaking about the coronavirus. But I think it's apropos
of this story in her life. She said, quote everyone
that I loved and continue you to love, I say this,

(01:43:01):
I will meet you in the afterlife. I have no regrets.
God could take me tomorrow. I have lived my life.
And that's the story, the heroic story of Jacqueline Davis,
the first black woman to serve as a homicide detective
in New Orleans.

Speaker 3 (01:43:17):
WHOA how bad ass is she?

Speaker 1 (01:43:20):
Like?

Speaker 3 (01:43:21):
Miraculously read ask? Yeah, that's such a good story.

Speaker 2 (01:43:25):
I love that.

Speaker 3 (01:43:26):
Yeah too.

Speaker 2 (01:43:28):
She really she went up against all of it and
took those hits like she just she that's an unbelievable story.

Speaker 1 (01:43:38):
Yeah. I feel like I feel like she needs more
recognition and more articles written about her, and you know, yes,
and more people to sing her praises, because what an
incredible one incredible story.

Speaker 2 (01:43:53):
Great John, thank you, yuh all right, well, you know,
thank you for listening.

Speaker 1 (01:43:59):
We have preciate you guys so much. This is the
fucking coolest thing we get to do in our lives.

Speaker 3 (01:44:05):
And thank you your constant support.

Speaker 2 (01:44:08):
You're a constant interaction and always letting us know every cool.

Speaker 3 (01:44:17):
News story good.

Speaker 2 (01:44:18):
I mean, like these suggestions are from the listeners and
that's the coolest thing is is finding out a story
that once somebody posts it to you and goes, you
have to read this, you won't believe it, and then
you actually that's the experience you have and you're just like, yes,
thank you, So thank you to both of the listeners
who suggested both of the stories.

Speaker 1 (01:44:38):
That's right, and thanks everyone for listening.

Speaker 3 (01:44:41):
Stay sexy and don't get murdered.

Speaker 2 (01:44:43):
Good Bye, Elvis.

Speaker 1 (01:44:45):
Do you want a cookie?