December 24, 2021 • 55 mins
Happy Holidays, Listeners!
Today Jordan tells the story of Killer Santa - one of the most horrific true crime Christmas tales of all time. Later, Ed C. joins Jordan to discuss the case and to wish all of the listeners a joyous Holiday Season!
*Written and read by Jordan Crittenden
*Music by Parenthetical Girls, Jordan Crittenden, Doug Maxwell, Anno Domini Beats, Steve Adams, An Jone
*To support Dark Dark World: http://www.patreon.com/darkdarkworld
*Web: http://www.darkdarkworld.com
*Twitter: @darkworldpod
*Instagram: @darkdarkworldpodcast
*Email: darkworldpod@gmail.com
*Thank you for listening!
Today Jordan tells the story of Killer Santa - one of the most horrific true crime Christmas tales of all time. Later, Ed C. joins Jordan to discuss the case and to wish all of the listeners a joyous Holiday Season!
*Written and read by Jordan Crittenden
*Music by Parenthetical Girls, Jordan Crittenden, Doug Maxwell, Anno Domini Beats, Steve Adams, An Jone
*To support Dark Dark World: http://www.patreon.com/darkdarkworld
*Web: http://www.darkdarkworld.com
*Twitter: @darkworldpod
*Instagram: @darkdarkworldpodcast
*Email: darkworldpod@gmail.com
*Thank you for listening!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Hello listeners. It's the holiday season, so do do do and did D?
I hope you're all having a wonderfulholiday season and that you're getting to
spend time with those you love andthat all your dreams are coming true.
(00:34):
Maybe that's a bit strong. Well, no, actually, I do hope
that all of your dreams come true. Anyway, I know it's been a
little while since you've heard from mehere on the podcast proper. After I
wrapped up my doc doc world serieson Sophie, I intended to deliver Dark
(00:59):
Dark World episode thirty one, butI got really bogged down with you know,
various personal life stuff and nevermind,it's it's it's boring. But episode
thirty one is well underway. Ijust figured that because we were getting so
close to Christmas, I might aswell just release our holiday special and then
(01:23):
let episode thirty one be the firstepisode of twenty twenty two. Oh and
after that. Actually, private investigatorslash Toolbox Killers expert Laura Brand is coming
back onto the podcast for another interviewwhere I'll get to follow up with her
about her documentary for Oxygen Network SlashPeacock. That documentary is available there now
(01:53):
on both Oxygen Network and Peacock,so if you have either of those you
can check it out. It iscalled the Toolbox Killer Singular Killer, and
I'll be asking Laura some listener questionsand reading some YouTube comments to her as
well, some of which come froma place of criticism for Laura and her
(02:15):
work, so a little bit ofa mixed bag there. It should be
an interesting episode for you all.I really enjoyed talking with Laura last time
around, and I look forward tospeaking with her again. Maybe you've noticed
by now that I'm here on myown without ed C. Ed C is
(02:36):
usually involved in our annual specials,but again, with all the business lately
and you know, stuff going on, we just weren't able to get together
for a special this holiday season.However, what I've decided to bring you
today actually will feature ed C.Our first ever holiday back in twenty eighteen,
(03:01):
was actually just packaged as a regularepisode, a Dark Dark World episode,
but it was Christmas themed and itwas released on Christmas Day, so
it sort of set the tone forour holiday specials going forward. It was
Dark Dark World Episode five, KillerSanta, and it opened up with yours
(03:25):
truly telling the story as I alwaysdo in our episodic releases, but then
ed C and I had a discussionabout the story afterwards, as you've heard
us do a couple of other timesas well. But since that episode came
out very early on in the show'sexistence, it's like many other episodes that
(03:47):
came out in the show's infancy,sounded like shit. It was bad.
I didn't know what I was doingas far as recording and mixing for a
podcast goes, so you know,it just wasn't great. And that was
why a couple of years ago,after I became much better at doing all
(04:08):
of that stuff, I went aheadand removed a handful of our early episodes
from the feed, just took themaway completely. You may have heard me
talk about this before, but that'swhy. If you scroll all the way
to the beginning of our podcast feed, our very first episode is episode seven.
And maybe you wondered, why doesit start with episode seven? Where
(04:30):
are all the previous episodes? Theywent to Patreon. That's where they are.
They still exist there in perpetuity,but are available, of course,
only to our patrons. So ifyou're a patron of the show and thank
you, by the way, orif you've been a listener since the very
beginning. I guess then you've probablyheard Killer Santa. But for many of
(04:51):
you, this episode will be completelynew, a brand new Christmasy crime story
for a brand new holiday special.And look, even if you have heard
the episode before, fear not,I've completely remixed it. I think it
sounds much better than it did before. I mean, it's not perfect.
(05:12):
I didn't record it very well atthe time, but it's a lot better
than it was. Okay, sowe'll cut to the chase here. I'll
go ahead and give you the episode. Now, you'll hear me tell the
story of Killer Santa, and thenyou'll get to hear from ed C after
all, because he and I willdiscuss the case when I've finished with the
(05:34):
story. There is just one morething, though, I must give a
shout out to our newest patron,Miss Kaylee. Kay. Thank you for
your support, Kaylee. We reallyappreciate it so so much. Thank you.
Welcome to the Patreon family. It'sa fun place to be. We're
(05:56):
happy to have you here. Andthank you to all of you other trends
who have supported us throughout the year. In fact, thank you to each
and every person who is listening tome speak right now, and do you
remember there are other ways you cansupport the show. You don't have to
become a patron. You can simplyhead over to Dark Darkworld dot com.
(06:18):
You can click on buy things andthat'll take you to our merch store where
we have tons of new stuff designedby Patron extraordinaire Miss in Amina. Lots
of handsome merch over there, ifI do say so myself, great styles
for twenty twenty two. Trustby allright everyone, Happy holidays, Happy New
(06:41):
Year. Here is your twenty twentyone Dark dark World Holiday special Killer Santa
the remix. Dark Dark World containsstrong language, depictions of sex violence and
(07:01):
sexual violence. Please use discust whilelistening to our episodes. December twenty fourth,
two thousand and eight, Christmas Eve, roughly ten minutes after eleven pm,
Scott Feinstein walked out the front doorto his house on Nolcrest Drive,
(07:27):
a quiet suburban cul de Sac inCovina, California. Scott noticed a man
in a Santa suit leaning into ablue Dodge Caliber parked outside a neighbor's house.
As the man drew back from thecar, arms full with a large
package. He closed the door tothe car with his foot. Scott smiled
as he watched Santa slide the largepackage under his left arm and amble up
(07:50):
the walkway to the neighbor's house.Scott went back inside his house and turned
off his porch light. Sa rangthe doorbell at eleven twenty nine Knollcrest Drive,
and as he saw the door tothe house begin to open, he
aggressively shoved his weight into the door, forcing it quickly open. He took
(08:13):
the heavy box he was carrying andshoved it into the chest of the man
who had been trying to open thedoor, knocking the man to the floor.
Santa Santa cried the voice of awide eyed eight year old girl.
The girl came running to the frontdoor, and as she approached, Santa
Claus pulled a nine millimeter semi automatichandgun from his coat pocket and shot her
(08:37):
in the face. The scene instantlydescended into chaos as Santa Claus began walking
through the house, firing his gunindiscriminately at the panicked residence of the house
and their guests, who had cometo celebrate Christmas eved with their loved ones.
Several of the partygoers were able toescape from the house, some running
(09:01):
out the front door, others jumpingfrom windows on the second floor. Latitia,
use of Pulski, who would cometo her parents' house for their annual
Christmas Eve get together, ran toher wounded eight year old daughter, who
lay unconscious and bleeding profusely from herhead by the front door. Latitia picked
up her daughter and instructed her nephewto call nine one one As they ran
(09:22):
out of the house to safety.Latitia's nephew describes the man in the Santa
suit as a quote homicidal guy whojust shot my cousin right now. Um
yes, ione on homicidal guy rightnow. Okay, can you tell her
(09:43):
that anybody Dumma's house? As thenine one one operator explains that help is
on the way, Latitia takes thephone from her nephew and pleads with the
operator to send help immediately. Hello, ho height man in your house.
(10:09):
Latitia explains to the operator that sheis hiding two houses away from her parents'
house at eleven twenty nine No Crest, where a man is quote shooting.
He's shooting my whole family, He'sshooting end quote at your house. Haddred,
(10:30):
Man, I understand that your haddreds. As the nine one one operator
tries to calm Latitia and asks forher name, Latitia frantically shouts that her
mom's house is on fire. Thenine one one operator explains to Letitia the
police officers have been dispatched and arein route to the house. Manse is
(10:54):
my mom to officers are upside?Is that him shooting? Sorry? Is
that him shooting there? I'm sorryhe's shooting still too. During the call,
police officers arrive at the house,and the nine one one operator tells
(11:16):
Letitia that the fire department is alsoin route. Latisha turns her focus to
her wounded daughter, who is nowconscious and can be heard moaning in pain.
I need to want to come outthe face. Okay, the opera
and the fire department putom either altothere. I need you to be on
(11:37):
the phone, okay, I letI know you can man, I'm hold
on okay, fur one, Okay, you know you can hear me?
Can you hear me? Latisha tellsthe operator that she has a feeling she
(11:58):
knows who the attacker is, andshe identifies him as Bruce Pardou, the
ex husband of Letitia's sister Sylvia,who was also at the party with her
family that night. Hello and MerryChristmas. I'm your host, Jordan Crittenden.
(12:22):
Join me as I enter the dark, dark world of Bruce Pardot Killer
Santa. When first responders arrived ateleven twenty nine Null Crest Drive, just
(13:11):
as Christmas Eve was becoming Christmas Day, they found a house engulfed in flames,
some licking up to fifty feet inthe air. It would take firefighters
nearly ninety minutes to knock down thefire. Only then did they discover the
charred remains of several bodies. Thesebodies were so badly burned that they could
(13:33):
only later be identified through dental records. The fire took place during a typical
Christmas Eve party, where three generationsof a family and their friends came together
as they did each year, toexchange gifts and enjoy a meal. Eye
witness accounts and physical evidence at thescene helped detectives and arson investigators to determine
(13:54):
that the perpetrator of the crimes hadentered the home and haphazardly shot a semi
automatic handgun throughout the house. Witnessaccounts differed as to whether the perpetrator had
reloaded his weapon several times or hadsimply used more than one weapon, using
a new gun each time one ranout of ammunition. The Santa suit clad
(14:16):
attacker had also taken a device outof a large gift wrapped box that he
had carried into the house. Thedevice was some sort of makeshift flamethrower,
and the attacker had used it tospray racing fuel throughout the house. Fires
burning in two fireplaces inside the homecaused the fuel to ignite sooner than the
perpetrator had intended, but the desiredeffect was still achieved as the house quickly
(14:41):
erupted into flames. Gunshot, woundsand smoke inhalation were the causes of death
for most of the victims that night, while some simply burned to death.
In the end, nine lives werelost, including the woman who detectives believed
was the primary target of the attack, recently divorce Sylvia pardoaut The other eight
(15:03):
victims included Sylvia's parents, who ownedthe house on Noelcrest Drive, Sylvia's two
brothers and their wives, and oneof Sylvia's nephews, who was just seventeen
years Old police began a man huntto locate and apprehend the suspected attacker,
who had been identified as Sylvia's exhusband, Bruce Pardout. Bruce Pardout was
(15:26):
raised in the San Fernando Valley insouthern California. He attended a polytechnic high
school and later graduated from cow StateNorthridge with a degree in computer sciences.
Out of college, Pardeaut was hiredon at a jet propulsion laboratory, where
he would work for several years.Over the years Pardout worked at the laboratory,
he was often mischievous, getting caughtand cited for hacking the computers of
(15:50):
his co workers. He was suspendedon two separate occasions for hacking into the
personal files of his supervisors and makingcopies of their personal documents, including pay
statements and tax information. Pardout's employmentat the laboratory was eventually terminated when he
added several unexcused absences to his listof wrongdoings. At the age of twenty
(16:11):
four, Bruce Pardout became engaged toa former co worker named Delia. The
couple seemingly fell in love, butin nineteen eighty nine, after Delia and
her family paid for a lavish countryclub wedding and made arrangements for an all
expenses paid honeymoon to Tahiti. Pardoautfailed to show up for the wedding ceremony,
leaving Delia Tyrie eyed at the altar. Apparently, Pardout had withdrawn three
(16:36):
thousand dollars from the savings account heshared with Delia, and he blew the
money on his own personal honeymoon toPalm Springs. Pardout drifted in and out
of jobs and relationships with women,until in two thousand and one, at
the age of thirty seven, hebrought some stability to his life, holding
down a job as a technical supportspecialist for a small software company. Pardout
(17:02):
got engaged to a co worker athis new job, a woman named Eleanor,
who gave birth to Pardot's child,Matthew. However, tragedy struck one
afternoon when Eleanor left the house torun errands and Pardout stayed at home watching
over Matthew, who was now thirteenmonths old. While Pardot was watching TV,
he lost track of Matthew and realizedtoo late that Matthew was nowhere to
(17:26):
be found. The baby boy hadonly been walking for a month, but
had easily wandered outside and fallen intothe pool, where he had been drowning
for an undetermined amount of time.Matthew was still alive when Bruce found him,
and after a week in the ICU, Matthew was stabilized, but had
been permanently rendered a paraplegic with severebrain damage. Unable to cope with his
(17:49):
own guilt, Bruce fought with Eleanorconstantly, and before Matthew had even turned
two years old, the couple partedways. Bruce Pardout would never see his
son Matthew again. In two thousandand four, Pardout found happiness with another
(18:17):
woman, Sylvia, a divorced motherof three. The couple fell in love
and married in January of two thousandand six. As a wedding gift to
Sylvia and himself, Pardot purchased afive hundred thousand dollars three bedroom house where
the couple could live with Sylvia's threechildren. Pardout continued to work as a
technical support consultant and found some stabilityand happiness from Sylvia's church. Pardout began
(18:42):
volunteering as an usher at the HolyRedeemer Catholic Church. As time wore on,
though pardout, and Sylvia began tofight more and more frequently. Financial
burden and other marital disagreements caused thecouple to drift apart. The final straw
for Sylvia came when Bruce's mother sharedwith her some personal information about Bruce.
(19:03):
Nancy told Sylvia about Bruce's past relationshipwith Eleanor and that Bruce had a son
who he hadn't seen in years.Bruce had never told Sylvia that he had
a son, and she was shockedat the idea that Bruce could keep something
like that from her. Sylvia wasappalled that Bruce had abandoned his son and
had been pretending that the boy didn'texist. More appalling still was the information
(19:26):
Nancy shared with Sylvia. Next.Nancy told Sylvia that Bruce had been claiming
Matthew as a dependent when filing histaxes because the tax breaks Bruce received from
Matthew's disability were very helpful financially.Sylvia was sickened. She felt she could
never trust Bruce again, and thisnew information, together with all the fighting
(19:47):
the couple had been doing, wasway too much for Sylvia to take.
She filed for divorce in April oftwo thousand in England, Always Bruce Pardout
was devastated when his wife filed fordivorce. He became depressed. Friends said
(20:12):
he was constantly stressed about money andsad about Sylvia. He was angry that
she seemingly refused to give him asecond chance. Pardout became reclusive and stopped
showing up to work. In Juneof two thousand and eight, he went
to a firearms store called gun Worldand purchased a nine millimeter semi automatic handgun
(20:33):
for one thousand dollars. Later thatmonth, a Burbank judge ordered Pardot to
pay spousal support to Sylvia in theamount of one thousand, seven hundred and
eighty five dollars per month. Forthe first month's payment of this support,
Pardot's check bounced and he never paidanother month. On July thirty first of
two thousand and eight, Pardot wasfired from his job for poor attendance and
(20:57):
for billing fraudulent hours. He appliedfor unemployment but was denied. However,
on August eighth of two thousand eight, Pardout returned to Gunworld to purchase another
one thousand dollar handgun. California lawprohibits the sale of concealable fire arms to
the same customer more than once amonth. In other words, Pardout could
(21:18):
only legally purchase one handgun every thirtydays. So it was on September eighth,
two thousand eight, that Pardout returnedto Gunworld to purchase yet another nine
millimeter handgun. Also during the monthof September, Pardout contacted a neighbor who
ran a costume store. Pardout wantedto order a custom made Santa suit with
extra padding around the mid section andthighs. Pardout explained that he needed this
(21:42):
added comfort because his body was shapeda certain way and he wanted to be
comfortable in the suit, which heplanned on wearing for long periods of time
during the holidays. On October eleventh, two thousand eight, Pardout returned to
Gunworld and purchased another handgun. Laterthat month, he called his good friend
Steve and lamented about Sylvia and howunfair she was being at their divorce court
(22:06):
hearings. Steve noted that Pardout wasdepressed and rageful, becoming furious whenever Sylvia
came up in conversation. Pardaut wasangry that personal details about his employment and
finances were publicly on display at courthearings. It embarrassed him. He told
Steve that it hurt him to seehis own mother, Nancy, sitting with
(22:26):
Sylvia at divorce court and taking Sylvia'sside throughout the proceedings. On November fifteenth,
two thousand and eight, Pardout returnedto Gunworld to buy a fifth and
final nine millimeter semi automatic handgun.Pardeaut had now amassed an arsenal of five
handguns and began building a makeshift flamethrowerout of a Dawalt compressor, a fifty
(22:48):
foot hose, and a tank ofhigh octane fuel. Pardout stored all of
these items in a backyard shed athis brother's house. On December eighteenth,
two thousand and eight, a weekbefore Christmas, Pardot's marriage to Sylvia was
officially terminated citing irreconcilable differences. Thenext day, on December nineteenth, Pardot
(23:10):
went to a travel agency to purchasea round trip plane ticket to Illinois,
where his friend Steve lived. Pardoutwould depart from Lax at twelve to twenty
am on Christmas Day and would returntwo weeks later. Pardot then rented a
blue Dodge caliber from Budget rental carand a silver Toyota rav four from rent
(23:32):
to wreck. He packed the Toyotawith large supplies of food and water,
maps of the southwest United States inMexico, extra gasoline, and a laptop
and desktop computer. In the earlyevening on Christmas Eve, one of Pardot's
neighbors passed him on the street andspoke with him for a few minutes.
Pardot told his neighbor that he wasgoing to a family Christmas party at his
(23:55):
wife's parents' house. After he hadpushed his way into his former in law's
house and shot his former niece inthe face. Bruce Pardout, dressed as
Santa Claus, opened fire on hisformer family and their friends. He shot
his guns at anyone he saw himmoving, and began haphazardly sprang fuel around
(24:18):
the house that he intended to burnto the ground. A fire started before
Pardout had a chance to ignite onehimself, and as the house filled with
flames and screams, he fled thescene. As the house burned, neighbor
Scott Feinstein watched the false Santa climbback into his Dodge Caliber and speed away
with the car's headlights turned off.When Bruce Pardout fled the scene of his
(24:44):
crimes at eleven twenty nine Nollcrest Drive. He didn't head for the airport,
as his travel plans had suggested hewould. Instead, Pardout drove forty miles
to his brother's house in Silmar,California. He parked the rental car about
a block away from his brother's homeand removed his shredded and charred Santa suit,
(25:06):
which had melted to his skin andcaused third degree burns over various parts
of his body. Pardeau used thesuit to booby trap the car. If
the suit was moved, it wouldtrip a wire, igniting a flash fire
that would set off nearly two hundredrounds of ammunition. When Bruce Pardeau's brother
(25:26):
returned to his home at three tenon Christmas morning, he found his brother
Bruce lying peacefully on the couch.Upon further inspection, he saw that Bruce
was dead. He had died froma self inflicted gunshot wound. A gunshot
fired through his mouth and into hisbrain. He was still wearing the wedding
(25:48):
vand but Sylvia had given him ontheir web. So now I'm joined once
(26:29):
again by my good friend Edsy,Happy Christmas, ed Hi, Jordy,
Happy Christmas? Thanks bud uh thisis this is a fun one. Huh,
it is pretty fun. Hey whatdo you got there? Just some
Christmas merriamm what about you? Um? I have a Christmas beer? Okay,
well, happy Christmas. Let's talkabout Santa. Yes, killer Santa,
(26:55):
False Santa. So we just playedthe narrative of a story that I
wrote and read about Bruce Pardo KillerSanta. How did you like it?
And I played it back with thetwo of us, listened to it,
and now we're going to talk aboutit. I felt pretty good about it.
I remember this case from when ithappened, just because it's so sort
(27:22):
of I don't know, horror actionmovie like a Santa going ape. You
know about a bad Santa, falseSanta, And I'm wondering, you're obviously
much more well versed in this case. Is it just as simple as he
being very upset about the divorce?Whoa? I mean, obviously this guy
(27:47):
behaved badly throughout his life. Therewere lots of instances. His first job,
He's already like, hacking into hissupervisor's accouncil was just more of a
nerd that he gets around a computer, he's gonna he's gonna heck because all
I mean, all he looked atwas just how much people are getting paid
(28:07):
and things like that. Right,he didn't he didn't put a bug in
the system or heck them may No, he didn't do anything detrimental necessarily.
I mean, he made copies ofdocuments of people's like tax returns and stuff.
I don't know, it's a littleweird, but yeah, I mean
he was just kind of a fuckup, Like he didn't seemed more like
a weirdo than yeah, for sure. Yeah, I didn't have like a
(28:27):
long criminal history or maybe not anycriminal history as far as I know.
Um, you know, neglectfully lettingyour son fall into the pool is not
is not a crime. That waslike the most intense thing that happened in
his life before the end of it. It was just as simple as the
child fill in the pool. Yeah, so supervised. Yeah, that his
(28:47):
fiance Eleanor had gone out to torun some errands, do some shopping,
and he was taking care of athirteen month old and just was watching TV
and not apparently not watch him atall, And he eventually realized he was
gone, and the kid had beendrowning in the pool and was irrevocably changed
(29:11):
a paraplegic now brain damaged. Soso one his record just parental neglect,
parental neglect, weird hacking, buildfraudulent hours at his job later, but
that was during his divorce hearings andstuff, so he was already kind of
a wreck at that time. Butyeah, I would guess mainly his motivation
(29:36):
was just it seems like the classicIf I can't have her, no one
can. But man, he tookout so many other people too. Yes,
I'm wondering he never did displayed anyof that amount of rage before that,
right, because these these her familyis not a part of the reason
(29:56):
they got divorced. Right, Youwould think, based on the story that
I told, he'd be more goingafter his own mother. Sure who he
felt had crossed him, and maybehe felt Sylvia. Obviously he felt Sylvia
acrossed him, So it makes sensethat he's going after her. But still
what got him to be got himto the point where he's able to just
(30:17):
shoot an eight year old niece really, in the least two weeks ago,
she was his niece, so formerniece whatever you want to call it shot
her in the face, like whileshe thought he was Santa Clause Like,
however, mad you are at yourex wife, It's still a huge leap
to get into that mindset. Hehad been stockpiling guns for how many months?
(30:40):
So it was from the summer tillthe winter, so like over a
five to six month period. Andwhen when did the marriage start falling apart?
Do you know? Do you knowis it the exact same time?
No, he didn't. He didn'tstart stockpiling guns until after she had filed.
She defiled for divorce in April,and then he first went to buy
(31:00):
a gun in June. I thinkso Sylvia filed for divorce in April of
two thousand and eight, and hebought his first handgun in June of two
thousand and eight. Scenes related.Yeah, absolutely, he had gone dark.
You know at this point he hadgone he'd become reclusive and was hiding
(31:21):
out and then just started stockpiling gunsand showing up pretty much monthly to buy
a new one. And what's interestingthere is that he's fired from his job.
He doesn't he's rejected for unemployment.His checks are bouncing, but he's
able somehow to buy spend thousands ofdollars on handguns, didn't he Also,
when they've found his bid, hedidn't have a bunch of cash strapped to
(31:45):
him. Yeah, and I didn'tmention that in the story. But the
costume, which I guess they wereable to take off the trip wire or
whatever. They didn't blow up thecar, but they did get their hands
on the Santa costume. He hada couple of guns still in there.
(32:06):
He had his ammunition, and hehad seventeen thousand dollars in cash. I
guess that he intended to escape with. Like his original plan was to go
to the airport and flee, soI guess he was going to go straight
to the airport. We mentioned inthe story though, that he wanted extra
comfort built into that Santa suit becauseof his certain shape. Because of his
(32:28):
certain shape, I wonder what shapethat is, but it kind of seems
like maybe he wanted that extra paddingso he had storage room, he was
able to store seventeen thousand dollars incash, ammunition, these things, because
that's where the guns were were inthe thighs, Like the reinforced Harry is
that he wanted in the suit.I am forced by my father to dress
(32:49):
as Santa every Christmas. And thisis this is not a custom made suit
that I have. It came fromprobably Target. It came from a big,
big buck store. There's a lotof room in those things. You
don't need to get it specially,I'm just working. I'm so curious about
his certain shape in what reinforcements youneed? Yeah, well, sang,
(33:14):
Yeah. I think the police positivethat that it was for storage, because
I think he must have sort oftold this friend that ran the costume store,
I wanted a certain way, Iwant a lot of padding in these
areas, and then maybe he cutinto the padding and stuffed it with all
these items. So like your Santasuit doesn't have padding that you could cut
into, right, it's just roomy. By the way, how long have
(33:36):
you had the same Santa suit?I have had the same Santa suit for
I think eight years now. Whydid they choose you to be Sanda?
You're so you don't fit that profileat all. I was chosen to be
I don't want to talk of It'sa shameful part of Christmas. I'm sorry.
Yeah, why does your dad makeyou do it to shame me?
(34:00):
Are you just like bummed out sinand the whole time. Well, yeah
I am. And then my momgenerally, well Lauria Santa, who does
the stockings, usually gets me likea little bottle of booze and two packs
of cigarettes, and so it's awhole funny thing where hey, I get
Sandy, he's drinking geane in themorning and having a blue American spirit outside.
(34:23):
Love it. Yeah, it's fun, Happy Christmas, Happy Christmas.
It was also likely that he originallydid plan to kill his mother and his
ex fiance Eleanor the mother of ofMatthew, which makes more sense to me.
Like I said, I mean,it seems like he had an extra
(34:44):
grind with his mom. She's sortof, in his mind, betrayed him
by taking Sylvia's side. By takingSylvia's side and like narking him out about
having a son. What a crazything to hide from her. From Sylvia,
he was claiming him on his taxesand hadn't seen him or spoken to
him at all since they split upwhen he wasn't even two years old yet,
(35:07):
so he was getting financial benefit fromhim. I don't know if he
wasn't sending any child support or anything. I don't know why Eleanor didn't go
after him legally as opposed to justtelling Nancy and having Nancy exposed him to
Sylvia. You would think she wouldjust take his ask accord for child support
or perhaps and he stopped claiming himas a dependent because I'm claiming him to
(35:27):
you would think there would be somebacklash there usually or I mean, she
was self sufficient and knew that hewas not worth going through the trouble of
going through legal emotions because she's notgoing to get money, and yeah,
you know, if she it seemslike, yeah, the type of guy
that you know would not do itanyway, So I bother going, yeah,
going through court and all of that. But it is interesting you would
(35:51):
think she needs that money, youknow, the disability money. And if
she's trying to claim him on hertaxes legitimately and he's doing it illegitimately,
I mean, maybe he was justgetting away with it for a while.
The I R s hadn't cut upto it yet. But a lot of
times, I mean, even peopleI know who don't make a whole lot
of money have gotten in trouble forboth of them accidentally claiming the same child
(36:13):
on the tax return. So youknow, surprised it didn't come up.
I guess anything else come to yourmind during the story, like well things
that struck he was curious. Imean there's a lot. Yeah, well
it's sort of like it seems.It seems to mean, sort of cut
and dry that this guy, whoI think was weird, probably a nerd,
(36:37):
said he had two computers in hisrental car. Yes, classic nerd
who just sort of snapped one laptopone desktop. Yeah, for a traveling
guy. Yeah, you had askedme off Mike about why he got the
two rental cars. Yes, that'sI'm please answer that. I don't know
(37:00):
for sure, but what I thinkthe reasoning is he got the two rental
cars. He drove the blue Dodgecaliber to the crime that night, and
he had stalked up the other one, the silver Rev four, with all
of his supplies, which he wasgonna end maps of the southwest of Mexico.
I think what he was doing washe was going to ditch the crime
(37:21):
car after the crime fly to Illinois. Could have actually made that flight,
he didn't. He didn't. Yeah, he left it so late. He's
gonna leave at twelve to twenty amChristmas morning, and he commits his crime
at eleven thirty pm Christmas Eve,so it's like he has fifty minutes to
get to the airport after killing everybody. So he was coming really close.
(37:45):
But his original plan I think ifhe thought he could make it, I
don't know. Maybe he was goingto go earlier and got held up.
Maybe he had to talk himself intoit. You know, he was supposed
to be at ten o'clock mass athis church. Didn't show for that,
so okay, I have just theside question. So he said that people
from the church were wondering about hiswhereabouts that that obviously probably not obviously didn't
(38:10):
come out until after They didn't playingit put out an app for this gentleman
just after all these crimes. Yeah, I think after the discussion they were
just like, yeah, it wasweird he didn't show up to you know,
he always shot up for his usheringgigs, and he didn't shot up
tonight. Yeah, so we wereworried about him. We were wondering where
he was, and it turns outthat he was the worst had happened.
(38:32):
But yeah, so I think heI think his intention was drive one car
to the crime scene, commit thecrime, drive it to the airport and
ditch it, or maybe ditch itand then take a cab of the airport
or something that's even more time.But then after laying low, he did
have a round trip ticket. Hewas going to come back two weeks later.
(38:52):
He would have the silver rap fourstash somewhere with all that stuff in
it, and he was gonna goon the lamb in the other car.
But he because no one's gonna belooking for that car right there. No,
but it's rented in his name.Still, so why I don't under
it doesn't make any sense to me. If they have the name and they
(39:13):
have the plate, then someone seessilver ret four with this plate, he's
still he's still caught. I don't. I just it's very It doesn't make
any sense to me. I mean, I don't know if the reason he
ended up killing himself and giving upwas because he couldn't make the flight,
or if he just was like,no, no, I need to kill
myself. But was there was thereany suicide note or anything like that,
(39:38):
not that I'm aware of, notthat I could find. And his brother
knew nothing about this. I mean, obviously I would think they're close if
that's the place that he goes aftergoing on this killing. He was staying
there and he stashed his weaponry inhis sho never never wise to that,
not that I could find out thatI know of. I couldn't really find
(39:59):
much information about out his brother exceptthat he had this house. I don't
I believe. I read at onepoint that he wasn't around very much,
so it was kind of like aplace Bruce could stay and it's almost like
his own place. How do youhave a bomb making factory and like you
be able to build a flamethrower withoutthe owner of that house knowing. I
(40:21):
guess you just have a shed thatyou don't go into. It just seems
strange for the brother to be totallyunaware of a giant stockpile of weapons,
including homemade weapons. Yeah, well, kind of easy to hide five handguns
and then the flamethrower thing. Imean, it's all stuff that could presumably
(40:44):
be in a shed anyway, abackhartshed, a compressor, a hose,
and a tank of fuel. Idon't know how much it had been put
together before he left. Maybe hedid it on the on the way connected
the thing, but yeah, Idon't know presumably he just kept it out
(41:04):
there in the shed and went outto work on it when his brother wasn't
home. Or so, when whendoes he lose his job? I'm trying
to I'm trying to put this timelinetogether, from the separation to the losing
the job to the beginning of theweapons collecting. So April two thousand and
eight, Sylvia files for divorce.June two thousand and eight, he buys
(41:28):
his first weapon July. The endof July two thousand and eight, he's
fired from his job, buys anothergun in August, and pretty much every
month after up until November. Okay, So he's living with his brother from
April then, correct, Yes,and he had been in trouble at work
before he finally got fired, correct, Yeah, And so he was even
(41:52):
before he was fired. It's prettymuch out of work. Correct, No,
he was still he was still attendingwork for a few months before he
was fired. But he they Idon't know when he started billing the fraudulent
hours, but that's what he Thatwas the ultimate thing he was caught for
and let go for. Okay,as far as the shed, November fifteenth,
(42:15):
two thousand and eight is when hebought his last gun, and he
had now amassed the five handguns.This is yes, in the middle of
November, and that's when he hadHe had also purchased the compressor, the
hose, the tank of fuel,and he kept all the items in a
backyard chad at his brother's house.So if the brother's not going out in
the shed very often, it's probablya great place to store them. Yeah,
(42:37):
I guess my question about the brotheris more that if if Bruce is
living with him in his mental state, I would guess his deteriorating fairly rapidly
that the brother doesn't notice. Butif he's not there, or maybe they
don't have that sort of relationship,you know, Bruce stays in the guesthouse
or guest room and they don't interactthat much. It just it seems odd
(43:01):
to cohabitate with your brother and notnotice, to not notice his deterioration mentally.
But we're assuming that there really wasone. He was talking to his
friend Scott that he was going togo visit. Scott didn't notice anything.
He just said that he was depressedand it was, you know, understandable
with everything that was going on,and he seemed a little withdrawn and would
(43:22):
get more rageful than usual, Butit wasn't anything that made him particularly concerned
that anything crazy was going to happen. I guess he just kept it hidden
until until until Christmas Eve. Whata wild thing, because there's obviously some
planning. You know, he boughtthe Santa suit in It was in septempt
(43:46):
get out, can you leave please? That was in September, So September
he contacts. So in September hecontacts the neighbor to buy the costume,
(44:08):
the Santa costume. So he's planningfor at least three months. Jordan just
did that math in his head,by the way, and fingers and yeah,
no calendars, yea, for threemonths at least. He's come up
with the Santa idea that he's goingto do this at a family event.
I mean, Sylvia's family did thisevery year. So obviously Bruce for a
(44:30):
couple of years have been going tothis very event. He knew what was
happening, so he knew he wasgoing to be there. And this guy
hasn't done any other violent acts.He hasn't like become depressed so much that
you know he's getting into bar fightsand doing crazy things leading up to this,
He's done nothing except buy things andplan. But then he's instantly able
(44:52):
to just go in and do it. There's no like working up to it.
There's you know, there's no cte, there's no drug use, there's
no there's no reason he's angry.Yeah, why in the world does he
need the Santa suit because this doesn'tI'm just realizing this now that apps if
(45:15):
you have a bunch of guns andyou know there's a holiday party, you
can you could shoot people without havinga Santa suit to hide your guns.
I think the most straightforward answer isthat it's a disguise, right, A
pretty good one, except that hewas identified instantly on the nine one one
(45:36):
call, So maybe not. Butassuming that you go into the house and
kill everybody in there, then anyonewho saw you going in and out of
the house isn't going to be ableto ide you, especially if you're in
a rental car. They're like,I don't know if Santa went in the
house, Santa came out of thehouse, Santa drove off. Yeah,
that's classic Santa behavior. I meanhe does that all of the time.
(45:57):
Is yeah, so yeah, Imean that's why it's a disguise. It's
disguise that works at holiday time.What's eerie about it is it's a time
that he knows everyone's going to betogether. There's surely like a movie where
this happens. Bad Santa. Ithink it's called no that false Santa,
Yeah, false Santas? What youthinking? Fast seto? Santa's Billy Bob
Thornton. Right, he just cusseda lot and drank m h pardo,
(46:22):
you know, not even drinking well. I think he probably had beers with
Steve, a bit of nag.Incidentally, Steve's full name is Steve Irwin,
and that do you know who I'mthinking about when I say that the
crocodile and man, mhmmm, yeah, crocodile Hunter. Was it the same
(46:44):
Steve Irwin? No, I don'tthink so. But I didn't want to
raise a great point though. Yeah, I didn't want there to be confusion,
so I just left the Irwin outof his name because I thought it
was just going to throw people.But it brought it back in Now.
It confused me. I wonder ifthey were going to meet in Mexico.
Didn't he die from a sting raysting in Mexico. I thought it was
in Australia. Probably is that acrime? A maritime crime? What's that?
(47:09):
Getting stune? Yeah? Can stingrace be culpable for their behavior?
I hope so good at underwater jail. They deserve to be I mean,
all of underwater is jail. Prettymuch. Before we return the mics on,
Ed was ranting about people that climbEverest now they deserve to die.
(47:35):
Well that not the srps, thepeople that get dragged up the mountain and
spent thousands of dollars and yeah forhis death upon Speah, partially because of
the Sherp. Is that you're soangry? Yes, I have love for
Sherpez. I love ten Signore Gay. Edmund Hillary did it pretty cool?
(47:55):
He was brought a sharp a bestbro with him. Who's Edmund Hillary?
Sir Edmund Hillary? I don't know. He conquered Everest, Jordan. Well,
why isn't it called ed Edmonds.It's not called Edmuard Edmonds because that's
that's not a thing you named mountains? Oh god, can you remember that,
(48:30):
edmard Ard. Let's have what maybea dumb question, but is it
possible that it was actually Santa Clausthat did this. What do you mean,
(48:52):
So all the descriptions are someone thatlooks exactly like Santa Claus coming in
and doing these killings. And SantaClaus famously only leaves his hut or whatever
in the North Pole at this exacttime every year, so it has that
(49:13):
been looked into. Well, butSanta's not real? What do you mean,
Well, I mean, I meanlike Santa with the reindeer and everything,
Santa Claus. Yeah, this Santashowed up in a blue Dodge caliber
with but that was rented. Well, right, but it was Pardu.
(49:38):
Pardou rented it and was wearing aSanta clause. But no one said a
pard looking guy walked into the house, and so they said, a Santa
looking guy. Yeah, a guywearing a Santa suit who most famously wears
a Santa suit. Well you sometimes, No, that's not famous, that's
that's right. Well Santa Claus,very you go. And who else could
(50:00):
gift wrap a flamethrower That seems likethe work of an elf, does it
not? It could be okay,possible, So because yeah, I don't
know, there's no suicide. Now, all we have is this here.
I just want it's sure they don'tsay if any presence were left, Yeah,
they probably would have burned. Right. What you're saying is that maybe
(50:24):
it wasn't Santa Suit at all.Maybe it was it was Santa Suit wearing
his normal clothing exactly, so itwasn't a costume, it was a clothing.
Do you think that holidays themselves causethe circumstances for these crimes to exist
(50:45):
or do you think we just knowabout more of these because it's you can
tie them into a holiday. Youknow, there's a there's a very easy
sort of bookmark in the calendar.Well, I don't know the stats on
like murder or on crime increasing aroundthe holidays and murder and family murder.
(51:05):
We do know that suicide, there'san uptick in suicides around the holidays because
it's stressful. Is because that's whenfamily gets together and it's stressful to be
around family. Family is critical.Family is challenging to be around. For
a lot of people, it's oneof a few times out of the year
that they even see their families,and so they feel like it's it's sort
(51:32):
of a chance for their whole familyto hear about what you've been doing all
year and be rate you for it, or you know, criticize you or
look down on you or judge youfor it. And so I don't think
that the reason Bruce Pardo killed hisex wife and her family was because it
(51:52):
was the holidays and he's stressed aboutit. But I think he chose the
holidays because he knew the whole familywould be there. And you know,
he could have got Sylvia alone,right, he could have found a time
to just go kill her, buthe wanted to get everybody. And I
think it was probably something that hewas thinking a lot about at the time.
(52:14):
He's like, Christmas, that's whenthe family is going to be together.
You know, my mom's abandoned me. Why should she have her mom.
She can't have two moms. Mymom's on her side and she's got
her own mom, and I don'thave any family. No one's on my
side anymore. And so there isa family component to it, and he
picked the holidays because he knows that'sthat's the time and families together. So
anyway, whether these crimes were relatedto Christmas stress or not, Christmas is
(52:38):
not on trial here. No,it's not. There's not a war on
Christmas, at least not from us, no, but we do know that
the holidays are stressful. Christmas canbe rough for a lot of people,
so you know, just try torelax. People, listen to a podcast,
(52:59):
chill out, don't kill yourselves,and don't kill your family. If
you need to do anything at all, just kill yourself, don't kill anyone
else first. I think that isthat is fair. Yeah, I think
that's a good message to end on. If you're going through through something,
(53:20):
kill yourself, right, not anyoneelse. Yeah, and Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas everybody. In all seriousness, though, the holidays can be stressful
and a lot of people do getdiscourage when they're around their family. So
if you do feel like you needsupport at anytime, you can always call
the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at oneeight hundred two seventy three Talk ta Oka
(53:46):
or two. So I deal withissues of depression and I use humor as
a mechanism to shield myself from thesethings. But when things do get hurt,
you should absolutely reach out to someone. And part of this podcast is
(54:07):
just too dark for me to dealwith, and I joke about things I
shouldn't because that's the only way Iknow how to cope with when when discussing
murdering your entire family. But itis it, It is so important to
not just let that fester and talkingon as anonymously to someone or to your
(54:30):
you know, someone that you trustand love. Just don't don't go ape
this Christmas. Don't hurt anybody,including yourselves. Harry Christmas, everyone,
Merry Christmas, everybody. The mekinder down and crap paper crown. No
(55:06):
season of Bee Snowy's Balls. Lighttea weekend on the lapp sneet. The
bright light seem I must sweet?Bright was my friend said sweet that I
could again met Christman so se
Hello listeners. It's the holiday season, so do do do and did D?
I hope you're all having a wonderfulholiday season and that you're getting to
spend time with those you love andthat all your dreams are coming true.
(00:34):
Maybe that's a bit strong. Well, no, actually, I do hope
that all of your dreams come true. Anyway, I know it's been a
little while since you've heard from mehere on the podcast proper. After I
wrapped up my doc doc world serieson Sophie, I intended to deliver Dark
(00:59):
Dark World episode thirty one, butI got really bogged down with you know,
various personal life stuff and nevermind,it's it's it's boring. But episode
thirty one is well underway. Ijust figured that because we were getting so
close to Christmas, I might aswell just release our holiday special and then
(01:23):
let episode thirty one be the firstepisode of twenty twenty two. Oh and
after that. Actually, private investigatorslash Toolbox Killers expert Laura Brand is coming
back onto the podcast for another interviewwhere I'll get to follow up with her
about her documentary for Oxygen Network SlashPeacock. That documentary is available there now
(01:53):
on both Oxygen Network and Peacock,so if you have either of those you
can check it out. It iscalled the Toolbox Killer Singular Killer, and
I'll be asking Laura some listener questionsand reading some YouTube comments to her as
well, some of which come froma place of criticism for Laura and her
(02:15):
work, so a little bit ofa mixed bag there. It should be
an interesting episode for you all.I really enjoyed talking with Laura last time
around, and I look forward tospeaking with her again. Maybe you've noticed
by now that I'm here on myown without ed C. Ed C is
(02:36):
usually involved in our annual specials,but again, with all the business lately
and you know, stuff going on, we just weren't able to get together
for a special this holiday season.However, what I've decided to bring you
today actually will feature ed C.Our first ever holiday back in twenty eighteen,
(03:01):
was actually just packaged as a regularepisode, a Dark Dark World episode,
but it was Christmas themed and itwas released on Christmas Day, so
it sort of set the tone forour holiday specials going forward. It was
Dark Dark World Episode five, KillerSanta, and it opened up with yours
(03:25):
truly telling the story as I alwaysdo in our episodic releases, but then
ed C and I had a discussionabout the story afterwards, as you've heard
us do a couple of other timesas well. But since that episode came
out very early on in the show'sexistence, it's like many other episodes that
(03:47):
came out in the show's infancy,sounded like shit. It was bad.
I didn't know what I was doingas far as recording and mixing for a
podcast goes, so you know,it just wasn't great. And that was
why a couple of years ago,after I became much better at doing all
(04:08):
of that stuff, I went aheadand removed a handful of our early episodes
from the feed, just took themaway completely. You may have heard me
talk about this before, but that'swhy. If you scroll all the way
to the beginning of our podcast feed, our very first episode is episode seven.
And maybe you wondered, why doesit start with episode seven? Where
(04:30):
are all the previous episodes? Theywent to Patreon. That's where they are.
They still exist there in perpetuity,but are available, of course,
only to our patrons. So ifyou're a patron of the show and thank
you, by the way, orif you've been a listener since the very
beginning. I guess then you've probablyheard Killer Santa. But for many of
(04:51):
you, this episode will be completelynew, a brand new Christmasy crime story
for a brand new holiday special.And look, even if you have heard
the episode before, fear not,I've completely remixed it. I think it
sounds much better than it did before. I mean, it's not perfect.
(05:12):
I didn't record it very well atthe time, but it's a lot better
than it was. Okay, sowe'll cut to the chase here. I'll
go ahead and give you the episode. Now, you'll hear me tell the
story of Killer Santa, and thenyou'll get to hear from ed C after
all, because he and I willdiscuss the case when I've finished with the
(05:34):
story. There is just one morething, though, I must give a
shout out to our newest patron,Miss Kaylee. Kay. Thank you for
your support, Kaylee. We reallyappreciate it so so much. Thank you.
Welcome to the Patreon family. It'sa fun place to be. We're
(05:56):
happy to have you here. Andthank you to all of you other trends
who have supported us throughout the year. In fact, thank you to each
and every person who is listening tome speak right now, and do you
remember there are other ways you cansupport the show. You don't have to
become a patron. You can simplyhead over to Dark Darkworld dot com.
(06:18):
You can click on buy things andthat'll take you to our merch store where
we have tons of new stuff designedby Patron extraordinaire Miss in Amina. Lots
of handsome merch over there, ifI do say so myself, great styles
for twenty twenty two. Trustby allright everyone, Happy holidays, Happy New
(06:41):
Year. Here is your twenty twentyone Dark dark World Holiday special Killer Santa
the remix. Dark Dark World containsstrong language, depictions of sex violence and
(07:01):
sexual violence. Please use discust whilelistening to our episodes. December twenty fourth,
two thousand and eight, Christmas Eve, roughly ten minutes after eleven pm,
Scott Feinstein walked out the front doorto his house on Nolcrest Drive,
(07:27):
a quiet suburban cul de Sac inCovina, California. Scott noticed a man
in a Santa suit leaning into ablue Dodge Caliber parked outside a neighbor's house.
As the man drew back from thecar, arms full with a large
package. He closed the door tothe car with his foot. Scott smiled
as he watched Santa slide the largepackage under his left arm and amble up
(07:50):
the walkway to the neighbor's house.Scott went back inside his house and turned
off his porch light. Sa rangthe doorbell at eleven twenty nine Knollcrest Drive,
and as he saw the door tothe house begin to open, he
aggressively shoved his weight into the door, forcing it quickly open. He took
(08:13):
the heavy box he was carrying andshoved it into the chest of the man
who had been trying to open thedoor, knocking the man to the floor.
Santa Santa cried the voice of awide eyed eight year old girl.
The girl came running to the frontdoor, and as she approached, Santa
Claus pulled a nine millimeter semi automatichandgun from his coat pocket and shot her
(08:37):
in the face. The scene instantlydescended into chaos as Santa Claus began walking
through the house, firing his gunindiscriminately at the panicked residence of the house
and their guests, who had cometo celebrate Christmas eved with their loved ones.
Several of the partygoers were able toescape from the house, some running
(09:01):
out the front door, others jumpingfrom windows on the second floor. Latitia,
use of Pulski, who would cometo her parents' house for their annual
Christmas Eve get together, ran toher wounded eight year old daughter, who
lay unconscious and bleeding profusely from herhead by the front door. Latitia picked
up her daughter and instructed her nephewto call nine one one As they ran
(09:22):
out of the house to safety.Latitia's nephew describes the man in the Santa
suit as a quote homicidal guy whojust shot my cousin right now. Um
yes, ione on homicidal guy rightnow. Okay, can you tell her
(09:43):
that anybody Dumma's house? As thenine one one operator explains that help is
on the way, Latitia takes thephone from her nephew and pleads with the
operator to send help immediately. Hello, ho height man in your house.
(10:09):
Latitia explains to the operator that sheis hiding two houses away from her parents'
house at eleven twenty nine No Crest, where a man is quote shooting.
He's shooting my whole family, He'sshooting end quote at your house. Haddred,
(10:30):
Man, I understand that your haddreds. As the nine one one operator
tries to calm Latitia and asks forher name, Latitia frantically shouts that her
mom's house is on fire. Thenine one one operator explains to Letitia the
police officers have been dispatched and arein route to the house. Manse is
(10:54):
my mom to officers are upside?Is that him shooting? Sorry? Is
that him shooting there? I'm sorryhe's shooting still too. During the call,
police officers arrive at the house,and the nine one one operator tells
(11:16):
Letitia that the fire department is alsoin route. Latisha turns her focus to
her wounded daughter, who is nowconscious and can be heard moaning in pain.
I need to want to come outthe face. Okay, the opera
and the fire department putom either altothere. I need you to be on
(11:37):
the phone, okay, I letI know you can man, I'm hold
on okay, fur one, Okay, you know you can hear me?
Can you hear me? Latisha tellsthe operator that she has a feeling she
(11:58):
knows who the attacker is, andshe identifies him as Bruce Pardou, the
ex husband of Letitia's sister Sylvia,who was also at the party with her
family that night. Hello and MerryChristmas. I'm your host, Jordan Crittenden.
(12:22):
Join me as I enter the dark, dark world of Bruce Pardot Killer
Santa. When first responders arrived ateleven twenty nine Null Crest Drive, just
(13:11):
as Christmas Eve was becoming Christmas Day, they found a house engulfed in flames,
some licking up to fifty feet inthe air. It would take firefighters
nearly ninety minutes to knock down thefire. Only then did they discover the
charred remains of several bodies. Thesebodies were so badly burned that they could
(13:33):
only later be identified through dental records. The fire took place during a typical
Christmas Eve party, where three generationsof a family and their friends came together
as they did each year, toexchange gifts and enjoy a meal. Eye
witness accounts and physical evidence at thescene helped detectives and arson investigators to determine
(13:54):
that the perpetrator of the crimes hadentered the home and haphazardly shot a semi
automatic handgun throughout the house. Witnessaccounts differed as to whether the perpetrator had
reloaded his weapon several times or hadsimply used more than one weapon, using
a new gun each time one ranout of ammunition. The Santa suit clad
(14:16):
attacker had also taken a device outof a large gift wrapped box that he
had carried into the house. Thedevice was some sort of makeshift flamethrower,
and the attacker had used it tospray racing fuel throughout the house. Fires
burning in two fireplaces inside the homecaused the fuel to ignite sooner than the
perpetrator had intended, but the desiredeffect was still achieved as the house quickly
(14:41):
erupted into flames. Gunshot, woundsand smoke inhalation were the causes of death
for most of the victims that night, while some simply burned to death.
In the end, nine lives werelost, including the woman who detectives believed
was the primary target of the attack, recently divorce Sylvia pardoaut The other eight
(15:03):
victims included Sylvia's parents, who ownedthe house on Noelcrest Drive, Sylvia's two
brothers and their wives, and oneof Sylvia's nephews, who was just seventeen
years Old police began a man huntto locate and apprehend the suspected attacker,
who had been identified as Sylvia's exhusband, Bruce Pardout. Bruce Pardout was
(15:26):
raised in the San Fernando Valley insouthern California. He attended a polytechnic high
school and later graduated from cow StateNorthridge with a degree in computer sciences.
Out of college, Pardeaut was hiredon at a jet propulsion laboratory, where
he would work for several years.Over the years Pardout worked at the laboratory,
he was often mischievous, getting caughtand cited for hacking the computers of
(15:50):
his co workers. He was suspendedon two separate occasions for hacking into the
personal files of his supervisors and makingcopies of their personal documents, including pay
statements and tax information. Pardout's employmentat the laboratory was eventually terminated when he
added several unexcused absences to his listof wrongdoings. At the age of twenty
(16:11):
four, Bruce Pardout became engaged toa former co worker named Delia. The
couple seemingly fell in love, butin nineteen eighty nine, after Delia and
her family paid for a lavish countryclub wedding and made arrangements for an all
expenses paid honeymoon to Tahiti. Pardoautfailed to show up for the wedding ceremony,
leaving Delia Tyrie eyed at the altar. Apparently, Pardout had withdrawn three
(16:36):
thousand dollars from the savings account heshared with Delia, and he blew the
money on his own personal honeymoon toPalm Springs. Pardout drifted in and out
of jobs and relationships with women,until in two thousand and one, at
the age of thirty seven, hebrought some stability to his life, holding
down a job as a technical supportspecialist for a small software company. Pardout
(17:02):
got engaged to a co worker athis new job, a woman named Eleanor,
who gave birth to Pardot's child,Matthew. However, tragedy struck one
afternoon when Eleanor left the house torun errands and Pardout stayed at home watching
over Matthew, who was now thirteenmonths old. While Pardot was watching TV,
he lost track of Matthew and realizedtoo late that Matthew was nowhere to
(17:26):
be found. The baby boy hadonly been walking for a month, but
had easily wandered outside and fallen intothe pool, where he had been drowning
for an undetermined amount of time.Matthew was still alive when Bruce found him,
and after a week in the ICU, Matthew was stabilized, but had
been permanently rendered a paraplegic with severebrain damage. Unable to cope with his
(17:49):
own guilt, Bruce fought with Eleanorconstantly, and before Matthew had even turned
two years old, the couple partedways. Bruce Pardout would never see his
son Matthew again. In two thousandand four, Pardout found happiness with another
(18:17):
woman, Sylvia, a divorced motherof three. The couple fell in love
and married in January of two thousandand six. As a wedding gift to
Sylvia and himself, Pardot purchased afive hundred thousand dollars three bedroom house where
the couple could live with Sylvia's threechildren. Pardout continued to work as a
technical support consultant and found some stabilityand happiness from Sylvia's church. Pardout began
(18:42):
volunteering as an usher at the HolyRedeemer Catholic Church. As time wore on,
though pardout, and Sylvia began tofight more and more frequently. Financial
burden and other marital disagreements caused thecouple to drift apart. The final straw
for Sylvia came when Bruce's mother sharedwith her some personal information about Bruce.
(19:03):
Nancy told Sylvia about Bruce's past relationshipwith Eleanor and that Bruce had a son
who he hadn't seen in years.Bruce had never told Sylvia that he had
a son, and she was shockedat the idea that Bruce could keep something
like that from her. Sylvia wasappalled that Bruce had abandoned his son and
had been pretending that the boy didn'texist. More appalling still was the information
(19:26):
Nancy shared with Sylvia. Next.Nancy told Sylvia that Bruce had been claiming
Matthew as a dependent when filing histaxes because the tax breaks Bruce received from
Matthew's disability were very helpful financially.Sylvia was sickened. She felt she could
never trust Bruce again, and thisnew information, together with all the fighting
(19:47):
the couple had been doing, wasway too much for Sylvia to take.
She filed for divorce in April oftwo thousand in England, Always Bruce Pardout
was devastated when his wife filed fordivorce. He became depressed. Friends said
(20:12):
he was constantly stressed about money andsad about Sylvia. He was angry that
she seemingly refused to give him asecond chance. Pardout became reclusive and stopped
showing up to work. In Juneof two thousand and eight, he went
to a firearms store called gun Worldand purchased a nine millimeter semi automatic handgun
(20:33):
for one thousand dollars. Later thatmonth, a Burbank judge ordered Pardot to
pay spousal support to Sylvia in theamount of one thousand, seven hundred and
eighty five dollars per month. Forthe first month's payment of this support,
Pardot's check bounced and he never paidanother month. On July thirty first of
two thousand and eight, Pardot wasfired from his job for poor attendance and
(20:57):
for billing fraudulent hours. He appliedfor unemployment but was denied. However,
on August eighth of two thousand eight, Pardout returned to Gunworld to purchase another
one thousand dollar handgun. California lawprohibits the sale of concealable fire arms to
the same customer more than once amonth. In other words, Pardout could
(21:18):
only legally purchase one handgun every thirtydays. So it was on September eighth,
two thousand eight, that Pardout returnedto Gunworld to purchase yet another nine
millimeter handgun. Also during the monthof September, Pardout contacted a neighbor who
ran a costume store. Pardout wantedto order a custom made Santa suit with
extra padding around the mid section andthighs. Pardout explained that he needed this
(21:42):
added comfort because his body was shapeda certain way and he wanted to be
comfortable in the suit, which heplanned on wearing for long periods of time
during the holidays. On October eleventh, two thousand eight, Pardout returned to
Gunworld and purchased another handgun. Laterthat month, he called his good friend
Steve and lamented about Sylvia and howunfair she was being at their divorce court
(22:06):
hearings. Steve noted that Pardout wasdepressed and rageful, becoming furious whenever Sylvia
came up in conversation. Pardaut wasangry that personal details about his employment and
finances were publicly on display at courthearings. It embarrassed him. He told
Steve that it hurt him to seehis own mother, Nancy, sitting with
(22:26):
Sylvia at divorce court and taking Sylvia'sside throughout the proceedings. On November fifteenth,
two thousand and eight, Pardout returnedto Gunworld to buy a fifth and
final nine millimeter semi automatic handgun.Pardeaut had now amassed an arsenal of five
handguns and began building a makeshift flamethrowerout of a Dawalt compressor, a fifty
(22:48):
foot hose, and a tank ofhigh octane fuel. Pardout stored all of
these items in a backyard shed athis brother's house. On December eighteenth,
two thousand and eight, a weekbefore Christmas, Pardot's marriage to Sylvia was
officially terminated citing irreconcilable differences. Thenext day, on December nineteenth, Pardot
(23:10):
went to a travel agency to purchasea round trip plane ticket to Illinois,
where his friend Steve lived. Pardoutwould depart from Lax at twelve to twenty
am on Christmas Day and would returntwo weeks later. Pardot then rented a
blue Dodge caliber from Budget rental carand a silver Toyota rav four from rent
(23:32):
to wreck. He packed the Toyotawith large supplies of food and water,
maps of the southwest United States inMexico, extra gasoline, and a laptop
and desktop computer. In the earlyevening on Christmas Eve, one of Pardot's
neighbors passed him on the street andspoke with him for a few minutes.
Pardot told his neighbor that he wasgoing to a family Christmas party at his
(23:55):
wife's parents' house. After he hadpushed his way into his former in law's
house and shot his former niece inthe face. Bruce Pardout, dressed as
Santa Claus, opened fire on hisformer family and their friends. He shot
his guns at anyone he saw himmoving, and began haphazardly sprang fuel around
(24:18):
the house that he intended to burnto the ground. A fire started before
Pardout had a chance to ignite onehimself, and as the house filled with
flames and screams, he fled thescene. As the house burned, neighbor
Scott Feinstein watched the false Santa climbback into his Dodge Caliber and speed away
with the car's headlights turned off.When Bruce Pardout fled the scene of his
(24:44):
crimes at eleven twenty nine Nollcrest Drive. He didn't head for the airport,
as his travel plans had suggested hewould. Instead, Pardout drove forty miles
to his brother's house in Silmar,California. He parked the rental car about
a block away from his brother's homeand removed his shredded and charred Santa suit,
(25:06):
which had melted to his skin andcaused third degree burns over various parts
of his body. Pardeau used thesuit to booby trap the car. If
the suit was moved, it wouldtrip a wire, igniting a flash fire
that would set off nearly two hundredrounds of ammunition. When Bruce Pardeau's brother
(25:26):
returned to his home at three tenon Christmas morning, he found his brother
Bruce lying peacefully on the couch.Upon further inspection, he saw that Bruce
was dead. He had died froma self inflicted gunshot wound. A gunshot
fired through his mouth and into hisbrain. He was still wearing the wedding
(25:48):
vand but Sylvia had given him ontheir web. So now I'm joined once
(26:29):
again by my good friend Edsy,Happy Christmas, ed Hi, Jordy,
Happy Christmas? Thanks bud uh thisis this is a fun one. Huh,
it is pretty fun. Hey whatdo you got there? Just some
Christmas merriamm what about you? Um? I have a Christmas beer? Okay,
well, happy Christmas. Let's talkabout Santa. Yes, killer Santa,
(26:55):
False Santa. So we just playedthe narrative of a story that I
wrote and read about Bruce Pardo KillerSanta. How did you like it?
And I played it back with thetwo of us, listened to it,
and now we're going to talk aboutit. I felt pretty good about it.
I remember this case from when ithappened, just because it's so sort
(27:22):
of I don't know, horror actionmovie like a Santa going ape. You
know about a bad Santa, falseSanta, And I'm wondering, you're obviously
much more well versed in this case. Is it just as simple as he
being very upset about the divorce?Whoa? I mean, obviously this guy
(27:47):
behaved badly throughout his life. Therewere lots of instances. His first job,
He's already like, hacking into hissupervisor's accouncil was just more of a
nerd that he gets around a computer, he's gonna he's gonna heck because all
I mean, all he looked atwas just how much people are getting paid
(28:07):
and things like that. Right,he didn't he didn't put a bug in
the system or heck them may No, he didn't do anything detrimental necessarily.
I mean, he made copies ofdocuments of people's like tax returns and stuff.
I don't know, it's a littleweird, but yeah, I mean
he was just kind of a fuckup, Like he didn't seemed more like
a weirdo than yeah, for sure. Yeah, I didn't have like a
(28:27):
long criminal history or maybe not anycriminal history as far as I know.
Um, you know, neglectfully lettingyour son fall into the pool is not
is not a crime. That waslike the most intense thing that happened in
his life before the end of it. It was just as simple as the
child fill in the pool. Yeah, so supervised. Yeah, that his
(28:47):
fiance Eleanor had gone out to torun some errands, do some shopping,
and he was taking care of athirteen month old and just was watching TV
and not apparently not watch him atall, And he eventually realized he was
gone, and the kid had beendrowning in the pool and was irrevocably changed
(29:11):
a paraplegic now brain damaged. Soso one his record just parental neglect,
parental neglect, weird hacking, buildfraudulent hours at his job later, but
that was during his divorce hearings andstuff, so he was already kind of
a wreck at that time. Butyeah, I would guess mainly his motivation
(29:36):
was just it seems like the classicIf I can't have her, no one
can. But man, he tookout so many other people too. Yes,
I'm wondering he never did displayed anyof that amount of rage before that,
right, because these these her familyis not a part of the reason
(29:56):
they got divorced. Right, Youwould think, based on the story that
I told, he'd be more goingafter his own mother. Sure who he
felt had crossed him, and maybehe felt Sylvia. Obviously he felt Sylvia
acrossed him, So it makes sensethat he's going after her. But still
what got him to be got himto the point where he's able to just
(30:17):
shoot an eight year old niece really, in the least two weeks ago,
she was his niece, so formerniece whatever you want to call it shot
her in the face, like whileshe thought he was Santa Clause Like,
however, mad you are at yourex wife, It's still a huge leap
to get into that mindset. Hehad been stockpiling guns for how many months?
(30:40):
So it was from the summer tillthe winter, so like over a
five to six month period. Andwhen when did the marriage start falling apart?
Do you know? Do you knowis it the exact same time?
No, he didn't. He didn'tstart stockpiling guns until after she had filed.
She defiled for divorce in April,and then he first went to buy
(31:00):
a gun in June. I thinkso Sylvia filed for divorce in April of
two thousand and eight, and hebought his first handgun in June of two
thousand and eight. Scenes related.Yeah, absolutely, he had gone dark.
You know at this point he hadgone he'd become reclusive and was hiding
(31:21):
out and then just started stockpiling gunsand showing up pretty much monthly to buy
a new one. And what's interestingthere is that he's fired from his job.
He doesn't he's rejected for unemployment.His checks are bouncing, but he's
able somehow to buy spend thousands ofdollars on handguns, didn't he Also,
when they've found his bid, hedidn't have a bunch of cash strapped to
(31:45):
him. Yeah, and I didn'tmention that in the story. But the
costume, which I guess they wereable to take off the trip wire or
whatever. They didn't blow up thecar, but they did get their hands
on the Santa costume. He hada couple of guns still in there.
(32:06):
He had his ammunition, and hehad seventeen thousand dollars in cash. I
guess that he intended to escape with. Like his original plan was to go
to the airport and flee, soI guess he was going to go straight
to the airport. We mentioned inthe story though, that he wanted extra
comfort built into that Santa suit becauseof his certain shape. Because of his
(32:28):
certain shape, I wonder what shapethat is, but it kind of seems
like maybe he wanted that extra paddingso he had storage room, he was
able to store seventeen thousand dollars incash, ammunition, these things, because
that's where the guns were were inthe thighs, Like the reinforced Harry is
that he wanted in the suit.I am forced by my father to dress
(32:49):
as Santa every Christmas. And thisis this is not a custom made suit
that I have. It came fromprobably Target. It came from a big,
big buck store. There's a lotof room in those things. You
don't need to get it specially,I'm just working. I'm so curious about
his certain shape in what reinforcements youneed? Yeah, well, sang,
(33:14):
Yeah. I think the police positivethat that it was for storage, because
I think he must have sort oftold this friend that ran the costume store,
I wanted a certain way, Iwant a lot of padding in these
areas, and then maybe he cutinto the padding and stuffed it with all
these items. So like your Santasuit doesn't have padding that you could cut
into, right, it's just roomy. By the way, how long have
(33:36):
you had the same Santa suit?I have had the same Santa suit for
I think eight years now. Whydid they choose you to be Sanda?
You're so you don't fit that profileat all. I was chosen to be
I don't want to talk of It'sa shameful part of Christmas. I'm sorry.
Yeah, why does your dad makeyou do it to shame me?
(34:00):
Are you just like bummed out sinand the whole time. Well, yeah
I am. And then my momgenerally, well Lauria Santa, who does
the stockings, usually gets me likea little bottle of booze and two packs
of cigarettes, and so it's awhole funny thing where hey, I get
Sandy, he's drinking geane in themorning and having a blue American spirit outside.
(34:23):
Love it. Yeah, it's fun, Happy Christmas, Happy Christmas.
It was also likely that he originallydid plan to kill his mother and his
ex fiance Eleanor the mother of ofMatthew, which makes more sense to me.
Like I said, I mean,it seems like he had an extra
(34:44):
grind with his mom. She's sortof, in his mind, betrayed him
by taking Sylvia's side. By takingSylvia's side and like narking him out about
having a son. What a crazything to hide from her. From Sylvia,
he was claiming him on his taxesand hadn't seen him or spoken to
him at all since they split upwhen he wasn't even two years old yet,
(35:07):
so he was getting financial benefit fromhim. I don't know if he
wasn't sending any child support or anything. I don't know why Eleanor didn't go
after him legally as opposed to justtelling Nancy and having Nancy exposed him to
Sylvia. You would think she wouldjust take his ask accord for child support
or perhaps and he stopped claiming himas a dependent because I'm claiming him to
(35:27):
you would think there would be somebacklash there usually or I mean, she
was self sufficient and knew that hewas not worth going through the trouble of
going through legal emotions because she's notgoing to get money, and yeah,
you know, if she it seemslike, yeah, the type of guy
that you know would not do itanyway, So I bother going, yeah,
going through court and all of that. But it is interesting you would
(35:51):
think she needs that money, youknow, the disability money. And if
she's trying to claim him on hertaxes legitimately and he's doing it illegitimately,
I mean, maybe he was justgetting away with it for a while.
The I R s hadn't cut upto it yet. But a lot of
times, I mean, even peopleI know who don't make a whole lot
of money have gotten in trouble forboth of them accidentally claiming the same child
(36:13):
on the tax return. So youknow, surprised it didn't come up.
I guess anything else come to yourmind during the story, like well things
that struck he was curious. Imean there's a lot. Yeah, well
it's sort of like it seems.It seems to mean, sort of cut
and dry that this guy, whoI think was weird, probably a nerd,
(36:37):
said he had two computers in hisrental car. Yes, classic nerd
who just sort of snapped one laptopone desktop. Yeah, for a traveling
guy. Yeah, you had askedme off Mike about why he got the
two rental cars. Yes, that'sI'm please answer that. I don't know
(37:00):
for sure, but what I thinkthe reasoning is he got the two rental
cars. He drove the blue Dodgecaliber to the crime that night, and
he had stalked up the other one, the silver Rev four, with all
of his supplies, which he wasgonna end maps of the southwest of Mexico.
I think what he was doing washe was going to ditch the crime
(37:21):
car after the crime fly to Illinois. Could have actually made that flight,
he didn't. He didn't. Yeah, he left it so late. He's
gonna leave at twelve to twenty amChristmas morning, and he commits his crime
at eleven thirty pm Christmas Eve,so it's like he has fifty minutes to
get to the airport after killing everybody. So he was coming really close.
(37:45):
But his original plan I think ifhe thought he could make it, I
don't know. Maybe he was goingto go earlier and got held up.
Maybe he had to talk himself intoit. You know, he was supposed
to be at ten o'clock mass athis church. Didn't show for that,
so okay, I have just theside question. So he said that people
from the church were wondering about hiswhereabouts that that obviously probably not obviously didn't
(38:10):
come out until after They didn't playingit put out an app for this gentleman
just after all these crimes. Yeah, I think after the discussion they were
just like, yeah, it wasweird he didn't show up to you know,
he always shot up for his usheringgigs, and he didn't shot up
tonight. Yeah, so we wereworried about him. We were wondering where
he was, and it turns outthat he was the worst had happened.
(38:32):
But yeah, so I think heI think his intention was drive one car
to the crime scene, commit thecrime, drive it to the airport and
ditch it, or maybe ditch itand then take a cab of the airport
or something that's even more time.But then after laying low, he did
have a round trip ticket. Hewas going to come back two weeks later.
(38:52):
He would have the silver rap fourstash somewhere with all that stuff in
it, and he was gonna goon the lamb in the other car.
But he because no one's gonna belooking for that car right there. No,
but it's rented in his name.Still, so why I don't under
it doesn't make any sense to me. If they have the name and they
(39:13):
have the plate, then someone seessilver ret four with this plate, he's
still he's still caught. I don't. I just it's very It doesn't make
any sense to me. I mean, I don't know if the reason he
ended up killing himself and giving upwas because he couldn't make the flight,
or if he just was like,no, no, I need to kill
myself. But was there was thereany suicide note or anything like that,
(39:38):
not that I'm aware of, notthat I could find. And his brother
knew nothing about this. I mean, obviously I would think they're close if
that's the place that he goes aftergoing on this killing. He was staying
there and he stashed his weaponry inhis sho never never wise to that,
not that I could find out thatI know of. I couldn't really find
(39:59):
much information about out his brother exceptthat he had this house. I don't
I believe. I read at onepoint that he wasn't around very much,
so it was kind of like aplace Bruce could stay and it's almost like
his own place. How do youhave a bomb making factory and like you
be able to build a flamethrower withoutthe owner of that house knowing. I
(40:21):
guess you just have a shed thatyou don't go into. It just seems
strange for the brother to be totallyunaware of a giant stockpile of weapons,
including homemade weapons. Yeah, well, kind of easy to hide five handguns
and then the flamethrower thing. Imean, it's all stuff that could presumably
(40:44):
be in a shed anyway, abackhartshed, a compressor, a hose,
and a tank of fuel. Idon't know how much it had been put
together before he left. Maybe hedid it on the on the way connected
the thing, but yeah, Idon't know presumably he just kept it out
(41:04):
there in the shed and went outto work on it when his brother wasn't
home. Or so, when whendoes he lose his job? I'm trying
to I'm trying to put this timelinetogether, from the separation to the losing
the job to the beginning of theweapons collecting. So April two thousand and
eight, Sylvia files for divorce.June two thousand and eight, he buys
(41:28):
his first weapon July. The endof July two thousand and eight, he's
fired from his job, buys anothergun in August, and pretty much every
month after up until November. Okay, So he's living with his brother from
April then, correct, Yes,and he had been in trouble at work
before he finally got fired, correct, Yeah, And so he was even
(41:52):
before he was fired. It's prettymuch out of work. Correct, No,
he was still he was still attendingwork for a few months before he
was fired. But he they Idon't know when he started billing the fraudulent
hours, but that's what he Thatwas the ultimate thing he was caught for
and let go for. Okay,as far as the shed, November fifteenth,
(42:15):
two thousand and eight is when hebought his last gun, and he
had now amassed the five handguns.This is yes, in the middle of
November, and that's when he hadHe had also purchased the compressor, the
hose, the tank of fuel,and he kept all the items in a
backyard chad at his brother's house.So if the brother's not going out in
the shed very often, it's probablya great place to store them. Yeah,
(42:37):
I guess my question about the brotheris more that if if Bruce is
living with him in his mental state, I would guess his deteriorating fairly rapidly
that the brother doesn't notice. Butif he's not there, or maybe they
don't have that sort of relationship,you know, Bruce stays in the guesthouse
or guest room and they don't interactthat much. It just it seems odd
(43:01):
to cohabitate with your brother and notnotice, to not notice his deterioration mentally.
But we're assuming that there really wasone. He was talking to his
friend Scott that he was going togo visit. Scott didn't notice anything.
He just said that he was depressedand it was, you know, understandable
with everything that was going on,and he seemed a little withdrawn and would
(43:22):
get more rageful than usual, Butit wasn't anything that made him particularly concerned
that anything crazy was going to happen. I guess he just kept it hidden
until until until Christmas Eve. Whata wild thing, because there's obviously some
planning. You know, he boughtthe Santa suit in It was in septempt
(43:46):
get out, can you leave please? That was in September, So September
he contacts. So in September hecontacts the neighbor to buy the costume,
(44:08):
the Santa costume. So he's planningfor at least three months. Jordan just
did that math in his head,by the way, and fingers and yeah,
no calendars, yea, for threemonths at least. He's come up
with the Santa idea that he's goingto do this at a family event.
I mean, Sylvia's family did thisevery year. So obviously Bruce for a
(44:30):
couple of years have been going tothis very event. He knew what was
happening, so he knew he wasgoing to be there. And this guy
hasn't done any other violent acts.He hasn't like become depressed so much that
you know he's getting into bar fightsand doing crazy things leading up to this,
He's done nothing except buy things andplan. But then he's instantly able
(44:52):
to just go in and do it. There's no like working up to it.
There's you know, there's no cte, there's no drug use, there's
no there's no reason he's angry.Yeah, why in the world does he
need the Santa suit because this doesn'tI'm just realizing this now that apps if
(45:15):
you have a bunch of guns andyou know there's a holiday party, you
can you could shoot people without havinga Santa suit to hide your guns.
I think the most straightforward answer isthat it's a disguise, right, A
pretty good one, except that hewas identified instantly on the nine one one
(45:36):
call, So maybe not. Butassuming that you go into the house and
kill everybody in there, then anyonewho saw you going in and out of
the house isn't going to be ableto ide you, especially if you're in
a rental car. They're like,I don't know if Santa went in the
house, Santa came out of thehouse, Santa drove off. Yeah,
that's classic Santa behavior. I meanhe does that all of the time.
(45:57):
Is yeah, so yeah, Imean that's why it's a disguise. It's
disguise that works at holiday time.What's eerie about it is it's a time
that he knows everyone's going to betogether. There's surely like a movie where
this happens. Bad Santa. Ithink it's called no that false Santa,
Yeah, false Santas? What youthinking? Fast seto? Santa's Billy Bob
Thornton. Right, he just cusseda lot and drank m h pardo,
(46:22):
you know, not even drinking well. I think he probably had beers with
Steve, a bit of nag.Incidentally, Steve's full name is Steve Irwin,
and that do you know who I'mthinking about when I say that the
crocodile and man, mhmmm, yeah, crocodile Hunter. Was it the same
(46:44):
Steve Irwin? No, I don'tthink so. But I didn't want to
raise a great point though. Yeah, I didn't want there to be confusion,
so I just left the Irwin outof his name because I thought it
was just going to throw people.But it brought it back in Now.
It confused me. I wonder ifthey were going to meet in Mexico.
Didn't he die from a sting raysting in Mexico. I thought it was
in Australia. Probably is that acrime? A maritime crime? What's that?
(47:09):
Getting stune? Yeah? Can stingrace be culpable for their behavior?
I hope so good at underwater jail. They deserve to be I mean,
all of underwater is jail. Prettymuch. Before we return the mics on,
Ed was ranting about people that climbEverest now they deserve to die.
(47:35):
Well that not the srps, thepeople that get dragged up the mountain and
spent thousands of dollars and yeah forhis death upon Speah, partially because of
the Sherp. Is that you're soangry? Yes, I have love for
Sherpez. I love ten Signore Gay. Edmund Hillary did it pretty cool?
(47:55):
He was brought a sharp a bestbro with him. Who's Edmund Hillary?
Sir Edmund Hillary? I don't know. He conquered Everest, Jordan. Well,
why isn't it called ed Edmonds.It's not called Edmuard Edmonds because that's
that's not a thing you named mountains? Oh god, can you remember that,
(48:30):
edmard Ard. Let's have what maybea dumb question, but is it
possible that it was actually Santa Clausthat did this. What do you mean,
(48:52):
So all the descriptions are someone thatlooks exactly like Santa Claus coming in
and doing these killings. And SantaClaus famously only leaves his hut or whatever
in the North Pole at this exacttime every year, so it has that
(49:13):
been looked into. Well, butSanta's not real? What do you mean,
Well, I mean, I meanlike Santa with the reindeer and everything,
Santa Claus. Yeah, this Santashowed up in a blue Dodge caliber
with but that was rented. Well, right, but it was Pardu.
(49:38):
Pardou rented it and was wearing aSanta clause. But no one said a
pard looking guy walked into the house, and so they said, a Santa
looking guy. Yeah, a guywearing a Santa suit who most famously wears
a Santa suit. Well you sometimes, No, that's not famous, that's
that's right. Well Santa Claus,very you go. And who else could
(50:00):
gift wrap a flamethrower That seems likethe work of an elf, does it
not? It could be okay,possible, So because yeah, I don't
know, there's no suicide. Now, all we have is this here.
I just want it's sure they don'tsay if any presence were left, Yeah,
they probably would have burned. Right. What you're saying is that maybe
(50:24):
it wasn't Santa Suit at all.Maybe it was it was Santa Suit wearing
his normal clothing exactly, so itwasn't a costume, it was a clothing.
Do you think that holidays themselves causethe circumstances for these crimes to exist
(50:45):
or do you think we just knowabout more of these because it's you can
tie them into a holiday. Youknow, there's a there's a very easy
sort of bookmark in the calendar.Well, I don't know the stats on
like murder or on crime increasing aroundthe holidays and murder and family murder.
(51:05):
We do know that suicide, there'san uptick in suicides around the holidays because
it's stressful. Is because that's whenfamily gets together and it's stressful to be
around family. Family is critical.Family is challenging to be around. For
a lot of people, it's oneof a few times out of the year
that they even see their families,and so they feel like it's it's sort
(51:32):
of a chance for their whole familyto hear about what you've been doing all
year and be rate you for it, or you know, criticize you or
look down on you or judge youfor it. And so I don't think
that the reason Bruce Pardo killed hisex wife and her family was because it
(51:52):
was the holidays and he's stressed aboutit. But I think he chose the
holidays because he knew the whole familywould be there. And you know,
he could have got Sylvia alone,right, he could have found a time
to just go kill her, buthe wanted to get everybody. And I
think it was probably something that hewas thinking a lot about at the time.
(52:14):
He's like, Christmas, that's whenthe family is going to be together.
You know, my mom's abandoned me. Why should she have her mom.
She can't have two moms. Mymom's on her side and she's got
her own mom, and I don'thave any family. No one's on my
side anymore. And so there isa family component to it, and he
picked the holidays because he knows that'sthat's the time and families together. So
anyway, whether these crimes were relatedto Christmas stress or not, Christmas is
(52:38):
not on trial here. No,it's not. There's not a war on
Christmas, at least not from us, no, but we do know that
the holidays are stressful. Christmas canbe rough for a lot of people,
so you know, just try torelax. People, listen to a podcast,
(52:59):
chill out, don't kill yourselves,and don't kill your family. If
you need to do anything at all, just kill yourself, don't kill anyone
else first. I think that isthat is fair. Yeah, I think
that's a good message to end on. If you're going through through something,
(53:20):
kill yourself, right, not anyoneelse. Yeah, and Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas everybody. In all seriousness, though, the holidays can be stressful
and a lot of people do getdiscourage when they're around their family. So
if you do feel like you needsupport at anytime, you can always call
the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at oneeight hundred two seventy three Talk ta Oka
(53:46):
or two. So I deal withissues of depression and I use humor as
a mechanism to shield myself from thesethings. But when things do get hurt,
you should absolutely reach out to someone. And part of this podcast is
(54:07):
just too dark for me to dealwith, and I joke about things I
shouldn't because that's the only way Iknow how to cope with when when discussing
murdering your entire family. But itis it, It is so important to
not just let that fester and talkingon as anonymously to someone or to your
(54:30):
you know, someone that you trustand love. Just don't don't go ape
this Christmas. Don't hurt anybody,including yourselves. Harry Christmas, everyone,
Merry Christmas, everybody. The mekinder down and crap paper crown. No
(55:06):
season of Bee Snowy's Balls. Lighttea weekend on the lapp sneet. The
bright light seem I must sweet?Bright was my friend said sweet that I
could again met Christman so se
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