Rewind with Karen & Georgia - Episode 34: Thirty Let The Bodies Hit The Four

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Rewind with Karen & Georgia - Episode 34: Thirty Let The Bodies Hit The Four"

Podcast Information:

• Title: My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
• Host/Author: iHeartPodcasts
• Episode: Rewind with Karen & Georgia - Episode 34: Thirty Let The Bodies Hit The Four
• Release Date: February 26, 2025
• Network: Exactly Right podcast network

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Introduction: Revisiting Episode 34

In Episode 34 of "Rewind with Karen & Georgia," hosts Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark embark on a nostalgic journey, revisiting their own past podcast episodes with fresh commentary, updates, and insights. The episode, humorously titled "Thirty Let The Bodies Hit The Four," delves into intense discussions ranging from personal struggles with pain to harrowing true crime stories.

[00:19] Georgia: "That's right, it is Wednesday, so we're looking back on old shows with all new commentary from us right now."

Personal Anecdotes: Back Pain and Daily Struggles

The episode opens with the hosts candidly discussing their ongoing battles with back pain and sciatica. Georgia shares her debilitating experience, revealing her concerns about a slipped disc and the persistent agony it causes.

[02:25] Georgia: "I think I have a slipped disc in my back for the past couple months, and it has eventually caused my sciatic nerve to be pinched. And I am in so much fucking pain..."

Karen attempts to lighten the mood by humorously mimicking a pain-free hour meditation session, only to intertwine it with Georgia’s genuine discomfort.

[02:54] Karen: "I got an MRI today and like, that's how I let everyone know that it's serious."

The conversation naturally shifts to pet anecdotes, with both hosts humorously debating the impact of living closely with pets on their immune systems.

[03:19] Georgia: "Is my immune system better or worse for living with cats who put their assholes on everything?"

Corrections Corner: Clarifying Religious Misconceptions

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to a "Corrections Corner," where Karen and Georgia address previous misconceptions about religious practices, specifically differentiating between Seventh-Day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses.

[05:31] Karen: "Or maybe your cat's asshole sat on. Your phone..."

They delve into personal experiences with religion, discussing their Catholic upbringing and the challenges of deviating from strict religious norms during their youth.

[07:15] Georgia: "I still remember the day my sister and I told my dad we didn't feel like going to church."

Housekeeping and Band Misidentifications

Karen and Georgia humorously recount a past mistake where Karen incorrectly named their former band, leading to amusing interactions with the actual band members.

[09:22] Karen: "The name of the band is Local Natives, and that's Their album is Sunlight Youth."

Their light-hearted banter continues as they navigate through topics like therapy mishaps and the sometimes convoluted nature of their podcast episodes.

[12:44] Karen: "That's all it is. It is okay. Everything's okay."

Main Story 1: The Grim Tale of Richard Speck

Background and Early Life

Karen introduces the episode's first major true crime story—the chilling case of Richard Speck. The discussion begins with Speck's troubled childhood, marked by the loss of his father and the subsequent abuse from a stepfather with an extensive criminal record.

[20:12] Karen: "When he was six years old, his father died of a heart attack and his mother remarried a peg legged drunk with an extensive criminal record who she met on a train."

Descent into Crime

Karen and Georgia meticulously outline Speck's escalating criminal activities, starting with minor offenses like disturbing the peace to more violent assaults. They highlight his ability to charm and evade severe consequences due to legal oversights.

[27:52] Karen: "They're letting him off, practically scot free."

The Monmouth Murders

The narrative then delves into Speck's horrifying spree in Monmouth, Illinois, where he brutally murdered eight nursing students. The detailed recounting includes his modus operandi—using a switchblade and a stolen gun to terrorize his victims.

[43:12] Georgia: "He pushes Pamela down. He takes the other two into another room and strangles and stabs them and kills them and leaves them in that room."

Capture and Trial

The duo describes Speck's capture after a failed suicide attempt, the psychological evaluation revealing abnormalities in his brain, and the intense trial that led to his death sentence, later commuted to 1200 years in prison.

[49:47] Karen: "she stood up from the witness box, walked over to Richard Speck, pointed into his face, and they said, this is the man."

Notable Quotes:

• [20:54] Karen: "She remarried a peg legged drunk with an extensive criminal record who she met on a train."
• [31:39] Georgia: "And you have to give yourself a break, that this isn't standard time."
• [43:12] Georgia: "He takes the other two into another room and strangles and stabs them and kills them and leaves them in that room."

Main Story 2: The Port Arthur Massacre

Introduction to Martin Bryant

Georgia shifts the focus to the horrific Port Arthur massacre in Australia, perpetrated by Martin Bryant. She outlines Bryant's background, highlighting his low IQ and tumultuous relationship with Mary Harvey, an heiress with significant lottery wealth.

[60:47] Georgia: "Mary invites Martin to live with her in this mansion and they start spending huge amounts of money."

The Massacre Unfolds

The hosts provide a vivid description of the massacre, where Bryant methodically kills 35 individuals over a short span. The recounting includes his use of a video camera to document his actions and the subsequent chaos that ensues.

[73:23] Georgia: "He shoots them in the guest house, and then he goes to Port Arthur ruins."

Aftermath and Legal Repercussions

Karen and Georgia discuss the legal outcomes following the massacre, emphasizing the significant gun control measures implemented in Australia as a direct response. They note the establishment of the National Firearms Agreement (NFA) and its impact on public safety and gun ownership.

[79:00] Karen: "Following the massacre, Prime Minister John Howard spearheaded stricter gun control measures in Australia."

Notable Quotes:

• [61:19] Georgia: "All of our cat and dog dreams can come true."
• [73:27] Karen: "This guy's a piece of shit. Drives down the road."
• [79:37] Georgia: "It banned people from owning fully automatic and semi-automatic guns. No one fucking needs those."

Updates and Reflections

Towards the end of the episode, Karen and Georgia reflect on the resilience of survivors, highlighting Corazon Amarao's strength post-trauma. They commend her for building a life filled with joy despite the unimaginable horrors she endured.

[58:06] Karen: "She's an incredible, incredible person and spirit."

They also touch upon the broader implications of these tragic events, such as the importance of mental health support and the societal shifts in handling crime and punishment.

Conclusion: Staying Strong and Informed

As the episode wraps up, Karen and Georgia encourage their listeners to stay informed and supportive of one another, blending humor with heartfelt messages.

[81:06] Georgia: "We appreciate you and all of the things we like you back. Stay sexy and don't get murdered."

Final Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• [05:27] Karen: "You clicked on it, motherfucker."
• [14:03] Georgia: "It's okay. It is okay. Everything's okay."
• [50:36] Karen: "Can you imagine seeing like your sibling?"
• [56:31] Karen: "They ended up turning it off when it came to the part where Richard Speck started fellating the prisoner that he was sitting next to."
• [77:13] Georgia: "It's gonna fucking get away, dude."

Key Takeaways:

1. Personal Struggles and Resilience: The episode underscores the importance of addressing personal pain and supporting one another through tough times, illustrated by the hosts' own experiences with back pain and mental health.

2. Clarifying Misconceptions: Through their "Corrections Corner," Karen and Georgia highlight the necessity of accurate information and the pitfalls of assumptions, fostering a more informed and respectful community.

3. In-Depth True Crime Analysis: By revisiting Richard Speck and Martin Bryant's heinous crimes, the hosts provide a comprehensive examination of their backgrounds, motives, and the broader societal responses, emphasizing the complexities of criminal behavior and justice systems.

4. Impact of Tragic Events on Policy: The discussion on the Port Arthur massacre reveals how extreme events can catalyze significant policy changes, such as Australia's stringent gun control measures, demonstrating the potential for societal improvement following tragedy.

5. Strength of Survivors: Highlighting Corazon Amarao's journey, the episode celebrates the indomitable human spirit and the capacity to overcome profound trauma, inspiring listeners to find strength in adversity.

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Conclusion: "Rewind with Karen & Georgia - Episode 34: Thirty Let The Bodies Hit The Four" serves as a compelling blend of personal anecdotes, light-hearted banter, and intense true crime storytelling. Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark effectively balance humor with gravity, providing listeners with both entertainment and thoughtful reflections on some of the darkest aspects of human nature. Through their candid discussions and insightful analysis, they offer a nuanced perspective on crime, punishment, and personal resilience, making this episode a standout in their podcast repertoire.

Transcript

[A]

Foreign. Hello and welcome to Rewind with Karen and Georgia.

[B]

That's right, it is Wednesday, so we're looking back on old shows with all new commentary from us right now. Updates in insights, whatever you might be looking for.

[A]

And today we're recapping episode number 34, which we named 30 Let the Bot. No, we didn't.

[B]

Yeah, we did.

[A]

Did we?

[B]

Yeah, we did. Yeah, we did. Look, it's right there on paper.

[A]

I 30 let the bodies hit the four. That is illegal.

[B]

That is. We're going way out of our way.

[A]

Way. Yeah, we gotta stop. We should have been stopped. We should have been stopped.

[B]

They tried. So join us as we take you back to a day from history where not one fun or funny thing happened. September 14, 2016, except for this podcast recording. That's right.

[A]

Now we can all be day one listeners.

[B]

So let's listen to the intro of episode 34. Let the bodies hit the 34. Let the 30. Let the. That is the worst 30. Let the bodies hit the four. So stupid. So stupid.

[A]

How do we start?

[B]

Let's focus on a pain free hour.

[A]

Okay. I would love that.

[B]

Just a release. Let's. Let's imagine our lower backs. The muscles in our lower backs. Red, slowly turning to blue.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

Slowly fading to blue.

[A]

Feeling release.

[B]

Release your sciatic nerve pain.

[A]

Hi, this is Georgia. My butt is broken and Karen is trying to fix me.

[B]

Hi, I'm Karen. I'm not a trained doctor or professional in any way. I thought maybe if I talked in a certain weird tone of v. Georgia's butt muscle would unclench.

[A]

It worked.

[B]

Are you okay?

[A]

I feel great. This whiskey might be helping too, but.

[B]

This episode might be a little, what we call in my family, hinky because Georgia has devastating back pain and has been suffering from it for two days. This is real. This person.

[A]

This is totally. I've been suffering the back pain forever and then my sciatic. Listen, it's real interesting. If anyone has cures, please just explain it to us.

[B]

Tweet at us so that when you cry out. And then we have have to hit pause, they know what's happening.

[A]

I think I have a. I have a slipped disc in my back for the past couple months, and it has eventually caused my sciatic nerve to be pinched. And I am in so much fucking pain in the.

[B]

At this moment.

[A]

Right at this moment. No, but it keeps, like, clenching and then like, I fucking can't. And I got an MRI today and like, that's. That's how I let everyone know that it's serious. Is that. I got an MRI today. Like, that's. You don't. You're not just like, I'm sick, you.

[B]

Know, like, oh, heating. Put a heating pad on it. It's like, no, I was in a goddamn machine.

[A]

Also, I'm sitting on a heating pad.

[B]

That's right. Just like one of your cats.

[A]

It's my cat's heating pad.

[B]

It's very cute. Thank you. Make sure you don't get pinworms.

[A]

What's that?

[B]

You know, like, when you hang out and share all your stuff with your pets, you start getting. You get worms.

[A]

Like how my cat is sitting on that mechanical pencil with his asshole right now.

[B]

I put a pencil down.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

And Elvis came over and. And sat on it. Asshole first.

[A]

He didn't even sit. He placed his asshole on it delicately.

[B]

And like a yoga instructor, purposefully. Yeah. Asshole down and then the butt cheeks.

[A]

Okay. Is my immune system better or worse for living with cats who put their assholes on everything?

[B]

I say better because you're able to withstand. Now that your body is filled with bugs, you're able to withstand more in the outside.

[A]

Now that every inch of my body has basically been assholed.

[B]

Listen, I have two shitty dogs that I never clean, and I sleep with them every night. And every once in a while, I remember to change that pillowcase. And when I do, I go, what do I have? I'm sure I have fleas in my ears. Have they crawled into my brain all these things?

[A]

Our skin would be a lot worse if we were really sick. Also, I've heard that. You know what I mean?

[B]

Pretty great skin.

[A]

Says the girl who has acne. I also heard that children who grow up around pets have much better immune systems. So I'm basically just a big child.

[B]

Yes. Yeah. I mean, we're just trying to get back some of that youth that we enjoyed so much. Surrounded by animalia.

[A]

When you. Your. Your back gets fucked up when you're older. What?

[B]

I know you're not that old.

[A]

I thought I was gonna be young forever.

[B]

I think it's. You just have some emotional releases. I think if you took a sledgehammer to an old car or screamed in certain people's faces, you're welcome to scream at me at any time.

[A]

I have said I want to open that business where it's just like, you go in a, like, white painted room and there's just like, dishes and a sledgehammer and, like, electronic equipment, and you just have five minutes to break shit.

[B]

I think they do that in Japan. Don't They.

[A]

Oh, I'm sure they do.

[B]

I feel like that's something I've seen on the nightly news.

[A]

Let's start this.

[B]

Okay. Hi, everybody.

[A]

Oh, I meant the business. I don't know. The podcast.

[B]

Hey.

[A]

But, hey, we might as well do both.

[B]

Is it housekeeping time?

[A]

Oh, yeah. Hey, this is my favorite murder with Karen and Georgia.

[B]

Oh, yes. Yes. Did you know that?

[A]

I hope you knew that.

[B]

You clicked on it, motherfucker.

[A]

Or maybe your cat's asshole sat on.

[B]

Your phone, I guess the first moment of Corrections Corner. Because that's why I might as well just always only talk about Corrections Corner. Listen, it turns out Seventh Day Adventists do give gifts, and I don't even remember talking about this.

[A]

I think it's Jehovah's Witnesses that don't. Let's. Let's start next week's Correction Corner.

[B]

What if this is a double correction corner? No, it was Let me find her. Because I just faved it because she was laughing and saying, I am a Seventh Day Adventist. Adventist. We do give gifts. I do know that. I. Long ago when I worked at the Gap, I worked with a guy who was a Seventh Day Adventist and claimed because of that, he didn't have to work Saturdays. So maybe I do have some. Some bitterness deep down. That's what I. Yeah. Because I was always standing there on Saturday like, where the fuck is Ramon? Or whatever his name is. But she really enjoyed that. She wasn't mad or anything or offended. But I guess maybe it's. Isn't there one of those religions that just doesn't serve us any of the holidays, that, like, they're just like, we don't do your holidays.

[A]

Jehovah's Witness. Okay, do you want me to say it one more time?

[B]

I need to believe it. You just keep on saying it, but it has to be me accepting it.

[A]

Jehovah's Witness.

[B]

Oh, okay.

[A]

Jehovah's Witness as, like, two people who were raised pretty lax in religion, right? Like, I'm Jewish, near Catholic, but not hardcore.

[B]

We were. No, we were Catholic. Yeah. My, my. I still remember the day my sister and I told my dad we didn't feel like going to church. And it was as if we were like you, mister. Like, it was the fight we got into by going, we don't want to go to church today.

[A]

How old were you?

[B]

Unbelievable. Like, 18.

[A]

Oh, my God. Yo.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Serious Catholic, Irish Catholic, old school bullshit.

[A]

When you go home, do you have to go to church?

[B]

I. Well, I do go to church. Like, I don't have to anymore because I already went through my pseudo goth mod punk phase.

[A]

Right.

[B]

I wasn't able to commit style wise to any of those things.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

But I had the spirit in it.

[A]

They mesh. They all mesh.

[B]

Yeah. It's a lot of black tights and bad attitudes.

[A]

Eyeliner.

[B]

But. But now it's fun because, like, my niece. It's always something for my niece or a family party or whatever. So now I just play along.

[A]

That's cute.

[B]

And I. And I am more spiritual than I was back in those days when I just wanted to kick things with my big black shoes.

[A]

I'll go to temple. Yeah. After my bat mitvah, it was like, fuck this, I will never go to temple again.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But now I'm like, okay. It's like, not about believing in God. It's about having a community and history and all this spiritual bullshit.

[B]

I mean, I think it's natural to rebel against the structures of our youth. It feels good.

[A]

So this has been Religion Corner with.

[B]

Ding Dong with Religion Corner.

[A]

Religion Corner. What was the other Housekeeping. You and I do. So sorry.

[B]

To the seventh day is how that started. Oh, also, this is episode 34. Or as our listener Daniel at LFC west suggested we call it. So we will call it 30 30. Let the bodies hit the four. Which is just a fucking great. Well done, you, Daniel.

[A]

That's funny.

[B]

Well done, you.

[A]

Good job.

[B]

Also, I have to apologize because I called the band that we were in Entertainment Weekly with. Remember, we were bragging last week that we were in our. So we're bragging, bragging. And this is how I am, where I'm like, me, me, me, me, me. And then I'll skim other things and speak on it as if I know what I'm talking about. Well, so I called the band that we were in Entertainment Weekly with. I called them Sunlit Youth.

[A]

Right.

[B]

The name of the band is Local.

[A]

Natives, and that's Their album is Sunlight Youth.

[B]

The album is called Sunlight Youth. They're local natives. They're an LA native band.

[A]

They're also huge.

[B]

They're huge. We had lots of people telling us the mistake. The mistake I made.

[A]

And I didn't know.

[B]

It's super embarrassing because it just makes me feel like someone's weird aunt that's trying to hang out at, like, a teenage party.

[A]

Well, that's us. That's a description of us. Or someone's weird aunt who's trying to hang out at a party.

[B]

God damn it. It's. You're exact. There's a lot we have to face during this episode. And thanks a lot, local natives, for really making me get in the face of my own. But here's the upside of that, okay? The band Silversun Pickup started following us on Twitter.

[A]

Shut up.

[B]

Which must mean, right, you wouldn't follow unless it was an accident. That happens to me sometimes, where you just touch a thing and suddenly you're following it. But there is a chance that the people that belong to the insanely amazing band Silver Sun Pickups listen to this.

[A]

Podcast who got their name from the Silver sun liquor store in Silver Lake right by where we're at right now.

[B]

That's right. So, yeah, I mean, let's focus on the mistakes I haven't made yet.

[A]

Indie bands love us.

[B]

Is that true?

[A]

We're your aunt, listen. Or your aunt. We support you.

[B]

You gotta love your aunt coming and standing at your show with the big purse and her arms crossed, just actively.

[A]

Supporting and then telling you later who. Who she saw in the past. Like, what band? I saw Elliott Smith. Come on, girl.

[B]

I mean, who haven't I seen? Yeah, I was there back in the day when Beck walked on stage during that one John Bryan show at the old Largo. I could tell 50 stories like that.

[A]

Don't.

[B]

No, I can't. I would never do that to you. You already have so much pain.

[A]

Okay. It's funny how you. You're the housekeeping person.

[B]

Well, it's always my mistake.

[A]

No, what's always is that I won't cop to my mistakes or apologize for them.

[B]

Badass. I will try to do that more. Mine are so blatant that people are like, hi, I love you. Don't be mad, but you completely fucked this up.

[A]

Yeah, but you know what? That's in the past. Who listens to episode 33? Nobody. Oh, my God.

[B]

It's just, like, so old.

[A]

It's like, so last week.

[B]

It's so our dumb aunt.

[A]

I missed there. I slept through therapy today.

[B]

It's a good sign.

[A]

It's a great sign.

[B]

That's always a good sign. Blow off therapy.

[A]

I forgot therapy. And my therapist text me was like, hey, I had you down for four. And I was like, I was on. I'm on pills.

[B]

I do that probably every other week. And I have no excuse.

[A]

You know what? Actually, I had this really amazing therapist recently. Not amazing.

[B]

She.

[A]

And I didn't work out, but I liked her. And she said to me, like, I have this thing about being late. I'm never late, and it stresses me out. And I, like, I get so angry with myself when I'm late. And I showed up to my appointment, like, not even 10 minutes late. I was like, I'm so sorry. I. I'm a idiot. And da, da, da, da. And she was like, what? Tell me. Tell me why. It's like, what's wrong with being late? Or like, tell me what you. You can. You should say to yourself about being late. And I was like, oh, I should. I should say, like, it's okay. No one's a. Blah, blah, blah. And I kept saying things, and she was like, nope. And finally I was like, what do I say? And she was just like, it's okay. That's it.

[B]

Yeah, it's okay. Yeah.

[A]

That's all it is. It is okay. Everything's okay. It's not like. You don't have to reason with yourself. I missed therapy today.

[B]

It happens. It's okay if you have something else going on. Like, you have to give yourself a break, that this isn't standard time. You have crazy back pain that's keeping you from, like, getting up to get a glass of water.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So, yeah, you might be fucking ten minutes late for something.

[A]

And even if I'm five. Five minutes late because of whatever the fuck reason, it's okay.

[B]

It's okay. It, like, the world, you know, I have to say, my dad said this great thing to me one time when I was super crazy. Had just flunked out of college. Was really felt like. I really felt like the world was, like, melting around me. And he goes, and of course I had to, like, borrow money from him. It was like, I basically felt like the biggest failure. And, like, I was always going to be that. That I was probably 21 or 20, and I just stamped myself permanent loser.

[A]

Yeah. It defines the. You think at that age? It's defining. It's a defining moment.

[B]

Yeah. And thank God, at the end of this phone conversation, my eye goes, hey, listen, really honestly, in a hundred years, nobody's gonna remember this. And then I was like, oh. And then is the best advice?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like, live your life knowing that in 100 years, like, it's so scary to some people. Like, oh, we all died in a hundred years. I won't be remembered. Yeah. But also, you won't be remembered.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So fucking relax a little bit.

[A]

Or you will be by your, like, great grandchildren. And they're like, my grandma was a fucking badass. She did this and this and this. They're not gonna be like, can you believe my grandma didn't graduate college?

[B]

Right? No, no, not at all.

[A]

Did you see that? My dad is now. My dad texted me that he's listening.

[B]

Yes, you told me that.

[A]

Oh, my God, I love it. Can I read everyone who's not following us in all the places? What the fuck is wrong with you guys? What he said. He said started listening to your podcast and wow, your voice is great. The interaction is terrific. Let's talk when you can. Love dad.

[B]

For further notes.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, right. But he also signed it love Dad. I was like, oh, thank you. Oh.

[B]

Then he said, he signed a text.

[A]

Yes, which everyone loves. And then he said, he said, you go, girl. Not fucking kidding.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

I wanted to call in when you talked about not sitting next to a window to avoid being crushed by an out of control car crashing on top of you. And add that I always sit facing the door at, like, a restaurant. Yeah. So I can see whoever is coming in to assassinate me or worse.

[B]

Your dad said that?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Okay, now we're getting to the root of some stuff.

[A]

Anxiety.

[B]

Marty's got it.

[A]

Yeah. And I was like, can you please call and like, talk? Like, leave me a voicemail about how you deal with anxiety or whatever. So I hope he's okay with me reading that. Anyways, so should we.

[B]

We'll mark this Steven, for a potential edit that we'll never make. Well, hey, here's the thing though. There's nothing to be embarrassed about because this is the human condition. Sure. I told you that right? When my therapist told me once that our reptilian brains are built to scan for pres danger and then review for past mistakes. That's all your brain does constantly. So when you are in that mode of, like, you are looking around to see if a car is coming or what lunatic is coming in the door, that is how the human brain works. So we survive. That's how the saber toothed tiger doesn't eat us. That's the reason that. That's the reason the hardstarks are here and the Kilkeriffs are here, is because our. Our brains did that correctly. So if that means that we have a bunch of anxiety because in this day and age, there aren't any wild animals that are about to jump on our backs and it doesn't sync up that much, then yeah, give yourself a break.

[A]

Yeah. But there are murderers. And so we're going to talk about those murderers.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

After a quick break, we're going to get to our favorite Skipper saber tooth tiger murderers.

[B]

This week, it's all saber tooth tigers.

[A]

Be right back.

[B]

And we're back learning that Marty Hartstark has a little bit anxiety issue. Maybe he learned it through listening to the show where his daughter talks about her anxiety issues.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, they match. It's almost like their chromosome matches. DNA matches.

[B]

Does Marty have any back pain or sciatica issues like you?

[A]

He definitely has back pain. Listening to this episode or listening, it kind of, like, hurt me because that sciatica time period, I look back on now and realize it was all. A lot of it was stress and anxiety.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so I want to, like, go back to Georgia back then and tell her to read the Body keeps the score.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

She needs to be going to acupuncture for stress management. I mean, and deal with shit in your life. That's like, when I. The therapy was the most intense and important in my life.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. I was in so much pain. Red light also, everyone. Red light. Do red light?

[B]

Does red light help for back pain?

[A]

Oh, my God. I use it every night. Yes.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Incredible.

[B]

Oh, that's great.

[A]

Infrared light. Don't just, like, take a light bulb.

[B]

Have you ever tried an infrared sauna?

[A]

Yep. I have a sauna sleeping bag that I just get it. Or infrared sauna sleeping bag that I just fucking tuck into sometimes with cats because they love it and go to sleep. It's. It's incredible for my back.

[B]

Oh, great. I've been looking at those. They seem good.

[A]

All right, let's get into Karen's story. This is yet another epic, epic, awful story of one of the Just worst. One of the worst.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

This is Karen's story about Richard Speck. I'm pretty certain I closed my computer because I'm pretty certain you're first.

[B]

Okay. I mean, I guess I could actually.

[A]

Don't you dare. I don't like it being. I like it. Never knowing there was somebody actually.

[B]

Wait, are we back? Sure, there was somebody. There was somebody that wrote in that was like, every week. You guys don't know who it is. Why don't you just do even. Odd number systems?

[A]

I know.

[B]

It made me laugh out loud. I was like, dude, first of all, without looking, I knew it was a guy. And then secondly, I was just like, first of all, enjoy the charm of not knowing.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Enjoy the fact that what we're doing here is, like, sussing it out as we go every time. And who wants a number system?

[A]

Also, here's what would happen. Wait, are you even or are you odd?

[B]

Hold on. What day is it? I'm even. I thought it was the 24th.

[A]

Is this number 35. So I'm even. And you're odd.

[B]

No, but I thought that meant that if you were even, I go first.

[A]

Right.

[B]

There's your number system, superstar.

[A]

That's worse.

[B]

So, Karen, but thanks for the suggestion. Yeah.

[A]

So you go first this time. I'm pretty certain it's you.

[B]

Well, because I last week was beating myself up for being such a lazy pants. Marie, stop it. I did what some might call I believe on other murder podcasts they call heavy hitters.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I'm this week bringing you the mass murderer killer, Richard Speck. Hey, do you know him?

[A]

Fuck. Hold on. Yeah, just shout it right into the.

[B]

Microphone when you have pain. Everybody wants to hear it.

[A]

Are you being mean?

[B]

No, I mean like it's gonna be part of it. That's okay. It's.

[A]

Am I excited or am I in extreme pain? That's gonna be the.

[B]

Well, just say. Just do what you feel, but don't be. Don't edit yourself.

[A]

I don't know a ton about Richard's back, so I'm really excited about this.

[B]

Richard Speck has on his Wikipedia pages a couple pieces of information that are some of my favorite sentences I've ever read. For example, when he was six years old, his father died of a heart attack and his mother remarried a peg legged drunk with an extensive criminal record who she met on a train.

[A]

Say that again.

[B]

She remarried a peg legged drunk with an extensive criminal record who she met on a train.

[A]

Oh my God.

[B]

Now this was long ago. Go enough that there were still peg leggers around.

[A]

I mean, and you meet people on a train.

[B]

Yeah. And you're. And he's a drunk. So it's like this guy seems fun and like he's making the most of life.

[A]

Do you think you. Oh, I have so many questions. Go on.

[B]

I know. Well, also, so you know, if he's a peg leg drunk, that he's probably not going to be the best stepdad in the world.

[A]

I mean, when back then was a stepdad, a kid stepdad.

[B]

I know this was really dark days for any kind of secondary parenting.

[A]

I think it's funny how even today you hear of a stepdad and you're like ooh. And then, but then they're like, no. He was like, you have to. You have to tell someone that this is your stepdad. But. But then say like, he's amazing.

[B]

He's the good. He's a good kind.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

It actually. It's kind of a dirty word.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. Wait, do you have a stepdad?

[A]

No. My mom has. Has had a boyfriend for like 10 years. He's like the best dude.

[B]

Great.

[A]

My parents divorced when I was a kid and luckily never found anyone else to marry them. So I got lucky. Didn't have you.

[B]

Didn't have to deal with any of that shit.

[A]

Step kids, step parents.

[B]

Weird, strange teenagers that now live in your home. No, you're supposed to call them brother and sister.

[A]

They dated, but like it was fine. And now my mom's boyfriend's like the coolest dude.

[B]

That's great.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. My mom's boyfriend is totally a positive phrase. And my new stepdad is a nightmare situation.

[A]

Yeah, that's true.

[B]

All right, so he, when he was in third grade, they, the whole family moved to Texas and they would have 10 different addresses in 12 years.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

The peg leg drunk didn't work out so good. He was obviously drunk, very angry, very abusive, and also had a bit of a criminal background, was a forger and just an all around Texas superstar. So because of that, Richard started drinking himself in sixth grade.

[A]

Oh my God.

[B]

And dropped out of school when he was 16. So dark start early and bad. So these, I'm just gonna try to go through these very quickly. His crimes in Texas are as follows. When he was 19, he met a. Oh, well, I guess that is. When he was 19, he met a 15 year old girl at the state fair and three weeks later she was pregnant. Dude, technically that's statutory, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

When his daughter was born, his wife didn't know that he was serving a 22 day sentence for disturbing the peace after a drunken melee. A phrase I feel like they only use on Wikipedia. When he was 21, he was arrested for forgery and burglary and sentenced to three years, but paroled after 16 months. A week after his parole, he attacked a woman in a parking lot of her apartment building with a 17 inch carving knife.

[A]

Is that his first like, like attack against a female?

[B]

Yes. As far aside from family, they said that he was very abusive within the family, but I don't know if that was just because the whole family was all fucked up down there once they moved to Texas. But this is his first adult assault against the woman.

[A]

Because it's so weird to go from. I don't think a lot of people go from burglary and fighting outside of a bar to attacking a woman alone.

[B]

Actually, burglary is a very common like first for and especially for serial killers. They start in burglary. Yeah.

[A]

Just to see if they can.

[B]

It's like invading people's space. And then it kind of goes further but you're right about the drunken. Usually you think just somebody that's kind of drunk is. Isn't gonna suddenly pull what is over a foot and a half long knife on someone. Isn't that kind of a sword? That's a really fucking long night.

[A]

When do we go from knife to sword?

[B]

Like, let's.

[A]

Let's get it down.

[B]

How long is a sword? Three, two feet?

[A]

You're asking the wrong. I watch the knife show sometimes, but I'm usually.

[B]

I've watched it with you. Cutlery, corner.

[A]

Oh, cutlery. Oh, that's a good show.

[B]

God damn, that's a good show. So she got away luckily. But he was convicted of aggravated assault, given a 16 month sentence. That's. And it was supposed to run concurrently with his parole violation sentence, but due to an error, he was released from prison just six months later on completion of his parole violation after. I don't think this kind of stuff happens as much here in modern times as this.

[A]

Part of the error.

[B]

Yeah, this weird paperwork jail error shit.

[A]

Get your name wrong.

[B]

Yeah. And suddenly you're free to go.

[A]

Yeah, I hope not.

[B]

All right, so he gets out of prison. He works for three months as a driver for Patterson Meat Company. He has six accidents with the truck before he's fired after failing to show up for work.

[A]

Now that's what they fire him for.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. So I guess the accidents, he always had a good reason. I mean, I think this guy is a real. He's good at talking. He's a bullshitter. He's like, you know, a fast talker.

[A]

He's not one of them low IQ dudes.

[B]

No, he's not one of those.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

I don't think. No. So in December 1965, on the recommendation of his mother, he moved in with a 29 year old woman who was an ex professional wrestler herself and a bartender at his favorite bar, Ginny's Lounge.

[A]

She sounds like a fucking badass.

[B]

I would love to see a picture of her right now. I would love it.

[A]

I want to hang out with her.

[B]

She also needed someone to babysit her three children. What? So. So Richard Speck was her man.

[A]

As you do. You pick the fucking ex con.

[B]

Yeah. Instead of hiring a teen girl babysitter, you go ahead and get a guy that hangs out of the bar that you bartend at.

[A]

What the man?

[B]

Guys. Guys, guys in Texas in the 60s.

[A]

Get your shit together on the UBIT stay. Am I wrong?

[B]

Okay, so. So. So I lost my planes. So a month later, his wife files for divorce. The same Month, Richard Speck stabbed a man in a knife fight at Ginny's Lounge. He was charged with aggravated assault, but his attorney that his mother hired for him got the charge reduced to disturbing the peace.

[A]

How hilarious is that? Stabbing someone is disturbing the peace?

[B]

You know what? It is disturbing.

[A]

It is disturbing.

[B]

And I had peace before you did it. So tech, technically that was a real good lawyer. So he was fined $10 and he was jailed for three days and. Oh no, sorry. He was fined $10 and then he was jailed for three days after he failed to pay that fine. Jesus.

[A]

Oh my Lord.

[B]

They're letting him off, practically scot free. And he's still going, hey, go fuck yourself. Yeah, so that was the last time he was in police custody in Dallas. So this is kind of an amazing crime. On March 5, 1966, he buys a 12 year old car and then he, the next night he burglarizes a grocery store, steals 70 cartons of cigarettes, sells them out of the trunk of the car in the same grocery store's parking lot. Then he abandons the car. So the police trace the car back to him and issue a warrant for his arrest. But that arrest would have been his 42nd in Dallas.

[A]

Are you kidding me? Yeah, this sounds like the plot of Raising Arizona.

[B]

It's son, I believe you got a panty on your head. The best movie of all time. I love him so much. I love him so much. I love him so much. Okay, so his sister drives him to the bus depot and he gets a bus, and he takes a bus back to Chicago where he still has family, because they're like, you got to get out of town or you're done for. 42 arrests. On March 16, 1966, he finds out that his wife got remarried two days after divorcing him. And at the end of that month, he gets detained by the police for threatening a man with a knife in a bar. So Richard Speck, in a sentence, he's all about bars, knives, and getting arrested. It's his passion. So this is his fresh start in Chicago, by the way. So on April 3rd, he breaks into the home of a 65 year old woman in Monmouth, which is where his sister lives. And that's why he's in this small town in Illinois. And she comes home at 1am because.

[A]

She'S been babysitting a right babysitter. This is who you pick.

[B]

Yes. An old lady babysitter. She walks in the door, there's a man standing in her house, six foot tall, white man, as she describes him. Who was very polite and spoke very softly with a southern drawl, who blindfolds her, ties her up, rapes her, ransacks the house and steals the $2.50 that she had earned babysitting that evening. So then on April 9, a woman named Mary Kay Pierce, who is a 32 year old borrowed maid who worked at her brother's tavern in downtown Monmouth. Monmouth, I'm sure I'm pronouncing it wrong. She was last seen leaving that tavern at quarter to one in the morning. She was reported missing on April 13. Her body was found the same day in an empty hog house behind the tavern. And she died from a blow to her abdomen that ruptured her liver.

[A]

Whoa.

[B]

So Richard Speck frequented that bar and he helped build that hog house?

[A]

Oh no.

[B]

That was one of the jobs he got was a carpentry job his older brother helped him get when he moved to town. So the Monmouth police. Police briefly question him about this woman's death, but when they show up to the Christie Hotel, he loves to stay in these flop houses. That's through the whole story, he has left town. But when they search the room, they find a radio, costume jewelry and other Items that the 65 year old woman had reported missing from her house after her attack. So now they know. And then they also find other personal effects that are related to other burglaries in town. So they know this guy has done all of this.

[A]

Totally. Why did he leave all that shit behind?

[B]

Well, because he had to get out of town because he had killed this woman essentially. And then he was like hightails it out and then just doesn't care. So also he's a crazy drunk, right. So he's not a good planner or probably packer. So he leaves that small town, goes back to Chicago to stay with his other sister Martha. And Martha had worked as a pediatric nurse before she got married, which is just an interest to me. Was an interesting note for later.

[A]

Oh yeah, Foreshadowing.

[B]

That's right. So he goes and he joins the merchant marines. His brother in law recommends that he does that. So it's like, it's consistent work, you know, like you. It's. It's kind of like when fuck ups join the army and to get a little something in them. So it's kind of same idea.

[A]

Not that I'll. Army people are fuck up.

[B]

Not in the least.

[A]

Please don't send us.

[B]

No, no, no. We support the troops in every way.

[A]

However, some more than most actually. I mean really.

[B]

But no, but this is like, and this is also a thing back in the day, like, you joined the merchant marines when you're kind of listless and you don't, you know, it's like, it did.

[A]

My brother did it and now he's the best fucking person ever. Yeah, so I get us. So I get a talk about it.

[B]

So you get credit.

[A]

Yeah, I gotta talk about it and not get hate. Ma'am.

[B]

There's so many ways to make mistakes when you have a podcast and you're just trying to talk and you're just.

[A]

Speaking and you just piss everyone off.

[B]

I really support the marines. I guess I want to.

[A]

All right, sorry, I deviated from the.

[B]

It's really something people used to do. Did you see Llewyn Davis? He was trying to get on a ship. He just. He was like a loser musician.

[A]

Yeah, it doesn't matter. We're not bad people.

[B]

Oh yeah. We're really good people. Okay. So he gets. He joins the merchant marines, he gets on a ship, four days later, he gets appendicitis and he has to get airlifted to a hospital. So he stays in this hospital for two weeks after his surgery. And he loves the attention he's getting from these nurses. And while he's there, he meets and befriends a 28 year old nurse's aide named Judy. So once he's gets better, he goes back onto the ship. But he is a drunk and he's also takes pills, so there's lots.

[A]

Sounds like me right now.

[B]

Yes, it's totally you. And he had really bad sciatica. What? Oh my God, it says it right here on the ship. He gets drunk, he exposes himself to other crew members.

[A]

Gross.

[B]

He gets into fist fights. Nobody wants to see that shit again with the knives. He's all over the place with the knives. And then finally he gets drunk and yells at his. And a superior officer.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So they put what they call put him ashore, which to me visually is so hilarious. Of like the boat pulls up and fucking kicks him off and he gets like stranded in Upper Michigan.

[A]

Holy shit. They just like boot him off.

[B]

They're just like, get the fuck out of here.

[A]

Wow. They later dated him so hard.

[B]

So hard. So he goes and finds that woman, Judy, the nurse's aide, Judy, that he met at the hospital. And he ends up staying at her house. She says the entire time he stays with her for like two weeks. She says he's a perfect gentleman. Showered her with gifts, took her to dinner and was amazing. And at the end of the trip, she lent him 80 bucks so he could take the train back to his sister's house in Chicago. That's the only nice story that you're gonna hear about Richard's back.

[A]

I'm glad Judy's okay.

[B]

Yeah, she did fine. He gets back on July, on June 30. By July 11, he's overstayed his welcome and his sister kicks him out of the house. So he goes down to the Maritime hall to get another job on a ship. But. But the. They keep saying he has assignments and then they fall through. Which must have something to do with the fact that he got kicked off a ship already, you know? Yeah, at one point. So he's just kind of wandering around. He has nowhere to go. He's broke. So his sister come and her husband come Visit him on July 13, she gives him 25 bucks. They sit in her car and have a conversation. And while they do this, they're sitting outside a townhouse that also serves as a nurses student. A student nurses dormitory. Oh, yeah. Oh. So basically they have a conversation, which I would imagine would be, you got to let me come back because I have nowhere to go. And the sister's like, no, you're a lunatic. Here's $25. See ya. And would not want to be you.

[A]

Oh, no, no.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So see you in with not. That's hilarious.

[B]

So he takes the money, gets a room at a flop house called the Shipyard Inn, and then he starts day drinking, which we know never goes well.

[A]

Does it for them, maybe not. Yeah, now you're right.

[B]

I mean, I mean for me.

[A]

For me it's just like, it's just the promise of an amazing nap. That's all it is.

[B]

That's true for me. When I used to drink, I just knew at some point if I started drinking, like around noon, at some time in the evening, I would be trying to hit someone in the face. That's me though.

[A]

See, I'm like noon to 3, hard nap to 5 or 6, take a shower, go out again, get back on that horse. Or just hang out at home. Yeah.

[B]

Or watch some quality tv.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Okay. So what he does instead is he day drinks and he starts following a 53 year old woman from bar to bar who is also day drinking.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

And finally he propositions her at the last place that they're at. He gets her to come back to his room with him, Rapes her, steals a black $16 mail order.22 caliber ROM pistol. That's a lot of detail, all of those.

[A]

Say that again.

[B]

Black. I cut that so I didn't realize they were gonna describe this fucking gun.

[A]

To the T. But mail order is the problem. This is the sticking point for me.

[B]

This is. You know what? I wish I could give a critique on every Wikipedia page because there's so much overwriting and backwards describing, but I.

[A]

But I believe the thing that stuck out for me. Yes, you are correct about all of that, but that you could just mail order a gun.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

I mean, I guess there's a knife. TV show. So why couldn't be a fucking.

[B]

Gotta have our weapons as Americans and by any means possible. Sure. Okay. So after he attacks and brutally rapes this woman and steals all her shit, he goes and eats dinner. Then he goes back to drink at the Shipyard inn Tavern until 10:30 at night. Then he goes back up to his room and gets dressed entirely in black.

[A]

Oh, no, that can't be anything good.

[B]

I mean, he's not a goth.

[A]

He's not a ninja.

[B]

He's armed with a switchblade and the stolen gun. He walks a mile and a half back to the townhouse where he was having a conversation with his sister. And it is. It's a dormitory. It's. I already said that. But it's functioning as a dormitory for nursing students for South Chicago Community Hospital.

[A]

Oh, honeys.

[B]

So he cuts open the screen on a back window. So this.

[A]

Oh, screens, man. Screens are troublesome.

[B]

Yeah. He cuts open the screen, crawls in the window, walks up the stairs and knocks on a bedroom door. And a woman named Corazon or Cora Amuro opens the door and sees a man standing there holding a gun to her. And he pushes into the room. There's two other women in bed. He gets them out of bed, and he gets them to come out of the room at gunpoint and go into a bigger bedroom in the back. And then he goes into these other rooms. He finds women. I'm sure that those. They screamed or made some weird noise. He goes basically into each room, collects up all the women that are in his dormitory and puts them all into this back room. And then he. Which is to me, I think, as I was reading this, kind of a crucial point. He turns off the light in the room. Then he lights his cigarette and sits on the floor. He has them sitting in a semicircle. And he very, again, politely and in his quiet Southern drawl, starts explaining to them how he's not going to hurt them. He just wants money. He's trying to leave town. He's just going to get a bunch of money from them. And then he. He puts out the cigarette, stands up, takes out a switchblade, and starts cutting up a sheet. And he ties the hands and feet of all these nursing students. And then he picks up the first girl and like to go, as if to say, you know, we're gonna go get your purse. Like, I'm gonna. You're gonna get me your money.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And her name was Pamela Wilkening. And Pamela spits in his face and says, I can. I will be able to pick you out of a lineup.

[A]

Oh, no.

[B]

Yeah. God bless her soul. He takes her into the other room and he starts to rape her. And two other nursing students who had just come home walk in on them. So he pushes Pamela down. He takes the other two into another room and strangles and stabs them and kills them and leaves them in that room. Then he goes back to Pamela, stabs her once in the heart. Then he goes back to the group of women that are waiting in the room.

[A]

And they have no idea.

[B]

They have no idea. But, you know, they're hearing noises.

[A]

Totally.

[B]

And it's that thing where I honestly think that. Because a lot of people talk about that. Why would these. There was ultimately, there were eight nursing students sitting in a circle. But first of all, he had a gun on them. And it's that thing of like, I don't want to hurt you. I just need money. So everyone's thinking, and they're nursing students, so they know psychologically, you want to be complicit, you want to go along. Keep him calm. Clearly, he's probably drunk. He was probably very overtly drunk, and he was on speed. So they were probably just trying to keep everything, like, doing what he wanted, trusting that he was doing what he.

[A]

Said, which, of course, he wasn't.

[B]

So he goes back in, and he just keeps taking them out one by one. And at one point, Cora, the one who opened the door first, gets out of her. Out of her ties and rolls under a bed and just stays in there. And then as he's taking them out, they're hearing noises, and they all, like. They don't know what to do. They're staying really quiet. And she describes all of this later on. Basically, the second to last woman he rapes in the room. So she sees and hears it, and then he kills her. And she is just pressed up under a bed against the wall, praying.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So all in all, he killed eight women that night. Pamela Wilkening, who was 20. Patricia Matuszik, who was 20. Nina Jo Shmali, who was 24. Suzanne Farris, who was 21. Mary Ann Jordan, who was 20. Merlita Gargulo, who's 22. Valentina Passion, who was 23. And Gloria Davy, who was 22. And then he walks out the front door, he throws his knife into the Calumet river, and he goes home and goes to bed. What the fuck? Thinking that he has committed the perfect crime because he killed all of the women. But he didn't, because Cora was still under the bed. She waited until six in the morning, and then she opened a window, started crawling out the window, screaming, they're dead. All my friends are dead.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

There's a woman across the street who was doing laundry in her house. And here's what she thought. She thought a baby was crying. And she opens her front window and sees Cora out the back window just screaming out the window. So she goes over there. Then she wakes up like the house mother, for all that, the dormitories and this fucking house mother walked through the house, seeing every. Every room, there was a different dead body. I mean, it was. It was a disaster. When the police finally came, the policeman who was first on the scene had only been on the force for 18 months.

[A]

Oh, no.

[B]

So he walked through and he was. When he came back out of the house, this is actually kind of fascinating. Back then they had reporters who would listen to the. The police radios and they would just drive around and like, you know, oh, there was a house caught on fire or whatever. Yeah. So this guy that was the reporter that heard this call was there probably five minutes after this first cop. And when he got there, he said the guy had his hat on backwards. He. His shirt was out of his untucked. He. He was walking in circles. He was completely in shock. And the guy said, what's going on? And he said, they're all dead. And they said, go look. And so this reporter walked into the scene and so he actually talked about it where he said there was so much blood in the hallway that as you walked through the hallway, because it was coming out of the rooms.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

That you step down, and it would come up over the sole of your shoe and to the top of your shoe. And they were in every single room. It was. So when the. When the rest of the cops finally appear, they're, you know, there. There's some cops outside, and their cops would walk into the house and then come out and throw up. And then the other cops that hadn't gone in yet were giving them shit, like, oh, yeah, you know, Maybe you've been on the force too long. Then they'd go up and they'd come out and throw up. And every single cop that arrived on the scene vomited.

[A]

You think wanted to be like, I'm.

[B]

Gonna stay out of there, but they have to go in, right? This is a fucking job. So that's what a. Nightmarish insane. And Also, this was 66. This was before Manson. This was before anything.

[A]

There was no spree killings back then.

[B]

Not really. Or like the ones that they'd had. Like the In Cold Blood one where it's like a family, but they were like in those beds and it was gunshot wounds. This was like a knife and strangulation and just extreme fucking. So they. But there are fingerprints all over the scene. So. And the FBI comes in immediately. So they get. They find out that it's Richard Speck, like within, within three days of the attack. They have his picture. They also have the picture that Cora described him to the cops.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And that those two pictures run in the newspaper alongside the information that he has a tattoo on his forearm that says Born to Raise Hell. Fuck.

[A]

Can you imagine seeing like your sibling?

[B]

Oh, oh yeah. Like knowing it's him and that he did this, this thing that is beyond monstrous. Like beyond. So when, when Speck realizes his picture's in the paper, he can't go anywhere. He can't. He's in this flop house and he doesn't know what to do. So he commits, tries to commit suicide. He attempts suicide, drinks a bottle of old wine, breaks the bottle and then slashes his wrists. But then at the 11th hour, calls downstairs and says, call an ambulance because I'm dying. And so they take him to the. Let's see, they take him to Cook County Hospital and Dr. Leroy Smith, who was a 25 year old surgical student, had read, had just read the newspaper, saw the Born to Raise Hell tattoo detail. And when he walked up on this suicide case, sees that tattoo and says, or I think he just immediately called the cops. But then later when Richard Speck asked for water, he said, did you give any of those nurses water? And just walked away. Oh, fuck. So but then the cops were actually very careful. They like stayed around him the whole time because they knew this was this situation where like he could get killed before he ever gets tried because this is. He is such. Like for three days, this. Chicago was in total terror, terrified. So also there were concerns because there was a recent Miranda case that vacated a conviction actually for a number of criminals, vacated a bunch of convictions. So they didn't even question him for three weeks because they had. They needed to make sure everything was, like, going to go exactly how it.

[A]

Was supposed to go for the case.

[B]

Yeah. So when they finally do bring him to trial, they have to move it to Peoria, which is three miles away from Chicago, because they know there's no way they can get him a fair trial in Chicago. And there's a gag order on the press, which they used to do. I don't know why they don't do that anymore.

[A]

Right. Where, like, you just can't publish anything.

[B]

There's no reporters allowed. And they let the whole thing proceed as it would naturally, which would make.

[A]

Sense because, like, once they're caught and going to trial, you don't need to know anything.

[B]

You just tell us what happened.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

At the end. Yeah.

[B]

It's not the world we live in, though. So the beautiful part is they were so worried about Korah because of what, you know, this horrible thing she went through. And now she has to face him in court. And they were really worried that she wasn't going to be able to do it. Not only did she fucking do it. When they said, can you identify the killer? Is he in this room? She stood up from the witness box, walked over to Richard Speck, pointed into his face, and they said, she almost touched his face and said, this is the man.

[A]

Holy shit.

[B]

And I just gave myself chills. And they. I love that so much.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because it must have been the fucking scariest thing in the world. And she practically flicked his cheek.

[A]

And that's amazing.

[B]

They said, because of that eyewitness account, they. The jury deliberated for 49 minutes before they came back with the death penalty.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

So on June 5th, Judge Herbert J. Passion sentenced Speck to die in the electric chair. But they. Illinois had to reverse his death penalty because they said that they unconstitutionally excluded potential jury members when they were trying to find the jury. So instead, the judge that was forced to get to vacate the death penalty gave him 1200 years in prison. So every time he came up for parole after. In all the years he was in prison, he was denied within 10 minutes.

[A]

Good. I can't believe he even got a chance to plead his case for parole.

[B]

I mean, I think the thing, at the end of the day, because they, you know, they did. They examined him, you know, for, like, was he insane? Did he not know what he was doing? Was he incompetent or whatever? And there was a psychologist, or they did an examination of his brain and they did see that the hippocampus, which involves memory, and the amygdala, which deals with rage and strong emotions, encroached upon each other, and the boundaries of the two were blurred. Interesting. A neurologist who examined those. The photos of those tissue samples, because the real tissue samples were sent to a Boston neurologist for further study and were lost or stolen.

[A]

Come on.

[B]

Of course. But a neurologist who examined photos of the tissue samples along with the results of an EEG said, I have never heard of this type of abnormality in the history of neurology.

[A]

Weird.

[B]

So any abnormality that exceptional has got to have an exceptional consequence. So he. It's all that combined with the, you know, the perfect storm of the horrible father, the childhood abuse. And he also was diagnosed with organic brain syndrome because of the.

[A]

Hit his head as a kid.

[B]

That's right. He fell from a tree at White Rock Lake when he was an adolescent. And he suffered cerebral injuries.

[A]

Son of a bitch.

[B]

It's there again. Isn't that the weirdest thing in the world?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So. But anyway, also, I would just like to say he took reds, I think is what they called them at the time, which was basically speed. And he would take, like, handfuls of them at a time. And as a person who took fen phen in the 90s, I would just like to say I would take two a day. And I was a monster. I was a lunatic on those pills for, like, two years. I. The fact that he, like, abused that kind, like, amphetamines, he must have been.

[A]

I mean, so he's already crazy monster.

[B]

He's already a monster, and then he's on pills that make you even more of a monster. So just to kind of like, you know, to somehow connect with what. What happened in that dormitory. Because it was like, living hell.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And that's what drugs do to you. Fuck. I mean, not to be your mom about it.

[A]

Be my aunt about it.

[B]

Look, the weird aunt is here in every way. Don't do what I do, kids. Here's the thing that everybody talks about about Richard Speck, though. Aside from that terrible killing and being this, like, loathed mass murderer, there's a very famous video that got sent to Bill Curtis, our man Bill Curtis, that someone, an anonymous attorney, sent it to Bill Curtis in 1988. And someone inside the. Sorry, the jail where he was. I don't know if it's Cook county or if it was in a different jail, but someone. They made a video of what the. What it was like to be a prisoner in this jail. And this is the video where Richard Speckled is in women's underwear and no shirt. And he has small women's breasts. Because he was taking hormones to transition while he was in jail, he was able to smuggle hormones in. So he had. Basically had like, kind of like very perky B cup breasts. What?

[A]

I've never seen this.

[B]

It's so disturbing. He's just. And he sits there with no shirt on, with his little boobs in women's underwear, talking about these murders. What does he say? Fucked. Well, he's clearly trying to be the big man. Cause there's another prisoner sitting next to him. So he's just talking about how strong you have to be to strangle somebody. And then it's not like you see it on tv. It takes a long time.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

And he talks about how one of the women that he killed was flirting with him. Just crazy shit that, like.

[A]

Oh, holy shit.

[B]

When you see it, you're like. Yeah, it's. So they showed it. The Illinois legislature packed an auditorium and they showed it.

[A]

What?

[B]

And they ended up turning it off when it came to the part where Richard Speck started fellating the prisoner that he was sitting next to.

[A]

What in the actual. Fuck.

[B]

And it was basically, I read somewhere that it said that they did it because they wanted to bring the death penalty back. They were mad that Illinois got rid of the death penalty. And they were. It was basically trying to say, this is what's happening. They're just sitting in prison, you know, having this great time. And that was one of the quotes. Richard Speck said, if they knew how much fun I was having in there, in here, they. They'd set me free.

[A]

Oh, my God, Dude.

[B]

But too bad for you, because Richard Speck died of a heart attack in prison.

[A]

Good.

[B]

And they say no one claimed the body, but he was cremated and his ashes were sprinkled somewhere. So somebody must have done something.

[A]

Where were they sprinkled?

[B]

They didn't say. Somewhere near Joliet.

[A]

Fuck.

[B]

And that is the super bummer story of Richard Speckham.

[A]

What a piece of shit.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

Okay. Wow. Wow. So dark.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Karen, do you have any updates?

[B]

I do. Let's see. So in the year leading up to the trial of Richard Speck and those murders, the sole survivor, Corazon Amarao, became friends with the four policemen who guarded her while she was in productive custody. They took her shopping, they took her to mass, they taught her how to play poker. And then when it came time for her to testify. She asked for them to sit in the front row so that basically they were there for her while she did the hardest thing.

[A]

Wow, that's beautiful.

[B]

And then ultimately she went back to the Philippines, she got married and then moved back to the US with her family. And she worked as a nurse in Washington D.C. area until she retired. And now she is in her 80s. She's a grandmother. She's described as a very happy person who enjoys life and laughs a lot. And she still likes playing poker like those cops taught her.

[A]

Oh my God, I love her. I want her to be my grandma.

[B]

I mean, again, it's like such this I feel like happens all the time when we talk about survivors, these people. The reason we love talking about them is like, it's such an inspiring kind of galvanizing thing for yourself. And the difficulty that you feel like you might be going through. You hear a story like that, hear Corazon being such an incredibly strong, like getting through it, making her life like basically saying fuck you to that experience and making a life where she's happy.

[A]

Being brave and then also asking for something that she needs, like having those four officers in the front row. Like what an incredible, incredible person and spirit.

[B]

Now it's time for George's story. This one is about the Port Arthur massacre.

[A]

We're about to give a big old high five to Australia.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

By talking about the deadliest mass shooting in Australian history. The Port Arthur massacre. Here we go. So it was early 1987. Martin Bryant, 19 year old dude, IQ of 66. Yeah, that face you're making is correct. Meets a 54 year old woman, she's a Harris to a lottery fortune. I'm sure. I don't know.

[B]

Did you call her a Harris?

[A]

Did I call her a heiress? Mon. Pain pills heiress. I meant heiress.

[B]

I was like, she's one of the Harrises. What the fuck are you talking about? No, no, we cannot.

[A]

You guys. So much pain right now.

[B]

Use the pain.

[A]

I'm in so much pain.

[B]

She's a Harris. She's a Harris.

[A]

Sorry, sorry. No, you're. I'm glad you pointed that out. Otherwise you'll have been like, what the fuck? All right, 50, 64 year old Helen Mary Elizabeth Harvey is an heiress to a lottery fortune.

[B]

Well, sorry, if you win the lottery.

[A]

Like I don't know if this means.

[B]

So you should call yourself a Harris.

[A]

Well, I don't know if she's a heiress. It's the share in the tatter Saul's lottery fortune. So they could be like the head of A lottery.

[B]

Got it.

[A]

I don't know. Australia's different than here.

[B]

I guess if you started the lottery, you're the richest one of all. Jude. Okay, yeah, got it, got it.

[A]

So he's a lawnmower and he meets her while he's looking for more customers. And they befriend each other. He becomes a regular visitor to her. All right, you ready for some fucking Gray Gardens action?

[B]

Hello. Yes.

[A]

All right. Neglected new town mansion. And assists with tasks such as feeding their 14 dogs that are living inside the house.

[B]

Yes, like me and the 40 cats.

[A]

Living inside her garage. Karen, you and I need to move there immediately.

[B]

All of our cat and dog dreams can come true.

[A]

And we have a hot, stupid 19 year old fucking doing shit for us.

[B]

Just mowing that lawn.

[A]

That's some Gray Gardens shit.

[B]

I mean, first of all, the level of dog and cat fighting. If you had 16 dogs and 40 cats, what the fuck?

[A]

Cats win.

[B]

I would just be walking around all day going, stop it.

[A]

Stop it.

[B]

Good, Smokey.

[A]

You know, they're like, be nice to.

[B]

Your sister, but you have to do it with an Australian accent.

[A]

I. I won't even.

[B]

I can't.

[A]

I don't want to piss off a bunch of more Australians after incorrectly saying that one of their murders was from. Or one of New Zealand's murders was New Zealand.

[B]

They're the ones that got pissed.

[A]

That's true.

[B]

And they're the ones you don't fuck with.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Lord of the Rings. Okay, go ahead, Eris.

[A]

Anyways, Harris. Excuse me?

[B]

I like Harris.

[A]

Harris. So In June of 1990, the family or the house was finally reported to the health authorities and medics found that Mary and her mom were in need of urgent hospital treatment. The 79 year old mother, Hilva died several weeks later. A cleanup order was placed and Martin's father was like gonna try to help clean everything up because he's like taking care of his stupid sound all the time.

[B]

So should you be saying that?

[A]

Well, he is a mass murderer. I don't think anyone cares.

[B]

That's okay. Okay.

[A]

No, you're right. I shouldn't be saying that.

[B]

I don't know. I'm so.

[A]

You're so scared of Correction Corner. I mean, you're correct.

[B]

My correction corner just keeps getting bigger.

[A]

You come correct me?

[B]

Let's come correct.

[A]

Yeah. So Mary invites Martin to live with her in this mansion and they start spending huge amounts of money. They purchased more than 30 new cars in less than three years.

[B]

What?

[A]

I know.

[B]

This is the Harris.

[A]

The Harris and her lawnmower the Harris and her hot. I don't know if he's hot. Her fucking new boyfriend.

[B]

Got it?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Wait, are they boyfriend, girlfriend?

[A]

I don't know. I don't think it explicitly says, but I think it's like if they're not boning, there's some like relationship going on. Okay, got it. So. So Martin is reassessed for his pension. And a note attached to his paperwork says at the time, father protects him from any occasion which might upset him as he continually threatens violence. Martin tells me he would like to go around shooting people. It would be unsafe to allow Martin out of his parents control. That's why I said to take care of his stupid son.

[B]

Right, I got it.

[A]

Not because I'm a terrible person.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So in 91, Mary and Martin moved into a 72 acre farm. And the neighbors said he always carried an air gun and often fired at tourists as they stopped to buy apples at a stall on the highway. And he would roam around the property firing the gun at dogs when they barked at him, which is probably neat always because he was a piece of shit.

[B]

Also when you fire guns, it makes dogs bark. So it's kind of a self perpetuating situation.

[A]

There you go.

[B]

Dog expert.

[A]

Gun firing gun at dog expert.

[B]

But it was an air that was, he was firing an air gun. So he was just, he was just.

[A]

Going through the motions.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Yeah. So then on October 20, 1992, Mary, his Harris was killed in a car wreck.

[B]

Oh no.

[A]

When her car veered on the wrong side of the road and hit an oncoming car directly. And Martin was inside the car at the time of the accident and was hospitalized. But he was investigated by police because he had a habit of lunging for the steering wheel. And she had already had three accidents as a result of him doing this.

[B]

Hold on. Yeah, then what? After the first time, aren't you like you don't get to come into the car anymore.

[A]

She was an old Harris and like she needed company.

[B]

Shit. Yeah.

[A]

But my brother, if he's in the car with me and I'm driving, he fucks with me. I mean, he doesn't want to the steering wheel, but he fucking won't stop turning the fucking windshield wipers on every five fucking minutes when we're stopped at a stoplight, he pulls the emergency brake every fucking time. Just fuck with me.

[B]

That reminds me of my cousin Stevie when he finally got his license. I was like 10 and he was 16 and he would drive me home from school. And then as he was driving down the road. He'd go, dead body and just fall over. And I would have to jump over and start steering from the passenger seat.

[A]

So dangerous.

[B]

He did shit like that constantly.

[A]

Can I out Marty? My dad real quick when we used to fucking, he used to drive us up to Lake Arrowhead where he lived for a while. Like, these dark, windy roads. And we'd say, dad, how would I drive? And he'd go, georgia would drive like this. And then just start leaving all over the road. How would I drive, dad? Leah would drive, like, this dark mountain. Like, no guard rail over Georgia would drive. I think it was just to shut the. Like, just shut us up.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

After four hours.

[B]

Well, it's boring. Yeah. I mean, it's boring to hang out with little kids. It's a boar, man. Make it interesting.

[A]

We almost died so many times.

[B]

God, that's so hilarious. I remember one time being so small that I could stand up in the back seat seat of my dad's VW Bug. I could stand behind the driver's seat on this.

[A]

On the seat.

[B]

I. I was standing on the floor of the car. I was as tall as the seat, so I was probably five.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I thought it was really funny. I reached up and just covered my dad's eyes. And his reaction was to start laughing, but he was like, knock it off. Knock it off. And he would pull at my hands. And then that was like, the game on that car trip. So I would do it. And then the next time I did it, I was like a little crazy monkey where I wouldn't take my hands off. Like, he couldn't peel. And he was like, kara, Jesus Christ. I'm done. You have to let go. I can't see. It was. Now I'm just having all these recovered memories of. Because we lived out in the country, too, so you had a lot longer before something bad was gonna happen when stuff like that was going on.

[A]

How are we alive?

[B]

I don't know.

[A]

Maybe we're not.

[B]

You know what? Maybe this is a Jacob Slaughter situation. That's not nightmarish.

[A]

That's just, like, going pretty well.

[B]

It's pretty fun, you guys. I like it.

[A]

That's why we're number one, is because it's just a. It's just not real. There's, like, no way in real life.

[B]

A massive hallucination, and then we're about to get dropped into the bowels of hell.

[A]

Yeah. Chris Hardwick is like, how do. Why would you think that this would be real? That you would be bigger than me?

[B]

Oh, please. No, One's bigger than Chris Hardwick.

[A]

My head hurts. Okay.

[B]

And back.

[A]

What?

[B]

And back.

[A]

And my butt. So. Okay. He was the sole beneficiary of her will and came into.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

What? $550,000. Not that much money. Well, I guess, you know, after taxes. Yeah. And he didn't know shit about money. His mother applied and was granted guardianship of the money. So his assets were under the management of public trustees because he had diminished intellectual capacity.

[B]

I see.

[A]

You know what I'm saying?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

So after her death, Martin's father, Maurice looked after the farm that they had fucking lived on with all the animals. And he returned home after the hospital as a convalesce. Let's see, his father had been prescribed antidepressants. And two months later, on August 14, a visitor looking for the father, Maurice, found a note saying call the police pinned to the door and found several thousand dollars in his car. There was no criminal intent suspected. Let's see. They searched the property without success. Divers were called to search the four dams on the property. And on August 16, his body was found in the dam closest to the farmhouse with one of Martin's diving weight belts around his neck. Police described the death as unnatural and that the death was ruled a suicide. And Martin. Martin inherited his father's money as well.

[B]

Sorry, they.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

No, no, just. They ruled it unnatural, I think, meaning.

[A]

He had committed suicide. Not that he's smarter.

[B]

Okay. Dang. Okay.

[A]

Yeah, so like he didn't fall in on accident.

[B]

I got it.

[A]

Okay. So Martin comes, becomes super weird. He.

[B]

So now he's by himself.

[A]

Yeah, I think his mom. His mom, like, can't keep custody of him, so he's living on this place. He becomes super weird. He starts. He starts instead of dressing normally. Wears gray linen suit, crap cravat. I don't know what that is.

[B]

That's a French for a tie.

[A]

Thank you. Linen skin shoes and a panama hat. While carrying a briefcase during the day, telling anyone who listened that he had a well paying career.

[B]

So he's playing successful adult.

[A]

Yeah. And he got super lonely. He starts visiting various overseas countries more than 14 times in two years. It's like basically living the life all of us want. Without the murder part.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I don't just like, enjoy it, dude.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

He hates all the destinations he goes to, but he enjoys the flights as he could speak to the people sitting next to him who had no choice but to listen and be polite.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Yeah. This is when you stop having any.

[B]

There's no empathy left.

[A]

Yeah, He's Getting shit faced all the time. He's drinking a lot of booze. Oh, I wanted to tell you that he drinks half a bottle of Sambuca and a bottle of Irish Bailey's Irish Cream every day, supplemented with port wine. What does he mean?

[B]

When I'm 23. Does he also smoke cloves?

[A]

That is all just the sweetest. That's man.

[B]

No, that's like saying you want just drink a milkshake.

[A]

That's the equivalent of hitting your head as a kid.

[B]

Really.

[A]

You know what I mean?

[B]

Wait. Sambuca and Bailey's.

[A]

Sambuca, Bailey's and port wine, which is just sweet dessert wine. Oh, it's disgusting.

[B]

That's like drinking barf.

[A]

Yeah, he's drinking when, like, a sorority girl drinks her first time drinking. Yeah, and her second. All right, day of the shooting. Sorry, here we go. His first victims are poor, poor David and Sally Martin. No. No relation. Oh, wait, no, his first name's Martin, so of course it wouldn't be. Anyways, moving on. They own. They own the bed and breakfast guest house that the Martins had. So this family had bought the BNB that Bryant's father had wanted to buy. And he believed that the Martins had deliberately bought the property to hurt his family and blamed them for the depression that led to his dad's death. So he shoots them in the guest house, and then he goes to Port Arthur ruins. And he enters the Broad Arrow Cafe. He eats and then he goes to the back of the cafe, sets a video camera on a vacant table, takes out a semiautomatic rifle and begins shooting patrons and staff. Within 15 seconds, he fired 17 shots, killing 12 people and wounding 10. Then he walks the other side of the shop and fires 12 more times, killing another eight people and wounding two. He then changes magazines before fleeing, shooting six people in the car park and from his car as he drove away. Four were killed and an additional six were injured.

[B]

Oh, my fuck. And he recorded it on a video camera.

[A]

This guy's a piece of shit. Drives down the road.

[B]

He's crazy, though. I mean, like, that's. He's not okay in any way.

[A]

He's insane.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

He goes down the road. Wait, it gets worse. There's a woman and her two children walking. He stops and fires two shots, killing the woman and the child she was carrying. The older child gets killed, too. I don't want to. Then he steals a BMW by killing all four of its occupants.

[B]

God damn.

[A]

And then a short distance down the road, he stops beside a couple in a white Toyota. And drawing his weapon, ordered the man into the boot of the BMW. After shutting the boot, he fires two shots into the windscreen of the Toyota, killing the female driver. He goes back to the guest house with the guy in his trunk, sets this, sets the stolen car on fire and takes the hostage inside with the corpse. With the corpses of the BNB people. So he goes back to the bnb.

[B]

But he didn't light the car on fire and leave the guy inside. Okay, okay, okay.

[A]

The police get there and they try to negotiate for many hours. And then the phone dies in the battery. The battery phone dies. His only demand was to be transported in an army helicopter to an airport. Like you're gonna fucking get away, dude. Just.

[B]

Well, 66 IQ. He's just improving.

[A]

So at some point he kills his hostage the next morning. It's been 18 hours since he's been there. He sets fire to the guest house and attempts to escape. He gets burns on his back and butt. And was captured and taken to the hospital. And he's treated and kept under heavy guard. So initially he pleads not guilty to the 35 murders.

[B]

Oh my God.

[A]

And didn't provide any confession. However, he changed his plea to guilty before a court hearing in November 19, 1996. Found guilty of all charges. The judge orders that all evidence for the case be sealed. I don't understand. I guess he just doesn't want the video to get out.

[B]

Probably. Right. If he's already. Because if he's already pleaded guilty, he's gonna go to jail. So. Yeah. That guy, that guy was like, we're shutting this circus down now.

[A]

Make this be a thing.

[B]

That's good.

[A]

He sentenced to 35 life sentences. As many people as he killed, plus a thousand and thirty five years in prison. So he's still there in solitary confinement. No one but his immediate family is allowed to visit him. He's never to be released. It says no parole, which is very rare in Australia. The majority of murder sentences allow for the possibility of parole after a long prison sentence. So his motivation for the massacre remains a guarded secret, only known to his lawyer, who is bound not to reveal without his client's consent. So we don't know what triggered it, why he started, what made him fucking go over the edge. But obviously all of these like slow.

[B]

Build for a while.

[A]

Yeah. That I had. Yeah. Described are.

[B]

And there's. They don't suspect that he killed his father and made it look like a suicide, right?

[A]

I don't think so. No.

[B]

Oh, that's. Wow.

[A]

So, yeah. So the Port Arthur massacre. But it. I mean, it brought everyone together, it made people aware and.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's just this horrible thing. So Martin Bryant, Dick.

[B]

Did. I mean, like, what? I guess you wouldn't know, but, like, it just makes me think. Was that location part of his reason, Part of the thing that hasn't been.

[A]

Explained totally or like, was there one person of those 35 that he was specifically targeting the video?

[B]

It just freaks me out.

[A]

Why would he. Yeah, why would he put a video camera?

[B]

It's so like. Yeah. There is such a plan in place, obviously.

[A]

It's such a. Like, I want everyone to know how, like, how I feel. It's almost like this. Look at what. Look how awful I feel.

[B]

Yes. Right. And also, look what I can do.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And look what it's that thing I'm like, that's guns. Is like, look at the control I have over the world I live in.

[A]

Look how little safety you actually have. Even though you think you have.

[B]

It's my world. You're just players in it.

[A]

Right, right. And the M.O. you think. You think you have the serene safety. And I can change that in a moment.

[B]

Also, I wonder, what if he had head injuries in that car accident? I mean, a head on collision where the one person dies.

[A]

I think he did.

[B]

God, that's heavy.

[A]

I know. Should we read a hometown?

[B]

Isn't this nine hours long already?

[A]

You're right. Let's do a separate hometown murder next week. All right. Thanks for listening. You guys are the best. We. Oh, we love you. And I forgot how we ended this because I'm on.

[B]

Oh, I know how we end. By me telling you to stay sexy.

[A]

And me telling you don't get murdered. Elvis wants a cookie.

[B]

He knows Elvis.

[A]

I know he does want a cookie. He totally knows. Good boy. Thanks for listening, guys.

[B]

Bye.

[A]

Bye.

[B]

We're back. Georgia, two questions. Do you have any updates? And can you pronounce the word Eris now?

[A]

Aris. I say it all the time now just to show off.

[B]

Honestly, you learned how much you've learned on this show.

[A]

Oh, and oh, Eris. Why did you just say that?

[B]

Is there an heiress in the attic?

[A]

All right, so some updates. Following the massacre, Prime Minister John Howard spearheaded stricter gun control measures in Australia. And this led to the development of the national firearms agreement, or NFA, in 1996. The NFA makes it clear that owning a gun. Hey, think of this. Is a privilege, not a right. That is only allowed when public safety is guaranteed. Remember them? The public?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And their fucking safety. It banned people from owning fully automatic and semi automatic guns. No one fucking needs those. Created consistent rules around gun licensing and registration across the country and instituted a buyback program that resulted in 700,000 guns being surrendered to authorities and destroyed. And that was about a third of all the guns in Australia at the time. Just shows you that people wanted that change.

[B]

You know, people don't want to live in fear like this. People don't want to hear about children being murdered in grammar school. Like, people don't want this.

[A]

I don't wanna hear about, like the newfangled fucking bulletproof backpack for children.

[B]

Yeah, it's not their responsibility. All right, well, that's a. That's a lot of show right there. And the original title of this big show is.

[A]

Mm. Don't say it again.

[B]

30. Let the bodies hit the four. We'll never have to say it again.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

I mean, whatever. It's the past. What could we do in the future?

[A]

2016, come on. So long ago. So we would. Today in the future, we would name it maybe a pain free hour when you're talking to me in a soothing voice about my awful sciatica.

[B]

And then there's also when we were talking about we never know who's supposed to go first in every episode. And somebody said the charm of not knowing. That one. That's a really good one.

[A]

That explains so much about this podcast.

[B]

I feel like that is us in capital letters right there.

[A]

Charming and not knowing.

[B]

Ignorant. Charming.

[A]

Blissful.

[B]

Thank you guys so much for being here with us in this little review. We're glad that you like this. We're glad that you like this podcast.

[A]

We appreciate you and all of the things we like you back. Stay sexy and don't get murdered.

[B]

Goodbye.

[A]

Elvis. Do you want a cookie?