#543 - Baby Faced Killer - Menoken, North Dakota

Summary

Podcast Summary: Small Town Murder - Episode #543: "Baby Faced Killer - Menoken, North Dakota"

Hosts: James Pietragallo and Jimmy Whisman
Release Date: [Not Provided]

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Introduction

In Episode #543 of Small Town Murder, hosts James Pietragallo and Jimmy Whisman delve into the tragic and perplexing case of Ronald Neugebauer and his family's brutal murder in Menoken, North Dakota. This episode combines meticulous research, chilling storytelling, and the hosts' signature comedic flair to explore the complexities of small-town dynamics and the horrifying events that unfolded.

Background of Menoken, North Dakota

Menoken, a diminutive town in Burleigh County, North Dakota, boasts a population of approximately 72 residents. The town's history is marked by numerous name changes, reflecting its evolving identity:

• 1873: Founded as 17th Siding, a name quickly deemed the worst imaginable.
• Renamed to Blaine: In honor of James G. Blaine, a U.S. Senator from Maine.
• Later renamed Clark's Farm: After local farmer C.J. Clark, following community disapproval of the previous name.
• Final Renaming to Menoken: Derived from an Indigenous name in 1883, despite the Northern Pacific Railroad's preference for non-Indigenous names, leading to the station being named Burley.

Demographics and Community Life:

• Population: 72 residents, predominantly white (96.3%) with minimal racial diversity.
• Median Age: 47.8 years, indicating an older population with few young residents.
• Economic Indicators:
  • Median Household Income: $86,250 annually, significantly higher than the national average of 69%.
  • Unemployment Rate: Low at 4%, aligning with national figures.
  • Cost of Living: Slightly below the national average at 95.2.
• Community Features: Limited but includes a variety of restaurants, bars, and community events like the annual Apple Fest, which features local foods, live music, and family-friendly activities.

The Neugebauer Family

Ronald Neugebauer (Born 1948):
A 44-year-old farmer who has lived on the family homestead for three generations. Ronald serves as an elected member of the local school board, making him a well-known figure in the tightly-knit community.

Maureen Sherman (Ronald’s Wife):
Maureen, born to Ivan and Gladys Sherman, is four years Ronald’s junior. She works as a secretary at the University of Mary in Bismarck. The couple has three children:

• Michelle (16): A junior at Century High School and member of the prep choir.
• Michael David Neugebauer (15): A sophomore at Bismarck High School, responsible and involved in school activities like football.
• Ryan (12): A seventh grader at Monacn Grade School, known for his cheerful demeanor and love for sports.

Family Dynamics and Abuse

The Neugebauer household is portrayed as having underlying tensions:

• Ronald’s Temperament: Ronald is described as having a notorious temper, leading to frequent family conflicts. His inability to manage anger results in domestic strife, particularly over household chores and farm responsibilities.
• Maureen’s Struggles: Maureen attempts to gain independence by renting an apartment in 1991 but eventually reconciles with Ronald by Christmas of the same year, only for tensions to resurface shortly thereafter.

Allegations of Abuse:

• Michael’s Abuse: Michael is reported to have suffered physical abuse from Ronald and sexual abuse from his sister, Michelle. These traumatic experiences contribute to his deteriorating mental state.
• Impact on Children: Michael’s abuse profoundly affects his behavior, leading to isolation and eventual confrontation with his father.

The Murder Event

On January 26, 1992, at approximately 11:30 PM, Michael Neugebauer perpetrates a gruesome massacre within the Neugebauer family home:

• Victims:
  • Ronald Neugebauer: Shot three times (neck, back, thigh).
  • Maureen Neugebauer: Shot twice in the back while assisting Ronald.
  • Michelle Neugebauer: Two gunshot wounds in the back of the head while attempting to escape.
  • Ryan Neugebauer: Shot twice in the back while hiding in his room.
• Method: Michael used a .35 caliber Remington automatic rifle, allegedly part of Ronald’s extensive gun collection. Approximately 11 rounds were fired, with meticulous lethality indicative of premeditation.
• Aftermath: Michael fled the scene in his mother's 1981 Pontiac Grand Prix but was apprehended shortly thereafter in Sarasota, Florida.

Investigation and Capture

Initial Absence and Search:

• Ronald reports hearing gunshots and screams from the trailer, prompting concern when Michael does not return from school.
• Search Efforts: Maureen and her daughter Michelle, along with an 18-year-old friend, conduct a search and eventually locate Michael at Prairie Public Bingo. However, Michael's erratic behavior leads to his immediate restraint by police upon arrival.

Runaway and Manhunt:

• Michael, accompanied by his girlfriend Jackie, attempts to escape, leading to a nationwide manhunt.
• Location of Capture: Michael is found in a motel in Sarasota, Florida, where discrepancies in registration details and suspicious behavior (e.g., carrying cash) raise red flags. Upon police intervention, Michael is apprehended without violent resistance but remains a high-risk individual due to the nature of his crimes.

Legal Proceedings and Sentencing

Trial and Plea Deal:

• Age and Jurisdiction: At 15, Michael’s case sparked debate over whether he should be tried as an adult or within the juvenile system.
• Plea Bargain: Eventually, Michael pled guilty to avoid the possibility of multiple life sentences. The plea deal resulted in a life sentence with eligibility for parole after 30 years, a controversial outcome given the severity of his crimes.

Prosecutorial Perspective:

• Burden of Proof and Costs: Prosecutors justified the plea deal by highlighting the high costs of a potential trial and the uncertainty of achieving a guilty verdict, despite the strong evidence against Michael.
• Final Stance: Assistant State’s Attorney Patricia Burke expressed dissatisfaction with the plea arrangement, asserting that it undermined the gravity of the murders and the pursuit of full justice for the victims.

Psychological and Community Impact

Psychological Evaluation and Motives:

• Michael admitted to suffering physical and sexual abuse at the hands of his father and sister, though the prosecution contested the extent and impact of this abuse.
• Mental State: Experts debated whether Michael exhibited signs of PTSD or dissociative disorders, which could influence his culpability and sentencing.

Community Reaction:

• Grief and Shock: The murders shook the small community, leaving residents grappling with the loss of a family and the realization that such violence could occur even in the most tight-knit of settings.
• Memorial Services: Numerous community members attended memorials, underscoring the profound loss and the close-knit nature of Menoken.

Support and Rehabilitation Efforts:

• Jackie’s Role: Despite her involvement, Jackie was classified as a runaway and not charged, highlighting the complex interplay between victimization and culpability in the aftermath of the murders.
• Family Advocacy: Michael’s aunt advocated for his rehabilitation and sentence reduction, emphasizing his potential for change, though her efforts were ultimately unsuccessful.

Aftermath and Current Status

Life in Prison:

• Since his sentencing, Michael has made multiple attempts to escape, leading to his transfer to maximum-security facilities. His behavior in prison, including disciplinary issues and further escape attempts, has cemented his status as a high-risk inmate.
• Legal Challenges: Ongoing appeals and motions for sentence reduction continue to emerge, though with little success in altering his life sentence.

Legacy of the Case:

• The Neugebauer murders remain a haunting reminder of the fragility of familial bonds and the devastating impact of unchecked abuse and mental health issues within isolated communities.

Conclusion

Episode #543 of Small Town Murder offers a harrowing exploration of the Neugebauer family tragedy in Menoken, North Dakota. Through detailed narrative and incisive analysis, hosts James Pietragallo and Jimmy Whisman shed light on the intricate web of family dynamics, abuse, and the ensuing legal battles that define this dark chapter in small-town history. The episode serves as a poignant reminder of the profound consequences that can arise from unresolved familial conflicts and the challenges faced by legal systems in addressing juvenile offenders involved in severe crimes.

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Notable Quotes:

• James Pietragallo [07:31]: "Race in this town, 96.3% white and 3.8% two or more races. That's it. Okay."
• Jimmy Whisman [37:11]: "Maureen borrowed $2,500 from her parents not to buy a classic car, but instead to get an apartment in Bismarck."
• Patricia Burke [159:07]: "Any one of you $2,000 guys out there that would accept this money and see this guy, you just need better kids."
• Michael Neugebauer [148:35]: "I was abused physically and sexually for years, and I just never said anything about it to anybody. I know I did it."

Timestamp Highlight:

• [37:10]: Michael's girlfriend, Jackie, describes the abuse and her attempts to seek help, highlighting the depth of the family trauma that preceded the murders.
• [138:11]: Michael reflects on his actions: "I hate what I did and how it hurt so many people."

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Note: The above summary is crafted to reflect the key points and discussions from the provided transcript, omitting advertisements, intros, and outros as per the user's request.

Transcript

[James Pietragallo]

Hey, everybody. Just gonna take a quick break from the show to tell you about one of my favorite things in the world. Audible.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, audible.com or the app.

[James Pietragallo]

Oh, I give that app a workout. Let me tell you something. Listening on Audible helps your imagination soar. You can listen to anything. There's so many genres on there. There's more to imagine when you listen. And let me tell you something that makes my imagination soar in a terrible way. I've been listening to Secrets in the Cellar.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, boy.

[James Pietragallo]

Which is by John Glatt, and it's about Joseph Fritzl and locking his daughter in the basement for decades. And as you want to talk about imagination of who's the devil in a human skin, that's the guy. So check that out. Or a whole bunch of them. As an Audible member, you can choose one title a month to keep from the entire catalog, including the latest bestsellers and new releases. Audible's the best. Let's be honest here. New members can try audible free for 30 days. Visit audible.com smalltownmurder or text small town murder to 500. 500. That's audible.com small townmurder or text small town murder To 500. 500.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Now back to the show.

[James Pietragallo]

Where'd you get those shoes? Easy. They're from dsw. Because DSW has the exact right shoes for whatever you're into right now. You know, like the sneakers that make office hours feel like happy hour, the boots that turn grocery aisles into runways, and all the styles that show off the many sides of you from daydreamer to multitasker and everything in between. Because you do it all in really great shoes. Find a shoe for every you at your DSW store or dsw.comtmobile 5G Internet keeps getting better.

[Jimmy Wissman]

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[James Pietragallo]

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[Jimmy Wissman]

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[James Pietragallo]

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[Jimmy Wissman]

Home Internet plus while supplies last. Home Internet plus starts at 50 bucks.

[James Pietragallo]

A month with autopay and any voice line. Check availability@t mobile.com home Internet during congestion, customers on this plane may notice speeds lower than other customers and further reduction fusing greater than 1.2 terabytes per month due to data prioritization. After $20 bill credit plus $5 per month without auto pay debit, bank account required, regulatory fees included for qualifying accounts. $35 connection charge applies. This week in Monacan, North Dakota, a brutal and bloody scene awaits detectives when they find several People slaughtered in their own home. But the biggest surprise is who the killer turns out to be and the wild nationwide manhunt that follows. Welcome to Small Town Murder. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder. Yay. Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petra Gallo. I'm here with my co host.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'm Jimmy Wissman.

[James Pietragallo]

Thank you, folks so much for joining us today on another absolutely insane edition of Small Town Murder. And we're going to North Dakota today. We've all. We haven't done that many North Dakota episodes. So when you get some of these states, we haven't done a lot. Say Alaska, North Dakota, you know, they're bonkers because that's why we're doing it. So otherwise there's just not enough people to have enough murders. But we'll get to all of that. Head over to shut up and give me murder.com. get your tickets for live shows. Austin, Texas, you are up next. It's almost sold out, but there's still a few tickets left. Get in there right now. Phoenix is sold out. The next night, Boston's almost sold out. In New York, we released our last tickets. I don't know if they're sold or not yet. So they're pretty close. Pretty close. Get on in there and get those. Also get your tickets. You can still get them if it's before November 13th, you can still get them. For the virtual live show.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Here we go.

[James Pietragallo]

That we did on October 30th. It's a wild case, hilarious story, everything's crazy, and our costumes, I gotta say, are phenomenal. So it's so much fun. Get your tickets right now and get in there. You can watch it as many times as you want.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Pretend like it's happening live. You don't know the difference. Who cares? Get in there, shut up and give me murder.com patreon.com CrimeInSports is where you get all your bonus material. Anybody $5 a month or above. It's a cup of coffee. Literally, a mere cup of coffee. You can either have a cup of coffee that might not even be that good or hundreds of back episodes of bonus stuff you've never heard immediately upon subscription, new ones every other week. One crime in sports, one small town murder, and you get all of it. I think that's a better bargain for five bucks. That said, this week, what we have for crime and sports, we're gonna talk about pedestrianism, it's called. It was the most popular sport in the 1800s.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Pietragallo]

And filled with scandal and fighting and it's insane, dude. It's wild. We'll talk all about it. It was like crazy times in the 1800s. Can't wait then for small town murder. We're going to talk about the documentary the Devil on Trial, which is about the first person who's tried to use demonic possession as a defense in court. And also we'll talk about other exorcism type things and all that and kind of the history of that and how that goes. There that is. Patreon.com crime in sports. And you get a shout out at the end of the regular show. By the way, speaking of shows, you should listen to our other two shows as well. Crime in Sports and small. This is small time murder and your stupid opinions. There you go. Listen to that. So that said, disclaimer time.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Here we go.

[James Pietragallo]

Hey, everybody. It's a comedy show.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It is.

[James Pietragallo]

We're comedians now. That's not. That doesn't say that the cases aren't real. That's the sad part is everything in here is as real as possibly can be. We try to do better research than, you know, dateline and be funny. So we're trying. We're. It's tough to do, but we think we can pull it off here. We've been doing it for 500 something episodes, so we think we can do it. So if you think that true crime and comedy should never go together, I mean, you might not be for us, but listen, what we do here is we don't make fun of the victims or the victim's family.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Why, James?

[James Pietragallo]

Because we're assholes. But. But we're not scumbags. See how that goes? See, that's. It's real easy here. So if you think you're gonna. It's all right with you. You're ready for a crazy story? We got one for you.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Here we go.

[James Pietragallo]

I think it's time that we all sit back, clear the lungs, arms to the sky. Let's all shout. Shut up. Give me murder. Let's do this, everybody. Let's go on a trip, shall we?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Let's do it.

[James Pietragallo]

Let's do it. We are going to North Dakota.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Which most. It's not said a lot in this world. Come on, everybody. We're going to North Dakota. Don't hear that often. This is Monacan, North Dakota, and I. That's. I heard a farmer. I watched a guy talk about farming for like 12 minutes on a video before he finally said the word monochrome. Because I'm like. And he had Like a hardcore North Dakota accent.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Love him.

[James Pietragallo]

This guy had like corn stalks growing out of him. So he's. He was like a sentient corn stalk, basically. So I believe the man here, this is in central North Dakota, kind of right in the middle. It's about 20 minutes to Bismarck on the old I94. I believe it's about an hour and 50 minutes to Valley City, North Dakota. Our last episode, which. This is episode 543, right now that was episode 467. So it's been a while.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

And that was abnormal. Acts of brutality that one was called. And it was abnormal. I suppose when shit happens up here, it really goes down. Let's just say that this is in Burley County. B U R L E I G H County. Oh yeah, Burley. Didn't expect that, did you? That's why I spelled it. That hits you out of nowhere, doesn't it?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. The town namer loves a vanilla latte.

[James Pietragallo]

Loves it. This is area code 701. History of this town. Started out. Wasn't Monacan to begin with. No, no, no. Started out different with tons of different names. In 1873, it had its first name, which was 17th Siding.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What is it?

[James Pietragallo]

That's the name of the. That's what they named the town.

[Jimmy Wissman]

17Th.

[James Pietragallo]

17Th. And spelled out too. Not the letter, not the numbers. 17th siding, like on your house siding. Okay, okay. It was soon. It was soon renamed because they realized that was the worst name for any place that anyone's ever come up with. So they went, let's rename this. So they named Blaine B L A I N E for James G. Blaine, obviously for David Blaine. They knew it was going to happen.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And then he disappeared.

[James Pietragallo]

Now, James G. Blaine, a US Senator from Maine. That makes sense.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Let's name Blaine from Maine.

[James Pietragallo]

Let's name.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Get out of here.

[James Pietragallo]

Our town on the plains after Blaine from Maine. What do you say? What do you say?

[Jimmy Wissman]

It rains mostly on the flames.

[James Pietragallo]

On the flames, exactly. So then they were like, no, that's stupid. People are really rhyming and everyone's making fun of us. So the post office opened in 1880 and the town was renamed Clark's Farm after C.J. clark, who was a local farmer. So then finally after the guy from Maine who. Yeah, in the plains. Then the town finally renamed Monakin in 1883, which is an Indian name. So the Northern Pacific Railroad didn't like the name. They were like goddamn Indian names. So they changed the name of the station. Oh, so the station is in Menachem, but It's not called Monacan, it's called Burley. Burley station, after the county. So the siding on the station still carries the name to this day.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Hilarious.

[James Pietragallo]

Which is crazy. It is. Let's see here. It's in the. It's kind of southeast of Bismarck. This task, like I said, 20 minutes outside of Bismarck. That'll play a role in what we got going on here. Also, the Menachan Indian village site, known as the Menachan site here is an archaeological site and it is a. It's that of a fortified village occupied in 1300 in that era, around then, and is important to the prehistory of this whole area here. It's one of the only sites that predate sites that are more clearly associated with the Indians of the area. The Hidatsa, the Mandan and the Arikara. Arikara. Arikara. Yeah, that's how you say it. It was declared a national historic landmark in 1964. So there's that. Now, reviews of this town, how do they love it? No reviews of this town proper because when I tell you how many people are in it, you're going to go, oh, well, that makes sense. But these are for the county, so. Same shit. Here we go. Five stars. So on campus, if you're a student or just someone looking for a job, there's a pretty good chance you'll be able to get one.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Well, that's positive.

[James Pietragallo]

That's positive. We all want that. The job area complete in the city is pretty good. The job area complete in the city is pretty good. I don't know what that sounds.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I guess I mean compete, competition.

[James Pietragallo]

I have no idea what that means. I mean, if you just walk down the street, you'll see a sign saying that job is looking for someone to hire. Would you like job? We have job fill out application. We live in a state where the oil boom is happening. So if you're into the welding and other stuff like that, you'll get a job for sure. All the fracking and all that shit up there too. Four stars. Yes. I plan on living here for a while. It's a really good community to be in. That's it. Whole review. I plan on being here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

If you want a job, come get one.

[James Pietragallo]

Come get one. I like being here and then four stars. I like the four seasons in our area. Of course, summer could be longer and winter shorter. Well, you could also not live in North Dakota as part of that stem near Canada. Man, the word north is right there in there. You should have figured it out.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Like nobody Thinks North Dakota's warm?

[James Pietragallo]

No, I would hope not. If they do, they don't really know how maps and things work or climates. And then finally, three stars. There are a variety of restaurants going from a steakhouse to Mexican restaurants. Oh, they must be spectacular. The Mexican food in central North Dakota must be. Nah, just fucking wonderful.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That bison asada. What is it?

[James Pietragallo]

Oh, God. The Mexican food in New York sucks. So I am assuming it's going to be really bad there, you know what I mean? And to Chinese restaurants, which again, I'm sure. Yeah, I'm sure they spelled Chinese. C H I, N E A S, by the way, Chinese. I know of two bars that people like going to and they said they're pretty good. They have good music. A lot of people go so you can meet someone new and the drinks are good. You know a bar where there's people.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You get fucked up and then you can go get Shanae sued at night.

[James Pietragallo]

It's wild. Yeah, that's terrific. Yeah, you can get a fucking buffalo asada later on. It's going to be great. I wouldn't know if there really is kung pao buffalo. Yeah, that's big out there. You don't even know. Yeah, I wouldn't know if there really is favorites in restaurants. Every restaurant we went to, it's been packed. I just don't think there's a lot of stuff there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

People in this town. 72. Nah, not 772 or 172.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Not 7272. 72.

[James Pietragallo]

72 people. You could throw a rock from your house and hit more than 72 people with it. Like just around your house. Let's see. There is more females than males, but again, 72 people. The stats are amazing. Skewed. The median age here is 47.8. Judging by the math of the age groups, there is one 18 to 20 year old person in this town, one sad, lonely, bored 19 year old sitting there going, God damn it, this is so boring. Fuck. Jesus. Family here, 57% married, very low divorce rate. It's 6.6%, which is like crazy, insanely low.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No kidding.

[James Pietragallo]

But a lot of this is farming. So it's like we can't get a divorce because we have crops to take in. So it doesn't matter if we don't like each other.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. Who's gonna feed the hogs?

[James Pietragallo]

You do the sorghum and I'll do the fucking corn. How about that? We're gonna separate that way. Yeah, that's. That's a separation in North Dakota, by the way. Legal separation. It's just you do different farm work. It's about only 4.3 people. 4.3% of people are single with children. 4.3%. Yeah. So this is.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's less than 4.3 people.

[James Pietragallo]

This is a different deal, man. Race in this town, 96.3% white and 3.8% two or more races. That's it. Okay.

[Jimmy Wissman]

0.0%.

[James Pietragallo]

Everything else, wild. Religion. A lot of that though. 66.1% religious, which is well above the national average. And surprisingly the most of them here are Catholic actually, which is.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Is that right?

[James Pietragallo]

Catholics and Lutherans like really fighting it out for the top spot. Fascinating that. Yep. Unemployment rate is low 4%, which is about the same as the rest of the country at this point. Median household income here is high though. Rest of the country it's about 69%. Here it is 86,250 a year. So much better. They're doing great. Cost of living here, 100 is regular average. Here it is 95.2. Housing is a 71 out of 100.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So that's terrific too.

[James Pietragallo]

Not bad. So if we've convinced you. Damn it. Yeah, you've had it with action and good Mexican food and things of that nature.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You gotta try the chenise of North.

[James Pietragallo]

Dakota, the Chinese food that has like chicken and pork in it. And you wanted to go to more experimental fucking free range plains animals. We have for you the Minakin North Dakota real estate report. The average two bedroom rental here, which I don't know if that exists in Manokin, honestly, not going to be an apartment building. There'd be more than 72 people in it. It'd be right there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's a two bedroom single standalone home.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, it's a $910 for that. Now here there's only one house that's in Monacan proper, but there's a couple like in the.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Outstanding.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. Here is a four bedroom, two bath. This is not there. It's technically Bismarck where this is, but it's kind of out by itself. 2496 square foot house built in 1918. It's a nice little house. The outside looks a little dingy. Like it might could use like a fresh up on the paint maybe or something like that. But the inside looks way nicer than the outside. They put all their money keeping the inside nice. And that's. That's good though. It's nice.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I like an old car that's been. The interior has been fixed up but the Outside looks like shit. So I'm into this.

[James Pietragallo]

That's. That's the weirdest thing ever, by the way. I've never seen that before.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really.

[James Pietragallo]

Ever. I've seen houses like that, but cars, people start with the body usually and then the last thing they do is I'll put these new seats in.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Because otherwise it's like a thing people do now where they like.

[James Pietragallo]

Never heard of that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Soup up the inside, put a new motor in it.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, I have a classic car. That's the last thing I would deal with. My interior is all original. As a matter of fact, it's like.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They'Re putting all new shit in these things and then leaving the outside a rust.

[James Pietragallo]

Okay. That's a waste of money.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's a fascinating choice that's making it for you. Not everyone else is what it is.

[James Pietragallo]

Why not both? When I walk up to my car and it's, you know, not a shitty rust bucket. I feel good about it at that point, you know, this house. $239,000 for this house. Okay. This is the only one in Monacan coming up here. Four bedroom, four bath, T bowl for each and every B hole.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Holy shit.

[James Pietragallo]

2400 square feet on 1.62 acres. It is just an average house. You can. It's a little bigger than your average house, but nothing special here. There's an above ground pool that looks like it's about to collapse. There's. That doesn't look wonderful. 400. It's on 1.62 acres. $495,000 for that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That is insane.

[James Pietragallo]

Pricey. Yeah, yeah. And then here's a six bedroom, six bath, 8,600 square feet. Huge monster house. 2.15 acres, built in 1953. Enormous circular driveway. It is. They say it's built. It was built by the renowned Harold Schaefer. Oh, I love his work.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Schaefer and Schaefer.

[James Pietragallo]

Oh, we all know. I like his beer. I like his houses. They're all great. The property combines historical charm with classic luxury, making it a true masterpiece. The bar has like old carved really cool wood in it. It's really nice. $2.6 million though little pricey.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I mean, it's 8,000 square feet.

[James Pietragallo]

It's 8,000 square feet. But you're also in North Dakota, so, you know what I mean.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It shouldn't be anything over a million.

[James Pietragallo]

Nope, Absolutely not. You would move there unless you really want to farm. You'd move there because it's cheap. Yeah, I would imagine.

[Jimmy Wissman]

$2 million is not cheap.

[James Pietragallo]

That's not cheap. No things to do here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Uh huh.

[James Pietragallo]

The apple fest. Woohoo. We got an apple fest going on here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Seems to be popular.

[James Pietragallo]

They got a bake sale, tours of the historic Buckstop Junction. Well then, yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

We've all wanted to go to Buckstop Junction our whole lives.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Bucks Stop Junction. A silent auction. Food galore. Fermented orchard beer. Slash wine gardens. Fermented orchard beer. What the fuck is that? Apple beer. Fermented apple cider.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Fucking hard cider.

[James Pietragallo]

I think that's like a hard cider. Hay rides.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, sure.

[James Pietragallo]

I don't know why that's fun, but people seem to like hayrides.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'm not even allergic to hay and it fucks me up. It's weird.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. I just, I'm not a. I don't. A barn. I don't want to live. I don't want to be hanging out around hay very often. Usually.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's a fascinating choice.

[James Pietragallo]

Some people like, hey, why not? I guess. And then live music. Oh baby.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh here we go. In a town of 78 people, we're.

[James Pietragallo]

Gonna have live music or how many?

[Jimmy Wissman]

72.

[James Pietragallo]

72 people. Someone just died. 71. What are we going to do? RIP fucking Fred. He's gone. So this music starts at 10am by the way.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Of course it does.

[James Pietragallo]

When all the bands are at their best. At 10am when musicians do their best.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Work, there's a lot of TV and made.

[James Pietragallo]

Wow. 10:00am Backstage pass will be there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's the band.

[James Pietragallo]

That's the band. Then at 11:15, double barrel will be there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Hell yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Playing a 35 minute set from 12 to 1. To be determined or. No, it's not. It's TDB. It's not even to be determined. So it might be a band called TDB.

[Jimmy Wissman]

TDB? TDB to Determined B2.

[James Pietragallo]

Determined B. Yes. Okay.

[Jimmy Wissman]

All right. I don't know.

[James Pietragallo]

One to 230, that 60s band.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Which one? We don't know. Doesn't matter.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They're in demand.

[James Pietragallo]

230. Double barrel will be back on stage for another half hour. They split their set into two, which is always quality. And then from three to five. This is, this is, you know, two hours now. The biggest set of the day.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Church of Cash with Cat Perkins. Church of Cash with Cat Perkins will be there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Terrific. Great. Cat Perkins will be there. Thank fuck for that. I needed that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I imagine that's going to be some funk. Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Beats the shit out of me. Then they have. At the church, they have a whole different Entertainment lineup. They have brassy entertainment from 10 to 12, I assume. Brass instruments. Sure. Peyton Lilly will be there at 12:15 and then the Legacy Jazz Choirs will be there. There's also Kitty Yoko will be performing like a child.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yoko Ono.

[James Pietragallo]

Kitty Yoko. Kitty Ko is basically what it. What it is. And it's Chris Kitko is the guy who does that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sure.

[James Pietragallo]

Children's music and Entertainment. Then at 2:00 at the hotel, Ms. Sparkles will be there. No, Ms. Sparkle. We go. All right, that sounds good. No, Ms. Sparkles does children's story time and book reading. So not what we're looking for. There's also a Mac and Cheese fest. If you can't stand that many apples, that's fantastic.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Is there Miss Sparkles that'll sit on my lap while I eat Mac and cheese?

[James Pietragallo]

I mean, she'll tell you a children's story. She's going to read you Little Miss Muffet while she does it. But I'd like to see your tuffet, darling.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Now. Mac and Cheese Fest. The vendors brought the big cheese is what it says. The big cheese. New and improved vendors for Mac and Cheese Fest presented by Dakota Community bank and Trust. None of that shit Mac and cheese we had last year.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wells Fargo.

[James Pietragallo]

The best way to try them all is to purchase the VIP Mac Daddy ticket. Mac Daddy with the most Mac and cheese. Oh my God. It says. Please be aware that our cheese paradise may not be a haven for the gluten free or lactose intolerant. Keep your eyes peeled on the official menu for any vendors offering gluten free or dairy free options. Just don't eat Mac and cheese if you're gluten and dairy free. All it is is a pile of gluten and dairy. Just pick something else.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's the worst two things to eat if you have those allergies.

[James Pietragallo]

The absolute worst thing you could fucking get. They also said they'll have dishes including meaty delights such as bacon, brisket and more. Oh, so you're gonna have that here. Pork belly Gouda Mac someone is offering which is gouda and cheddar Mac with candied pork belly, toasted sesame and fresh chives. That's good. There's gonna be a peep the Golden Noodle for the best Mac and cheese and a pizza. A people's choice award for the Mac and cheese. Also for, you know, someone who got screwed out of the Golden Noodle. Obviously gotta have the Golden Noodle. And selected as the Lil Mac judges. Golden Noodle is one utterly Amazing treats and eats. They're advertising that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's the fucking stupidest sentence you've ever said.

[James Pietragallo]

Dude. There's all puns. It's just all Mac and cheese puns, cow puns, deep fried cheese curd, a mini corn dog and Mac and cheese bite cheese udder 2.0. They call that Hensley's Tasty truck. They have also which will have Flamin Hot Piggy Mac.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, is that.

[James Pietragallo]

Oh no, you know what that is? White cheddar Mac and cheese, which I love, by the way. I love a white cheddar Mac and cheese with caramelized onions, braised pork, Flamin Hot Cheetos dust. Yeah. Ruin it with garbage. Please take your nice meal you prepared.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Put some flammable dust on top.

[James Pietragallo]

Put some industrial garbage on it. Thanks.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Throw the fucking insulation from an attic on there.

[James Pietragallo]

And then put roasted poblano lime crema on top. All this fancy ingredients to put flamin hot Cheeto dust on it. God damn it. We're not a serious people. And also getting sauced barbecue and catering. The bio for this is just a guy who loves to barbecue and wanted to share with others. Dustin loves working out of the food truck and his menu item is Not Yo Mama's Mac and Cheese. Not Yo Mama's.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, we're getting. We're getting sauced.

[James Pietragallo]

Getting sauced. A blend of six different cheeses, seasonings and the perfect noodles and smoky bacon to finish it off. You will know about this Mac and cheese and definitely you'll know it definitely did not come from a box. I'm sure not generally doesn't come with Flamin Hot Cheeto dust on it either. So crime rate in this town, what we're interested in here, property crime, less than one third the national average.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So that's terrific.

[James Pietragallo]

Very low. And then violent crime, murder, rape, robbery, and of course assault. The Mount Rushmore of crime is about 1/1 of the national average. So.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yep, that's.

[James Pietragallo]

But I mean there it's farms. You'd have to walk all the way to someone else's farm to commit a crime. It's a lot.

[Jimmy Wissman]

But the fact that they're not doing it is terrific. It's 72 really kind folks. Well, not even 72 because there's some people that there's going to say criminals.

[James Pietragallo]

Some people aren't so kind. That said, let's talk about some murder that happened in this town. I can tell you about someone who's not very kind at least.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

So let's start out with Ronald Neugebauer. And that is how it said I found out name N E U G E B A U R E R. So that's a lot. When I saw that I said, oh boy. Is that Nuge Bauer? What? Nuger Bauer is how you say it now. We'll talk about Ronald first of all here and we will start out with. He's born in about what, 1948 here. So he is 44 years old come 1992 when we're going to talk about the family in 91. 92 here. So he was born and raised on the farm he lives in as an adult.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Hell yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Three generations were brought up on this farm.

[Jimmy Wissman]

My word.

[James Pietragallo]

So I mean. And basically when someone grows up, they just put a trailer somewhere on the farm on the property. Yeah. So there's multiple trailers of people that live and then the. His parents live in the house and then when they die, the kid moves into the house and you know, we start the cycle. New trailer time, baby.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

So Ron grows up here. He works the land around the buildings that his family and other families in the area owned. He's a farmer and he also serves on the local school board as well. An elected member of the local school board as well.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Nice.

[James Pietragallo]

So he's known in town. People know, I mean if you've been here for three generations and there's 72 people, you're aware, you're. Everyone knows you, you know what I mean? You've, you've met everybody, you've met their parents. It's crazy. So he meets a young lady here at some point because she grows up just around him in the farm, like on the farm area. She is. Maureen Sherman is who he meets. She's about four years younger than he is, but she's the daughter of Ivan and Gladys Sherman and they live on a farm right up the street. So this is all a couple of local farm kids getting together. She becomes Maureen Neugebauer, which is you have to really love someone. Sherman is very easy, you know, very, very easy. Here, I'll take that name. I'll take it. Go ahead. So she is. Works as a secretary at the University of Mary in Bismarck.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Pietragallo]

Which I'd never heard of that college, but sure, it's a small college. So that's. They have a family here. They've been having kids. They have a 16 year old daughter. So they started having kids in the 70s, you know, 76. She would have been born in now in 1991. 92. Michelle is her name. The 16 year old the oldest kid, she's a junior at Century High School where she's a member of the prep choir.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sure.

[James Pietragallo]

So there you go. She's doing great. Then they have another. They have a son who was born the next year. They really piled them up. His name is Michael, middle name David. Michael is 15 years old. He's a sophomore at Bismarck High School. I don't know why they go to different high schools, but they do. And then they have Ryan, who's three years younger than Michael. He is 12 years old in 91, 92. And he's a seventh grader at Monacan grade school. So that's the family. Three kids. Family.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Adorable family. Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

They live. The Nouga Bowers. They live on the family homestead. They live. They're like the kids. The. You know, Ronald's parents live right next door, you know, on the property. They. The family lives in a trailer, though. On the property. Sure.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

So you got five people in a trailer, which is.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's not easy.

[James Pietragallo]

Tough going right there. But it's like a big. It's not just like a regular trailer. It looks like there's parts stuck onto it or something.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Like they put addition wide and customized.

[James Pietragallo]

Like there's additions put on it, which I've never seen before, additions on a trailer. But apparently it looks like maybe exhibit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Got a hold of it. And there's a fish tank and popcorn.

[James Pietragallo]

Machine and fucking some 15's in there somewhere pumping the base out.

[Jimmy Wissman]

15'S underneath the toilet.

[James Pietragallo]

Yo, Matt. Put 15's behind your vanity mirror, son. Wake your ass up in the morning, you know what I'm saying? Thanks, exhibit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Machine.

[James Pietragallo]

Appreciate that. You remember how you had a bathtub? Shit's a fish tank now. What's up? Oh, thanks, exhibit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You know, you got aspirations of being a dog groomer. I put a dog grooming station right in your mom's room.

[James Pietragallo]

I mean, we have. We talked about grooming dogs, but we didn't. Like. We don't have a business plan. Well, y'all gonna groom now. You know what I'm saying? It's set up.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Make it worth it, dog.

[James Pietragallo]

Okay. Thanks, exhibit. Hey, everybody, just gonna take a quick break from the show to tell you a little bit more about the most safe sponsor there is. SimpliSafe.

[Jimmy Wissman]

SimpliSafe.com S I M P LisaFe.com.

[James Pietragallo]

That is correct. Jimmy. Let's get these people safe. If you've ever worried about the safety of your home and family, there's no better time to act right now. You can get. This is amazing. 60% off a new Simplisafe security system. It's their best deal of the year. Simplisafe is the home security that we trust. We've been using it for years. Seven, eight years now. I think we've been using almost eight years. And I love. We love Simplisafe. It's so easy to install. Honestly, it's the best. And the price of it, it's fantastic. You need it. Trust us here. Simplisafe is offering our listeners experience exclusive early access to their Black Friday sale this week only you can get 60% off any new system with a select professional monitoring plan. This is their best offer of the year. Head to SimpliSafe.com Small that's SimpliSafe.com Small S I M P LisaFe.com Small there's no safe like Simplisafe.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Now back to the show.

[James Pietragallo]

All right everybody. Today we're talking about Dr. Squatch. Now you might know this brand from their natural cold processed bars soaps which are all great. They're amazing. If you haven't done it, check those out. But now they've got the same real soap formula available in body wash form. And it is good. I'm telling you right now. They're made with natural ingredients derived from coconuts and plants to provide all day skin hydration. Available in four unique and manly scents. Coconut Castaway, Pine Tar, Wood Barrel Bourbon and Fresh Falls. Dermatologists tested and clinically proven to provide 24 hour moisturization so you can still smell tough while taking care of your. Maybe your soft side, you know what I mean? Dr. Squatch products are made for men. But we're telling you, these soaps, no matter what and in what form are loved by all. So you really can't go wrong here, everybody. My favorite by the way is the Fresh Falls. I tried that and I dig it. So what are you waiting for? Go pick one up at your favorite store [e-mail] today. Dr. Squatch Body Wash for men who prefer natural. Thanks for doing all of this now. Thanks.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I mean, you went out of your way. It feels like.

[James Pietragallo]

Thanks for. Yo. Your trailer wasn't. It wasn't mobile. Now this shit's mobile. I put. I put twenties on that motherfucker. You took our. Okay. Well now it's. Now it looks like a trailer. Thanks.

[Jimmy Wissman]

We welded a cab and put a V10 in this motherfucker.

[James Pietragallo]

Thanks. Exhibit some.

[Jimmy Wissman]

There's a gumball machine in the oven.

[James Pietragallo]

Messed my whole house up. Right? Ain't that that's right. You never thought of that shit, did you?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Careful when you eat that shit up.

[James Pietragallo]

Exhibit thinks of that shit, son.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Gumball machine.

[James Pietragallo]

So the neighbors here, Jay Opdal and Ronald works his land by the way as a farmer here. Jay said they're very nice people. The nicest neighbors you could have.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sure.

[James Pietragallo]

Said Ryan, the 12 year old is the nicest kid I've ever known. Happy personality, always happy. Loves baseball and basketball. The whole family went scuba diving down south last year.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Down what's down? South. South.

[James Pietragallo]

South Dakota, Kansas. Went on down to Kansas for their fame. Famous fucking scuba diving scene they have down there in Nebraska. Everybody knows about that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

So his wife, now this is the guy's wife said but they were. They're very private this family. Too private keep to themselves. And the guy said yeah but he said once you get to know them there's not anything they wouldn't do for you. They're great kids. They're great people and the kids are nice. Everybody's good. So they said. Everybody said Michael's a good kid. The middle child, the 15 year old they said that his one grandmother said he helped his family bring in the crops and even worked another job at a vegetable truck on vegetable truck farm south of Manaken. His grandma, this is his. Maureen's mother said he's always been a good kid. We used to set down. We used to set down when his parents would take a vacation and talk about anything not sit down. Set down.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

He was just a little man. I never had to call him to go to school. He got up and took care of the cattle, ate breakfast and went to school. He was very responsible. Just a super kid. So Michael, great kid. Wow, that's a long day before you even get to school man. Got up and took care of the cattle. That's. I'm done for the day.

[Jimmy Wissman]

After you sat down and talked to grandma for a bit.

[James Pietragallo]

I'm not going to do math after that. I've already done some work. Now there are some ripples of possible abuse in this family. Ronald apparently has a super bad temper.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Iron fist.

[James Pietragallo]

Well a temper because he'll even have. Maureen will take off for a while and get her own apartment here in 1991. Yeah, like his temper is a lot. Michael had a thin white scar on his hand and he was saying that the skin was split open between two of his fingers. He said he and his siblings were hiding under the table because their father was angry that the dishes hadn't been done one time and his father threw a Glass on the floor and it shattered and one of the pieces went into his hand because the gay were hiding under the table which turned out to be not a good place to hide. So yeah, generally Michael will have a girlfriend that he tells a lot of this abuse to. And even she said that Michael's father even scared her and threatened her before and shit. And did more than that, as we'll talk about. She said the father abused Michael Offen Ronald did. Threatened her, the girlfriend with a hammer. Threatened a 16 year old, threatened a sophomore with a hammer, which is crazy. Then at one point, and she said it was on purpose too, Ronald ran her dog over, killed it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What?

[James Pietragallo]

Fucking ran it down in the street apparently on purpose, killed it, then made Michael clean it up.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's fucked up.

[James Pietragallo]

That's kind of fucked up. Now this girlfriend says she even tried to report this to the authorities that Michael was being abused, her boyfriend was being abused by his father. But she said that no one would help ever. Yeah, she said she went out of her way to report the abuse but nothing happened and the father found out and then threatened her more. So she was like, well, I'm done with that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What's he so mad about?

[James Pietragallo]

A lot. She said at one point his dad was standing there with a hammer saying I will kill you if you have anything to do with my family. And it. So that's crazy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

To a child, to a 16 year old girl is a little odd just.

[Jimmy Wissman]

For being involved with the family.

[James Pietragallo]

Yes. Because she, they didn't like her. So rather than, you know, tell your son to stay away from her. You threaten a girl with a hammer. He threatened somebody's daughter with a hammer.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That certainly will solve the problem.

[James Pietragallo]

Wow. Nope, didn't do anything actually because teenage kids, you could threaten them with a hammer, they don't care. They're still going to do what they're going to do. You have to convince them that they don't want to do that or else they're going to do it. So yeah, she said he actually ran my dog over and made Mike clean it up. This was after the hammer incident. So Jackie convinced, that's his girlfriend's name by the way, Jackie, we'll talk about her in a minute here. She convinced Michael to get help at a Bismarck domestic abuse shelter.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Pietragallo]

She said your dad is threatening you with like this is crazy, you gotta get help. So they ended up calling Ronald up when he was there. Oh, they called Ronald up I guess to say, you know, what's up? And they basically said this is From Jackie. She said, quote, they called his dad and said, we understand you're abusing your son. Which made it worse. And then it was a domino effect. Spark plugs being taken out, wheels off of his car. Because then when he got home, Michael somehow, by the way, in North Dakota there's different laws because of the farm thing. I think you can get a driver's license at a younger age. A lot of farm states have that. Yeah, you don't need to be 16. Some of them you could be 14. Or I think it's Idaho, you can be 14 if you. It's like a farm license in Arizona. You can get a younger license if you are a farm worker.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I know that it's not a driver's license, it's a farm.

[James Pietragallo]

But you can drive. Yeah, you can still drive. They just give you one earlier because you have to do it for farm shit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow. So prove it.

[James Pietragallo]

I don't know. Apparently you've got to, right, show up at least a bale of hay under your arm. Right. Like something dirty.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Knees and elbows.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. Dragging a bison behind you go, I'm gonna sell this to the Chinese restaurant there. But I gotta get my license first.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I gotta drive to them.

[James Pietragallo]

You gotta drive there. So he had a 72 Monte Carlo, which is a fucking pretty dope ass ride. And I guess they started taking the car away and including taking the spark plugs out, taking the wheels off of it. So she said all the. All trying to get him help did was cause more abuse, which wasn't great. Now, Michael, otherwise pretty normal kid. Everybody says here he's an outdoor enthusiast, as I think everyone in this area was, especially pre Internet.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

It's either that or stare at the wall. They probably had. You know, it's a farm in the middle of nowhere. He went hunting a lot with his friend from school, kid named Don Peterson. People said it was not unusual to see Michael carrying a rifle around, going down Apple Creek and, you know, going to trap and hunt and all that kind of shit, which is extremely normal for a rural area like this. He did play football in school too, in ninth grade. Not this year, but the year before ninth grade at Simmel Junior High School in Bismarck. He played. And a family acquaintance said that she'd heard from, I believe, Maureen, that the family, the Neoga Bauers, were having a hard time, quote, with the boy, meaning Michael, not Ryan, because he'd gotten into the wrong crowd at school is the way they described it. And they describe his girlfriend as kind of the wrong crowd. The wrong crowd which is his girlfriend is Jackie Hibe. H I E B Hybe it's probably not heeb I would think we'll go with Hybe.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, that's no good.

[James Pietragallo]

I got two options here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

The alternative sucks.

[James Pietragallo]

Hybe. Jackie Hybe Thought about this long and hard, all night. Jackie Hybe. 16 years old. She is. She's a junior, so year older than him Now. Michael apparently wanted to sell his 72 Monte Carlo. And that was a gift he got when he got his driver's license. And that was a part of it too. He goes, fine, if you're not gonna let me have it, let me sell it. And they wouldn't let him sell it. So there's all of that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That car's only 20 years old.

[James Pietragallo]

Not even. This was like 91. This was happening.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, that's like giving your kid a 90 or a 2,400.

[James Pietragallo]

Right now a 2005 Corolla is what you gave your kid. Like here's your pieces.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, that's amazing because.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, in the early, early 90s, those classic cars were considered old cars at that point. They weren't quite classic cars yet. You know what I mean? They were still. There were some that were me old Chevelles and the Cudas and shit like that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That was. I mean that was muscle cars.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. But like I was Dazed and Confused. The movie, I was reading about that and Richard Linklater, the director was saying how all the cars they used in that movie and they're all hot shit, early 70s muscle cars, they have the fucking. The Judge there, the couple badass cars, they were all for sale to be bought.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So when they, when they got them.

[James Pietragallo]

The Judge model there, the purple one, $6,000. He bought that for six in 1993 when they filmed the movie. $6,000. So that car was worth nothing. And that thing was in mint fucking condition too. And it was 6,000 fucking dollars back then. Whereas now that's a $200,000 car.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Well, yeah, you can probably. Yeah, I mean you can.

[James Pietragallo]

150 definitely. Yeah, easy buck 50 for that thing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, it's crazy.

[James Pietragallo]

That's crazy. I don't get into the expensive classic cars. No, no, I got Mike.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I mean there was a Camaro and a. That Chevelle that was all primer. Do you probably get that for two grand today?

[James Pietragallo]

Probably not though. That's the thing. They're all.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No, that's still a fifteen thousand dollar car. It's crazy at least. And if It's a real SS you're looking at 30 grand.

[James Pietragallo]

Oh, it's at least.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Unbelievable.

[James Pietragallo]

At the very least. So by Nate, late or Not Nate, late 1991. Family is between all this shit with Michael. There's also problems with Maureen and Ronald as well. Ronald seems to be a big source of issue here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Maureen borrowed $2,500 from her parents not to buy a classic car, but instead to get an apartment in Bismarck. In late 91, she had gone and rented an apartment closer to her job. And the rumor and everybody said was she moved out because of Ronald's temper. That was the thing that made her move out. Now she spent about half the money. She ended up moving back into the home at some point. So there's a reconciliation. She spent about half the money getting an apartment and all that kind of thing and kept the rest of it on her person or in cash. So she didn't have to declare. She didn't want to put it in the bank because she didn't want to declare it as income, which she could have. Just anything under 10,000 is a gift, so she could have just done that. I think that was the same thing back then.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It was probably more.

[James Pietragallo]

Who knows? I think it's been the same for decades, the 10,000 thing, I'm pretty sure. So she had this. And apparently money was very tight for them. Her mother, Maureen's mother, said the family didn't have much money, so this was a lot of money to them to have that in there. Sure. So the move was not only so Maureen could be closer to her job at the University of Mary, and she took Michelle with her, the daughter, so she could attend Century High School. So that's why they went to different schools, the son and the daughter, because they lived in different places.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Two different places.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. And the whole family, though, was back living together, though, by Christmas of 1991. That was fast.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

So late 91, this all happened within a couple months. By Christmas, everybody's reunited, which sounds sweet. That sounds great.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. It's certainly family time.

[James Pietragallo]

So that's wonderful. Yeah, that's nice. And that's what you'd want if your family's getting falling apart. You'd want, hey, we're all back together again by Christmas. I'll be home for Christmas. Well, that shit, you can hear it playing. It's fucking enough already. So good for them now by January, shit's a disaster again already Already, Yeah. Within a month, things are not going well again. And it's a lot that. It's a lot to do with Ronald and Michael fighting.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. There's only so much peace the newborn king can bring, James.

[James Pietragallo]

That's the only thing. Yeah, it's very true. You know what I mean? You can sing Ava Marie all you want, but it's not gonna. It's not gonna help if Santa Claus isn't coming to town. You know what I mean?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sometimes Santa Claus is drunk and pissed.

[James Pietragallo]

Sometimes he's pissed and he runs over your grandma. You never know with a reindeer. So Michael, in mid January, 92 attempts to run away. He and Jackie try to run away together.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, shit.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Where do they go?

[James Pietragallo]

Not far. That's the problem. They had like, fucking, I think we're alone now. And a loop in their head, yeah, we're gonna do this. We're gonna really do it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

There we go.

[James Pietragallo]

So they probably just had to watch Romeo and Juliet in English class. And they were like. They got ideas from it. They didn't see it as a cautionary tale. That's like 10th grade. They might wake. You watch that shit, right?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Do you watch the end of that? I didn't watch the end of that. That's all right. Let's go.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. Fuck. I don't know. I didn't. I was absent that day. They broke it up over three days of class. I don't know. Didn't see the last part.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I just heard Forbidden Love Run away together. Let's do it.

[James Pietragallo]

It looked like things were gonna turn out well for them. Most movies like this, I feel like they're gonna end up together. You know what I mean?

[Jimmy Wissman]

I lot of kissing.

[James Pietragallo]

It's gonna have a happy ending. So apparently, the Neugebauer family was alerted to this fact when Michael didn't come home one night and was absent from school the next day.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That'll do it.

[James Pietragallo]

Good sign. So Maureen asked her daughter, you know, Michael's older sister, and her friend, an 18 year old or a senior in school, a boy last name of Wilson, to help find him. Will you go out and find your brother? Basically so with a bunch of. It's not hard in a town of 72 people to find someone. You just ask a few people, you know.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Have you ever seen him? Yeah, he's over there.

[James Pietragallo]

They literally asked around, figured out where he was. He and Jackie were at Prairie Public Bingo. He was playing what, 15 year old runs away to play bingo? First of all, that's the weirdest shit I've. Ever.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sounds genius to me.

[James Pietragallo]

Then, no, because they found him.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

It's not like he could hide there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Just because somebody saw Him. But if they said, where do you think he is? The last thing they're going to say is check. Bingo.

[James Pietragallo]

I think there's only like five things to check, though. So it's like they get to bingo eventually. You got to get the fuck out of here if you're going to run away.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He's probably just. Laughs.

[James Pietragallo]

He's sitting there. They won't notice me among all of the 90 year olds. Shit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He's got a big fat marker in his hand.

[James Pietragallo]

So he tried to take off from them, but this Wilson guy grabbed him and tackled him and held him against the pavement until police arrived.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, my God.

[James Pietragallo]

Like he's a fucking criminal.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Which is crazy. Now, they said that they thought maybe he was headed. They were headed south for Texas where Jackie's father lived. That's all they could think maybe in. That's. That's the only possibility. So they try to straighten out their son. They transfer him to a. Like a very different school here. It's the one where his sister goes to Century. But they said he threw a fit, didn't want to be there. So his parents relented and let him go back to Bismarck High School. And things get better for about a week.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. Punches him again.

[James Pietragallo]

Well, the problem is. No, they get better because Michael just locks himself in his bedroom for a while and won't talk to anybody. When they drag his ass home. He just won't. He won't come out of his room. He just locks himself in his room. He was grounded from using his car here and all of that. And they said the car was a big deal. The grandmother said he had that car too early. That's one thing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Too early.

[James Pietragallo]

They got it. They gave him too nice a car too early. It's too much too soon. He couldn't handle it. You know what I mean?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Things got a 400 in it.

[James Pietragallo]

Jeez.

[Jimmy Wissman]

One of those. It's got to be like. It's got. Is it the.

[James Pietragallo]

Who knows? I don't know what the fuck they would put. Monte Carlo.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It might be the same motor that goes in the Pontiac. Probably Firebird, the 400.

[James Pietragallo]

Same fucking body, basically, with different lights.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's got to be a Camaro motor.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. You never know who the gm. It's all the same shit. They just. It was just put in different places. But now we're going to call it this, okay? It's the same car. What are you talking about? So Gladys Sherman, who is grandma to the kids and Maureen's mom, she characterized Michael as a good kid. He helped bring in the crops like we said. She said he was always good. We used to sit down and talk and all that kind of thing. And she just said he's just such a nice kid. I don't understand what all the troubles about here. So around January 20th or so 22nd ish, somewhere around there, Michael spends time with a police youth counselor at the request of his father. His father was attempting to control his son's behavior. So he was basically sending him to talk to people who might be able to crack through the shell of Michael is what they were trying to do. So talks to him doesn't seem to help much though as we all talk about here. So then Sunday, January 26, 1992 comes up here. Michael goes over to his dad's parents house who live in the, in the main farmhouse there and his grandmother is home and goes, I think his grandfather's dead, so it's just the grandmother's home at this point. And this is like I said, Sunday night, January 26th or Sunday afternoon, he takes a rifle and some ammunition from her attic. Oh, he told her he's gonna go shoot some birds. So that's normal for guns I guess it's normal. She doesn't even know but it's normal for him to shoot birds and shoot, hunt and stuff like that. So now the next morning, Monday morning, there's some. Michael goes over to his parents, to the grandparents house here. Hilda Neugebauer, by the way, this is grandma.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Hilda Neugebauer.

[James Pietragallo]

Hilda Neugebauer. Hot. A lot of porn stars calling themselves Hilda Neugebauer just makes you fuck. Doesn't it? Just stiffen you right up, Jimmy? Rock hard right now, Tumescent.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Hilda.

[James Pietragallo]

Hilda Neugebauer. So he went to this house next door in the morning and got another gun, a 35 caliber Remington automatic rifle she describes as belonging to Michael's great grandfather.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So like that's an old rifle?

[James Pietragallo]

Old rifle, yeah. And he didn't say anything, he just came in, grabbed the rifle and then left. She saw him get in the family car, which is an 81 Pontiac and fucking take off. So that's what she saw. Now where does he go? Well, he went to school. He went to Bismarck High School. Not to go to school though. No, he went there to pick up his girlfriend Jackie. Yep. But he's seen about 7am Monday morning in the Bismarck High School breakfast commons area where he talked with a few students and showed around a wad of money as well.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Why not?

[James Pietragallo]

Apparently had a lot of cash and so he was carrying this with him. He picks up Jackie at there while he's there. That's what he was doing. Was waiting for Jackie. She. He went to her locker and said, let's go. And she was like, all right. Shit, school hasn't started yet. I guess, fuck it, right? Sure. So he's driving a 1981 Pontiac with license plate BMR116. And Jackie is where, when she leaves here, is seen wearing a ski jacket with blue and red and yellow squares, faded blue jeans, white high top sneakers. And Michael's wearing a black jacket with fluorescent green stripes. Okay, 9:40 comes around. This is a couple hours after he's at the school. And the Burley County Sheriff's Department is called. At 9:40, several units are dispatched to this farm. It's a cattle and grain farm they live on, by the way. Love it. They go and they find Hilda there. She's fine, doing fine. But they've been called to the address. Now her son, this is one of Ronald's brothers. Brothers, Merle Sherman or. I'm sorry, that was a. That's the different. That's the other mother. Sorry, that's her sister. They live there too. Yeah, they live near here too. So it's weird. Merle was the one that called authorities because Hilda had called Merle. They're not related in laws, but still had called Merle and said that something's wrong because Ryan hadn't gone to school today. What's going on? So, yeah, so Merle came over to the house, drove over there to the farm and went up to the trailer to see what was going on. And the door is locked and no one's answering, but she hasn't seen the family come out. She's only seen Michael leave. So she's like, there's definitely people home. Ryan didn't go to school.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

So, yeah. And he said that this is what Merle said. Hilda said she heard noises and that's all we got out of her. She's just so worked up. She went bananas like I did. Okay. Now they talked to her and she said, well, last night I heard, quote, several gunshots and the sound of screaming coming from the trailer. Yes. Now she called the trailer and Michael had answered the phone. This was like late at night, 11 o'clock at night, Michael answered the phone and she said he sounded nervous and he told her that he had to shoot a dog is why a wild dog got like in the property. And that's. He had to shoot a dog. And his sister was Screaming because, you know, because there's a dog. There's a dog. And it was trying to bite people. And, you know, it was a whole deal. So she said she looked out of her bathroom window, she saw someone walk from the trailer to the 1981 Pontiac Grand Prix that belonged to Michael's mother. Okay, so Michael took off. That's about 11:30 at night. He took off and then by the morning he's back again. Saying. He's gonna go. Saying, grabbing that other rifle and just taking off without saying anything.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And going to school.

[James Pietragallo]

And going to school. Exactly. So the police need to look in this trailer. Obviously they don't have to go too far because when they go around back of the trailer to check the back door of the trailer, they find Maureen. Right There she is, face down in the snow, covered in blood.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, fuck.

[James Pietragallo]

Outside, face down in the snow, a throw rug. By the way, when they open the back door, there's a throw rug on top of bloodstained carpet near the door. So a rug has been placed over this bloodstain and it's fresh bloodstains. Like they're not old bloodstains.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Brand new.

[James Pietragallo]

Brand new. So they obviously are very careful going into this house because they don't know what the fuck is in this house. Now they found a dead woman outside. She's got gunshot wounds in her. Sure. So they find more bodies in here. They find the entire family. Ronald, Ryan and Michelle all in the house, all shot at least twice with a lever action rifle.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Talking about eight. Was that eight rounds?

[James Pietragallo]

Well, they said about 11 rounds had been fired off in the house. Ten rounds are spoken for when they do it. And each body has two each in them, so.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And Grandma. Grandma heard all that and then was like, yeah, dog.

[James Pietragallo]

A dog, yeah, we would do that. I mean, she is 81, so I mean, she might be. Not all that with it or whatever, but still screaming. I mean, come on. But I mean, she called and they. He said, oh yeah, I had to shoot a dog. Sorry about that, grandma. Didn't mean to fucking wake you guys up or whatever. So you know, she was like, okay, so this is, this is a lot. They said that apparently Ronald was shot in the. In the neck, back and thigh. So he was shot three times, which accounts for the extra bullets. Michelle was shot twice in the back, apparently while kneeling over her father. So Ronald was shot first. Michelle went over to help her dad and was shot twice in the back. That's fucking brutal. She's a 16 year old girl. Like, why are you shooting her in the back twice. And Maureen, they said it looked like her body was moved, by the way. And Ryan was also found in his room shot as well, twice now. And all the phones were ripped off the wall and unplugged. Is the other thing in the house? Yes, after that, which probably he didn't realize that till grandma called and went, oh shit, rip these fucking phones out of here. So it's wild. So the autopsy shows that Michelle lived after being shot and then she was shot again outside the home. So he was trying to get out and he went after her. But it's unclear, they said whether she's leaving or arriving. But we know she was leaving. She's trying to get out. Yeah, because she did. It was. She had just slept all night at home. She was shot once in the body and once in the back of the head outside. Wow. Mr. Neubauer Bauer was shot. New Gubauer was shot in the back of the head and so was Ryan. Twice in the back of the head. For a 12 year old, his little brother, that's brutal. 11 shells recovered. The bullets were found in the bodies or in the mobile homes interior. So he only missed once or twice. Probably out of that. That's.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's probably not so hard with a.

[James Pietragallo]

Rifle indoors in a trailer. There's not a lot of room to spread out. Plus, I mean, he shoots birds. He's a good shot probably, you know what I mean? So they discover this, and this is about 10am on January 27th. So they said the bodies removed from where they were shot. Some of them were shot at point blank range. At least the second shot was point blank. Put them down, walked over, finished them off. Golly, you know, like a mob hit. Yeah, like fucking Chris and Snoop taught Mike to do on the fucking wire, you know what I'm saying? That is brutal. All had multiple wounds. Missing from the house is the family car, the Pontiac. A.35 caliber Remington automatic rifle from Ronald's collection. And $1200 from Maureen's purse in cash.

[Jimmy Wissman]

1,200 bucks.

[James Pietragallo]

1200. Which is a lot of cash to be flashing around a breakfast commons area at a high school.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yes, it is.

[James Pietragallo]

Now, officers also found in Michael's room letters from Jackie to Michael that revealed an ongoing plan to leave the state with cash and a car. How fucking Bonnie and Clyde Natural Born killers are going now on twelve hundred dollars. Twelve hundred. But when you're. When you're fucking fifteen. Twelve hundred dollars seems like the world. Because you could live on that for a week. So you'd think that's forever. There's no future when you're 15. Yeah, Sunday, dude, 15 is the age of present. That's what it is. Dude. There is no future.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

I mean, fuck. One of the neighbors who, when the cop showed up was quote, loading silage, putting shit in a silo, maybe, I have no idea. With his son said that quote, we didn't hear anything. They're close by neighbor. They didn't hear shit. Now they said the weapon used in the murders is believed, believed to be a high powered.32 caliber rifle that's missing from Ronald's extensive gun collection. I would like to tell you guys a story here that's going to save you some money, you know what I mean? I'm telling you, I had been paying for a subscription for approximately four and a half years, which is way too long to pay for something I forgot I even had and did not want or need anymore. My fault. Me, I didn't pay attention and I didn't know what to do about it because I didn't even know it was there. Then I got Rocket Money. Oh, oh. All fixed. I'm telling you right now. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that finds and cancels your unwanted subscriptions. They did that for me. They monitor your spending and helps you lower your bills so that you can grow your savings. They'll even try to negotiate lower bills for you by up to 20%, which is no one wants to wait on hold and argue with a customer service representative over your bill. All you have to do is submit a picture of your bill. Rocket Money, they'll deal with all that for you.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Take care of it.

[James Pietragallo]

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[Jimmy Wissman]

Now back to the show.

[James Pietragallo]

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[Jimmy Wissman]

Thank goodness I have this sweater.

[James Pietragallo]

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[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

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[Jimmy Wissman]

Now back to the show, ladies.

[James Pietragallo]

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[Jimmy Wissman]

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[James Pietragallo]

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[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

You know. Yeah. So they say Michael, they're definitely looking for him here because he's not among the bodies. He is 5 foot 8 inches tall, 130 pounds, a little tiny, skinny shit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No kidding.

[James Pietragallo]

I mean, that's a tiny little 15 year old. He has blue eyes, blonde hair, thought to be driving the 81 Pontiac Grand Prix two door. The state's attorney's already involved and said her office is pursuing several leads, searching across the state and that an APB was put out over several states. And she said, I don't know where he is or who he may or may not be with. Now Grandma definitely says he's armed because he came over and got the.35 caliber rifle that used to belong to great grandpa there. She said that Michael has not contacted the family, but she speculates because they said, do you know anywhere they could possibly be going? And Grandma says that he and his girlfriend are probably headed south for Texas where her father Orville lives. Down there. He said, I know they are. He always talked about going to someplace like Cancun.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's Mexico.

[James Pietragallo]

That's me. He saw like spring break on MTV and was like, all right, I'm gonna live there forever and just wait till Pauly Shore shows up. Every fucking year. Pauly Shore and Dan Cortez make their appearance. I'll be here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

What's her name? What's her name? Daisy Fuentes pops up.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Judy Brown.

[James Pietragallo]

Julie.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Julie, right? Julie Brown.

[James Pietragallo]

Julie. Julie. Yeah. Downtown Julie Brown. And if he ever had a lot of money, he was going to live there because he took a lot of money. $1,200 is not enough to relocate to another country.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No.

[James Pietragallo]

For two people. She said, I don't know what happened at home because they were getting along good. He wanted to get away and I don't know why. Something happened. Something like that. He was a good kid. He was smart, good in school. They said, do you know, I have any idea why he might have slaughtered his whole family. And she said, got me.

[Jimmy Wissman]

T tops Grand Prix is pretty fucking rad.

[James Pietragallo]

81 Grand Prix is not a good car. No, that's a bad car.

[Jimmy Wissman]

This is an ugly car. Why didn't he take the fucking. Why didn't he take the Monte Carlo?

[James Pietragallo]

He'd have to put the wheels back on it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, that's right. Get it off the cinder blocks.

[James Pietragallo]

It's a lot going on now. Their warning, by the way. The State's Attorney, Patricia Burke, is warning that he's very dangerous and to look out for him.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

She said there's every indication that this individual is very dangerous and may not hesitate to kill again. There are aspects of the autopsy and physical evidence that indicate that we're not dealing with the average flash in the pan murder. This is a cold and calculated act. She said he was familiar with the back roads and could elude a nationwide police search that law enforcement were doing at this point. She warned the public to not approach Neuga Bauer, but immediately go to police. She described him as armed and dangerous. And they said, do you think he's dangerous? And she said, if you've possibly killed four people, what's one more when you've probably killed four people, possibly. They also think Jackie might be a hostage is what they're saying. Yeah, he might have taken her as a hostage rather than a partner in crime, Bonnie and Clyde situation. So they said that she. They said that she had called apparently the day after, because they're looking. The next day she called a friend of hers saying she just learned about the killings and was scared to death.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, boy.

[James Pietragallo]

She said she didn't know about it. Her mother said, I'm sorry, this is a friend of. Her mother said Jackie called a girlfriend Tuesday and said they were in Bismarck. She couldn't talk and she was scared to death and that she had to hang up. That's all they knew. Now, we don't know if that's just a plant. She called someone to say we're in Bismarck when we're not in Bismarck. Just so they look for them in Bismarck or if she's really in Bismarck and scared. We have no idea. No fucking idea. So they said again, the prosecutor said, we're dealing with a young man who we allege has murdered four members of his family. So anything's possible here. They said Jackie does not face charges, so she needs. There's no evidence that she did any of the murdering. So they just want to talk. They just want to get her back. They said they found letters from them going back and forth. And so they had an ongoing plan to obtain money and take a vehicle and leave the state. So they're given two different things. They're going, she's a hostage and a victim. But at the same time, they have plenty of proof that they've been planning something along these lines. Maybe without the murder, there's no mention of killing anyone to get the money.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sure.

[James Pietragallo]

It's just get money now in a Wisconsin motel room, Jackie says she didn't know about the murders till they reached a motel room in Wisconsin, which is the opposite direction of Bismarck. So that makes me think she called her friend to plan a false lead.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Pietragallo]

And she said that he told her he pinned her to the bed and she said, am I? And I'm next? And he said, yes, he was going to kill her too. So that's where they're at. On the run. Okay. Now a school friend of his here said that, quote, he was angry, but he never made any threats. He never said anything violent or about doing anything like shooting or anything like that. So this is his hunting buddy, Don Peterson. Said he never led me to suspect he was unhappy at home. He'd share other things. But he didn't say. He didn't say anything about this. No. I talked to him yesterday around 2pm that would be the Sunday that he actually did the killings that night. And everything was fine. He didn't sound agitated. And one of the neighbors, the Salters is the name of farmers name. The Salters really is ironic. Nothing will grow everybody. So having a tough season? Tough season, damn it. They live about a quarter mile south of the Neugebauer family, they said. But we weren't really close to Ron though. Real close to his folks. They're good people. I know that. So that means these people are 80. That they talk to. So there are sightings of him, though? Yeah, sightings of both of them at a Kmart store in Billings, Montana, about 4pm The Wednesday after the murders. Getting. Obviously, got to go get those old. Remember those old sandwiches they had? Those cellophane wrapped fucking sandwiches.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Getting one of those snack bars.

[James Pietragallo]

Oh, yeah, Kmart. That's some trash. But I. Yeah, I loved that sandwich, man. That was awesome. That sandwich was so good.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They used to have the snack bar and then the jewelry counter, and the line of people for the snack bar would wrap around the jewelry counter. A poor bastard working at the jewelry counter had nobody buying it. These people can't buy cheap shit jewelry. Come on.

[James Pietragallo]

They'd have that. They'd have that, like, in the back, like the little cafe thing. But then they'd have like, a fucking. The slushy stand would be, like, in the middle of the store with, like, popcorn and slushies and shit. They really had it going on. 80s. Kmart was the shit. That was the.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right next to the fitting rooms.

[James Pietragallo]

Steal underwear, steal everything. So then somebody reported them heading west on Interstate 90. Montana law enforcement agencies also had unconfirmed reports that he was seen in Billings at a thrift store trying to cash. And also trying to cash a check at a gas station near the intersect and near the interstate. But then the Great Falls, Montana Tribune reported that a boy and a girl matching their descriptions were seen Tuesday afternoon in a Great Falls thrift store. And their behavior was described as guarded. Oh, I don't know what that even means. So suspicious, I guess, guarded. Not wanting to talk to you. Probably. I mean, I probably seem guarded, too. A lot of places where I don't want to talk to the people. So the. One of the cops here, the sheriff, said we did, through the night receive about four other calls at the 911 center about possible sightings. And again, those calls were checked out, and again, were unfounded. So they said it's not unusual or undesirable to get reports. So please, if you see. If you think you see him, call up. It doesn't derail the whole investigation to send one guy out to a fucking gas station. Ask a question. So go ahead and do it. They said there have been unverified sightings, but there's really no substance that we can verify. Now, there's a memorial service for his family, obviously, I would assume the whole town would show up.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Probably 72 people.

[James Pietragallo]

You should probably be able to draw that, I would hope. You know, I just said draw that like they're comics. Jesus Christ.

[Jimmy Wissman]

But true. If you can't draw that, what are you drawn?

[James Pietragallo]

What are you drawn at your funeral? That's not the right terminology, I don't think, is it? Not for us it is, because we're asshole comedians. But for the rest of the people, they're going draw. That's how we talk. So they said tons of people showed up, dozens of schoolmates from the children. They held these services in Bismarck because I don't know where there is to hold them in fucking. So they had four closed caskets. Jesus, that's a lot of caskets, man. And photographs and all that kind of thing. They had a handwritten note. The note from the child, from this kid to a classmate, to Ryan, describes Ryan as a good friend and said the two hardest things to do will be to go on and to say goodbye. The note gives Ryan a sports medal. It's attached to the note because they had apparently played on the same sports team. And Ryan had lost his medal from the team couldn't find. So this guy was giving him his medal to be buried with. So now the families are trying to get the teens to turn themselves in because it's days are going by. Yeah, it's like the end of the week now. Like, where could the fuck could these two kids be? $1,200 is going to run out quick.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

They're driving a car that we know the license plate of. Like, how are we not finding these fucking people?

[Jimmy Wissman]

They're driving a shit car that we know the last plate of. It's gonna break down.

[James Pietragallo]

Yes. And he looks like a kid. He doesn't look like a 20. He looks like. Hey, why is that child driving that car? He's 5, 8, 130 pounds, blonde. Mullet like a motherfucker, by the way. Mullet. Not long hair, short on top, shaved on sides, Fucking Mullet. Popping Joe Dirt style. He is hardcore. So anyway, the family publishes a letter to them. It's an appeal from both families, from Jackie's family and from the Nuga Bauer clan here to gave it to the Associated Press to distribute. And it says, quote, please stop whatever happened in your home in Monacan, whatever you've done, please stop now. Don't make it any worse. Don't bring any more tragedy into the lives of people who love you. No one knows what terrible pressures you may have been under, but your life is not over. Jackie's life is not over. Things change with time. People change. We want to help and we can. Don't try to drive home for yours and Everyone else's safety, stop now and talk to a police officer. Call any of us or this newspaper, please. Michael. And then it said, the Neugebauer family, Ivan and Gladys Sherman, Eileen Heinel and Larry Heinel, who are Jackie's mother and stepfather. So they said that they start to get affidavits from people now. So they're trying to figure out, piece together what happened. So they have different affidavits of people talking about the family. And they said that they had a few different people said that Michael had, quote, previously commented to individuals that he should kill his father and or his family.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What the fuck, Mike?

[James Pietragallo]

So February 8th, 1992. It's been a while. It sure has. The 27th, he took off.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He made it stretch.

[James Pietragallo]

Man, that is wild. They are at the Rhodes Motel, Roa or Rhoads Roads Motel in Sarasota, Florida. Wow. Let's go there. They got all the way down there. Now. They received. The FBI received information that they might be in Central Florida somewhere. So they have police forces looking for their car. Specifically in central Florida. They give like, a. All the police forces in central Florida get an alert to look for this car. So they get a few tips that they were headed east and possibly headed to Florida. So Robert Smith, who's a Sarasota police sergeant, not the guy who. From the band, different guy. He spotted Robert Smith. He spotted a 1981 white Pontiac with North Dakota license plates, which probably sticks out like a sore thumb in fucking Sarasota, Florida.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really? North Dakota plate sticks out no matter.

[James Pietragallo]

No matter where you are. Even in North Dakota. You're like, wow, there's other people here. Holy shit. Thought I was alone. You got one too. I was wondering why my license plate said 3 on it. Must have been somebody else here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Look at you with a six. Holy shit.

[James Pietragallo]

There's none of us. Thank you. This police sergeant spots the car at the Rhodes motel at about 1:30am okay. Middle of the night. So after police spotted the car, they called the manager of the motel. This guy's my favorite person in this whole story. His last name is Radasakis. Okay. R O D O U S S A K I S. 2. Ss, 2. It's Greek. Obviously, we're not. We had trouble with a Greek name earlier this week. Crime and Sports. We're gonna. So he. They called him and they said, look, there's a car outside. Do you see that car? He said, yes. They said, can you give us the description of the people who came in the car? Yeah. So Basically. Did they register? And he said, yes, the people in the car registered. So they said, okay. I gave them the descriptions. Two blonde kids. The SWAT team is sent at this point.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, shit.

[James Pietragallo]

Now, this motel manager who I fucking love, because he's just hilarious. He's so. Like, this is none of my business. I'm just an observer. Like, he's. Like. He's watching it on tv, and it's hilarious. Okay. He said he met Jackie the day before. Rodowska Rodasakis. Late Friday afternoon, when she came into the motel's office. And they were. They were in the Pontiac before that. This guy said that Jackie's hair was wet and she was shivering even though it was over 70 degrees outside.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Huh.

[James Pietragallo]

She told him, the manager, that she and her little brother, who have been traveling together from North Dakota, had been at the beach earlier that day. So they were just wet and cold.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Freezing.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, freezing. So it's the Gulf coast in Central Florida here, and the motel's about seven miles from the ocean, so it's inland a little bit here. So this guy, Manny Rodasakis here, he said that she signed for the room. She said that Nouga Bauer, the blonde kid, was her brother. She used a correct address, filling out the registration card, really? And. But didn't use her correct name. She signed her name. I'll find Deb. Pristy. P R I S T E. Which is probably somebody from school or something.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Deb.

[James Pietragallo]

Deb. I am Deb. Yeah, it's. The room was $32.75, and she paid for it with a $50 bill.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

And she told him that they wanted a double bed, which is fun as shit. She said, quote, he's my brother. We sleep together all the time. Which. He goes, fucking North Dakota. And he's shaking his head. Goddamn weirdos up there. So he said he believed her because they looked alike. They're both blonde. I mean, it's just because you would look at them. Yeah. They could be brother and sister. Why not?

[Jimmy Wissman]

And also because she said it.

[James Pietragallo]

And she said it. You don't know these fucking people. And he said that he normally asks for identification from young people trying to check in, but he thought she was about 19 or 20.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And she gave me cash.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. And he said, I feel kind of strange because 9 out of 10 people, I'll check their IDs, but she just seems so wholesome, her and her little brother. We're out on the road together and just trying to help the kids out. She said, yeah, he signed it. She signed the form. There. He said, she was a sweet kid. I gave her one of the better rooms because I liked her right away, her and her brother. He said, they just look like two normal kids. I had no reason to doubt anything. They said, wow. Which is why you ask for ID to begin with, because you never know. After checking in, Michael and Jackie went swimming at the outdoor pool.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, that's nice.

[James Pietragallo]

That's nice. They're gonna get that all in there. He said, they play. This is. The manager said they played around in the water just like kids. They look like just a couple of blonde kids from the Midwest. They later asked him where they should go to eat around here. And they returned to the motel shortly afterward. They ended up getting McDonald's because a receipt found later was for two hamburgers and a cheeseburger. They found a McDonald's bag, two empty Coca Cola cans and an empty pack of Marlboro Lights are also in the store.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, they're smoking too.

[James Pietragallo]

Of course they are smoking. Yeah. He's got a mullet. Jimmy, that Marlboro Lights come with that haircut. When they shave up those sides, they give you a pack of Marlboro Lights and send you on your way. That's how it works. Get on out there and do something. Holy shit. So he said that they. He saw Neuga Bauer come out of the room at about 9:30pm to get some ice.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

And he said, and that's the last I saw of him. He did a walking tour of the motel a half hour later. And the room was dark. He figured they went to sleep. He said that this manager said he's seen death and dealt with it a lot while he served in Vietnam for multiple tours. He said, but kids, for Christ's sake. Blonde, blue eyed, beautiful kids. It freaked me out. It just doesn't make any sense. The world is on its axis, man. This is off its axis. It's all fucked up.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, I can see some Vietnamese children, but not blond hair, blue eyes. They're just wholesome.

[James Pietragallo]

It's one thing to burn down a village, but these kids are blonde. I don't get it. So the raid comes up here. The SWAT team shows up and the manager said. They said the boy may or may not have been involved in a murder. And that's all they told me. Now, this guy was woken up when the police called and wanting to see the room registration for this. And this guy was at another area, another location. He had to arrive to the motel. The motel consists of three separate buildings. And police evacuated six people from the Building where Jackie and Michael were staying. That building has eight rooms. The police also block off all the streets around it. They make a big deal out of this. And the manager puts it this way, this is amazing. In the meantime, a big truck pulls up and all these ninja guys get out. Fucking ninja guys are in. This guy is awesome.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

I want to hear him describe everything.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Ninja guys that said SWAT on their chest. They were the SWAT ninjas.

[James Pietragallo]

Ninja guys get out, throwing fucking stars at the door.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I was like, hey, flashbangs and stars and smoke.

[James Pietragallo]

Oh, man. But they're wearing hoods, carrying, you know, their fucking rifles and laser sights and all that kind of shit. He. This guy estimated there was 30 police officers heading up to the room.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, they weren't kidding.

[James Pietragallo]

SWAT team officers hide behind bushes, position themselves all around the door to the room. FBI agents surround the motel from the other sides. They have an ambulance parked nearby in case there's a shootout. So they discuss how they're gonna do this. And this is the fucking funniest part. There's 30 plus armed federal fucking and state people here, including the SWAT team, a tactical assault team. And they're like, what do we do? They said, well, maybe we'll try to break down the door. Or maybe we'll. Maybe we'll do this. Because, by the way, these rooms are so wonderful. They don't even have a phone in the room. There's no phone, okay? So they said, here's. Maybe we'll do this. Maybe we'll fucking throw a rock through the window and throw a cell phone into the room, and we can talk to him that way. Then finally someone said, why don't we just knock and see what happens?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Good idea.

[James Pietragallo]

Let's just try that. Because if that's just knocking, they might just open the door and let us in. We might, just might be doing all this for nothing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Throw a rock through the window. Throw a cell phone in. What if they don't have any? What if that scares the shit out of them?

[James Pietragallo]

Well, I guess then they would, yeah, call. I don't know what the fuck. And I think that's what somebody said goes. And then also, if you kick down a door, if someone has a gun, that's the time to use it. When someone kicks your fucking door in, you know, it's. That's. That's when you would be reaching for it. So they're probably. It's like on the wire again, the wire reference. But when they go to bus fucking Avon at the one point when he's at, like, his kind of home. Like his base with all the guns when they were getting ready for war. And the guy's got a battering ram. And McNulty's like, Whoa, whoa, whoa. They're warring with a drug crew. You batter the fucking door. And they're gonna open fire on us all. Why don't we try knocking?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Let's knock.

[James Pietragallo]

They knocked and opened the door, and that was that much easier. So anyway, they knock on the door. They said they knocked on the door. The police saw the curtains move inside, but no one answered the door. They tried to peek out of the curtains, like maybe it's nothing. So the police go to the door and they knock. And the manager heard Jackie yell, what's going on? We didn't do anything.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What do you want?

[James Pietragallo]

And they're. The whole time they're saying, michael Neugebauer, get out here. We know you're in there. All that kind of shit. So the manager of the motel said they knew the kid had a gun. They didn't know whether he was going to come out shooting. He said, I heard a boom. And then Neugebauer, we know you're in there. Come out. That's what Jackie said she heard from inside. The manager said the girl was yelling, what do you want? What's going on? And police were at that point, while this is going on in the front door, the FBI agents out back noticed someone trying to jump out of the back window of the place.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Who's that?

[James Pietragallo]

It's Michael trying to escape. And the manager said he heard them yell at him. Don't even think about it. Yeah, because he had his gun on him, too. So he dropped the gun, I suppose, or. No, he didn't drop the gun because he didn't have a gun. We find out.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, okay.

[James Pietragallo]

At that point, the motel room's door came open and Michael walked back in through the motel room, walked out the front door. Police took him to the ground, handcuffed him. The manager said the girl was yelling, don't hurt him. What have we done? That kind of thing. I feel sorry for her. I believed her. This guy's just a sucker. We know for a fact now. And he's still like, I believe her. I don't know what it is. I still believe her. I think he just liked her. I think he thought she was a piece of ass or something. I don't know what it was or reminded her. Maybe he's an older guy. It reminded him of his daughter. I don't fucking know. But the manager said that by the way, the kids were taken away in separate vehicles. The manager said he found a receipt in the room for a deck of playing cards they bought Friday night. And he said, I just can't imagine if I'd done murder on my family like I'm playing cards. This is crazy. But he said the police, though, he was very impressed with the whole operation. He said, this guy just ate popcorn watching this, getting his Kmart icy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You did it.

[James Pietragallo]

This is wild.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

So he said that they. He said they were, quote, very efficient and very nice to Nuga Bowger and Jackie once they were captured. So they were very professional. Police searched the room and the couple's clothes were taken, as well as one of the bedsheets. A police spokesman said no weapons were found in the room.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Pietragallo]

All right. The car was impounded. Obviously they're going to search the car looking for a.22 caliber handgun,32 caliber rifle, a.31 caliber rifle, and a 12 gauge shotgun, which are all missing from the house.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Pietragallo]

They said they also seek documents including travel, indicating travel routes, motel receipts, restaurant receipts, ammunition, clothing, and many items belonging to the murder victims. The search did not find any of that stuff, by the way. No, nothing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Where the hell is it?

[James Pietragallo]

They did find an envelope with the name Michelle written on it. They also found a broken scissor handle, a Wisconsin road map, and a tan lockbox containing jewelry belonging to his mother and sister. So he took that to sell along the way here. So Michael is going to be taken to a juvenile facility here. For now, he's not made any statements to police right away. He's arrested with a federal warrant for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution for murder. Jackie, on the other hand, is at the YMCA shelter in Sarasota. They send her to. Oh, her mother, Eileen, said that Jackie was homesick and wanted to come home soon. This woman, her mom said, but we know she's okay. And she said that she. Jackie said she was healthy and everything was fine. So Jackie legally was classified as a runaway, not a fucking fugitive from the law. So she's classified as a runaway and is being held on that basis. There's no criminal charges pending against Jackie. She's considered a witness at this point. At this point. Now, Jackie's mom said she expects her daughter to be home late Monday. This is like a Saturday. They're talking about this, but didn't know how she would be returned. And she said. The mother said it's more than likely that her daughter didn't know anything about these murders, obviously. Yeah. She said friends and family know that she would not have gotten in that car with Neuga Bauer if she had known. She had nothing along. She was. It was just a normal day for Jackie that was not planned. And he did. He just showed up at school and was like, let's go.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So let's get out.

[James Pietragallo]

Let's get out now. Larry, who is Jackie's stepfather, told the Tampa Tribune that Jackie had stayed overnight with a friend the Sunday night the murders took place. He said that she had been at the friend's home all night and that he's confident that she had no role in the killings. So. And then this is. Michael's grandmother told the same paper that her grandson always wanted to go to the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean, and that he went where he said he was going to go. And considering that his capture was in Florida, quote, he was just one step away, that's a pretty big step, though entering a foreign country is a much different.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He thought he was going to get there with 12. Like, sure, you might get there, but then what?

[James Pietragallo]

Then what are you going to do? You're 15. You look like a child.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

So. Wow. That is fucking insanity. Hilda, by the way, here is living with a family in Bismarck and will get an apartment this month. She wants off the farm, doesn't want to be there where her son and his family were killed next door. She was the last person to see Michael, obviously. His other grandmother told the Bismarck Tribune that Michael had been intrigued by Cancun as well. And she said, we don't know why this happened. He was a real good kid, a smart boy who worked hard on the farm. That's what hurt me. He's only 15. This is such a terrible waste. Now. Jackie said. When they talked to Jackie, she said his dad was abusing his brother. Fighting all day because they're like, why did he do this? Because he's not talking at this moment. So they said, did he tell you why? Jackie said, I tried calling. Ring, ring, ring. At that moment, I knew something wasn't right. So she tried calling Michael. Apparently. Apparently. And nobody answered. She said he wasn't thinking. He didn't realize what he was doing. Anything moving. He was not thinking. He snapped. He just shot whatever was moving. The phones had been ripped off the wall. And Jackie said she had no idea what had happened. She said, the first night, I didn't sleep at all. I didn't sleep all night. I could feel it, you know, something was going on. They said, what if you had gone there? You know, what if you. They said, she said, what if she had gone to the farm and intervened because she knew something was wrong? And they asked her, what if you had gone there? And she said, I probably wouldn't be here right now. He probably would have killed me too. So she says. She says, the look in his eyes, I will never forget it. There was nothing there. When he said, let's go, let's get out of here. Just was like real weird here. So that day here, apparently the day following the murders. We'll talk about that. Michael drove around in his mother's car because the murders happened at 11:30 at night.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, boy.

[James Pietragallo]

He came back early morning to get the rifle, get the money and take off. He drove around his mother's car, in his mother's car all night. From midnight on, just all night till the morning.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Pietragallo]

That's when he went to Bismarck and he went and found Jackie. He said, he walked up to my locker and said, we're running away. And I said, okay. Didn't take much to prompt her here. She said, I was never scared of him. So she just got in the car. She said, I knew something had happened. He was beat up. A typical night, always chaos. So she just figured his dad beat him up again. She didn't even ask what's wrong with your eye or anything like that. She thought they were running away. And she said once they got to a motel room, it changed in Wisconsin. She said, we got up to the hotel and he is frantic. And he said he killed his family. And he threw me on the bed and got on top of me. And I asked, am I next? And he said, you read my mind.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What?

[James Pietragallo]

She said, in fact, after he killed his family, he went to my house because he was going to kill me too.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Is that right?

[James Pietragallo]

But then by 7am he changed his mind and said, no, I need somebody to run away with, come with. But he was going to go, why would he kill Jackie? Because his dad beats him up. That doesn't make any sense at all whatsoever. But I guess he was just wiping out everybody he knew. He didn't even think to kill Grandma, though.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Or he's just joshing, you know.

[James Pietragallo]

Yes. Who the fuck knows? Or maybe he's trying to scare her so she doesn't try to call the cops. Possibly.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Or run away.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. She said after everything that happened, it was all such a whirlwind. I was thrown into the psych ward for months. Then a group home and then foster care is where Jackie ended up. She said she's going to try to move on from the whole thing. She said, though. But there were a couple times where I contemplated taking my life. I felt like I had this icky secret, the abuse. All the time knowing the truth of what happened and wishing I could have fixed it. I had a lot of blame on myself, a lot of different emotions. Every day that I battled, not a day I don't wake up. Every day that I battled, not a day I don't wake up and think about the family. Listen, you're 16. There's only so much you can do. You can't stop that from happening. You can try to tell the correct people, which is what you did. And then you have to hope that the adults take over responsibly and do the thing you need them to do. Because you're 16, you don't have any recourse in this. So that's. That's fucking horrible. She doesn't need to feel guilty for that, though. It's not her fault at all. She tries. She's the only fucking one who tried.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right?

[James Pietragallo]

She's the only person in this whole story who shouldn't feel guilty about that anyway, so. Why? What the fuck happened?

[Jimmy Wissman]

What's going on?

[James Pietragallo]

Apparently, Michael had an argument with his father that night about chores. And Michael tried to leave, and his father wouldn't let him leave. So he said he got a gun from his grandmother's house and shot his father in the living room. That's how it went. Wouldn't let him leave. Well, he said, quote, I was tired of it, okay? He was just tired of it all. He said the argument with his father was about whether Michael was doing his work around the house and on the farm, and he just didn't want to deal with his dad anymore because he knew it was going to escalate to abuse. He said that he does not remember shooting his mother, sister, or brother. So I remember the first shot with my dad. That was on purpose. I fucking meant that shit. I don't remember anything else. I don't even remember the other two shots into my dad, never mind everybody else. He said that he was deathly afraid from getting another beating from his father. And he said after that first shot, his memory is like if you're blackout drunk, basically. It's just a flash here, a flash there, but nothing of the killing stills. Yep. So it ended, apparently. Yeah, that's. It was a fight. His grandmother's house was only 50 yards away. So he walked 50 yards, got the rifle, got the ammunition, came back to the mobile home and was in the living room. When his father came out of the bedroom, I guess Ronald asked him, said what the hell is going on? Because he was in the living room with a rifle and that's when he shot his father. And the prosecutor said basically he indicated it was a snap thing. It took 10 minutes or so just to go get the gun though. So like it's not a snap thing if you had to go get the gun 50 yards there, 50 yards back. It's time to cool off is what she's saying, basically, so. Cause they're already, you know, trying to get the charges up. So Ryan and Michelle were in their bedrooms at the time Michelle was killed in the hallway to the master bedroom. Ryan was killed in his own bedroom where he was cowering and hiding. Hiding gunshots at him.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He heard the noise.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, Maureen had been outside and was killed outside too. So. Fuck, man. I guess he then got the other gun from his grandmother's house, got some of his personal belongings from his room. That when he came home with the gun from his grandmother's house. To shoot everybody or to shoot everybody. First he went to his room to get some shit. So he was planning on. He was going to leave right then. He had that. And so his father said, he said, what the hell's going on here? And his father said, if you got a gun, I'm going to get one too, is what he said. He said that's why he shot him.

[Jimmy Wissman]

We're going to draw down.

[James Pietragallo]

He said, I just wanted out. I couldn't get out. He turned and I shot. He said his father fell straight down, just right to the ground, he said. And everything was quote, like looking into a tunnel. Instantly he said that his sister appeared and he shot her almost on reflex. So that he remembered it was like a reflex. He just was like, boom, oh shit, you're here too. His mother grabbed him and he said the gun went off again when his mother grabbed him. He chased his mother outside and shot her, then came back in the house. Then he reloaded the gun and shot his brother twice so he had time to stop and reload. He did not have to shoot his brother at all. He could have just taken the fuck off. Everybody knows you did it, bro. Like you're. It's not like you're killing the witnesses. Leave your 12 year old brother alone. He has nothing to do with this.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I mean, that way we'll get you the death penalty. Right there. That's pre premeditated. As it gets fucking hard.

[James Pietragallo]

They just reloaded, man. So he then packed some clothes and Left in his mother's car. And that's fucking wild. So the family does not want Michael to get the inherit his father's estate.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No, he can't.

[James Pietragallo]

And because they're saying at this point he's in line to do that. So he's the only one left. So they said they are using the 1978 Josephson family murder in Hazen Hazen, North Dakota as legal precedent to have Michael barred from the family's inheritance in that case, which sounds familiar. I don't know if we covered this or not. Russell and Robin Josephson were shot to death in their beds by their 13 year old adoptive son Michael. Think we did do this. Michael also Michael again he served. That was just the most common name in the 70s though it was very common. He served two years at the state industrial school after being adjudicated as a delinquent in the shootings. They tried him as a juvenile. Two years later the North Dakota Supreme Court ruled that the younger Josephson had committed a felony and was not entitled to an inheritance from his parents. So they start the same thing here. The probate action was started naming Bob Newgen Bauer, Newga Bauer of Monacan, who's one of Ronald's brothers, as his personal representatives. And in the petition there at to the court, they're asking to be named personal representative. This guy is Neugebauer says he has reason to believe Michael Neugebauer may not be entitled to inherit anything from the decedents.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right.

[James Pietragallo]

So the one lawyer says that if he's found guilty of the killings, he should be disinherited just as the Josephson boy was. State probate laws say anyone who has feloniously caused the death of another may not share in any inheritance. Which makes all the sense in the world. Yeah. That way you can't kill someone for money, Right?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Exactly.

[James Pietragallo]

I mean you'd be sitting in prison, but you'd still have the best commissary going. You know, like that's crazy. In the Josephson case, an attorney for Michael said that because he had not been since he had been adjudicated in juvenile court, he had not technically been convicted of a felony. And the Supreme Court disagrees with that. So that's what they're trying to fight. Meanwhile, the prosecutor doesn't know if anyone will collect the $2,000 cash reward for the tip that led to Michael's capture. There are.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Let's give it to that fellow down there at the.

[James Pietragallo]

There's. Let's just give it to Manny, the motel manager.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Just because he's fun.

[James Pietragallo]

He's fun, but he killed four people. Then possibly, they didn't know, they thought then possibly kidnapped a 16 year old girl and is holding her hostage around the country. And they went, what two grand you think is enough? Probably just two grand. Let's not go crazy. We started with 150 bucks and nobody said nothing, so we upped it to two grand. I don't know, we'll see what happens like that. Not really. All hands on deck with two grand. The prosecutor said, I'm not aware of anyone putting in a claim for it. Now the big question is, will he be tried as an adult or a kid? And those are extremely different outcomes. Yeah, extremely different.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

I am always of the opinion personally. A 15 year old's a 15 year.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, somebody.

[James Pietragallo]

There's a reason we don't let them vote or drive unless you're in a farm or fucking, you know, buy tobacco or gamble or join the army or work or do anything that requires any sort of decision making or maturity.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Because they don't have an adult.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, they're basically a bag of hormones with a hard dick at this point. So it's a different.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They can't be in the work place. They are an HR nightmare.

[James Pietragallo]

No, it's amazing though. If you went on a job interview and said you were 15, they're like, well, we can't hire you. You're a child. Then you went outside and murdered everybody. You come back in and go, I'm an adult now, according to the state. So like, I get that we, especially in the 90s, that shit wasn't playing at all. Because that was like, these kids are the worst thing ever. And they were talking about, you know, super predator children who were walking around at 12 who were, you know, had drug empires and were murdering everybody. And like there was so much fucking media just scaring on that everybody thought about it so well, they didn't treat them. So here's an editorial in the local newspaper.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, boy.

[James Pietragallo]

Did Michael Neugebauer really kill his entire family? As the first line. If this teenage boy's defense attorneys convinced the North Dakota Supreme Court to leave the question in the hands of the juvenile authorities, the public will never know the answer. Oh, such a decision for closure wouldn't be good for Michael Newba or wouldn't be good for Michael Neugebauer, who wouldn't have a chance to confront his accusers in a public fashion. And it wouldn't be good for the community which felt the wounds of this tragedy for months. Afterwards, the issue is whether Neuga Bower should be tried in open adult court. These considerations on teenage crime happen all the time. But Neuga Bowers is no common case. He was 15 at the time of the January 26th the murder of his parents, his brother, his sister at their Menachin farm home. The murders and Neuga Bauer subsequent escape to Florida were national news. Presuming he was to plead innocent, he would have a courtroom trial in which anybody could walk in and watch. The proceedings would be public information every day. If his case is tried in juvenile court, the proceedings and record are closed to the public under North Dakota law. Okay, but that's. Who cares? That's after reviewing the results of the psychiatric evaluation at the state hospital in Jamestown, South Central District Judge Dennis Schneider on April 16th is talking about whether he will stand trial as an adult. But defense attorneys Rodney Rodney Felder and William Schmidt appealed to the judge, saying that he would probably be rehabilitated through juvenile programs. Don't throw them away yet, is what they're saying. The briefs contain references to how well Neugebauer has behaved during his few months of incarceration at the state industrial school in Mandan, and that the defense attorneys argued that he had been volunteering for extra chores. And it says in the article goes on to say now that now that ought to comfort us all. And used as other supporting, quote, evidence, some statements from juvenile authorities who saw potential for his, quote, rehabilitation. As they're written, the appeals briefs assume guilt. They concentrate almost exclusively on the fitness of the state to mete out counseling, but they don't offer evidence that he didn't commit the crime. Yet investigations after the murder alleged a family crisis, marital problems, some hotheadedness, disputes over Michael's relationship with his girlfriend. In fact, the appeal brief contains ominous reference to allegations of recent unruly behavior about the boy made by his father just days before the murders. So it's not about the father's been abusing him. He's been abusing the family and the father.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Is what they're saying, a bad kid?

[James Pietragallo]

Just a bad seed, man.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, he bubbled over.

[James Pietragallo]

Yep. How can anyone, how can anybody know what really happened that night? Why should anyone automatically presume Michael Neuka Bauer coldly killed his entire family? Was anyone else involved? And do we presume from the tone of the appeals briefly, if he told juvenile authorities that he committed the crime, more questions come to mind. If Michael Neugebauer did in fact kill his family and he stays at and they're under the state under Juvenile authority. Can the community comfortably sleep at night after his release in two to four years? Are they secure enough to prevent his escape or to prevent violence by him or against him? And is, quote, peer group rehabilitation rather than punishment by criminal incarceration appropriate for someone used accused of committing a multiple murder? Juvenile authorities are trained to straighten out wayward kids and we've no doubt they would try their best. But the argument for adult court is that the checks and balances of public scrutiny help ensure justice is served and understood by the community at large, not just by a few specialists entrusted with that power. The dramatic case of Michael Neugebauer is too big for the juvenile system. We shouldn't wring our hands over whether he belongs in adult prison until we answer the central question in adult court with the whole world watching. Did Michael Neugebauer kill his family even though he says absolutely I did?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, yeah, he did it. Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

But that's an interesting. They're saying he should be tried in adult court, not for us because we want to punish him, but for him, but for the freedom of open court, not because we want to try a 15 year old as an adult. That's crazy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sure.

[James Pietragallo]

So they said if the teenage boys defense attorneys convinced the North Dakota Supreme Court to leave the question in the hands of the juvenile authorities, the public will never know the answer. Such a decision for closure wouldn't be good for him. So, yeah, big deal. Anyway. Is there going to be a trial or what's going on here?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Well, we got to know.

[James Pietragallo]

Prosecutors are saying that it doesn't matter if he remembered what he had done, claiming that he told several versions of what happened that night to different people.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So whether he did it doesn't matter.

[James Pietragallo]

Fact is he did it. So that's all they're saying now he's going to plead guilty for his dad's murder. By the way, the judge rules it is adult court, not juvenile court.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Is that right?

[James Pietragallo]

He's an adult at 15. Yeah. So head on out to the titty bar, Mike, you got this. Apparently you're allowed in. It's just magically we can and I'm not. Obviously. I don't want teenage killers to get away with shit. I'm just. It's weird that we can just adjudicate someone older than they are. That's just crazy. I adjudicate your brain. Be more developed than it actually is. Is a weird fucking thing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's too severe of a crime, so I have to deal with. Treat it with what it deserves.

[James Pietragallo]

Yes, like you have to be an adult to come up with that or some shit which is not.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I mean, just. Yeah. You can't just change facts in the case to make it fit in that case. If somebody rapes somebody, well, then just charge them with murder too. And that way we can kill them.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, that's what I mean, what are we talking about? It's just changing shit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

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[Jimmy Wissman]

Remember that?

[James Pietragallo]

Remember that shit we talked about a few days ago? He's in it. One of those. Which one? Well, I don't know. Let me go through my notes and figure it out. Yeah, that's weird. So Burke, who's the assistant state's attorney, met with the defense attorneys. And then the defense attorneys talked to Neugebauer again. And then the three of them called the judge to the office, said, you know, we'd like to meet in your office. The judge was in a trial, so they left a message asking him to call the prosecutor's office on his next break.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Hollowing. You're not busy?

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, hit me up. So they do. The judge call, returns the call, and he told them to come upstairs to an empty courtroom right away. He recessed the other trial for 45 minutes to take care of this real quick.

[Jimmy Wissman]

We have 45.

[James Pietragallo]

Come on, let's fucking wrap this bitch up right here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Holy.

[James Pietragallo]

So the prosecutor said that the three remaining murder charges are stayed until an evaluation of Newga Bauer at the state hospital. Because he's saying he doesn't remember those officially. So that's how that goes. She said she doesn't expect to. She does not expect to dismiss those charges. And there. That there would be. And that there would be no trial. But would not say how she expects them to be disposed of. She doesn't know how long the evaluation will take. So she's apparently saying there's a plea deal on the table for those as well. So they're not going to be dismissed. But she doesn't expect to go to trial on the charges.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right.

[James Pietragallo]

She said the facts are not at issue. It's a given that the murders occurred and that he did them. And there's no question he intended to kill his father. There's still a question about his intent and the state of mind on the other victims. She said. And that's why the evaluation will be done.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Interesting.

[James Pietragallo]

He said he's already taken of other evaluations at the state hospital. But the prosecutor said those were for other specific reasons unrelated to this new evaluation that will center on his intent and lack of memory of the other three deaths. Now he may serve the first year or more of his sentence at the state industrial school, which is the juvenile facility. That'll be worked out between the officials and. But then he'll be in adult prison after that is how this works. So he was scheduled to go on trial for four class AA murders. Wow. You did a double A murder there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Class aa, Class AA North Dakota. You got some funny shit happening.

[James Pietragallo]

Call that shit Major league murders. If at least sounds like double A murders. Like they're not that important.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Weak ass.

[James Pietragallo]

AA double A ass murders. That's the most severe crime in North Dakota. So the maximum penalty for class AA murder is life in prison. Which would make you uneligible for parole for 30 years. But you could shave off. Good times.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sure.

[James Pietragallo]

It was interesting. Five days per month. Good time. He could be eligible for parole in 24 years. So he can shave off six years of that shit. That's 20% of your time. Basically, you can shave off. So asked if she knew why Michael and his lawyer decided to plead guilty instead of go to trial, she said that you'll have to ask them. Perhaps it was he felt it was time or that he could be found guilty or he's not just Coming. Or he's just coming to grips with what he's done. So he ends up taking an Alford plea for the rest of these. Yes. They give him an Alfred plea for the rest of this shit. And if you don't know what that is. We've talked about it before, but that is where you plead, essentially, that it's not a guilty plea, but it's a plea that says that the defendant believes that the prosecution has enough evidence to convict them. So they will plea to this. Even though. So there's no allocation.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right. And not. Not claiming guilt.

[James Pietragallo]

Not claiming guilt. And then he doesn't have to do an allocation here because he says he can't remember. That's how that works.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They're getting him on his dad for 30 years, but he's going to serve. And he's getting. Unbelievable.

[James Pietragallo]

So now they're going to do an Alfred plea deal.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He's getting six years per.

[James Pietragallo]

Well, we'll see here. He said he was pleading guilty to avoid the possibility of four consecutive life sentences. Sentences. Because that's what he could have got. That's what the deal is for.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Terrible.

[James Pietragallo]

To put it all into one, basically. So that was one of the possibilities. So they said that he was asked if he was persisting. The judge asked him if he was persisting in his earlier declaration that he had no memory of the other three shootings. And he said yes.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right.

[James Pietragallo]

The judge then asked him if he was sure that he could be convicted. And he said, no, I'm not. Which is why you take an Alford plea.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right.

[James Pietragallo]

So the judge says, you're not satisfied? And he. Michael, shook his head no. So the boy and the judge then discussed whether he could get a fair trial, with Michael shaking his head that he doesn't believe he could get a fair trial. Not in North Dakota, where everyone's heard about this. It's the biggest thing that's happened.

[Jimmy Wissman]

There's 72 people.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

One of them hasn't even heard.

[James Pietragallo]

It's the biggest thing that's happened since they found a new strain of corn. Like, it's the. It's wild shit since the fucking wheat fields have been plowed. So Neugebauer and his attorney conferred, and then the attorney told the judge there was a very strong possibility that the jury would convict his client. That's what we're going on.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yes.

[James Pietragallo]

He's like, listen, dude, I get what we're doing here, Michael, but it's legal shit. You just have to say that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's gonna get you, man.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. So the judge asked for the factual basis of the case, and the prosecutors described their evidence. After the description, the judge turned to Michael and asked if he believed the state had a strong case against him. And Michael said yes. So then he pleads guilty using an Alfred Flee. Alfred Flea. An Alfred Flee. An Alfred Flea, you know, that's a Flea. Gets in trouble for killing somebody and doesn't want to fucking go to prison forever. We'll do an Alfred Flea. The judge then says, basically told him, you could spend your time in prison continuing to blame others, or you could decide to make something of yourself, even behind bars. He said, you're super young. Like. Like, even if you did 30 years, you're going to be in your 40s when you get out. Like, you have a lot of time left in this world.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's unbelievable.

[James Pietragallo]

You're going to spend. That's weird, man. So he said that other prisoners sentenced to life have done useful things even though they're imprisoned, but if he does not make something of himself in prison, he's not likely to be paroled. He's like, if you want to get. So he's giving him advice. The judge said he was referring to the fact that Neuga Bauer would be eligible to seek parole. And after 25 to 30 years, if you count good time, he said, if you persist in an attitude that none of this is your fault, you may very well spend your entire life in prison. Then he said, I guess the other thing that concerns me, I've never seen one ounce of remorse. That's something. No, he said, that's something you better think about. Until that remorse sets in, you're going to have a tough time. You, young man, may fuck off. Four life sentences concurrent.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, shit.

[James Pietragallo]

So he gets a life for each one of them, but to run concurrently. But still4life. So he got life for all of me. Just didn't get consecutive life, which is why pled now. Now the prosecutor here is pissed off at Michael for saying he doesn't remember the other three murders. Oh, all pissed off. Yeah. Said that this was the subject of the third psychological evaluation at a state hospital. And the prosecutor said the doctor came to the conclusion that he had been deceptive. I find it real difficult to believe. He said, it's not like. And then they asked him, hey, you let this guy plea. And now he's getting off with this easy sentence.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

And he's like. He said, quote, it's not like he's walking on out the other. Walking out on the other three. He said he's got life with parole.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He's convicted.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. It's a life sentence. He said it's pretty good. I don't know what you're talking about. You got someone to plea while saving the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars. Like, what do you want?

[Jimmy Wissman]

And we gave a teenager the opportunity to change his ways.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. You want to pay a shitload of money to get him in jail for a few extra years just to say, yeah, it's like you'll. Most of the people saying that will be dead by the time he even gets out of jail, shut the fuck up and mind your business. How's that? So Michael's aunt here, Helen, she said after the court hearing that she believed that he should have gone to trial. How would you go to trial?

[Jimmy Wissman]

She's out of her mind.

[James Pietragallo]

They're not going to believe that he didn't remember. And even if he didn't remember, they're still going to say he's guilty and didn't.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

I mean, there's no way to do that. She believes he was motivated. Motivated by. And this is when a lot of shit comes out here. This is far from over. She believes that the murders were motivated by physical and sexual abuse he suffered over the years. Yes. This aunt waged a months long campaign to be allowed to visit Michael in the Burley County Detention Center. She said she's hoping he gets counseling in prison. She said he's got to figure out how to take responsibility for the killings and still realize the abuse wasn't his fault. Those are two separate, big, huge, giant things that people spend their whole lives trying to work one of those out. You know what I mean? Honestly.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. And that sex abuse thing is real fucked.

[James Pietragallo]

That's what I mean. It takes a whole life to realize that's not your fault sometimes to. Never mind you killed four people too. So she said that he has shown remorse to him, to her, and cried about the deaths of his brother and mother in particular. Sister and father can go fuck themselves, but brother and mother awful. Sherman and her husband, she's Merle's wife, by the way, the guy who went over there to. To call the cops here. She said they still want to help him too.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

He said what judge. What the judge said about him doing something with his life. We're going to support him and try to give him the moral support we can. Okay. Now he's sent to prison now, and this was in early 1994. He does an interview later on. Well, it's not really an interview. It's Kind of because the judge ruled he wasn't allowed to do any interviews for a while. So he had like. Like, he wrote letters. This is pieced together from letters. He wrote correspondence with people. He says this, quote, I was abused physically and sexually for years, and I just never said anything about it to anybody. He said it was the abuse that drove him to kill his father. His father's physical abuse was horrible and his sister's sexual abuse. So the interesting part is the sister who authorities charged with crimes for incidents outside the Neugebauer family. So sister did something. I don't know what's going on here, because from what I understand, the high school she went to is a high school for bad kids also.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

So I'm not sure what's going on. But he says that his father beat him up and his sister sexually abused him also.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Pietragallo]

That's what's going on here. Which means that someone was sexually abusing her.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Like, you know, girl children don't come up with that on their own. You have to.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's tough. Yeah. So that's for sure. Is that for sure? We don't.

[James Pietragallo]

That's what he says. I can't. I have no idea. I'm not trying to speak ill of the dead here, but that's what he says. And apparently there were charges for crimes. We don't know what crimes, but outside of the family. So I'm not sure if she did something to somebody else or what. We don't know. Michael said after that, anyway, it would have been better if I had been killed. I wouldn't have to go through all the shit I went through in the last two or three years. A lot easier, I think.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Today the prison won't allow interviews with him, but he sent this to Jackie. By the way, Jackie's still around.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She's still. Whoa. What the fuck?

[James Pietragallo]

Oh, we'll see. Jackie is ride or fucking die for a little while anyway.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Even though she has a kid here at some point, but that's to be expected.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Well, that's not his, is it?

[James Pietragallo]

Fuck, no. No. This is what he wrote. Quote, I hate what I did and how it hurt so many people. I think what my family missed out on in life because I took it away. I think of what my family missed out on in life because I took it away. I put the oven there. He forgot it. I am the one responsible and me alone. I picked up the gun to help me get away from the hell I was going through and living in. I did not intend to kill anyone. If I saw how things ended, I would have never done it. Really interesting. Yeah. So if he thought about this, the consequences. You know, it's weird. It's almost like. Like 15 year olds don't think shit through.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, like they. They don't understand consequences.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, it's. It's almost like they don't understand long term consequences because they're children. It's almost like they should be older before they're adults.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They don't understand how long life really is.

[James Pietragallo]

Yes, they don't. When I was 15, I never thought, Holy shit. 60, 70. I never even thought about that. I thought I'd be long dead by now. Never mind.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You know, I mean, you live forever, so, you know, I mean, like.

[James Pietragallo]

Or.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, I saw George Burns on tv. I'm gonna live that long. Fuck, that's so far away.

[James Pietragallo]

I'll either be dead by 23 or be 112. One or the other. There's no in between is what you think when you're a teenager. I'll either be dead, like in a James Dean fiery car accident or something. Some cool, gorgeous Meredith or. Yeah. And you can wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which one fills up first. You can do that one or the other.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Want to take a red on my felony?

[James Pietragallo]

I love what he says. Well, if he craps out two dimes and a nickel, that's when you know you got problems. Because he ate a quarter of the baby. If he craps out two dimes in a nickel. And for lunch I have a bacon sandwich. And I usually drink my dinner for breakfast I have a big pile of.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Bacon when he's flirting with the old lady in the bloopers.

[James Pietragallo]

Oh, that's great. That's so great.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's so funny.

[James Pietragallo]

Why'd you cut that out, guys?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, we do that in the movie.

[James Pietragallo]

That's hilarious. If you've not seen Grumpy Old Men, if you're younger or something, you're like, I don't want to watch a 30 year old movie about old men. Yes, you fucking do. It's hilarious.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Younger old men is the better one.

[James Pietragallo]

Because they're both great.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He does despicable things.

[James Pietragallo]

I can't tell you the difference between. Except one is Sophia Loren and one's Angie Dickinson. That's the only way I know.

[Jimmy Wissman]

The second one's Sophia.

[James Pietragallo]

I know that. But all the jokes. Can't tell you which one is in which. It's like the same, which is good. That's what I mean. The sequels Were like, it was equally good. The both movies, they just went together.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Just horrific. He just. The old man basically threatening to rape an older lady.

[James Pietragallo]

An older lady. While he's like hunched over and shaken.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Let's fuck, huh?

[James Pietragallo]

What do you say? So Jackie says this quote, Mike is responsible for pulling the trigger. But it's a domino effect. If he would have been taken out of that home when he should have been, his dad got help. I know they would have been alive. And this is what, this is what I live with every single day of my life. Yeah. What more could you do but call the people and get like you get. What more could a 16 year old do? You couldn't go over there, the father threatened you with a hammer and ran over your dog just for hanging out with the guy. Like, it's not like you could have went over there and said, come on, Michael, I'm taking you away from all this.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He made Mike clean up Benji on the road. You can't do this.

[James Pietragallo]

Fucked, man.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You couldn't have done anything.

[James Pietragallo]

So the prosecutor through all this writes a letter to the newspaper. It's not good enough that he got a life sentence. The prosecutor also doesn't want anyone to feel bad for him as well. It's public, public shame and humiliation, which again, shouldn't have shot your mother, shouldn't have shot your brother, definitely shouldn't have shot your sister, and probably shouldn't even have shot your father. Just don't shoot people. There's other explanations for this, but if what he said is true, I get the father thing, yes, for sure. And I even get the sister thing if his sister was sexually abusing him. But not. I don't. I'm not condoning it, but I understand it. But the brother and the mother, no fucking no reason. Because if he did that, he could have said, I was protecting them. I was protecting him from my sister and my mom, from my father. But when you kill everybody, then you're just a piece of shit who killed everybody.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And you're killing a little boy that's cowering in his room.

[James Pietragallo]

Gets what? I mean, who probably worships you, by the way, as an older brother. Yeah, yeah. Three years younger. Older brother probably worships his ass, follows him around, does all the shit he does. Fucking pathetic. So prosecutor writes a letter here and she said, as the person who prosecuted the case, I would like to clear up misconceptions. Oh, and then has like Sarah Boone bullet points. Like when Sarah Boone writes the judge about everything, there is apparently misinformation and rumor that Michael Neugebauer was the victim of child abuse by his father in some way. Extensive investigation came up with not one bit of evidence that such is the case. By the way, put that in there that they're saying this now because they changed their tune big time about this shit later on. Yeah. There are no official records that Michael Neugebauer or anyone else ever reported any sort of abuse. Friends and relatives that were talked to told law enforcement they'd never seen any indication of any form of abuse. By the way, they were very private people, too. And usually abusive families are very private for that reason.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right.

[James Pietragallo]

They don't want people knowing what's going on inside the house. In addition, Neugebauer was evaluated on at least four occasions by psychiatrists or psychologists. His lawyers in our office agreed that nothing he said in those evaluations would be used. Used against him. He did not mention any instances of abuse. There appears to be a misconception as to what this. What sentence was imposed and what the practical result of the sentence is. Neugebauer was sentenced to life imprisonment on four counts of murder. These sentences will run concurrently or together. Neugebauer will be eligible for parole once he served 30 years, minus any accrued good time. This means he will be eligible for parole in 23 to 25 years if he's been able to amass all available good time. Being eligible for parole does not mean he's going to be released, but rather that his status will be reviewed for the first time. The parole board will consider all pertinent information regarding him, including the circumstances of the offense, his conduct and progress while in prison, and the input of family members. The prosecutor told the judge, the prosecutor and the judge. I'm sorry. Finally, the writer criticized the plea bargain in this case case. From the standpoint of the prosecution, there were several compelling reasons to enter into the agreement. The first is that there's never any guarantee of a guilty verdict when a case is presented to a jury, regardless of how strong the case is. One only need to recall the Bobbitt and Menendez cases to see that a seemingly airtight case may not result in a favorable verdict. Sure. Second is the cost involved. While cost of prosecution is never determinative of our office decisions, it certainly must be a consideration, especially given the tremendous costs already incurred in this case, because all that shit, it all gets charged to North Dakota. All the stuff that happened, they said. Thirdly, there's no guarantee that Judge Glazer would have imposed consecutive sentences had we gone to trial and gotten Four guilty verse. He might have given them the exact same. We spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and he got the exact same fucking deal. And now he's going to appeal it 30 times too. Because he can.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Which will cost us more.

[James Pietragallo]

Which will cost us more. Hundreds of thousands of dollars that you fucking people don't want to pay. So. And you'll complain about later, even though this is what you want. Frustrating. So he said, as stated above, the parole board must in 30 years or so find that Neuga Bauer is suitable to return to society. If not, he will remain in prison for the rest of his life. This will not, of course, bring back the four victims, but it's the best we can do.

[Jimmy Wissman]

This is all we've got.

[James Pietragallo]

That's fair. That's fair. 1997. There is an interview with Michael and guess who's there? Who's Jackie? She's still there. This is five fucking years later. She's still sitting by his side, not in prison. She's free. The article here says three times a week, Jackie Hibe Hybe walks through the maze of steel barred prison hallways to the visiting room. There, for two hours, she and Michael Neugebauer think of places they have been in the places they would rather.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Florida.

[James Pietragallo]

Florida, Cancun, Cayman Islands.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They didn't make it to them.

[James Pietragallo]

Iowa, fucking Nevada. Anywhere else but here. Neugebauer speaks first. His eyes never leave. Leave Jackie's as they sit together. We're just good friends, he says. Who? Dot, dot, dot. And then her words overtake him. I'm still in love with him with all my heart, she says over the noise. But it's kind of hard now.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Makes it. Makes it a difficult man. Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

This kid must be a fucking stud. When he was 15. She's still. She's still on him.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. Did they. Do they fuck? Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

They slept in the same bed. Yes.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right. Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

After you butcher your family and go on the run, you are fucking like mad. Probably the best sex he'll ever have in his life.

[Jimmy Wissman]

But he got all three.

[James Pietragallo]

He got all three. Exactly. That's. We've seen from Gypsy Rose after a murder. It's all three. Every time.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Pretty much all three.

[James Pietragallo]

Pretty much all three. Jesus, Nick. Go to John fucking interrogation if you really just want to be baffled and laugh. Saddened.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Truly saddened.

[James Pietragallo]

Saddened, baffled and also hilarious at the same time. It's really weird.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Saddened by a kid that got taken advantage of.

[James Pietragallo]

So weird. So while Neugebauer faced murder charges, Jackie was labeled a runaway. She was hustled. From psychiatric ward in Bismarck to a group home in Fargo to her father's home in Texas. Finally, she returned to Bismarck and to Nugelbauer. She said, I've tried to go on with my life, but in a way, our lives stopped back then.

[Jimmy Wissman]

In a way.

[James Pietragallo]

In a way, his life is definitely stopped for sure.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Hard breaks.

[James Pietragallo]

Hard, hard stop right there. Full stop.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And yours stood on him on the freeway.

[James Pietragallo]

Yours was paused for a while here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Then she says, running away with Michael was probably one of the biggest things that's ever happened in my life. I would assume the fucking very biggest at this point. Right. What else have you done?

[Jimmy Wissman]

You are 22 at this point.

[James Pietragallo]

21 at this point. Yeah. No, his aunt says. This is Michael's aunt. They've been through so much together. I feel like they. I think they feel bonded. I know that Mike doesn't think he's in love with her anymore, but there's still something between them.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's a trauma bond is what that is.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. And they're. They're fucked up kids. They were both fucked up kids. Were fucked up kids together. Then the article goes on to say that they asked Jackie, had she gone with him of her own free will. Did she even know what he was suspected of doing? She insists now that she knew nothing about the killings. When she agreed to run away, like we said, it wasn't until they stopped at the motel room the first night that he told her he'd killed his father. She said, I didn't believe him. How are you supposed to react? Like, yeah, right. And Michael said, I don't blame her. That's kind of a shock to hear. So I didn't blame her for being like, yeah, bullshit, you didn't kill your father. So she said she never thought about turning him in. Ever. Never even considered it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Never.

[James Pietragallo]

Never even thought about it. Nope. She said we were. We were in it together from then on.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She's badass.

[James Pietragallo]

Fuck, man. He says he still doesn't remember killing his mother, sister or brother. He says, quote, I hope I never remember. He said, I remember the first shot, and that's about it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Pietragallo]

Okay. Now, the prosecutor here, Patricia Burke, says horseshit. He doesn't buy a fucking word of it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He remembers every bit of it.

[James Pietragallo]

He remembers it. He fucking remembers it. That's one thing. Don't say you don't remember it. Dude, say I did it because I shouldn't have done fucking A and B, but I meant fucking C and D.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And it was super fucked up watching my brother Died.

[James Pietragallo]

I was just gonna say, be a man. But he was 15, so never mind. Be a child. Be a stand up child.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Stand up man.

[James Pietragallo]

So the. She says. She notes that Neugebauer told several different versions after his arrest, including one in which he said he killed his father because his father had killed the rest of the family. He told several stories. One of the one was I came in and dad had killed everybody. And I had to shoot him. I had to put him down.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I was just packing at the moment.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. But then they were like, how did you get the gun away from him to shoot him with the same gun he shot everybody else with? How would. How would you do that? And he was like, fuck. Okay, nevermind. Back to one. Back to one, everybody. That's fucking crazy. She also says Michael Neugebauer can deal with what he did the way he sees fit. If he wants to say he doesn't remember, that's fine with me. All I know is he killed four people. And she also says that she could never substantiate even three years after we just talked, talked about it before from 94. Couldn't substantiate the claims of abuse. She said, let's assume he was abused, which I don't believe he was, but let's assume it anyway. Why would he kill his little brother? He murdered four people and then he went and played on the beach in Florida. I think he deserves to be where he's at. That's hard to argue.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, that's a good argue.

[James Pietragallo]

Did he go to the beach? I remember they came to the hotel from the beach, from Sarasota. They were eating cheeseburgers and frolicking and fucking. They played in the pool, for Christ's sake. I bet they had a floaty going on.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They're tickling each other.

[James Pietragallo]

Fuck. Yes. The warden here, Tim Schultze, said that Neugebauer and this isn't gonna last long, but said he's been a model prisoner. Although recently he was disciplined for threatening a woman prisoner. I don't know why they were together, but an offense that Michael describes as a mere misunderstanding. He's like, that was just a misunderstanding. They say he spends most of his time working out. And he said that he is not asking Jackie to wait for him, by the way. He said, I wouldn't free will. He said, I wouldn't want anyone to put their life on hold for me. Well, she's got a kid, so I don't know how much on hold she's. She's getting.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's not Real. Yeah, she's getting a regular dick.

[James Pietragallo]

She might not be married to anybody, but she's definitely fucking moving on with her life here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

So by 1999, Michael is in. He's in lockdown when they go to talk to him here. And they said that he created a hiding space in his cell by removing door paneling. Oh, we. I don't know what the advantages of that are, but they suspect that he created the space to hide tools he planned to use for an escape. It was a storage area, not for him to hide. And the warden said he's an individual with nothing to lose. And he's proven that time and time again.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, shit.

[James Pietragallo]

He's got nothing to lose, which he kind of does, but, you know, 2000. Yeah, yeah, 2004 now he's in deep shit again. He's in the hole now when they go talk to him for a. They say in this newspaper article. The rash of recent escape attempts has blown away statistics and baffled Department of Corrections officials.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

In the last five years, only four people have walked away from the two minimum security facilities at the maximum security state penitentiary. Only one inmate, convicted murderer Michael Neugebauer, was charged with trying to escape during the same time period. Neugebauer and four others may face new escape charges after they allegedly stole a bolt cutter earlier this month. In another. Earlier this year, in another apparent attempt to break out of prison.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, my God.

[James Pietragallo]

Has been trying to break out of prison constantly, apparently.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Why is he doing that?

[James Pietragallo]

From 99 on, he just got like. I don't know if he gave up and just said, fuck it, I gotta get out of here. But he's trying to break out of prison, which, what, are you gonna live a new life? What are you doing? So they said that he was transferred and the plans are to do. The other federal people were transferred and Neugebauer, they're gonna transfer him too. So now from now on, he's gonna get transferred to prisons all over the country. He's an escape risk. So they keep putting him in all these, like, high security prisons, ones that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He can't get comfortable in, so. He can't.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, yeah, so. And also federal facilities that are more secure. They said he is high classified as a high escape risk and moved to maximum security lockdown. Inmates of maximum security have the least amount of privileges because they're the highest potential for problems. The prison guy said he will remain there until he's likely transferred out of state and likely in two or three months. One guy said, I would easily say it was more than justified, the move to maximum security because of the potential of escape that he presents. He said, this is not the first time we've investigated Michael Neugebauer for escape. Okay, apparently here. So would they go and talk to him? And that's. That's where he is. He's like in the full maximum shit here. And he says he has full. He has few visitors. Hardly anybody comes and sees him anymore, of course. And he's unable to speak with those who do come in the normal visiting room because he's being punished for this suspected escape attempt. Here's escape plot. So they said in that room, inmates don't wear handcuffs and there's couches to sit on. It's like a decent place to visit people. This is through the glass, you know, pick up the phone and talk through the glass shit here. Said though, since he is being punished, he can't go anywhere without handcuffs now either. She's got to be cuffed the whole time. The punishment known as the hole to him and other inmates. This article says, obviously we know the hole a few months when he is confined to his cell all day. Every 15 days he gets to spend some time out of his cell. Every 15 days he gets to come out of his cell.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's not 23 and one, it's no.

[James Pietragallo]

No, no, 15 days.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And he earns an hour.

[James Pietragallo]

Yes, it's 30 and two is what it is. Meaning days. Yeah, so that's wild. Otherwise he gets out once a day to take a 15 minute shower. That's it. No exercise, nothing. He tries to sleep as much as he can. He says, which. What else would you do? He says he's innocent, at least at the escape plot. So, look, I didn't do that. Yeah, he said, and if it weren't for my reputation, people wouldn't think that, you know what I mean? And the newspaper said that if you didn't know who he was, his smooth voice and piercing eyes could probably convince anybody that he's telling the truth too. So they said. Inmate number 16730 hardly seems like the Manakan teenager who pleaded guilty to killing his family, shooting his father, mother, sister and brother in their farmhouse in 1992. But today, more than 10 years after his sentencing, Neugebauer is not denying what happened that day. The details of that winter day in 1992 are still details only in his mind, are only his mind knows and sometimes won't reveal, not even to him. He says he knows what happened and however the chain of events played out it left his family dead in the farmhouse where they were found. Neugebauer remembers shooting his father after an argument they had over his household, George. Which is what he told a judge during sentencing. Although he recalls more today than he did a decade ago, he still can't give a chronology of what happened that day. He still finds the whole thing hard to believe, really. He said, quote, it's still hard for me to think that I even did it. I mean, how could I? The fuck was I thinking? He said, fuck was I thinking, man? Which I would hope that a lot of murderers think that when they're. What the fuck was I thinking? Why did I do that?

[Jimmy Wissman]

What the fuck is wrong with me?

[James Pietragallo]

What hell am I doing here? He says that he knows what he did, but he's unable to tell it to anyone back then. He says he did not tell anyone at the time what had happened. He said, I pretty much know I did it. I remember it happened with him first, my father. So I know it had to have happened with the rest of them. What else could have happened? Someone else came in and took the gun and shot them. He said what happened is something he thinks of every day. He said, I take responsibility for it, all of it. He says, you aren't going to put it out of your mind, not ever. It's not just something you forget about. You think about it every day, but you try not to. So he says that he doesn't understand. He said he knows he hated his father as a result of the abuse, but he doesn't know what he did with everybody else. He's not quite sure what he was doing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I can't fathom that.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, he said that. He said, you want to use that as an excuse? It is an excuse, but what I'm trying to say is that I don't lay it on. I don't lay it all on that. I'm not trying to blame anything. He says, it's so much different when you're a kid. You feel like you have no way out, which at 15, you really feel. And that's the thing we've talked about so many fucking times. Like Columbine, for instance. Yeah, those kids were seniors, right?

[Jimmy Wissman]

They were a month from graduating.

[James Pietragallo]

In a month and a half, they.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Would have never, never thought of it.

[James Pietragallo]

Ever again, any of those fucking people ever again. They could have sat around, drawn pictures on their faces at the yearbook and remember that asshole while they went to their fucking jobs.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, that made.

[James Pietragallo]

That made no sense to me.

[Jimmy Wissman]

None.

[James Pietragallo]

Because there was a way out Wait a month and you're out.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Not even. It was April 20th. Yeah, it was a month. It was four weeks. Literally four weeks shy of gradually.

[James Pietragallo]

Crazy, fucking crazy. When you're 15 and it's your parents, it might be different, you know what I mean? I could see that feeling like there's no way out of this trailer in this small town with a. Where am I going to go?

[Jimmy Wissman]

72 people.

[James Pietragallo]

Picture the globe. Picture your little dot on the globe. How do you get out of that if you're 15? Murder isn't the answer, obviously. But he said it's so much different though. He said, I really don't feel like I've grown up at all. At times, he said, I feel like life stopped 13 years ago and this has all been a bad dream.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's only been 13 years, dude.

[James Pietragallo]

They said. But he's a convicted killer now. And instead of fishing, he's inside of his cell. A six foot wide room with no window, no carpet, no comfort. His bed is made of metal, his mattress thin. Before he goes to sleep, he folds his pillow over twice and tries to put his memories out of his mind. He concentrates instead on what the backs of his eyelids look like. It's never totally dark in his room in prison, there are night lights in each cell. It's never totally quiet because people talk all night. Or as Neugebauer writes, they yell just to be heard.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Is that right?

[James Pietragallo]

Oh, people scream and yell all night in fucking prison. It's a thing they want to disrupt. Shit, people in prison, a lot of them aren't good with societal shit. Like, hey, don't do that. You disturb others. They want to disturb people. That's the point, dude.

[Jimmy Wissman]

To get a good night's sleep would be nuts.

[James Pietragallo]

Fuck, man. And then you wonder, well, yeah, you wonder why people get stabbed. Maybe everyone that got stabbed is just keeping people up too late.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And why people are smuggling in sedatives.

[James Pietragallo]

Exactly. Look, man, I can't sleep in here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

At least they can drug me through this shit.

[James Pietragallo]

Fuck. But he said, I try to see nothing but the backs of my eyelids. If I think about the things I want, or used to, it might makes for a long night.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Tries to think about the outside. Prosecutors say they were never able to substantiate the claims of abuse. He says they never fucking tried to substantiate the claims of abuse. That's why he said, I'm not normally a violent person. I'm not a cold hearted person. I get upset. I've been upset many times. I have feelings just like everyone else. You can't always show your emotions, but that doesn't mean you don't have them. The prosecutor who prosecuted him, Patricia Burke, says she has no regrets about what happened. The prosecution, she says, I certainly have regrets that four people were brutally murdered and that their families suffered horribly. But I don't have any regrets about prosecuting Michael Neugebauer. She then said, I think he got off fairly easy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Is that right?

[James Pietragallo]

That's 10 years after she was in the paper going, hey, we fucking pinned his ass to the wall. Now it's easy. His aunt Helen, remember, the one who's been supporting him, she says she thinks Michael was treated unfairly by prosecutors, law enforcement and the media who failed to see him as a human being. Instead, he was treated and continues to be treated like an animal. I will say if you. He definitely didn't say he might be a troubled kid. It was like, kid on the loose, he'll kill you all. Watch out. He's looking for. He's bloodthirsty, which it would look like that after you shot four people. She said, they say it's a good justice system. They say it's the best in the world and that we should be happy with that because that's all we have. But it just isn't good enough. Now Michael talks about how he learned how to shave in prison. Yeah, he's a blonde kid. He probably didn't shave till he was 18. He was, like, fully blonde.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, shit. He probably didn't shave till he was 25.

[James Pietragallo]

He was like, let me get that little mustache off me. He got his GED in prison. He started reading recreationally in prison. He likes mystery novels. I guess that would maybe take you away from the. Yeah, I would think you'd want. Because I don't like fiction, but if I was in prison, I might like fiction. Maybe I might like to be taken away from here and go into my imagination rather than reality, which is what I normally like. He's lean. He's learned to like the St. Louis Cardinals since he came to prison. That's nice. Hey, Cardinals, you got a new fan. Aren't you proud? Oh, that guy who killed four people likes us now. Terrific. He said he watches his team on TV during baseball season. He also learned how to bake pies and cakes in the bakery. Isn't that nice?

[Jimmy Wissman]

What?

[James Pietragallo]

I don't know why he's a pastry chef now, but that's what's happening. He's developed large biceps since. Working out is the only way to spend. One of the only ways to spend time here. He's also learned in prison that he will never have a normal life. Even if he gets out. He'll be eligible for parole in 2023 unless he's convicted of perpetrating the escape plot.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, right.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. He said, you can't be looking down the road thinking about when you might get out. It's nice to think about, but it eats you up inside if you keep thinking about it. Yeah, one day at a time is how they gotta do that shit. That's the only way to do it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Like a drug addict.

[James Pietragallo]

Yep, it's like a drug addict. What do they say? Yeah, only do two days in this motherfucker day you come in, the day you walk out. That's the prisoner mantra. So everything else, you just gotta, like, separate your body from it? I guess so. He says he misses his family dearly and says that thinking about them eats him up inside. He said there's days when he wonders why he keeps on living. But he says he gets hope again in the end. He said, I don't really know sometimes if it's worth it, but I want it to be worth it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. So they decide. No escape charges for him or the four other inmates that tried to escape, even though they were trying to escape. And he had. Yeah, the. What is this? The prison guy here? The state's attorney said there wasn't even remotely enough evidence to prove that these people were plotting to escape. Even though it was obvious they were plotting to escape. There's no evidence. They need like. Yeah, they need evidence. It was initially determined that five inmates helped move the bolt cutter from the shop in the prison's Rough Rider Industries, located outside the. Mate. Rough Rider in prison.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really like that.

[James Pietragallo]

Jesus Christ, man. You're inviting fucking man on man. Fucking sexual violence here. Located outside the main confinement area. Three days after the tool's disappearance, it was found in the food service area where Neugebauer worked. So you can't prove that he told them to put it there, but he told them to put it. He's a guy who was always trying to escape. So, I mean, you know, we get an idea. They said there was insufficient evidence to prove who took the bolt cutter. Bolt cutter? How it ended up in the food service area, who helped move it there or what it was to be used for. Probably not preparing lunch, I would assume.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No, no.

[James Pietragallo]

The bolt cutter. He met with prison officials Wednesday at the Burley County.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Around here?

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, I'm gonna. This fucking. Jesus Christ. These Fucking ends of skirt they send us. Good Lord. Gotta cut these things with.

[Jimmy Wissman]

God dang.

[James Pietragallo]

This chicken is tough, man. This soy meat is tough. That's mainly what they use there. Among those at the meeting was Pat Branson, deputy state prison warden. Prison officials in the state's attorney's office mutually agreed not to pursue charges because the extra prison time wouldn't justify the cost of prosecution. Said, we're gonna have these big trials that we're gonna have to. Have to try to get these guys two extra years like they all have.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, they all have life. Life sentences.

[James Pietragallo]

Makes no sense. Yeah. They said that conspiracy to escape from prison charges are class C felonies that carry a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay. Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Not worth it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No.

[James Pietragallo]

So Michael 2016 here, he's been in several states because he keeps being returned for escapist attempts before in 2016, he's finally returned to the penitentiary in Bismarck. So he's finally home here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They moved him back to Bismarck, eventually.

[James Pietragallo]

Back to Bismarck by 2016. 2017, there's a new law. Okay. The 2017 statute states a court may reduce a sentence for someone convicted as an adult for a crime committed as a juvenile if they have served at least 20 years for the offense.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh.

[James Pietragallo]

Basically, 20 is enough. If you did this shit when you were young.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Which, I mean. Yeah. That's if you're in prison for longer than you've been alive.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Good point.

[James Pietragallo]

I kind of get it. So they filed. His lawyers filed a motion for sentence reduction and determined that. They said, please. They want the court to determine that the defendant is not a danger to anyone's safety so he can be eligible for this. 2019, a statement to the court while this is all going on, because it takes years to then get an appeal on this. He wrote, I don't make my abuse an excuse for what happened, but it's the reason why it happened. I was a child trying to get out of a terrible situation. I didn't know the right way to get there. I just wanted out. That's what he was. Right. Because he had to write that in a letter to a judge. 2020, he files a motion for sentence reduction hearing, which was denied, even though the letter of the law includes him in that. Perfectly.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They didn't want to hear it.

[James Pietragallo]

Nope. He appealed to the state supreme court, arguing the lower court was wrong to deny his motion without a hearing. They didn't even give him a father hearing. They just denied it. Not here. Not listen to your shit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

So 2022 is when he's finally heard on this.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. It's wild, man. So in a brief file with the court opposing Nugar Bauer's request for a sentence reduction, the Burley county state's attorney wrote, the state does not dispute. The state does not dispute that Neuga Bauer was a victim of abuse as a child at the hands of his father and sister.

[Jimmy Wissman]

We don't dispute it.

[James Pietragallo]

For fucking 30 years you have called him a fucking liar about this.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

And now you go, well, we get that that happened, but still, you don't get to play it both ways, man.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What the shit?

[James Pietragallo]

I mean, I'm not saying that. Like I said, I'm not saying that that's an excuse to kill the fucking whole family. But when you say you deny that he was abused forever and you wonder why he's fucking stewing in his own juices and trying to escape. Whatever. Anyway, so at the father or sister, while the state recognizes such abuse can and does have an effect on the mental well being of children. You think so? New Gubarrow's reaction to that abuse was disproportional to a disturbing degree. Absolutely right. I agree with that. The brief continued, therefore, while the fact of Neuga Bauer's history of abuse would weigh in favor of a sentence reduction because that gives him a reason why he did this shit, the weight is negated in this matter by the gross disproportionality of New Burgers, New Bowers actions in response to that abuse. Okay. Michael, at a motion hearing, spoke to the court of the circumstances of his home before the crime. Verbal, physical, sexual abuse at the hands of his father and sister. He said usually I would end up on the ground and my dad would be the one kicking or hitting. And then he said his anger was taken out on my mom after that. And I heard the audio of this. He's crying horribly. He's like really, really digging deep and doing that shit probably happened. He said it was never meant to go. Why would you tell your girlfriend that your father and sister are abusing you? Unless your father and sister were abusing you?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

You want to look cool to your girlfriend.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

And even that's not a cool thing. Like, yeah, man, my sister comes in and sits on my face in the night like when I was eight. Like, that's not. My dad comes around, beats the shit out of me for no reason. That's not shit. That's cool. As a 15 year old, you'd be bragging. You wouldn't be bragging about that to a girlfriend. So I feel like that's probably true. If he told her it might be. He said it was never meant to go over and kill anybody. It was meant to be my protection. I never thought it through. So he said he had tunnel vision after he shot his father without knowing what he was doing. And he says he didn't plan any of this. That's important, the planning. A psychologist here, Dr. Shannon Weiss, said it's more intellect, it's more instinctual motions at that point than rational thought. A psychologist, expert witness for the defense, testified this and said that at age 15, a person is not fully developed and there's a lack of personality red flags in Neugebauer presently, like he's not displaying any. Anything red flags as far as that he's going to do it again. The state's attorney then asked if Neugebauer actually suffered from PTSD or Dissociation in 1992. And the psychologist said, I can't emphatically say yes, you know, because it's 30 years ago. She said, I guess it would be based on his self report. So yeah, I can't glean how he felt 30 years ago now, but he's reporting that that's how he felt and.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He'S saying he won't do it again because the people that he wants to hurt are already gone.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, unless anybody, you know, does that shit again to him, which probably won't happen when he's 45 year old, ex convict, I doubt. So the state's expert psychologist doesn't says that he doesn't even have ptsd, which how if you got abused by two members of your family, which the state agrees with now, and then shot them all, you'd have ptsd. Unless you were a fucking psychopath. You'd have to be Ted Bundy level psychopath to not have PTSD from that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Certainly, certainly.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, you gotta be a hardcore fucking psychopath path for that shit. So Judge Bobby Wheeler raised questions of how mental development of a 15 year old differs from adults. Apparently never been around a 15 year old before. She asked both parties to make arguments on whether Neugebauer should have his sentence reduced at a later date. His aunt Helen still got his back, by the way. Dude, this Helen lady is a down bitch, man. Like if you're, if you're Michael, this is the only person who stuck with you this whole time is Helen. And she's not even related to him by blood. Yeah, she is. Her former husband was his uncle, his mom's brother. And that dude died.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She's still hanging out.

[James Pietragallo]

She's still hanging out. She said here that Neugebauer has a good heart and says she did feel a judge should grant him a sentence reduction, although she acknowledged that not all of his relatives may feel the same way. Helen said that she kept in communication with Neuga Bauer over his decades long incarceration and speaks with him by phone on a weekly basis. Jesus Christ, what a nice lady. She described him as a smart, hardworking guy and says that she has forgiven him for the crimes he committed. She said you can forgive the person without forgiving the sin. Now, while she does not believe. That's some Christian shit to say though, if you're going to be a Christian, act like that, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. You can't be all about vengeance and then be like, but Jesus is my. No, look, I never saw vengeance once in there. Not once. He never talks about it. Rarely comes up with him a lot of forgiveness though. That comes up a lot.

[Jimmy Wissman]

For sure.

[James Pietragallo]

For sure. So she does believe that he should be granted a sentence reduction, although she has concerns about him adjusting to life outside of prison. Because he's been in there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. His whole life.

[James Pietragallo]

He has no idea how to be an adult on the outside. She said, his whole life's been in there. She said that he would face challenges upon release and hopes there would be resources available for him on the outside side, such as job assistance should a judge grant this. His attorney also submitted a brief to the court saying Michael has served sufficient incarceration to both punish and rehabilitate him. Whichever one you want, he's got it, you know. The brief request is sentenced to be reduced to time served with a period of supervised release of about five for at least five years. So let him out, have him come to a parole office, served three times a fucking week, put a bracelet on him, do whatever you want, put an anklet on him, have him go to the parole officer, let him out of prison.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's going to be weird when he hacksaws through his front door.

[James Pietragallo]

Every day he's trying to get out, he hacksaws out his bedroom window bolt. Cuts it out to fucking climb out. People are like, what is wrong with you?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Why does he keep breaking his steering column in his own car?

[James Pietragallo]

Keeps doing it. 20, 23.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

This appeal, the decision comes down. The North Dakota Supreme Court rejects the sentence reduction request by Neubarger, our Newga Barger Bauer. Yep. They said that he, the. He requested it based on the 2017 law. And the high court says since he was sentenced in 1994. The law became active in 2017. He would have to wait till 2037 to request a sentence reduction because the 20 years then that they say you served has to be after the law came into play. It's not a retroactive law like most laws are. So that's. Poor bastard. That is ridiculous. That's fat as fucking asinine. I'm sorry. So they said that by ruling. This ruling agrees with the state court, with the state's court here, that or district court that originally did this. And he's fucked. So now. And because of his problems, I'm not sure about good time or anything like that. From what I understand, he is eligible for parole in 2020. Okay, so it was originally 2023, but if he got all his good time. But I think tons of escape attempts weren't as good time.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

And a lot of states have done away with good time, too. So that might also be part of it. Also. They might have done away with it. Where would it ended, when it ended, and that would have been that. So 2027, he might get parole.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So that.

[James Pietragallo]

That is Manakin, North Dakota, Manokin. Manakin, North Dakota. And holy shit, what a wild fucking story that is. My God.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I mean, buy him a bunch of hacksaws for getting in and out of this, man. He's about to be out, man.

[James Pietragallo]

It's like, you're gonna get him some keys. He's like, I just get a ring of hacksaws. He's got a ring of little hacksaws he uses. It's fine.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He's up for parole at that time.

[James Pietragallo]

Or he's definitely 20, 27. No, he's up for parole.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, who knows?

[James Pietragallo]

I can't imagine them not letting him. He's been there since he was 15. Yeah, 15 and 92. So that would be 35 years. He'd be 50.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Pietragallo]

To say to a person you're the Same guy at 50 that you were at 15 is kind of crazy. You know what I mean? That's nuts. I don't remember a lot of what happened when I was 15. Even if he did remember it, that shit's gonna be fading by the time he's 50. Like, dude, I don't even remember banging my girlfriend afterwards. I don't remember any of this shit. It's wild.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

So anyway, that is Minocca, North Dakota.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What a place.

[James Pietragallo]

Fucking wild. Hell of a goddamn farm story, that. Imagine what. How big of a story this was in a town of 70 people.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Forget it. Anybody that's still alive 35 years later remembers every second of it.

[James Pietragallo]

Was there anything else talked about down at the feed store for the next five years? Probably so. Holy shit. If you like the show, please tell the world about it. It helps so much. And we can't express to you how much it helps. Get on whatever app you're listening on, they all have ways to review log in. It probably takes 10 seconds to log in and give us a review. It helps fucking remarkably tremendously. You know what you do? Put whatever you want in there. It doesn't matter. Just five stars. Write something nice. Doesn't even have to be that nice. Just say what your favorite plains Chinese dish would be.

[Jimmy Wissman]

There it is.

[James Pietragallo]

What plains animal would you like to see cooked kung pao style? Let's find out. General Tso's bison meat. I want to say orange skunk. What do you want to be served with broccoli? Find out. Tell us that. Also head over to Shut up and give me murder.com tickets for live shows. The live shows, honestly, are almost sold out here, so if you want to get tickets to anything for the rest of the year, get them now. Austin, a few tickets left for you. Phoenix. Phoenix sold out the first day they went on sale last December. No, no tickets there. So if you find anybody selling them, whatever, try to get them, but otherwise you can't get them. Those are gone. Boston, almost sold out, too. And that's a big theater. That's going to be fun. And New York, Tarrytown. Can't wait for that beautiful music hall. And that is. We just released the rest of them. I think they're almost gone.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So that's it?

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, that's it. You can still get tickets, though, for the virtual live show that we did on October 30th. It'll be available, I think, till November 3rd, 13th or something. You can get that. You can watch it 20 times, do whatever you want, just like a regular live show. If you want to see a live show, can't get to one. Or you want to see more live shows, it is the same setup. The table, the screen, us, pictures, story, jokes, costumes. Costumes. I was. You said that. And I was digging in my head for where and when. We had cartoons. I was gonna go, yeah. And then I'm like, what the did we do? Fuck is he talking about cartoons? You fucking. Hi, Jimmy. I'm the one who smoked a joint before the show, not you.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They fucking kind of.

[James Pietragallo]

We did car costumes, and they're amazing, so check those out. Shut up and give me murder.com as a matter of fact. Also, you certainly want to do Patreon or actually follow us on social media first at small town Murder on Instagram, Small Town Pod on Facebook. Check us out there and follow us and hang out with us and get all the updates for everything. And then as well as that, you certainly want Patreon.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

You like the show? You'll love Patreon, I'm telling you right now. Patreon.com crimeinsports. Not crime and sports. Not crime on sports, crime off. Sports in sports. And it's Patreon. P A T R e o n patreon.com Crime in sports. That is the place will get you. You're going to be so happy when you do this. Anybody $5 a month or above, you get hundreds of episodes of that catalog shit. Not. Not episodes that were ever public. These are all bonus episodes. So, yeah, stuff that no one's ever heard before, unless you're a Patreon person. Then we do two new ones every other week. One crime in sports, one small town murder, and you just get it all. Which is everything we got here for this week. Yeah, we want you to have it. For crime in sports we're going to talk about pedestrianism, which was one of the most popular sports that existed in the 1800s.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I can't wait to hear it.

[James Pietragallo]

We'll talk about what it is. But there's fighting and drugs and fucking. It's insane how these people did this shit. We'll talk about. I love the old timey stuff for sports. Then for small town murder we're gonna talk about in general exorcisms and specifically the devil on trial documentary, which is about using satanic possession or demonic possession to be more exact, as a alibi for murder, which is wild or an excuse for a crime. So we'll talk all about that. That is patreon.com crime and sports. And you get a shout out at the end of the show, which is right fucking now. Jimmy, hit me with the names of the most wonderful goddamn people who would never, ever, ever, ever, ever either molest us, abuse us, or kill us and our entire families. Hit me with them right now.

[Jimmy Wissman]

This week's executive producer, Gary Howard. Angela. Angie Williams, Simone Stratton, Janice Hill, Faith Steveson. Maybe probably Stevenson. Stevenson. Now it's Stevie, right? Philip Bay.

[James Pietragallo]

I don't know. Papa. Georgia. Populous. I'm not sure.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Georgia.

[James Pietragallo]

Georgia.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Georgia. Polis.

[James Pietragallo]

Don't ask me.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And also immortal masks for helping out. Tremendously getting me a mask at for the virtual live show on short notice. You guys are the best. Thank you. It was great. It worked out terrifically. Other producers this week are Liz Vasquez, Peyton Meadows, Ali. Ali B. Knits. She knits. James.

[James Pietragallo]

Motherfucker.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's right. And also Tiffany Gonzalez. You guys are.

[James Pietragallo]

Thank you.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So good to us. Thank you so much. Harrison Evans. Mark. Mark. Ty. Laura. Lauren Go Downs. Oh, Lauren Ryan. Guns Goons. Man, she's a great gal. Yeah. Everybody loves.

[James Pietragallo]

Very popular. Popular.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Big, big fan. Cola with no last name zero stars Clay going Shannon Marie McGovern Emily with no last name Ashley Burch Melissa Personius Jacqueline Nurkowitz Dalton Sutton Mimi Mo Maria Shown Allison with no last name Luke Arthur Ahern Steve. Nope, that's Steph Monroe. Noah Huffman Courtney Penn, Kelsey Murphy, Kelly Bauer, Barb Irwin, Madison Miller, Kyle Crocker, Layla Peterson, Nick Myers, Sean Stiber, Cheryl Odorizzi, Aaron with no last name Sarah Bennett, Jacob Dockery, Brett Gregory Tobin Edmonds M. Willard. Yep. M. Just the letter M. That's their first name. Willard. Yep. JP Edwards, Roxanna Rodriguez Abigail Cook, Erica with no last name dad with no last name that may be a typo. Tracy Farian Jody Collette M with no last name Cover block Stephanie Spivey. Oh, Keely, I think A K, I, E, L E. Is that Keeley or Kylie?

[James Pietragallo]

Kylie, I think maybe Keely, I don't know.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Vicky Waters. I keep as many times I say it over and over and over again. It's still going to be wrong. Right? 666 Some Rad Dame Lolo with no last name Sheena Bridges Cole with no last name Shakira Hendricks Joel with no last name Lauren Hunt Might be my. I don't know. I think I know her. Gina would no last name Shannon with no last name Amy Bullock Crystal with no last name Heidi Pharrell Brenda Morrison Linda P. Tiffany Sloan Nunya Nunya Business with no last name James Murdoch Selena Margashin Margicken Selena. Thank you. Sapphire McIntosh Nancy Rusk Brandy De Vere Eric Colvard Shonda with no last name Tom Christos Richard Booth YLP Christian Hill Jennifer To Viton Riffman Destiny Morris Free Just a whole bunch of ease Bobby Pressamore Kate Bashford Bash Ford Money Mad Rights Shelby Russo Katie with no last name Tabitha Dabrowski Chris Wilms Wilmies Nathan Garland Jeff P. Jimmy D. Will Langdon Brittany Brittany Bereski Kimberly Morrison Andrew R. Brooke Burge I think Jennifer Star Andrea Origel Orgel Mary Gibbs Crystal Terry Kerry Jo Moto Sylvia C. Janelle Janelle Stevens. Fascinating way of spelling Janelle. Sophia.

[James Pietragallo]

Sophia.

[Jimmy Wissman]

J, O, N, E, L. Wow. That's Janelle, right?

[James Pietragallo]

Or John.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's got to be. It's got to be Janelle.

[James Pietragallo]

Janelle. Johnnel.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Johnnel.

[James Pietragallo]

I don't know. I've never heard of that as a name, but that's a terrible name. Thank you for your money, Jonal. But you please have people call you Janelle because that. Jonal.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It doesn't matter what the gender is. What you got to go by.

[James Pietragallo]

You're going by Janelle Holmes. I'm sorry. It's happening.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Kelsey Weston. Brie with no last name. Presley with no last name. Victory, Victoria. Manny. Deanna Snyder. Mike Dustman. Stephanie. Holy what lajuz did. La.

[James Pietragallo]

June.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Essie. Nessie. La G, L, A, J, E, U, N, E, S, S, E. What is that? La Ginese. Right?

[James Pietragallo]

I don't know. Maybe it's Portuguese. Because we don't. We can't figure it out.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, it's probably sexy. Julie Gear. Gary Procop. Anna Ramirez. Tom with no last name. Veronica Johnson. The letter N. Jess Jenkins. Andrew Hesch, Isabel Youngworth, Joanne Carlin. Jenny Nicholas. Katherine Harberg. Abby. Abby Basoni. Stephanie Wells. Webby with no last name. I want. If that's not the rapper. Oh. Tony Arrington, Jennifer Thompson, Sarah Tromazzo, Tracy McDonald, Elizabeth McManus. Br. Kelly, Nancy with no last name. Katie, Holly or Hale. Steven. Steven Cooley. Hannah Juergens, Tammy Stetson, Jen. Kenji Johnson. Kathy Garcia, Barbara Johnson, Cammie and Allen. Sam Struthers, Adrian Jensen. Both of them.

[James Pietragallo]

I've heard of getting Cammie on your side, and I've heard when you get Allen on your side, but not both of them.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Great peep.

[James Pietragallo]

Jesus.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Dom. Dom McCoy. Andrea Johnson, Kim Sansoni, Alicia Cromer. Agenda. Glenda. Hey, Glenda. There's an L. Jackie Ayers. Sherry would know. Last name. Sierra Smith. Oh, you all right? Thomas Goer. Americanized Canadian.

[James Pietragallo]

All right.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Good for you. Jod. Sir or Jodester. Elizabeth Edwards. Donna Schenkel, Fannie McPhee. Madison Orr. Susan Grokner. Grokner. Claire and Gary Prokop. I said that. Danielle Traylor. Craig. Did he get two? He must have. Craig McAvana.

[James Pietragallo]

That's.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You're an angel. Thank you so much. You're the best, Gary. Suzanne Grog. I think I said that. Yeah. Craig McCavana, Mackenzie Bell. Catherine Matamoras. T.J. anderson. Jessica Wagner. Or maybe just Wagner. Kelsey Gibbs.

[James Pietragallo]

Maybe she's a composer. We don't know. Maybe she's Hitler's favorite composer we're not.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sure She's a contractor for the Kremlin. Daniel Childs Chrissy Sucra CZ U C H R A what I see a.

[James Pietragallo]

C and I'm immediately sure I'm I.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Don'T know what to do Martha with no last name J Jason Mullen Sarah Moffatt Jules with no last name Suanne Cronenbold Travis with no last name Nalf T Anna Anna Ross Emily Palmer Allison Hertzler Chelsea Gonzalez Stephen Grant Just Steve Grant. I don't know why I got so formal with it. Sierra Cruz Megan with no last name Ryan with no last name Michelle Cazaglio Savannah Harris Heather Murray Heather Irvine also Jesus 2 Heathers back to back Brian Alexander Hannah with no last name Be Waller B A B B Waller Amber Green from Israel thank you Amber Erica Discway Disc Erica, you're the best. Samuel Harsh Barger Faux Show Jackson Whitney Stephanie oh boy. Scack Slack Schlack shiakitano Shiakatano Princess D Sydney Jaeger Tara R on Angelique Toonley Robinson, Jada Powell Thompson, Elizabeth Jones and.

[James Pietragallo]

Jada Powell Smith to you, Jimmy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sorry, I like to keep her name out of it.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, yeah, that's the point.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Faith Nolan, Stacy Salowis, Salawa Gerardo with no last name Brenda Miller Rico Suave himself.

[James Pietragallo]

Hold on, you skipped over very quickly. That Rico Suave is giving us money. Thank you Rico. Sorry.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Great, sweetheart. But you guys are the best and we can't do this without you. The list grows every week and you exhaust me and I appreciate it.

[James Pietragallo]

Thank you everybody so much for what you do for us and what you've done for us and what you will continue to do for us. If you feel like it. Thank you for everything. We appreciate the out of everything you do. You want to follow us on social media? Shut up and give me murder.com has a dropdown menu with links to all that shit. Keep coming back every week. And until next week everybody, it's been our pleasure. If you like small town murder, you can listen early and ad free now by joining Wondery plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen early and ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short [e-mail] survey from the award winning masters of audio horror. I see a face right up against the window. Bleach white, no hair, black eyes. A round hole for a mouth. It's flat, Taylor. It's completely flat. I don't know what that is. I don't know what kind of a head is flat. Comes the return of Dark Sanctum seven original chilling tales inspired by the Twilight Zone entails. From the Crypt. Get back in your car, Lizzy. It's okay. I'm here now. Josh. Get in your car. Starring Bethany Joy Lenz, Clive standen and Michael O'Neal. Welcome to the Dark Sanctum. Listen to Dark Sanctum Season 2, exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify.