#549 - Keeping Deadly Secrets - Casa Grande, Arizona

Summary

Small Town Murder: Episode #549 - Keeping Deadly Secrets - Casa Grande, Arizona

Hosts: James Pietragallo & Jimmy Wiseman
Release Date: December 5, 2024

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Introduction

In this gripping episode of Small Town Murder, hosts James Pietragallo and Jimmy Wiseman delve into the enigmatic and tragic disappearance of Loretta Bowersock from Casa Grande, Arizona. Combining meticulous research with their signature comedic flair, James and Jimmy unravel the complex web of relationships, deceit, and dark secrets that culminate in a haunting murder case.

Background: Loretta Bowersock and Family Dynamics

Loretta Jean Bowersock, born March 2, 1935, was a vibrant and hardworking woman known for her love of tennis and her entrepreneurial spirit. Raised in Kansas by oil workers Luther and Gladys, Loretta often clashed with her father over his unsuccessful oil ventures. Despite these familial tensions, Loretta exhibited a strong-willed and independent nature, eventually moving to Arizona where she co-founded a successful consignment furniture business with her daughter, Terry.

Notable Quote:
James Pietragallo [08:14]: "Gotta get the fuck out. Terminus. Which sounds like a diagnosis. It sounds like a diagnosis that you don't want to get."

The Relationship with Todd Benderly

Loretta's life took a dramatic turn when she met Todd Benderly in Casa Grande. Todd presented himself as a suave and intelligent entrepreneur from Scotland with an MBA from the Wharton School of Business. He charmed Loretta with promises of successful inventions and financial prosperity, integrating himself into her personal and business life.

However, beneath Todd's polished exterior lay a manipulative and deceitful individual. Over the years, Todd embezzled significant funds from Loretta and their business, leveraging her trust to siphon money without her knowledge.

Notable Quote:
Jimmy Wiseman [24:04]: "I'm an asshole. You're with me."

Business Ventures and Financial Manipulation

Loretta and Todd co-owned multiple consignment stores, which saw substantial growth thanks to their effective marketing and Loretta's dedication. Despite their business success, Todd systematically drained the company's finances to support his failed inventions and personal expenses.

Terry, aware of her mother's struggles with dyslexia, managed much of the business's operations but remained oblivious to Todd's financial abuse until it was too late. As Todd's deceit deepened, Loretta's financial stability became precarious, leading to foreclosures and mounting debts.

Notable Quote:
James Pietragallo [31:21]: "Christmas is coming, James. Did you know that?"

The Disappearance: December 5, 2004

On December 5, 2004, Loretta accompanied Todd to the Park Place Mall in Tucson for some holiday shopping. She was last seen at Dillard's, after which she failed to return. Todd reported her missing, claiming she had disappeared without a trace. Initial investigations revealed inconsistencies in Todd's account:

• Mall Security Footage: Loretta was never captured on any security cameras.
• Financial Records: Numerous checks written by Loretta never reached their intended recipients, indicating Todd's financial manipulations.
• Behavioral Red Flags: Todd's calm demeanor contrasted sharply with Terry's frantic efforts to locate her mother, raising suspicions about his involvement.

Notable Quote:
James Pietragallo [26:19]: "Tell me what I'm doing here at that point."

Investigation Unfolds

As the investigation intensified, authorities uncovered extensive evidence pointing to Todd as the prime suspect:

1. Financial Evidence: Detailed examination showed Todd had redirected Loretta's mortgage payments into his own accounts, leaving her effectively destitute.
2. Behavioral Patterns: Todd exhibited signs of manipulation and deceit, laying low and maintaining a facade of innocence despite mounting evidence.
3. Missing Evidence: Loretta's personal belongings, including her glasses and purse, were found neatly arranged, suggesting premeditation rather than a spontaneous disappearance.

Forensic analysis later determined that Loretta had died from asphyxiation, consistent with strangulation. Police also linked Todd to previous fraudulent activities, solidifying their suspicions of his involvement in her murder.

Notable Quote:
Jimmy Wisman [45:00]: "How about that?"

Discovery and Aftermath

Months of relentless searching by Loretta's daughter, Terry, and law enforcement finally led to the discovery of Loretta's body in a shallow desert grave near the intersection of Interstate 8 and Highway 84. Despite extensive searches using cadaver dogs, helicopters, and volunteer efforts, Todd's attempts to cover his tracks were largely unsuccessful.

In a final confrontation, Todd exhibited a complete lack of remorse, further affirming his role as the perpetrator. Loretta's death not only ended a promising business partnership but also left a lasting scar on her family, particularly Terry, who struggled with forgiveness and the emotional aftermath of her mother's murder.

Notable Quote:
Jimmy Wiseman [175:35]: "How can I see it?"

Conclusion and Reflections

Small Town Murder masterfully captures the tragedy of Loretta Bowersock's disappearance and murder, highlighting the destructive impact of manipulation and deceit within personal relationships. James and Jimmy provide insightful commentary on the psychological dynamics at play, emphasizing the importance of vigilance and the devastating consequences when trust is betrayed.

Terry's journey towards healing and her efforts to forgive Todd underscore the long-term emotional repercussions of such crimes, offering listeners a poignant reflection on loss and resilience.

Notable Quote:
Terry Wiseman [179:58]: "Terry said, I get it. But, quote, I want to be happy. It's about giving yourself permission to be happy in the present moment."

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Key Takeaways

• Trust and Betrayal: The episode underscores how blind trust can lead to tragic outcomes when deceitful individuals exploit personal relationships for selfish gains.
• Financial Vigilance: Loretta's financial downfall, influenced by Todd's manipulations, highlights the critical need for transparency and oversight in business partnerships.
• Emotional Resilience: Terry's struggle with forgiveness and her path to healing reflect the profound emotional impacts of losing a loved one to violence.

Further Episodes and Topics

Following Loretta's case, James and Jimmy hint at upcoming episodes, including a United Kingdom football sex abuse scandal and a complex cult killing. These topics promise to deliver the same blend of in-depth research and comedic insight, continuing to engage and inform listeners about the dark underbelly of small-town secrets.

Notable Quote:
James Pietragallo [179:48]: "It's mad fucked up. If you agree that that's mad fucked up or you just thought it was a crazy story, tell us all about it."

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For those intrigued by this harrowing tale and eager to explore more such stories, Small Town Murder offers a compelling mix of true crime and humor, making complex and tragic events accessible and engaging for a broad audience.

Transcript

[James Petrigallo]

Audible's best of 2024 picks are here. Discover the year's top audiobooks, podcasts and originals in all your favorite genres, from memoirs and sci fi, mysteries and thrillers. Audible's curated list in every category is the best way to hear 2024's best in audio entertainment, like a stunning new full cast production of George Orwell's 1984 heartfelt memoirs like Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson's lovely one. The year's best fiction, like the Women by Kristin Hannah and Percival Everett's brilliantly sub. Right now I'm listening to Starkweather by Harry N. Maclean about the murderer Charles Starkweather. It's pretty good. I can recommend that to you as well. Audible. There's more to imagine when you listen. Go to audible.com smalltownmurder and discover the years best waiting for you. Hey everybody. Just gonna take a quick break from the show to tell you a little bit about Shutterfly. Shutterfly allows you to create truly personal and meaningful GIFs for your family and friends. With custom photo GIFs, you just upload your photos from your phone or social media or whatever to the Shutterfly app to start creating GIFs in minutes. You get photos off your phone and into a photo book. Like I have an idea for. I got a brother who's got some kids and they, they tend to like those kids. So I'm gonna put some stuff. Yeah, I got some ornaments I think I'm gonna make for them. I think that's the way to do it here for them. I think that's gonna be a good gift. Explore gifts like blankets, mugs, photos, books and [e-mail] all easy to customize in minutes with your favorite photos. Enjoy 40% off your Shutterfly order with the code Small Town and make something meaningful this year. Get free shipping on qualified orders. C site for more details.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Now back to the show. Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co founder of Angie.

[James Petrigallo]

When you use Angie for your home projects, you know all your jobs will be done well. Roof repair, done well.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Kitchen sink install, done well.

[James Petrigallo]

Deck upgrades, done well. Electrical Upgrade, done well. Angie's been connecting homeowners with skilled pros for nearly 30 years. So we know the difference between done and done well. Hire high quality Certified [e-mail] this week in Casa Grande, Arizona, the former owner of a popular chain of local stores disappears after a trip to the mall. But detectives uncover her longtime boyfriend is not at all who he says he is. And they have some questions. Welcome to Small Town Murder. Hello Everybody, and welcome back to Small town Murder.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yay.

[James Petrigallo]

Yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co host.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I'm Jimmy Wisman.

[James Petrigallo]

Thank you folks so much for joining us today. We have a wild episode for you. This is one if you're a Phoenix person, whoever, many of those are listening right now. Really, Arizona people, you might remember this story because when I lived there at the time it happened and it was a big story. So it's kind of crazy stuff. We'll get to that. Before we do, though, quickly shut up and give me murder dot com.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, shit.

[James Petrigallo]

First of all, merchandise. But second of all, you will get tickets for live shows for sure. Tarrytown and Boston, you are up next. Very few tickets left for both. So get in there, sell them, bad boy out. We're coming there this month and right around the same time, we're going to be announcing the 2025 road schedule as well. And those tickets will go on sale, too. We're excited. Coming to a bunch of cities we didn't get to this year, so we can't wait. New places, new faces. Going to be good stuff here. You Definitely want Patreon. Patreon.com Crime in sports. You get all your bonus material there. Anybody? $5 a month or above a cup of coffee. You can either have a cup of coffee. So minimal, or hundreds of back episodes of bonus stuff you've never heard before. And new ones every other week, including this week, which is no different this week for crime and sports, which you'll have access to, of course. We're gonna talk about this crazy United Kingdom football soccer sex abuse scandal they had going on there. It is. It's like our whole gymnastics thing, except over there. And with soccer, it's really weird, which, I mean, when you hand kids over and you're like, here's my kid. He's 11 and he's yours forever. So trusted. It's kind of. Yeah, it's not great. Then for small town murder, we're going to talk about this trial I watched. And this more than the trial. We're going to talk about the whole world of this weird little cult. It was called the Cult Baby Murder Trial, which is. That name rings all the bells right away.

[Jimmy Wisman]

It's all of them. Yeah, it's buzzwords.

[James Petrigallo]

There's polygamy and people naming people new names and people drinking their pee every day. It's wild shit.

[Jimmy Wisman]

And a dead baby.

[James Petrigallo]

We're in a dead baby. We're going to Talk all about it. Holy shit, Is it crazy? Patreon.com Crime in sports. Also for sure, listen to our other two shows, Crime in Sports and your stupid opinions. Check them both out because God damn it, are they funny? And you're missing out. If you're not listening to them, you're blowing it. That said, disclaimer time. This here is a comedy show. We're comedians and we're definitely going to make jokes. Now, of course, that doesn't mean the story isn't real. Unfortunately, these stories are as real as they get. No details are embellished or any bullshit to try to make anything funnier. It's crazy enough. There's enough murder. That's crazy out there. No details need to be made up. So we're gonna make jokes and there's gonna be murder. Those things can go together if you do it the right way. And a good way to do that is to not make fun of the victims or the victims families.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Why is that, James?

[James Petrigallo]

Because we're assholes.

[Jimmy Wisman]

But.

[James Petrigallo]

But we're not scumbags. See how that works? Super easy. You follow those. You're gonna do just fine here. If you think true crime and comedy should never, ever, ever go together, maybe we're not for you then. I mean, that's. I don't know why you're here at that point. But either way, no complaining later because you're going to hear some wild stories. And that said, I think it's time everybody to sit back. What do you say? Let's all clear the lungs here. Arms to the sky. Let's all shout shut up and give me murder. Let's do this, everybody. Hey, let's go on a trip, shall we? Let's do it. We are going to Arizona. Yeah. Casa Grande in particular is a. Not the greatest, not the greatest out there. This is if you're driving from Phoenix to Tucson. It's a place to stop for gas is essentially.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Or it's where all the car accidents happen during monsoon seasons because you get those storms, you can't see shit.

[James Petrigallo]

Can't see anything. And that's, by the way, so many of the reviews of this town are terrible drivers. Good God. These are the worst drivers in America. Holy shit. It's really bad stuff. This is southeastern Arizona, basically about an hour and 10 minutes to Tucson if you drive real slow. If you drive from Phoenix to Tucson, you know, you just gun that shit and nobody cares. You just go as fast as you can. It's about 30 minutes to Maricopa. Our last Arizona episode Cold Blooded obsession. That was the one.

[Jimmy Wisman]

That was.

[James Petrigallo]

That was wild. Yeah. The gal. The guy in the driveway and that was messed up, man.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Bad lady.

[James Petrigallo]

This is in Pinal county. Area code 520, as we know. Motto here. Stronger United. Right, that's it. Just Stronger United.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Or 2000. 2002.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, exactly. They put that up September 12th. Knockoff of September 11th, September 12th, 2001. That became their motto and they're running with it. Lesser known motto is please stop here for gas. We got nothing else to offer. A little bit of history in this town. It's kind of funny actually. The Casa Grande itself was founded in 1879 during a mining boom in Arizona. The railroad came through there. So they put a town up in January 1880. It wasn't called Casa Grande though. Back then it was called Terminus, which means End of the line. You named your town End of the Line, everybody. Terminus.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Get out.

[James Petrigallo]

But you can't stay here.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Stay here. But you gotta get out.

[James Petrigallo]

Gotta get the fuck out. Terminus. Which sounds like a diagnosis. It sounds like a diagnosis that you don't want to get. He's Terminus. Not Terminus. Oh, God. Dad's Terminus, everybody. He's not gonna make it to Christmas. Holy shit.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Why would you name your town? It's way too close to a pest company.

[James Petrigallo]

That's so bad. Yeah. It had five residents and three buildings when it was called Terminus, which is almost a building per resident. Which isn't bad. Not bad. In September 1880, railroad executives renamed it Casa Grande because they were like, no one's coming to Terminus. We can't get them to come here for some reason.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Tell them it's a big house.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, I don't understand it here. Casa Grande would grow slowly after that. Some setbacks in 1880 and 1893. Fires destroyed everything twice.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Seven years in between. Out.

[James Petrigallo]

It all burned down in 1886. They rebuilt it with wood. Still. They're like, we're going to stick with this and just be more careful with fire this time. And it didn't work.

[Jimmy Wisman]

What year did the three little pigs come out? What year was it written? Because they had to know, right?

[James Petrigallo]

I think they knew wood was flammable by then. Pigs aside, I think they knew how.

[Jimmy Wisman]

They cooked the pig.

[James Petrigallo]

They had an idea the fire was bad. So yeah, it destroyed all the wooden housing structures there. Then the mining boom slowed down in the 1890s and the town was basically just abandoned. Nobody was here anymore. Then they started growing shit here. And eventually people came back and it incorporated in 1915. And from 1942 to 1945. It was a Japanese American relocation camp. Do you know what? Everybody knows what that means. Pat Morita was there.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Is that right? Yes.

[James Petrigallo]

Pat Morita. Yes. Mr. Miyagi himself was. Was interned there. So here's some reviews of this town. Holy shit. This person. I like how they. I like when a person makes like a list of. In their review. This person. Four stars. Truth number one. This is how they start.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Truth. Okay.

[James Petrigallo]

Truth number one, no place is perfect.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah, that is true.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, that's true. That's true. Truth number two, some people are never happy.

[Jimmy Wisman]

What is this? What's going on?

[James Petrigallo]

None of these truths are about the town. What's happening right now? What are you doing?

[Jimmy Wisman]

These are cliches.

[James Petrigallo]

It's so weird. Truth three, some people only know how to complain. Those. That's the end of the truth section of this review. Okay, now that we've got some truths. And then they go on to say, Cassegrand is not a suburb of Phoenix and will never be due to Indian reservation just north of us. Is that a complaint or.

[Jimmy Wisman]

That's another truth. They don't even know it.

[James Petrigallo]

That's a real truth. I can drive to Chandler or Gilbert in 30 minutes. For what? I don't know. There are many good paying jobs in town. With more shopping and restaurants opening. It does not have the nightlife or food options of Phoenix. Because it's a smaller place.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Because it's not Phoenix.

[James Petrigallo]

Phoenix has 5 million people there. Yeah. It's way different. To think it would is silly. Yes.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

All in all, it is a good, solid place to live. Not perfect. But perfection is different for everybody, I think. You know, whether it's just not perfect or shitty. It all comes down to choice. If you need artificial distractions to be happy, live in the big city. You need artificial distractions if you want restaurants and things like that. We're not the place for you. Yeah, not for you. Wow. If you are well grounded and comfortable with yourself and like a slower lifestyle, this is a good place.

[Jimmy Wisman]

What is. What do those have to do with each other?

[James Petrigallo]

I don't understand. Also, if you like it to be 118 degrees most of the year, that's a great place. It's so hot down there. It's just so hot. It's just so hot.

[Jimmy Wisman]

It's just an awful little place.

[James Petrigallo]

It's an awful, awful. It's. Yeah. Phoenix people, like, if you know someone that lives in Casa Grande, you're like, what happened?

[Jimmy Wisman]

Why?

[James Petrigallo]

Like, if they lived in Phoenix and end up in Casa grande. You're going, what did you do? How did you fuck up? Why'd you lose your house?

[Jimmy Wisman]

Is the on the way to Tucson City like Gila Bend is to Yuma?

[James Petrigallo]

You can stop and get gas or snack or something. That's all it is.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Fuck out.

[James Petrigallo]

One other thing. A lot of drivers all over the southwest are aggressive drivers. Try driving the freeways of Phoenix. Yes. Everybody's an asshole. The freeways of Phoenix are a mess also.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Everybody's from somewhere else. And they all have those driving styles mixed together.

[James Petrigallo]

And it's a mess. It's a goddamn disaster.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Every morning the freeways are fucked because there's an accident. Every morning you're all going the same fucking direction.

[James Petrigallo]

You can't mix Minnesota and New Jersey. That much you just can't do. It's not going to work. They don't go together. Sorry. One star. Keep on driving. That's how it is. The people here are dishonest, incompetent and selfish. All of them. There's tens of thousands of people here. That'd be a lot. Businesses are constantly being chased out and belittled by their own residents. How the hell does that happen? You mean they're not buying things? There are no fine dining establishments and there aren't any places for entertainment or nightlife. There are an astounding amount of Mexican restaurants and fast food places for a small town. It's just.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Who the fuck do you think lives there?

[James Petrigallo]

That's. That's it. That's what I mean. Who's living there? It's. It's. It's a cheaper place where you can get to Phoenix. That's.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yes.

[James Petrigallo]

Well, that's how it is. It's just a pit stop at the Phoenix metro area and the Tucson metro area. A quaint cow town of a community with their chief industry of agriculture. This county once held the highest teen pregnancy rate while also claiming the top spot in high school dropouts not too long ago in the entire nation. Very nice.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Wow.

[James Petrigallo]

Congrats, Casa.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I know that.

[James Petrigallo]

Well. They have stats on that shit.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah. Yeah. And also they probably are from there. And somebody told them and we're like, oh, I'll never forget that little fact.

[James Petrigallo]

I had to be on the local news or something. Hey, everybody. We're famous.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah. Yuma used to be the highest per capita diagnosis of herpes in the country.

[James Petrigallo]

That makes sense. I could see that. Just crossing through on your way to.

[Jimmy Wisman]

So there's herpes in Yuma.

[James Petrigallo]

Drop an STD on somebody. Keep going. Go to San Diego.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Just drop out. Pregnancy and fucking heal event. Who knew?

[James Petrigallo]

What a mess. Arizona sucks. If you're seeking a place to find a suitable school, prepare to be flabbergasted at the lack of viable options. Most students who actually graduate leave the town as fast as they can to provide better options for themselves and secure a future for their families. If you hold a professional degree, you have nearly no place to employ it.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petrigallo]

At the filibertos, they don't need a degree. So yeah, people in this town. You're going to be shocked when you hear how many people are here right now because it is, I think.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I know.

[James Petrigallo]

It's doubled since 2000, which is crazy. 53,488.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I was going to say 47. That's close. It's pretty big now. It's shockingly sprawling.

[James Petrigallo]

In the 90s it was like a little tiny one exit shithole. Now that's a lot of people. A few more males and females. Median age is right at the average of national average of 37. Family, it's. Everything's about average. It's 50, 50 married, just like average. A few more single with children, but we know those are teenagers. So as we found out earlier. So you know, of course they're going to be single race in Casa Grande. 45% white, 4.2% black, 1.5% Asian, 4.8% Native American, 42.1% Hispanic. So there you go. Mixed around. It's white and Mexican. That's who lives there.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yes, that's it.

[James Petrigallo]

Religion of this town, 24.8. So under the national average by far. And of course Catholicism is going to lead up that group.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Crushing.

[James Petrigallo]

It's. Yeah, because as we know, Catholics are the Baptist of the Southwest. Now we'll say, I don't know, it's usually the north, but what the hell.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah, Spanish Americans, they get, they really get into.

[James Petrigallo]

Oh, they love that. Yeah, that's a lot of Catholicism there. 6.9% unemployment rate, which is above the national average by a good clip there. It's just above 4 in the rest of the country. So I don't know what they're doing here. Median household income here a little less than the national average. Here it is $59,175 a year, about 10,000 less than the national average.

[Jimmy Wisman]

So bad for that area.

[James Petrigallo]

Not terrible cost of living, 100 is average. You'd figure here it would be what, 12. It's the middle of the desert. It's 102. So above the cost of living in the rest of the country housing here. $325,600 is the median home cost to live.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Jesus.

[James Petrigallo]

Between Phoenix and Tucson.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Like that is to live outside of the east. Eastt area.

[James Petrigallo]

East valley of the eastt. Yeah. So if we've convinced you. Damn it. And I. Obviously we've made a strong case. If we've convinced you to move to Casa Grande. We have for you the Casa Grande Arizona real estate report. Average two bedroom rental here is actually well above the national average, which is remarkable. $1450 for a two bedroom apartment in the middle of the desert. Okay.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Damn.

[James Petrigallo]

Here's a house. Four bedroom, two bath, 1800 square feet. So that sounds like a, you know, good family home. It is a huge pile of shit, this house. The windows are literally boarded up. They literally have fucking plywood over the windows. There's the front porch just has piles of shit all over it. Like somebody's garbage. It's. Fuck, the roof looks like it's caving in. And then you go inside and you're like, what the fuck happened in here? Half the rooms have like half wood paneling and half. Not.

[Jimmy Wisman]

What's going on?

[James Petrigallo]

I don't know what's going on here, but this house looks like it was abandoned in the 70s and hasn't been touched since. It's a disaster. $99,000 for that though.

[Jimmy Wisman]

That's too much.

[James Petrigallo]

It's way too much. You're buying nothing. Knock that house to the ground and build another one. Here is a four bedroom, three bath, 26, 71 square foot. It is. It's. It's your typical Arizona house. Tan. No, two story, tan.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Stucco.

[James Petrigallo]

Stucco. It's that house. Yeah. It's the post 1990 Arizona House. That's typical as shit. That's all I can say about it. Boring as fuck. $450,000 for that.

[Jimmy Wisman]

That's Arizona right there. That is what the average house in Arizona costs.

[James Petrigallo]

And that's. That's the exact average house in Arizona we're talking about too. And here's a five bedroom, four bath, 3,215 square foot. Also super brown. It's just a tan weird place. It's like a. Like a nicer version of house number two is all it is. There's. They have columns out front.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petrigallo]

Like too many columns for 32.

[Jimmy Wisman]

A little bit of land.

[James Petrigallo]

No. God, no. It's a 10,000 square foot property. There's no land out there to be had. Even though you're in the middle of the desert.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

You still are crammed in There.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Stack them next to each other.

[James Petrigallo]

It's not great. 769 grand for that. You've got to be kidding me.

[Jimmy Wisman]

We carry it.

[James Petrigallo]

We've done houses. Remember that one in Connecticut? I still want that house. And it's 700 grand. And it's a hundred times nicer than this piece of shit. Oh, my good. This thing's made of particle board. You could kick your way through the. You could kick your way into this house through the wall, no problem.

[Jimmy Wisman]

If you got some wire cutters, you can cut the chicken wire. That literally holds this house together.

[James Petrigallo]

It's chicken wire and particle board. That's all they make houses of out there. That's it. They're pieces of shit. Not worthless at all. Things to do here. Oh, boy. The Gourd Art Festival.

[Jimmy Wisman]

We're painting pumpkins, huh?

[James Petrigallo]

Well, gourds here, look. This is what they have all kinds.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Of different kinds of gourds.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, there's all sorts of shit and they make it look like pots.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, lumpy ones.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. Daisies over it. Featuring, you know, is going to be performing there. The Rusted Spurs West. I'm going to show you these. Look at these folks.

[Jimmy Wisman]

They are rusted.

[James Petrigallo]

They're a little rusted. That lady is stuck in that position forever with that accordion. Everyone in this band is at least 83 years old is what we're getting at here.

[Jimmy Wisman]

They live in Cave Creek. They don't live anywhere near that place.

[James Petrigallo]

No, they. Oh, my God. They dress like they're. They live in Cave Creek. For sure.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

So they. That's what's going on there. There's gourd classes. I don't know. You got a pre register for those that they must fill up fast.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Is that right?

[James Petrigallo]

An AZGS Gourd competition.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Who's got the best gourd?

[Jimmy Wisman]

And I'm bored out of mine.

[James Petrigallo]

Gourd out of my mind here. And food, entertainment and more. Yeah. The Rusted Spurs West. My God.

[Jimmy Wisman]

That's all they've got for music.

[James Petrigallo]

I hope they play like. Like just disco hits. They just play Donna Summer and shit. That'd be amazing. It's not even country. All three of them.

[Jimmy Wisman]

That chick.

[James Petrigallo]

That's it. Yeah, sing that shit. That's what I'd like, man. The Southwest Taco Fest. This is probably recommended. You're probably going to get some good tacos here.

[Jimmy Wisman]

And if you. If you. If they aren't Mexican, if they're Native American ones, either way they're going to be wrong. They're so good.

[James Petrigallo]

You're going to be. You're going to be good here. I'm going to tell you, you're going.

[Jimmy Wisman]

To explode your fucking heart. But it's so good.

[James Petrigallo]

Oh, yeah. But you go to a small town in Arizona that's half Mexican, there's going be good tacos.

[Jimmy Wisman]

You're going to lose your mind with how good that food is.

[James Petrigallo]

It is so good. That's the food I go for out there immediately, because that's what I can't get. I went to Filiberto's immediately.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Last time I was just there and man, did it make me sick. Holy. Makes you suck. Every time I eat Filiberto's just liquefies my insides. And I don't care. I eat it anyway. It's like I'm not on a plane for two days. It. Let's do it.

[Jimmy Wisman]

There's a little one by me in. In my neighborhood called Mariachi's that is sincerely fucking. So it's the only one in ever. It's just one restaurant. It used to be a Filiberto's and somebody else bought it. And it is what it is now, and it's fucking magical. It's better than filibertos ever was.

[James Petrigallo]

Incredible. Incredible. So good. The tacos, the taquitos, even all that shit, man. Chicken quesadilla, carne asada burrito is really obviously my favorite.

[Jimmy Wisman]

You can't. You can't go wrong.

[James Petrigallo]

It was the size of my forearm. There's like six pounds of beef in this fucking thing.

[Jimmy Wisman]

So that'll be $8.

[James Petrigallo]

What? Yeah. It's like, all right. And I get free red sauce. Sounds good.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I've got $13 worth of beef inside this tortilla, but okay.

[James Petrigallo]

What animal is this from? Please tell me that that's not enough. I haven't paid enough. Fear. What animal is this from? I'd like to know.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I've been to a grocery store. I know what beef costs. I don't know what you're using.

[James Petrigallo]

Not it. This will be at the Dave White Regional park in Casa Grande. And it will be filled with culinary favorites of th tacos, salsa and margaritas in the first ever Southwest Taco Fest. Come celebrate the best of culture. Delectable cuisine to mouthwatering tastes of taco, salsa and margaritas. Live music, entertainment. Featuring Roger Klein and the Peacemakers.

[Jimmy Wisman]

The old Arizona boys.

[James Petrigallo]

Gonna say that is. That's some Arizona right there, boy.

[Jimmy Wisman]

They had one hit with that with the King of the Hill song and that's it.

[James Petrigallo]

You. If you You've run into them somewhere around. If you've been in Arizona long enough.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Probably at a filiburn.

[James Petrigallo]

Probably have playing outside of opening up the new Filibertos at 32nd and Greenway or something.

[Jimmy Wisman]

They play. They play fucking Rocky Point every year, those guys, because Mexico loves them because they just sing about tequila and stuff.

[James Petrigallo]

Desert. Jimmy Buffett, that's what they are.

[Jimmy Wisman]

$800 a gig.

[James Petrigallo]

Jimmy Buffett without the island. That's all. That's all we got here. Beer stations, hot air balloon, tethered rides. So just.

[Jimmy Wisman]

No even that. No.

[James Petrigallo]

Not doing it. Stop not doing it. And then finally, the Casa Grande neon sign park. Oh yeah. American Express gave them money for some reason and this is what they build. Jesus. Yeah, they took, I guess Casa Grande Main street took second place among 25 cities nationwide and was awarded $144,000. And that provided funding for restoration of 14 vintage and neon signs, which are old school. How you get people to come in there? Yeah, so that's kind of neat. Crime rate in this town, what we're interested in here, Property crime is about one third above the average. Above the national average. Violent crime is slightly above the national average to murder, rape, robbery and assault. The amount Rushmore of crime.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Also, he's saying I've lived my life smart by staying the fuck out of.

[James Petrigallo]

Here, by gassing up in Phoenix and keep the fuck up on drive until you get to Tucson. Exactly.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I can make it to Tucson in one tank gas.

[James Petrigallo]

Sure.

[Jimmy Wisman]

And I will never stop.

[James Petrigallo]

I'm not stopping. I'm gassing up at my house. And go, no, this is crazy. I'm not doing anything of the. Of the sort with this bullshit. So yeah. Holy crap. Okay, that said, let's talk about. Here we go, shall we? Let's do this. Let's go to December. December 15th of 2004. Oh, and this is in Tucson, actually, the Park Place Mall in Tucson. I've never been to that.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Christmas is coming, so you gotta be at the mall.

[James Petrigallo]

And that's the thing. The Police receive a 911 call from a man saying, I drove here with my wife and I dropped her off at the mall to go to the Dillard's. 40% off sale.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

And that's where I dropped her off. And then I went and did my business and I came back and I can't find her anywhere. She's nowhere to be found. Yeah, nowhere to be found, nowhere. Don't know where she is. I'm totally lost. So the cops show up there, they go to Dillard's. They talk to the security at Dillard's, they're looking around for. She's nowhere to be found at the mall.

[Jimmy Wisman]

What the hell?

[James Petrigallo]

Gone. She's a 69 year old woman. No, you know, not like. No, not senile or anything. Not wandering off. And you know, it's not a silver alert situation. It's just a. Where the fuck is this lady? And so her longtime boyfriend here says, I don't know. I don't know where she is. I can't find her. So they're at a stalemate and they call her family. Her family rushes down from Phoenix to Tucson to help look for her and nobody can find her.

[Jimmy Wisman]

What the hell?

[James Petrigallo]

End of the day comes, she's still gone. Not at the mall. They start looking. They can't even find her on mall security footage.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Can't even see her on the cameras.

[James Petrigallo]

Can't even see her on the cameras. So yeah, now it's crazy. It's turned into like the Hotel Cecil situation of the lady in the water tank or just disappeared.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

What's going on? So let's find out about who these people are and why they're missing and what's happening here. The missing woman is a woman named Loretta Jean. She's born. McJilton is her last name. When she's born later, it will be Bowersock.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Much better.

[James Petrigallo]

So much better than Mick Gilton.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

McJill. T, O N. Okay. It's jarring. Looking for some reason, I don't know why the J in there, to me it sounds worse.

[Jimmy Wisman]

It's sounds worse than it looks.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. McJilton definitely sounds like a slang term for busting a load. You know what I mean? Yeah, it's something gross here. Now, Bowersock, here. Loretta, she is born March 2, 1935. Parents named Luther and Gladys, which are older names.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Those are definitely parents in the 30s.

[James Petrigallo]

Those are. Yeah, I was gonna say, man, those. Those people were born, you know, Pre World War I. Probably so happy kid. Loretta always was real happy. She likes to. As a child, as a small child and all through her childhood and adulthood. She likes to dress up a lot and look her best all the time.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petrigallo]

She likes to be presentable. Likes to present herself the best that she can. She grew up in Kansas here with her family. And she's very much into tennis. She's a very good tennis player. She'll be a pro at one of these resorts later on.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Is that right?

[James Petrigallo]

So, yeah, she's a very good tennis player. And I saw newspaper articles from the time when she was playing, like, in adult leagues and, you know, they were posting the results of them. So she played a lot. She. The funny thing is she has friends from a young age that she has her whole life. She keeps in touch with these people forever. Everybody said she was always Miss Personality. That's how she was.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Said she could talk to anybody about anything. Great at small talk and bullshit and all that sort of thing. Apparently she fought with her dad a lot. She had a lot of strife with her dad here. He was an oil man who wasn't very good at finding oil.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Was he in Arizona?

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, in Kansas.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

A lot of times here, when you get oil men that don't do a good job finding oil, what they are is very poor is how that works.

[Jimmy Wisman]

It's generally it.

[James Petrigallo]

It's very expensive to dig deep in the ground like that. And then if you don't find anything, you don't make any money off that.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I mean, if you're a car salesman, you can't sell a fucking car. You own it. So you better figure it out.

[James Petrigallo]

Better figure it the fuck out. And that's what goes on here.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

And a lot of these oil guys, the Wildcatters, as they're called, are guys that don't buy. They don't know a big company, a conglomerate that buys a big area of land that they're pretty sure that has oil on it. These people are just speculating of and.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Buying small pieces and buy.

[James Petrigallo]

And drilling fucking holes and crossing their fingers.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Nothing.

[James Petrigallo]

That's how Jerry Jones got the Cowboys. He got lucky on a couple.

[Jimmy Wisman]

He wildcatted.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, he's a wildcatter. He got lucky on a couple wells he dug and that propelled his business up. And then he ended up buying the cowboys after it. And now we've had to deal with him for fucking 40 years.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Want to buy a couple of Derek's, James?

[James Petrigallo]

I think we should. I don't. I think. I don't think we should. No.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Also they. It might all be fucked out by now.

[James Petrigallo]

We. We'd put all of our money that we ever made into it, and they would drill and they go, he didn't find anything. And then we'd be fucking.

[Jimmy Wisman]

We got a lot of dirt.

[James Petrigallo]

We're like. We're doing seven shows a week now. Come out and see us. Seven live shows, seven recorded shows, 14 shows a week now.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Seven live shows. We're recording every single one of them, whether they. Whether they're worth it or not.

[James Petrigallo]

We're really poor is what we're getting at. Please help us. So she had a problem with that. He didn't do well most of the time, but he was one of these guys who. The big score was right around the corner. The big score is right around the corner. Which in the oil business, if you're a wildcatter, that's exactly what your whole business is. You have to believe the next. The next hole you dig is going to be the one that's going to strike it rich. Or else why the fuck are you doing this?

[Jimmy Wisman]

Christmas is coming up, James. Did you know that?

[James Petrigallo]

It is coming up. That's very important. You know what people should do around Christmas? You need shopping money. And the thing is, sometimes you're going to find money in places you never thought like where, like subscriptions that you're paying for that you don't need to pay for because you don't even know you're paying for them, but yet they're coming out of your account every month.

[Jimmy Wisman]

How can you fix that?

[James Petrigallo]

Rocket Money is what helped me out. That's the thing. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that finds and cancels your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so that you can grow that savings. Rocket Money will they negotiate lower bills for you. They can do that by up to 20%. All you have to do is submit a picture of your bill. Rocket Money. They take care of the rest. They'll deal with customer service. You don't need to be on hold for two hours. Rocket Money will take care of it. It's wonderful. Rocket Money has over 5 million users and has saved a total of $500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $740 a year when using all the app's features. Stop wasting money on things you don't use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to Rocketmoney.com that's Rocketmoney.com Small Townmurder Rocketmoney.com Small TownmurdeR now back to the show. Hey, everybody. Just gonna take a quick break from the show to tell you a little bit more about aura frames. Best gift you could possibly give somebody in your family and your friends, anybody you're close to. From big events to the silly moments you capture every day. Doesn't it sometimes feel like all your favorite photos are just stuck on your camera roll? You have to scroll back so far to get them. They're pretty much gone forever. That's how it feels. Wouldn't it be better and great and awesome to have an easy way to share and enjoy them with your friends and family. So these pictures that you took that are important to you actually get seen. That is where Aura comes in. And they come in huge here. Everyone I know has one of these because I have given them to them because they're phenomenal. They're awesome. And we keep doing this. Like I'll get pictures of the kids when I go to Arizona and stuff. And they're on my dad's before I'm even back in New York. They're on my dad's frame. They're on people's frame. Save on the perfect gift by visiting auraframes.com to get $35 off Aura's best selling Carver matte frames. And they're beautiful too. By using promo code Small townmurder at checkout. That's a U R A frames.com promo code small townmurder. This deal is exclusive to listeners, so get yours now in time for the holidays. Terms and conditions apply.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Now back to the show. It's doing the scratches, man.

[James Petrigallo]

It's. Yeah, that's essentially. Yeah, essentially, that's exactly what it is. So he. He would tell her, someday, someday I'll be coming around the corner and I'll be in a white Cadillac. You'll see.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay?

[James Petrigallo]

That's what's gonna happen here.

[Jimmy Wisman]

He'll be coming around the mountain.

[James Petrigallo]

When he comes, that's it. Eventually her father did strike oil actually and made good on this whole thing. But it was not until they had fought and had a. Loretta had a childhood of a lot of disappointment and not a lot of money, basically. And she's got like four sisters, I want to say, or something like that. So it's a bigger family too. Her mom Gladys had a real estate company then. That's how they paid the bills was mom's real estate money. And then dad is digging in the ground.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Dad in his fucking hobby.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, that's exactly it. So she. Loretta always said that she. When she found a husband, she didn't want some Fly by Night dreamer, some bullshit like that and didn't want any part of it here. By the way, a lot of good stuff comes from a book called Bones in the Desert Today. So it's. Yeah, we'll find out why that means later on. So basically she decided that she's not going to listen to anybody and would just do whatever the hell she wanted to.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay?

[James Petrigallo]

She didn't listen to her parents because she thought they were morons. She thought her mother was a. For being with a guy who's a. And she Thought her dad was an idiot who was drilling dry holes all the time.

[Jimmy Wisman]

So he's an actual idiot.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. Don't tell me what to do with my life because you two have ears. Up royally is how she put it. And she wouldn't listen to her older sisters either. They would try to give her advice all the time and she didn't want to hear it. She's like, no, I got this. I'm good. She's very strong minded and that's how she is. She meets a man here, a man a few years older than her. Yeah. Within. I think about a 10 year age difference here. His name is Dave Bowersock and he's an Air Force officer.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Hell yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

The uniform and all that looks pretty cool though.

[Jimmy Wisman]

And so handsome. Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Especially back then it tended to bring in the ladies. So.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah, the officers are the cool ones. Oh yeah, they look great.

[James Petrigallo]

Cool fucking uniforms and shit. They look real put together and.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

That kind of thing.

[Jimmy Wisman]

And they're doing this because they're not in. They're not listed anymore. These are guys that are done and fucking. They're having the time of their lives now. They love this.

[James Petrigallo]

They don't have to run 20 miles. Yeah.

[Jimmy Wisman]

They're not yelled at every day. They're smiling.

[James Petrigallo]

They think it's great. He's a very handsome guy. And Loretta likes a handsome, well groomed cat. That's what she's. Handsome is at the top of her list here. She really likes a handsome guy and. But all the sisters said he's too old for you. Like he should be coming on to one of us, the older sisters. But instead you're going out with them. This isn't cool. Not because they were jealous, but because they thought he was too old for.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petrigallo]

And nobody was really that excited about her being with this older guy, Loretta, except for her. And she loved him and married him. She didn't give a fuck. And they moved all over the country because he's an Air Force officer.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

So they move all over the place and they're going to start a family here. Now Loretta is very interested in everything. She's. She's very smart lady. She likes politics, she likes sports, business. She plays bridge in a league. She plays tennis. She's a gourmet cook. Yeah, whatever. Whatever it is. Reader's Digest, voracious reader. Back then. She would pay attention. They were living in Tempe, Arizona here. Which if you don't know, is a, I guess suburb of Phoenix, you could put it. But it's all one Big block. It's where ASU is and it's in Phoenix, essentially. And so they lived there for a while. She. They said that anytime they like her girlfriend said they'd be talking about something and something that interested them and next thing you know she would be like, she'd be buying books about it and learning about it and doing it. Yeah, she was into that sort of thing. So she's very attractive. Also they said that she, you know, she did very well. Her one friend called her a classy lady. Classy lady.

[Jimmy Wisman]

And she'd be a pickleballer today.

[James Petrigallo]

Totally. Yeah, she'd be pickleballing herself silly. So she's going to have a son and a daughter here. Son is the older one named Scott, and a daughter named Terry with an eye. Okay. Now Terry here. Terry said that her generation believes women should stand by their men and live in houses with white picket fences. She's afraid to ever be alone without a man. But her son also said she's an outgoing woman who doesn't take crap. Takes no crap from anybody.

[Jimmy Wisman]

His mom is like that.

[James Petrigallo]

Mom takes no crap. Yeah.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, that's a good way. I describe my mom like that too.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I think my mom takes all the crap.

[James Petrigallo]

Okay. I describe my mom as taking less crap than she should probably. She's just. Yeah, she's always looking for a fight, my mom, with anybody, anywhere, anytime.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I just saw her and I wrapped my arms around her, hugging her and she goes, she goes, there he is. And she wanted to fight about that.

[James Petrigallo]

That's right. Yes. My mom at the show.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah, she was ready to fight that. I hadn't said hello yet.

[James Petrigallo]

Dude, it's anything. She's.

[Jimmy Wisman]

She takes no crap.

[James Petrigallo]

No crap. Even if you don't give her crap, she's not taking it. Whether you give it to her or not, she's not taking it.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I will not take any from you. No plans on it. Good. I won't be. I won't be having any shit thrown at me.

[James Petrigallo]

Wasn't planning on throwing any shit at you. Sorry. So, yes, Scott's born first, Terry's born 1957. And Terry said that she played the dutiful Air Force officer's wife, even though that's not really how her personality is. Yeah, Terry said she really relished that role. You could just see her playing the role at Christmas. We had a full blown tree and all the trimmings and everything was always just perfect. And you could just hear her saying, this is what an officer's wife should be Doing. And she thought it was Leave it to Beaver.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. So that's how she's thinking. And it looked like the perfect family. This handsome Air Force officer and his beautiful wife. And they have a lovely home. And one of each, a son and a daughter and an Air Force officer in Tempe.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Was he go to fucking Luke every day?

[James Petrigallo]

That's all back then? I don't know. There was no freeways to go all the way around back then. But there was also no traffic, so it'd probably be.

[Jimmy Wisman]

You'd have to take.

[James Petrigallo]

Take grand the whole way or something or.

[Jimmy Wisman]

No, no. Fuck, no. You'd have to. Well, I guess some of the way. Or the Chan out to fucking Litchfield.

[James Petrigallo]

Oh, my God.

[Jimmy Wisman]

That's a ride, man.

[James Petrigallo]

This might have been after he retired, too. Maybe so. From the Air Force. Yeah. So Scott is the first born, and he is Loretta's apple of her eye.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Terry always feels second best here. Terry's also got some issues that she won't really address till later on. She's got some dyslexia, some learning disability issues that makes her not do terrific in school. So that might be why mom kind of focuses a little more on Scott. Terry said, my mother comes from a family of five sisters, so when my brother came along, she was in love. She had a boy. When I came along, it was just another girl. And I was a crying baby. So that didn't help. As opposed to the quiet babies that are always. Jesus. Mom didn't like me. Scott says about. Everybody knew I was the favorite, but I was the kid who wasn't in any trouble. Terry was a needy, noisy kid. I'm more introverted. I'd come home after school and go to my room and listen to music. Terry would come home bouncing off the walls. He said. To this day, he admits, she's my sister and I love her, but I don't have anything in common with her.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petrigallo]

Not a big fan of Terry. Terry and Scott just not really getting along, which is. That's as an adult, they said that, which is crazy. And Terry noticed. Terry said that she had been an insecure child. She said she wrote in a journal at one time, I don't remember being held and loved as a child.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, no.

[James Petrigallo]

So, yeah, that's. That's very interesting. Loretta seems a little bit cold toward Terry.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

And it gets weirder as their relationship progresses here. She remembered fighting with her mom constantly. Was a teenager. When she was a teenager, she said, I closed off to you and ran away and ran Away and ran away. She wrote in a letter to her mother. So she just. And she did. She ran away from home. She got in with the wrong crowd. She was a real kind of a source of acrimony here in the family. Terry was.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Rebellion. What is this?

[James Petrigallo]

It's a lot of shit. Rebellion. A lot of it, too. And she'll explain later, is she didn't do well in school because of learning disabilities, which made her. Not in that. Not in an academic type of way. So then she started hanging out with kids that also didn't do well in academics, and they turned out to be kids that later on were abouts. And then she got into that group. And so it's a snowball, really. This is exactly what we did, essentially.

[Jimmy Wisman]

She doesn't seem to be figuring it out.

[James Petrigallo]

No. Well, she'll figure it out big time later in life, as we'll find out here now. In the early 70s, there's a divorce. Loretta and Dave have a divorce. She said Loretta hung on till she couldn't hang on anymore. They were living in Arizona. And she said she had to take control of her own life. And Terry said, we watched her change after that. She said that the failure of her marriage fucked her all up. Loretta, she expected everything to be perfect forever. So that was a problem. She said that she started seeing Loretta basically dating anybody and everybody she could get her hands on just to try to find somebody because she wanted to be married and be in a relationship. Younger men, older men, anybody she could find, as long as they were handsome, just men. And she didn't really like any of them. And some of them saw her as kind of needy, so nothing ever worked out. Now, Scott, the son, went off to study psychology, and Terry was finishing in high school here. And Loretta started focusing on what they called her own needs here.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

And she does. This is the time when she's single, she dates a lot, but never is in a relationship. And she actually does a lot of things that are good for herself. And at 30, 37, she got a college degree from ASU. Oh, really? She went and got a degree. She started teaching dance and then taught tennis. And then she was a tennis pro at one of the resorts as well.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petrigallo]

She opened two different businesses during this time period in the. In the late 70s. She's making her own money. She's, you know, she was doing well. She bought a house, her own home. She had jewelry. She was doing good.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Post 74 then, huh?

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Post 74 for sure. As we found out, she established A tennis club at San Marcos Golf Resort in Chandler.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, really?

[James Petrigallo]

That was her deal. That's something.

[Jimmy Wisman]

That's a quiet fact about Arizona that a lot of people don't know. There are dozens of fucking golf resorts in this state.

[James Petrigallo]

Oh, dozens.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Everywhere.

[James Petrigallo]

There are every. I think everyone knows. I think everyone that knows that though that's Arizona's kind of known for golf now.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Is it?

[James Petrigallo]

It's all they do there is golf. Everybody's there for golf all the time.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

It's just.

[Jimmy Wisman]

And then all winter golf all summer, it's pool parties all winter. It's golfing.

[James Petrigallo]

It's fucking golf. Yeah. But this she was doing. She ran a. Opened and ran the tennis pro shop there for seven years.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Wow.

[James Petrigallo]

When it closed, it was because according to everything that went on that the resort didn't do what they promised, I guess.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petrigallo]

I don't know if it was a lease situation or whatever.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Promote a business, whatever.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. So she got all these letters of recommendation here from all these people because she was going to open up a new shop in another hotel. So she needed people to say, hey, she's great. Eddie Basha wrote about her. If you don't know Eddie Basha, Eddie Bash is kind of an Arizona legend because he opened the Bash's supermarket chain and did the commercials himself. And he's kind of a very well known guy in the Phoenix area.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Elementary school named after him. Yes, he is a legend of Arizona. That it's.

[James Petrigallo]

Well, so does Kurt Schilling though. So that's not really that big of an honor.

[Jimmy Wisman]

He also was really involved in like charity stuff and being. He was on the board of a bunch of different companies.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, he. He was Mr. Phoenix basically. Like he was.

[Jimmy Wisman]

He's dead now.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, yeah. As I said was. He was Mr. Phoenix now. He's buried somewhere in Phoenix, I'm sure.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Probably on top of South Mountain or something. The family doesn't even. You'd think that a guy that. That's that kind of a legend that that family would just be like. It would just go generational.

[James Petrigallo]

No, they just sold it to fuck off. Who wants these grocery stores? Shitload of them. Just.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Just like Discount Tire. Just like Discount Tire. The guy that started that shit. Rich as you'd think his son would just go right into it and he sold the motherfucker.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. Free money. Why work.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah. Billion dollars. Fuck this.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. I would sell my father's legacy out from under him as well if it meant if he's dead, fuck it. What am I doing here? I don't Want to work at a fucking grocery store?

[Jimmy Wisman]

He doesn't care. He's got a beautiful burial plot. He's fine.

[James Petrigallo]

I buried him the nicest way I could. Is that. That's enough, right?

[Jimmy Wisman]

Most expensive one in Arizona.

[James Petrigallo]

Eddie Basher wrote this in February of 78. It is a privilege for me to write this letter of recommendation for Loretta Bowersock. I became acquainted with Loretta during the first part of 1974 on the occasion of her association with the San Marco resort. In my opinion, what she accomplished was nothing short of miraculous. I heartily recommend. Recommend Loretta Bauer Stock to you as both a tennis instructor and a proprietor of a pro shop. She is very talented and a very pleasant woman and friendly person to know.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Once you hire already put her on a second board.

[James Petrigallo]

Let her open a tennis shop in one of the grocery stores. Who cares?

[Jimmy Wisman]

She's terrific. I don't want her doing anything for me. But for you, I hope she does everything.

[James Petrigallo]

She could do anything, really. Just not for me. So by the time Terry was 18, obviously this is kind of. It's kind of just her and her mom. Her dad's away and her brother is doing his thing. So it's kind of her and her mom. So it started to change a little bit here, I guess. Terry wanted to sell sandwiches and soda on the golf course that her mother had the pro shop on. And her mom helped out with her connections to get her to be able to do that. Terry is a. Terry is an ambitious business hustler. Yeah, she's looking. How do I make a business out of this? That's how she is. She's really smart like that. They apparently at that point they were trying to get along. And Terry said, we started tennis and we were friends and shared everything. This was the best time in life. So, yeah, it was pretty good. Now, this is a change because up to this point, Terry was considered wild, Loretta was considered bossy, and they didn't get along. So 1979 comes around here. Terry's young. Was she 22 at this point? 21.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Terry starts. She opens a consignment furniture store. Apparently it started out she got a $2,000 loan from her grandmother. And using that money and other shit, she started selling stuff. She called it Terry's Place. Now this will grow into Terry's consign and design, which if you were lived in Phoenix, you'd know those stores were fucked. There's a shitload of them. They were all over the. Those Terry's consigning designs. I think they're Closed now, correct?

[Jimmy Wisman]

I'm sure they are.

[James Petrigallo]

I'm pretty sure. But it was in the last like 10 years they closed. I mean, it's been really. Yeah, it's. It was. They were everywhere.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Scottsdale and one on Indian School or something like that.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, there's one on Indian School for sure. Because they used to pass it all the time. I remember their, their signs, their billboards would be. They had like little clever shit on their billboards. So, yeah, I guess. Terry called her mother long distance from Kansas at 2 in the morning to suggest the idea for a furniture consignment business. Which if you call me from another state at 2am and you're like, I want to start a business, right, we'll get all this furniture. I'm going to go, how much Coke have you taken? Number one.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Is this Coke or meth?

[James Petrigallo]

What's this Coke talk? Meth talk would be I got to get out of here. There's somebody after Coke. Talk is we can do this. It's grandiose. Meth talk is we should take apart your TV and see how it works.

[Jimmy Wisman]

We can sell all the parts.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, Coke talk. You're. You're planning out 40 years in the future after your retirement from the successful business. Much different. So Terry signed the first lease and bought an old blue pickup truck with a green tailgate to carry shit around and buy. Bring the shit to the store. Yeah, that was it, I guess. This was. She was going to visit her father and she said, dad took me to visit Betty, his friend who operated the cleaning house consignment shop out of a little house. She said, there I saw sterling silver china, small furniture and knick knacks for sale. People were actually having fun as they purchased what others no longer needed or wanted. Betty graciously explained how she managed the business. By the time the day was over, I knew I could do it. I knew I had the sales skills.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I just gotta buy junk and sell it to people.

[James Petrigallo]

That's it. But I mean, she saw on the golf course, I bet people will buy sandwiches and sodas out there while they're walking. And she saw this. She said, hmm, there's a niche for.

[Jimmy Wisman]

This market for that.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, so she says I just take off and do things. That's what Terry says. She's like, that's. She gets an idea, she's off with it.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Wow.

[James Petrigallo]

She said. Then my mother slows me down so I don't get carried away. I'm driven by ego and my mother by money. Those are what they are. Yeah, Terry is trying to, always trying to show that she's just as good as Scott basically her whole life. And that's the thing that people get sometimes is you get that ingrained early in your life. Next thing you know that is your whole goal is to. I'll show them. And you're still trying to show them at 50 years old when there's nobody else to show anymore.

[Jimmy Wisman]

She can't even see it.

[James Petrigallo]

She's so old, can't even see it. Yeah. So it was, she said Loretta was the one who insisted on quality in the shop. Loretta said, I told Terry I didn't want to be a Sanford and Son.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Which is, yeah, I'm not selling trash, I'm not selling fucking pawn shops.

[James Petrigallo]

I'm not living in a junkyard is what it is. If you are too young for this. Sanford and Son was a show starring all time great comedian Redd Fox where he and his son ran a junkyard from their house. And if you saw the opening shot, it was just piles of shit out in front of a dumpy house. So they said we had some thrift furniture in the beginning, but I didn't feel good about selling. I told her we turned things down until we got what we wanted. That's what Loretta said. Yeah, it's about quality. Don't just take any old crap and bring it in here. Terry said, I promised we'd always handle furniture mom would be proud of. So when Terry went into opening another store in a kind of a shitty part of town, it didn't work. Oh yeah. Because still has to be a place where people have money to buy stuff.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah. And if you're selling furniture, it's got to be. And if you're buying it low and then trying to sell it high, you're going to price these people out of your market.

[James Petrigallo]

If you're thinking, oh, it's cheaper so they can afford it. But they can't afford that too. They can't afford it. Yeah, they can't afford any of it. So she said, mother taught me to do it yourself. Mother taught me. When we put ceiling fans in this warehouse, it was me and a female employee. We never thought about calling someone to do it. Terry said, I remember Loretta said, I remember saying I don't know what to do with my life. It was a good feeling when she said, let's team up. So it was mom and daughter.

[Jimmy Wisman]

She's running wires.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, she's does. Yeah, Terry just does shit. She wants to do it, she does it. So when the tennis craze kind of went away here for her. They opened the Closet Emporium at. At the Fiesta Inn, which was a tiny gift shop, basically. And they learned to work together. They had some disagreements. Employees would hear them arguing once in a while. But still it worked out. Loretta said, at first we realized we'd slip into the naughty girl and mother telling her what to do routine. We had to get it on an equal basis. Now it always comes down to a question of is this good for the business?

[Jimmy Wisman]

There you go.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, they always had that. That dynamic of I'm your mom and. Yeah. That kind of thing. So they. It was Terry's Consign and design. And I found in The Arizona Republic, 1982, there's a picture of Loretta, like putting a wig on a mannequin. And they say there's Terry's Consignment Furniture. Loretta Bauerstock, an employee at Terry's Consignment Furniture. She was co owner. Who gives the dummies wig? What is this fluffing in front of the Mesa store? Sorry, the newspaper's fucked up. Workers at the store, which sells used home furnishings, named the mannequin Loretta after Mrs. Bowers, after Mrs. Bauer Sock. They say the two look alike. Okay.

[Jimmy Wisman]

They say.

[James Petrigallo]

They say that. Okay. So by 1985, they've doubled to four stores and they're starting to write their own TV commercials now. You bet they're doing it, man. Not too shabby. Now Loretta, though, she's. She's happy with this. She's happy to be having a business and working with her daughter and getting along and everything like that. But she's still missing something. She wants a relationship. Yeah. She doesn't have this guy. And she had tons of friends, very active social life, but no boyfriend, which is what she wanted. Yeah, just. It was interesting. So they, I guess they. At first, when they're still doing this, they're still like picking up and delivering furniture themselves, all that kind of thing. They said their individual skills differed, Terry and Loretta's. Loretta's conservative approach to business. And Terry had risk taker in her. So Loretta said it's good to have a younger person because she's more adventuresome. She took the risk of putting us on TV and it changed us from small to big. My first thought was, we'll look like Sonoyta Motors. Okay. She kept saying that used car dealers do commercials, not furniture stores. We don't need to do this, so. Oh.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Because, you know, she sees that earn her.

[James Petrigallo]

That's. That's what she said. Yeah, that Ain't no bull with a stupid cowboy hat on.

[Jimmy Wisman]

We don't want that guy or the guy from Peter Piper Pizza. We gotta be. Yeah, we gotta. We gotta have other people doing this.

[James Petrigallo]

But like Eddie Basha did it and he just did it in a nice way. He'd be in a suit and he'd be like, come down to bashes and he'd show all the sales and that's how he did it.

[Jimmy Wisman]

The guy from Discount Tire dressed up like a woman and threw a tire through a fucking.

[James Petrigallo]

Exactly. Yeah. He didn't give a. So Loretta said we look like the Beverly Hillbillies going down the freeway. Especially when a sofa fell off.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

So they said when they paid the bills at the end of a month and found $13,000 left over, one month, they said, holy shit, this is working. In the early 80s, that's a fuckload of money for a month.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

They're like, holy shit, this is working. Terry said it's ironic that she's now my best friend, my partner and moment. But this never would have survived with only one of us. So they needed two of us. And she talks about at this point too. She kind of comes publicly about her learning disabilities and that kind of thing. And she was saying it was hard to build a business being like dyslexic and shit.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

She said there was times when she was visibly under stress. This is what Loretta says. Like when we went over our month end sales reports with the accountant. But I just attributed that to the normal pressures of running a business. What really amazes me is that she was able to hide for all these years her inability to read and write adequately. Yeah.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Holy.

[James Petrigallo]

And yeah. She said, Terry said, I invented my own systems. She said, for example, I would draw crayon pictures to show myself how the business was doing financially. What? She's drawing a fucking. Whoa. She's drawing like money signs on a loot bag and puts like an arrow to them going in what looks like a safe door with the door open on a building that says bank on it and a big square thing, a backward end. Yeah. This is fucking crazy.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Jesus.

[James Petrigallo]

She said I would take an employee with me to pick up furniture and when it came to writing the contract, I would hand it off to them because I couldn't spell the names of all the furniture. Wow. I said it wasn't until she learned. She said she learned that Albert Einstein, George Patton and Benjamin Franklin were also dyslexic. So she said, okay, well, I guess you can overcome this shit. She said when I found that out. It helped me believe in myself. At the time we were looking into franchising the store and I was being faced with a lot of legal documents. I was finally brave enough to tell people that I needed them to slow down and work with me so I could understand everything.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah, we're building the atom bomb. You guys, calm down.

[James Petrigallo]

Calm the fuck down. But it continued growth and they were talking about national expansion and franchises everywhere. Loretta said Terry had built a tremendously successful business. But when we had to computerize, she realized how big and complex it really was. She had too many employees to keep track of, and with sales of over a million dollars a year, she knew a mistake could be very costly. She didn't have the skills to learn to use the computer and continue to run a large corporation. She said what Terry does have is tremendous motivation and that's what guided her to take a leave from the day to day operation of the business and go back to school and learn what she missed as a child. We'll talk about when that happens. Now, do you see a little bit.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Of us in that?

[James Petrigallo]

What the.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Doing. Well, like, yeah, but like we're both Terry. Yes.

[James Petrigallo]

Neither of us is. Loretta is the problem. If we had Loretta, it would have been easier in the beginning. We're just two. Terry's just running walls all the time.

[Jimmy Wisman]

We've always done that, running into walls, going, I gotta call somebody. I don't know if this is my money.

[James Petrigallo]

I don't know. Yeah, whose money is this? Well, plus, no, Loretta would be a try comedy. No, Loretta would be a comedian because it's a dumb thing to fucking do.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Because there's no future in that.

[James Petrigallo]

Terry would be like, I'll just do comedy. You know what I mean? Yeah. You go out. That's a very. It's a crazy thing to think to do. You know what I mean?

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

So yeah, she. Now Loretta is really into wanting. She's telling everyone though, she wants a man. She wants a man. She wants a man. Like a one to settle down with here.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Just one. That's all I need.

[James Petrigallo]

She's been divorced for over 10 years and she's never anything solid she's come up with. She did have a seven year affair with a married man. That's a problem.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Had a girl.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. That didn't work out too well. Yep. She maintained always that he was the love of her life, but he never left his wife. His name was Rex Armistead, which sounds like a cool Rex. Rex Armistead. Sounds made up. Yeah, it sounds Made up.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah. That's not his name.

[James Petrigallo]

No. Rex. He came to Arizona as director of the U.S. justice Department's Regional organized crime unit after there was an assassination attempt on Arizona Republic reporter Don Bowles. I think that is the one where they blew his car up in Camelback. Isn't that the guy?

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Yes. That's a very interesting story. Wow. Very interesting. Hunter Thompson wrote really cool about that, by the way. Really good stuff about that too. Anyway, Loretta met Rex at a bar and she said right away, instantaneous attraction. And he said later, quote, I did love her, which means I might not have treated her that way, but, you know, Yeah, I definitely boned her. He says she was a good tennis player and a hard working lady. He said he got to know Terry who was well aware of how his mother felt about him and they also became friends. And that'll come in handy later.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Great tennis player, worked really hard. You know what I mean? Batting my balls around. He's great at it. Hot.

[James Petrigallo]

Real good about that.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Rex, you're a dick.

[James Petrigallo]

He's a real dick, Rex. So summer of 85, she belonged to a bridge club. She's working in the store. She's. Loretta's hanging out with her friends and you know, just doing shit at this point. Her and Terry are becoming kind of famous in Phoenix for these commercials.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Doing terrific. Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

And yeah, so Loretta was kind of Terry's the main person, but Loretta's periphery there. Her son Scott and his wife lived in Hawaii, so that's successful. One of her sisters died, but she's close with the other three. She writes long letters to her nieces and nephews and stuff like that. Very nice here. Hey everybody. Just going to take a quick break from the show and tell you more about our safest sponsor, Simplisafe. If you ever worry about the safety of your home and family, there's no better time to act than right now. Simplisafe is the home security that we trust. That is a fact. We've been using it for I think seven years now. And it brings great peace of mind. It's fantastic. You know, your stuff is protected. You knowing your home is protected 24,7 by SimpliSafe is a huge relief. Get 50% off today just by visiting simplisafe.com small it's your last chance to protect your home at Simplisafe's lowest prices of the year. Simplisafe's active Guard outdoor protection changes the game by preventing crime before it even happens. If someone's lurking around or acting Suspiciously, those agents, see them in real time, talk to them directly, set off your spotlights, and even call the police before anybody's had a chance to get into your house. That is awesome. SimpliSafe is extending its massive Black Friday deal for our listeners this week. Only you can get 50% off any new system with a select professional monitoring plan. This is your last chance to claim their best offer of the year. Head to simplisafe.com that's SimpliSafe S I M P lisafe.com Small there's no safe like SimpliSafe.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Now back to the show.

[James Petrigallo]

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[Jimmy Wisman]

So sometimes something happens in the car and you got to get get it fixed. And sometimes it's more than you expect.

[James Petrigallo]

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[Jimmy Wisman]

Now back to the show.

[James Petrigallo]

This is an ad by BetterHelp. BetterHelp has improved therapy, making it affordable and convenient. And now it's even better. Sign up for BetterHelp between December 3rd and 15th to get one free month of therapy. Take a breather from the hectic holiday season to pause and take care of yourself. Visit betterhelp.com small town murder between December 3rd and 5th for one free month of online therapy. That's betterhelp.com small townmurder. Valid for new US customers only. And Terry writes, our trust was so powerful. I trusted you more than anyone. I loved you and you loved me. And then we ran an ad, and that brought us Ta. Okay, we'll talk about Taw here. All right, now.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, that's a person.

[James Petrigallo]

That's a person. Taw. Taw really old. Taw himself. Okay, now, Loretta, this comes because Loretta has a house, and it's a big house, and she's all alone, so she'd rented rooms out periodically to people. And so she's put her room up for rent again, a spare room. Apparently. It's one of those houses that has, like, the master bedrooms all the way on one side of the house by itself.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

And the rest are over there. So she's, you know, there's still privacy. So she writes in an ad executive. Woman, big home, nice suite for rent. Okay, so she had a couple renters in the past, like we said. She didn't like living alone either. She liked having someone there. And why not help out with the bills a little bit. What the hell?

[Jimmy Wisman]

Got a giant house. Why?

[James Petrigallo]

Fuck it. So T.A. benderly is his name. He is born in 1937, so not too much younger than her, which is good. He shows up to rent out her guest room. Okay. This is fucking wild. He pulls up on his motorcycle.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, boy.

[James Petrigallo]

And told her he's a successful entrepreneur from Scotland. Okay, well, I would love to have heard what his accent is, because we'll find out later. Okay, so successful Scottish entrepreneur here. And right away, I mean, Terry says that as soon as Loretta met him, she was beaming from ear to ear. Just loved him. He's a handsome guy. And just everything that she wants in a dude.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Scottish biker.

[James Petrigallo]

Scottish biker who's also a successful businessman. She's described as tall and handsome, intelligent and well spoken, a great cook and an expert in art glass.

[Jimmy Wisman]

A lot of those guys need a. Need a room direct.

[James Petrigallo]

They're just down on their luck this month. It's just a tough time. He says he had an MBA from Wharton School of Business.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Right.

[James Petrigallo]

You know, and this was the time in the 80s. He said he was actually a classmate of Donald Trump's. He said at the time he was telling her, he said he was an inventor also. He invented things. That's his main business also. And he just knew shit about everything. He's just real, real fucking knowledgeable.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petrigallo]

Problem is, he arrived on a Harley.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

With no wallet, no suitcase, and no money. Just A guy on a Harley. He didn't even have his driver's license on. Nothing. Okay, Just. Hi, I'm here with my. Me and my Levi's are here.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Aaron Brockovich's boyfriend.

[James Petrigallo]

That's it. Me and my Levi's. And I could take those off if you'd like.

[Jimmy Wisman]

So I'll leave him at the door.

[James Petrigallo]

I can leave him there. He says his story is he just flown in from Saudi Arabia where he'd worked for Bethel. And he said everything went wrong. The company lost his last paycheck and they're trying to figure out where that is. His wallet had been. He was. He was robbed at the airport. Somebody stole his wallet out of his back pocket. He was pickpocketed at the airport and all his luggage got lost by the airline from Saudi Arabia to here. He left Saudi Arabia thinking he had a fat paycheck and a wallet full of money and all of his stuff. And he turns out he's got nothing. He just shows up.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Wouldn't you know it, Enterprise would only rent me this motorcycle.

[James Petrigallo]

I was going to say, where the fuck did this motorcycle come from? He showed up from Saudi Arabia with no place to live, no ID or anything, and just fires up a Harley and, what the hell's going on here?

[Jimmy Wisman]

Thank God my Harley came down the baggage claim.

[James Petrigallo]

I waited for a while and I said, oh, that's right, the oversized bag. I gotta go down to where the golf clubs come out. That's right, the golf clubs and snowboards and skis and shit.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Thank God they relieved you of your luggage. Where the fuck were you gonna put it? On a motorcycle?

[James Petrigallo]

That's the other thing.

[Jimmy Wisman]

It doesn't sound like it has a sidecar.

[James Petrigallo]

Probably not, no. So. But he's all. He's talking about his inventions and all that kind of thing. He says he can't pay any rent until his last check pops up. And he doesn't know when that's gonna be, but it's a reputable company, so it should be at some point. But you should still let me move in, even though I don't even have identification. No ID and no money. Can I live at your house?

[Jimmy Wisman]

You gotta really trust a shitload.

[James Petrigallo]

You gotta find a Scottish accent, extra charming, I would think, for that. Right?

[Jimmy Wisman]

Not incredibly repulsive.

[James Petrigallo]

Not repulsive, yeah. It had to be a classy one. Not a Shrek, you know. So he said, you know, he'll help out until then, until he can pay. He said, I'm a gourmet cook. I'll cook your meals I. I can fix anything if you want, you know, I can do. If you got any work to do around the house, I'll fix anything you have.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Fix your life.

[James Petrigallo]

Let's do that. And, well, I'm just waiting for my check, and then it's fixed, everything's fine. And the law, you know, they lost my luggage and I got pickpocketed. It could happen to anybody, all at once.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I'll worry about that another time.

[James Petrigallo]

Could happen to anyone, all on the same day. It happens a lot.

[Jimmy Wisman]

He owns one pair of underwear. This is crazy.

[James Petrigallo]

He shows up with one pair of tighty whities and a Harley. How you doing? So he said, but I'll tell you what, if you help me out here, I will cut you in.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh.

[James Petrigallo]

On an invention that I'm doing right now. And when that takes off, we'll both be rich. How's that sound?

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petrigallo]

It sounds like, get the fuck back on your bike and go to the next place. I don't know what to tell you.

[Jimmy Wisman]

But she says, sounds like, find another sucker.

[James Petrigallo]

She said, your room is right. Right this way. That's her.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Is that right?

[James Petrigallo]

Absolutely. She was smitten with him. She just thought he was handsome as fuck.

[Jimmy Wisman]

How handsome is this guy?

[James Petrigallo]

Extremely. Apparently, Terry says this. He was tall and handsome and charming and suave. He said he was an inventor who had no family, that he was raised by his grandmother and that he headed a company in Scotland and never was in trouble with the law. He said he had a great invention that he was going to make that was going to make him rich and he'd give Mom a piece of the action. Oh, and he also began to woo her and make her feel like she was the most wonderful woman he'd ever met. The first year was great. He was always impressing her with his ideas and inventions. And he even stepped in to help me out a lot. Her, meaning Terry. He knew I had a difficult time with reading and writing, so he suggested I go to a special reading course at asu. Which is what? That's why she did that. And he and mom would run the business for me in my absence. And then I come back and get in there. Great. Because mom helps run it anyway. So, yeah, he said, I'll help your mother do it. Right. Yeah. I'll do the paperwork that you usually do and say, you go learn how to do it, don't you?

[Jimmy Wisman]

Fuck off back to school while I sit here while I complete continue to snow your mother.

[James Petrigallo]

Do you have a driver's license yet? How many Pairs of underwear do you own, sir? Tell you what, you can't be part of my business until you own at least five pairs of underwear. How's that? Let's just make it that holler when.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Your check shows up.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, that's it, man. Go get yourself some Fruit of the Looms. So she came back four months later and she said she was better equipped to run everything when she came back after the program, but she said her company was in financial disarray. She said my employees were coming to me saying, this isn't right. He's doing something wrong. And when I tell mom, she'd stand up for him and we'd have another fight. She said mom always took Ta's side and she refused to listen to anybody about him at all. She said that he just spoke with such authority on so many subjects. A few people challenged him. And that fucking accent. If you have a decent enough accent, you can get over on that. It's crazy. Especially in America. Any British Isles accent, you can get over with that shit in America. We just think you're charming.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Arizona.

[James Petrigallo]

Oh, forget it. Arizona even more in the 80s especially.

[Jimmy Wisman]

No. Jesus, you're.

[James Petrigallo]

No one knows. Oh, my God. You're like this weird unicorn.

[Jimmy Wisman]

So those guys that run two very successful Irish restaurants in Arizona. Not restaurants, they're bars. Yeah, they're incredibly successful because they hang around the bar being all Irish.

[James Petrigallo]

That's it.

[Jimmy Wisman]

It's awesome.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, People like that shit, I'm telling you. Imagine if we could just go over there and get over with our bullshit.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Just sitting in an Irish bar selling cheeseburgers.

[James Petrigallo]

Just go over there, make a completely mediocre fucking American style bar cheeseburger. And here you go. Here's your Cisco frozen cheeseburger that we got for you. Enjoy. Here's the charm and just the atmosphere that they create with those with their charming accents. You know what I mean? That'd be great.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Those fried onions on their burger, it's fucking delicious. These guys, it sold me a Budweiser. It sold me $4 worth of shit for $23.

[James Petrigallo]

It was great. They showed me a. A $12 Pabst. The only place that happens is either overseas or fucking Austin, Texas. Probably. That town is not gonna last. You guys are.

[Jimmy Wisman]

That's going belly up. I can't.

[James Petrigallo]

You guys are tripping in that town. You walk down the street, there is stores with three boutiques with three items in them that look like they have $12,000 a month in rent. I'm like, this is not sustainable.

[Jimmy Wisman]

And each of Those things, they're selling them for 12 grand a piece.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. And no one's in there?

[Jimmy Wisman]

No. And these people, it's just mid 40 year olds pissing their 401k away.

[James Petrigallo]

It's wild, man. We were looking around, we're going, this isn't gonna last, right?

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah, they got fucking driverless cars with driver cars just honking at them.

[James Petrigallo]

Oh my God. I almost got fucking hit by a Waymo in Phoenix.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Really?

[James Petrigallo]

When I was. Yeah, it was. Dude, it was fucking really? He was making a right on red while I was using my left turn arrow to turn and he just tried to turn right into me. I had to swerve out of the fucking way. And I'm yelling and screaming. I'm like, who am I yelling at? I'm yelling at a fucking robot. What do you do if it hits you? You got to get out and like beat the shit out of it. Kick all the cameras off it because can't yell at anybody. There's nobody to fucking take your aggression out on.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Siri, where's your registration? Yeah, Siri, you better have fucking insurance.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, Siri, where's your fucking insurance card? Holy fuck. So Terry said he didn't spend 10 minutes in his presence without knowing that he thought he was smarter than everyone in the room. He had a crazy confidence in himself and he's handsome and Loretta liked him. They made a nice couple. A nice looking couple. And they look great. Next few years here, you know, Tawn Loretta are enjoying their years. Everybody said they were the perfect couple. Here's a journalist, Jana Baumerbot, Bombers Bach, who wrote the book, the Bones in the Desert book, said that. So Terry though is not convinced. No, she's like, something's off, you know, he showed up with nothing and has no proof of anything. So on a motorcycle, she's rightfully skeptical. Yeah, in the 80s, by the way. Yeah, that is. Nowadays your dorky dad has a motorcycle. That's just normal now.

[Jimmy Wisman]

But he doesn't go run his errands and introduce himself to people on a motorcycle.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. In the 80s, people who rode their bikes to run errands like that were a different breed of human.

[Jimmy Wisman]

You're a weird person.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, yeah. So Terry calls up Rex. Remember Rex, the Justice Department guy? She says, will you do me a favor and use your federal shit that you have here access to look into this guy? I know you're married.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Look into this guy's back.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Do me a solid.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, that's it. So they knew that he had spent time in Texas. So she said, look for him in Texas and see if he has a criminal record. Rex says, I ran a check on him. He had an insignificant record in Texas. If there was violence in his background, we could never detect it. Okay, so that he passed the background check. Now, there's a couple of speeding tickets or something, but that's it. Now, some of her friends don't really buy this shit at all. Skyla Peterson, who'd been her friend for almost 20 years, said the day she was there, the day taught arrived. So she was there for this, heard his story, and she said, that story's bullshit. She told Loretta, that's the lady you need around. That's story.

[Jimmy Wisman]

You're not buying that, right?

[James Petrigallo]

You're not buying any of that shit, are you? She said, he was a smooth talker and very smart, but come on, he has no money, no luggage. I never understood where he got the motorcycle, but I'm sure he had a story all worked out about that, too. But Loretta bought it all. I couldn't believe it. You can't show up with no money. I'm not talking. I can give you. I know the rent's 800. I can give you 500, but I'm waiting on this job. Nothing. I don't have shit to my name.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Trust me on this invention that I'm gonna do.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. And if I can't move in, if I'm not allowed, may I wash my underwear in your sink? Because I'm. This is all I got.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Long ride back to Phoenix.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. When you show up like that, the fuck do you expect from people? But she says that, you know, Loretta loved him. What are you going to do? Her sisters either saw red flags everywhere. Her sister Darla said that she flew to Phoenix specifically to meet Ta because she didn't like what she heard so far. She said, I stayed with them for three days. I have a great bullshit detector. And his story didn't ring true. These people are hilarious. I love these. I love these old ladies, man. I got a bullshit, funky old bag.

[Jimmy Wisman]

It was in my carry on.

[James Petrigallo]

I love it, man. And my luggage did come through from Saudi Arabia. She said, I went to Loretta and Loretta and told her all her sisters were very concerned. You don't know anything about this guy. He has no family, no friends. That's what she was told back. But she said. Or she told him that. That's what they're all saying. Or she told Loretta, this is what everybody's saying. She said, Loretta said this quote. I know what I'm doing. And it's none of your business.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petrigallo]

She said, in our family, we were taught to keep the peace. Darla said, so what could she say? She's not going to force her. It's at her house. She's an adult with this. That's the relationship she wants. What's she going to do? So that's it. But all the sisters would always be suspicious of him. So by the time you know, Darla is really saying, I don't like this guy, they're already sharing a bedroom, so.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, boy.

[James Petrigallo]

Once there's dick involved, you're not gonna penetrate through that. Not for use lack of a better term, sorry. But yeah, once there's penetration, you're not gonna penetrate. It's just not gonna happen. And they were sharing everything. They even shared her bank account because, by the way, his lost paycheck never showed up and the airline could never find those dang suitcases.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Dammit.

[James Petrigallo]

Where did he just materialize from? Did he come out of a hole in the desert riding a motorcycle like a fucking. Some sort of weird Hell's Angels legend.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Guy from raising Arizona?

[James Petrigallo]

That's what he is. Yeah, it's exactly who he is, except handsome. He's Tex Cobb, but handsome.

[Jimmy Wisman]

That's it. Tex Cobb.

[James Petrigallo]

Handsome Randall. Tex Cobb. So he is a good cook, though. That is one thing. And he could also fix shit all around the house so that he wasn't lying about. So he keeps her kind of satiated with good meals and fixed light fixtures and shit like that, so. And also very charming. They said he had a deep resonant voice that was almost hypnotizing. And that accent and everything else is. Something's there, you know, obviously. So she let Todd be a part of her bank account and everything, you know, he's very charming. Now he's got some inventions that he wants here. Want to hear about these inventions? Okay.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

He said that he had an impressive resume filled with business degrees and work history. I mean, you know, he had detailed drawings of his inventions. He's always on the phone setting up deals, making contacts. He's regular, always in meetings with potential investors and partners, quote, unquote, and all this type of shit. He thought the thing that he was really interested in in the late 80s was solar power. Really, which he saw that, but, I mean, everybody saw that. Yeah, if we could get the sun to make electricity, that'd be cool. Yeah, it would. Yeah. So he wanted this solar power and he wanted to educate the world to all of its uses. And that's what he Always educate the world. He had big plans to create a solar power plant on the island of Lanai.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Where the fuck is that?

[James Petrigallo]

In somewhere like one of the smaller Hawaiian or somewhere Pacific.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

That makes sense because he wanted Scott to manage it for him.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, he's going to have him deal with Hawaii.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. So Todd brought up. Brought legitimate businessmen into their lives. A guy named Gary Bailey from North Carolina. A company called Duke Solar. Gary and his wife Laura became close friends with Loretta and Tao and Loretta and Gary. Loretta. It was clear to Loretta that Gary was impressed with TA and his ideas. And this was a guy who ran a solar company. He said ta. And then Bailey said Taw was extremely bright and he had an amazing network of people in government and private business. He could open doors. He said though his ideas, though Taw's ideas never really went anywhere. He said that Todd just oversold things. He was great at the knowledge, but didn't know how to close a deal. It was so sad to me.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah, it is tough when you have all the facts but no reason to fucking sell it. Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

He said that some of Loretta's money went for Taw's solar car cover invention.

[Jimmy Wisman]

What?

[James Petrigallo]

I don't know what you want a solar car cover for. I don't know what that does exactly. What does that do?

[Jimmy Wisman]

Quote unquote, solar blankets for your pool.

[James Petrigallo]

Is it to keep it warm in the winter? That's a weird thing. Some to his serrated lawnmower blades.

[Jimmy Wisman]

What?

[James Petrigallo]

I think we have lawnmower technology pretty much figured out by the 90s, right.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I think they're as sharp as they need to be. This one's sharp as this one, Julian.

[James Petrigallo]

That's what I mean. What do we want it to do? Slice a tomato and afterwards cut a can and a shoe in half? What the fuck are we talking about?

[Jimmy Wisman]

I don't need a fucking lawnmower blade any sharper than they are.

[James Petrigallo]

Grass cuts pretty easy. It's very thin. It's not a. No need to really attack it.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Sling Blade murdered a man with one without it being serrated.

[James Petrigallo]

No serration at all. Also his transducer audio speakers. I don't know what the fuck that is. For years o Loretta wouldn't admit that Taw's inventions were just a money pit. Even though they're all this money she's investing in it.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Right?

[James Petrigallo]

And Terry said, I told Scott said, I'm sorry. I told my mother once I was tired of hearing about those inventions. I told her they're old, outdated, and they're stupid, stupid things. Scott's very honest. He said, I've been hearing about the same three things for 10 years now. Technology has moved on and the time has come for you to move on. That worried me about her, that she was buying into this and snowed. She said that. He said Loretta took his words and understood them but didn't do anything. He told her that he was not going to be involved because Scott said he would be involved in the Lanai solar plant. But then he said, I'm not involved anymore. Never got out of the planning stages. And even though Taw and Loretta had taken dozens of trips to Denver where he was supposed to be meeting with investors, quote, unquote.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petrigallo]

But they found out the investors never showed up. And the trips, mainly they just stay with Loretta's sister Shirley. Just hang out, just hang out. So he hit up everybody that had a dollar in their pocket, two nickels rubbing together in a pocket. He could hear that shit from across the room. And he wants your investment in his inventions. Loretta invested heavily. Terry invested a whole bunch of money based on her mom's advice. Some of their friends, neighbors.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Neighbors you can't get.

[James Petrigallo]

You can't come out of your house at that point. You got to really be, wow. But they did it. They would invest in him and they said he had never had any shame when he lost money. He never was like, I'm sorry.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Or just somebody else's money.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. Now their commercials are out at this point. The Terry's design and consign and you know, he's helping out with the business as well like we said. And they said they didn't know what they were doing or they. He was telling Loretta that Terry didn't know what she was doing. Yeah, that's what he's like turning her against Terry. Terry, by the way, Terry. They were. They didn't know whether to do the commercials like we said. And Terry said, I have a gift of gab. I think it's how well you can deliver it. I would say I truly. If I truly didn't have the talent, I wouldn't do it. But if you're good at it, why not? People like to see who owns the company. And she'd have her mother on with her. She said it was a way of saying this is a true mother daughter team that's running this business. You can trust us. They said it's recognition that they can see people behind the company instead of. In the case of an IBM. Who really runs IBM? Nobody fucking knows.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Great point. Who Runs.

[James Petrigallo]

So there's who run. That's what I mean. There's an article, there's fluff pieces on them just from 1987, about their own opening another store here. And all of this just this business is an amazing mother daughter business. It's incredible. And how wonderful the prices are. And all this type of shit Terry says about the stuff they took in. We'd only take it if we think 10 out of every 15 people would buy it. We don't take too expensive or too different furniture before we accept it. We check it out like a used car. They wrote the commercials yourself, themselves. And one of them said, mother and I have pre selected the highest quality of furniture and priced it right for you. She said, you can trust my mom. She inspects all the furniture to be sure it's clean and priced right.

[Jimmy Wisman]

That's great.

[James Petrigallo]

You have your mom you can trust. My mom.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah. That seems that would have been a tough time to sell things too, because a lot of people were still smoking indoors back then.

[James Petrigallo]

Oh God, yes. Thinking. I guess people were. They understood that too at the time.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Probably people would buy something, buy a piece and not care. Also, they're going to put it in a house where there's smoke too.

[James Petrigallo]

So that's the other thing. Even people that didn't smoke, you go into their house, you could smoke in their house. That's crazy.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah. My aunt, dude, she collected those Cabbage Patch dolls. She had every one of them. But it was in her house where she smoked and they were all destroyed. I bet when she died, she thought they were gonna be worth money.

[James Petrigallo]

All covered in tar.

[Jimmy Wisman]

They're all yellow. The black ones, the white ones, they were all yellow.

[James Petrigallo]

They're all yellow. At the end of the day, I'm selling a shitload of Asian cabbage. Rationals, I guess.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Are you kidding?

[James Petrigallo]

Your aunt? Not me, your aunt's. She's an old lady. Yeah, that's. I was making. I was being your racist old aunt. I don't know what they are. Hold on. I think. What? I think the Chinese or something. I don't fucking know.

[Jimmy Wisman]

We weren't allowed to touch them when I was a kid. I wanted one so bad and I couldn't get one. She'd buy them and then just store them in her fucking back bedroom.

[James Petrigallo]

I'd walk back there and look at.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Them all in the boxes.

[James Petrigallo]

In the boxes.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Still ruined, James.

[James Petrigallo]

Still ruined. Yeah, if she put those in a nice storage unit, they would have been worth good money.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Idiot.

[James Petrigallo]

So by late, 87, 88 TA has convinced Loretta to demand a buyout from Terry from the store. Okay.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Terry didn't want the buyout, and she couldn't afford to buy her out of the business.

[Jimmy Wisman]

So Terry want. He wants Loretta to get bought out by Terry.

[James Petrigallo]

Yes, to get out. To get a big lump sum of money and get out of the business. Because Terry doesn't know what she's doing. That's what he says, basically. So Terry didn't know what to do here, but she said that if I did do this, then it gets taught away from me and out of my company. So she finally agreed. She said, fine. She negotiated a monthly plan that paid her mother more than a quarter million dollars for her part of the business. Monthly? No, not monthly. That's. That's what she's got.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petrigallo]

She's going to pay it monthly because she doesn't have the money sitting there in a lump sum. The offer was blunt. Basically. They said, you buy me out or we buy you out, but we're going to. Someone's buying somebody out. And Terry was like, well, I guess I'm out now here. I guess those two are business partners. So they taught here. He's doing this. And Toss suggested they could save all the legal fees if he wrote up the papers himself. I'll write up the bar, you know. Yeah. As you know, just to be a nice guy. Loretta insisted that Taw's legal papers would be just good. So the women split ownership of the four stores they had, with Terry agreeing to buy her mother out for it was about $150,000 then, which is about 250 later on. So she said as she made the monthly payments until she paid it all off. And she said, as fast as I would pay her monthly payments, Tall would go through it with one invention or another. Oh, my God, she'd make these payments. And Ta was just fucking pissing money away. And also drove a wedge between them. Obviously they don't want to hang out at this point. So that's. That's that. And she said all that. Terry said she. He just seemed to care about, you know, the money. That was it. So Terry ends up creating a big empire eventually. She had 36 stores across the nation.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Is that right?

[James Petrigallo]

Fuck yeah. Made her very wealthy woman also. She did very well. And now invest. Loretta didn't invest the money that she got from Terry. It was just all spent on, yeah, you know, bullshit here. Loretta was supposed to be selling off real estate, but that didn't go anywhere. She has a real estate license as well. She would buy Secondhand items and, you know, sell that stuff here and there on ebay that she found at garage sales. And neither of them ever had a job, Loretta or Taw. And Terry said finances and our relationship had become very draining and distant. 1991. Terry vs. Loretta. Steel cage match, Royal Rumble. Here it goes. Okay.

[Jimmy Wisman]

In court, or we're going to actually fight?

[James Petrigallo]

Well, they're going to fight in court and maybe throw hands. This is how Terry says it. She says that Loretta showed up at my house dressed like Alexis of Dynasty. So that was a soap opera in the 80s about rich people. Yeah, just dressed to kill. And you could tell that she had to be rehearsed to do this. And she said, I'm still an owner. And she showed me those papers Ta had done for us, which showed she was still part owner of the company.

[Jimmy Wisman]

How?

[James Petrigallo]

I said, I don't care about those papers. You and I know that. I bought you out. I fucking paid you money. So then she handed me a lawsuit for the company and walked out the front door. I fell to my knees and cried. I just had lost my best friend, my mother who helped me get through life and lost the only job I knew how to do. My mother was no longer my mother.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, my God.

[James Petrigallo]

Yes. And even she, in her own journals, Loretta said in her journal, she wrote in 1987, Sold my half to Terry, but yet five years later, she was saying, I still own half of it.

[Jimmy Wisman]

It's stupid.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. So apparently, Ta had fucked up the papers to basically make it so it was nothing. They're just giving them money and they still own the business. So that's a lot. Now, here's a letter from Taw to Loretta. By the way, even though they live in the same house, they write each other letters back and forth in the house. Like long letters. Yeah. In a 1991 letter, he mocked her complaints that, Taw, you brought too much baggage to our relationship. Or, Tawh, you ruined my relationship with my daughter. He taunted that she should question her own judgment if she was so unhappy and stayed with him anyway. Well, who's the idiot now?

[Jimmy Wisman]

I'm an asshole. You're with me.

[James Petrigallo]

If I'm so bad, you're the dummy, then I guess. Right?

[Jimmy Wisman]

He's got a point.

[James Petrigallo]

Next, Terry is going on Oprah.

[Jimmy Wisman]

What?

[James Petrigallo]

Because she is a successful businesswoman that had dyslexia and went and got her learning disability. Yeah.

[Jimmy Wisman]

She overcame some challenges.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, she's on Oprah now. Loretta is a gigantic fan of Oprah, loves Oprah, watches her every day.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Not today she's not.

[James Petrigallo]

Terry does not take Loretta with her.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, shit.

[James Petrigallo]

She takes her Aunt Darla with her instead.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Ouch.

[James Petrigallo]

Yep. She said that I didn't take my mom to the show, to Chicago for the show. Her aunt came with her. The limo ride, the whole deal, it was all that she said. Terry. On the show, Terry told her life story, and Oprah talked about how she'd overcome her learning disability to, you know, earn all this shit and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, just drooling. Loretta watched the show at home, but, you know, that was it.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Seething.

[James Petrigallo]

Also, she appeared on Channel 3 News in Phoenix talking to Tara Hitchcock on Good Morning Arizona. That's just real Arizona local shit for you, Tara Hitchcock. This smoke show. Jesus said that she'd won the Avon Award by turning her disadvantage of dyslexia into an opportunity.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

So she's doing the press tour now? Yeah, she's killing. 1993. She goes to Geraldo. What, here? Yeah, Geraldo at the Phoenix Civic Plaza was taping an episode of Geraldo. It was called Daughters in Distress. And when a man warming up the audience asked how a woman would feel if her mother stole her husband or boyfriend, somebody. They talked about all that. And then Terry is in the crowd here. She's in the audience to talk about the lawsuit between her and her mother. She's going on Geraldo to talk about her mom's lawsuit.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, my.

[James Petrigallo]

But for some reason, other segments ran long. She never ended up getting on the show. Okay, so that's probably good. We didn't have that anyway. Yeah, that's. That's helpful here. So there was a lot of. Like this. There was a mother daughter thing. So 90s here, 2000s or late 90s, Loretta's finally admitting to her girlfriend that she's doubting Ta's stories. It took her 10 years to start doubting this shit, but wow. She said that she actually thought maybe he was lying to her at this point. Maybe he's not even. Maybe he didn't even graduate from Morton. We don't know.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Maybe his name's not even tall.

[James Petrigallo]

We have no idea. Yeah. She said she gave him so much money that she needs to keep him around so she'll get her money back at some point. I got to stay here for when it hits. She needed to make it. She needed to do it. So she kind of just basically at some point, too. She then gave up on that and stopped having this idea that he's going to get rich and just wanted him to help with the bills, basically. Can you just contribute? Maybe get an electric bill?

[Jimmy Wisman]

It's getting expensive. It's hot.

[James Petrigallo]

That's. Yeah. So by 1999, she. All of her personal journals here she's talking about self improvement classes and inspections of her mind and soul and all this type of shit. In 1999, she wrote to him, I'm no longer willing. Indeed, I was never willing. But I'm no longer going to accept your financial abuses, verbal abuses and shirking of your responsibilities. She wrote that to T.A. okay, December 2001, T.A. at this point, they're fighting and he's exiled to a guest room at this point. So he has excommunicated to the other side of the house. She said, I have to set a deadline sometime. I will not go this month without a financial contribution toward his expenses. Enough is enough. He must get some money to operate. He cannot keep expecting me to support him and his business. It's been over a decade of this.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah. Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

December 10, 2002. So a year later, she wrote this. Still no financial relief. So it's been a year. I'm done. Enough is enough. It's a year later still same shit.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Money withdrawn from personal account and business accounts without any entry in the checkbook. $17 left in the business account. 500 in sinking fund that he agreed was to avoid overdrawing account and bank charges. Blatant disregard. Cannot control what he does with money. How do I protect myself against careless and unnecessary spending? Deceitful withdrawals from bank account. His willingness to educate the world on energy without receiving compensation. Question mark.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

How do I protect myself from another lien being placed on my house? If bills are to be paid this month, he will pay them. Either he can find a way or phones get turned off. I don't want to be intimate. And I know that there has been a change. There has not been a change of attitude or skills to create a supportive relationship. I can't earn enough to pay the bills. I'm through borrowing money to live on. It's very demeaning to my self respect. Okay, one more letter. She said, the only thing I can do is to keep this. To keep this relationship from blowing up on a daily basis. Is. Is created a steady, reliable income that I can run a household in an organized, predictable way. Until you do that, stop beating up on me verbally for being unhappy and not having any money. Okay. Now, 2004, TA spends several days working. This is years later, still no money, but he spent several days working on something he saw in Dr. Phil.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Jesus Christ.

[James Petrigallo]

Dr. Phil, Oprah, Geraldo, they're all making the rounds today. Where's Maury?

[Jimmy Wisman]

Why does he.

[James Petrigallo]

Is it his baby? Why has he seen all this?

[Jimmy Wisman]

Why does he have so much time to see this?

[James Petrigallo]

They love. They love these shows.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Daytime tv. They're around for it.

[James Petrigallo]

Fuck. There. Yeah, that's what I mean. So this is a relationship rescue exercise. He completed a series of sentences meant to get him to see their problem.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah, you're right. Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

So he writes this. What makes me angry is this is like Ted Bundy's psychological obsession.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Jesus.

[James Petrigallo]

Feeling and being frustrated. When I get angry, I use my voice to express it. I would give anything if. And the answer is, my partner would be less critical of small things. You know, like everything I've ever told her. Being a lie, that sort of thing.

[Jimmy Wisman]

And not having a job.

[James Petrigallo]

You're not having a job. My best quality is my brain power. My partner hates it when I am not truthful. He says, well, that makes sense. It would be best. And then to be honest with Loretta, I can't forgive myself for failure. And then I believe. And he says in myself. Oh, that I can fly. I believe I can rob this lady blind. So women certainly differ in how they view life and issues. Do they? I think everybody likes to have their bills paid, right? That's a normal thing.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah, I think everybody likes to be cared for and not be sucked dry. That's nice financially.

[James Petrigallo]

And then women never seem to make the time to have mutual enjoyment. He says, yeah, okay. I don't even know what that means. I'm doing, like, my mouth is open. I don't get it.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Very, very dumb.

[James Petrigallo]

It hurts me when my partner. And then he puts. Doesn't trust me. Even though it is warranted.

[Jimmy Wisman]

He is hoping she reads this. This is very manipulative.

[James Petrigallo]

That's all it is. That's all. He's doing this in the house. He didn't go on Dr. Phil. He's just writing this down. Sure. Leaving it on the kitchen table. And yeah, he's like, I'm doing the steps, man.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Very passive aggressive, but also manipulative.

[James Petrigallo]

Later on, a forensic psychiatrist named Dr. Steven Pitts said that she wasn't hardwired to deal with a guy who was so manipulative. She was an emotional hostage to this guy's manipulation. She was used to trusting. And this guy turns out to be just like her dad. So December 2004, a lot of problems. Her income each month consisted of two sources. Social Security Center, $474. And she had an investment. She had a house on Abraham Lane in Phoenix that Terry had bought for her years earlier.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, nice to hear you.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, she rents that out for 1495 bucks a month in 2004. So that's good. So she said she had nice renters, paid her rent on time, you know, and all that kind of thing. She also has a second mortgage on this house she had to take because Ta needed money for invention. So the house. Yeah, yeah.

[Jimmy Wisman]

What a ridiculous sentence.

[James Petrigallo]

That's exactly. He needed invention money. So they took a second mortgage out on a fucking house, damn it. The mortgage for this house, because of that costs her $1,209.08 a month.

[Jimmy Wisman]

So she's making $200 a month on that house.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. After she paid her mortgage, she had $759.92 for everything else. Every stream of bills, food, you name it, mortgage paid. That's not enough money. No, for everything, bills. Especially Arizona in the summer. Your election is almost that.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

You're in so much trouble, you're fucked. Basically, then they would have little bits of income that they earned by buying and selling items they picked up at yard sales and sold them, either through Terry's or on ebay.

[Jimmy Wisman]

How depressing.

[James Petrigallo]

So, yeah, they would try to do this. They were trying to, you know, flip garbage and houses and whatever. Loretta had a real estate broker's license, but only sold a couple of houses, so never really made any big money off of that.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

When she had nothing else, she would turn to Terry as a last resort, and Terry would loan her money and gift her shit.

[Jimmy Wisman]

And that's a 60 year old woman.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, exactly. Not wanting to. 65 year old woman.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

So she said that, you know, and Tall would say, why don't you go fucking. He would go beg Terry for money too.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

One of Terry's employer employees said that the staff would whisper to one another on days that Tall would come to the corporate headquarters. She said he'd sit in that lobby for hours on end until Terry would cut him a check. We thought it was so humiliating. But he didn't seem to mind.

[Jimmy Wisman]

No, because he's leaving with the check.

[James Petrigallo]

That's it. He doesn't care. He has no pride in this. And Terry said, I always gave it to him because I didn't want my mother to be without. But I knew she'd be embarrassed if she knew he was borrowing from me. So most of the time we just kept it between us. Last year she had slipped him $40,000. This year it was $20,000, 60 grand in two years. She didn't see herself, she said, as an enabler. She resented all this, but she couldn't do anything. She said it was. Her mother loved him, so what's she going to do? And she. She basically said she was pretty positive that she would probably tell my mother that this, these checks coming in were for investors, for inventions. It's probably what it was. And while her mother always promised that one day she'd repay the loans, Terry knew that TAW had no intention of giving her. So Loretta once wrote a demand letter to TA here saying that he doesn't contribute to the monthly bills and he has to or he needs to get out. She, at one point, she demanded $6,000 a month as his share, and he gave her nothing. He didn't give her $6 a month. December 7, 2007, a wire transfer is completed, and Loretta is finally getting a couple of bucks here. She, I guess, sold the house to the people she rented to and got a wire transfer for $69,119.25.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. And he actually taught, actually did something decent here. His scheming and scamming when it comes to paperwork works out sometimes. He told her that they would escape capital gains taxes if the money were wired into his business account so it would look like an investment fee.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah, that's what scumbags do. They know those loopholes.

[James Petrigallo]

That's what everybody with money does.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah. Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

That's how they keep money. So Loretta figured she'd be saving thousands. And it was. So there you go. So she wrote in her journal and she said that I will give him some money to get out. To get out of here and pay back Terry. That's her plan. Nice.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Gonna boot him. She detailed nearly a year ago on a list titled what I want for Christmas 2003, 2000, 2004. And you know, it was paying off credit cards to three to five day stay at a health spa. She wanted certain gold earrings that she liked. And also a front entry landscape job, including a new sidewalk and driveway.

[Jimmy Wisman]

How about that?

[James Petrigallo]

Wednesday, December 8, 2004. She had an appointment for a flu shot. And then on her day planner, she wrote, Saturday night dinner. This is a Wednesday, so this upcoming Saturday, Saturday night dinner with her friend Lorraine Combs. It said Combs dinner and Christmas lights.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Beautiful.

[James Petrigallo]

Saturday, December 11th. Their neighbor remembers seeing Loretta cleaning out the double garage. She said she was always cleaning it because TA always had his shit scattered everywhere in the garage. So she didn't like mess really. I guess one of her Christmas wishes the year before had been clean garage by January 15th to last for a year. But that didn't work out that last till February. Yeah. Another neighbor who was hanging her Christmas lights when she saw Loretta sweeping the front porch while Ta was in the garage doing. Sticking around on something. So that same Saturday, Loretta and Taw went to the Zales jewelry store in the Fiesta Mall.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Oh, that's a big one for her. The clerk said it was a strange visit here. They said the woman wanted one of her ring sized and needed it back before the end of the day. The man became angry when they were told the ring could not be sized that quickly. The man said they needed the sizing done right away because they were leaving for Tucson in the morning. As the man became angry, the woman became meek and looked like she was going to cry. So they also went to a garage sale in Phoenix which they like to do that day and all that kind of thing. They their 1991 white Dodge van broke down so they had it towed to a neighborhood, you know, mechanic to get it fixed and yeah, so they did that. And Lorraine, her friend who came over to do Christmas lights and dinner says Saturday night dinner was very, very pleasant evening. Her son and daughter came over as well. This Lorraine's son and daughter. The dinner was a belated birthday party. Who's Lorraine for? For Lorraine who? Todd and Loretta were away on her birthday so they didn't get to celebrate. Todd gave her steak knives for a birthday present. Nice gift, she said. We ate in the dining room. China, silver, everything was exactly in the right place. Loretta served a roast. She said she remembered a pleasant conversation covering what everyone was doing and their plans for the holidays and all that kind of shit. After dinner, Loretta took Lorraine into the spare bedroom to show her several gifts she bought for Terry that Christmas. A table runner, a green and red tablecloth, placemats and covers for her golf club holiday.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Holiday place settings and golf club and golf club covers. It's not a bad gift.

[James Petrigallo]

Then they all got into Loretta's red Dodge Caravan with Todd driving and they all drove all over looking at Christmas lights. So there's five hours for dinner and lights altogether.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Long night.

[James Petrigallo]

Sunday, December 12, 2004, 1:15am Lorraine called Loretta's cell phone and left a message thanking her for the dinner. That's nice. That day also, Terry stops by for lunch and eats with her mom. Has a sandwich and some soup and she's complaining that she's not feeling well. This is Terry complaining, she said, thought she thought it was the flu maybe. Terry said, we sat in the kitchen and just had an everyday conversation. Ta kept stepping in. And mom said, taw, we don't need you.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Get out of here.

[James Petrigallo]

Fuck off out of this conversation. She said, man, a mother and daughter couldn't even have a talk without him getting involved. And Terry said, I don't remember what we talked about, but probably something about weight and diet because we were always talking about that. Mom was always giving me ideas on what to eat and how to take the weight off. She believed in natural foods and stuff like don't drink the orange juice, eat the orange. I felt the conversation, yeah, I felt the conversation was a little strained. It wasn't something you could see. You just got the feeling. So she said her mother sent her home with chicken soup and a just baked loaf of banana nut bread.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Hell yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

That's a good fucking haul right there. Hey, everybody. Just going to take a quick break from the show to tell you a little bit more about Quince. Quince can help you with this pesky holiday shopping that we all have to deal with. It's so hard trying to get. It's hard picking gifts for people, people you love. You want them to have something nice, Check out Quince. You can do it. Quince lets you treat your loved ones and yourself to true quality at an affordable price. Everyone's happy here. Something everyone needs in their closet. Here, Quince's iconic Mongolian cashmere sweaters. Always nice. A classic. They start at $50. We've used quince. I found very nice stuff on Quince at a great price. I got a jacket, sunglasses. Jimmy's got some pants and he's rocking. It's good stuff. Gift luxury. This season without the luxury price tag, go to quince.com smalltownmurder for 365 day returns plus free shipping on your order. That's Q u I n c e.com Small TownMurder to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com SmallTownMurder now back to the show. Have you ever found the house of your dreams only to learn it has dark secrets? Netflix new series no good deed follows three families vying to buy a 1920s Spanish style villa that they think will solve their problems. But as the sellers discover, sometimes the home of your dreams can be a total nightmare. No Good Deed starring Lisa Kudrow and Ray Romano, launches December 12, only on Netflix. Scott, that's not bad. You're leaving fucking stacked up.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Scott called his Mother that Sunday from Hawaii and they talk about it. He said it was an ordinary conversation. He said that he did hear that she sold her investment property and made a 40 to 60 thousand dollars profit. Loretta called her friend Ursula Kramer in California, but got her cell phone and got her voicemail and said, it's me, let's talk, got lots to tell. And Ursula said she thought, oh wonderful. I knew her deal on the house had closed and she'd come into some money and I thought, oh great, well, maybe things are going to start looking up and she'll have some money finally. So that's what she said. Now she, her friend Joy said that she talked to her and she quote, she asked if she could come over and I said, I'm really upset and I need to talk to you. Joy pushed for details, but Loretta wouldn't say what had her so pissed off. Joy told her to come that day, but Loretta said she needed to wait 14 days to get a cheaper ticket to go to California because if you do it inside of two weeks, prices shoot up. So. Monday, December 13, 2004. Terry says, I don't know why, but for the second time in my life I sent her flowers. I'm not a flower sender, but that day it just came in my heart that I wanted to show her that I loved her. So Loretta called to gush about that. Oh, thank you. It's a beautiful bouquet. The call dropped, which I guess was normal from their house for some reason. She like your house? Basically, yeah.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh God.

[James Petrigallo]

Touchy signals here.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Fucking miserable.

[James Petrigallo]

God damn it.

[Jimmy Wisman]

My Internet drops and I can't even call the Internet company to get my fucking Internet back up.

[James Petrigallo]

Dude, it's ridiculous. It's rough at your house. So Terry said the call got dropped, but that was normal and she said I was at work, so I just moved on. At 3:33pm Loretta makes the first of 17 consecutive calls to 10 different phone numbers at Wells Fargo Bank.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Really?

[James Petrigallo]

The calls ended, last call ended at 4:44. So for an hour and eleven minutes.

[Jimmy Wisman]

She is just calling.

[James Petrigallo]

Yep. At 3:33 I guess the, the desk in her office, she sat down, she dialed the Wells Fargo office in Mesa, Arizona. That call lasted 24 seconds. Three minutes later she called Wells Fargo home mortgage office in Gilbert and talk to someone for 66 seconds. 338 she called the Phoenix office of Wells Fargo but apparently didn't get through. The call only lasted six seconds. Next call, same thing, Mesa, five seconds. She retried the Mesa number at 354 and talked for 33 seconds, then called back and talked for another 34 seconds, then called Gilbert again for 31 seconds. Are these voicemails? Was she doing fast calls?

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

The Scottsdale branch of the Wells Fargo Home Mortgage call was ended at 3:59pm for a 48 second call. Gilbert again for 45 seconds. Phoenix again for 8 seconds. A redial for Phoenix that created a call that last night. 76 seconds. At 415 she called the Gilbert office again for 59 seconds, then Phoenix again in two calls, one for 10 seconds and the other for 50. At 4:20 she talked to someone who had do she got some answers for. She called the Wells Fargo 800 number and talked to someone for 404 seconds, which is 6 minutes and 44 seconds. In case you're wondering. The next call was to load Star Mortgage at 4:29pm Lasting 109 seconds. Then the 800 number of Wells Fargo was dialed again and this call lasted 769 seconds, about 12 minutes. So that ended at 4:44pm that's her flurry of calls. She had some she was trying to figure out.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

5:00Pm Todd drives the red van to the Cobblestone Auto Spa to pick up the white van which who has fixed brakes now he paid $191.79 in cash. Now the Todd needed to get the van home. He explained that he had come to the station alone because his wife was home sick 16 minutes earlier. She's on the phone with Banks. Yeah. So he asked the mechanic to follow him home so he could deliver one van and then come back for the other. So the guy took his own car to the house. Ta parked the van in the driveway, got in this guy's car, went back, picked up the other one. The mechanic said later that Taw's demeanor was no different than usual, which is.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Grumpy, just a pissed off old man.

[James Petrigallo]

Pissy old Scotsman here. So about 6pm, toss starts calling people. The first call is to Scott in Hawaii.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

And Scott was like, why the fuck is he calling me to chit chat? He doesn't call me a chit chat.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I just invented Uber. I had an inconvenience today.

[James Petrigallo]

Send me $30,000. So Todd, I guess he just calls him and he said that they weren't close and they didn't chit chat. So he didn't get it. Scott said he was a know it all and pompous about it and a bit of a turd. I really like Scott. Scott, is it a turd? A bit Of a turd. Scott tells it exactly like it is in the most succinct way possible. I would like to talk to Scott and hang out with him. He seems pretty goddamn cool.

[Jimmy Wisman]

A bit of a turd is a fun way to describe it, really.

[James Petrigallo]

Bit of a turd. He says he knew everything, down to how much food the cat should get. She couldn't even decide that. The only reason she was still with him, she didn't want to be alone, but he seemed harmless. But Scott said he wasn't in the mood to talk to him that night. He said it was an uninteresting conversation.

[Jimmy Wisman]

He said, look, I'm bored, man.

[James Petrigallo]

I don't want to talk to you. I'm doing something we'll talk about. He was watching something as well, too. He said he dealt with watches that he sold on ebay and he was asking me what kind of watch I wanted. It was boring to me. I was trying to watch the Amazing Race, and he's talking to me about this boring stuff.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I'm watching a housewife from Nebraska run.

[James Petrigallo]

Down a hill with her local gas station attendant. For some reason, they've teamed up. I don't know why.

[Jimmy Wisman]

They're pushing a bed down Kilimanjaro.

[James Petrigallo]

Weird, right? It's going to be strange as fuck. They're pushing a Sherpa up Mount Everest in a bed on wheels. Strange stuff. So he said he did sound a little weird, but I was distracted trying to watch the show. He's like, yeah, whatever. I don't fucking care.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Reality TV is just kicking off, man. This is awesome.

[James Petrigallo]

Jesus. Then between 8 and 10pm Arizona time, Scott got another call from Taw.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, boy.

[James Petrigallo]

This time, Taw said that he and Loretta were planning to go to Tucson to have a meeting at the University of Arizona the following day about a possible business deal. And Scott was like, okay, great. What are you telling me for? I don't give a.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Survivor's on now. Leave me alone.

[James Petrigallo]

Talked to my mom yesterday and I'm watching something else. I'm trying to find out who's going to be a millionaire. Was it 2004?

[Jimmy Wisman]

Is it the naked guy?

[James Petrigallo]

Maybe it's him. So he said, yeah, that was it. He said, they're trying to do that. He said he didn't talk to his mother during either of the calls with Scott here. He talked to her earlier in the day. So during the first call, TAH was telling him about the Tucson trip, saying they'd be stopping there for business and all that. And Terry remembers that TA twice Told her over the phone how much he loved the flowers. Her mother loved the flowers. They'd spent that. And he also called Terry to tell her about the Tucson trip.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petrigallo]

Telephone Terry to tell her about Tucson.

[Jimmy Wisman]

It's very silly. Sells seashells.

[James Petrigallo]

Wow. Holy shit. So Tuesday, December 14th. Now, okay, Taw is supposed to be traveling for a business presentation on solar panels at the University of Arizona. And Loretta is joining him for the two hour trip so they can do some Christmas shopping. She's going to stop at the mall while he goes to do a business meeting. Well, he goes and lies about what he's lies about his failures. So he dropped her off at the Park Place Mall, remember? Right where we started with plans to pick her up at 4pm Dillard's has a 40% off sale. You do your rounds, I'll be back at 4.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay?

[James Petrigallo]

He said he returned at that time. Loretta is nowhere to be found. He calls 911 at 5:43pm and says quote, we have a woman that's been my wife that's been missing. I guess he's like, I guess I should tell you she's my wife. Not just a woman that's been missing for an hour and 45 minutes. I was to pick her up at 4, I was here at 4 and she did not show up. Which is not like her and we're not from Tucson. He said that he talked to the store, store security and mall security and would have talked to city police patrolling the mall except they were doing something else. They were busy. The operator interrupted asking him to describe his wife and he said she's 69 years old, white silver hair, wearing a gray outfit. She's wearing wool gabardine slacks. She's wearing a gray rib turtleneck sweater, a lightweight sweater, a waist length gray jacket and gray suede shoes. So she's all in gray, but her hair is. But her hair is pure silver. It's not just white or gray. Okay, okay, same thing I think, really, but okay. It's all the same.

[Jimmy Wisman]

No, you don't understand. It's fucking sterling. It's worth a lot.

[James Petrigallo]

Really good. I'm going to resell it if possible. He told the operator that he and Dillard Security had been searching. He said they've been looking. We've paged, we've. Dillard's is the only store she shops in at this mall. You know, this is the first time she's been in the store. So we've been checking everywhere in the store. They checked the restrooms, they checked the Changing rooms. They've done substantial due diligence, which is such a weird way to put that on the phone. So in the meantime, the 911 operator is calling the emergency room of the hospital to see if any 69 year olds, pure silver foxes, have been fucking coming in there dressed in gray.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Nothing. Negative. They've got nobody in there like that. So TA calls Terry and told her that he thinks something's wrong. Terry hops in the car and fucking books it down to Tucson, is that right? Which you could do in about an hour and a half if you really pump it.

[Jimmy Wisman]

If you haul. Yeah, if you haul ass.

[James Petrigallo]

You can do it. If you're really doing it. So the mall security confirmed there'd been no medical emergencies and anything like that. And that's when Talk called 911. Police arrived and talked to Todd at the store and then took him back to the hotel room they were staying in down there.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petrigallo]

They were staying in a hotel for a longer talk. They noticed that a little bit weird, they said. It was noted that Bender Lee had fresh scratches on his hand with appeared consistent with having a struggle and having several fingers scratch the hand.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petrigallo]

Top told police this. He said Loretta went to a massage school that morning for a student massage because they're cheaper, remember?

[Jimmy Wisman]

You could do that. Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Yep. He couldn't remember the name of the school, but she went there often for her osteoporosis and paid $20. He said they then left for Tucson about 10:30am Their first stop was at Love's, arriving between 11:30 and 11:40. He noted the traffic had been heavy. He said he bought gas there and two roast beef sandwiches, which they ate because there's an Arby's there too, which they ate in the car as they drove with bottled water. He said he and Loretta then stopped at a discount mall where they bought two different baseball hats at two different stores. Oh, okay. Loretta, meanwhile, had gone into houseware store on her own. He said Loretta was wearing jeans, the turtleneck, a wine colored jacket. He'd been wearing a dark blue short sleeve shirt and a blue windbreaker and loafers. They arrived in Tucson about 12:30. They checked into room 1613 at the residence.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petrigallo]

TA had taken care of arranging the room while Loretta waited in the van. They got in the room for about an hour 45 while Loretta changed from her traveling clothes into the gray outfit she wore to the mall.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Right.

[James Petrigallo]

As we know, she was carrying a gray clutch purse that contained her wallet, checks, a bank card, a Dillard's Credit card. She liked shopping at Dillard's. He noted that both he and Loretta have cell phones. He says she carries it only 50% of the time when I prompt her. He didn't think she'd taken it with her on this shopping trip. He said that he'd gone back to the hotel to do some work for his upcoming meeting, which was yet to be arranged, and then left to pick up Loretta at The agreed upon 4pm time. He said he'd parked out and waited 25 minutes for her to come out. He checked his watch and noticed a stream of patrons coming out of Dillard's. He said he moved his car to another spot, then gone inside to look for her. When he couldn't find her, he went to customer service, reported her missing. They paged her. Nobody popped up. Okay, so then he said this about the last time he saw he saw Loretta. This is the police report verbiage here. Benderly reported that he dropped Loretta off at the south entrance of Dillard's and was driving in their red Dodge Caravan. When asked why the vehicle did not appear in surveillance video, he said he had no idea. Yeah, what can you say to that? Benderly said he returned to Park Place mall at approximately 1555 hours, 355 and waited in his car until 1620 or 1625. When he did not see Loretta come out of Dillard's, Bender Lee went into the store, stated he entered through the south doors and began looking for Loretta in the men's section in case she was buying him a gift.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Wow. She must be. Must be buying me a gift here. Benderly reported that he traversed both floors of Dillard's and after searching for 30 minutes, he went to the customer service desk where he told them he couldn't find his wife and asked them to page her. After paging her twice, Benderly told us that Dillard Security as well as Park Place Mall security became involved in the search. Eventually, he called the Tucson police from Dillard's. So they talked. They said, how are things with you and Loretta? They asked him, and they said Benderly described his relationship with Loretta as good, but it did have its ups and downs. Their conflicts were of a gentle nature. And he added that he's never touched her in anger. He normally clams up during arguments.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah, because I've spent all her money, so I really don't have to stand on.

[James Petrigallo]

Not really much to say here other than we're poor, I'm a piece of shit, and she does let me stay in the guest Room still, so it's fine.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Very nice of her.

[James Petrigallo]

Terry says she couldn't believe how calm Tal was about all this. She said I was the only one flipping out. I was expecting him to be shouting, let's get out there and search for her. But he wasn't. Terry said she was anything but calm. She rushed around the room fucking with her cell phone, saying we gotta call the media, we gotta make up flyers. And she said the whole time Ta was on the bed with his laptop. She said to picked up his cell phone to call Scott in Hawaii. And Scott says, quote, I hate rhetorical questions and rhetorical greetings like how are you? Because nobody really cares. Scott is wow. What are you asking me how I am? You don't give a shit. Just tell me what you want. Like he is. So no time for bullshit. Scott, this is crazy. He said, and of course that's how Toss started. And he said the call went like this. Hi, Scott, how are you? Fine. Your mother is missing.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petrigallo]

Scott says, well, does she have her cell phone? Toss said she refused to take it with her. And Scott said she will from now on. And Toss said, I guess they got her. And then hands the phone to Terry.

[Jimmy Wisman]

What?

[James Petrigallo]

Who got her? Got? What do you mean got? What are you talking about?

[Jimmy Wisman]

What are we talking about now?

[James Petrigallo]

Who's after her? What's happening? So Ty handed the phone to Terry and told her brother that Taw talked about seeing a suspicious looking van that had followed them earlier in the day. They want his solar secrets. That's what it is. They want all of his fucking solar car cover secrets.

[Jimmy Wisman]

He's got a back to the future, he's got a perpetual motor design that he's gonna disappear about.

[James Petrigallo]

It's like they're trying to track down Doc Brown in the mall parking lot. That's what it is. Ridiculous. Oh my God. So they said that he was afraid that they had kidnapped Loretta. That's what she said. That's. That was the big thing. So in her own journal, Terry would write this because she was in the room, quote, six suitcases, five filled with lots and lots of taws clothes. One small suitcase of hers filled with four pants, four shirts, four underwears, one pair of shoes, no coat and makeup just thrown in a bag. Like a handful just tossed in. It was wrong. Not how my mother would have packed her bag. He said she was wearing a silver turtleneck with jeans and gold jewelry. Specifically her favorite gold ring she wore all the time. Wrong. She would never wear gold with silver. That's the thing she Would. I felt a big lump in my throat and I began to hide the fear that was in my mind. So, yeah, they said that it's uncharacteristic for her. She's very organized. She wouldn't leave without notice. She wouldn't leave her stuff. She wouldn't have jewelry. She wouldn't clash.

[Jimmy Wisman]

People travel a specific way if they travel a lot. Like, I'm an incredibly disorganized person in my personal life. You look in my suitcase when I'm on the road. It's fucking crazy.

[James Petrigallo]

It has to be, or else you won't fit it all in there in.

[Jimmy Wisman]

The same way and I'll fucking forget something.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, that's the other thing.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Get on the road with no deodorant.

[James Petrigallo]

So they Describe her as 5, 6, 130 pounds with silver hair and wearing glasses and gray outfit. So they launch a search of the neighborhoods, the shopping center. 20 officers are involved in this now.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, boy.

[James Petrigallo]

A police helicopter. They bring dogs in to the search. Oh, yeah. Then by 4am they don't have any sign of where they kind of scale back the search because we don't even know what we're looking for now. Yeah, the cop said, we pulled out all the stops. We have nothing. This is a strange one. This is a lady who's very structured and organized, and they said this is outside of her. This is very, very, very outside of her normal behavior. So Tempe police said the last confirmation they have of anyone speaking with Loretta Besides TA is December 13, when she called her daughter to thank her for the flowers. Oh, and the phone cut off. Remember that?

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Police considered the possibility that. But she might be a target for kidnappers because of the celebrity locally. And then her daughter's on commercials and Geraldo and Oprah. People know that they're rich, basically. So they might be doing that. So they questioned Ta. He said that after his business meeting, they were going to go to New Mexico to dig for geodes.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Really?

[James Petrigallo]

New Mexico to dig for geodes. That's okay. He also told them that he observed a white van at the mall whose driver was acting suspicious. I don't know how you drive a van suspiciously, but, I mean, if you're.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Driving a van, you're suspicious.

[James Petrigallo]

That's suspicious right away. So he thought, you're either real suspicious or really trying to up your Instagram content. One of the two.

[Jimmy Wisman]

And no. No amount of fucking cute words like swagger wagon by Toyota is gonna make a fucking minivan.

[James Petrigallo]

Cool.

[Jimmy Wisman]

We hate it.

[James Petrigallo]

Every.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Even the people that own it fucking hate it.

[James Petrigallo]

They own it because they have to have.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Right?

[James Petrigallo]

There's no choice, a reason for it. So he talked. He gave a description again of the van. And meanwhile, everybody's searching for her. Dogs, bikes, air support units, everything else. Then that's when they said, okay. Now we. We looked inside, and we found Loretta nowhere in security footage in the mall, either. Not only did we not see your van, we didn't see her in there either.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah, we can't. We can't. We can't fucking verify that the van or she were here ever.

[James Petrigallo]

That's the thing. And they talked to her at the home. They find a foreclosure notice on the home when they try to go to the home in Tempe. That led them to determine that her disappearance might not have been a kidnapping. You know what I mean? They said, maybe financial matters have something to do with this. Family members also reported that Taw had been acting strangely since Loretta's disappearance. He'll end up holing up in a Phoenix hotel for a while, as we'll talk about. Terry said she confronted him once, asking him where her mother was. And he told her, I don't know where she is. Don't know her sister. Now, Loretta's sister Darla said the family had concerns about Tawh from the beginning. They didn't know. They didn't know anything about his family, anything about. Anything about him. He's just this guy that plopped down on a motorcycle and took her all of her sister's money. So they want to check, basically her house. So they do a check of her house. Like a welfare check, essentially, they call it. They said the goal in searching her home is to learn about how she structured her life. They said it doesn't appear at this point she had any domestic problems. So they do that. They said as they were making her way into the home to do the welfare check, there was a surprise knock on the door.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Who is it?

[James Petrigallo]

A realtor arrived at the residence and asked if the house could be viewed since it's in foreclosure. And they were like, huh? And that's when they found the foreclosure notices. Oh, boy, they said. Then they said mail was seen in the mailbox, which also reflected that the county had placed the home in foreclosure. They haven't paid the taxes? Nope. So police searches the home. They search the home, and they find some other shit they find. Ominous notice from New US bank from October 2003 declaring, Your account is seriously delinquent. She had written on the notice called 10.20.03. Must send payments in separate envelopes. The. There's another letter from Wells Fargo bank saying trustee sale date scheduled. It said they're going to sell her house. March 14, 2005.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, boy.

[James Petrigallo]

So, yeah, the Loan recovery program is a solution to stopping your current foreclosure and stopping your sale date. It said. And said, make. Take immediate action. Send us a shitload of money.

[Jimmy Wisman]

You better hurry up. This shit's about to sell.

[James Petrigallo]

Then the problem is, they found her checkbook, and they saw that she'd faithfully written out two mortgage checks every month. One for $909.91 as the first mortgage, and one for $299.17 for the second. One they'd taken out to finance the inventions.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Right.

[James Petrigallo]

That's the $1,200 figure. The checks were sometimes not written until the 15th of the month as the grace period was expiring. So that's why there's a grace period. But she wrote them every month, just as they should be. And every month, that money was deducted from her bank account. But when they contacted the bank, they found out those checks never made it to the mortgage company. She wrote a check and it came out of her account, but he was controlling it. Terry said, I knew he controlled the phones, but I had no idea he controlled everything. You couldn't have a conversation with Mother without him being right there. He always monitored the phone, but we found boxes of mail in the house, and I finally learned that he controlled the mail, too. She only saw what he wanted her to see. One of Loretta's friends said handling the mail, both incoming and outgoing, was one of Ta's helpful chores.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Helpful.

[James Petrigallo]

Every month, what he would do is he'd take the envelope with the house payment as though he was going to post it, and instead he would, quote, wash the child and remade it out to himself and then cashed it.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, my God.

[James Petrigallo]

He did it for month after month.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, my God. What do you think is going to happen to.

[James Petrigallo]

That's the thing. He never has the end of what's going to happen. He never sees what the ending is. When the bank started sharing warning letters to Loretta, your account is seriously in arrears. He hid those letters. Hid them all.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Asked about her mother's relationship with Taw, Terry said, told the cops that she had no reason to suspect he'd been abusing her. She said, I said, you know, 17 years, they've had their ups and downs, but I don't think it's any different than any other couples. So I don't really feel like there's. They have a problem. So Terry's not trying to like, hem the guy up. She's being honest here. But the police said, we believe he's directly involved in her disappearance and has information about her whereabouts and knows how she disappeared. They told Terry that, yeah, this is what we think. Then Sunday of that week, police dogs sees the red Dodge Caravan to check the van for blood and other indications. And they said that we were cautiously hopeful. But as each day passes, hope diminishes. Now the Wednesday, December 15th. Official TA interview with the cops. Yeah, the detective says, we began the interview soft. We asked where he was born and how he came to Nola Redda. And he was happy to tell us. He came across as super intelligent and he was really full of himself. He wanted to show us he was smarter than us. Taw was very articulate. We just let him tell it all. The more they talk, the more they have to remember their lies. They just let him. They'll let you talk forever right there. He said, I gave him all the outs. I said, hey, something happened. It was an accident. Was it self defense? We all make mistakes. Did you lose your temper? And he remembers that he would. That Todd just sat there shaking his head in denial. The detective said, I think Loretta's dead, and I think you know what happened. And he said, if you care as much as you say, you'll help us find her and not have her out there in the cold. And then the detective said, it got really confrontational toward the end, but he was still in denial. He was totally convinced he was capable of getting away with it. He thought he was smart and articulate. He thought he could explain it all away. But once he reported her missing, he was boxed in. Benderly said, I'm a gentle man. I don't even kill bugs. I pick them up and take them outside. That doesn't mean you did.

[Jimmy Wisman]

That's extra fucked up then.

[James Petrigallo]

That's fucking. I mean, well, I mean, that's where they're from, so.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Wisman]

No, I mean, it's extra fucked up that if hurt somebody, right?

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. And then the detective walked Benderly through every single item, uncovered his timeline of leaving Tempe and arriving at Loves. Didn't match up to the actual times recorded on credit card records.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Right.

[James Petrigallo]

And he said, Toss. Said, I'm wondering if my watch was just off. I said it two hours ago. Maybe that's how I got it. My watch was off. So that's how I got the bad time. The check in at the hotel was wrong. And he said, oh, for God's sake, I'm totally confused. And then he told the officers that he wasn't prepared to account for time point by point.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Well, you know there's a woman missing, sir.

[James Petrigallo]

Wasn't prepared to go through a whole murder investigation and all. He said there was a large disparity between the amount of clothes picked for packed for Ta and those packed for Loretta. He answered that Loretta had complained on the way down she forgot to pack some of her clothes. Like a whole suitcase worth probably four days or so. Yeah. They said he was carrying a suspiciously large amount of cash. Benderly said he and Lorraine had been planning to surprise Terry and pay her back the $20,000 they owed her. Although he found nothing strange in carrying around all that money for a week long trip where they wouldn't be seeing terrorists.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Right.

[James Petrigallo]

I'll just take it with me just in case.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I don't know if she'll run around here.

[James Petrigallo]

They said, why do you have two new cell phones that haven't been activated yet? Yeah, that we found out you bought that day. And he said they were for Loretta's grand nephews in Dallas and they just were purchased. We just got them that day.

[Jimmy Wisman]

We're giving the kids gifts of cell phone. Our house is in foreclosure.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, that's how it works.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petrigallo]

They said, well, we looked in the back of your van. Why do you have a dirty shovel and a pick back there? You know?

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Geodes in New Mexico. And that's what he said. He said, well, we were gonna go dig for geodes afterwards. Yeah, well, the shovel's very dirty. He goes, well, it's from the last time we dug for geodes.

[Jimmy Wisman]

We dig a lot.

[James Petrigallo]

Who cleans your shovels? You know, it's a shovel. Shovels are meant to have dirt. What do you want from me? So they said, well, why are you carrying a passport? Considering you say you told someone you were going to Mexico, but now you're saying New Mexico, you don't need a passport for New Mexico. Old Mexico maybe, but not new. So he said, I always like to carry my passport. Which people from overseas do that? Yeah, they do do that.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah, because it works in identification better than a driver's license.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, it's more official.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

So they said, where'd you get the scratch on top of your right hand? And he said that happened last week when he was moving exercise equipment in his home.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I would have Said digging for geodes elsewhere.

[James Petrigallo]

I just. I'm always digging for geodes. You don't understand.

[Jimmy Wisman]

You saw the dirty shovel, man.

[James Petrigallo]

You know what's up with me, man? So the detective wrote in his summary, I asked Benderly if he would be willing to submit to a polygraph exam. He agreed to take a polygraph exam, but since he stated he has not slept in two days, we agreed to postpone the polygraph for the next day. I asked Benderly if he would voluntarily turn over his three firearms and passed passport to us. He told us that he would give us his passport, but did not want to turn over his firearms.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petrigallo]

Benderle then demanded his car back. And I told him that we were still processing the vehicle. He's very Sara Boone in here.

[Jimmy Wisman]

No kidding.

[James Petrigallo]

The next day they found out. They called the Southwest Institute of Healing Arts, where Loretta went for massages all the time. And the director checked with all three branches of the school. Phoenix, Tempe, Scottsdale. Reporting that they could not find any record of her receiving a massage on the morning of December 14th.

[Jimmy Wisman]

And they have to jot that down.

[James Petrigallo]

They have to, yeah, it's a medical thing. The last time they'd seen her was October 6th. So over two months.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

First thing Thursday morning of this week. Now, the detective gets a search warrant approved by the judge. And at 9:57am he was at Tawh's hotel room to seize his laptop, firearms, ammunition, financial documents and personal effects belonging to Loretta Bowerside.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petrigallo]

Then on Friday, he met with Loretta's sister Shirley and her husband Sid, and also their. Their. Their son Matt, who's a policeman in Kansas. They said Mrs. Gates told us that her family has always distrusted Todd Benderly and that they even asked Loretta to leave him, but she would not. So the next day, four Tempe officers drive down to Tucson to meet with this detective about the investigation. Yeah, they said that this is what they got. This is the report. Benderle reported that he attended Tempe and Penn State universities, where he majored in administration and finance. He later worked as a CEO of ipec, a petroleum company owned by First National Bank. Benderlee stated he worked for IPEC for approximately nine years, spending the last two and a half years in Aberdeen, Scotland. He was brought in to clean up books and revitalize the company. Toward the end of his time with this company, Benderlee told us that he exercised $540,000 in stock options and all his money later went to zero when the company failed. So he put all his money into stock options and then he got nothing. He did not pay us taxes, but he does pay British taxes. He said, I don't think he pays anybody taxes.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I don't think he has any money to pay taxes.

[James Petrigallo]

No. Benderlee stated he returned to Houston, Texas where he hired an attorney from John Connolly's law firm to help him recover some of his money. He said he only recovered 13,000 in equipment by this time. He said he was divorced from Deanna Berger and had two children with her. Now he had told everybody, including Loretta that he's never been married, had no children. What the fuck he's telling them that? He told us he lost contact with his children and his ex wife died in 1998. That's not true by the way. She was still alive.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh my God.

[James Petrigallo]

Benderle reported he came to Phoenix in 1987 where his first position was as a patent engineer for Xerox Corporation, as vice president. So the vice president of Xerox pulled up on a motorcycle with no wallet and one pair of underwear is what he's saying.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Come on.

[James Petrigallo]

He said he responded to an advertisement about a rental share. In April of 87 he met Loretta and their friendship developed into an intimate one. He said he worked for the company by doing consulting work. Worked for the Consign and design company. No, no, Terry's company. Reformulating merchandise and smoothing out their operation. He reported that he was a major contributor to the success of the company. I'm sure he also said he worked on lease negotiations. But by 1989 he decided to go into product development. He told us that he invented mowing equipment, sound equipment and had a total of 15 inventions and holds patents for some. Benderly said he's now involved with renewable energy and was supposed to have a meeting today with some people involved with a solar task force. When asked who the meeting was with, names, times, locations, Benderly told us that he had information in his room. In his notes he said he knows the director of every of every services for the Tucson United School District and has. And as far as his meeting was concerned. It was to be an informal meeting lasting one to two hours. The time was open as he was to call in. The detective would later discover that Todd didn't just lie about all this shit, the small stuff, he lied about everything. His entire education, work history, all the shit was fabricated. Even the fact that his ex wife was dead, which she's not.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Did he think they weren't gonna follow up?

[James Petrigallo]

He thought he's a nice charming guy and everybody else buys his bullshit. And they will too. He had to think that these are the police.

[Jimmy Wisman]

This isn't the doctor's office where you can just fill out bullshit.

[James Petrigallo]

This is again, a Sarah Boone thing where she was like, they won't check. I'll just say whatever bullshit I want and walk out of here. Wow. Holy fuck.

[Jimmy Wisman]

It's not the dentist's office. They look to see if you have diabetes.

[James Petrigallo]

No, check it out. No shit. So they tell, yeah, this isn't. I don't have heart problems. I can go on the roller coaster. This is different. So then he told the cop about their white van breaking down on Saturday and claimed Loretta had driven him to pick it up at cobblestone auto around 5. Which we know isn't true.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Right.

[James Petrigallo]

Remember the mechanic dropped him off.

[Jimmy Wisman]

She wasn't there.

[James Petrigallo]

The police found the mechanic who said, no, Loretta was never there.

[Jimmy Wisman]

She wasn't there.

[James Petrigallo]

He literally said, my wife's home sick.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Right?

[James Petrigallo]

That's it. So a closer search through Loretta's things at the Tucson Hotel showed that her reading glasses were inside her messy makeup bag wrapped in a tissue paper. Nobody. Terry told police her mother couldn't read without those glasses and certainly would have them on her. So the detective said, I think Loretta was catching on to him. And she must have told him, that's it. He snaps and kills her. And then he has to come up with a plan. But the thing is still, where the fuck is she?

[Jimmy Wisman]

What happened?

[James Petrigallo]

So they said it might have started out as a clever plan. You get an alibi where you have a five day head start. But along the way of reporting her missing, it all falls apart then because you got to stick around. The detective said that arrogance is his downfall. Ta. He said he's a con man. He's a manipulator. He never accepted any responsibility or admitted what he'd done. He thought he could get away with it.

[Jimmy Wisman]

No shit.

[James Petrigallo]

And he said that he contacted the national center for Missing Adults. The cops said basically they put out all these posters, do this whole thing. They knew it was pointless. They said she is fucking dead somewhere. There's no way she's alive. But they had to do this. Just. Just, you know, just because it's procedure.

[Jimmy Wisman]

And throw them off the scent that they know.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. So Terry uses all of her media connections, all these television stations she's been paying fucking money to for all these local ads and shit. And uses that to spread the news. Her mother is missing.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Flyers everywhere. I mean, has an army of people. All of her employees are now also Loretta.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Searchers Tara Hitchcock's ass is on TV talking about.

[James Petrigallo]

I'm sure it is. I'm sure she was. And so, yeah, that. The kidnapping story, after a few days, though, there's no ransom or anything. So they're like, who would kidnap a rich lady for nothing? There's no point to that. Doesn't mean anything. So they were like, we need to turn our attention to Loretta's home. There's got to be a clue in there.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Now, Terry vowed that her mother will be found. She said the reality is that her picture is everywhere. And if you have a picture everywhere, you've got millions of people. Millions of people and Tucson looking for her, which is hilarious. And we don't consider them people, but Tucson, millions of people and a bunch.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Of cockroaches in Tucson.

[James Petrigallo]

That's it. And she said, thank you, but keep looking, please, keep looking. They turned it also over to the violent crimes division of the investigation, and they said, we have no idea what's going on in this case. Violent crimes is just more experienced with this kind of case. And also they knew they were looking into a homicide, even though they're pretending they're looking into a kidnapping. Now here comes the psychics out of the woodwork. You go on TV and say, I'm a rich, important lady and someone's missing. The fucking psychics will be sleeping in your front lawn the next morning to get publicity.

[Jimmy Wisman]

And probably right near her consignment stores in Phoenix. There are 11 psychics in that whole strip.

[James Petrigallo]

Oh, God. That they're everywhere. Consignment shops, psychics, and the spy store. Those are all the same strip mall in Phoenix. If you're in that strip mall, you're in a mediocre neighborhood.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Those neighborhoods have those just like gun shops and liquor stores and pawn shops are in the back.

[James Petrigallo]

It's exactly it. So numerous psychics. The author of the book said they came out of the woodwork. They had theory after theory, and Terry wants to hear them because she's got no other idea at this point. So they said over in person, over the phone, they wrote letters. They wrote emails. They talked about their visions of the murder. They wrote maps of the burial site. They were recounting conversations they had with Loretta, you know, psychically. And they said that basically that, yes, they got these utterances from Loretta before, you know, she crossed over. They said, yeah, so they said that Terry was keeping the fate that she. Maybe these people can see something. I don't know. So some thought Terry was nuts. But two police officers will Say later on that one psychic helped out a lot in this case, actually. What? So psychic after psychic would tell Terry that Loretta was probably standing. This is. All of them thought the same thing. She was standing and was hit hard over the head with a blunt instrument, which, I mean, this is also based on the evidence that didn't break the skin and therefore didn't leave traces of blood inside the house.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petrigallo]

So looking for a way. Because they found no blood in the house when they searched, so they're looking for a way for that to be happened. So they said that most of them said Loretta died almost instantly. And Terry said she was comforted by that. Actually hearing that from psychics, even though they have no idea what they're talking about.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Probably not true.

[James Petrigallo]

Those who could see the murder saw Taw dragging her into the garage. Oh, yeah. They saw her laid on the floor near the water heater. Some psychics saw him wrapping the body in a canvas of, like, a sheet or a canvas before putting her into their red van, which is parked inside a closed garage. That's what they said. So, yeah, they said this is eight psychics based on the word of eight psychics. Terry believes that Loretta is buried in a shallow desert grave somewhere south of Phoenix. So she starts trekking into the deserts with. Just walking through the. Absolutely. She said she goes into the deserts. She allows reporters to join or her employees. I guess it's time and a half to search for my dead mom. She said she's still willing to tell the public about the days of scouring the hills and bushes looking for signs of her mother. She said that as crazy as the whole situation seems, this story was not as so sensationalized because we've been honest about what's going on from the beginning.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Mary Ann or May Ann Morgan is one of these. Or Marianne. Yeah, it's Marianne Morgan is one of these psychics here. A psychic detective who worked with law enforcement on plenty of local levels and national levels. She talked to Terry and said, terry, the house is in foreclosure. Terry didn't know that yet. The cops hadn't told her that yet. Now, if you. I'm sure there's ways to look that up online, though. Oh, I'm sure.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah. Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Some way. But Terry said that she didn't believe her and said, I'll talk to you another time, and hung up on her. Then she reached out to police, at which point they confirmed her mom's home was under foreclosure. So she ate some crow and called back, marianne here Terry said she didn't know the details of her mother's financial business. She just lend her money when she needed it, that was it. So she didn't know. So they said that there was a dire financial issue. They told her all about the mortgages and everything like that. They said in the garage there were boxes filled with bills and late notices. They said that Terry said that detectives had learned that TA racked up $40,000 on eight credit cards that are in Loretta's name as well.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh my God.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. So that is fucking crazy. So they ask him for permission to search his car that was in the parked hotel in Tucson. And he obliged. That's when they found the pickaxe and the shovel. And he said, I dig for fossils and geodes. I always have that shit. They reconstruct Taw's day left about 9:00. He basically all of his. He has all of his clothes with him pretty much like all of his shit he can carry and anything of high value he has with him. He put $17.48 on his Visa card at 9:05am Twenty minutes later, he withdrew $24,000 in cash from Wells Fargo bank at Lakeshore Drive and Baseline Road. So we know where that is if you're a Phoenix Person. At 9:53am he purchased two new cell phones from the Sprint Phone center on Southern Avenue, but never activated them. Highway 60 West. They drove driving on one of the five lanes there, that big road. He was. At 10:15am he called Terry at her office where she had a series of meetings planned for the day and was busy. He claimed they were still at home and her mother was out having a massage. But they were leaving for Tucson as soon as she returned. So right away. That's lies. He said, they'll be back in about a week. And Terry was like, why are they. Why is he calling me with all this detail? I don't care. He goes. She said, drive safe. Okay, bye. Click. What the fuck? So just before 11:00am he took exit 198, which is Jimmy Kerr Boulevard, after one of the area's politicians here, down there in Tucson. Well, this to the outlets at Casa Grande is what this is.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay. Yeah, yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

The outlet malls, which is the only thing that's really there. There's a Gap outlet, a book warehouse, all that kind of shit. Big Dogs, Bullshit. Kitchen Collection, Reebok Big Dogs. Yeah, yeah, they had a whole outlet.

[Jimmy Wisman]

All my fattest friends wore those.

[James Petrigallo]

Only the Fiat. Fat people wear those. I love them. Reebok. Liz Claiborne an Amish furniture store, all this type of shit. At 11:04am he used his credit card to make a purchase at the mall. That's the two hats. So. And he had. He knows what. He's a smart guy. He knows he's leaving an electronic trail behind. He's doing it on purpose. They're thinking here. So it was 11:04am he bought two baseball caps and two. One for me, one for her.

[Jimmy Wisman]

His and hers.

[James Petrigallo]

Yep. Next time. Two hours later here he would be. He. Where is he now? Okay. Yeah. 1:10am he handed over his credit card again. Five miles from the outlet mall that he reached two hours ago. So then he went to exit 200 to Love's Travel Stop. In 126 minutes he had gone two exits down the road.

[Jimmy Wisman]

An hour and a half.

[James Petrigallo]

That's two hours. An hour and 26 minutes. Hour 120, 126. That's two and a half hours.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Two hours and six minutes. Jesus.

[James Petrigallo]

Two hours and six minutes. He went two exits basically. So that's.

[Jimmy Wisman]

That's like five miles.

[James Petrigallo]

That's interesting. What was he doing during that time?

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

What the fuck Here. The only thing separating the mall and the loves is exit 199. That's the exit you take to get go to Interstate 8 which is to go way the fuck west to go to humans.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Take you all the way the fuck to San Diego. You bet.

[James Petrigallo]

And they said so that's 168, 76 miles to Yuma, 353 to San Diego. And that's all that's on the fucking road. There's nothing else there. So they said at that time it was 1:10pm and Tad used his credit card to buy two lunches at Arby's and get $10.01 worth of gas at Love's. So he's not good at clicking it until it gets to eat. Classic over squeeze bad to that. Yeah. God damn it. He then continued. Should I do 11? Fuck it. I'm leaving. Then he continued to Tucson. Now he's staying low in the Tucson Hotel until Dec. 16 when he drove back to Phoenix and checked into the Residence Inn at the airport at 1:25pm he can't go to the house at this point. Terry had it rekeyed already. He got room 357 and signed in under the name Bob Smith. Which that's not suspicious at all. Why he told. I guess the press is looking for him too. At this point he told Terry he didn't want to go to the house because there's too much media presence and all this type of shit. And they said they're at his house. There's psychics standing outside with the media saying that they've seen the body and all this shit. It's crazy.

[Jimmy Wisman]

How do you sign into a hotel with a bad name when you have it a credit card and I.

[James Petrigallo]

It's a residence in. By the airport.

[Jimmy Wisman]

You can just say who you are and.

[James Petrigallo]

At a shit hotel, at a hooker motel. Because that's what those are down there.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

In 2006, anything near the airport was not for upstanding people. That was for tricks to be turned in.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I just want to know how people do it in other places. How the fuck do you do?

[James Petrigallo]

No idea.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I don't know.

[James Petrigallo]

No clue.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Don't you have to have an ID for that?

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, usually they always ask me for mine.

[Jimmy Wisman]

They always check me in or my stupid fucking name.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. So the next day he goes in to try to get legal help.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petrigallo]

Interesting. He said he was very well dressed. Everything like that. The lawyer said he was perfectly, perfectly coiffed in the way he walked with a false sense of suave. That was what Ta was like. He had a surprising, impressive. Surprisingly impressive bearing about him. And he had a beautiful voice. The guy said, they said, what brings you in today? And he said, my wife is missing. I dropped her off at the mall. I called Terry. She came down, gave 20. Terry $20,000 cash. Now I've got police following me. They're asking about the shovel in my truck. You're a lawyer like Ho.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Slow down.

[James Petrigallo]

Hold on a minute. You're talking about shovels. This is.

[Jimmy Wisman]

This is a big, big number of money and a shovel. What's going on?

[James Petrigallo]

This is not free consultation conversation where once you start talking about the police are upset with the shovel I have in my car, I get paid at that point. This is crazy. So the cop said that, you know, the story kept getting stranger and stranger by the sentence. By Sunday morning, Terry called TAW's hotel room three separate times, and there was no answer.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petrigallo]

So Terry called police and she and a cop rushed into the hotel. At the front desk, she found Ta had left her several things at the front desk. Two copper paintings valued at about $40,000.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, my God.

[James Petrigallo]

A briefcase with the keys to the red van parked outside, and a computer written note in cursive style that said, loretta and I vowed over the years that we would spend eternity together. And so we shall.

[Jimmy Wisman]

What?

[James Petrigallo]

A notarized document entitled Immediate Transfer of ownership and control. That read, on this 18th day of December 2004, I, Todd Benderly, being of sound body and mind, do hereby transfer to Terry Bauer stock now the daughter ownership and access to an immediate control of all my worldly, tangible and intangible assets. And it's my intention that this immediate transfer of ownership and control shall immediately supersede any wills or other previously executed legal documents. So he listed seven items, including his Wells Fargo account, which had $11,000 in it, his PayPal MasterCard with $2,500 in credits from selling shit jewelry, wristwatches, a Sony notebook computer and all his clothes. He also left her his interest in three inventions. Oh, my audio transducers, concert walls, my lawn mowing technology switch Swift cut, and my heat resistant shading fabric for automobiles covered parking. Now, the police said upon arrival. Upon a police arrival, it was learned from hotel staff that Benderly had been wandering the hotel hallways attempting to get into different rooms and appeared lethargic. He also kept calling the office and complaining that HBO didn't work the channel.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

A Phoenix police tactical team responded to the hotel in order to get Benderlee from the room, which they were able to do. Oh, so he was in there. Benderly was then moved to room 358 in order to be treated by Phoenix fire paramedics. The officer explained that Benderly used his credit card when he checked into the hotel. However, the hotel staff checked him in using the name Bob Smith. Based on the media attention of the case, you can check. You can say, this is my name. Here's my info. Please put my reservation under this name so people don't know I'm there. That's what famous people do. Yeah, okay. All the time. Yeah.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petrigallo]

Every famous. Famous, like rock stars and shit happened.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah, I know they have it, but I'm like, do they have fucking IDs that say that? Or they just.

[James Petrigallo]

No, no, no. You tell the hotel who you really are.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petrigallo]

You just. Yeah, do it. I think that's how it works here. So they said. I then interviewed Phoenix police officer Ron Dorfman, who negotiated via telephone with Benderlee. Benderlee told Officer Dorfman that he did not want to hurt himself and did not want to hurt anyone else. He agreed to exit his hotel room and be checked over by paramedics after this episode Sopranos. But, yeah, after this comes out. Yeah. Hold on a minute. Well, HBO doesn't work, so never mind. So now they, at this point, they can't do anything with him. He's a grown man who says he doesn't want to hurt himself or anybody else. So they have to just let him be. Basically. So. Among pieces of evidence they collected from the van were sticks and stems from unknown vegetation in the undercarriage of the van, indicating it had recently been driven in the desert off road.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Which if you live in Phoenix or anything, you know that you never ever, ever, ever drive your normal car through a patch of desert. Ever. Everything's paved.

[Jimmy Wisman]

You don't take a two wheel drive through the desert.

[James Petrigallo]

Ever. Nope. At the lab, officers would also find a recent dent in the undercarriage and many soil and seed samples in the passenger cabin.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh.

[James Petrigallo]

Meanwhile, other officers searched his room and they found evidence. Item number 65 was a black baseball bat that Tao had bought at the outlet mall on the way to Tucson.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petrigallo]

Evidence from another collection of miscellaneous CD data discs found in a black bag on the bed. Number 72. Item 72 was the paperback book the last Juror, which Taw had cost bought at some store on his way back from Tucson. They found the receipt for the book. Another item was a get well card from the Residence Inn. They sent him a get well card at the Residence inn. Evidence number 74. Item was a number of newspaper articles on missing person Loretta Bowersock. So Terry continues to search. Searching, searching, searching. Going all through the fucking. The desert. She's like fucking Moses out here. Searching. She wore. She would wear her mom's jewelry while she searched and all that kind of thing. They scoured the hills, the underbelly of the bushes for three days. She's lost 10 pounds while in the wilderness walking around. She said there's more than 100 employees and employee spouses who came to her company's annual holiday party Monday night. And they all said they wanted to help search.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Golly.

[James Petrigallo]

So yeah, they said that, you know, she'll continue to work on it. She says, I'll get up tomorrow because I'll have the very same hope. Two friends even brought their French poodles into the desert in hopes that maybe they'd smell something. Guess what? They won't.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Those are useless. Stop it.

[James Petrigallo]

Poodles are useless. They have no purpose in the world except you like to pet them. There's no working purpose for a poodle.

[Jimmy Wisman]

You look at them on TV and that's it.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, you pet their weird fur. So the investigation, like I said it was, they're. They're searching basically. Basically like a murder investigation is the way they're doing it. They're not. They're not Treating it like it's just a missing person who might have walked away or some shit here. So they talk. They turn the TAWS cell records to, you know, talk about what he did as well here. And that's how they found out that he taken the out, went left the outlet mall and taken exit 198 onto the i8. Had driven down the road quite a bit and then stopped for a while. Oh, yeah. At 12:31, he called Loretta's phone, apparently listening for any messages. Then he called his own cell phone seeking messages. That call ended at 12:33. Police found all seven calls indicated the phone was stationary and used with only within one cell site range while he was off the highway in the middle of the desert. Wow. This is off the intersection of the I8 and Highway 84. Oh, yeah. So they said once they found that out. The cop said it's not matching up with any of what he reported in his timeline. What were you doing out there for two hours in the desert? What the fuck is that all about? Then they found at Loretta's home her purse wrapped up in a towel. Inside of it was her license and credit cards.

[Jimmy Wisman]

She would.

[James Petrigallo]

Oh, who's going to Tucson without their license and credit cards and their glasses wrapped in tissue paper? So that's it. They said everything she would need to go shopping was right here. And she was. Was allegedly going shopping. So Ta claims that she had it with her when she walked into the mall. I watched her walk in with that bag. So somehow it got all the way back to Phoenix. And wrapped in a fucking towel from a Tucson mall.

[Jimmy Wisman]

That was fast.

[James Petrigallo]

That is fucking crazy. So Tall was asked to come in for extra questioning here, but he said, I don't know anything. You're asking the wrong guy. I really don't know anything. And he started refusing to talk to police. Okay, Started refusing it. So, yeah, they. When they found the purse, they said the residence was entered with the assistance of a locksmith. No signs of a struggle were initially noted, but upon checking inside a white van in the parking garage, a long gray hair was observed on the rear storage area of the van. The rear seat had been removed and there was a large piece of cardboard lying on the floor. This isn't looking good. A black purse was then located, rolled in a towel next to a box of towels in the back of the van. It was discovered this was Loretta's purse. So they said that they found two pairs of shoes, a nylon rope located in the garage in the east side of the residence. The purse with Miscellaneous contents, computers, life insurance and financial information, phone records, mail and computers. So the officers told the judge what happened and they need another warrant here. And the police also found one neighbor. Found one neighbor home that morning that learned Loretta hadn't been seen by them for some time. They said, quote, the mom thought that straight. That's strange since Loretta normally takes care of plants in the yard. Taw had also recently borrowed $8,000 from the husband of this neighbor.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Good Lord.

[James Petrigallo]

He didn't want the check cash. Prior to this Friday, 12:17, Todd told his neighbor that Loretta is still sick and has the flu. Has the flu. This is after she's been missing.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Been missing. What the fuck?

[James Petrigallo]

The cul de sac that this residence was located had been blocked to pedestrian and vehicular traffic by patrol cars and yellow crime scene tape. Several news stations were present and appeared to be filming news segments. It must be a fucking hell of a flu.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Wow.

[James Petrigallo]

Wow. They said the house was clean. Clean and tidy. They did find a suspicious red stain about the size of a quarter in the garage. But they discovered it was from a flower. It was just a flower. So they also. They find all sorts of shit. They have her license, they have all of her stuff here, all in her purse. They found a map in the red van, an Arizona map, except it had a big circle around one particular area. Literally a fucking hand drawn circle around the areas along Interstate 8 in Pinal County. In the middle of the fucking desert. There's nothing out there. There's nothing out there to look for or to get.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Why would he do that?

[James Petrigallo]

So, yeah, they said it's impossible to stand out there in the desert and believe that. You know, there's a giant city up there. It feels like you're in the middle of nowhere. They said when they found that and then thought about the dirty shovel and pick, they said that was their oh shit moment at that point. So then they dig deeper into his history. They find out he's not from Scotland and he actually does have a criminal record. And when he responded to Loretta's room for rent notice, he didn't just get here from Saudi Arabia. He just came out of prison.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, my God.

[James Petrigallo]

He had nothing because he just got out of prison, hopped on a motorcycle, found this ad and wrote over there. Wow, that is fucking insane. He's not Scottish. He's not anything. He's nothing. He said is. He just talked like this for years.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, my God.

[James Petrigallo]

We know someone that did that, but he's a sick fuck. This is different.

[Jimmy Wisman]

He said he's A fucking wild guy.

[James Petrigallo]

That's what I. And this is what we're talking about. I wonder if he knew this guy. Tampa. As he says. Where are you from? Tampa. Okay, sure you are. So they didn't have sufficient evidence to make an arrest at this point, though, I don't know how.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I mean, you got the purse alone.

[James Petrigallo]

Then Pa get Tog gets kicked out of the hotel. The hotel asks him to leave, but the police impounded his van. So Terry gives him a ride back to the house because she said, I had nowhere else to fucking put him.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, my God.

[James Petrigallo]

I had to. Where the hell else was I gonna drive this guy?

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, boy.

[James Petrigallo]

So there's notes all over the door from the media, police. So he goes into the house. She drops him off. Okay. Police then have to go. They want to go talk to him again. So they use Terry's key to unlock the front door because it's technically her house.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

They announce themselves as they enter the house and they walk around the house. The living room's empty. They go down the hall to the master bedroom. The TV's on. There's a cell phone lying on the unmade bed. But no one's there. So they go down the hall to the kitchen. They check all the closets and cabinets. The kitchen was empty. So was a small laundry room off the kitchen. In the laundry room was a door that led to the garage. The door was opened as Officer Ahmet entered the garage. He advised us that he could see a subject hanging on the northeast side.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Of the garage fucking way.

[James Petrigallo]

As we entered the garage, I observed a white male subject hanging from the top of the garage. The subject had a yellow extension cord tied around his neck and his feet were just touching the garage floor as we approached the subject. Officer Ahmet touched the subject and stated he was cold and appeared to be deceased. Oh, fucking hanged himself in the goddamn garage.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Can you imagine? If you, like, chose mid hanging to not.

[James Petrigallo]

Oh, man. And Terry said, that was a really hard night because now I was going through. Did he kill himself because he was in so much sorrow? Or did he kill himself because he killed her? Terry. He fucking killed her. Every bit. He killed her.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Wow.

[James Petrigallo]

So they look in, they find he'd been embezzling from her for years. They found out also that he had a history of defrauding women before that. Yeah, for years. This is what he does. Yep. One of the. They said he would just suck the blood out of everybody he could find and use his charm to get away with it. They still haven't Found Loretta, though.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, my God.

[James Petrigallo]

And they said they know the general area they want to look for, but they said to find a body that was buried in that area is a needle in a haystack. Never going to find it.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, boy.

[James Petrigallo]

So she reaches. Terry reaches out back to Marianne Morgan, the psychic who told her that Todd she saw Talk come up behind Loretta with a plastic bag. And while Loretta fought back, Ta was strong. She said that Loretta is in a place where there's blue everywhere. She's 150ft from the blue. That's what she kept saying. Okay, months pass. Yeah, months pass. She's still. And Terry said, I'm afraid she's not alive, that she's dead and I won't have found her. Well, yeah, I would think so. They scoured the dirt for something red in the dirt because the psychics, multiple psychics, said that they drove around looking at creek beds under brush where anybody could be left. They walked south of the valley along Interstate 8 near Stanfield Road. They said it's just everywhere they walked. January 10, 2005, comes around. So this is later. They still haven't found her. Fifteen trained searchers, six cadaver dogs couldn't find her. They searched this area, everything, search and rescue volunteers, searching dry creek beds, digging shit, looking for forming grids, using dogs. You fucking name it. They're searching everywhere. They cannot goddamn find her anywhere. They said they zigzagged on foot through the predominantly flat, sandy land that's covered with shoulder high shrubs, weaving river washes everywhere, miles and miles all the time, for months. They do this. April of 2005. Psychics still asking for psychic help. Terry's asking. He said they scoured the ground for something red in the dirt. Didn't find anything. They're talking about one of their group outings to search. They're still going on. January 10, 2006. Over a year later, a rock collector is checking in a river wash. Yep. Near the junction of Interstate 8 in Arizona 84. And he comes across a half buried human body.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, boy.

[James Petrigallo]

The psychic Tammy Holmes said Loretta would come into her dreams and into her home and turn off her tv. Even Loretta's been like, hey, pay attention.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Get out there and find me.

[James Petrigallo]

Find me. I'm busy. So the day Terry went out near Casa Grande, after Loretta's, after this body was found, they said this was almost, you know, almost a year and a month later.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

The hiker discovers this body in a shallow grave southwest of Casa Grande. Now it's a decomposing body wrapped in A thick landscaping tarp. Half buried in the desert. They said they believed it could be Terry or it could be Loretta. But they find bodies out here all the fucking time. This is like Leakin park, you know what I mean? When they were looking for shit. There's scary stuff out here. If you remember the whole serial story, the Hae Min Lee tale. So they said other bodies have been found in the area, but they never. They've never been contacted about a possible match. This time it seems to be a match. And Terry said I can feel it. It feels different this time. But it's not done until it's done. She said, I keep praying it's her. It would answer a lot of things, but anything. I'd like to be able to bury her properly now. The psychic said it's something blue. It's a blue tank. Blue something. They pointed out in the photo showing that in many of the photos that her mother's body was found right near a blue abandoned motel in the desert near the 8 and 84 junctions.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Holy shit.

[James Petrigallo]

The motel was just blue as fuck and it was right by there. That's pretty impressive. Yeah, impressive as shit. The remains were determined to be Loretta's. An examination showed that she died from asphyxiation. Exactly like that.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Strangled.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, exactly like that. Psychic said probably that doesn't leave blood too, which is. Yeah, explains a lot. Investigators theorized obviously that there was a confrontation about the financial misdeeds. After she got off the phone with the bank, he. He killed her and then went and did the car stuff and picked the car up and did all that. It was that between 4:44 and 5:00pm they think it happened. She got off the phone rip roaring pissed. And he said, well, that's the end of this.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah, I think that. I think this has run its course. I think I've taken as much as I can take.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. Yep. So in an interview with Scott, he said that he wanted to get away with it. I don't think he wanted to be on the run in Mexico. He was old and he just murdered the woman he loved. Yes, he did love my mother. He wasn't stupid. But he was a liar of great proportion. He was a know it all. He didn't come up with a good plan, but he didn't have time. But Tall liked reading mysteries and he wanted to go on with life and not be a hunted man. Scott was convinced that he never thought Terry would jump in the car and go down to Tucson. And Terry says she thought she surprised him as well. She Said my mother would have just been a missing person if it wasn't for my sister. That's what Scott said. She's the one who got the media involved and made it a big deal. Yeah, that's his theory. But an expert in criminal behavior, the Stephen E. Pitt, a psychiatrist, a forensic psychiatrist, said this man was a narcissistic sociopath. He was so self. He was a self engrossed, entitled person who thought he deserved preferential treatment and that the laws didn't apply to. He thought he could get away with anything and could manipulate anyone. Some of our best politicians have the same traits. There's a lot of people out there like Benderlee. He's a con man. He didn't keep going because he thought he could get away with it. He just had to. Yeah. Now, a couple months later, Terry, there's an article where she forgives him.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Really?

[James Petrigallo]

Even though he's dead. She says that universal knowledge guided her to forgive Benderly for her own spiritual health.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petrigallo]

She said, I didn't want to walk through the rest of my life angry and mad. I thought I could spend my life paying attention to Benderly and what he did, or I can forgive him. Yeah. She said she couldn't begin to forgive him until she forgave herself. She mentally said, you know, that she let go and would have, you know, stopped blaming herself. She read her mother's journal after her death and learned that Tao had been using, psychologically abused and, you know, treatments and things for years. To her, why didn't I see that was happening? She said, why didn't I take her out of the house? Why did I condone this? She was busy with her own life, was the thing. She said she blamed herself, then jumped to her own defense and then blame herself. She said, I would. I would just stop those thoughts and get on good ones. And so that's what she's trying to do. After her mother's death, she does begin working with DO V, E S. Doves. Capital letters. It's a group that assists elderly victims of domestic violence.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, that's nice.

[James Petrigallo]

So something positive there. Now, Loretta's sister Shirley said, I haven't been asked for forgiveness. And because he's not around, I never will be. I don't think I'll ever forgive him. How can I when he showed no contrition?

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

And Terry said, I get it. But, quote, I want to be happy. It's about giving yourself permission to be happy in the present moment. I had to forgive to do that.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Sure.

[James Petrigallo]

Right away, by the Way it was on Court TV on Psychic Detectives because of the blue building and all that. They had the whole thing there. Her ashes. She was cremated, okay? And her ashes were scattered over a beach in Hawaii.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Very nice.

[James Petrigallo]

Very nice. And that, everybody, is Casa Grande. And one fucking twisted shit of a story that is holy.

[Jimmy Wisman]

That's fucked up, man.

[James Petrigallo]

That's mad fucked up. If you agree that that's mad fucked up or you just thought it was a crazy story, tell us all about it. Tell the world about it. Give a good review, give five stars and say something nice on whatever app you're listening to. Shut up and give me. Murder.com is your website. Get your tickets for live shows. Tarrytown Boston, here we go. Last shows of the year. Let's go out with a bang. There's very few tickets left, so get in there. Tarrytown, we're filming as well.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah, that's a big deal. Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Be heard on the on that. So. And then laugh your ass off and come and hang out with us. And new dates will come up next month for next year by the way as well. Shut up and give me murder.com. follow on social media at Small town Murder on Instagram, Small town pod on Facebook. You Definitely want Patreon. Patreon.com Crime and Sports bonus material coming out your ass. Anybody? $5 a month or above, you get everything. Hundreds of episodes back. Episodes immediately. New ones every other week. One crime and sports. One Small town murder. This week we are going to do a UK soccer sex scandal for crime and sports. Gross 1. Then for small town murder, we're going to talk about the cult maker. Cult baby murder trial, polygamy, cults, urine drinking. We got it all, everybody.

[Jimmy Wisman]

It's gross.

[James Petrigallo]

It's gross. Patreon.com the guy looks like a shrunken down macho man. Randy Savage, the one guy, it's hilarious. Like he never, never was an athlete. That's patreon.com crime in sports is where you get all of that 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 bury us in the desert and pretend that we went missing at Dillard's. Hit me with them right now.

[Jimmy Wisman]

This week's executive producers are Peyton Meadows, Franny and Oz. Gary Howard and Kyle Norway. Thank all of you so much. And Fran's gonna come out to show next year also. Can't wait to see you, Fran.

[James Petrigallo]

Cool.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Other producers this year are Janice Hill. This year, this day, today, this week. God damn. Janice Hill. Cassie Walker. Samantha Stars. Jordan. Allah. All hands. Allie Hands. I don't know. Andrea Fair, maybe. Stephanie Hurricane Hirsch. Crystal Castaneda. Jamie Levesque. Kate with no last name. Holly Clough. Becky. Oh, what is that? Crusper. Crisper. Clusper. Janie Belknap. Sarah Ash, Lindsay Banfield, Mandy K. Carrie Burgess, Noel Sanburn, Danielle Shield. Jack Ska. Chef. Andrew Southers, Sarah Hawk, Michelle Abt, Abd. Abbot Abbott. Joe Voorhees. Maybe Joe with no last name. Taurus with no last name. Savvy C. Kenny Custom. Megan with no last name. Tony Lynn, Kurt Larson, Elizabeth Boucher. Jason Massersmith. Mehdi B. 23. She is. She is definitely 23. Bea Bia. B. Maybe it's B, B, E, A with no last name name. Danny with no last name. Eddie with no last name. Don Glackin. Cole Clausen. Sean Lauer. Ian Jones. Danny with no last name. 547-7-7, my ass. 01. Jamie Matoon. Partial villain. Patricia Cagnalosi. Kangalosi. Rachel. Nissan Nissenson. Julian. Julian Guy. Leanne. It's got to be Julianne, right? G U, Y, L, I A N E G. Ghislaine Direct.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, maybe it's.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I don't know, man.

[James Petrigallo]

Epstein's friend. Her name? Yeah.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Ghislaine.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Maxwell. Stanley Dally. I don't. I don't want to call you a.

[James Petrigallo]

That's. Yeah, we're not calling you a kid trafficking.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Probably Ghislaine, right? Gillian might be Jillian. All right. Kate Williams, Traffic jammer. Brody with no last name. Heather Chalk. Mama Baum. Baum. Shane Phillips. Todd Watson. Kristen Cyborg. Tabitha Mortimer. Anna Burgessen. Nope, it's just Burgess. Lisette LeBlanc. Lauren Richter, Catherine Spears. Slashy Ashy. Christian Lebron. Chris Joner, Tina Amaya. Chris Benoit. Probably not. I mean, kind of a little bit. Maggie with no last name. TJ. Tabitha McMinaman. Carrie Compton.

[James Petrigallo]

Clockwork.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Clockwork. Cleo A. Day Adali. Italy. Idly Velez. Jenny from Vermont. David Peacock. Nicole with no last name. Christy Perez. Joshua Ranton. Reyna. Reyna Chalice. Chalice. M. Jones. Aramaic. Brian Ross. Caleb with no last name. Tracy Frazier. Chelsea McGowan. Anthony Nielsen. Tiki Girl. Jeremy Running. Carmela Freeze. Dylan Dompierre. Kaylee Hansen. Heather Gray. Leland Lemon. Alex Manta Fuel. Manta. Man. Man. Tay. Fool. Zachary Eskelson. Emily Iva. Eva. Emily. Eva Schaefer. Oliver. 0907. Brandy Finley. Yeah, Oliver, I appreciate you. You got a really weird last Name? Megan Ruth. Charlie. Charlie Hill. J.P. campbell. Amir Cooper. Coffee. Cup of coffee.

[James Petrigallo]

Coffee.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Cup of Amir. Cup of coffee. Maggie with no last name Is Ale. Is he Isale? Isaiah? What is that? Sandoval? Is Ale. Is that a name? I've said it three times. I've changed nothing about it. Matt Goring. Cody Kielbasa. Angela Sherman. Mark Favaza. Jesus. Fuck. Marilyn? Nope. Matt Meredith. Meredith De Smet. Jasmine Hall. Jessica Lyda. Joy Howard. Gina Hartshorn. Caleb Nelson. Andy Patterson. Andy Blazek. Travis Fry. Melissa Johnson. Becky Holder. Jen Easter. Be. Lauren. Laurel. Laurel. Thanks Jill for the birthday present. I don't know if Laurel saying that to Jill or Jill saying it to Laurel.

[James Petrigallo]

Thanks, Jill.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Rebel. Rebel. Rebel Marie. It's got to be Rebel. But you don't spell Rebel with two L's and two E's. What the fuck's going on? Mike's Mike Swope. Deidre. Deidre Heritage. Girth Johnson. Probably not. Jp Kip with no last name. Kip and jp? No, neither of them have a last name. Stephen Braley, Gwendolyn B. Trevor. Ciprel Ciprelli. John Kelly, Chandler Fisher.

[James Petrigallo]

Fuck you.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Reed Jones. Hansen R. Larson, Brendan Torres, Amber Woodward. I feel like that now.

[James Petrigallo]

What?

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah. And I'm not fake. I got three kids. Nanette Gold, Galen Martin, Angela Crandall, Kaylee Boisenault. Boys and Oat Buisanalt. Shit. Zach Mayo, Clarissa Schultz and all of our patrons. You guys are the best.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. Thank you so much, everybody.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Wow.

[James Petrigallo]

You fabulous, fantastic sons of bitches. We appreciate all you do for us. You want to follow us on social media, head over to Shut up and give me murder.com drop down menu. Comes, you click on it, you follow us and hang out with us. Keep doing that week after 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.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Dracula, the ancient vampire who terrorizes Victorian London. Blood and garlic, bats and crucifixes.

[James Petrigallo]

Even if you haven't read the book.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Book, you think you know the story. One of the incredible things about Dracula is that not only is it this wonderful snapshot of the 19th century, but it also has so much resonance today.

[James Petrigallo]

The vampire doesn't cast a reflection in a mirror.

[Jimmy Wisman]

So when we look in the mirror, the only thing we see is our own monstrous abilities. From the host and producer of American History Tellers and History Daily comes the new podcast the The Real History of Dracula. We'll reveal how author Bram Stoker rated ancient folklore, exploited Victorian fears around sex, science and religion, and how, even today, we remain enthralled to his strange creatures of the night. You can binge all episodes of the.

[James Petrigallo]

Real History of Dracula exclusively with Wondry.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Join Wondery and the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify.